You Should Have Buried Me Better
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No way.

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.

Welcome to Scared to Death, creeps, peepers, Robertson, Annabelles. I'm Dan. Happy Halloween. I'm Lindsay. Happy Halloween. Yes, our last episode for October. Yeah. We hope everyone's had a fantastic spoopy season. Uh-huh. Woo-hoo. Woo-hoo.

We hope this episode helps. Yes. Let's add to it. A very quick note. We were recent guests on an episode of Graveyard Tales with Adam and Matt and had such a good time. Like, great guys. Yeah, great guys. Such a fun conversation. Yeah. It went all over the place. Just really diving into, like, what you believe, what I believe, what they believe. Yeah, they shared new insights that really made me feel even more excited about the world of the paranormal. Definitely. And they host a great show.

Yep. So check out Graveyard Tales. Our episode comes out or came out on October 18th. And then Lindsay will have some words about charity and then we're off and running. Alrighty. Okay, gang. Well, this month we, you know, we heard you and it's been a horrific hurricane season for so many of you. Destruction and devastation everywhere. And in an attempt to support as many folks as possible as they rebuild their lives, we've connected again with the St. Bernard Project.

They are working with folks in both Florida and North Carolina and all the little spots in between that you don't realize were affected by these storms. And through their disaster appeals program, which provides one-on-one support for survivors as they apply for and appeal to FEMA, they're on the ground providing training and support to leaders as well, ensuring that the recovery efforts are as effective as possible. I could go on and on about St. Bernard Project. We really

Thank you.

S B P U S a.org. Fantastic. And that is that. And that is that. And then I, uh, I have my normal two stories this week. Uh, what about you? I also have two stories this week. I have thematic stories. Cool. Uh,

I don't want to tell you what they involve because then that would just womp, womp, ruin it. So I will let you wait till it's my turn to tell stories. All right. All right. I like it. Yeah, my two. Yeah, normal two. But both of these really meaty. Generally, I'll pick like one longer story, one shorter story for an episode. Went with two, let me say, shall I say headlining stories for this Halloween episode. So very excited. Very cool. Both of them, Anonymous Modern Encounter Stories.

modern encounter tales, one from England, one from the nation of Florida. I know Florida is a state, but it feels like another country. Sometimes my first story revolves around an old family boogeyman, like a boogeyman tale. The one generation tells the next about the ghost of an ancestor. And then my second revolves around a paranormal incident. The narrator and her family experience when she was a six year old girl, uh,

And one her family will not talk about because it is just too disturbing. And I won't give away anything other than that. Okay. Other than the rare additional trigger warning that suicide will come up in a portion of the story. I don't want to say which one. Portion of a story. Okay. Because I don't want to give away spoilers. Fair enough.

Okay. Once you've told me what spoopy socks you're wearing, I will begin. Well, these socks feel like the most appropriate socks. Spooky bitch. Spooky bitch. Perfect. We got some pumpkins, some fall leaves, some ghosts, some black and white stripes. It's perfect. Okay. Love it. Great. No setup for my first tale. I'm going to dive right into this alleged multi-generational haunting of a single family from England posted by the narrator anonymously.

Time now for the tale of You Should Have Buried Me Better. The story of my great-great-grandfather has been told to me over and over again since I was taught. It's by no means an appropriate bedtime story for a little girl of four years old, but it is sort of a family tradition. You see, my great-great-grandfather, Edmund Balcombe, is my family's boogeyman.

He's the reason I always brush my teeth and put my toys away, the reason I never came home late after playing at the neighbor's house, the reason I always helped do the washing up after dinner and made sure I ate all my greens before dessert. Because according to my parents, my cousins, my aunts and my uncles, if I didn't, old Edmund would appear to me in the night, looming in the doorway to my bedroom, bloodied and angry, with a splintering wooden stake protruding from his chest.

Yes, I know it's a morbid thing to tell a child, but so is every legend we use to scare kids into acting polite and doing their chores, right? At least great-great-grandpa Edmund never steals children from their cribs or gnaws on their limbs and chews their skin in the woods. He just stands in doorways, watching you. At least that's what I was told. And as a kid, I believed it. But by the time I reached 11 or 12 years old, I stopped believing it.

I was still a good kid. I still followed the rules and honored my parents' wishes and all that, but not because I thought my great-great-grandfather would haunt me if I didn't. I had realized, with all the wisdom of an awkward pre-tween in primary school, that Edmund was not a ghost. He was just a ghost story. But now I'm not so sure. Before I tell you what happened to me, you need to know what happened to Edmund. The year was 1908. Edmund Balcombe was living in a small village called Great Burstead.

just a bit under 30 kilometers south of Essex. He was 38 or 39 at the time, and with him lived his beautiful wife, Margaret, his sickly mother, Edith, and his two children, little baby Grace and John, age 13. While Margaret stayed at home, cooking, cleaning, tending to the small garden, milking the cow and gathering eggs from the chickens, bathing, feeding, and nursing both little Grace and elderly Edith, Edmund and John worked at the nearby textile mill.

Like most poor boys his age, John worked as a doffer, removing the bobbins from the spindles at the mill, and his father worked as a weaver. For years, Edmund had been telling his wife that one day he would be promoted to supervisor, but that day was yet to come. As the story goes, Edmund was a somber but kind man, forever hoping that things would get better. He cared deeply for his family, spoke gently to all men, and was a devout Catholic.

♪♪

There was nothing more precious on earth to Edmund than his children. He resented the fact his son had to drop out of school in order to work with him at the mill, and hated being away from home for so very long every single day. But they had no choice. With he and John's wages combined, they were able to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. Without it, they would have surely starved and become destitute. On one Saturday afternoon in 1908, Margaret became very sick.

Her face was strikingly pale and her lips were nearly blue. She was covered in sweat. She could barely speak. The fever had come on so quickly. The evening before, she had been up and about, healthy and strong, completing all her regular tasks. She complained of nothing. But in the morning, she was nearly a corpse. Luckily, that day, both Edmund and John had off of work.

So Margaret was able to rest. John helped in the garden and with the livestock, and Edmund did his best to care for his mother, who was so frail with age she could neither walk nor feed herself, as well as the little babe. That day also happened to be the family's scheduled bath day. I don't mean to turn this into a history lesson, but for context, back then, poor families like my ancestors would bathe but once a week, all in the same bath water. There was no indoor plumbing, so filling up the steel tub was a pretty labor-intensive task.

Anyway, normally the father was allowed to bathe first in the cleanest and the hottest water, then the mother, then the grandmother, then the children. The youngest child always went last. On that day, Margaret was too ill to get out of bed, and Edith didn't want anyone but Margaret to help her clean up, so only Edmund and his two children had their weekly washing. While his wife and mother slept in their bedrooms and John was playing with Grace out in the yard, Edmund took his bath by the fireplace in the kitchen.

After he finished up and got dressed, he went outside to fetch the children, but they were nowhere to be found. He scanned the surrounding woods, which were aglow with the light of the setting sun and felt panic gradually well within him. The children were not allowed to leave the cottage grounds without permission, and night was falling. So where were they? John? John, where are you? Edmund bellowed.

Just as Edmund was about to start screaming for the boy, he suddenly scampered out from behind the foliage, holding Grace awkwardly in his skinny arms and grinning with excitement. "'I'm here, Pa, I'm here!' he shouted, nearly out of breath from running. "'Pa, I saw a fox! I took Grace and we chased it! It's just laying out by the wayfaring tree! Come, you must see!' "'No, John, you know you are not allowed in the woods without permission, and never at night. How could you be so foolish? How could you put your sister in danger like that?' scolded Edmund."

He snatched Grace from John's arms and gestured to the open door of the cottage. Go, it's time for your bath. The water will get cold. John nodded and did as he was told. While the boy bathed, Edmund remained outside with Grace, admiring her chubby pink cheeks, her curious wide eyes, and her dainty tufts of white blonde hair. She looked like an angel and almost brought a tear to his eye. She was so small, so innocent, so helpless. And she was his, his beautiful baby girl.

Suddenly, John reappeared next to Edmund with wet hair and an apologetic look in his eyes. "'I'm sorry for what I did, Pa. I truly am,' he said. Edmund, who could never stay mad at his children for long, looked at his only son and ruffled his wet hair. "'Tom, it's time for your sister to wash up.' Edmund took a pitcher and removed most of the lukewarm water from the tub so it wouldn't be too deep for the baby. He left just enough to barely cover her little legs as she sat and grabbed a washrag from the table. Just as he was placing Grace gently into the water,

A mournful sound came from the walls. "'Edmund! Edmund! Please come!' It was Margaret. She had woken up, and she sounded pained. Edmund called John over beside him. "'Here, boy. Watch your sister while I go check on her mother. You don't need to hold her up. Just make sure she doesn't fall forward or back, and clean her up using the rag like this,' he instructed the boy. John nodded and took the rag from his father's hand. Edmund found Margaret sitting on the edge of their bed, gently rocking back and forth, staring at the floor.'

Her nightclothes were damp with sweat. With as much tenderness as he could muster, Edmund placed his loving hands on her shoulders and gently laid her down. "'Edmund,' Margaret croaked. "'I'm afraid.' "'Do not be, my love,' whispered Edmund. "'You will be healthy again soon. It is a chill brought on by the changing of the seasons.' He placed a callous hand on her cheek. It was hot to the touch. "'Edmund,' she whimpered. "'Shh,' he said, stroking her perfect face.'

Fear thou not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee, I will help thee. I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. Edmund's voice trembled as he recited the Bible verse, but it seemed to comfort his wife just the same. He stayed by her side for a minute more, admiring her face and praying to God. When he was certain she had fallen back to sleep, Edmund kissed his beloved on her forehead and left to go check on John and Grace.

But when he exited the bedroom, he saw that the tub on the far end of the kitchen was empty, and John was gone. The back door of the cottage was wide open. He clenched his jaw tightly, trying to contain his anger. The boy must have taken the baby back outside to play. They weren't in the living room, and Edmund would have heard it had they gone into the other bedroom, which they shared with their grandmother.

Edmund shook his head and started marching towards the back door. He hadn't laid out any fresh clothes for the babe, so either John had put her back into her dirty clothes or simply swaddled her in the thin linen blanket Edith had sewn for her. The delicate cream-colored blanket, which Edith had stitched Gracie's name into using pale pink thread, was undoubtedly beautiful but entirely impractical and not nearly warm enough to protect her from the descending cold of the night. What a fool that boy could be. Just as he was about to pass through the open door, Edmund noticed something out of the corner of his eye in the kitchen.

Something small and pale and round, floating in what little water remained in the bath. Edmund turned his head to see what it was. When he did, he screamed. He ran to the tub and pulled out the baby. She was limp in his arms. He stumbled back onto the floor and sat there holding the tiny cold body close to his chest, desperately trying to warm her up, willing her to wake.

He cried out to her, repeating her name through sobs over and over and over again, begging God to give her breath, to open her big blue eyes, so she may look up and see her father that loves her and knows she cannot die. But she did. She already had. Still, Edmund reached up, grabbed her linen blanket off the table, and wrapped her snugly in it, muttering under his breath, "'Shh, shh, it's all right, Gracie. It's all right. Papa's here. It's all right.'"

He rocked her back and forth and back and forth, mumbling prayers and lullabies and words of comfort to his only daughter, his precious baby girl, his little Gracie. The spell was broken by the sound of someone walking into the room. Still cradling the babe, Edmund slowly turned his head to look over his shoulder.

Son John was standing in the doorway behind him, covered in mud. Terrified, the 13-year-old looked upon the agonized rage plastered across his father's face, then at the motionless child in his arms. Then abruptly, the boy fell to his knees, shrieking and crying and begging incomprehensibly for his father's forgiveness. Edmund rose to his feet and stood before his son. He stared down at the boy and felt nothing but disgust and hate. Quietly, grimly, Edmund hissed, ''You did this!''

"'What did our boy do?' a weak voice whispered from the other side of the cottage. Margaret was standing in the doorway to her bedroom, wrapped in a wool blanket and leaning herself against the wall. She could barely keep herself upright. She appeared half dead. Again she repeated, "'What did John do?' Neither said a word. They just stared at her with an unnatural look in their eyes, a look of hysteric anguish she had never seen before in them. She didn't have the strength to speak again, so she began limping her way over to her husband and son and daughter, trying to understand what was happening.'

As his mother approached, John tried to make a break for it, but no sooner did he turn towards the open door did his father take him roughly by the arm, digging his nails into flesh, preventing him from escape. When Margaret finally reached them, there were tears streaming down her cheeks. No one said a word. Edmund simply handed her the baby.

She took the little bundle without even glancing at it. She just kept her eyes fixed on her husband, reading the strange look on his face, feeling her daughter's unusually limp and motionless body in her arms. Her lips began to quiver. Her breath grew heavy and ragged. Finally, she looked down and she screamed. The next day, Margaret was dead. The doctor said it was the fever that took her, but Edmund knew better. It was grief that took his wife away.

In her short lifetime, she had already been forced to mourn the death of six children, and she couldn't bear to mourn a seventh. Margaret and Edith were buried next to one another in the cemetery of St. Mary Magdalene. It was a meager but traditional Catholic ceremony with few attendees. The priest spoke of God's love and the innocence of children, but Edmund wasn't listening. He could hear nothing but the echo of his son trying to explain how he let his sister die.

You said I didn't have to hold her in the bath, Pa. The boy had stuttered while the undertaker took Gracie's body away. So when I saw the fox run by the door, I thought she'd be all right for a moment when I went outside to see it. But I guess I was gone for too long. I'm so sorry. When the three remaining members of the Balcombe family returned home from the funeral, Edmund went straight into his bedroom. He didn't eat any dinner, nor did he bid his mother and son goodnight. He didn't say a word. He didn't even look at them.

Edmund sat on the edge of the bed he once shared with his wife in the exact spot she had been sitting just days before when he had told her everything would be alright. From a tin box under the bed, Edmund pulled out a large knife that once belonged to his father and he forced the rusted blade into his heart. Although all Edmund wanted was to be reunited with his wife and daughter, his body wasn't buried with him. Again, I'll try not to make this a history lesson, but until 1980, the Catholic Church would not conduct funeral services for suicide victims.

nor could the victim's body be buried in the church cemetery. So when my great-great-grandfather killed himself in 1908, his mother and son had to find other means to dispose of his remains. Edmund must have known this, but forgotten it in the madness that came with his grief. Back then, most Catholic families of suicide victims would either bury their loved one just barely outside of the church grounds or simply on their own property.

However, Edmund's mother, my great-great-great-grandmother, believed very strongly in some old world superstitions. So her son's burial was slightly more occult. The Anglo-Saxons, aka the people that inhabited England during the early Middle Ages, believed that people who killed themselves were more likely to remain on earth as ghosts and haunt the living. To prevent this, suicide victims were often laid to rest in a very specific way, at a crossroads, with a wooden stake put through their heart.

Essentially, the stake was meant to pin the ghost to the spot so they couldn't go wandering into the nearby village. And even if they were able to detach themselves from that location by burying them at a crossroads, the ghost would become confused about which way to go. For hundreds of years, this ritual was used extensively all across England for thousands of suicide victims. And even after Parliament outlawed it in 1923, it continued to be popular in the remote countrysides of the Great Nation.

The specifics of my great-great-grandfather Edmund's burial are a mystery. How his body was transported, at which crossroads he was interred, and who drove the final stake through his heart is completely unknown. What we do know, however, is that the ritual didn't work. Or at least, that's how the legend goes. According to family lore, for the rest of his life, my great-grandpa John was plagued by the wrathful spirit of his father. At first, Edmund's bloody ghost only appeared at the crossroad where he was buried.

But over the years, he seemed to transcend his imprisonment and was able to follow his son wherever he went, albeit with a few stipulations. Edmund, as the bedtime story goes, can only exist in the in-between places, not just crossroads, but places like the front entrance to your house, where the outside and the inside meet, or the doorway to your bedroom, where what's yours and what isn't intersect, or even graveyards where the dead and the living cross paths.

He's forever confined to the liminal. And in the years since his death, he has lost any sense of the humanity he once had. The only thing left is his anger and his hatred for children that misbehave and do not listen to their parents. So yeah, it's a pretty fucked up tale to tell a kid. Dead babies, suicide, disease, poltergeist. It's not your typical bedtime story, but it's family tradition nonetheless. And it's been told a generation after generation of Balkum children for over 100 years now. It's basically been imbued into all of our psyches.

which is why when this happened, my first thought was that it was all in my head because that's the only place old Edmund had ever existed. My imagination. But now I think he's more than just a scary story. About two years ago, I found out I was pregnant. At the time, I was an unmarried 20-something with a career I hated, advertising. Living in a town I hated even more, London. The baby's father was my then-boyfriend, Wes. We'd been dating for about two years and had yet to talk about the future.

It's not that we didn't love each other. It's that he lived all the way in Manchester, which was about a three-hour train ride away from me. It was practically long distance. We only ever really got to see each other on the weekends. Even though we'd never talked about our kids or marriage or even moving in together before, Wes was really excited when I told him I was pregnant. Without hesitation, he told me he would be there for me for every step of the pregnancy and wanted to be as involved as he possibly could with the raising of our child.

He even started looking into getting a job, transferred to London that very afternoon. He stayed true to his word and was there for every doctor's appointment, every birthing class, every frantic shopping trip to Primark to buy an ungodly amount of baby clothes.

I was so grateful to have him by my side. But unfortunately, it wasn't until after the baby was born that he got a new job in London and was finally able to move in with me. So for nine months, I spent a lot of time alone in my flat, feeling nauseous and nervous and trying to wrap my head around the fact that there was a real person growing inside of me. The nights I was alone were the worst, not just because I could never actually get comfortable and constantly had to get up to pee, but because of the nightmares. At the beginning of my pregnancy, I only dreamt about him every once in a while.

But by the end, he appeared to me every single night. And the nightmare was always the same. I'm in bed, laying on my side, facing the door to the hallway like I always do. I'm not asleep. I'm staring, waiting. The door is open even though I always close it before I go to sleep. And there must be a nightlight on somewhere, even though I don't own any nightlights, because the hallway is dully illuminated, pale orange like the sunset through the smog. I hear him before I see him. The sound of his footsteps as he descends the hallway is agonizing.

He does not march towards me, deliberate and violent. He limps. I can hear his feet drag across the floor. He is barely able to lift them off the ground. He is death walking, and he's coming for me. Finally, he appears in the doorway. He does not look like I always pictured him when I was a kid. He is not simply old as I had imagined. He is expired, decomposing, decrepit. He looms in the transient space, barely holding onto the butcher's knife in his right hand.

There's a stake protruding from his chest, but the wound it made with a butcher knife also once rested doesn't bleed. There is no stream of bright red blood spewing from his insides as I'd always thought. He is far too dead for that. Liquid does flow from within him though, but it is not blood and it does not gush or spurt or cascade. It is thick and littered with splinters and sludge and maggots and all the other nasty residue that a body collects while six feet under the ground.

He rocks back and forth, staring down at me, his chest heaving with the labor of his breath. And then he speaks. Sometimes he mutters incoherent fragments of Bible verses. Sometimes he sings lullabies. But mostly he just whispers in a trembling, gruff voice. It's all right. In nine months, that's all the phantom of my great-great-grandfather Edmund ever had to say to me when we finally met in my dreams. That is, except for the night I found out the sex of my baby. On that night, he whispered one word over and over and over.

I woke up in a cold sweat. I thought I'd gotten used to the nightmares, but I was terrified more than I'd ever been before. Since the beginning, I had known the strange nightmares were nothing more than the product of anxiety and stress and hormones and residual figments of my childhood imagination. But that night, it felt real. I could feel his lifeless presence still lingering in the passageway to my room, like he had trespassed some boundary of my psyche. He was meant to disappear when I woke, but he didn't cease to exist when the dream ended.

My head was spiraling when I woke. I felt panicked and I needed to calm down. I put a protective hand over my tummy, lugged myself out of bed, and made my way to the bathroom. I thought about my dream. I thought about foxes. And for the first time since I'd gotten pregnant, I thought about what it would be like to lose my baby. And I started to cry. In the bathroom, I flicked on the buzzing fluorescent light and washed my face in the sink. The water was so cold and the shock of it helped me clear my head. When I was done, I dried my face with a hand towel and examined my reflection in the mirror.

It was still so surreal to see my round belly to know that there was a tiny human in there. A little baby girl. I smiled. I'd always wanted a girl. Just as I was about to turn off the lights, an unsettling realization washed over me like a tidal wave. I had turned off the sink, but I could still hear the sound of running water. And it was coming from the bathtub. Slowly, I walked over to it and peered behind the dingy plastic curtain. A steady stream of water was flowing out from the tap and splattering into the tub. I felt sick.

I quickly yanked the knob to turn it off and washed as the final few droplets fell from the spout. Then I finally saw it. Sitting in the center of the porcelain tub was a damp pile of crumpled fabric, the color of cream. A horrified sob caught in my throat. I covered my mouth to keep myself from screaming. With a shaky hand, I reached into the tub and pulled it out. It was a piece of ancient-looking linen, ragged, stained, and speckled with dirt, and in the bottom corner, someone had stitched the name in pale pink thread, Gracie.

Even though it's a family tradition, my daughter Grace won't grow up hearing the story of the boogeyman of old Edmund. Instead, she will grow up hearing the story of her great-great-great-grandpa Edmund who loved her so much he waited a hundred years just to give her a gift.

Also still creepy that she named her daughter Grace. I know. I know. Maybe we break the cycle. But, you know. Maybe we just stop telling tales about Edmund. Mm-hmm. I like the ending of that story, though. You do? It's kind of sweet. I don't. He's not malevolent. I don't. Maybe it was the tone of your voice. Yeah. Well, you know, I wanted to make it build some tension. I know. I was like, I don't like it.

This absolutely doesn't look like a face, but it looks like a face on the soundproofing behind you. Oh, I noticed you kept looking at something. I know just the way the light and I just like kept getting the chills. And then we're recording late at night tonight. And generally there's no one in the building this late, but there are. There's cars in the parking lot. Yeah. And then I saw them in one of the conference rooms and like,

I'm sure it was just someone like leaving the conference room or leaving the building. But at some point I heard like a door close and it's just enough. I'm like, okay, Edmund, peace out, Bean Sprout. Go away. Yeah, that was fun. I mean, sad. Really fucked up and sad. Yeah, really sad, yeah. But it was good. Yeah, thanks. I have a few pictures. This first is the Church of St. Mary Magdalene.

In Great Bursted. Great Bursted. These city names, you know? Yeah. This was built in the 12th century. Just so you know, in my mind, it's like bursted like it exploded. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, the Great Burst is where I'm sure this story takes place. This is the front entrance to the old church.

I love that they have stuff that's so much older than we have here. I know. As far as, like, you know, structures. Yeah, I mean, it's like, listen, not everybody has the opportunity to travel. But, like, if you can go just to, like, one place just one time, it is so crazy to see the difference between, like, what's old in America and what's old in England. Yeah, especially North America because we just didn't happen to have civilizations like the Incas and stuff that built, you know, um...

you know, these temples and things. Yeah, that lasted centuries and centuries and centuries. So for us, I think more than any other continent, really other than Antarctica, but like, you know, any other civilized or, you know, inhabited continent, it's just so novel for us. Uh-huh, yeah.

This is the graveyard in St. Mary Magdalene where some of these folks are buried. So tiny. Mm-hmm. Yeah, a little portion over there. And then painting of King Sabert who was the first East Saxon king to convert to Christianity and also is buried at St. Mary Magdalene. Oh, well, look at that. What are the odds? So much history. Okay, two things that really got me. Yeah. That are like not scary in terms of the paranormal, but...

Anybody who's a parent who is babysat, who has nieces and nephews, like anytime that your kid is out of sight, you just panic. And I've got news for you. That doesn't go away as they get older. Even at this age, like when we go to a concert with, you know, Monroe and a friend, if they're like, okay, we're going to go to the bathroom and I'm kind of clocking it. I'm like, okay, they've been gone for 15 minutes.

They have cell phones. I'm tracking them. Like, they're totally big, adult, responsible, whatever. I still. Yeah. Yeah. Kyler's away at college. And I'm like, I don't know. Is he okay? Where is he? What is he doing? Like, my parents told me you would never stop worrying. I never stop worrying. Yeah. Yeah. And when they're out of sight, it's freaking hard. And then, okay, I really loved finding out this information about how they dealt with the burial of suicide. Yeah.

I didn't know about this, like, stake through the heart. Because when you started the story and you said stake through the heart, I thought vampire. Yeah, yeah. Immediately. But I do wonder if that is somehow connected.

uh i can't speak intelligently to that actually i i don't know if there's a connection between those two burial rituals i know that like you know vampiric lore came out of um well like the like southeastern europe yeah like romania transylvania like the transylvania region like other parts of that uh parts of the world there's so many little countries there yeah and uh and i can't remember why i can't remember if they staked

people they thought were vampires, uh, also to like root them in the grave. I think they did. I think there is a similarity. Okay. Okay. But the, the English tradition there, uh, I don't think has anything to do with vampires. Okay. Fair enough. But it did make me think that. And then I just didn't know about the crossroads thing either. Yeah. That's a real thing. Yeah. They just bury them in shallow graves or I don't know how shallow, but bury them in graves near cross crossroads. And the thought was that the spirit would be confused, uh,

as far as which way to go, and that by the time they figured it out, hopefully it would be daylight and they wouldn't be able to travel anyway. Yeah. Just pointing out that, yeah, it was interesting, and I had never heard that before. Yeah. You ready to leave England? Head to Florida for my second story? Which is like a different country. Yes, I'm ready to go. Before we move on to more scares, we need to take a quick in-between story sponsor break.

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Ah.

Ah, yes. The forever challenge of soaking up as much vitamin D is upon us. And for me, this time of year is always a bit of a roller coaster. On the one hand, I love to hunker down and stay in. On the other hand, I also need to get out and socialize. If I don't,

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Thank you for listening to our sponsor deals. Creeps and Peepers makes our sponsors happy, which makes us happy to still be getting sponsored. No setup for this second story either. Another anonymously posted modern encounter tale, just like the first. Time now for the tale of...

She's going to kill him. I have a theory that every family has their own incident. A big one where the I is capitalized. Something that happened or something someone did that was so fucking embarrassing or traumatic or disturbing that everyone just silently comes to an agreement that it must never ever be spoken of again. There was an incident in every family and if you're thinking no not my family we don't keep secrets. Well you're wrong. Your family's fucked up too. You just don't know it yet. Maybe they're keeping the secret from you.

If you're trying to figure out something or if something is your family's incident, here are a few questions to ask yourself about it. Have you or any of your relatives talked about it since it happened? Can you freely bring it up at Christmas dinner without everyone getting super uncomfortable? Do your youngest relatives, I'm talking 10 and under, who were not present for the event, know about it? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then what you're thinking of is not the incident. The incident isn't just something that's been casually brushed under the proverbial rug.

It's something that's been blotted out of existence. It's never, ever spoken about. It's never even referenced. And for most everyone in the family, the incident is shrouded in mystery. It's vague and the details of it are poorly understood and will forever remain that way because the people that it happened to will never answer any questions about it. For example, the incident in my best friend's family is

is that her cousin raped a girl at prom his junior year of high school. He was expelled from school, found guilty in court, but he somehow ended up avoiding spending time in juvie. I'm sure his parents having a lot of money helped that happen. Now he's in the military and every time he's home, his parents throw him a big old welcome back party like what he did never happened. And no one ever brings it up. Other examples of the incident are things like your aunt that got too drunk at her son's wedding and told the bride she could never love her son like she does.

Or your beloved childhood piano teacher you stopped going to one day after you told your parents he'd asked if he could take some pictures of your feet, and if you'd ever kissed a boy or done more than that. You know, sordid, uncomfortable things like that. The incident in my family happened almost 30 years ago. We had just moved from an undisclosed small town in the Midwest to an undisclosed beach town in Florida. I was six at the time, and my younger brother, who I will call Elliot, was only four. We were polar opposites. I guess we still are.

I was a precocious little girl with an obscene amount of unwarranted confidence. Elliot was a wallflower. I wanted to be the center of attention at all times. He wanted to be left alone. Even as a toddler, he always just kept himself slightly removed from everyone else. Even my parents. He wasn't shy per se. He was just an observer. He wanted to watch what was happening from a safe distance, not necessarily be a part of it.

The new house was a shabby, bright turquoise 80s monstrosity, precariously suspended on stilts. And right on the beach, it was paradise. That first summer in Florida, I spent every single day playing in the water and building castles in the sand, and even though my parents told me not to, talking to other strangers on the beach. But no sooner would I approach a stranger to ask if they had any toys I could play with, my mom would suddenly appear, apologizing on my behalf and ushering me back to the house. Anyway, I was pretty distracted on the beach that whole summer.

So I never really knew what was happening inside the house until it was too late. Of course, I heard bits and pieces and felt a vague sense of unease from my parents, but I didn't care. I had bigger things to worry about. It all started when we met the neighbors, who I will call the Joneses. We'd been living in Florida for over a month at this point, and because my mom was a social butterfly, we'd met basically every single one of our neighbors, all except for the people living in the gray house to our left.

The Grey House had actually been the first stop on our Meet the Neighbors tour. Three days after moving in, with my brother in one hand and a paper bag full of homemade cookies in the other, my mom and I made our way over there to introduce ourselves. I remember marching dutifully behind her, proudly holding a terrible drawing of the beach I'd made on some construction paper, hoping to present it to the neighbor's son, if they even had one, who was hopefully my age and hopefully also cute. But the closer we got to the Grey House, the less excited I became about meeting whoever lived inside.

I don't think I knew what a haunted house was at that point, but I remember thinking that the place looked bad. Not necessarily abandoned or decrepit or even ugly, just bad. I remember the way the stairs creaked as we walked up the old wooden stairs, how they made me flinch, and I remember feeling cold, even though it was 100 degrees outside. When we got to the front door of the grey house, which was built much like ours, my mom gently set Elliot down and knocked three times. Then we waited, and waited, and waited.

I wasn't a patient kid, so eventually I got up on my tippy toes and peered into the salt-worn window to see what the holdup was. The entire place was dark, like it had been eaten by shadows. I could make out the vague shape of a couch and a rug and a TV in the living room, and a bit farther back I could see a circular dining room table. But that was it. Until it wasn't. I pressed my forehead against the glass and shielded either side of my eyes to try and get a better look. My heart stopped. There was someone sitting at the table. I could just make out their silhouette, but it looked like a man.

His head was slumped forward, like he had fallen asleep while sitting up. "'Come on, honey, they're not home. Let's go,' said my mom. "'But, mama, there's someone inside. Look!' I whispered, gesturing for her to come over. She let out an exasperated sigh and bent over ever so slightly to look in the window. "'Honey, there's no one there. It's time to go.' And with that, she firmly placed the paper bag of cookies in front of the door, scooped up Elliot, and headed back towards the stairs."

Confused, I pressed my head back against the window. She was right. He was gone. I shrugged it off and scampered to catch up. As we were descending the staircase, Elliot did something I will never forget. He had his arms wrapped around my mom's neck and was staring curiously at the window I had just been looking in. Then he slowly began to wave. I whipped around to see if the person who had been sitting at the table was now standing in the window, but it was completely dark. There was no one there. At least no one I could see. For five weeks, the paper bag sat untouched.

The day it finally disappeared was the same day the Joneses showed up at our house the first time. I had been sitting at the kitchen counter eating an afternoon snack when I heard the doorbell. "MOM! DAD! SOMEONE'S HERE!" I shouted through a mouthful of Cheerios while climbing down from my chair. I didn't wait for them to respond, I just made my way over to the door and swung it open like I owned the place. I was about to say, "Hello, how may I help you?" like I had seen my mom do with other people that showed up at the house, but the words died in my throat.

I knew staring was wrong, but I couldn't help it. They were so odd. After what felt like an eternity of silence, the woman finally spoke up. Hello, little one. You must be Kelsey, she purred. I'm Mrs. Jones. This is my husband, Mr. Jones, and this is our daughter, Jane. The three of them were standing in a perfect line, side by side by side. Jane was in the middle, with her parents holding each of her hands. She looked like she might be the same age as my brother, but I couldn't quite tell because she was staring at the ground. All I could see was the top of her head.

Her mom, on the other hand, was smiling intently at me with such a weird, focused affection it made my skin crawl. Her dad was staring at me too, but his face was blank. Like, really blank. I remember thinking he might be sleeping with his eyes open because his mouth was slightly agape and he was breathing heavily, the same way my dad does when he's taking a nap on the couch. Mom! I yelled again, keeping my eyes on this very weird family at our door. The moment my mom appeared by my side, Mr. Jones' face instantly came to life.

His sunken eyes became alert and his slumped mouth stretched into a massive grin, like he'd just snapped out of a trance. The little girl continued staring to the ground. The woman introduced herself again to my mom and said that they lived in the gray house next door. My mom, ever the hostess, warmly invited them in. I don't remember much of the interaction after that. It had become evident that they did not have a cute son for me to have a crush on, and their daughter did not seem like someone I would want to play with anyway. She was too young, so I pretty much zoned out.

But there were a few things that I still remember pretty clearly. The first is that Mrs. Jones told my mom her cookies were delicious and that she was so touched by the gesture. I remember wanting to say something about how we had given them those cookies over a month ago. They've been sitting on the porch ever since. So if they really did eat the cookies, that was really gross because it had rained a bunch in the last month. But I didn't want to get dragged into the conversation and Mrs. Jones kind of scared me to be honest. So I kept my normally loud mouth shut.

While playing with some dolls in the living room where all the adults were gathered, I waited for Mrs. Jones or her husband to say something about where they had been for the last month or why we hadn't run into them, but they never did. At one point, my dad finally emerged from the upstairs holding Elliot. As soon as he entered the room, the neighbor little girl, Janie, who was sitting between her parents on the couch with her head down, finally perked up. She looked at Elliot with these big bug eyes and he stared back at her. Elliot waved and she waved back.

And then Mrs. Jones started clapping with glee. Oh, how sweet! I just know they're going to be the best of friends. As it turned out, she was right. For the rest of the summer, Elliot and Janie played together almost every single day, either on the beach, in the little patch of land between our two homes, or in our living room, but never at Janie's house.

I was a little bit jealous, jealous that Elliot had a friend and I didn't. But still, I wasn't going to hang out with some little kids. I remember seeing them playing in the sand while Mr. Jones and my mom lounged in the sun, drinking what my mom called an adult drink, red wine, and chuckling over how cute their babies were. Sometimes my dad joined them when he got home from work, but never Mr. Jones. For as much as we saw Janie and her mom, we hardly ever saw her dad after that first night.

Sometimes from the beach I could catch glimpses of him standing in his kitchen staring out the window. I would wave he never waved back I always wondered if it was him I saw sitting at their table all those months ago, but I never had the nerve to ask him I did however feel free to ask my parents about him one night in early august while my family and I were eating dinner I blurted out. Why is mr. Jones so weird? Don't call people weird kelsey. It's not nice said my dad distractedly his eyes fixed on the football game playing on the tv behind me

But he is weird. And so is Mrs. Jones, I whined. My mom grabbed the remote and clicked off the TV. Your dad's right, she said, harshly elbowing my dad on the side. Calling someone weird is not nice. Why do you think that about the Joneses? They just, they just are. Mrs. Jones always smiles at me with these big smiles, but they don't feel right. It's like she's angry instead of happy. And Mr. Jones never leaves his house. It's weird, I cried out.

I knew I wasn't supposed to throw tantrums, but I couldn't help it. I was so confused. I didn't understand why no one else felt the way I did. My mom reached across the table and held my hand. "'Sweetie, Mrs. Jones is not mad at you. She adores you. She thinks you're the best. And Mr. Jones is... well...' She trailed off and looked to my father for help. "'Mr. Jones is a bit of a recluse,' he declared. "'What is a recluse?' I asked, feeling more confused than I ever did before.'

"'A recluse is somebody who doesn't like the outside,' my mom explained. "'So they spend most of their time inside.' "'But that is weird!' I shouted, slamming my little fist on the table. "'And then before my parents could chastise me for throwing a fit, "'little Elliot spoke up from his high chair. "'Mr. Jones thinks inside is safe,' muttered my four-year-old brother "'while mushing his lasagna with a spoon. "'But it's not safe,' he continued, shaking his head from side to side. "'Inside is not safe.'

Elliot, what did you just say? Asked my dad, clearly alarmed or irritated. I couldn't tell. Elliot ignored him. He just kept staring at his plate of mutilated food, mixing it all together with all the focus he could muster. Elliot! I exclaimed and kicked the underside of the high chair. He ignored me too. I think at that point I was on the verge of tears. Suddenly my mom unhooked Elliot from his seat and pulled him into her arms. Elliot, will you please say that again?

Inside is not safe for Mr. Jones, he mumbled. Mr. Jones thinks inside is safe, but it's not. He thinks he's alone inside, but he's not. Mrs. Jones's friend is inside too, and he hates Mr. Jones. Can I have dessert? Yes, you can, said my mom, nodding slowly. She had a faraway look in her eyes. She asked my dad, Nathan, will you come help me with the pudding in the kitchen, please? But I want pudding too, I cried.

I'll get you some honey. Don't worry. Just go into the den and turn on the TV. Okay, I'll bring it to you said my dad I watched the three of them disappear into the kitchen and then without anything better to do I did what I was told I don't really remember what happened next I was kept pretty far away from whatever conversation they were trying to have with elliot in the kitchen and I was fine with that However, I do remember that after that night every time he went to the beach with mrs Jones and janie My mom seemed to laugh less and would look over her shoulder at the kitchen window of the gray house a lot more

Besides that, the summer continued along on its normal course and faded unremarkably into fall. Elliot never said another word about Mr. Jones and the inside of his house again until one night in October. I woke up from a dead sleep to the sound of my brother screaming and my parents' footsteps stampeding down the stairs. Terrified, I turned on my nightlight, grabbed my stuffed animal off my bed and ran to Elliot's room, which was right across the hall from mine. The door to his room was wide open, but I couldn't go inside. It was just too awful and I was too scared.

From the doorway, I watched as my parents struggled to comfort my brother who was thrashing so violently in his twin bed that I thought he might hurt them or himself.

They were both speaking to him, but I couldn't hear their voices over his high, piercing shrieks and unyielding sobs. He looked like he was in so much pain. His little face was flush red and tears were streaming down his cheeks. I clutched my teddy bear tighter as my parents stopped trying to simply comfort Elliot and started trying to restrain him. To my horror, I realized what he was screaming. Mr. Jones and her friend are finding the house. They killed him. They killed him. They killed Mr. Jones. What about Janie? Janie? We got to get Janie.

Abruptly, my dad frantically turned around. His eyes were wild and he looked so scared. I started to sob uncontrollably. I felt my dad pick me up and carry me up the stairs, then place me in my mom's bed. I'm sorry, honey. I'm sorry. I have to go back to Elliot and your mom. You stay here. You're safe here, I heard him say. Then he was gone. I don't know how long I cried for, and I don't know when I fell asleep, but I guess eventually I did. The next thing I remember is waking up to the sound of someone leaving through the front door. I was alone in my parents' bedroom, and the clock on the nightstand said it was 6 a.m.,

I shuffled out of bed and went to the bay window, still clutching my teddy bear. From there, I could see the front entrance to the Joneses' gray house and part of the sidewalk leading from our home to theirs. I watched my mom, who was still in her pajamas, march down that sidewalk and up the stairs to the front door. I started crying again and banging furiously on the window, yelling at her, begging her to turn around. She didn't. She just knocked sternly three times and waited patiently with her hands on her hips.

After what felt like an eternity, the door suddenly swung open. From my vantage point, I couldn't see who was standing on the other side. I could only see my mom, making small gestures I didn't understand, and saying things I couldn't hear. Finally, whoever she was talking to stepped outside and gently closed the door behind them. It was... Mr. Jones. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he was nodding sympathetically at everything my mom said. When the conversation ended, he bent down to give her a hug, slowly rubbing her back as he did.

I watched as my mom pushed him politely away and hurried back down the stairs. She practically ran back to our house. I was about to sprint downstairs to ask her a million questions, but something caught my eye. It was Mr. Jones. He was still standing on his porch, but now he was facing our house, facing me. He looked like he did when I first saw him. Mouth open, breathing heavily, his face so sunken and vacant, it was like he was asleep or dead. I watched as he slowly lifted his arm and gave me a sluggish wave. I tentatively waved back.

He didn't stop waving, so neither did I. In the distance, I heard a door open. "Kelsey!" My dad's voice yanked me out of my strange trance. I turned around and ran into his arms, and then I cried. The rest of the day is a blur. Elliot slept through most of it, and I was allowed to watch as much TV as I wanted. My mom explained to me that Elliot had a terrible nightmare last night, probably caused by some stories and tall tales that Janie had been telling him. She apologized for scaring me and reassured me over and over that everything was going to be alright.

When I asked her why she went to go see Mr. Jones that morning, she got the strange look on her face, like she'd been caught doing something bad. But it was only there for a moment before being replaced by her most motherly smile. While rubbing my back, she explained, Oh, that was nothing. I just wanted to see Mr. Jones in person so I could let Elliot know he was all right. Was he all right? I asked. Yeah, she said more to the TV than to me. He was completely normal.

By the end of the day, I had almost recovered from the terror of the night before, but Elliot still seemed anxious and scared. He wouldn't talk to any of us, and he wouldn't play with his toys. He just stayed on the couch, staring out the living room window at the gray house next door. We were eating dinner when the sirens came. Then came the blue and red lights pouring in from the street outside, ominously lighting up the kitchen with their neon glow. After that came the knock on the door.

From the table, my brother and I watched a policeman speak in hushed tones to our parents. I remember seeing my mom cover her mouth with her hands while the officer talked like he was holding in a scream. At some point, she left the conversation to bring Elliot and I into his bedroom. She didn't really explain anything. All she said was that we were going to spend the night at her friend Martha's house and that we needed to pack right away and quickly. As she was tossing clothes haphazardly into a canvas bag, Elliot quietly asked her, Did they get Janie too?

My mom didn't say anything. She just started crying, finished packing, and drove us to Martha's house. I don't know when or how I finally found out what happened, but eventually I did. Mr. Jones was murdered by his wife. She stabbed him in the chest over 15 times, then hung his body from the ceiling fan in the kitchen. How she was strong enough to lift her husband's dead body and hoist it up into the air, I have no idea. I don't think anyone does.

According to the investigators, a few hours later, Mrs. Jones sat down at the kitchen table and slit her wrists. That night, a group of teenagers hanging out on the beach noticed what looked like a body hanging in the Jones's kitchen window and called 911. When the police arrived, they found one dangling corpse and one face down at the table in a pool of her own blood, as well as a terrified little girl hiding in her bedroom closet.

Now, remember what I said at the beginning about every family having an incident that they just don't talk about? Well, the fact that our neighbor committed a murder-suicide actually is not the incident in my family because we do talk about that once in a while. Occasionally, we'll even briefly muse over the fact that Elliot somehow seemed to know not only that Mr. Jones was going to die, but when he actually did. As it turns out, the very same hour that Elliot was throwing a screaming fit in the middle of the night was the exact time that Mr. Jones was being stabbed to death by his wife.

The incident in my family took place the morning after the murder-suicide, when my mom and I both saw Mr. Jones standing on the porch of the Gray House, smiling and nodding and being ever so neighborly, when my mom actually walked over and talked to him and hugged him some seven hours after he died. And another part of the incident is Mrs. Jones's friend, the one Elliot said helped her kill her husband, the one who must have helped hoist him up to the fan.

and the one I think I saw sitting at the table that first day we tried to meet them. I never heard any suspicion of someone else being involved in their deaths, but when I think about how weird all of them were the whole summer and that fall, I think someone else had been living with them, maybe for quite a while, and I don't think they were alive. I think they lived in a badly haunted house, a house that killed them. Do my parents or my brother think that too? I don't know, and I probably never will.

Like I said, it's the incident. It's something we just don't ever talk about.

And where's little Janie Jones? I know. I really thought that the anonymous poster was going to say that they don't ever talk about it because they adopted Janie. Oh, yeah, that's a good guess. I was like, oh, oh, oh. Yeah, yeah. I thought it was going to be like what we don't talk about is how Janie is just miraculously part of our family. Uh-huh.

We pretend like my mom and dad are her mom and dad, but they're not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think about how the family appeared the first time they met them with the weird expressions and stuff. And it made me think about like other haunted house stories we've covered in the past where something is wearing down the family and they look exhausted and just off and distracted. Malnourished, tired. Yeah, my take is that there was something in that house that was just working on these people for God knows how long.

And then it ended, you know, how it ended. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Aye, aye, aye. Creepy. Creepy, creepy, creepy. No pics for this story. Okay. But just as a palate cleanser, after two pretty heavy, heavy stories, I have some cute pics of dogs in Halloween costumes. Oh, okay. I love this. How about this first little puppy dressed up as a carrot? Oh, puppy cute. Carrot puppy. Carrot puppy.

Adorable. That's really cute. Little white fluffy puppy. I actually thought this was a pumpkin until I showed it to Monroe and she was like, no, that's a carrot. I was like, oh yeah, the little green part of the top. Yeah, duh. I saw the orange and I went Halloween, orange, I went pumpkin. That's fair. What about this spoopy dog ghost? Oh my God, is that Penny?

I know. It does look kind of like Penny. Penny, are you in there? Penny, blink twice if you need to be saved. That's cute. Or what about this little dog that looks like they just got their pilot's license? Oh, that's cute. Mm-hmm. Uh-huh. I wonder if this next dog knows he's dressed up like a cat. Oh, oh, so cute. He's smiling. He is smiling. He seems happy that he's wearing that costume. Not like Penny. Penny hates a costume. True.

Finally, who wore better? My last one here. The actual garden gnome or the chihuahua dressed up like a gnome? Oh, that's good. That is good. That looks like Jarena. Uh-huh. Oh my gosh. Okay. You should send that to Maggie. Yeah, really funny. That's so funny. Yep. Okay, that's great. Yeah. There you go. Love. Does your family have an incident? You know what? I saw the wheels spinning when I was telling that story to you. Yeah. And I was trying to think. I'm like, do we have an incident? Like a true incident? Yeah. Yeah.

Um, yes. And I won't say what it is because it is so... Yeah. It's pretty dark. I was trying to think like... I was thinking about my household, my family of four. And I feel like...

I feel like there's an incident that... Well, you know, my parents are divorced, so I feel like if there was an incident that wasn't spoken of, it would be like something that me, my mom, and my brother would probably talk about. Like, not include my dad in it. But I... Yeah.

And I can like kind of think of one, but I'm also like, well, I could just ask my mom about it though. So it's not like the thing that like no one ever talks about. Yeah. And then, I mean, I just think my family, I mean, unfortunately, and this just happens sometimes was just plagued by a lot of death for just a very brief period of time. But like some astronomical amount of people, it was just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah. And, and,

But even that, it's like, yeah, my cousin was killed by a drunk driver, but that's not like, you know, I don't know. I think that there are some things that don't get talked about that happened before I was born. Yeah. With like my mom's one sister that no one talks to. Yeah. I won't put a family member's name on it, but just mine revolves around an attempted murder essentially inside the family.

I'll tell you after the show. I feel like you're lying to me. No, I'm not. I'm not. I've mentioned to you, but I don't want you to have like any like give it away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll be like, oh my God, that's right. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but my family. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Every family has its secrets. But then I was trying to think like, well, what would you, me, Kyler Monroe, like what would ours be? Yeah, I don't know. Currently, we don't have anything. I don't think. I mean, I guess that would be up to them. But I don't think. No. But yeah, because there's nothing that I wouldn't be comfortable talking about. Exactly. It's like divorce, sex, drugs, rock and roll. And I mean, you have a DUI. Like we've talked about that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's just nothing.

Yeah, there's no like dark secrets, but there, yeah, there's, I think there's like heavy stuff, but we still talk about it with the kids. Yeah. You know? Yeah, no, there's a couple things, actually a couple things in my family that like it wouldn't be, no one would want to talk about it. Yeah, yeah. It would just be met with like shame and just like why are you even bringing this up? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I guess everybody, I guess every family or every person probably has something that they're going to take to the grave. Mm-hmm. Aye, aye, aye.

Wow. Damn. Yes. Are you ready for me to tell you two not long stories? I am, but first I'm ready for you to talk about our live show. Okay.

Oh, okay. Well, I was going to do that as well. Okay. I have it right here in my notes. Thank you. Yeah. So just if you are finishing up your Halloween season and you just didn't get enough spoops, you can still pop on over to moment.co slash scaredtodeath and you can re-watch our live show that we did on the 26th. Totally. We're recording ahead of time, so it always feels a little like...

When were we doing that? At least go over to see our picture. I will say this. I am one of those people, I don't like pictures of myself. Almost never. I love this picture of us. I also feel that way about myself. I don't...

I mean, I'm never like, oh God, that's a terrible picture. I just am very like, I don't care. I don't care if you get a great picture of me. I don't care if someone gets a bad picture. I'm very like, whatever, who cares? I just don't have that about me. That photo is so good. It captures us. Yeah. It really captures us. So, you know, even if you don't want to watch the show, just check out our little picture. Is there a new headshot? Yeah. Yeah. That's cute.

All right. And now. And now. So I paired these stories together because I feel that they lend credibility to one another and they both had me scratching my head about what is possible. Okay. And more importantly, it had me wondering if the other side intervenes in our world too.

more than we know. Like creepy, but in a totally different way. Okay. All right. Do you have your Layla? I do. I do. I'm going to go with a little red Layla. Great. I just let out a good burp. So I feel ready to, you know, I feel ready to tell a story. Here we go. Hail Nimrod is how this one begins. I didn't really know how to tell my story. I worked on it for weeks and I finally got the courage to send it in. I hope it touches you like it did me.

It was the summer of 1989 and I was nine years old. My family and I moved from Fort Worth to a super tiny Texas town, a town where everyone went to the same grocery store, the same gas station, and the same church. A town where if you farted, everyone would know.

Mm-hmm.

We lived on a dusty country road that was about 10 miles long. There were five houses spread out a few miles apart along the road. Each one was built in around the 1950s with no central air conditioning, making the summers brutal at best. All of the houses had wraparound porches and each was painted a different but bright color. We lived in the greenhouses.

While my dad was on the road, my stepmom and I seemed to constantly argue. She was trying to be my mom, and I was not having it. I would get so frustrated and angry with her. How dare she think she could just up and change my life? I was an angry kid who wanted to be with her mom and friends back in Fort Worth. I'd often go for long rides on my bicycle up and down the dirt road to let off some steam.

One afternoon while out riding, I came upon a yellow house, just like my bright green one. The paint had faded though, and it was now a pale beige color. The roof was falling down. The chimney had collapsed inside the home. The windows were busted out of the house. The trees seemed to be growing up through the house and the wraparound porches railings were missing. Hello there. You look flustered little one. Come sit for a bit. I heard a soft female voice say,

The voice startled me. I scanned the front of the house, and there, in the corner of the porch, sitting on a swing, was a woman in a long blue dress. I instantly felt a sense of calm wash over me. It had been a long time since I'd felt that way. "'Come, come, little one,' she said with a smile, patting the seat next to her on the swing. "'I can give you a glass of tea, if you like.'

Thinking, who is this sweet lady living in this horrible worn down house? I parked my bike at the front steps. Some of the steps were missing. Some were warped from the excessive Texas heat. The white paint that once coated the steps was faded and flaking. Oh, don't mind the steps, dear. My husband will fix them when he gets home tonight.

I climbed the steps and sat down next to the lady. Missing my mom in Fort Worth, she seemed to be a sweet mommy figure. Maybe she knew of some local kids I could play with.

The lady was the definition of beauty. Perfect, soft smile, deep brown eyes that reminded me of those chocolate kisses that my daddy liked. Her brown hair pinned up in the most perfect curls. And we talked for hours. I told her how I hated my dad for forcing me to leave my mom, my friends, and my school. And how I hated my stepmom for thinking it was okay to act like she was my mom and how I wish I had friends to play with.

Her name was Valerie, and her husband was Joe. Joe was a county fireman, and her dad was Rusty, a cattle ranger who lived north of our county. And her mom was the winner of Miss North Texas Beauty Pageant. Her life seemed so magical to me.

We talked about anything and everything. She was so easy to talk to, and it all came so naturally. It was like she was my mother, always smiling, always willing to spend time with me. And the more I talked with her, the more I wished I'd grow up and be just as beautiful as she was inside and out.

As the summer dragged on, I visited Mrs. Valerie as often as I could. In fact, she became part of my daily routine. After my chores were done, I pedaled as fast as I could to the pale yellow house. I knew this wouldn't last forever as I would soon be starting my new school.

And then everything took a turn for the worst. One fall day after school, I went to visit Mrs. Valerie, but her house was gone. What I found in place of her house was a pile of wooden boards stacked higher than I was tall. I immediately assumed the worst. Valerie, Valerie, Valerie! I screamed, where are you? Scream so I can hear you!

I yelled so hard my voice cracked. I began moving the wooded pile as quickly as I could, trying to find my friend. I had a strong feeling in the pit of my stomach that she was already gone. I felt relief when I saw old man Jones, who lived in the red house further down the road, walking down Mrs. Valerie's drive. He can help me find Valerie, I thought. Hey, aren't you that little one that moved into the greenhouse?

Yes, I replied tearful through sobs. What are you doing over here? You're going to hurt yourself, the old man said with a sigh. I'm looking for Valerie. Her house collapsed and she's trapped, I cried. Old man Jones took a deep breath and got as low to the ground as he could and looked me straight in the eyes. Dear, he said, do you see her too? It's okay if you do. We all do.

Confused, I simply replied yes. Jones took a deep breath, stood up, looking at the pile of the wood. Mrs. Valerie died years ago. Come, little one, let me take you home.

And with that, he walked me home. As we approached my driveway, I saw the red, long-nosed Peterbilt. This meant my dad was home. What a day to come home, I thought. Jones walked me to my door and knocked. My dad answered the door, took one look at my tear-stained face, and hung his head, saying, "'What has my daughter done today, sir?' "'Oh, nothing terrible, sir. My name is Jones. I live in the red house down the road. I reckon you and I should have a talk.'

Dad agreed, but seemed more confused than I was. I was sent to my room while my dad stepped outside. My dad finally came to my room after what felt like hours of talking to Jones. He was pale, eyes wide open, and I could tell he had been crying. My dad sat on my bed and said, I don't know how to tell you this, so I'm just going to tell you what Jones said. And that's when I learned the story.

Valerie would sit on her swing every night waiting for Joe to come home from firefighting. One summer night in 1982, seven years before we moved into the neighborhood, a wildfire was threatening a cattle ranch north of the county. The same cattle ranch Valerie's dad owned. Joe fought the good fight and trying to put out the flames. But sadly, the fire took Joe's life. It destroyed the cattle ranch as well.

Valerie's dad died a few days later of a heart attack from the stress of losing his livelihood and the guilt that he was somehow responsible for his son-in-law's death.

A day after Valerie's father's funeral, Valerie hung herself on the front porch. Her home was later destroyed on the one-year anniversary of her death by a tornado. How is this possible? I saw her. I talked to her. I sat next to her. Although I did realize later on I had never touched her.

I now have my own home with a wraparound porch and my own swing. I sit there most nights drinking a glass of tea, remembering my friend Valerie. To this day, I still miss her, but I am forever grateful for her. She made a tough part of my life much more bearable. Tina. Thanks, Tina. I know. I know. Poor Valerie. She seemed like a happy ghost. I know. But like, so, like, I just...

I just don't understand how this happens. You know, like this child, Tina, like riding her bicycle up and down this road day after day, very much not only sees a house, but climbs the stairs, sits on the porch. Like that house isn't fucking there. I don't understand that.

It's a little glitch in the matrix. I guess, but then Jones says he sees her too. Mm-hmm. So she was what, like a neighborhood ghost? Like do other people, what I would want to know is do other people see the house in its original form? Oh, uh-huh, in addition to her? Yeah, because it's one thing to like see her maybe like roaming around this vacant lot now or this wood pile that used to be her home. Okay, so.

Yeah, it is fascinating when there's like physical interactions. You know, and I was thinking about like how unusual like stepping up, walking up some steps would be. But I guess really if you're thinking about like physics, that's no weirder than a ghost touching you. You know, like you shouldn't feel something that doesn't exist or that isn't part of like our world interact in a physical way with you. Push you, touch you. But this ghost, she specifically says that she never touched Miss Valerie. Right, right, right. Not saying she did. Oh, okay. I'm just saying like,

That really isn't that different than like stepping, sitting in a chair that isn't there, walking up steps that aren't there. I guess for me where I bump on that is what's different is a ghost touching you versus you touching something. It's like...

I don't know, like climbing up a set of stairs feels very different to me, like interacting with that large of an object as opposed to just like maybe feeling something brush your skin. Well, what about something like picking you up and throwing you, which has been like, you know, stories of that, claims of that, like being tossed around the room or just something picking up a plate and tossing it across like the room, you know, like any kind of moving object? Yeah.

It's like that thing is now interacting something invisible, something we can't see or something that is not like a flesh and blood living creature is touching something in our world and moving it around. And this is just the inverse of that. We are then as a flesh and blood creature moving things in their world or touching things in their world. Yeah, I guess I didn't think about it through that lens. It's more unusual. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Like for us to interact with their world. Mm-hmm. I don't know. But now you see the theme. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So now this- Yeah. That was good. That was good and creepy. Yeah. And it has a certain sweetness to it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because Valerie was nice. Yeah. Valerie was sweet and was looking out for Tina. So now we're going to explore another story in the same vein. But I don't know. My head hurt after this one. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Hi, all you crazy spoopy peeps, and hello to Dan and Lindsay. This story is a different type of spoop. Something happened the other day that I can't explain. This story has been in effect for seven years. However, the ending occurs on 4-27-24. So, April 27th of this year. Time now for the tale of my best friend, Eleanor Fletcher.

Seven years ago, I was fresh out of high school, living in a small city in northern Utah. I was living in the shittiest unit in the whole apartment complex with an even shittier boyfriend, working at a shitty job, selling the shittiest internet ever known to man. It was the shittiest of the shits. Ha ha ha.

Yeah.

The bus that would have been the most convenient for me to take was a block away from my apartment. However, it generally wasn't running when I went to and from work. Instead, I had to walk about 20 minutes to a different bus stop.

No big deal. I'd slap in some earbuds and get my Chevro-legs running. The first night taking the bus home to that apartment, I noticed a cute little log cabin surrounded by overgrown plants about three houses down from my apartment complex. It was tucked back on the property, so you almost couldn't see it at first. The overgrowth of plants were well-maintained, and it made it look like it was out of a fairy tale.

Vines growing up the side of the home, trees and shrubs all around, and beautiful yellow and pink flowers of all types were scattered throughout the plants. The log cabin was older, but you could tell it was a well-loved home. My favorite part was the wraparound porch. I couldn't help but take in the beautiful sights and smells of the home. As I walked past, I heard a gentle, older voice behind me, "'Hello! I haven't seen you around before!'

An older woman who looked to be about 90 with bright gray curly hair and the prettiest blue eyes was standing there. She looked like she would be the type of grandma that everyone loved. One that would bake all sorts of goodies. She had on an apron and some gloves and was gardening alongside the cabin.

I smiled a sweet grin before responding back to her. Hi, yeah, just moved in. I live in the apartment up the street. Your home is really beautiful. The name's Eleanor. Nice to meet you. She paused briefly to smile back at me. My husband built our home in 1945. He made sure I got my dream home. And then her voice trailed off.

If you ever need anything, sweetie, you know where to find me. I know everyone in town. Hopefully I'll see you soon. Eleanor smiled, turned, and walked inside. After that encounter with Eleanor, every few days I would catch her outside. We'd sit and chat before I made my way home. After about a month, Eleanor started waiting outside on her porch for me. She would ask about my day, offer me some of the delicious food she had made that day, and so on.

She always offered for me to come inside her beautiful home, but it never seemed to line up with my availability. Until one night, I was walking home with my roommate. And as we were walking, I told my roommate about Eleanor and how every day she would be on her porch waiting for me.

Without fail, there was Eleanor. She ran over to us like a kid on Christmas morning, snickerdoodle cookies in hand. I wondered when you'd come. It feels like it's been forever since I've seen you. She giggled a bit. Who's your friend here?

I introduced my roommate to Eleanor. At this point in my relationship with Eleanor, we would often talk for up to 40 minutes in her front yard. And today was no different. Oh, won't you ladies come in? I can make you a lovely dinner. My roommate and I agreed. Eleanor made us the most bomb soup I've ever tasted in my life. I mean, that woman could cook.

Her house was even more beautiful on the inside. It looked like a cabin you'd see in the movies, like super cozy with dim lighting with most of the light coming from the windows. Eleanor gave us a tour of her home, and along the way, there were pictures hung up on every square inch of her home. All family pictures. Three kids, a man, and a woman that looked just like Eleanor. Eleanor, is this your family? I asked. With glistening eyes and a bright smile, she said, ugh.

That's my favorite picture of us. That's my husband Jeremy and my three kids, Ellie, Evelyn, and Elijah. Jeremy was older than I and was previously married and, you know, sometimes having an older man is a good thing, she chuckled softly, then paused, taking a big breath. Shortly after my husband built our home, our kids passed away from a sickness that had been going around. We tried for more, but it just wasn't in our plans, I guess, she said and took another deep breath.

I lost Jeremy about a month before you met me. I started focusing on my garden more. I see him in my garden all the time. All of the pretty colors and smells. It's like he's right there, cheering me on still. I keep this home looking beautiful for him. I know he would hate to see it go downhill.

My roommate and I stayed at Eleanor's house for several hours while she shared with us amazing stories of her life with Jeremy. She gave us advice about our own lives and cracked jokes about the hard times. We had to fight her to let us go home. But after another hour of chatting, she sent us on our way, snickerdoodle cookies in hand and a promise to come back and see her. And that's how it was for the following year. Eleanor waiting to chat with me every day as I walked home.

And then life got hard for me. You know that shitty boyfriend that I mentioned earlier? Well, he wasn't exactly the nicest guy. I'll spare you the major details, but I was often left with bruises, cuts, and marks. It was a very, very nasty situation. I was scared to leave, which left me making excuses to stay with him. And despite my best efforts to cover up the physical trauma he gave me, Eleanor noticed.

And then one day, I was walking to work. I had a gigantic bruise on my left eye. I normally didn't see Eleanor in the mornings, and my plan was to cover the bruise with makeup on my bus ride. But as I was walking past her house, Eleanor was outside, looking rather heartbroken. Are you going to tell me what happened? I stayed silent, continuing to walk past. Sweetheart, come in. We got to get the swelling down. Eleanor, I have to go to work. I can't.

She grabbed my arm so tightly, looking me in the eyes with an intense stare. Works for losers. You're coming with me. I could never say no to Eleanor. Inside, she made some sort of concoction and was spreading the salve around my eye while applying a cold compress. After a long 30 minutes of silence, Eleanor finally spoke. You deserve better, sweetheart. I know it's hard to see that right now, but you deserve to be happy. And you certainly deserve not to be beaten.

I stayed silent while she lectured me. You need to get out of that relationship before something worse happens. And I promise you, you will find true love. You will find a sincere and loving man like my Jeremy. I spent the next 16 hours with Eleanor. She helped me get the swelling down, continued to lecture me about deserving better and leaving my abusive boyfriend. But she also gave me the courage and the support to actually do it. She even offered to let me come live with her if things went south.

And that night, I left my boyfriend. I left and I never went back. I took a few bags and I went to Eleanor's. I stayed with her for a while until I moved on to bigger and better things. I ended up moving a couple hours away, so I wasn't able to meet with Eleanor regularly, but I did keep her phone number.

And just like Eleanor had said, I would find a man like her, Jeremy. I met my fiance shortly after I left town. Guess what his name is? Jeremy. He's the most amazing man I've ever been with. The other day, I was telling my fiance about Eleanor and how amazing she was. And then I wanted him to meet her. So we planned a trip back to my old town to see her.

I looked

I looked for her obituary everywhere. Nothing. Nothing in the news about her either. I wrote to the local Facebook groups about her. I talked with locals around town about her. And no one had ever heard of an Eleanor Fletcher.

Whenever I shared Eleanor's address with someone, they said it never existed. I spoke to a woman who lived in the house down the street for decades, and even she said this house never existed, and she had never heard of a woman named Eleanor. Of course, this spun me in circles. I looked Eleanor up on people finder searches and every website of the sort you can possibly imagine.

I never once saw any results for Eleanor. I've Googled the address. I've searched it on every website where you can view homes and streets. But no matter what I do, it's never, ever, ever there. And I mean it when I say I've checked everything. It's like she never existed.

As I spiraled over this, I reached out to my old roommate. She told me she also remembered Eleanor vividly. She remembered going into her home, and now she too is questioning everything. So what the actual fuck, you guys? Surely I didn't imagine all of that. Was she my guardian angel? Was she a good ghost?

I don't know what to think. It's rather creepy knowing she never existed. She got me out of one of the toughest moments of my life and she cheered me on more than anyone else ever has. And I can't thank her enough for everything that she gave me. But was she ever really there? That's crazy the length of that. I know! And the interaction with the roommate. Right. And she fucking moved in! She moved in with Eleanor. That would be...

Yeah, that would be such, oh my God. Can you even? No, I can't even imagine. Because that would be such a mind fuck. I mean, okay, like her story specifically, you'd be so thankful that somebody, something, whatever, you know, was there for you, you know, for so long when you were going through such a terrible, terrible thing. Yes. And you have like this bond and stuff, and then they just vanish. So like you'd be thankful for all the help they gave you, but also for the rest of your life, like where are you, Eleanor Fletcher? I know.

the, the like part of my brain that just only wants to focus on, uh, reality as a possibility. Like, well, of course her house wasn't there. She was 90 when you met her and like, you were like, you moved in years and she was probably dead. Like, right. But it doesn't explain why the house couldn't be there. I know. And,

And I love that she really dug deep with the local Facebook group as well. That's such a smart move. If we wanted to know something about our neighborhood, it's like, I know exactly. I'm going to go talk to Paula across the street because she has lived there forever. But okay. Okay.

What if everyone was like, Lindsay, there is no Paula. I'd be like, what are you talking about? I know. It is such a crazy thing that way where I would be obsessed with like genealogical records. I'd be on Ancestry.com. You can pay an expert on Ancestry.com if you really want to get serious. Oh, I didn't know that. Like a genealogist to like really do some serious digging and like I need to try and find this person. Wow. Or I need to find, you know, like more of my relatives. Yeah. But I would go to that level with this because I'd be obsessed. I'm like, I need to know if Eleanor Fletcher is a real or was a real person.

And if no one could figure anything out, I mean, I guess with the roommate, if they also saw something, otherwise I'd just be like, oh, am I just nuts? I would just assume like I'm completely nuts. With the roommate, that's a really helpful addition to it. I know a friend of ours, her last name is Fletcher. So I texted her. I was like, I gotta tell you something. Must talk about this. Also Chevrolet eggs. Oh my God. Chevrolet eggs. That's so good.

I can't believe I've never heard that before. That's really clever. I want you to know that when I was reading it at first, I was like, what are they trying to say? Because reading it in your head as opposed to verbalizing it, I was like, oh.

Oh, Chevrolet. So I was looking, I was like, in my mind, I'm like, Chev, Chevro. What is she trying to say? Chevrolet. I know. I love it. Oh, my God. My brain is so slow. You said Chevrolet. I was thinking of Chevron, like the gas station. Oh, funny. That's why it was so hard for me. Yeah, yeah. No, immediately I was like, oh, a clever play on, you know, Chevy vehicles. Uh-huh. Well, I guess you're smarter than me.

Oh, it's okay. Our crossword battles would not suggest that. That's true. Well, I don't know. You've been doing really well lately. Just this last week. I think your record's probably still about like 80 to 10. That's true. I am pretty good at them. Do you want to do some Annabelle shoutouts? I do. I would like to thank the following Annabelles for supporting us on Patreon, helping us do donations, helping us have a great Halloween. Woohoo! All kinds of stuff. Jennifer Tinnen, Sarah Walker,

Kislin Stein, Stephanie Lesniewski, Husbeast. Husbeast. Oh, like husband. Husbeast. Nice. Okay. Now we're even.

You didn't get the Chevrolet legs and I didn't get the Husbeast. Oh, it's okay. Chris Stettler, Elena Welsh Johansson, Hannah Welch Johansson, Hansel Beeften, Brian Traylor, and Wanda Radmall. Nice. I would also like to thank the following animals for your continued support on Patreon, making our donations possible every month. Hannah Hosch, the ghost of Boone Helm, Mario,

Carter Knees, the Clappy Mom. I want to know about that. What's that about? Deadhead Hannah. Hell yeah. Deadhead. And Vanessa Robinson. And then the reason that I know Husbeast is because...

I have my spoopy shout outs. And the first one is to my motherfucking husbeast, Brian, from your motherfucking froggy wife, Pixie. Happy ninth anniversary. I'm glad I haven't scared you away yet. I love you so much, even if I don't say it often. Cute. To David from Casey. I love and miss you every day, dad. Please stop messing with my basement lights now. Wow. To Cora from Cora. Happy birthday, you badass.

To Austin and Jordan from Dylan, thank you for endeavoring on this spoopy journey with me. Now, hurry up and join the Patreon already so we have more episodes to talk about. That's a good endorsement. Thank you, Dylan. To Cassidy from Cassidy, happy birthday. You deserve a shout out for your 30th birthday even if you have to do it for yourself. Girl, if you want something done right, do it yourself.

To Chris from Kendra, happy anniversary. I love you more every day. And lastly, to Hayden from Kylie, happy birthday. You're the best husband anyone could ask for. I love you and thank you for introducing me to bad magic. Oh, thank you. So sweet.

and that's our show. Another Halloween episode in the books. Another Halloweeny. Another Halloweeny. Thanks for continuing to send in your personal tales of terror to my story. I have a question. Yeah. How come like Oscar Mayer, uh, I don't know, what are the other like, uh, Hebrew National, why is, Make a Halloweeny? Yeah, they are missing out. They could partner with like Oscar Mayer and they could have like Oscar, not Oscar Mayer, um, what's like a hot dog bun company? Hmm.

Who knows? I was going to think like- Franz, bakery. Franz is like locally, but like, you know, whatever. And it's like Wonder Bread. Okay. Okay. Why? What a beautiful combination that would be. You could have like orange dyed hot dog buns or black dyed buns. Yeah, maybe the bun would be good because if you started dyeing hot dogs- No, don't dye the hot dog. It would just blow people out. Yeah. But like, you know, you could do some cool stuff with packaging and- Yeah. Yeah.

Hook me up. I'm trying to like make this work in my head. And I'm just thinking about like little Halloween candies attached to hot dogs. And then all I can think about is how gross that would taste. Like, and I love hot dogs. But if you start adding candy to hot dogs, disgusting. Okay, wait, here's an idea. Like a hot dog colored like a corn dog? Not corn dog, corn. Candy corn. Yeah. Well, again, just on the bun. Because I think like a dyed hot dog, that's,

It's already like a questionable color, but hear me out. Our daughter loves an Auntie Ann's hot dog pretzel. Auntie Ann's, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what if they like just, what if you could buy like a kit that had like a little like costume kind of like toothpicky thing and you could like decorate that? I don't think anyone cares that much about hot dogs. Okay. I just want a Halloweeny. I'm clearly hungry. Okay.

Thanks again for continuing to send in your personal tales of dare, everybody, to mystoryatscaredtodeathpodcast.com. You can send in your Halloweeny suggestions. You can email us for everything else at infoatscaredtodeathpodcast.com. That's probably where you should send the Halloweeny suggestions. Send it to me. Send it to me. Come on. Thanks to Logan Keith scoring today's show. Thanks to Heather Rylander organizing the My Story emails. Thank you to book editor Drew Atana polishing and preparing listener stories for book number six. Thank you to Molly Box finding both stories I told this week.

We are on Facebook and Instagram where we post pics that accompany episodes and more at Scared to Death Podcasts. We have a private Facebook group full of fellow horror lovers. Creeps and Peepers is the name of the group. Big thanks to the All Seen Eyes, the Creeps and Peepers moderators. Thanks for making our online community such a fun and welcoming place for so many and giving people another good reason to enjoy Halloween. Enjoy your nightmares, Creeps and Peepers. Hope you were scared to death. Enjoy your Halloween-y.

If spirits threaten me in this place, fight water by water and fire by fire. Banish their souls into nothingness and remove their powers until the last trace. Let these evil beings bleed through time and space. Evil may pass through but have no home here within. Scared to death. Bad Magic Productions. Just check out our little picture. Is there a new headshot? Yeah. Yeah.

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No way.