Hey weirdos, before we dive into today's twisted tale, let me tell you about a place where the darkness never ends.
Wondery Plus. It's like stepping into a haunted mansion where the floorboards creak with ad free episodes and early access to new episodes lurks around every corner.
So come join us if you dare. Morbid is available one week early and ad-free only on Wondery+.
You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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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 different narrators. I love Audible.
There's more to imagine when you listen.
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Visit audible.com slash morbid.
I am absolutely obsessed with a sweet treat after dinner.
And my favorite sweet treat right now is my mochi.
It's mine. Not yours, just kidding, you can have some too.
This is a cool, creamy scoop of ice cream wrapped in a soft, chewy dough.
It's like a sweet little ice cream dumpling or ravioli.
I'm obsessed. It's pillowy. It's satisfying.
I feel indulged. I just love it so much.
I really am obsessed with the strawberry flavor right now.
My mochi is only around 70 calories per piece, which like, hello, that's amazing.
My mochi is gluten-free and each box has six perfectly portioned mochi snacks.
Do I eat two a night? Yeah. Yeah, I do because they're that good.
And guess what? My mochi is the number one mochi ice cream in the US of A.
The strawberry flavor is bursting with fresh picked fruit flavor that tastes incredibly refreshing.
I love, love, love them after dinner this August.
Look for the purple box of My Mochi ice cream at your local grocery store. and feel joyfully chill with the coolest treat around, my mochi.
Hey weirdos, I am Ash. And I am Alayna. Hey!
Hey! Thank you. Oh, and this is morbid.
I was like... You just threw me so far off.
I have full-blown COVID brain. I don't know where I am.
I don't know what time it is. Yeah, that was very uncomfortable.
Yeah, we're doing a couple of batch recordings today and I am losing it.
Yeah, I think we'll end on this one. Yeah, that was a crazy one.
Yeah, I was like, and hey, let's go. And everybody was like, but what is this?
Where are we? What's up? What are we even recording for?
I don't even know what I'm listening to.
That threw me off in like a very big way.
You know what it was? I got, because obviously today's listener tales and we're so Listener Tales.
And I get so excited for Listener Tales that I have it on my screen already, the first one.
You were in a bullet train. brain just like I wanted to read this going and I know you're reading it but it starts up it starts out with what up my little chickadees and I was like That's fucking adorable.
I love you. I love this person. I'm ready for this.
Today's haunted... today's haunted house.
Really just like giving it away. You just gave it back.
You gave the fog back to me. Let me back to you.
I think. We're both in a state of fog because if you really want to reference the last like weird little jumble of words that you had, it was really funny.
Yeah, it was a real moment. And again, we talked about it in the last Listener Tale episode, but like Saturn, you know, that's all I can say.
Saturn is fucking with me. COVID, seizures.
Yeah, all of the above. Oh my, all of it.
So today's Listener Tale episode, we decided to theme haunted houses.
We did. Because we get tons of these. They're really fun.
Why not smush a few of them together and just make it a themey, themey episode?
Anything I can theme, I'm excited about.
I love a theme. My kids' birthday parties, they go off.
The theme... Oh, they go crazy. They go crazy, as Caleb would say.
I miss Caleb a lot. Oh, just fucking... He had like something on his story today.
Somebody was like, why are you moving? Because he's like moving closer to us.
And he was like... oh, you know, and like said like some reason that wasn't the reason.
I was like, no, no, no. It's for us. It's for to be close to your best friends.
It is only for us. Don't lie to the public.
So here I am, public, telling, setting the record straight.
She's blowing up his spot. Whatever reason he gave you. false.
It was a farce. He's only moving out of where he is because he wants to be closer to us.
That's it. That's the story we are going with.
That is, that's it. It's not even the story I'm going with.
It's just the story. Caleb would agree. He better.
But you know what? Caleb says it goes crazy.
And you know what? These tails, they go crazy.
I've used it really well the past couple times I said it.
Really sporadically, as Ty would say. Just like really, really, no, not sporadically lately.
I've been doing it well. Is that right?
I've been saying, yeah, you don't say things good, you say them well.
But really quickly. You worked that out.
Really, really quickly because this is just information you need to know and I'll forget it if I don't say it right now.
Oh, no. Okay. No, it's great. Okay. You know TGI Fridays.
I do. I'm aware of that. Thank goodness it's Friday.
The restaurant. We got takeout from them last night and they have what's called, I think it's called like a potato stacker.
So immediately I ordered it. Of course. It is like truffle potato chips with pico de gallo on top.
And nachos, like cheese. That sounds amazing.
It's a nachos, but it's a truffle chip nachos.
And I said... this goes crazy. I was wondering where this was going to lead back.
I was like, I mean, this sounds great. I loved it.
Because Caleb stays, so that's when he comes, so Drew knows all about it.
And I was like, Drew, Drew. And he was like, what?
And I go... this goes crazy. And he was like, it does.
Just a little bit of Caleb everywhere we go.
Oh God, I love those nachos. I want some now.
You would love them. But you know what? We're not talking about nachos today.
At least I don't know if we, I haven't read these.
So maybe someone mentions the nachos. I don't know.
We are talking. Nachos are always a thing.
But today we are talking about haunted houses and your tales about them.
So my first listener tale is called Listener Tale, Haunted House, Nowhere to Yeet.
Nowhere to yeet. Nowhere to yeet. Must yeet everywhere.
And it begins by saying, what up, my little chickadees?
Cute. Obviously, I'm starting out this letter with praise for my favorite podcast.
You guys are the shiznit. I drive a lot for my job and I work outside alone a lot, so you two ladies are in my ear more than my fam is.
I truly love your banter, even though I am a middle-aged Oh my God, I love you.
Oh wait, actually you spend most of your time talking about middle-aged white men.
So maybe I enjoy it because you make me feel better about my own life.
I mean, I'm fucked up, but not those wackadoos you guys talk about.
Anyways, feel free to use the names in this tale as we all have your basic generic southern epithets.
I love it. My name is Brad, by the way. So say my name, say my name.
Are you shitting me right now? I'm disgusted.
I'm disgusted. I'm not related to you. I don't know. know you?
How would Brad say it? Brad would say, say my name.
No, I think Brad would say, say my name.
Say my name. He's a middle-aged white guy.
But he put it in quotations. He did. Well, you said it.
You got it. Oh my God. i'm disowning you as always shorten this if needed this is where you say you won't we won't And I've enclosed it in a PDF.
Please say Puttafa as only you guys can.
It makes me smile. Thank you for the Puttafa.
P.S. I just purchased my copy of a little novel someone wrote and I can't wait until September to read it.
Brad, I fucking love you. I know who that is.
Thank you so much. It's Elena Urquhart, tinyurl.com slash the butcher and the wren.
Plug, plug, plug. Brad, you're fucking amazing already.
I'm so into this. Thank you so much. You really are the shiznit.
You said we're the Shiznit, but you are the Shiznit.
You are truly the Shiznit, my friend. Now, anyways, my tale begins with the trauma of my parents' divorce when I was eight.
Wow, what a way to begin. Oh, what a rough age to free.
Because, like, you know what's going on.
Yeah, you're aware of a lot. They were constantly fighting at this point, and well, life happens. separation, my mom started house shopping.
She also decided she needed a show floor Corvette at this time too, but hey.
You do you mom. Mama was having a manic moment and we've all been there.
You know, She found a house straight out of Scooby-Doo, a house on a hill complete with lightning rods on the roof, ominous stairs leading to the front door...
A creepy old gnarly tree hunched over beside it, and of course...
It had the winding dirt driveway that led up to the top.
I want to live there. Are you Brad's mom?
Hi, Brad. Hello? Am I your mom? It was built in the 40s, so no chance it was haunted.
I don't know. Of course not. It was exciting nonetheless because it was an awesome flat yard to play in and woods behind to roam. a dream come true for an adventurous boy like myself.
She was buying it from an art teacher who coincidentally looked a lot like the witch from the Hansel and Gretel book I
It had two bathrooms, which was something we'd never had before.
And we thought that was just fancy. Two bathrooms is fancy.
Any bathrooms that are not one bathroom is amazing and so fancy.
If you're a couple, you need two bathrooms.
Yeah, it's really necessary. It's just the way it is.
One bath was downstairs and one upstairs between mine and my little sister's room.
She got the bigger room, but I got a walk-in closet with a hidden section big enough for two kids to hide in and another closet that ran from one end of the house to the other.
You win. So we used it as an attic, but we found it odd when we discovered a peephole inside it that looked into my sister's room oh hey that's a lot we covered that up immediately what the fuck The house was odd to say the least, and it gave off an eerie feeling at times, but it was ours, and we were excited.
That is until Dad asked, Your mom didn't buy the art lady's house, did she?
Oh, no. Why, I asked. At first, he wouldn't say, but he eventually caved in by badgering and explained that it was his art. excuse me, his teacher's house when he was a boy and that her husband had hung himself in the stairwell.
Oh, gosh. That's right, the stairway I had to climb to go to my room every night.
I'm also like, did he tell his eight-year-old that?
Like, whoa. And Brad says, I didn't love that.
I bet you did. I bet you're in therapy. about that these days.
Mom immediately went to work renovating the home.
The art lady was a lonely cat lady and had left it in shambles.
I'm sure this was a coincidence, but my mom gradually changed. she became angrier and more volatile the more she worked on the house.
I don't know. I don't think that's a coincidence.
I don't think so. Perhaps this was from all the long hours of work compounded by the stress of divorce.
Perhaps not. It was. It started out small.
The light for the stairs would cut on and off on its own.
If you were in the basement or alone in the living room, sometimes you felt you were being watched.
Mom must have felt that too, because she made drapes so thick that you couldn't even see shadows from the outside through them.
I love that energy. I remember one night it was storming and the lightning started to intensify.
Lightning was always bad up on the hill. the more the storm intensified, the more the stairlight would flicker on and off.
Faster and faster, angrier and angrier, it flickered.
My mom chalked it up to bad wiring, but I saw the switch physically flipping up and down.
Oh. I saw it there were nights when I would be asleep and I would wake up to the sound of my bedroom door opening and footsteps coming into my room.
And the sound of the attic door opening and closing as if someone just came in my room and went into the attic.
What? The fuck? At least they walked by you and just went into the attic.
They were like, good night. Oh, the thought of somebody walking by you as you're sleeping, though.
I don't love it. I'm just trying to make you feel better, but I don't love it.
They have to walk back by you on the way out.
They do. They got to leave. I hate it. One particular night, I remember I crawled into bed and a few seconds later, I heard the bathtub faucet cut on full blast.
By this time, I'd become terrified of the happenings and was frozen in my bed, afraid to move.
My younger sister, however, could not have given two shits.
Her little badass just walked right into the bathroom, switched off the light that had come on and turned off the water with an aggravated sigh.
I love it. That's Elena, too. I love your little sister.
She then just stormed back off to bed, irritated but not afraid of the whole situation.
I gained a whole new respect for my baby sister that night.
She's kind of an icon. She is. She reminds me of Erica from Stranger Things.
I haven't started yet. I'm sorry. Start it.
So perhaps the most terrifying thing that happened when we lived there was something that I am not even sure was paranormal or not.
I was in my room, like most nights, doing my homework.
FYI, playing with my bass. And jamming out to sweet tunes from most likely Nirvana or perhaps I was being down with OPP.
Yeah, you know me. I don't. You know that's how that was said.
You know that. I don't know what down with OPP is.
Oh my God, I thought you were kidding. No.
I thought you were making, okay, I gotta go.
What is down with OPP? It's a sign. I'm not going to sing it.
Do it. Sing it. Do it. Sing it. Just do it.
So I played it for Ash. I know that song.
Sorry. Because I really thought you were just making fun of me.
And then I was like, wait, you don't know that song?
No, I'm not always making fun of you. making fun of you not always time but also please don't shit on my life I really did know that song Yeah.
I won't see it, actually, because I'm not on social media.
There you go. So go right ahead. I looked downstairs so I decided to go downstairs to get a drink.
Jamming out works up a thirst. It does. It does, Brett.
Helena just worked up a thirst. I did. As I stepped out of my room, I looked downstairs to see my mom and my sister pushing against the front door.
The fuck? I made eye contact with mom and saw nothing but sheer terror in her face.
She screamed out, help, he's trying to get in.
Oh, fuck. I just got full chills. I just got fully panicked like this is happening to us right now.
My body just did that thing that you always talk about where it went...
Yeah, it did it. Like, doesn't that make sense to you now?
It does. It like radiates. Yeah. No, it warms.
It warms. Excuse me. So I bounded down the stairs and slammed into the door with all my weight and the force of the downhill motion the stairs provided.
As I did, I found the immense pressure being applied from the other side of the door.
It staggered me, but I felt the door latch.
At that moment, I'd locked to the deadbolt.
Mom ran to get the pistol she kept in her nightstand.
As she did, I looked out the window. There was no one outside.
No one on the stoop, no one on the sidewalk, and no one in the driveway.
As I stated earlier, the driveway winds around to the hill, which is the backyard.
I ran to the back door to make sure it was locked and the man wasn't lurking around trying to find another way in.
I rushed through the house as fast as I could, glancing out the windows as I passed, looking for a silhouette and hoping not to find one.
I'm terrified. I made it to the back door to record in record time and latch the deadbolt.
I looked through the peephole. Nothing.
Flipped on the backyard light and looked out the window next to the door.
Nope, no one there. just the thought of like having to do all of that no i wandered back through the house this time at a slow but purposeful pace searching through each window.
Nothing. I thought to myself, was it possible for someone to disappear out of the yard that quickly?
I didn't think so. That was when mom realized she had left her purse and keys in the car in the backyard.
Oh no. She grabbed a wrench or something heavy, I can't remember what, and slowly went out the back door.
She had handed me the revolver and told me that if anyone came out of the darkness to shoot...
Now, I was very proficient with rifles and bows and arrows, but I'd never even held a handgun before.
I resisted the idea at first, but she insisted.
She trusted me to be brave. How could I let her down?
Oh my God, Brad. I love you. I know. I prayed no one would appear and then I prayed if they did, I wouldn't miss.
This was just, if not more terrifying than someone trying to break into our home.
Mom finally made it to the car. She grabbed her bag and keys and sprinted back into the house.
My sister slammed the door shut and locked it as soon as mom crossed the threshold.
That is hard to say. crossed the threshold there we go I stood there relieved and all of a sudden drained of energy We all slept together that night puddled in mom's bed with every door and window locked and every drape closed tight.
It never happened again. Well, that never happened again, but other things continued to.
That's terrifying. My mom got married and we moved out of the house and into her new husband's home.
Everything was good. They bought a property with a pond with a beautiful wooded area and planned to build a house there.
To make this dream a reality, they sold his home and we moved back into the Psycho House.
Why? That's what my first wife named it.
More on that later. And he means psycho house like the movie.
Yeah, yeah. Like psycho. Almost immediately after moving back into the home, they started to fight relentlessly.
Within a year, they were divorced. Shortly after that, my mom took a job and moved three hours away.
She immediately found a renter for the Psycho House, and he moved in.
Four months later, he moved out abruptly.
Yeah, I bet he did. This worked out great for me because I was now 17 years old.
I lived with my dad, but mom cut me a deal.
As long as I never missed school, work, or church, I could stay at the house on Friday and Saturday nights.
There was one more rule. No girls. Quick side note, there were lots of girls.
I was going to say, get it, Brad? Bradley.
Brad. That might not even be your name, but it is now.
But it is now. No, it just works with that.
I needed two syllables. My dad would do check-ins to, quote, keep us honest.
As he always said, we had a strategy, however, that always worked.
We would let him in the back door and the girl would go, we would let him in the back door and the girl would go up the stairs at the front of the house and hide in the closet inside the secret two-person cubbyhole.
Look at you, Brad. Once I remember hiding from people's parents.
Did you ever have that situation? No. I didn't even have to think about it.
Just was like, no. I literally never have.
I once got kicked out of a boy's house. Wow.
Yeah, I didn't do anything wrong. His mom just didn't know that we were there and she was like, get the fuck out of my house.
Oh, you know, we did hide. There was one parent hiding time.
You had to have one. Literally one. It was Linz's house, actually, and we had people over for New Year's Eve, and then somehow it turned into what every teen movie in the 90s and early aughts happened, where it was like, they invite a couple of people over and then somebody tells the whole school and they show up.
That's what happened. Us one time and we felt like the coolest people alive.
We did not because we were freaking out being like, wow, her parents are going to dinner.
Like they were coming back in like a couple hours.
So it was a lot. Yeah, that is a lot. But wait, but like you, who'd you hide from?
Uh, we, well, we had to hide people. Oh, okay.
Yeah. So I didn't technically hide. It's not as like sassy though.
Yeah, I wasn't very sassy when I was like RPGing Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so.
No, you were varping. I was varping, so.
So yeah, I just wasn't in that vibe, I guess.
Now, once I had a girl I really liked over, we will call her Pookie.
Yeah. No. If you really like her, do not call her Pookie.
I love this. That's adorable. My plan was to stay the night after my friends left.
Bradley! Bradley! Look at you. My dad picked this night to do his checkup.
One of my friends, Greg, and I let him in the back door as my other friend Dave showed Pookie the hiding place.
Don't call her Pookie. My dad did his inspection.
After he finished finding nothing, of course, we went up to get Pookie.
She was gone. That's right. Gone. What?
We went back down the stairs, all three of us very confused and found her hiding behind the love seat in the corner.
She was curled in a ball, trembling. Pookie!
What's wrong with Pookie? Greg asked her, how did you get back there?
She said... I don't know, in a very weak and quivering voice.
We helped her up from behind the couch. This is terrifying.
Keep in mind, my dad had done his usual very thorough inspection.
Oh, my God. Not to mention that none of us saw her as we followed Dad around or when we walked up the steps to retrieve her.
It just wasn't possible. After a few moments passed, once she was no longer shaking, she demanded to be taken home immediately.
The entire drive to her house, about 30 to 40 minutes, she remained dead silent.
All three of us tried to inquire about what happened, but she just sat there staring out the windshield.
When that didn't work, Dave, who was always the comedian of the bunch tried to change the subject and make everybody laugh.
She finally broke her stare and managed a half smile.
Good for you, Dave. I know. Go, Dave. We went out a few more times and remained friends after that, but she refused to ever discuss the happenings and absolutely would not entertain returning to the house.
So we don't even know what happened? So we don't even know what happened.
Pookie, come on. And, like, how did she, like, did she teleport?
Yeah, you get, Pookie, you get fucked. Explain.
Let's get Pookie on the horn here. Pookie, you got some splainin' to do.
I started dating my future wife late that spring. adorable cute i was a senior she was a sophomore and it was right it It was high school sweetheart love.
We fell fast and hard, and that summer we used the Psycho House a lot.
When I left for college, Bradley, when I left for college, we threw a massive party there and everything went off without a hitch.
I don't know. Oh my God, so cute. Oh my God.
Congrats. A few months later, my mom called and explained her renters were leaving and the house would be free next month if we were interested in buying.
We jumped on the deal as it was quite an upgrade from our one-room basement apartment in which we had to share a bathroom.
I mean, I get it. I totally get that. When I asked why the renters were leaving before their lease was up, mom said they wouldn't say.
They just had to leave as soon as possible.
I'd be like, mom, you know why they had to leave.
You know mom. We moved in excited to have a place of our own and quickly went to work remodeling.
I know that's that's where you went wrong, Bradley.
That's when they come out. We painted, put new flooring in the kitchen, completely reconstructed the main bath and built a laundry room.
I hung my punching bag in the basement. I thought it would be a nice, cool place to work out.
We had a guest room upstairs in what used to be my sister's room, and my room was now a gaming room.
We were very proud of our little home. It sounds great.
You should be. I feel like it sounds awesome.
I worked a lot of nights and Sarah worked nine to five every day.
That left Sarah at home alone three or four nights a week until I got home around 1130.
That also meant there were times that I was alone as well.
It didn't take long before we remembered why we nicknamed it the Psycho House.
Sarah got to where she refused to be there alone at night.
Her sister, They would all be huddled up terrified because of...
The happenings, that's what they called it.
No one ever wanted to go sleep upstairs.
They would rather sleep on the couch than in the guest room.
Ooh. Once I came home and she had moved a hutch in front of the basement door.
She told me either that the hutch stayed put or she left.
I thought she was being foolish until the happenings started happening to me.
The basement was split up into two rooms.
One room, I had my punching bag and workout gear.
The other room was used as storage and canned foods.
Both rooms had crawlspace doors that led under the house.
The stairs and the door to the outside were in the canning room.
I was hitting the bag and working out in the basement and had the feeling that someone was watching me.
You always had that feeling down there. I blamed it on poor wiring, as I read somewhere that electrical currents could give you a sense of paranoia.
No paranormal is probably a Freudian slip.
All of a sudden the lights went out. It's a basement, so it was pitch black, except for what little light escaped through the crack of the basement door at the top of the stairs.
I'm stressed out for you. I'm so stressed.
Right. Remember, there's a hutch blocking the upstairs door now.
I love that you did leave it there. I figured somehow we had tripped a breaker or something. although I wasn't sure how since I was the only one home.
I was still on the side of logic and trying to find my way out when I heard it.
That's right. I heard the happenings. What?
It was like a low, guttural growl. It was as if a large wolf were in my basement.
Leave. I had no bearings as to where I was and no idea where the growl was coming from.
Oh, I'm warm. I'm warm. At once, both rooms produced a slamming sound.
I wasn't sure what this was, but it sounded like wood slapping concrete.
Oh my god, I don't have a single hair on my body right now that is not standing straight up.
I made it to the stairs. I could not see the outside door, but I had my bearings now. and from the steps knew approximately where the outside door was.
The slamming sounds grew louder and the growl.
The growl now sounded like it was behind me on the steps.
I yeeted my ass towards where I thought the door was.
Yeah, you did, bro. I slammed into the door, finding the handle immediately.
Of course, in my panic, like every cliche scary movie, I could not get the door to open without several twists, turns, and jerks.
It was like someone outside force had made me forget how to use a stupid door handle.
Finally, in a tug of desperation, the door flung open and daylight flooded into the doorways as I ran outside.
I leapt up the outside steps and fell into the grass of the front yard, my heart pounding.
What in the living hell just happened? After I calmed down, I had to figure that very question out.
I wasn't a little boy anymore and I was not going to be scared out of my own home.
At least that's what I told myself to keep from running like a scared little girl.
There had to be a logical reason. I grabbed my flashlight, a crowbar, and a baseball, and I headed down back to—I left a baseball.
Not a baseball bat? I feel like maybe you probably forgot to put bat.
I hope it was a baseball bat. To be honest.
It's like when Pat just went downstairs with a cup of water.
Oh my God. During the whole, I got to tell this like quick little side note, which I feel like we've probably told before, but it bears repeating.
Shared her listener tale about this. Yeah, we got to repeat it.
During the Boston... marathon bombings.
My Deb Deb, who chooses all these, was right in the thick of of that whole manhunt she was in the same neighborhood she was they found him like only a few doors down from where she lived it was mayhem So they were on lockdown.
There were SWAT team members like busting into their house.
And so every, there were gunshots like going through people's windows and shit.
It was wild. And at one point, her husband went downstairs and like met, and I think because they like heard something.
Yeah, and they heard something. They thought it was like...
You know, maybe nobody knew where he was.
Like he could have been in anyone's basement.
He was hiding in someone's boat. That's where they found him.
Um, so he heard something, so he went downstairs and what What he chose to use as his weapon.
Weapon of choice. Was a tepid glass of water.
But to be fair, he did have a good plan to throw it in the guy's face, which probably would have thrown him off for like a minute.
But it wasn't cold. It wasn't hot. It was just tepid.
Like, it was one of those things that you would just have been like, ooh.
If it happened to you, like it wouldn't even startle you.
You'd be like, well, that's lukewarm. I don't know what to do with that.
It's not even like a bucket either. It's just a glass of water.
And Deb never, we will never forget it. How could you ever let him live that down?
It's so good. good i love them so yeah that's that you had a baseball i had it back down the stairs peering into the darkness as I eased my way down.
I used the crowbar to wedge the door open for better light. aka a quick exit if needed, flicked on the flashlight and made my way to the breaker box with ball bat in my right hand.
Are you all right, Brad? With ball bat in my right hand, slightly raised above my head.
First it was a baseball, now it's a ball bat.
I opened the breaker box and checked all the switches.
Nothing had been tripped. I went back outside and into the house to retrieve some bulbs thinking that maybe all the light bulbs had just somehow all went out simultaneously.
Of course. I went back down the steps to the basement entrance and all the lights were now magically back on.
Whoever this is, is having so much fun. Having a blast.
It was like nothing had ever happened. Leaving the door wedged open, I went back inside the basement, flashlight and bat still in tow.
It's a bat now. What could have made the growling noise?
That's what I was concerned about, Bradley.
I was like, I know. We're looking for breakers and shit for the lights.
But like what I'm concerned about is that wolf that was in the basement. with you what if it was a raccoon i saw a tiktok the other night of a raccoon that broke into this woman's house and it was the scariest thing i've ever seen did it sound like a wolf No.
Okay. You're like, so maybe it was a raccoon.
They kind of like screech, I think. They do.
I need to know what this wolf is. What could have made the growling noise?
Was I going mad? Where did the slamming sounds come from?
I looked up the stairs that led to the inside of the house, where I had heard the growling.
Nothing. I looked around the basement floor looking for something wooden or something that could have made the loud bangs.
Nothing. I was about to abort the mission when I gazed around the room one last time.
I spotted the crawlspace doors. I went over, lifted one door up, and peeked into the darkness.
I started to reach for the flashlight and shine it underneath the house when all of I felt the gaze upon me once again.
I stepped back quickly, yanking my head out of the darkness and letting the door fall shut.
This is when I heard it, the slamming sound.
It was the crawlspace doors that had made the noise moments ago.
I figured that out, but how? What could have made both crawlspace doors in different rooms slam repeatedly and simultaneously?
A poltergeist. Yeah. A wolf that is in your fucking basement.
Not tempting fate any longer, I walk back to the exit, unwedge the crowbar, flip off the lights, and close the door shut. purposely taking my time to show whatever it was that caused the happening to occur, that I was not afraid.
I was truly terrified. I never worked out in the basement again.
Good for you. I don't blame you. that winter came upon us in a very sudden way as it does here in the mountains.
That was when some of your great writer, Brad, by the way.
That was when some of our old copper... Copper pipes.
Some of our old... copper pipes started leaking, mostly in the basement.
It really wasn't a problem though until we sprung a leak underneath the house.
I'd mostly forgotten the happenings in the basement by this time, and grabbed my tools and flashlight and headed to the basement determined to fix the problem.
That's what I am, a problem solver after all.
Okay, weird that we picked this tale today because that exact thing is currently happening at my house.
That is really weird. Not the growling. No.
The crawlspace doors are about six inches from the basement floor, so I had to position a ladder six feet.
That's six feet. Nope, six inches. Is that an inch?
Foot. Foot. Feet, right? Yeah, because the two comes after.
Right? The two comma and the A are... It's feet.
I don't know what's happening. Yeah. Because the one is a foot.
Yeah, we got it. So the crawl space doors are about six feet long. from the basement floor.
So I had to position a ladder underneath the door.
That would have given me a good hint. climb up and crawl underneath the house.
It was dark, so dark I could not see my hand in front of my face.
I flipped on the flashlight, a light that moments ago seemed more than sufficient now seemed to only illuminate what was just a few feet in front of me.
I don't want to know, but I do. I really do.
The space was tight, and the closer I crawled towards the leak, the more the space and the darkness closed in around me.
Once I made it to within about four feet of the leak, I had to roll onto my back and inch my way up.
No. until I was almost directly underneath the pipe.
My face was now just three inches from the floor joist of the house.
No, no. Bye. I position the light towards the pipe.
The space was so tight now with the light pointing upward that I could only see the pipe in my hands, nothing else.
I'm getting very like breathless here. I'm getting claustrophobic.
Brad, what are you doing? I set mine to fixing the leak.
Linky's like, I'm going to fix this fucking leak.
In these situations, I get hyper fixated on the task at hand.
So I wasn't thinking of anything else except find the pinhole leak, cut the pipe. add a coupling, and piece the pipe back together.
That's the job. I was in the middle of attaching the coupling when it started again.
I could feel it, the happen. No. I told myself I had to focus.
There is the name. I love when the name appears in a movie.
There it is. It's in the tale. nowhere to eat.
I told myself I had to focus on the task at hand, get it finished, and then worry about getting the hell out of here.
Coupling is on, good. Now glue it and piece the pipe back together.
This time I heard something. What was it?
Perhaps a groundhog or a raccoon. A raccoon.
Makes an appearance. That had made this space its home.
Not the time to figure that out. I got the pipe back together.
Good enough, Brad. Now get your ass out of Satan's hideout.
I grabbed the flashlight and moved it around in a scanning motion with what little room I had.
I couldn't see anything, but oh boy, I could feel it.
That was when the growl happened again, and I could hear something scurrying towards me.
I had to get the hell out of here now. I wiggled down far enough to where I could roll over onto my stomach.
It's coming. I spin around to face the crawlspace door and start army crawling my way toward it as quickly as possible.
The growls are getting louder. It is really close now.
It feels like at any moment something is going to grab my feet or sink its teeth into my legs.
Jesus. I'm almost to the door of the crawl when it falls shut.
No unfortunate timing to say the least. No time to push it back up and latch it open.
It is coming. I spin around and kick it open using my legs to search for the ladder.
In doing this, I've exposed my face to whatever it is underneath the house with me.
I scan my flashlight back and forth, just waiting for something to lunge out of the darkness and drag me back in.
Where's the ladder? I don't know, Brad. My feet cannot find it.
My patience and nerves are no longer weight.
They no longer wait for my feet to find what now appears to be missing.
I take a deep breath and using my arms, propel myself out of the crawl space and onto the basement I could have sworn, just as I hurled my body through the opening, as the flashlight shined up towards the bottom of the house,
And just before gravity slammed the door behind it, in that split second, I saw a toothy grin and slanted blank reflecting eyes.
I hit hard, jarring every bone in my body onto the unforgiving concrete floor.
Not wasting any time, I jumped right back up and locked the crawlspace door.
I was not about to look to see if that what I thought I saw was real or just my imagination.
Standing there leaning against the door and the wall, I slouched and hugged my head.
I needed a moment to collect myself. I need a moment to collect myself.
As do I, Brad. What just happened? Was that real?
Am I going crazy? No, I'm not crazy. Did I get all my tools?
What caused the, I love that, did I get out my tools?
What caused the crawl door to close? Why couldn't I find the ladder?
I gasped. The ladder? Where the hell was the ladder?
It's gone. I had positioned the ladder underneath the crawl door and used it to get up and underneath the house.
It should have been right where I was now standing.
I surveyed the room from right to left, corner to corner, and there it was. folded and leaned up in the corner on the opposite side of the room.
The fuck up. Nice of them to fold it. But how?
How did it go from open underneath the crawlspace to closed and leaning against the opposite wall 15 feet away?
I never figured this out. Luckily, that was the last leak we encountered while we were there.
Damn. There was one other major occurrence while we were at Courage.
Another occurrence. Today we have an occurrence to talk about.
There was one other major occurrence while we were in the home.
It was for me the most unexplainable and at the moment, most frightening.
Sarah and I were trying to have our first child and not having any luck.
We tried for months, but to no avail. I totally feel you, Brad.
That's really hard. She was all right with it until her mom and her frenemy both became pregnant around the same time.
That's always how it is. happens to like, trust me, it just that's, that's how I remember that. happening with you.
She was so neither one of them were trying and this really upset her.
We began to fight and bicker, like it seemed all the previous couples did that resided there before us.
We were still trying to have a baby and perhaps the stress was getting to us.
We were fighting pretty consistently and it was getting bad.
Then something unexplainable happened. Now before I begin to explain, let me first describe the layout of our bedroom.
If you entered from the living room, the right side of the room had three windows end to end with the same heavy curtains my mom had made 13 years prior still hung in the place.
The wall straight ahead had two windows and a closet.
If you looked left, there was a bed in the corner of the room and a door leading into the dining area beside it. the room was small therefore the bed had to sit directly against the wall of which the other side of the wall was the dreaded stairway where the man had hung himself and the footboard of the bed stopped directly against the living room door.
It was the only way you could fit a queen-size bed and still be able to open the door.
This left about eight inches from the side of the bed to the door's hinges.
I had built us a small nightstand that fit between the two to put our alarm clock Yes, this was before smartphones and we had one of those old late 80s alarm clocks like everyone's parents had back in the day.
Fun fact, I still have one of those. Love that.
Sarah did not like to sleep in the corner because whomever did inevitably ended up between the mattress and the That meant I had the pleasure of the mattress wall, a cold wall wedge.
This particular night, we had spent some quality tickle time together.
Brad, never again. Brad, don't ever say that.
You know what, though? Brad, never change.
Never change, but don't. Don't say that again.
Quality tickle time together. And both of us had passed out asleep.
It's the tickle. It's the tickle for me. fucking tickle you internally.
Yeah, ghost lyrics. There you go. This is all connected.
I was going to say, I need to make everybody know that.
I'm sure people know that. You know what, Brad?
We're in it. We're in it together. You're in it with Ghost.
We're all together. Yeah. So they passed out very happily.
Suddenly I was startled awake. This is something that used to never happen as I was a very heavy sleeper.
I looked up and saw a light at the foot of the bed.
I thought to myself it was an intruder, so I yelled, Who are you? as I quickly pried myself out of the office for mentioned at Wedge.
Amazing that you were like intruder. What's their name?
Who are you? State your name. Oh my God.
I was going to say state your business here.
Both, please. So he's stating, who are you?
The light was the size of a flashlight, but a much dimmer glow. as if the moon had shrunken to the size of a four inch diameter and was now floating around my bed.
You are just glorious. Wow, Brad. I'm sorry I yelled at you.
It's okay. I answered for Brad because we're really close now.
So I feel like I can. do that. And I'm not.
I mean, you yelled at him, so he's a crowd.
It's okay, but... You're going to have to work your way back into his good graces.
Okay, right, Brad? Okay. It's actually Bradley.
You don't know that. All right. As I scrambled out of Lucifer's wall wedgie.
That is when I noticed. Cute. That is what I noticed.
There was no one on the other end of this light.
It was just floating in the air. This frightened me as I was expecting to fight someone.
But how do you fight a tiny moon? With a one-two punch.
What a question for the ages. How do you fight a tiny moon?
How to fight a tiny moon for dummies. Bye Brad.
How do you fight a tiny moon? Again, I had nowhere to yeet.
Helplessness and fear washed over me like a case of anxiety and dread filled my heart.
I scurried back against the headboard, but my wife lay unaware between me and this thing.
I mustered up the courage to repeat my first question. who are you?
I'm just waiting for Sarah to wake up and be like, are you good?
What is happening? Who are you talking to?
Or for the light to just be like, A tiny moon, bitch.
I am the light. If it's a light, could it be bad?
I don't know. I mean, it's definitely bad.
Maybe it's like fucking with you by pretending to be a light.
Maybe it's just having a good time. It's just here for a good time, not a long time.
This time my voice was not its normal baritone self. a voice that is quite intimidating when I need it to be.
Instead, it sounded weak and like a small child.
No answer was returned. Instead, the light just gracefully floated around the foot of the bed and now was just diagonally across from me. at Sarah's knees.
I'd be like, get away from my girl, light.
What do you want from us? I asked. This time my voice was still quivering and childlike, but with less fear in it.
Sarah still laid asleep and dead to the happenings, just a mere two feet from her.
Again, no answer. All of a sudden I was no longer afraid, but pissed off.
How was this thing going to come into my bedroom and terrify me?
Just who or what did it think it was? This was my family, my home, my bed.
Not today, Satan. Yes. Brad. Leave us alone.
Get out of here, I yelled. This time with the man base full in effect and I felt like myself again.
Sarah's I was like, all right. And Sarah's like, get out of here.
Who's us? Damn. the light or whatever it was just floated back the way it came and into the living room.
The anger I had was immediately replaced with relief and again, I felt helpless.
I reached over and shook Sarah awake. I had to share this experience with someone.
And how in the world did she sleep through the man versus ghost showdown?
I know. Right. She awoke with a grumble and I explained what had just taken place.
Still half asleep, she merely nodded her head, snuggled up against me, and promptly went back to sleep.
I love Sarazar. energy there's the best I laid there the rest of the night on edge and on the lookout for more tomfoolery I'd never believed in orbs.
I always thought that there were, that there may be a poltergeist or a parians.
Never heard of that. Did I say that right?
I don't know. Aperians? But not floating lights.
Those were just dust particles and people.
Well, people were full of crap. I spent, I agree with that.
I spent the next couple of weeks trying to make sense of what happened.
I kept trying to explain it away with a solution of how it could have happened.
Countless times I attempted to recreate the light with vehicles passing by the road or coming up the driveway, flashlights from the yard, etc.
Nothing could explain it. That was it, however.
No more happenings after that. Three weeks later, we discovered that we were having our very own little diaper filler.
Nine months later, Ethan Bradley Bowman was born.
Congratulations. I love that is such a strong name.
And it is Bradley. We were right. We were right.
We knew you. We knew you, Bradley. We knew you.
We see you and we know you. So Ethan Bradley Bowman was born, and four months after that, I received a life-changing career move.
Oh my goodness. I think that light may have been a good thing.
I think it was like near her knees. I think it was being like, there's going to be a baby.
Like maybe it was being like, don't worry, it's happening.
Sometimes that will happen. Yeah. Like it could be like a family member.
And that was three weeks later they discovered they were having a baby.
So she was definitely pregnant. Yeah. That's wild.
Wow. Congrats, you guys. As soon as the funds started rolling in, we moved out of the place, never looking back.
Four years later, and we had our second diaper dandy.
I wish I could tell you this had a happy ending, but it doesn't.
No. We parted ways on the week of our 15 year anniversary.
It's all good though. Now back to the psycho house.
Oh, Bradley. Now back to the... I need a minute, okay?
This is a real rollercoaster, Bradley. Oh, my God.
I'm so sorry. That... You know, Bradley.
15 years? Man. Just bye? Oh, okay. Sorry.
My sister Misty bought that place, married and moved in.
Why are you all moving into this house? You got to stop.
Oh shit, I just read the next sentence. Two years later, she was divorced.
Her husband started using drugs and went loopy.
After he had left, she also had a strange encounter during a snowstorm.
What? it was pouring snow and she had the wood stove going full blast to stay warm all of a sudden the door to the wood stove flung open Fire started spewing in and out of the stove and smoke started to fill the room.
Oh my God. She was sitting across the room in a rocking chair when this happened.
She was rocking her baby son back and forth, but had to move quickly. showing no fear that's right she's still a badass i forgot this is your little sister yeah miss She laid her son down, grabbed the stove poker and used it to slam the stove door shut.
And told the ghost to cut it out. I love that she is like, she is never given this ghost time of day.
Never. And she never will. She moved out of that house shortly after that and back in with my mom.
She rented it out the next 20 years. People were constantly moving in and out of that house.
She finally rented it out to a construction company as they worked on a highway nearby.
It was an all-male crew and they had no issues in the home.
Interesting. After they left, another young couple moved in with their two toddlers.
They lived there for about four years. One month, Misty did not receive their rent payment.
They always paid on time, so she knew something must be wrong.
She could not reach them via phone, so she asked mom to stop by and see if everything is okay.
Mom went by and told Misty that no one was there.
It was clear that no one had lived there, and it was very apparent they had left abruptly.
Eventually Misty was able to get a hold of the husband via his cell phone.
He did not go into detail. He only said that they just had to get out of there.
They paid Misty the final month's rent, but they would not go back into that home or say why.
I want to know why nobody will say why. That's the thing.
Just talk. Just tell me. She explained to them that they had left a lot of their stuff in the house and they needed to clean up or they would lose their deposit.
They told her they would rather let her keep the deposit than go back inside that home.
After that last summer, she decided to sell Psycho House.
I returned one last time to help her get it ready for market.
I went down into the basement on spider duty and stopped to look at those crawlspace doors, the ones that had slammed open and shut when I was 22 years old.
I stood there for several moments waiting for one of them to start slamming up and down.
I expected it to happen at any second. Nothing.
No feelings of being watched, dread, or anxiety.
The only thing I felt was old and left wondering how in the world did my fat ass ever fit through those things. bradley life comes out it does the mark The market was at its peak and she sold the house in less than two weeks.
The people started painting the outside of the home and a month later it was on the market again.
It again sold quickly. The new owners took a loss on it for no apparent reason.
One last thing. I asked my sister to read this and make sure it was okay to share her side of it.
This is when she told me that as a girl, she used to talk to the man who had hung himself.
She said he always just one last thing. Yeah, just an aside.
She said he always appeared to her as an older father figure.
She used to ask him to protect us because her dad wasn't there to do so.
She said he always seemed friendly to her, but that she asked him to stop fooling around because he scared mom.
He seemed perfectly safe, but perhaps there was something else in the home as well. entire body just warmed so hard.
It did. So that's beautiful. Right? That's the end of this listener tale.
Thank you for reading it and I hope it wasn't too long and I hope I was able to portray it in a manner that makes sense and wasn't boring.
That is the least of what it was. Yeah, Brad, I'm so bored.
I have never felt compelled to write anything before now.
Your podcast has inspired me. My sister and I have always shared this between ourselves and I wanted to share it with you guys because you guys feel like friends at this point i mean at this point we're like bradley's we're we're in it to win it together you are how i start my mondays to help me start the week with a smile Thank you again for your hilarious banter.
Hope you have a good week and hope you keep it weird.
Take it away, Ash. Oh, this is like a paragraph.
He gave you one. All right. Keep it so weird. that you talk to your friendly ghost dad, but not so weird that you repeatedly move into a house that you know will scare the bejesus out of you.
Keep it so weird that you have a friend named Pookie, but not so weird that you find yourself under a haunted house with Lucifer's house pet.
And finally, keep it so weird that you aren't afraid to start a new life, buy a new house, a new sports car, take on the world alone, but so weird that you find yourself having to hand a gun to a small child to protect you from the demon intruder who you think might try to steal your purse definitely don't keep it that weird Bradley.
That story? Like, Brad, did you actually just get yourself a whole Listener Tale episode right there?
You essentially did. You basically did. It was worth it.
Like, I love you guys, but nothing can follow that.
I think that's funny. Like, that's it. That's the show.
Bradley. That was Brad's show. And we were all just watching it.
It's Brad's world. We're just living in it here.
I knew you were going to say that and I'm so glad you did.
I'm for that. That was, that was like John Allen level.
It was, that was a John Allen tale. Literally.
Brad. Damn. Our listeners. Are so fucking talented.
Seriously. Because that's the thing. Like, honestly, all of you are, like, such talented writers.
Whenever... I just find it so interesting, especially when I'm not the one reading, like listening to you read it.
I'm just like sitting there, like looking off in the distance sometimes, just like picturing what these people write.
Oh yeah, I pictured every single part of them.
I can see the basement. The entire time I was in that house.
I see your punching bag. I saw those crawlspace doors.
I saw the ladder all the way across the room.
Every single thing. And all I can picture is the intro to the OG Scooby-Doo.
Oh, yeah. So good. Ugh. You can't top that in the listener episode.
No, you just got a whole episode and you fucking deserved it.
We're going to start anew next time. Yeah, we are.
And guess what? Now we have a ton of other haunted house episodes to watch.
Which we literally just name this like, oh my God, we have to name this.
Like, Brad's tale. And surprise Brad. Yeah, we're going to surprise Brad.
Let's do it. Surprise! Surprise, Brad. It's all about you.
Well, we hope everybody keeps listening and we hope Brad writes us another tale sometime soon.
And we hope you keep it. Weird. I already told you exactly how weird you're not supposed to keep it.
Brad told you. Fuck. Damn. Psycho house.
I thought you were gonna swear again. Fuck!
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Then there's the mysterious phone calls that local people have been getting.
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