Listener Tales 38 | Morbid

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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.

She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.

And let me tell you, it did. I've been listening to it while I walk, and I am absolutely loving it.

I love all the Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen.

Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. visit audible.com slash morbid.

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The sale ends 831. Don't miss it. Hey weirdos, I'm Ash.

And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid. Thank you.

Thank you. This is a Listener Tales episode.

Yay! It's for you guys. And we know that it's a little late, but here's your explanation.

Elena, take over. So sorry this episode came out a little late.

The week was kind of crazy with the live show and all that, and all the craziness.

Also, I happened to get the cold that Ash had a couple weeks ago.

It's like, I think it came from kindergarten.

It's been like a germ fest in here. I got that cold at kindergarten.

You sure did. With me, it went straight into a bronchitis kind of thing.

And so I literally couldn't talk. I sounded horrible. horrific Ashken vouch.

She did. It was rough. She sent me an audio message the other day and I was like, I don't think anybody should have to listen to you speak right now.

Yeah, I didn't want you guys... I know me.

I know if somebody is sick on a podcast and I can hear the sickness very intensely...

It kind of makes me feel sick. It's not enjoyable to listen to, and I didn't want to do that to you guys.

Especially the Listener Tales episode, because they're fun.

Yeah. But also, I mean, we had to push scream a little bit because of it.

I just could not. I could not speak, so I apologize, but I'd rather give you some good content that you want to hear rather than just pumping you out some content just to pump you out content.

And luckily you had content anyway because you got to see the live show.

The what? The virtual live show, which, by the way, is still available for purchase at momenthouse.com slash morbid until Thursday if you'd like to watch.

Ash is like, and salesman mode. Plug, plug, plug.

You know what, that live show was a lot of fun.

That was actually when I was on my last leg before I got six so i was really really happy that i was able to get the live show in because i was a downing lemon tea to try to make sure that i sounded at least a little okay during that can attest But again, so sorry that this is late.

It's just, you know, again, I'd rather give you content that you want to listen to and not just pump it out to you just to be like, here you go, whatever.

Quality versus quantity. Yeah, I don't want to make anyone gag with my voice sounding horrific.

But look, I'm okay now. I'm still, we're still not feeling great, but like, you know, we're here.

We're working hard. I had down some tea.

I have a humidifier in my room. Like doing all the things.

I took some Robitussin. Did you do my trick?

No, I didn't do your trick yet because that freaks me out.

Why? Because I don't like socks with like goopiness inside of them.

Oh. Ashley used to tell you her trick. Let's not explain the trick and just leave them to ponder.

Let's just leave that context completely untold.

I don't even know like where I heard this, but you rub Vicks on your feet and then you put socks on and you sleep. and you wake up and your chest is like a little bit more cleared than it would have been. several problems for me.

Like one, I don't understand how it works.

And that freaks me out too. I don't wear, I can't wear socks to bed.

So that's the thing. I don't like to. Wearing goopiness on my feet and then socks on top of it sounds like a torture. worse than death to me.

So it's like, I'm just Robitussin and a humidifier it is.

It's a lot to get past, but once you get past it, I swear it helps.

I can't do it. I can't do it, man. You should.

You'll feel better. I feel better right now.

Okay. But I just... I just wanted to tell you guys why this was a little late this week.

So we apologize. But now you're going to get like three episodes this week. so there you go we're just cramming them on in before Before we get to the listener tales, because I'm excited for them, I'm also excited.

To mention again, if you follow us on social or follow me on social, you may have seen that.

The UK is now going to be distributing The Butcher and the Wren.

And your bookstore over there, Waterstones. the good people there are actually going to be selling a bunch of signed copies of The Butcher and the Wren. which I am excited to sign all of those copies for you, but you have to go pre-order them.

So please do that. I'm going to get a clean link for you to tell you on air, but if you go to waterstones.com, it's a bookstore.

I'm sure you know that if you're over there, you're like, yeah, I know, Elena.

Thank you. and you just search The Butcher and The Wren and my name, it'll come up.

You can pre-order your signed copy. please do so because I'm going to sign a bunch of them and I want you all to have them instead of me just signing a bunch that are just going to sit in front of me and make me sad.

So please do that. I'm so excited. i'm gonna be working with penguin over there to get this out to you guys and they have been freaking amazing.

I have like the best people working around this book everywhere.

So that's very exciting. And if you are over here in the Americas, Gotta say it like that.

If you're in the Americas, remember you can go to tinyurl.com. slash The Butcher and the Wren to pre-order your pre-ordered copy and keep doing it because I want you all to read it and I'm excited about it.

So please do it. Pre-order, pre-order, pre-order. you know what so far billy jensen and aaron mankey like it they said so i like it so So there's my like, you know, experience that you can take from.

Cool, cool, cool. But yeah, I think that's all I have to plug to you.

I'm just going to keep plugging that book.

I'm sorry, everybody, but it took a long time and I'm excited about it.

Is your computer going to die? My computer's going to die.

So I'll pause to plug in my computer and then we will continue.

And it's plugged in. We are no longer dying, folks.

I plugged mine in too, just to be soffay.

You always gotta be soffay. Better saw fey than saw rye.

There you go. Better saw fey than saw rye.

You can tell it's a listener tales day because we're punchy.

All right, so the first one we're going to start with is called Crazy Ass Axe Murderer Made My Childhood Awesome.

A conundrum. I don't know what to say about that but I'm excited about it.

All right, biatches, let's start with the gush.

Absolutely love you. both and been binging on you constantly for longer than I can remember. i have one earphone in all day and feel like you two are just chilling with me telling me spoopy ass stories and making me belly laugh on the daily We all love this.

I absolutely love listener stories and always wished I had one.

I remembered this story and thought it might be slightly worthy as a listener. listener tale.

It's long and has many tangents, but I do hope you enjoy.

That's what listener tales are for, tangents.

That's what they're all about. So my name is Natasha.

Yes, you can use it so I can have a little booty jiggle and titty shake if you read this out.

My car's name is Natasha. I love you so much.

And I hail from Scotland. Yes. Insert Braveheart meme.

And if I had a penny for every time someone not from Scotland shouted free. freedom at me i'd be motherfucking bawling that must be really annoying yeah Specifically, I was born and spent my youngest few years in a town called Peterheed, if you want to say it with the right dialect, which I do, thank you for that. where it was once home to one of the most scary-ass high-profile prisons in Scotland, referred to as the Hate Factory.

Oh, whoa. It also happens to be the only place in mainland UK where the SAS had to be deployed against a domestic siege.

The sneaky beaky men in black elite section of the army who are probably trained to kill motherfuckers just by staring them down through the fucking haunting masks they wear, their beady eyes being all you can see if you're face to face with one of these real life Chuck Norris beading crazy Wow.

Anywho, let me set a more cheery scene. When I was a child, I had so many cuddly toys, it was definitely an unhealthy obsession with all things floppy.

It's so floppy, I'm gonna die. So fluffy I'm gonna die!

I don't remember how old I was when I owned this amazing four foot long cuddly toy whale.

It was possibly a dolphin a common heated debate in my house but I always thought it was a whale and it's my fucking story so it's a whale it's fucking whale it's a whale this whale became my favorite for a long time and during the period it was during this period it was the only method of traveling down the stairs.

Yes, I used to mount the back of that poor whale who probably just wanted to be with a family with... who would lovingly place it at the bottom of the bed for the rest of its peaceful days, and I would ride down the 20-something stairs from top to bottom.

That's everything. My jaw clattering and butt bouncing off each step as I went down.

God forbid I fell off the fucker. The stairs had carpet and you bet I had some mean fucking carpet. burn on my cute little soft-skinned six-year-old ass sometimes.

My grandfather was the one who had purchased the whale for me and we Would both laugh and shout at me for free willing down the staircase.

I love it. Another wee tangent for you. Just months after my mother was born, this crazy-ass axe murder I briefly mentioned in the title escaped from a psychiatric hospital for criminal insane folk and went on a murder rampage, killing three people and injuring many more.

Thomas McCulloch was originally sentenced to life in this hospital because he attempted to murder two hotel staff. because there wasn't enough butter on his bread roll.

What the actual fucking fuckity fuck. I don't even like butter on my bread roll.

He can have my butter before shit gets out of hand next time. after mcculloch was recaptured he was sentenced to life again but to serve at the hate factory See, I'm starting to join the pieces together now.

You got this. McCulloch was eventually moved from Peterhead Prison to spend the rest of his sentence in some other place in Dundee.

During his time in Peterheed, though, he spent 22 years in solitude.

Holy shit. Not only having his own cell, but his own entire corridor with cell kitchen facilities and bathroom. and a guard room that housed three guards 24 hours a day for this fucking axe-wielding monster.

He often teased the guards saying things like, do you know why there's three of you?

Because you know if there was two, I'd kill you.

It was reported that once an electrician was installing a panic alarm in the corridor for the guards.

And McCulloch snorted, by the time anyone reaches that, they'll be dead.

Yeah. Yikes. McCulloch was so fucking dangerous, he was not allowed to be housed with other prisoners.

Hence the 22 years of solitude. That's a lot of solitude.

That's almost my whole life of solitude.

On November 13th, 2022, four University of Idaho students were murdered.

Today, finally, the true story based on over 300 interviews.

In their own words, family members talk about their heartbreak and grief.

Students and townspeople describe that terrifying night.

Police detail the dramatic investigation and arrest of Brian Koberger.

You've never read a true crime like James Patterson and Vicki Ward's The Idaho Four.

The true story, it's finally here. Peter Heat Prison is now a museum where you can get a tour and learn about some of the history and the wonderful people it held.

My partner and I decided to visit in 2019.

At the very end of the tour, you are directed into McCulloch's corridor.

That must be so crazy. Yeah, so cool. The audio guide tells you about him, but never names him. just admitting that it was once home to the most dangerous man in Scotland at the time.

Upon looking into one of the rooms, my eyes started to widen.

My body filled with that warm fuzzy feeling of excitement.

What the fuck, Natasha? You're in a fucking prison.

She said it, I didn't. I had a good reason to feel this way though.

The room was filled with super soft looking, looky no touchy, it's a museum after all, Cuddly toys that I was dying to smoosh into my face.

The audio guide that explains that although this dangerous man had a severe hatred and psychotic tendencies towards adults, he seemed to approve of children i don't really love that the room with the soft toys had a desk and a sewing machine That's right, McCulloch's second weapon of choice was a sewing machine, and he made soft toys.

Who allowed that man a sewing machine? I'm stressed right now because I know where this is going.

In case you haven't tied my ramblings together yet, let me explain the sickness and fear that overcame me when on this tour.

The rarely lit light bulb in my brain flickered on.

My grandfather had never purchased the whale.

He was a prison guard at Peterheide Prison for many years, And it was given to him by this butter loving, axe wielding, crazy ass motherfucker.

Suddenly my childhood memories of my ginormous soft safes. steed that efficiently took me down the stairs was ruined. albeit very small.

That's my connection to the most dangerous man in Scotland.

But there's one last scary thing to tell you.

Just two weeks after our museum visit, McCulloch himself visited.

Uh-huh. You read that right. McCulloch was released in 2013 and walks among the population of Scotland and he has visited the museum at least three times in an eerie way of reliving his past life.

Fuck me. Stay weird. Not so weird that your favorite cuddly toy not only becomes your method of transportation, but it was also made by the most dangerous man in Scotland who just wanted more fucking butter.

I did not see where that was going. Natasha.

Holy shit. That was nuts. Your favorite toy. as a child, was made by the most dangerous man in Scotland.

Who else can say that? And I love, you wrote, albeit a small connection.

That's a huge connection. I would use, I would be screaming that to everybody I knew.

That man's hand stuffed your whale. That's sounds horrible.

But it is like, whoa. I mean, at least he was, you know, trying to put something good into society.

Oh, that's a lot. That was a lot, Natasha.

That was insane. That's crazy. All right, my next one is called Yeet This Man Out of Boston.

That's for you, a yeet. Yeah, it is. Hey, Ash and Alayna, attached is my listener tale titled, Yeet!

This Man Outta Boston. for good reason.

Double-spaced Putifo with 14-point font to make your life easier.

Look at you guys. I love that 14 point font.

Hello, you beautiful humans. I love you and your podcast.

I've been listening since the early days.

Shush, you were still great back then, even though you've grown so much i love you thank you i was not that great back then i especially love the listener tales as they are a nice palate cleanser between the harrowing Howling.

We had this discussion the other day. Sorry to already break into your tale.

Sometimes I randomly just have an accent that's like... like somewhat european yeah i was gonna say it's not a boston accent like you don't have have a boston accent really i randomly go into like a british accent or like some kind of european And I explained to Elena and our friend Mikey the other day that I think it's because old souls live inside of me.

Let me just tell you, she said that with such casual, like she was like, well, I just think it's like all the old souls that live. inside of me."

Like, that was a very normal thing to say, that old souls are living inside of her and just come out sometimes. that was patricia yeah no i'm kidding a harrowing harrowing tale um i especially love the listener tales as they are a nice palette cleanser between the harrowing tales you two are brave enough to research and tell i wish you could do listener tales every week hmm maybe we could maybe we will but having them sporadically clueless reference everyone love it Makes them all the sweeter.

I never thought I had something to submit for these episodes.

Probably a good thing until recently. This is an unconventional story because although nothing happened directly to me or anyone I know, It's a reminder that something can happen at any moment.

My name is Melissa. Yes, you can use it.

Melissa! I will absolutely shit my pants if you read this on your podcast.

Get a new pair of pants. Oh my god, I was gonna say that.

Although that isn't much different from any other day.

You shit your pants a lot, honestly. I have IBS, so I get it.

Side note, that's unrelated and you don't have to read, but I know you will anyway.

You gave me permission. On my third or fourth date with my boyfriend, I shit my pants in front of him because I was having a panic attack about how much I liked him.

He handled it like a champ and we've been together almost a year.

I love that. I once shit my pants in front of Drew because I literally have IBS and there was not a bathroom in a close proximity and I actually shat myself.

But we were about four years into the relationship.

Ash is just, she's going to let you know.

Yeah, you know, it's good to be transparant.

She's with you. It's all the old souls that live inside of me.

Solidarity. Brotherhood. that was before we got engaged too so he must really like me there you go i live in boston in the city but we do too oh my god in the city, but right on the edge of the suburb where I live is part of a neighborhood that mostly contains college students and young adults.

I'm like trying to think. I know, I'm like, where do you live?

Trying to track you down, Melissa. I love it because it's quiet and I can see trees out my window, but I'm also a short T word.

T ride away from the hustle and bustle for all you non mass holes.

The T is public transportation and train form here in the beam. the bean the bean because it's mostly young people around and rich families and the burbs i just like shortened that for you It doesn't bother anyone in my building that our front door doesn't lock.

Oh, that bothers me. That bothers me, man.

We all have locks on our apartment doors, but the main door into the front is always open.

No. My roommates and I occasionally will leave our apartment door unlocked as well since we're in and out all day and someone is usually home.

That's why you should lock the door if someone's home.

Lock it! We always lock it at night, though.

We also don't bother with locking our windows.

Melissa, have you listened to the podcast?

Since we're on the second floor and it would be difficult but probably not impossible to get into our apartment through an open window.

Did you listen to any of these stories? Need I remind you that the Lindbergh baby was taken from like a not first story window and they used like a... shitty old ladder to get up there and just snatch that baby out of bed.

My goodness. So somebody will do it if they want to get to you.

Lock your windows. It's so easy, too. Just lock your window.

I'm worried for you. Me, too. Another side note, attached is a photo of our cats because they're cute.

They are cute. They like to sit on the windowsills of open windows and look over their kingdom.

I'd like to think they'd guard us from the disgusting human mentioned below.

I don't know. They probably won't. Here's the thing.

I'm a dog person, but I love Ashes cats.

My cats are the best. They're my boys. But-

I can say with 100% certainty, they are not going to protect you or guard you from anybody.

If a band walks into my house, Lux darts under the couch faster than I've seen track stars run.

Yeah, they will protect you. But like they're really cute.

Yeah. And I get it. But like even some dogs won't.

So it's like, you really just gotta, you gotta lock those windows.

You gotta lock those doors, man. Please.

I'm very worried for you, Melissa. We're asking you. you and as your friends we are telling you lock your windows in all of the above Oh, I just read ahead and it seems we could have saved you a scold.

Recent news had us checking all our doors and windows and locking the door all the time. now.

You know what, Melissa, I knew it right from the beginning that you were like a very smart person and I knew you were going to do this.

So I had faith in you. I really did. there have been there there there's there's another old soul coming through oh hey girl Just kidding.

People are gonna be like, are you all right?

Like, has Ash had enough sleep? No. The answer is no.

Nah. there have been reports of a peeping tom in my neighborhood entering apartments and watching people sleep i hate this So much, yes.

I saw that actually on the news the other day.

I was going to say, I'm pretty sure this was on the news.

It was. That makes me nervous. Yeah, it's like really creepy.

I'm in several Facebook groups for my neighborhood and women have posted that they've woken up in the middle of the night and this man was watching them sleep in their oh no no creepy upon hearing this and reading as much as i could about the events as of this writing this man has not been caught but they do have a sketch out they do My illusion of safety has disappeared.

The first night I heard about it, I almost emailed my landlord demanding for a lock on the front door.

I probably still should. Do it. I'll do it for you.

You want me to do it for you? Um, honestly, that's like probably required.

Yeah, and honestly, like, I'll be your, like, angry... like pseudo mom.

Because trust me, I don't have a problem yelling at people and making them do things.

So if you want. By all means, ask me to do it.

Give me the information. I'll call your landlord.

Yeah, someone was blocking me. that shit done someone was blocking our way like out of our street today and elena was like excuse me yeah you gotta get you gotta like just get the shit done you gotta move shit along i'll Don't worry about it.

She will. She's helped me many a time. I'm pretty sure each of us of us has gone around the house and checked each window to make sure they're still locked and we always lock the apartment door now.

My bedroom is directly over the building's front door and next to our front door, so I can hear every time someone comes or goes.

It's truly terrifying to think that someone could just walk in the door and violate our privacy in such a disgusting way. and i can't imagine the overwhelming feeling of helplessness the victims feel when they see him oh my god that'd be so scary i know I listened to enough true crime to wonder if this guy might escalate.

That was my first thought when I saw this. which adds an extra layer to my fear.

It's a chilling reminder that anyone can be a victim at any time, and it's important to watch your backs. because evil can lurk anywhere.

This is a good... PSA. It is. And that's so funny or like so ironic that you said that because I watched that on the news the other day.

And the girl said she woke up and screamed at him and he just ran out of the apartment.

And I was like, how many more times is he going to do this and then escalate to something different? different that's the thing not like I think it was um I read something where Paul Holes was talking about it actually and he was saying that like they rarely stop at that.

That's always the beginning of something. something way worse.

And that's why these guys need to be caught in that stage.

I mean, the Golden State Killer. Joseph D'Angelo, he was doing that.

So it's like, we really got to be careful here.

And we're not trying to like scare the shit out of you, but like...

But we are to a degree. But it's scary. And I'm sorry that you're so close to it.

Like, we're far enough out that it's even scary out here.

But it's like... when you're really near the city, that's a scary thing.

It is very scary. So, I feel bad that you guys are having to go through that and that you're living in an apartment where you don't have a ton of control over what... is happening to the building as a whole.

I know that because that can be frustrating because that's scary.

So I feel you make sure you're locking all those windows and doors.

If I'm trying to think of different things that I could tell you that work Door guardians.

If you are able to get door guardians and you can talk to your landlord about it because you have to like screw them into the door frame.

Yeah. But they might let you, especially when this is going on and they don't cause a bunch of damage or anything.

But door guardians, you can get them on Amazon.

They're just like an extra latch on the door and they are so secure.

I have them on every door in They're secure against like kicking in a door and stuff.

Like they won't be able to kick the door in easily at all.

And you have the right to add an extra lock onto your door in most places.

Yeah, so at least check it out. I mean, I'm not telling you to do it without asking, but like to find out.

And just like they, you know, on Amazon, you can get these little like motion alarms and shit.

Just if it makes you feel better. We used to do that in our old apartments when we couldn't get like a full ass alarm system, like SimpliSafe, which is awesome.

You can get a SimpliSafe if you're able to because everything that you put up is just with little stickies, so it won't cause any damage.

And that would actually be pretty good because they have those door sensors that you just stick up with stickies.

You can take them right off when you need to.

And they give you a little boop boop. when somebody opens the door or opens a window.

And you can also get a panic button which also you just hang it up with the sticky, so if you do wake up and somebody's there, you hit that motherfucking panic.

And let me just quickly say, this is not an ad.

This is not an ad in here. We're literally just telling you like.

I just want you to know that there's things you can do to maybe feel safer.

And there's like glass break sensors that just sit on your window sill and everything.

And you can use code more. I swear to you, this was not an ad.

I just want you to feel safe, you know? It's just good to feel safe and everybody deserves to.

I know. But yeah, Melissa, thank you for that, like telling everybody like you might feel safe, but like you still got to be on your own. on your toes and stay safe and just think about all that stuff.

Now, the next one I'm going to do is called...

Listener tale, Massachusetts girl with an Alabama murder tale.

We're doing a Massachusetts one and we didn't even mean to.

I know, right? All right. Hey, weirdos.

My name's Deja. Pronounced like deja vu without the fancy accents.

I love that name. Deja Sky. Fun fact, my mom actually got my name from the back of a tire flap that you often see behind tires of a truck.

But if you ask her, tell you... But if you ask her, tell you it's from a movie in the 90s, I don't believe her.

Insert eye roll emoji. I've been a listener for a while now and can honestly say you guys got me through some of my training while being in the military.

Badass. Seriously. So thanks a bunch. Thank you.

I was born and raised in Massachusetts and spent most of my life inside the Bridgewater Triangle and minutes away from the Taunton State Hospital.

Holy shit. Whoa. What's up, girlfriend?

While I wish this listener tale was a bit more lighthearted and filled with laughs and giggles, there may be a couple.

It is unfortunately what you guys would call a doozy.

I feel like I've used the word doozy so many times today, so this is just fitting.

It's a doozy. It is. When I was younger, I spent a few of my years in the grand state of Alabama.

Not really super grand, but still very pretty in some parts.

While in Alabama, I met someone who I considered one of my best friends for life. to the point where even when I did move back to Massachusetts, we still occasionally messaged each other just checking in.

Thanks, Facebook. Her name was Haley Danielle Green.

The most wonderful, amazing human who saved me from countless school bullies and accepted me as the book nerd. i was as we grew into our later teenage years our messages unfortunately became less frequent and kind of just dwindled to simple Facebook likes and comments on each other's life accomplishments and pictures.

Until it all changed. Oh, I like felt that in my stomach.

It was our senior year of high school in 2015 and we both just graduated and we're super excited to start our lives.

From what I could tell through simple posts and pictures, she was extremely excited to continue her super talented volleyball career. at one of the local colleges we grew up around.

I was extremely proud to say the least. Anywho.

It was July 6, 2015, and I was working at my local ice cream shop as I had every summer since I was 14.

This day, however, would be one that I wouldn't ever forget.

I just couldn't shake this feeling of dread and like something awful had happened.

Little did I know back home in our small town of Shelby, Alabama, something truly had.

A little background on Shelby. Everyone knew everyone.

We all went to the same elementary school before transitioning to the neighboring town of Columbiana.

Columbiana from both middle and high school, where everyone else knew everyone.

And Shelby, we were often referred to as Shelby's babies by the older generation.

Cute. Just shows how pure and tight knit this town really was.

That truly is like so pure sometimes. It is.

Okay, back to the case. My dad texted me at work that day, which he rarely did, and asked a simple question.

Have you heard from Haley? Which was weird, because it had been a few years since we consistently talked to each other.

I told him no, why? to which you replied, tell your boss you need to come home immediately.

Oh, man. My heart instantly dropped and I frantically ran to find my boss and went home immediately.

When I got home, he informed me that she had been reported missing and that I needed to at least try and get in touch with her.

Haley was the type of girl who also made sure to let someone know where she was going and checking in with her mom, cousins, and other friends consistently.

From my understanding, Haley was on her way to one of her preseason workouts at the college she would be attending when she just vanished.

No one had heard from her or seen her since that morning.

The missing posters were were posted all over social media, and even I was reaching out to friends and family in surrounding states. for them to be on the lookout for her and her red Mustang that she adored.

Reports stated that she had stopped at a gas station in Columbiana, and that was the last time anyone saw her alive.

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At the time, Haley had recently broken up with her boyfriend.

This piece of shit's name was Demarcus Means.

He had reportedly been an abusive prick towards her, and she had finally had enough.

But that's when he began stalking her. Somehow, someway, it is still unsure, he managed to kidnap her in her own car and brutally murdered her.

I wish I could say my tale ends here, and it probably could, but it wouldn't be right if everyone didn't know the trauma he added onto the dear friends. family and family for weeks until the truth about what he did came out.

After he murdered Haley, he placed her body in an unclaimed part of the county we lived in.

He reportedly then continued to drive her car around the state until finally returning it to where he had left her body.

He then participated in the multiple searches that her family and the community had organized.

I'll let that sink in. Yes. That meant that while my dear friend's body was being overcome by nature and its animals, He knew exactly where she was the whole time and even had completed a search for her with Haley's father.

Imagine the pain you must feel knowing that your daughter's literal murderer was faking his concern alongside you. whilst helping you desperately search for your daughter.

That's so fucked. Haley's body was found on July 11th, almost a week after he had killed her, and he was named a person of interest in her death.

Demarcus immediately fled with the help of his mother, who was also a piece of shit.

Apparently he was on his way to Mexico as they caught him in Los Angeles at a bus station.

Obviously no one told them that bus stations have cameras.

Thank goodness. DeMarcus was arrested and charged with capital murder. which carries the death penalty in the state of Alabama.

While I am very much in the gray, area surrounding the topic of the death penalty, I truly believe that in this instance it was very much deserved.

DeMarcus attempted to apply for youthful offender status, which he could by law in the state.

However, it was denied. Haha, you fucking loser.

So he was charged as an adult. He also tried to have the trial moved to another county due to extensive publicity and fears he wouldn't get a fair trial, as everyone knows. knew our darling girl, Haley.

This was also denied. Again, fuck you. Ha ha, you fucking loser.

He then entered a plea of not guilty and reserved another special plea which could have allowed him time to plea not guilty by mental defect.

Word on the streets was that he would use an old head injury.

Insert eye roll emoji. Fortunately, once he realized he was facing the death penalty, he came to his senses and pled guilty, accepting a plea deal.

Haley's mother, Mrs. Miss Chevelle, had also agreed to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Rot in jail, you fucking loser. I am with you on that.

Seriously. Anyways, back to my wonderful, amazing friend.

Haley was the most kind-hearted human to ever grace this earth with the most radiant smile that could lift you up on even your worst days.

She adored her mom, dad, and siblings with everything she had in her heart.

Oh my god. Fuck yeah. She enjoyed everything a kid in the South enjoyed doing.

We spent countless days in the summer just riding go karts and four wheelers and swinging on my infamous tire swing for countless hours.

She always made the mile-long walk to her house well worth it, and I will forever cherish those memories.

Every time I go back home, I always make it a point to visit her mom and we're constantly in contact through Facebook.

I love her mom dearly, and to this day I know I can always call on Miss Chevelle.

Oh, my God. She's truly one of the strongest humans I've ever met in my life.

Some words from Ms. Chevelle will forever resonate with me.

Although you're not physically here with me, you're with me daily spiritually.

Your light shines so bright through each and every memory I have of you.

There was never a dull moment. I can't say that I don't hurt but our God knows best.

I know you're in a better place. A year ago today, I spoke with you and laid eyes on you for the last time.

Our God knows best. I'm guided by the force of God that's bigger than anything, which is where my strength comes from.

Rest well, my beautiful poo. Okay. Haley's memory forever lives on in all of our hearts, and I always make it a point to tell my son about his angel auntie in the sky.

Sorry, I honestly didn't think this would come out to being almost four pages long and also tend to ramble when I type.

I would have added shorten if need be, but let's be real, you guys wouldn't have.

No way. Anyways, I've attached a few articles regarding her disappearance in the subsequent trial along with a few pictures of my wonderful friend.

As always, keep it weird and take it away, Ash.

Oh, man. But not so weird that you're a terrible piece of shit who takes away somebody's best friend, daughter, and loved one.

And can I just say right now, Haley has that kind of smile.

Yup. Just that smile that you're like, that is a genuine fucking person right there.

Absolutely. Like, what a beautiful... And it's like, I love that her mom is still... like a mom to everybody i know me too like miss chevelle you're the you're fucking awesome Oh my God.

She called her poo. I'm like, oh, that's so sweet.

That like hurts my heart. Oh, you guys were so cute.

With that picture of the two of you. I was just looking at that.

Oh, man. That just like really. really got my heart.

So, Deja, I'm so sorry about your friend.

And rest in peace, Hayley. Miss Chevelle, you're an amazing lady.

Rest in peace, Haley. And I'm like feeling for her dad with like searching alongside that piece of shit.

I know. Oh, I'm so glad he's rotting in jail.

Thank goodness. Excuse me. Oh, thank you for sharing that, Deja.

That was a beautiful story. That really was.

You did your girl justice. You did. Okay, my next one is called Listener Tale.

One little ghost girl and one machete-wielding maniac.

Coming right up. All right. All right. My name's Tay.

Just like Tay, some people get real confused when they see that E.

And my husband's name is Gray. I'm obsessed.

Tay and Gray. I'm obsessed. I love. You can use our names.

All cool with us and all the other names are going to be changed.

You're the best. Before I start, I gotta do the whole spiel.

I binge the podcast hard, and once I caught up, I was constantly checking for the newest episode.

I'm also super excited for The Butcher and the Wren.

Thank you. It's so cool to see it coming out after hearing so many updates over the whole length of the podcast.

I love you guys and the dynamic y'all have.

Okay. let's get to the goodies within this double spaced put a phone hell yeah i love you guys i gotta cough hold up okay i'm back i did not cough at you also the way i said do you gotta cough Do you got a cough?

You sound like my youngest. i know right uh i lost my voice i have one story about a creepy little ghost girl And one story about how my relationship with my husband started with a machete-wielding maniac.

Let's go. What a meet-cute. So to start, my dad used to be in the military and was stationed in Germany when I was about a year old.

My mom, two cousins, and I moved after him and we stayed in various spaces over the next eight years.

As the years went on, only one of my older cousins stayed.

Her name was Big Sissy. She definitely was more of a sister figure at this point in my life, being she lived with me all my life and the fact that my other cousin, excuse me.

Yeah, and the fact that my other cousin's staying with us, G-Boy, called her sissy. because he actually was her sibling and I idolized him so his word was gospel to tiny me.

Anyway, the last place we lived in Germany was brand new housing, so obviously no ghosts in the houses, right?

No. Wrong. Hmm. This is still Europe and the land obviously had seen its share of history.

Each house basically has its own ghost and we would share our spooky stories with others living around us.

Obsessed. With the sleep still in my eight-year-old eyes, I didn't catch what was waiting for me at the base of the stairs right away oh hate this already when it did i stopped dead in my tracks There she was, a little girl who looked about my age, wore a long white nightgown, carried a teddy bear with a red ribbon around its neck, and oh yeah almost slipped my mind her torso was wrapped in barbed wire i'm leaving What?

Is this wrong turn? A what? I stood about halfway up the stairs and she looked at me, then turned to the living room and began walking toward our balcony. door which she promptly disappeared oh what is she hellraiser what is this i'm so scared Tiny me thought about how she was suddenly not thirsty anymore and quickly hightailed it back to the safety of my Hannah Montana bedspread. i see that right there i was just like i see you i feel you i love i am you I didn't see her any other time, but she had made herself known, so I sometimes thought about leaving my Bratz dolls out for her, you know, just in case she wanted to be a Okay, but was Chloe your favorite?

I'm obsessed. My older cousin, Big Sissy, did see her though.

Well, in a sense. Since I was still very little, I was known to pop by her or my parents' bedside and ask if I could sleep with them.

So this one night she felt a push against her arm to stir her awake, a classic move of mine when I wanted to know if I could get into her bed.

She responded with a sleepy, huh? To which she heard, could I sleep with you as a reply.

She scooched over and made room for me. She felt the bed sink with the pressure of a tiny body getting cozy next to her.

After which she went back to sleep. The next morning we were eating breakfast when she turned to me and said, you must have woke up pretty early.

You weren't there when I got up. to which I looked at her confused.

What are you talking about? And she said, when you came into my room to sleep, you had to have got up really early. i looked even more confused and looked back at her and said i wasn't even there i stayed at nicole's last night i just got back home a few minutes ago She looked capital S spooked.

She was pretty spiritual and immediately cleansed her room that day.

Oh, that little girl. I know. She said, can I sleep with you?

She just wanted to cuddle. That was the last time we saw her.

I'm not sure if my parents had any stories about her or if she had only made herself known to us.

Do we know what happened to her? I don't know.

It doesn't sound like it. Now onto the other side of my story.

Fast forward to senior year. I had my friend group over for a night of scary movies.

Yeah. The house we stayed in at the time was on a main street and my room had a bay window that faced the front yard and obviously the busy road.

At the time, my relationship with Gray was just getting going.

We had been talking for some time but we hadn't kissed or made anything official yet.

Isn't that just like the most exciting point in a relationship when you're like, oh, like we're going to kiss.

So cute. Throughout the movies, we kept seeing lights from cop cars and the blaring of sirens.

They just kept going. Every five minutes, it seemed, and it stopped our night early because my friends got really unsettled.

Gray stayed behind and ended up being the last one there until he said, well, it's getting late, I should leave, and I offered to walk him out.

When we went out there, there were more cop cars racing by and also a police helicopter overhead. with the big spotlight looking around the street next to us.

I told him to keep me updated on his way home.

He took this moment and underneath the thump thump thump of the helicopter blades as the perfect time for a kiss. my god i love it wow what a what a story what that is like what a move i love that what a move There's just like all this harrowing shit happening around you.

And he's just like, this is it. It's like an action movie.

It is. He's like, you're Mrs. Smith. Literally 10 minutes later.

Oh, wait, sorry. She says, Giddy, I ran back inside and he left to go home.

I can like feel the feeling. Literally 10 minutes later, my mom came into my room and goes, get away from the windows. and was rushed out of the room into the living room.

It had a much smaller window and our coach's pullout bed was set up.

I asked her what was going on and she just goes, The cops are out looking for a man who was caught looking into a teenage girl's room.

When he was confronted by her dad, the man started swinging a machete. at her dad what the fuck needless to say my mom made me stay in the living room with her that night until the next day when we learned more about the situation Thankfully, the father was not injured because he scared the guy away, and I'm pretty sure the cops were able to find the guy and his machete.

But yeah, those are my most worthy tales that I could think of.

My first ghost and my first kiss with my husband.

Thanks for reading and I hope it was enjoyable.

I'm, that was so much. That ghost girl with the barbed wire around her torso will forever live in my brain and in my psyche.

I need to know what that was about. I need to know her story.

I need history. I need all of it. And then I'm obsessed with you and your husband. gray and tay i'm obsessed with you that's so cute that is the cutest beginning to your relationship I've ever heard and also the most terrifying yeah but like what a great story yeah But I'm glad that that guy was caught because what the fuck?

A machete wielding man. A machete wielding man.

Man. All right, on to... On to the next next.

Listener Tales, Backwoods-ass gas station portal to hell.

Alright, let's go. Let's go. L-E-T-S-G-O.

Hello, my beloved weirdos. My name is Mari.

It's okay to use my name. Thank you. Yay.

And I absolutely adore your podcast. I absolutely adore you. you.

I also absolutely adore you. It has become one of my favorite go-to true crime spooky podcast and I get so excited when a new episode drops that I literally stop whatever I'm doing so I can listen to it.

I love you thank you that's amazing I stumbled across you guys by chance about a year ago when I was driving back home from a weekend out of town And it was love at first listen.

My very first episode with you guys was the Villisca Axe Murders.

That's some of my favorite ones. which just so happens to be one of my favorite unsolved mysteries of all time.

Which feels odd to say, considering it involves a whole family, including children getting brutally hacked to death.

But I digress. We get it. I was about to say that to myself when I said it.

I was like, I know it's weird. So you and I are one.

Anyway, I've been an avid listener ever since and thought I might share one of my own creepy tales with you guys.

Feel free to use it for a Listener Tales episode if you would like.

I just really feel the need to share this story because it was so fucking weird.

And I still have no explanation for it to this day.

We love those. I'm so excited. My favorite kind.

This happened about seven years ago, and like so many great horror stories, it started with a table. do a lot of horror stories start with the table that's my favorite opening to a listener tale It's like the Real Housewives of New Jersey.

It all started with the table. There you go.

My best friend had bought her first home. and found a dining room table on a resale website that she immediately fell in love with.

The seller lived in Waco, which is about a 2.5 to 3 hour drive from where we lived. but he was selling the table for such an incredible price, like the kind of price that makes you think someone was definitely sacrificed on top of that gorgeously polished wall. oak tabletop and their ghost is now attached to it that she felt she had to act on it i get it i get it Her dad told her he would drive up there with her to pick it up, but that he wouldn't be able to get a U-Haul to bring it back until later in the month.

Worried she would miss out on the table, she asked me if I would like to take a mini road trip with her up to Waco. so she could see the table for herself and go ahead and pay for it so no one else would snatch it up in the meantime. not willing to let my best friend traipse away to a stranger's house to look at a possibly cursed slash haunted table all alone, I agreed to go with her and even offered to drive us there that weekend.

You're a great friend. You are. That Saturday, we loaded up into my little green Kia Soul and hit the road.

Like two little hamsters. I love that from where we live Waco is almost a straight shot down the highway with only a little bit of weekend traffic we figured we'd make it there in no time About three hours later, we reached the seller's address and the table was just as beautiful in person as it was in photos.

My best friend loved it even more and paid cash for it right there, but asked the seller if he could hold onto it for another two-ish weeks so she could come back with her dad. to pick it up in the U-Haul.

The seller seemed fine with it, and with the table purchase accomplished, we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon wandering around Waco and spending some quality time together.

Later that evening, we found a place to have dinner and decided we would start the drive back after we finished.

It was a little before 8 o'clock when we started back, so that would have put us home at around 10.30, 11 o'clock. a fact which I even texted my mom to give her an ETA of when we should get back.

You're a good daughter too. The drive started off routine enough and we spent the first few miles alternating between talking and listening to the radio.

While heavily invested in whatever conversation we were having, I ended up missing the exit I needed and found myself driving in a direction I didn't recognize.

Happens to the best of us. Happens to me daily.

My best friend pulled out her phone and plugged in our address so we could be redirected But according to Google Maps, the route would bring us the right back home, just in a little bit more of a roundabout way.

This route also only added about half an hour to our time, so we didn't think much of it at the time and just kept driving.

In retrospect, I should have found it unnerving that we hadn't seen too many cars on the road since we started our journey. and those we did see were driving in the opposite direction away from us.

It seemed like we were the only car headed in that direction.

But in true horror movie fashion, my white girl senses were dulled to whatever fucked up potential Texas Chainsaw Massacre scenario. we might have found ourselves in and we kept driving.

It's like Cabin in the Woods. It truly is.

After about an hour or so on this road, I happened to glance down to see that we were almost out of gas.

I remember finding this pretty strange as I distinctly remember checking how much gas I had before we left Waco in case I needed to fill up to get us home.

Thinking there was either something wrong with the gauge or that I was simply misjudged the amount of gas I had, I figured we should stop at the next gas station we came across so I could top off the tank just to be sure.

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Take two. We drove for about another 10 to 15 miles before we came across a gas station.

And despite the fact that it looked like the front for a backroom meth lab, I had no choice but to stop because my gauge was sitting right on empty.

Think of the most rundown, grungy gas station you've ever seen, and then multiply it by like 10.

That's what this place looked like. I'm again thinking of Wrong Turn and the Pepto-Bismol Man.

Oh, there were only two pumps in the middle of the cracked weed covered parking lot and the store itself looked like it easily could have been the backdrop for an episode of Breaking Bad.

The windows were really hazy and looked like they were covered in either dust or grease, but I couldn't be sure.

No. I really am thinking about seeing that Pepto-Bismol swigging dude from Wrong Turn.

Just like one tooth right in the middle.

Or the guy from Urban Legend, the guy that she thinks is the killer.

Oh, I know. and he's just trying to help her out.

I managed to limp my poor sputtering car up to the pump and stepped up... and stepped out to run my car.

I can't speak. I can't speak. I managed to limp my poor sputtering car up to the pump. and stepped out to run my card and was immediately hit with this heavy, undeniable feeling of dread.

I can tell you right now, whenever you feel that, it is real.

Listen to it. There's no other way to explain it.

It felt like if fear and anxiety had a bastard love child and then baptized it with a healthy dose of absolute panic.

You're a poet. I've never heard that described better in my entire life.

Yeah, it felt like a fear and anxiety had a bastard love child and then baptized it with a healthy dose of absolute panic.

You've just given us a gift. I really thank you for that.

I'm going to write that one down and keep it in my pocket.

I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, but my best friend said she needed to use the restroom and And since we were still about an hour away from home, she hopped out of the car and wandered inside before I could stop her.

Oh no. Against every instinct I had telling me to run like hell, I followed her to make sure she would be okay.

Because you're a good... fucking friend i would have been like listen girl we're gonna pull over on the side of the highway and you're gonna pee like next to the guardrail Yeah, you're going to pee in a soda can and everything's going to be fine.

It's all going to be great. of the store was not much better.

I didn't think it would be. The shelves were lined with snacks And there was a big cooler in the back, but there was something about the way everything was set up that made me feel like it was just there for like, they were stage props. rather than actual products is this house of wax.

Oh, yeah. I remember looking at the shelf closest to me and I swear I saw cobwebs on the boxes of candy bars and beef jerky laid out on the shelf And all the candy bar wrappers had that dull bleached look they get when they've been sitting out for a very long time.

Disgusting. disgusting this is house of wax get out of there now there's an angry set of twins that's good that are gonna come get you gonna get you It's not good.

This place had seriously bad vibes and I didn't want to spend a second longer than we had to.

My friend wandered to the back to find the bathroom while I stayed at the front near the door in case we needed to book it out of there in a hurry, you might.

Now when I tell you the cashier behind the counter has haunted my dreams ever since that night, I mean it in every sense of the word.

I hesitate to call him a man because I'm honestly not sure what he was.

He didn't look like a man so much as something wearing a man's face and body. his hair was either white or very light blonde and his skin was very waxy and shiny and looked like it had been stretched way too tight across his body in some places while hanging so loose in sags and others.

I think this is House of Wax, guys. The best way I can describe it is the Edgar suit from Men in Black.

Oh, when we first walked in, he didn't really acknowledge us, but my second... the second my friend slipped into the back to find the restroom he looked up at me and smiled no I can't tell you what it was about his smile, but it immediately activated my fight or flight response and I could feel my adrenaline spike.

Oh, my God. The next paragraph opening. I cannot.

Oh, no. Ew. Teeth for me are just... His teeth were a dark, disgusting yellow.

And he smiled in a way that I can only describe as predatory.

No. Like when a great white shark sees a nice plump seal to have for lunch.

Gross. I think I smiled back out of reflex while internally running through the mental rolodex of all the things. all the ways to bug out before this man turned us into human furniture.

Yeah. Yes, you're thinking the right things.

Human furniture. This is Ed Gein, for sure.

He greeted me with something along the lines of, evening ladies no no but there was that was almost old greg i'm sorry old greg But there was something weird about the way his mouth moved when he spoke.

Almost like he was putting a lot of concentration into how each letter sounded as it came out.

It sounded more like evening light. Ladies.

Also the words didn't match the movement of his mouth, so it looked like he was speaking dubbed lines.

Is this man a robot? I have to go. Also, dubbed.

I hate that. Dubbed lines. I can't do it.

Not in real life, man. I saw one other person in the store standing towards the back near the coolers.

I guess it was another employee because he had a mop and was studiously mopping one section of the floor over and over again.

He was a stage prop as well. Guys, this is house of wax.

I have no idea what he was trying to mop up, but in the short time we were in that store, he never moved.

What did you say? Remains. Remains. That's exactly it.

He just kept mopping the same square of tile covered in remains.

The remains. behind the counter kept watching me with the most horrifically intense stare I've ever felt in my life.

And yes, you could feel it when he was staring at you.

It seemed like the more I tried to ignore him, the more he grinned and stared and made this rattly wheezing sound. that was somewhere between a laugh and a smoker's cough that's honestly where i'm at right now is it like At some point, he said something else, again with the words and mouth movement not matching up like a badly dubbed movie.

And all I got out of it was, it's light.

I'm feeling it's not. I feel like it's too late.

It's too late for all of us. I feel like it's... I gotta go.

I feel like it is late. Meanwhile, I just shit my actual pants.

I don't want to play this anymore. All right.

Cue me nearly shitting out my heart in pure terror.

And now absolutely convinced this man wants to wear my face as a hat. he does can assure you he does this guy 100% wants to wear your face as a hat.

I'm sorry to be the one to tell you. We wore a face beret.

There you go. Can you find it in a creepy gas station?

Is this Mari? He wore a Mari beret. It was her.

Face once, but it's not anymore. A few seconds later, my best friend came back from the restroom and I could tell immediately she was spooked.

Her eyes were wider than I'd ever seen them and she was pale and shaky like she was about to be sick.

I grabbed her by the arm and hauled ass out to the car, jumping in behind the wheel and locking the doors.

Almost immediately, both of our phones started blowing up with calls and text messages.

We were confused because we both had had dozens of missed calls and text messages, but we'd only been in the store for a few minutes.

My phone started ringing then, and when I answered, my mom was nearly sobbing and was frantically asking where we were and if everything was okay.

I told her everything was fine, leaving out the part about the weird-ass gas station.

And she told me she had been calling for the past two hours and getting nothing but a busy signal.

Two hours. I swear to you, we were not in that store for more than five minutes and I had my phone with me the entire time.

No. I need you to shut up because this is my worst fear.

Like a time slip. It's my worst fucking fear because then everybody's going to think you're a cuckoo nut man and they're not gonna believe you it's true and you're not a cuckoo nut man you're not i'm not i believe you I looked back at the gas station one more time and the cashier was now standing at the door with his face pressed against the glass just grinning at us.

Get away from me. It was a wide unhinged grin that absolutely did not fit on a human face.

And it scared the ever loving shit out of me.

Behind him, still backed by the coolers, the employee with the mop had cranked his head around to peer at us over his shoulder. grinning the same wide, horrific grin his coworker was.

I don't know how else to describe it, but it honestly looked like he had hyperextended or possibly even snapped his neck in an attempt to turn back to look at us without turning his body.

Oh, no. I burst into tears. Me too. And floored the gas, speeding out of there without a second thought.

Good. It wasn't until we had put about 20 miles between us and that gas station that my best friend finally told me what happened in the bathroom.

Oh, God. I don't want to know. She said she'd gone in and had immediately been overcome with this sickly sweet smell of wet Rotting food and bleach.

That was not food. Oh, she said the bathroom was small, only a toilet and a sink.

So she had no idea where the smell was coming from.

She said she could hear whispers and occasionally a quiet moan coming from somewhere.

But again, she didn't know where. She told me she was convinced it was coming from behind the mirror and was really creeped out that the glass might be two-way and that there was people watching her on the other side of the glass.

She said she went to the sink to wash her hands and saw something out of the corner of her eye in the trash can.

It was an orange pill bottle and it still looked like it was full.

So being the curious person she is and falling right into the stupid white girl horror trope, she picked it up.

Oh, no. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's where it friends see you next week I love you bye the pill bottle was full air to all right it was full I'm sorry I can't even read the pill bottle was full all right full of teeth no she said she wasn't sure if they were human or not but that based on the size and shape she was certain But they were teeth.

Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

The rest of the drive home was quiet and tense as we simultaneously cried and panicked about what just happened.

We talked about calling the police to report the teeth, if nothing else, but we had no idea how to explain where the gas station was.

We were sure as hell weren't going back to figure out the address.

When we finally made it back to town and I dropped her off at her dad's house, mind you, there was no way we were going home. home solo that night.

I drove straight over to my parents' house and made my mom stay up with me for the rest of the night.

My mom believed me when I told her what happened, but I think she still thought it was a late night hallucination of some kind.

A few weeks later, my best friend's dad drove back up to Waco to pick up the table.

And on the way back, decided to travel down the same route we'd taken that night after we both told them all the creepy shit that happened.

He did find the convenience store again, but he told us it had very clearly been closed or abandoned for a long time.

He saw flyers and newspapers on the windows that were dated back to several years earlier, and the gas pumps were rusted and locked.

He said the weird thing, though, was that there was a mop propped up against the door like someone had set it there just before he arrived.

What? Both my best friend and I have rattled our brains ever since trying to make sense of what happened that night, but we still don't know.

I can tell you what happened. That was a time slip.

Those were some dead dudes. That was some backwoods, scary.

Hills have I shit. They were about to take you home and turn you into a chaise lounge.

And I'm so glad it didn't. happen to you.

You ever heard of a little movie called Deliverance?

Ever heard about One Tooth? You ever heard about Sawtooth?

Sawtooth, that's One eye. One eye and saw tooth.

One eye and saw tooth. Go watch Wrong Turn. and you will know what was about to happen, my friend.

Oh man. All I can figure is that we stumbled upon some backwoods hell portal and entered a time slip in the process.

Yes, you did. We are on the same page here.

I don't have any answers. And I'm still a bit punchy about stopping at gas stations in the middle of the night now.

I do have other stories I can share with you lovely ladies, like the time I called the cops on a peacock when I was a kid because I thought a woman was being murdered.

Or the time a creepy shower ghost tried to sneak a peek at me when I was in college.

But none of those were quite as creepy slash traumatizing as this story.

Please send those. Either way, I do hope you both have a wonderful evening and stay weird, my darlings, but not so weird that you wander into a gas station hell portal in the middle of bumfuck nowhere with a grinning meat soup behind the counter watching your every move P.S.

I just pre-ordered The Butcher and the Wren and can't wait for it to come out.

Thanks, friend. Yay. PPS, that stupid ass table that got us into this whole mess broke after about six months after bringing it home.

I've never been so pissed at a piece of furniture in my entire life and would have happily turned it into firewood given the opportunity.

I don't blame you. Pictures for mental reference.

Oh my gosh. Me crying as I write this. And it's just a crying emoji.

And then pictures of the Edgar suit. And that's exactly how I pictured that.

Cashier is the Edgar suit from Men in Black.

He did so much. Oh, man. Mari. Mari. That was very intense.

You definitely entered a backwoods hell portal.

Congratulations on coming out of it. Yeah, honestly, congrats.

I'm so sorry that you have to live with those memories because I'm frightened for you.

I'm sad that I have to live with those memories now too.

But you know what? You made it out. And with that, I think we have time for one more.

Just making an extra long one. Let's do it.

Can we pause? Second moment is. Yeah. Awesome.

Oh, I feel such relief. Guys, it's, you know, it's like a TB ward in here.

It really is. I've been blowing my nose with paper towel also because it's just like in the pod lab and I'm a lazy piece of shit.

So my nose hurts now. But anyways. She blew his paper towel.

I did. This is real life. It is real life.

Maybe. Supposedly. Or a time slip from a backwoods hell portal.

I don't know. Don't you dare. I'm genuinely so scared to fall in a time slip.

Yeah. alex isn't i don't know if i can use the name so let's hope that i can let's hope i guess we'll go back if we can't yeah we will we'll just put a beep Oh, it says Putifa attached because Ash really likes that.

Oh man. I love you. Let me open this Putifa.

What is it called? I love the name of this.

It follows until it doesn't. A tale of mental illness and paranormal somethings were setting boundaries.

Keeps the Demons Away by Alex Black, my pseudonym for writing, blogging, feel free to use it.

And if you want to find their writings, it's A-L-I-X-X Black. ooh that just feels nice it's sexay it is sexay and I love the PDF attached because Ash really likes that I know thank you you guys are you're just great i also really like the greeting because it says greetings morbid mamas oh hell yeah As I am writing this, I don't really know if I'll ever send this.

You did. Spoiler alert. But if you're reading it, I did.

And that's wild. I wonder if you'll read this in the same way I would speak it if I were reading it aloud.

Okay. I hope so. Don't put pressure on me, Alex Black.

I hope so. I have two jobs. I'm a DCS service manager in a mental health facility and a content coordinator for a local magazine. that distributes to over 1500 homes in the area.

Look at you. Okay. Really, that second one is just a fancy way to say that I write and edit a non-fiction content every month. and have been for three years now.

Someday, if I'm ever so lucky, I might actually convert that job into a full time career.

But that's not why I'm writing today. You can do it.

I have faith in you. I started listening in October 2021 when I started working with the world's best coworker, Jess.

She'll know it's her because we listen together and talk about how far along I've gotten in the collection.

Shout out to Jess. When I started writing this email, I just finished episode 209 and Listener Tales 24.

I have a listener tales of my own and I finally think probably, maybe, possibly, perhaps.

It might be worth telling. I guess you'll be the judge of that if I ever did hit send because...

Let's start at the beginning, but not like the way beginning.

Just when I started experiencing things I couldn't explain and didn't have the words for.

And that's how I'm telling it too. Hopefully it helps you.

And anyone listening, if you read this for an episode, understand how it felt. me seven years old mom and dad were divorcing and i knew what that meant My mom always said I was too smart like my dad and every bit as logical as him too.

That's what made it so weird when I started having nightmares about Nutmeg Street.

This was a road we had to travel down to get to my grandparents' home to visit my dad.

Unfortunately, an addict, we only got to see him when he was with my grandparents.

I didn't mind. They lived on a lake with half a dozen neighbors and trees for half a mile or so around them.

Nutmeg was my favorite road to drive down because it was literally a tunnel of trees.

At least, it was my favorite until it wasn't.

I can't say where it began or if anything triggered it, but I started having suffocating nightmares that made me scared to drive down the road at night.

Every time I would close my eyes, they wouldn't close and there would be eyes lining the side of the road.

Ooh. Yellow. red, gold, orange. There would be hissing and whispers to get out of the car and come into the trees.

Eventually, it wouldn't happen just when I was bouncing around in the backseat to my mother's maniac and dangerous driving underneath the stars.

Yeah. Every time I blinked too long, eyes hissing, whispers.

It seemed to stop when I finally asked to start taking a different road to visit dad. oh okay sorry that sounded like i was judging you but i'm not okay okay Me, nine years old.

We moved three times since my parents divorced.

My mom remarried someone closer to my age than hers, and he was pretty good at first, I think.

My mom would take kids in randomly, but I always cared about them.

But I also had violent nightmares about them.

And everyone. One nightmare was about my younger brother being stripped naked and thrown into an overgrown field. by my parents oh god another nightmare was about my mom trying to kill me in a greenhouse Whoa, another, a little girl that was in our care, sinking to the bottom of a lake.

I could go on, alas. The trend is clear enough.

The kicker, though, was all these places were familiar. an overgrown field near Nutmeg Street, at the end of the road before turning down one of the numbered roads where cities stopped caring about what to call the streets. a greenhouse that shared a suspiciously similar floor plan to the apartment building across the street from ours, the lake,

Like the one my grandparents lived on? Oh, and there were always hissing and whispers.

Two years later, whatever fear was born in me was still there.

It was following me. The town of Agde in France is famous for sun, sand, sea and sex.

But lately, life on the coast has taken a strange turn.

The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption.

His wife claims he's been bewitched by a beautiful clairvoyant.

Then there's the mysterious phone calls that local people have been getting.

I am the Archangel Michael. The whole town has been thrown into chaos.

As the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, I would like to address you all.

Legal proceedings have been initiated. Join me, Anna Richardson, and journalist Leo Schick for The Mystic and the Mayor as we investigate a story of power, corruption, Binge all episodes of The Mystic and the Mare exclusively and ad-free right now on Wondery+.

Start your free trial in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or the Wondery app.

Me, 10, 11 years old. My cousin died. She was my best friend.

I left the hospital the night she died, promising I would come back in a day or two so I could sleep and shower at home three hours away.

But then we'd moved. Oh, excuse me. By then we'd move four or five, maybe six times.

I wasn't keeping count. I was being sexually harassed and assaulted daily by many of my neighbors.

So it wasn't the top priority in my mind.

I was in survival mode, anxious, scared, depressed, and now alone.

I had friends in the way that sad kids had friends.

These were people I was sad around and complained with, but my cousin was truly my other half. i'll never know if she felt the same way but i hear that we were inseparable i'm sure she felt the same way i know she did she died while celebrating her birthday a week later.

I could see her plot from my window. If I sprinted, I could be there in less than a minute, and my room was the one facing the graveyard.

My mom sent me to my grandmother's not knowing what to do with a kid that wouldn't sleep or stop crying.

When I came back though, I would fall asleep with my eyes open.

I would see and feel hands touching my pale bony, touching my face, pale bony and so cold it burned.

I could hear myself asking them to stop in my head, but I couldn't feel my mouth moving.

Sometimes there would be whispering when I would start crying.

Even when my mom eventually moved me to the bigger room on the other side of the unit facing the pond and parking lot, I would wake up to those hands shaking my closet door and taking my stuffed animals while I slept. years i never really knew when i was awake or when i was asleep everything was a nightmare and the garbled whispers were always trying to tell me something But like, are you Nancy from Nightmare on Elm Street?

What is going on? I literally think you might be.

I'm so stressed out for you right now. Me, 13 years old.

We were living in our first house in the dozen times we'd moved. i was excited because it was actually a pretty a pretty big place two bedrooms upstairs a shared walk-in closet and an attic for storage, all original hardwood floors.

Oh, chef's kiss. There were two bedrooms downstairs, a bathroom with lots of storage, a huge living room and dining room space, long ranch style kitchen.

And then there was the basement. And then there was a basement.

It smelled rotten no matter how many times we cleaned the floors. how many loads of laundry we did, or how many incense my hippie mama lit down there.

I see you, hippie mama. I was old enough to do laundry, so I had to help with my clothes and towels.

My mom was undiagnosed and unmedicated. so when she wasn't high from chain smoking blunt after blunt from stress and trauma she was usually yelling at me about just existing I'm so sorry.

I'm sorry. I was mad at her a lot, but I also just wanted to make it through the day.

Oh, that makes me sad. That makes my stomach hurt for you.

I just want to give you a hug. I know. It was harder when I had to go downstairs, which was a lot because I was always sent downstairs for everything.

When you walked down the seven green gray stone steps, there was a rectangular space where piles of ignored laundry and seasonal clothes were stored.

The floor was usually cold and damp despite there being a bone-dry drain. but there was an open doorway that led to an unlit square room that had a box-shaped hole in the wall.

There was a sort of dry, salty residue on the ledge, and I always said it was big enough for a small child to lay in it in the fetal position.

It was weird and it made me scared for my life whenever I had to go near it. point i had so much anxiety about the basement that i would cry just going into the kitchen because there was no door separating the kitchen from the basement Scarier than the basement though was the attic.

Just like before, I would have violent nightmares, but there was no knowing what nightmare it would be and how many times I would have it.

I fell into nightmare loops where I would get so scared in my sleep that I would wake up crying and thrashing, but I would pass out from physical exertion only to fall back into the exact same nightmare.

I just want to go back to these years for you and just like give you a hug and like lay down next to you like i want to like mama you like i just want want to be like it's okay like nightmares are such a scary thing for a kid and especially so Real and the ones that like you were you were having are just like I'm like feeling it for you I used to have night terrors when I was younger.

And luckily, I had a mom that was like, immediately in the room and would just lay there with me and hug me and make me feel safe.

And it's like, I just... I'm like, I just want to do that for you.

I know. Can we just like turn back time real quick?

If I could turn back. I would make you feel better about your nightmares.

The most prominent one was about my attic.

It was so frequent that I wasn't convinced I wasn't experiencing everything for real.

Monster claws would slide under my door and stretch and stretch and stretch until they were touching the edge of my mattress or my blanket.

I could feel the touch or the tug. I started wrapping myself up like a burrito and never letting anything hang off the side of my bed.

Oh, my gosh. My God, I am terrified right now.

Me too. I'm going to have nightmares tonight.

Very much. And also just like a quick little thing for you.

You're a phenomenal writer. Because I can feel this.

I was just going to say, I am... I am experiencing this with every sense I have.

Like I can smell it. I can hear it. I can taste it.

I can, it's everything. like and that's coming from an awesome i'm just like that is i'm you keep writing please because this is like truly horrifying and i'm sorry that you actually lived it and it's not fiction i know like because if this was fiction i'd be like holy shit i know i still am like holy shit there were whispers too pleading for me to open the door and let them in the voice was different every time But there was always this fear that immobilized me from complying, no matter how badly I wanted everything to stop.

I couldn't trust my own mind, let alone the voices without faces.

Sometimes I would talk back and refuse when things escalated to my doorknob turning and my door opening in the middle of the night.

I started locking my door and putting my desk chair in front of it.

I used thumbtacks to cover my windows with blankets and sheets, and I positioned my bed in such a way that I could always see the doors and windows.

If I was going to die, I was not going to die by surprise.

Trigger warning for the next sentence. It was during these years that I attempted suicide and began self-harming so badly that multiple friends asked my mom to get me into an inpatient hospital.

And I started begging to live literally anywhere else.

My mom told me no, and the inpatient hospital thought that I was mentally unstable.

And the inpatient hospital thought I was mentally stable.

With that in mind, I could do nothing but believe what was happening to me was normal and real.

Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry. I know. Me, 16 years old.

Me, 16 years old. I've had a child now and the man who helped me out of the abusive relationship that made me a teen mother was helping me move out of my mother's house too.

We didn't have very much and we only had what we did because my grandparents had a car that they didn't need and my stepdad's job was desperate for third shifters.

I had no idea what being a full-time student working on an honors diploma in high school, part-time employee, and mother to a special needs child was going to entail.

But when I moved out there, But when I moved out, there were no more nightmares, no more whispers in the night, No more nightmare loops and nightmares that would come to me night after night.

And for the first time that I could recall, I didn't feel burdened by absolute terror.

Wow. Wow. Me, 28 years old.

Before the pandemic hit, my friend was driving through my hometown with my family and I told my husband to drive us by the house that I lived in when I was 13.

I started calling it the demon house at some point in my life because of how truly haunted and miserable I was living there.

Since then, I had learned that it was common practice to build these demon boxes into homes some time ago, just like the one in that house. salt lines were put on the edge of the quote-unquote box too.

I wish I had the source but a Google search about demon boxes and homes only turns up pages with sponsored ads about movies and news articles about Dybbuk boxes.

Throughout my adult life, I've come to understand more about my own trauma and mental illnesses or mental illness.

I have severe anxiety that presents as nightmare anxiety, which is paired with severe insomnia that has plagued me since puberty.

I also have severe depression, which accounts for the constant battle with suicidal ideation. an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness I feel anytime something goes even just slightly wrong.

Considering those diagnoses, sleep paralysis could be on the table of troubles for me too.

All of those things can explain so much of my experiences, the ones that followed me, at least the ones that followed me until they didn't.

We drove past that demon house. It was up the street from the graveyard I lived across from when my cousin died.

In fact, most homes I lived in growing up were within minutes of a graveyard.

That's interesting. Of the graveyard, excuse me.

My first cat was sorry. My first cat was from that graveyard. maybe mental health can explain all of those things I experienced. hallucinations, nightmares, panic attacks, delusions, and so on.

Sure enough, that writes it all off in a totally logical way.

So why did I start having all those nightmares again just by passing the house?

Wow. i'm a master at handling my triggers and my mental illness was well managed without medication I didn't think of the house as a trigger, and I often joked about the house having bad juju, because I thought it was kind of hilarious that I was that unstable living there.

What I couldn't explain was why all those scary things started happening again for several months. after just driving by.

For months, I chalked it up to bad health, letting myself get in my head, and breathing life into something that wasn't real.

That made sense. I felt good about it and started making some peace with it until our lamps started acting up.

We have three standing lamps in our home, which have three studio style lights on them.

The bottom of all three lights, all in different rooms and all on different circuits mind you, would all flicker on and off randomly.

It would only happen when I was in the room too.

My husband and child never had the flickering issues when I wasn't home or when I wasn't in the room.

Those lights would never turn on when I tried.

I'm 30 now, two years after driving past that damned house, And those lights still won't turn on for me, but I'm not as shaken about it anymore.

Wow. Truthfully, I don't know if I believe in demons, ghosts, poltergeists, cryptids, angels, or anything that can't be proven to me without concrete evidence.

I have a very fluid sense of what could and could not be, probably because I've always had to be open in that way.

The trauma of this paranormal something or nothing, who knows really, made me feel like I could only ever believe what I could prove to myself.

Hell yeah, they are. Yep. When the nightmares and the sleep paralysis and the blurred lines between reality and fiction were too hard to find, I stood in my living room with the flickering bottom lights on those standing lamps and a cold spot following me throughout the house.

I was done and I said exactly as much. Quote, If there's a demon following me because it thinks I'm weak and wearing down, I failed to end my life three times and have beaten all odds of becoming a successful teen mom.

So if that demon thinks it has more patience than me, it can kindly fuck off.

Yeah. My whole body started tingling when I read that.

Alex Black. Obsessed. My son thought it was funny, of course, because...

Who has a mom that is wild enough to be saying that kind of crazy thing in the living room?

The one truly public space in a home. It worked, though.

The lights don't flicker two years later.

They never turn on for me when I try, but I don't much care to see them flicker on either.

The only person in charge in this house is me and my family knows it.

This trick doesn't work. Excuse me. This trick doesn't work just on paranormal somethings that follow you until they don't.

It works on friends and family and co-workers. literally everyone yes if there's no other lesson to learn from this long ass tale please learn this You are in charge of your life and you deserve to live it safely the way that you want.

I'm obsessed with you. That's the end of this abridged but still wicked long version of my really possibly haunted life. if you read this i can't thank you enough for thinking it was a story worth sharing of course it was it was so worth it i hope everyone enjoyed it you better have thanks to the folks who listen and keep the podcast on air because it gets me through the days where things get too quiet and it gave me a great friend and my coworker too i love that i hope that you guys get to keep it weird for as long as you But please don't keep it so weird that you're followed by a maybe something that wants to make you so miserable that you end your life and you have to get...

You have to tell it to get the fuck out in front of your kid because this is your goddamn life.

Don't keep it that weird. I think you should keep it that weird.

Keep it that weird. Like at least the end of it.

Morbidly and magically yours, Alex. Alex.

That was harrowing, terrifying, and beautiful all at once.

I have to say, I think that was one of the best listener tales that we've ever received.

That was just like so... I just... It was like beautifully written.

And it was like... I felt like I was there with you feeling like so scared.

That broke my heart. It gave me full body. chills it made me laugh in parts and you're amazing and you're strong and I'm so glad that your son has like amazing parents and you deserved all the love that you should have gotten your whole life.

And you still do. And we love you, Alex.

And clearly you know that you deserve that now.

Keep writing. Please keep writing. Keep writing because you're fucking amazing.

And send more tales in if you have them.

Please do. Because I want to read them. I just want to read your work.

So please just keep sending them in. Forever.

Alex Black. Guys killed it. Oh, my God.

We say this every time, but they get better and better.

I don't know how you constantly are just, on a wave of greatness all of you truly are but we appreciate so much and it gives us a little boost in between like the really hard tales.

So it really is like a shot in the arm. Yeah, so these are just so much fun, and we keep teasing it to you that...

Maybe you'll be getting more of them soon.

Maybe in like a couple months. Yeah, maybe it's like hang tight there.

We keep saying. More content is coming.

News is coming. And I promise, it really is a thing.

Something's coming. We just can't tell you anything yet.

So soon. Something's coming. It's so soon.

And in the meantime, we hope that you keep listening.

And we hope you keep it. Woo! weird but not so weird that you have a crazy axe murderer bringing together your childhood to make it awesome although i think you kind of should have that because that was a beautiful story Definitely do keep it so weird that you lock all your windows in your door and that you tell your apartment complex to get a lock on their front door because it's absolutely ridiculous that they don't.

And you don't want to awake to a man looking at you in your sleep because that's just, he's going to escalate. keep it so weird that you honor your best friend's memory by writing us in a listener tales about her absolutely beautiful smile and charm in life.

And I'm so sorry about what happened to her because I just I hate that story of like actually what happened.

Um, do keep it so weird that you tell us about the little ghost girl that lived in your house covered in barbed wire, but maybe like tell us a little bit more about that.

You know, I just need a little bit more. um keep it so weird no no no don't keep it so weird that you just go into the middle of nowhere for like a table and then this happens to you and you see like these scary people who aren't real but like maybe are and then you fall into a time lapse because like whoa that's that's a lot and definitely keep it so weird that you're alex black because need i say more bye Whoa.

Keep it weird. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

[Listener Tales: From Childhood Connections to Paranormal Encounters]-[Listener Tales 38]

📋 Summary

Overview of Listener Tales

Key Narratives and Personal Accounts

The Axe Murderer Connection

Boston Home Invasion Fears

A Heartbreaking Loss in Alabama

The Machete-Wielding Man and the Ghost Girl

The Backwoods Time-Slip

Resilience and Boundaries

Conclusion

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript