00:00:13
Some very big news today, weirdos. Are you ready? Of course I am. So, a year and a half
00:00:19
ago, I released my very first little book baby. They call it a debut. A a day a day butt. A debut. It's a debut.
00:00:29
A debut. Uh it was The Butcher and the Wren and you guys made my legitimately wildest dreams come true and made me a
00:00:37
New York Times best-selling author, which those words don't even feel like they should be coming out of my mouth, but I
00:00:43
am eternally grateful. And now, truly, truly, truly because of your enthusiasm and support, I am so [ __ ] excited to
00:00:52
announce there will be a sequel. Party. A sequel called The Butcher Game and it's coming out September 17th. I'm
00:01:01
quite literally so excited I'm going to die. So close. We're so close to it. Sorry, it's ready to go. Ready to go.
00:01:07
It's going to be out there. So, let me So, The Butcher Game picks up right where The Butcher and the Wren left off.
00:01:13
So, if you have not read The Butcher and the Wren yet, what are you doing? Oh my
00:01:17
god. Go get it. Get it. Go read it. Go listen to it. Go do something like that. Ingest it.
00:01:23
I'm going to spoil it. So, so stop listening now if you have not read that book. Go read it and then come back to
00:01:29
me, okay? Thank you. go get the sequel on September 17th. But this time we are going to some new
00:01:35
territory. Ooh. We are headed to Massachusetts, baby. I love it there. We're headed to the
00:01:40
Berkshires, specifically, where our ruthless serial killer, Jeremy Rose, has now fled New Orleans and is on his way
00:01:47
up to Massachusetts to evade capture. Dr. Wren Muller, being astute as hell, you know her, she sees that there is a
00:01:55
fresh trail of bodies that seem to be calling her back to the case. But by following that trail, is she going to
00:02:01
walk right into Jeremy's trap? Maybe. Eventually. This one is a truly twisted cat and
00:02:07
mouse game and I mean it. You've been warned. This one's twisted. And it's going to culminate in a violent clash of
00:02:14
past and present where Wren is prepared to sacrifice everything just to bring Jeremy to justice. I'm literally so
00:02:21
excited. This one we got it's longer, guys. It's longer. It is twisted. I'm telling you, but what's really cool
00:02:29
about this, besides, you know, being really exciting that there's a second one coming out, our friends at Barnes &
00:02:36
Noble are offering exclusive signed copies for a limited time. So, head to the links in the podcast episode show
00:02:43
notes for more details and we'll share them out, too. Um there's also going to be a fun poster for this one, too. We
00:02:50
did that for the first book. Well, I can't wait to see it. I'm very excited about it. So, pre-order
00:02:55
now wherever you like to buy books and receive a signed poster with your order. So, head to the butchergame.com
00:03:02
to claim your free poster while supplies last. There's not going to be an an endless amount as much as I would love
00:03:07
for that to be. I can't thank you enough for being on this truly incredible author journey
00:03:13
with me. You guys rule. You made this happen and I hope you love all that's to come in the Dr. Wren Muller series. Yay.
00:03:22
what I said. A series. Series. Hey, weirdos. I'm Alina. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid.
00:03:47
It's listener tales, which means it's brought to you by you, for you, from you, and all about you, [ __ ]
00:03:54
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Hell yeah, brother. We're excited about this one. This seems
00:04:01
like a crazy, wild, fun Yeah. spooky listener tale. It's giving unhinged. Especially with the first one that you
00:04:10
have cued up. I'm I saw that one and it was the first in the little folder and I was like, we're
00:04:16
doing this one. Thank you. You're like, yep, that's it. like, I don't even know. I'm I'm not
00:04:19
reading any further. We're we're doing this one. This is it. Should we just start? I
00:04:24
think we should. All right, cool. This one's called uh listener tales. My dead grandma saw me give my first blowy.
00:04:31
Welcome to the show. Welcome to listener tales. All right. Now you see why I was like,
00:04:38
okay. You were like, I can't argue this. All right. I'm so sorry. It's loading. You should be sorry. How dare you?
00:04:43
weird. It's never done that before. Whoa. Dare you. Our internet's being a little
00:04:47
like kooky crazy. It is. And then it was like, do you want to take a tour? And I
00:04:50
was like, uh I use Google Docs. I don't want to take a tour of Google Docs. I'm good. I was
00:04:55
just going to ask of where. Google Docs, I guess. I thought they were just asking like, do you want to
00:05:00
take a tour? Just period? Like, do you just want to go on a tour? Like, sure, I guess.
00:05:05
Tour us. All right. It says, "Hey Deb Deb, you read that right and hopefully I'm making it through your amazing
00:05:10
gatekeeper skills." You did. You did. At this point with a subject line like that, I don't think you really
00:05:15
have the ability not to read this one. Again, you're right. Correct. And yes, sadly, it's completely accurate. If I've
00:05:22
made it through the gatekeeper, hello, my amazing Morbid weirdos. Hey. Hello. If you're reading this, it's time
00:05:30
for the standard poo-poo in the in the pantaloons and [ __ ] all of the dicks. You guys can call me Claudia and
00:05:36
feel free to use that name as it's not my real one. Hey, Claudia. Hey, Claudia. My dead grandma already
00:05:42
knows what I've done, so there's no reason to bring shame onto the living members of my family as well. If my dad
00:05:47
ever heard this story, he may join his mother on the other side immediately. I love the gallows humor in this, for
00:05:54
real. I also apologize in advance for the grammatical errors that I inevitably will make because this is a long one,
00:06:00
but well worth it. I promise and grammar is hard, especially with ADHD. Also, I would put a fight if I could a fight.
00:06:10
I'll try to attach it as a Word doc. You did. You did. But I learned back when you could do the
00:06:16
cool palm tree border and printers made of rapid fire noises. The palm tree border.
00:06:22
That was like the first computer class I ever took in like third grade. We did the palm tree borders. Wow.
00:06:28
thought that was groundbreaking. That's nuts. But Claudia says, "I'm old and without kids to show me how to work this
00:06:33
newfangled technology crap." I love that, too, that your first computer class was in third grade. Yeah. My first
00:06:39
computer class was in high school. Well, yeah, cuz you're 10 years older than me.
00:06:43
That's wild. It's crazy. I'm a new member, relatively speaking. I found you not that long ago, but I work
00:06:49
8-hour shifts with you in my ears, so I've definitely been plowing through the episodes rather quickly. I do want to
00:06:54
admit the first time I turned in, I had just had words with a coworker because, you know, coworkers are jerks sometimes
00:07:00
and I was in a horrible mood. That first time I listened for about 2 minutes to you guys laughing and joking and shut it
00:07:06
off and went, "Nope, not for me." and I moved on. Trust the process here. I know
00:07:09
I sound like a douche. She don't. You were going through it. No, it's fine. want to hear us laughing at you. Yeah,
00:07:14
[ __ ] that. At that moment, I needed my ears to be filled with angst that can only be satisfied by singing along to
00:07:19
the entire Jagged Little Pill album. We won't hold that against you. If you know, you know. A few A few weeks later,
00:07:26
while in a much better mood and none of my coworkers had annoyed me, I listened and I was immediately and completely
00:07:32
hooked. See, you just you weren't the right mind frame and that's okay. We accept that.
00:07:37
So, I wanted to say with 100% scientific certainty that the only reason that anyone wouldn't like your show is
00:07:43
because they're [ __ ] in the head at the time they listen. And like I said, that shit's official. I
00:07:48
did a case study. I mean Claudia did a case study. That's fair. I We're going to use this
00:07:54
forever. That's science. I work in production and it's very loud and I have no interaction with the people around me
00:08:00
all day long, even though I can clearly see them. It's just too loud to interact
00:08:04
and you have to be continuously moving. It's so weird to be in a room full of people and still be basically alone. And
00:08:09
for somebody like me who loves to word vomit on people on the daily, it's very hard to not have that connection.
00:08:15
That is really strange. To see people all day But like not talk to them and I don't like a loud environment.
00:08:22
This would destroy me. No, it stresses me out. But that's where you guys came in and we have imaginary
00:08:27
conversations all the time. And Ash, you and I do tell the same jokes often. Hell
00:08:32
yeah. I love how you both say [ __ ] a lot. It makes me feel like I've truly found my family and how you're
00:08:37
empathetic and really care for the victims. I love the caution that you approach your listeners with, but it
00:08:42
still gives the details that you know we're looking for. I mean, this is called Morbid, am I right?
00:08:46
Precisely. You're right. I truly feel like I hang out with my friends all day while I'm at
00:08:50
work and I have to thank you for saving my sanity with what with what little there is left of it. Aw.
00:08:57
So nice, Claudia. So sweet. Nice Claudia. Okay, I think that's enough gushing and I'm sure you
00:09:03
want to get to the part where my dead grandma sees me giving a blowy and hell, I can't blame you. It's a pretty
00:09:08
freaking awesome story now that I now that I don't feel the overwhelming level of shame that I did for many, many years
00:09:14
whenever the memory popped in my head. Instant cringe. Ugh. That being said, if listeners have their kids listening with
00:09:22
I'm like, I hope you don't. That being said, if listeners have their kids listening with them, earmuffs, y'all.
00:09:27
This one this This one mentions bobbing ON THE KNOB. EARMUFFS, Y'ALL. EARMUFFS, Y'ALL. All
00:09:39
right, back to my story. My grandmother was like my mom. We were together all the time for most of my
00:09:44
life and I was definitely her favorite. That's the best. When I was 17, she lived in Florida and I lived in New
00:09:50
York. I'd recently moved back up to New York to be with my boyfriend because, you know, teenage hormones and [ __ ] make
00:09:55
you do dumb stuff. You know, like when you'd be on the phone and you'd say, "You hang up. No, you hang up. No, you
00:10:01
hang up." And then you would end up falling asleep on the phone together cuz it was just so nauseatingly [ __ ]
00:10:06
adorable. Yeah, that [ __ ] Absolutely. Except I always hated the phone, so you'd be like, "You hang up."
00:10:11
And I was like, "Okay." Okay. Click. I love that. I I definitely did the "No, you hang up." Which is so
00:10:17
stupid, but adorable. hang up, but adorable. Young love. We'll call him Dave, mostly
00:10:23
because that's his actual real name. And guys don't get slut-shamed. He'll probably get high-fived for this story,
00:10:28
so [ __ ] him. We'll use his real name. Hell yeah. saw it. Don't worry, everybody. Claudia
00:10:32
sent us an image where Dave consented to his name being said. Yeah, so don't worry. I wasn't allowed
00:10:37
to talk to Dave on the phone after 9:00, so me being a young [ __ ] MacGyver badass, I went to RadioShack and I
00:10:44
picked up a phone line splitter. Wow. You are taking it back. I never experienced a phone line
00:10:52
splitter. Holy [ __ ] That's pretty That's like badass. You are MacGyver. god. I Wow.
00:10:58
Did you ever do a a phone line splitter? I think I tried to once, or I think um Peppa tried to
00:11:05
make one happen in our house. I remember that being a thing for sure. Cuz then like do you get your own phone
00:11:09
line from it? able to like split the phone line. But so like only calls will could be like
00:11:14
coming to you where like other like could it could make you be on the phone at the same time in the house, but like
00:11:19
with different people? I think that was the idea. Okay. Yeah. Uh I don't know about this. This is
00:11:25
foreign to me. But in our home office, I attached the splitter behind the desk and bought my own awesome cordless
00:11:30
phone. You know, the kind with the metal antenna that telescoped out. Yes. Oh my god.
00:11:36
Yes, one of those bad boys. I bought with my allowance. Take that, Mom, and your dumb phone rules. Side note, those
00:11:41
last two sentences, other than being complete run-ons, make me sound so freaking old. Yes, young Yes,
00:11:46
youngsters, I did happen to get my internet in the mail on a CD. You're speaking to Elena soul. She spits hot
00:11:52
fire. that all the time, the AOL CDs where you get like 20 free hours of AOL on a CD.
00:11:57
That [ __ ] was gold. Yeah. That was like That was like Charlie getting the golden
00:12:02
ticket. You would open that [ __ ] and be like, "Yes!" That's wild. Go. That's internet.
00:12:08
That is wild. Yeah. So, one of the evenings after my parents went to bed and I was using my
00:12:12
MacGyver sneaky sneak cordless phone in my bedroom talking to Dave. We were on the phone and I'm sure gushing gushing
00:12:18
about our pure eternal love or some crap like that. I started sobbing hysterically out of nowhere. I could not
00:12:24
even get any words out. And it was to the point that Dave was terrified because he thought something happened or
00:12:29
thought something was happening to me. I was overcome with all-consuming grief suddenly.
00:12:34
I felt my heart breaking into a thousand pieces and I could barely breathe. It was a dark, cold, snowy January evening
00:12:40
when a huge flash of light illuminated the entire sky. So much so that my boyfriend on the phone 3 miles away from
00:12:46
me saw the light and yelled, "What the [ __ ] was that?" Ooh. I was able to sob out the words, "That was my grandmother.
00:12:53
She just died." Woah. "I have to go. My dad's My dad's going to call me now." And I hung up.
00:12:59
The crazy part was that I had no reason to think that's what was happening at this moment, but I knew. I could feel
00:13:05
her. Almost like if you've ever seen the movie Powder and he touched the deer, he
00:13:09
could feel it dying, slipping away into darkness. That's what I felt. I felt my grandmother leave this earth. And when
00:13:15
that white flash filled the night sky, I knew she was gone. I'm not kidding you.
00:13:19
I haven't Can you see the goosebumps on my arm? Holy [ __ ] I'm so sorry. That's awful.
00:13:26
Also, taking it back to Powder as well. I don't know that movie. Sean Patrick Flanery is in that movie.
00:13:32
Hell. Yeah. I quickly turned off my phone and just like I had and just like I had said, 2
00:13:38
minutes later the real phone rang. It was my dad who let me know that my grandmother had passed away at home in
00:13:43
her bed. Wow. Wow, that's That's just bonkers that you knew. Wow. The next day was Martin Luther King Day, so we didn't
00:13:50
so we actually didn't have school. And thankfully though, because I was so distraught, Dave came over to console
00:13:55
me. Remember when you were just a ball of anxiety and hormones all at once? Well, the consoling started turning into
00:14:01
the heavy petting. And then somehow, even though I was the one grieving, I ended up being the one in the kneeling
00:14:06
position. I'm literally obsessed with you, Claudia. I guess he was just trying to
00:14:12
wipe away my Definitely, if you have kids, earmuffs. I guess he was trying to wipe wipe away
00:14:20
my tears with his penis, but I digress. And I'm screaming. And that mid-mouth hug, I felt it.
00:14:31
Mid-mouth hug. No, not mid-mouth hug. And I don't mean it was anything from my boyfriend. I mean, I felt a presence and
00:14:38
it was overwhelming and filling the entire room. So, I stopped mid-stroke with with a mouth full of man meat. I'm
00:14:46
having a mental panic attack realizing that I can feel my grandmother's recently departed spirit in the room
00:14:52
with us and there was no denying it. No. Then somehow it got worse. Dave gasped, "Oh my god, she's here."
00:15:02
I was like, "You need to put your man meat away because I can't do this." Shut up. The feeling and presence was so
00:15:08
overwhelming that even he could feel that she was there. Hopefully, she wasn't there to critique my technique
00:15:13
because holy heaven, did everyone else know that you're not really SUPPOSED TO BLOW?
00:15:24
DAMN YOU, CATHOLIC school sex education failing me again. No No, stop the next sentence. Oh my
00:15:33
god. This is just getting This is the best listener tale we've ever read. Are you guys ready? So, there I am
00:15:39
cranking out some raspberries on the skin flute while my dead grandma was second-hand cringing with embarrassment
00:15:47
for me. I wish I could tell I wish I could tell you I wish I could get through this. I wish
00:15:55
I could tell you what happened after she made herself known, but I'm pretty positive that I blacked out from sheer
00:16:00
embarrassment and emotion. I can tell you that for a very long time afterwards, I did have to do a ghost
00:16:06
vibe check to make sure that Grath to make sure the gram wasn't getting another performance. Although, if she
00:16:12
did, I had improved greatly. Any [ __ ] If I had stopped there and written and written that
00:16:22
Oh my god. This is so good. If I had stopped there and written that there were stories
00:16:26
where gross ghost gram saved my life and my husband's life, you guys would have said, "Damn it, why didn't you include
00:16:31
them?" Plot twist, I did. Yes. Even though my grandmother had seen her Jezebel granddaughter in action, she
00:16:38
clearly thought I was still worth saving because there are numerous occasions where the only way that I'm still alive
00:16:43
is due to her angelic intervention. When my grandmother originally passed away, the movie Titanic had come
00:16:49
had come out right around that time and the Celine Dion song "My Heart Will Go On" always made me cry.
00:16:55
Fast forward a few years later, I'm driving like a maniac, like I always did, in my little Geo Tracker, which was
00:17:00
basically a soda can with wheels and a diaper for a convertible top. So, you know, really safe. One night I'm driving
00:17:07
this death trap down a three-lane highway that that all lanes go in one direction.
00:17:12
It's absolutely pouring, but I'm still driving fast because I'm young and I'm dumb and I'm indestructible.
00:17:16
Obviously. Suddenly, Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" comes on the radio. It's been a few years, so I just got
00:17:22
chills immediately. It's been a few years, so it's not one that they play often, but still anytime
00:17:28
I hear it, it brings me back and immediately makes me tear up and think of her. With tears filling my eyes and
00:17:33
the rain coming down so hard, I have to slow down a little bit. And then the chorus hit and I really started crying
00:17:39
and couldn't see, so I had to slow down even more. I'm in the left lane and out of a side street, a car turns into my
00:17:46
lane going the wrong way. Headed right for me with its headlights blinding me. There's a car to my right
00:17:52
and a guardrail to the left of me, so with nowhere to go, I had to slam on my brakes.
00:17:57
With the slick road conditions, I started to skid and he did the same and we both propelled toward each other
00:18:03
uncontrollably and I closed my eyes waiting for impact, but it never happened. With the sound of the wipers on full
00:18:10
speed and the heavy rain hitting the windshield, I opened my eyes slowly and the chorus sang out again, "You are safe
00:18:16
in my heart and my heart will go on." I just got chilly. the Yeah, there it is. He had skidded to a stop so close to
00:18:25
touching that I could no longer see his headlights. You could barely fit a piece
00:18:29
of paper between our cars, but we never actually connected. Holy [ __ ] If that specific song had not come on
00:18:36
the radio at that exact second causing me to cry, forcing me to slow down, I would have plowed into him at 80 miles
00:18:43
an hour in my little tin can of a car. You would not be writing this story. No way. And what a [ __ ] shame that
00:18:49
would be. Wow. That song and my gram brought me a few seconds or bought me a few seconds
00:18:54
and saved my life and possibly the other drivers as well. Wow. Another instance with me driving
00:18:59
down a three three-lane highway. There are a lot of them in my area, so it was not that crazy and I was on them
00:19:04
multiple times a day. But I was driving along coming down a hill with a bend to the left. There was a light that had
00:19:09
just turned green. The first lane had a car in it, the second lane had an 18-wheeler, and the third lane, from
00:19:15
what I could see, was empty. So, I was coming around the bend. I couldn't see around the 18-wheeler, but went to go
00:19:20
into that third lane so that I could pass the rig that was still just starting to get moving.
00:19:25
The wheel was violently jerked out of my hand and pulled back to the left keeping
00:19:29
me in the second lane. I thought I hit something, like one of those potholes that makes your car shake
00:19:34
and your spirit leaves your body for a moment. But no, I was physically not able to
00:19:39
turn the steering wheel to go around the right side of the 18-wheeler. I slammed
00:19:43
on my brakes trying to figure out what the heck was happening. Was my wheel damaged? Did it fall off? I ended up
00:19:49
staying behind the big truck. And as we just started going to go past the light,
00:19:52
I saw it. There was a motorcycle stalled in that right lane still sitting at the
00:19:57
light. [ __ ] How I was approaching the turn, the 18-wheeler was obscuring the view of it.
00:20:02
And if I had passed around that right side of the truck at 65 miles an hour on the blind turn, I likely would have
00:20:07
killed the motorcyclist and possibly even myself. But I know that my grandmother pulled the wheel from my
00:20:13
hand and didn't allow me to go into that lane. Again, she saved my little trollop
00:20:18
ass again. Damn, her little angel wings must get tired. Then again, a few years later, she saved
00:20:25
not my life, but my husband's and an entire plane full of people. Damn. One day, I was driving along and I got a
00:20:33
visit a vision so strong I had to pull over. It was of my husband on a plane and I could see him taking off and a few
00:20:40
minutes after they were in the air, the plane was malfunctioning and it was starting to fall from the sky. Sorry,
00:20:44
Elena. I'm having a moment. Elena, that's like one of her biggest fears. Yeah. So vividly, he called me and I
00:20:50
answered the phone and he told me they were going down and that he loved me. This was not just a daydream or
00:20:55
something I was imagining. It was what was going to happen. It was very clear. I also saw myself give give my husband's
00:21:02
eulogy and be at the church with his casket. Oh my god. Woah. Jesus Christ. The truly terrifying part was that my
00:21:10
husband was away on business currently and was scheduled to fly the next morning to come back home. I called him
00:21:15
immediately frantically telling him to go rent a car or ride with the trucks that would be bringing the gear back,
00:21:20
that he should travel with one of them, but do not get on that plane because you're going to die. Woah.
00:21:26
Understandably, my husband was clearly startled because he answered the phone while at work to his wife yelling,
00:21:32
"You're going to die!" and was taken aback and jokingly said, "Okay, crazy lady, I got to get back to
00:21:37
work." And he had to go. After we hung up the phone, I realized how I sounded like a raving lunatic. He still had many
00:21:43
hours of Oh man, this poor man. He still had many hours of work to go before he was able to get back into his hotel
00:21:50
room, but when he did, he called me as soon as he got there. Once we started chatting, he did not
00:21:55
bring up my kooky phone call at all. I think he was hoping that I'd forgotten about it or maybe if we ignored it, it
00:22:00
would go away. Clearly not the best for relationships, but hey, we're human. It had been a long day and he said he'd
00:22:06
call me in the morning before he was heading out. I barely slept that night because I knew the next day I was going
00:22:11
to be a widow. Oh my god, you poor thing. I have a crazy fear of flying just like Elena.
00:22:17
Oh man, I'm sorry. projected it on my husband. I could only assume that's what he thought I was
00:22:21
doing as he called me from the airport that moment or that morning and I told him one last time, "Don't get on that
00:22:28
plane." He told me not to worry and that he he would be home in just a few short
00:22:32
hours and I would see that it was all going to be okay. My husband has flown hundreds of times
00:22:37
for work. He flies all over the world and planes don't bother him even though he's been in one that's been struck by
00:22:42
lightning before. How [ __ ] crazy, I would never get on a plane again, but hey, that's me.
00:22:47
Don't worry, they have like all these systems that like disperse the lightning, the electricity out Yeah. on
00:22:52
the wings of the plane and out into the atmosphere. Listen to our omen episode. You did a
00:22:57
really good job explaining that. Cuz it made me feel better. Yeah. He told me that he had to shut off his
00:23:02
phone as they were about to take off. I told him I loved him and we got off the phone because I could see my pleas were
00:23:06
not going anywhere and I didn't want to totally freak him out anymore on his flight. When we hung up, I cried and I
00:23:12
screamed to my grandmother to save my husband's life. Oh. I begged her with everything I had
00:23:17
in me to watch over my husband and make sure that plane never took off because they were all going to die. I said,
00:23:22
"Gram, do not let that plane take off. If you love me at all, do not let it happen." Again, I saw all of it play out
00:23:29
so vividly and I saw him call me as the plane was going down to tell me goodbye.
00:23:33
I knew it was inevitable. His flight was at 9:30 a.m. and I was a sobbing mess in my bed pleading with my
00:23:39
grandmother to save him. At 9:56, my phone was ringing and it was my husband's name on caller ID. My heart
00:23:46
shattered and I stared at the screen not knowing if I was even strong enough to answer this call. Could I be strong
00:23:52
enough to hear his final goodbye? Right before it went to voicemail, I reluctantly answered knowing my life was
00:23:57
about to crumble. I sheepishly said, "Hello." My husband replied immediately and
00:24:02
loudly, "I will never doubt you again." What? god, what happened? He told me that as
00:24:07
soon as the doors closed, he was filled with dread for the first time ever while
00:24:11
flying. The plane began to back up and all the power shut off. Everything turned off. It came back on and they
00:24:17
tried again. Seven times they tried to back up and seven times the power shut off completely.
00:24:24
My husband flagged down a flight attendant and asked what was happening because he wanted to get off this plane.
00:24:29
People in the next row heard him and immediately chimed in that they wanted off, too. In the next few minutes,
00:24:34
everyone wanted off. Woah. When the power came back on, they were able to taxi back to the gate and
00:24:39
let everyone off. He called me to tell me he was going to rent a car and drive the 8 hours back home because he was not
00:24:45
getting onto a plane today. Holy [ __ ] My grandmother did it. She made sure that plane never took off and she saved
00:24:51
my husband's life and all the other passionate passengers' lives. Wow. chills that are just like like
00:24:58
consistent chills. They're not going away. Wow. I know the first story was totally funny
00:25:05
and embarrassing and I'm great and I'm great goofing during that one, but I do get serious when thinking about
00:25:11
how if I didn't have my guardian angel grandma, myself or my husband might not be here.
00:25:15
That's unbelievably crazy. It really is and I believe it. So those are just some of my crazy stories.
00:25:21
Honestly, there's so many more, but I don't want to take over a total listener tales episode, although I probably
00:25:26
already did. No, thank you for this. I love it. I've included pics of me and my fur babies,
00:25:30
mandatory, am I right? Hell yeah. Correct. Don't read their names because people will know whom I
00:25:35
embarrassed ass is. I'm not saying them, but I don't Oh, those are great names, though. Yeah, those are fantastic names.
00:25:40
Trust us, they're great names. My very alive husband and myself and my BJ boyfriend Dave from back in the day 20
00:25:47
years ago. Uh those pictures were included. I also included a screenshot where I told him I
00:25:52
was going to send this story in for a listener tale and not to worry, I would change our names and he told me not to
00:25:57
change his because how else was he supposed to get famous? You will notice though, he did not ask what story
00:26:03
because he damn well knew what story because even 20 plus years later, you don't forget ghost gram watching you get
00:26:08
dome. Thanks, weirdos. Stay weird, but don't Take it away, Ash. Uh Keep it weird, but
00:26:15
not so weird that your grandma sees you to do your first [ __ ] because that's absolutely terrible and you'll never
00:26:20
move on. I'm literally obsessed. Oh my god, Claudia is a queen. That was That is among the best listener
00:26:30
tales we've ever received. That was so funny and also so on a skin flute. And also that was like
00:26:36
so touching and so sweet and so amazing and like You took us on a journey, Claude. You really did.
00:26:44
it. Like you really did it. Oh my god, you and your husband are beautiful. I know and the wedding pictures.
00:26:48
Yes, they're gorgeous. Oh. Why That was amazing. That was amazing. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed with you. I'm
00:26:56
obsessed with it all. And grandma's so pretty. Grandma's beautiful. Did you see grandma?
00:27:01
ghost grandma for the win. Seriously. She's working overtime, that gal. Can we talk about your visions? You're [ __ ]
00:27:08
like damn. That vision? That's a that like as soon as for your husband to suddenly be like, "You know what? I want
00:27:15
off this plane." and then for everyone else to be like, "Same too." Like cuz a lot of people will ignore
00:27:19
that. They won't ignore They won't listen to their gut. Yep. So it's like she grandma was being like,
00:27:25
"No, everybody get the [ __ ] off the plane." Grandma was working OT. Yeah. Seven
00:27:29
times, I'd be like, "I'm opening the window and getting out." be like, "Catch me on the tarmac." You
00:27:33
are getting me off this plane or I'm causing an international incident that will make me get off that plane.
00:27:38
At that point, seriously. Like oh, what a wild tale. All the way through. So, I guess what we will do
00:27:46
now. How do we follow up on that? Uh we'll go to the next one is listener tales, you weirdos. Perfect. I like
00:27:54
that. And this listener's name is Josh. Ooh, and you included some photography because you're a photographer and holy
00:28:02
[ __ ] Wow, that first one is so eerie. Your photography is so vibey. So cool. Ooh.
00:28:09
it. The bicycle one, the trike. Okay. I dig this a lot. book. I dig this. Wow, you're really
00:28:16
talented. Damn, Josh. This is great. Damn, Josh. Damn, Josh. Um all right, it says, "Hey, Ash and Elena. First off, I
00:28:22
love the pod. Thanks. My name is Josh." Hi, Josh. Hello. "I'm a photographer from Toronto,
00:28:27
Canada. We love Canadians." And poutine. "I've always been drawn to supernatural
00:28:33
and true crime stories, so naturally this podcast drew me in right away. Me and my girlfriend have been listening
00:28:39
together for the past year and you two normally join us on many trips up to our cottage."
00:28:43
Oh, I love that. "This might be a little bit of a tale, but it's one of my favorite stories that I have to this
00:28:49
day. I would say that I've had more than the normal amount of supernatural things
00:28:53
happen to me. The childhood house that I grew up in was haunted, but it was a chill spirit to the point where when I
00:28:59
never felt threatened, but things definitely happened that couldn't be explained.
00:29:02
That's kind of how we felt in our house. Yeah, exactly. My mom's house she grew up in was the opposite. That spirit was
00:29:07
a dick. It would do things like turn on the gas stove in the middle of the night
00:29:11
god. or hold a pillow down over my sleeping grandpa's face. Uh that sounds like a
00:29:17
demon. Yeah, that's a diamond. Lots of stories there, too, but this one is still my favorite. This one takes place
00:29:23
in a more more than spooky location, an abandoned asylum. To give you a little bit of a backstory, my good friend Matt
00:29:29
and myself are photographers. Again, phenomenal photography. If we can share your photography, we'll reach out and
00:29:35
ask because I would love to share it. It would actually be perfect to use for this listener tales
00:29:41
like episode post. So we'll reach out and make sure that you're cool with it, but we would love
00:29:44
to share it because he's killing it. Pretty much. My good friend Matt and myself are photographers. We've gone on
00:29:50
a couple of photography trips to shoot abandoned buildings and places that are left to decay through time. I love that
00:29:56
kind of photography, too. Like decaying abandoned buildings, I love that [ __ ] A
00:30:01
lot of the places have quite a bit of history behind them and more often than not, it's not pretty. I'm talking about
00:30:06
abandoned hospitals, asylums, churches, morgues. These are you're saying the morgues aren't pretty?
00:30:12
No, I'm just kidding. What are you trying to say? These are the kind of places where spirits tend to overstay
00:30:16
their welcome. This particular occasion, we were headed to Letchworth Village in
00:30:20
Upstate New York. This place was heaven for us. At its peak, Letchworth Village consisted of over 130 buildings spread
00:30:28
out over many acres of land. It was closed off to the public as most of these abandoned sites were, but as
00:30:33
usual, that didn't stop us. Party. We did our research. Party. We did our research and hopped in the car,
00:30:39
bags packed, and a list of spots to hit along the way. This sounds like a [ __ ] awesome trip. I was like, I kind
00:30:46
of want to plan a trip like this. Let's go. Letchworth opened in 1911 and was there to give care to the
00:30:53
uh mentally impaired, epileptic, and poor children. Hm, that's sad. Not sure why the last one ended up
00:30:59
there, but hey, to each their own. History is rough. Now, the history in this place was dark.
00:31:05
When I say dark, I mean like wearing a blindfold in a basement cellar with all the lights turned off while being
00:31:10
covered up by a burlap sack dark. Holy [ __ ] Due to inadequate funding and improper care of the residents,
00:31:16
including children, there were reports of patients being found unclothed, unbathed, and neglected. So sad.
00:31:22
These places are always so horrifying. Just so bleak. There was a ton of abuse towards patients and staff, which
00:31:29
included incidents of Trigger Warning here. This is going to get a little rough, everybody. So, skip over if you
00:31:35
don't want to hear it. Um including incidents of rape, beatings, and testing done on patients, and I'm sure there
00:31:41
were many more things that happened on these grounds that would make you sick to think of. Despite the doctors doing
00:31:46
testing on these patients, there was one good thing to come out of this place. It's where they developed the vaccine
00:31:51
for polio in the 1950s. Oh, wow. It's a pretty good thing. I would say so. This test vaccine was
00:31:57
given to an 8-year-old boy who was given the dose, and when he experienced no side effects, it was then administered
00:32:03
to 19 more child child patients. These experimentation trials were the first step towards a better polio vaccine, and
00:32:10
the doctor was praised for his efforts. But just think, if it didn't work and had some horrible side effects, I bet it
00:32:15
would all be swept under the rug and more testing on innocent children would have continued.
00:32:19
Yeah. Anyways, I'm starting to get distracted because of the history here, but let's get back to it. After about 8
00:32:24
hours of driving, we pulled up to the area the village was close to. Since it was fenced off and abandoned, it had
00:32:30
been overgrown and not well maintained. It was a bit of a trek to get to. We parked the car in a discreet location
00:32:36
and grabbed our bags, hopped the fence, and started our hike into the forest. After about 10 minutes of walking, we
00:32:41
stumbled onto our first building. This sounds [ __ ] awesome. It sounds like a movie. The excitement
00:32:46
and anticipation grew as we made our way closer to the decaying structure. Windows shattered and a front door
00:32:52
swinging back and forth in the wind, paint chipping off the walls, and moss growing on the roof. It was perfect.
00:32:57
Exactly what we hoped when we first looked into this place. Once we got inside, it got even better. It was like
00:33:03
everyone here just stood up from what they were doing and walked away, leaving everything in place for the next 50
00:33:08
years. Oh. I love the that that sentence is so great. Like everyone just stood up from
00:33:14
what they were doing and walked away. Yeah, you can you can just you're there. feel that. There were bed frames lined
00:33:20
up in a row, dirty ripped mattresses on some of them still, patient files scattered across the floor, toys left
00:33:25
broken covered in dirt and dust, everything left behind. It was crazy. The craziest thing was the writing on
00:33:31
the walls in some of the rooms. Diving into the mind of someone stuck in an asylum was a chilling experience. We
00:33:37
could have stayed here all day and explored, but seeing as the sun would eventually go down, it wasn't a spot we
00:33:42
felt like spending the night. We continued exploring the various buildings, each one a little different,
00:33:46
and spent hours shooting and wandering around the grounds. We decided to stop and have a smoke out in front of the one
00:33:52
of the buildings. Bad habit, I know, but we're just chatting about the exploration while going through the
00:33:57
photos on our cameras. Looking off into the distance towards the north, this is important later.
00:34:02
We can faintly see two figures walking towards us. Judging by the speed they were moving, it didn't seem to be
00:34:07
security or anyone that made us feel like running, so we stayed put and waited until they got closer.
00:34:13
Took about 10 minutes for the couple to make their way close enough to make to us to make out who they were. To our
00:34:18
surprise, it was an elderly couple, husband and wife, who were going for a walk together as they normally did
00:34:24
through the grounds of the village. This didn't seem odd to us at the time, so we chatted with them for about 15
00:34:29
minutes while standing outside. They said they didn't know much about the area, but frequently walked around here.
00:34:35
We, on the other hand, knew a shitload about the grounds, so we're more than happy to They were more than happy to
00:34:39
hear a little history lesson on the village from us while we talked. They explained that they had walked together
00:34:44
here for the last 20 years or so and enjoyed hearing about the grounds they spent so much time on.
00:34:49
We chatted a little more and then said our goodbyes, and as they continue to walk to continue to walk away from us at
00:34:55
the speed of an 80-year-old couple, we waited and watched them walk south out of our view as we're as we were
00:35:00
trespassing and breaking into some of these buildings. Once they were gone, we turned and walked in the opposite
00:35:06
direction to put some space between us and headed north into the next building. I remember they went south.
00:35:11
Mhm. This was exactly the same as the last building we were in, so decided to head out and keep walking to see if we
00:35:17
could find what we could find. As we turned to start walking, we noticed that off in the distance, to the north again,
00:35:23
we could see faintly two figures walking towards us. I looked over at Matt and said in a
00:35:28
surprised voice, "Hey, there's another two people coming towards us." We were both a bit shocked by this as the
00:35:33
grounds were closed off, but neither of us had had any idea how shocked we were about to be in a few minutes.
00:35:39
We continued walking towards the figures, and once we got closer, we realized it was the same old couple we
00:35:44
had run into 15 minutes ago. There's no way that's them. It can't be. We passed them and waved briefly saying,
00:35:51
"Hi, how are you again?" to the couple and watching them walk off once again into the distance. This is when it got
00:35:57
weird. Both Matt and myself were looking at each other with confused looks on our
00:36:01
faces. Just a few minutes before, we had watched this couple walk off into the south out of view, but somehow, they
00:36:08
made a full loop of the grounds and were walking in the same direction they originally came. These grounds were big,
00:36:15
hundreds of acres big. In order for this to make any sense, they would have had to have gotten in a car as soon as they
00:36:21
were out of view the first time, sped through the closed off overgrown roads, parked, gotten out, and started walking
00:36:27
towards us again from the north. As I mentioned before, the couple walked the speed you would imagine an
00:36:33
80-year-old couple to walk, slow as [ __ ] They wouldn't have been able to run, no, sprint all the way around to
00:36:39
the end to end up where they did. I think it was a good 15 minutes Matt and I sat there trying to figure out how
00:36:44
this was possible, running every possibility through our heads, but none of them made any sense. It would have
00:36:49
been hard for us, two 30-year-old guys at the time, to cover the amount of ground this 80-year-old couple did in 15
00:36:55
minutes. The creepy thing about Letchworth Letchworth Village is that when it closed down in 1996, it was
00:37:01
extremely overcrowded. It's said that many of the patients just mingled into the surrounding areas and blended into
00:37:07
society. I looked over at Matt and asked him if he remembered how old the couple was,
00:37:13
and after some quick math, we realized that they would have been in their early teens when Letchworth was in its prime.
00:37:19
Oh, that gave me chills. they had been walking around these grounds for the last 20 years or so,
00:37:24
which would be the amount of time the grounds have been abandoned for. I remember turning to Matt and saying to
00:37:29
him, "What if they've been walking around these grounds for the last 20 years because they never left?"
00:37:34
Oh my god, I'm I'm wobbling so hard right now. The hair on my arms and neck stands up when I think about saying that
00:37:41
to him. Dude, my arms just got full chill bird. I feel like my back has chills. We decided this was
00:37:48
when we were going to call it a day Fair. and head back to the hotel for the night. I recall Matt saying to me on the
00:37:53
way that if we run into this couple again, he's going to lose his [ __ ] especially after thinking that they were
00:37:58
patients who never left the grounds. Every so often, I'll have to call Matt when explaining this story to someone so
00:38:04
he can verify what happened and tell the exact same side of things, but every time I tell it, the hair stands up
00:38:10
straight when I get to the part about running into them for the second time. Thankfully, we didn't run into them or
00:38:15
any security on the way out and made it back to our car waiting outside the forest we walked in in from earlier that
00:38:20
day. To this day, I wonder about that old couple and still can't make any sense of the whole situation. Were they
00:38:26
patients? Were they ghosts? Are they still wandering around there today, years later? I guess we'll never know,
00:38:32
but I got one of my favorite stories out of it and I'll have that forever. That's all for now. Maybe I'll write
00:38:37
again Maybe I'll write in again about the time we got separated in another asylum and had to backtrack alone
00:38:43
through the tunnels underneath the building in the pitch black looking for a very expensive camera that got left
00:38:48
behind. god. time we walked into an abandoned morgue and could visibly see the breath in
00:38:52
front of your face in the middle of summer in 30° weather. That's for another time, but if you guys read this
00:38:57
one, that'll be enough for me. Once more, love the show, love you, too, and keep it weird, but not so weird that you
00:39:03
You know what? [ __ ] it. We don't need to bring that old couple back for a third
00:39:06
time. That was great. Wow, Josh. Also, I want to hear those other stories, so yes,
00:39:13
please. write those in. And also, we are definitely going to reach out cuz I people need to see these photographs.
00:39:20
They're so cool. The bike one is my favorite. The bike and the book. Yeah, the book is really So, we'll we'll
00:39:25
definitely reach out and make sure that you're cool with that, so we'll we'll give you credit and all that, but we'd
00:39:30
love to share them for you. So cool. That story, haunting. Needs to be like It needs to be part of a movie or it
00:39:39
needs to be a movie. Like that's that whole thing is just so chilling. definitely
00:39:45
when you were reading it I was like picturing it as a scene in a movie. see it in my head 100%. That was so
00:39:51
good. Oh, I wonder who they were. I know. The idea that they're like patients that
00:39:55
never left. It's so sad. And but they're just like, you know, holding hands walking together.
00:40:01
Yeah. I know, it's interesting. Damn. Oof. All right, next one is listener tale. Who
00:40:07
the [ __ ] is that kid and why is he in her bedroom? You know, that's great. We're always wondering. We're we're
00:40:12
always wondering. All right, it says, "Hey Elena, hey Ash. First let me say, you [ __ ] get me
00:40:18
through my every [ __ ] day. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. I listen to the podcast, love
00:40:22
it while I'm working and I believe with every fiber of my annoyed, sick of stupid people being that the two of you
00:40:28
are what keep me from punching people in the face daily. I love that. So thank you for keeping me out of jail and for
00:40:34
the abundance of gruesome, horrifying, hysterical, what the [ __ ] just happened
00:40:38
episodes that you provide. And now let's with the bush, let's begin. As you may have guessed or not, I have
00:40:43
no idea because I don't have a psychic [ __ ] bone in my body. I don't particularly like people with the
00:40:49
exception of a very elite few of which you are both included, so you're welcome. The honor is all yours.
00:40:54
Honestly, you're part of my little elite few as well, girl, so Same. And I tend to not be a talker, so
00:41:01
this shouldn't be too long. If you need it feels to be edited for content, please feel free to do that. It's all
00:41:05
pretty relevant. We will not. I'll start this story by saying I have no [ __ ] idea what the [ __ ] I
00:41:11
experienced. Love those kind of stories. I know, same. I don't know if what happened to
00:41:15
me has happened to others or if there's a logical explanation for it. Any thoughts you have on the experience
00:41:20
would be most welcome and I'm sure hysterical. Anyway, here's my story. I was extremely
00:41:25
pregnant and feeling like a beached walrus minus the mustache and laying in my bed and my husband, who was not
00:41:31
pregnant and felt perfectly [ __ ] fine and is now my ex, but that's a whole other [ __ ] show. Ooh. Was sitting next
00:41:37
to me chicken scratch chicken scratching in a tablet, probably making a list of things to do to do the next day or
00:41:42
writing what he considered poetry or something equally as lame. You're an icon and I love you.
00:41:48
icon. The bedside lamp was on and was the only light on in the house. Our bedroom was very small, basically room
00:41:55
for the never [ __ ] big enough bed and about a foot and a half of space around the bed to walk and that was it. Don't
00:42:00
[ __ ] judge, we were just starting out. Yeah, I feel you. I feel that. We have all had that
00:42:04
bedroom. Yeah, absolutely. So we're in the bed and at the time it felt like I was in
00:42:08
that semi-sleep state where you're on the verge of sleep, but you're not actually asleep. Yeah, that.
00:42:14
Yeah. As I'm laying there, I saw at the foot of our bed a boy, about 10 years old. Hmm. He had a dark complexion and
00:42:20
thick hair, possibly Middle Eastern. He was wearing a white button-up shirt and dark pants. He was in a He was in a very
00:42:26
crowded outdoor marketplace Huh. like you would see in um Marrakech Marrakech or someplace. Not that I've
00:42:33
ever been there, but I do watch television. I watch the TV, you know. And he was looking about as if lost or
00:42:39
searching for someone in the crowd. He looked in my direction a couple of times, but never spoke, at least not to
00:42:44
me or that I could hear. Thank God he didn't seem threatening because I doubt if I would have been able to get my
00:42:49
pregnant fattery out of the bed or out of the door fast enough, but I digress. While I was looking at the boy, for some
00:42:55
[ __ ] reason not questioning why or how he was there in my bedroom because that's not at all creepy. You were
00:43:01
pregnant. You don't question a lot of things when you're pregnant. Yeah. You get a free pass at that point.
00:43:07
But while that was happening, my husband nudged me with his elbow and [ __ ] annoyed, I looked at him. He put an
00:43:12
index finger to his lips as if to say, "Shh." and then pointed at the boy at the foot of the bed. Oh. Oh my god.
00:43:20
My first instinct was to was to crank him in the [ __ ] mouth and be like, "Did you just shush me?"
00:43:29
But then I thought, "Wait, is he seeing that kid, too?" Why isn't he grabbing him up and
00:43:33
throwing his ass out the door? Be a [ __ ] man and protect your pregnant wife. Throw that kid out the door. But
00:43:38
as one does in these situations, I didn't do or say any of that. I simply looked back to the foot of the bed and
00:43:43
continued watching this strange boy like it was a perfectly [ __ ] normal occurrence that we do every [ __ ] day
00:43:49
of the week. Next thing I knew, I was waking up the next morning. But wait, there's more. When I got up the next
00:43:55
day, my husband already left for work, so I didn't get the chance to mention the odd occurrence to him. I shrugged it
00:44:00
off as just a weird-ass dream, went through my daily routine, went to work. I was working the afternoon shift. I
00:44:06
won't regale you the details of my daily routine because that would truly be a but not so weird that moment.
00:44:11
For some reason during our lunch break, my co-workers, people, and I got into conversations about dreams. I shared the
00:44:18
dream, {quote} {unquote}, that I had about the boy and how very real it felt to me in my dream and how my husband saw
00:44:23
him, too. They half-jokingly said I should ask him about it when I got home from work.
00:44:28
The rest of the work day was extremely hectic because my life is a [ __ ] show and work is part of it and I forgot all
00:44:33
about the boy and my dream. I went home and started preparing dinner. Insert hysterical laughing because me cooking.
00:44:40
Anyway, the hubs came home and he went straight to the shower as instructed and then sat down to watch TV until dinner
00:44:45
was ready. We didn't really have any conversation to speak of and as I said, I'd forgotten all about the boy and my
00:44:51
dream. Out of the blue, my husband said to me, "You know this house is haunted, don't
00:44:55
you?" Side note, I can neither prove nor debunk the existence of insert entire mega list of paranormal beings here, so
00:45:02
I'm on the fence. I just want to put that out there. Please read on. After a moment of surprise, I asked him,
00:45:07
"What do you mean? Why do you say that?" If you just read that in a somewhat high-pitched, frantic voice, good job.
00:45:12
You nailed it. I'm going to do it again. What do you mean? Why did you say that?
00:45:16
He said to me, "Didn't you see that [ __ ] kid at the foot of our bed last night?"
00:45:20
you guys. This is so casual. I love it. Like I love that it's just like so much time has passed and then you're just
00:45:25
like He's like, "By the way, you saw that kid at the end of our bed last night. I meant to mention that
00:45:29
earlier. And when I asked, i.e. interrogated, he proceeds to describe in great detail the
00:45:34
boy I saw in what I thought was simply a dream. He described the boy, what he was
00:45:39
wearing, the marketplace, everything. That's the other thing. I'm like, you had an entire portal open up in your
00:45:44
house. That's the thing cuz like I've seen like I believe that I've seen spirits before
00:45:48
in figures, but never in the setting that they're in in a setting. Yeah, that's picturing that is really cool.
00:45:55
That's something altogether different, I feel. Yeah, and I also just can't believe that you're like, "Well,
00:46:00
nighty-night." Yeah, this is a marketplace in my room, I guess. Pop up. And they wrote, "What the actual fuck?"
00:46:08
Exactly. Now I don't know if what I experienced was a shared dream, a spirit of some type, a portal that we had the
00:46:14
opportunity to look through to another place, just a dream, a temporary loss of the last shred of my [ __ ] sanity, or
00:46:21
if there's some other explanation, but I cannot explain how my husband was able to describe exactly what I saw if he
00:46:27
didn't see it, also. Can somebody please explain this to me? Even after I divorced this asshat, we've
00:46:33
had at least two other shared dreams where it's the same dream just from our our respective perceptives. Say that
00:46:40
three times fast fast. Ash, I hope you're reading this one because I love when you trip over your own tongue. It
00:46:45
is very endearing and makes me feel not so alone. You're welcome, friend. You just knew.
00:46:52
These experiences don't scare me, but I often wonder what they are and why they occur. Thank you for reading my lame-ass
00:46:59
story. It's not lame at all. No. After hearing the other listener story, mine is really not on that level. It is.
00:47:05
You saw a whole ass portal in your room and then and your husband saw it, too, and then you also had two other shared
00:47:11
dreams from your respective perspectives. had a shared dream. I was trying to say
00:47:16
it three times fast. Respective perspective. Respective perspective, respective perspective,
00:47:20
respective per [ __ ] I was so close. But yeah, I've never had a shared dream. I don't think.
00:47:26
I don't think I have, either. I've had dreams that like were premonitions. Yeah, but I've never had a shared dream.
00:47:33
No. That I know of, anyways. I still Do you ever still think about the girl that
00:47:38
wrote in the tale? Yes. And yeah. The entire village That she would always go back there. No,
00:47:43
I'm literally obsessed with that. I think about it like once a month, I think. Yeah. Uh anyways, okay, sorry, let's
00:47:51
finish this. If I am a fan girl lucky enough to get my story in a listener tale episode, please feel free to use my
00:47:56
name while I bottle my tears of joy as a creepy memento. Don't worry, I don't plan to send I don't plan to send them
00:48:01
to you or anyone. I'm weird, but not send people I don't know my bottled tears weird. Don't keep it that weird.
00:48:07
Love you both and love the podcast. Love you. P.S. I know Elena is an accomplished
00:48:11
author. Congrats. So please don't judge the horrendous grammar. Girl, never. Not
00:48:15
my [ __ ] forte. I also said grammar, yeah, grammar. I would never judge your horrendous grammar.
00:48:22
But then it says, "Keep it weird, bitches." and I don't know if you said we could use your name or not.
00:48:27
Yeah, she said, "Please feel free to use my full name." It's Sheila Feather. Sheila. Sheila Feather is a cool name.
00:48:34
Sheila Feather. Love. You're the best. You guys rule. I love your attitude. I could feel it.
00:48:39
Yeah, I got a little bit of bit of spice and I love that. I love a spicy also love that you guys don't get mad
00:48:45
when I stumble over my words. Thank you. I love that. Thank you. Thanks for mentioning the whole author
00:48:50
bit and I didn't pay you to do that, so thanks. Like your check is in the mail. I appreciate it because the sequel to
00:48:56
The Butcher and the Wren, called The Butcher Game. Yay. Is coming out on September 17th and you can pre-order
00:49:03
your copy at thebutchergame.com. So go claim your free poster because there's there only going to be a certain
00:49:12
amount of free posters while the supplies last, so go get it. Is it ever going to be a tinyurl.com ever again? I
00:49:18
feel like we need to make it a tinyurl.com. Can you talk to your people? to I'll talk to my people.
00:49:22
Okay, thank you. Uh because I want to say tinyurl.com/thebutchergame. Yeah, I also want that.
00:49:29
that. But go get your copy of it because that's going to be a It's going to going
00:49:33
to be the theme for me or something. Somebody go get her. Go get her. She's reading like a
00:49:37
thriller. This one's longer, too. That's my input. So, get on it. It's really good. I've read some of the
00:49:42
chapters. Uh so, my next one is aliens. Just aliens. Love that. title. Fantastic.
00:49:52
Um it says, "Hi ladies, I have a listener tale in the attached. Please let me know if the doc doesn't come
00:49:56
through. You know what? It came through." Uh listener also wants to be called Betty. Betty? Betty. I think I
00:50:02
know why. Hey Betty. I think I also know why. "Hello ladies of maybes." I like it.
00:50:11
"So, writing this in is way outside my comfort zone. I'm not a sharer when it comes to regular type life events, let
00:50:17
alone the bonkers, bizarre, and creepy. Particularly not this experience as you'll see it's pretty unbelievable, but
00:50:23
it happened. And your listener tales provide a fun place for people to talk about experiences that we can't always
00:50:28
talk about elsewhere. It's practically a community service." I like the way you look at that.
00:50:33
that that's how you look at it cuz that's how I always look Yeah. You can tell us any of your weird, crazy
00:50:37
experiences because No judgement here. Never. "I listen to your podcast all the time and the listener tales are probably
00:50:44
my favorite." Wow. We don't get that a lot. However, "However, while I've decided to finally
00:50:50
put down in writing what happened, I'd prefer not to share my name, so please call me Betty." You got it, Betty.
00:50:55
Bell I almost said belly. Belly. She said, "Please call me Betty." Not belly. "Okay, belly."
00:51:03
"I'm from Canberra, which is actually which is the actual capital of Australia."
00:51:08
Oh [ __ ] I did not know that. And she said, "Please tell the world Here we are.
00:51:14
Um I I live a couple of hours drive from the Thank you so much for the phonetic.
00:51:19
Uh Yeah. Eurobodalla Shire. Yeah. Eurobodalla Shire. There it is. The southeast coast of Australia. This area
00:51:31
is gorgeous and remains one of my favorite places in the world. It's so peaceful and beautiful and my soul no
00:51:36
matter what's happening in my life. I love that. So, you can imagine how best pleased I was when one night I was over
00:51:42
it was overtaken by aliens. Damn. My family have regularly gone up to this area for weekends and holidays as why
00:51:49
wouldn't you? Every Christmas my family would rent a house somewhere along the coast and we'd stay there for a couple
00:51:54
of weeks. My friend, let's call her D, would come and stay with us for the second week of our stay and had done for
00:52:00
years. The last time this happened D and I were 16 and had well and truly started
00:52:05
our teenage nonsense. One night the house was full of two families and younger children, so we did what any
00:52:11
teenagers do and swipe a couple of beers and a flashlight from my parents and headed down to the beach.
00:52:15
Living Just a short walk away. Being a regional area as far as we could tell we were the only people on the
00:52:20
beach slowly sipping on our beers which weren't going down so well as they were warm and nasty.
00:52:26
But when you're 16 you're like, "It's fine. I love this." So, there there we were sitting on the sand near the waves
00:52:32
under the moonlight chatting away. D was in the middle of explaining an ongoing drama with her friends at high school.
00:52:37
While she chatted away I was watching a light way out in the distance on the water. It was an orange light and looked
00:52:42
like it belongs to a belongs to a passing ship. Nothing unusual. I kept watching the light on the horizon
00:52:48
as my friend rabbited away. After 15 to 20 minutes, however, this light had gotten bigger like it was closer perhaps
00:52:54
and I realized it was not sitting on the water, but significantly higher up. Hard to tell when something is so far
00:53:00
away, but guessing at least 100 m off the water. So, it was no longer looking like a ship or a boat. Hmm. After
00:53:07
staring at this for a while I interrupted D's "And then Adrian said" story with "Do you see that?" indicating
00:53:13
the light in the distance. "Yeah," she says and forgets about Adrian and becomes equally as focused on figuring
00:53:19
out this strange orb. We both stared at it for several minutes waiting for it to
00:53:23
explain itself. It was certainly bigger than anything that belonged to a plane or ship and it just moved weird. Still
00:53:30
confused and not thinking about it, I decided to pick up the flashlight and flashed at this mysterious light. Well,
00:53:36
[ __ ] The moment I turned on the flashlight and pointed it at this thing, it immediately responded What?
00:53:42
to our flashlight and to us. have [ __ ] my pants. from far out in the horizon to about 100
00:53:49
m away from our heads in the snap of your fingers. There was no sound, no clear acceleration or deceleration. It
00:53:57
just moved several kilometers to a dead stop right near us in next to no time. All of a sudden there was this large
00:54:04
bubble of light meters away. D and I got up and bolted. We turn we turned towards
00:54:09
the dunes away from the beach and just ran. When we got to the top of the dunes we both paused and dared to look
00:54:14
backward. It was still there just chilling. It was big and made of light like the
00:54:19
light you might see from a street lamp, but it had a clearly defined outline. No
00:54:24
metal, opening, or features, just opaque light. It was just about the size of a double
00:54:30
decker bus. Its shape is hard to explain. It could have been changing shape slightly or it could have been
00:54:35
slowly spinning and revealing different sides. I couldn't tell. At one point it looked like it was a perfect sphere
00:54:41
sphere and at others more like a rounded banana or sausage. Either way it just hung in the air soundlessly slowly
00:54:48
moving across the water just where the waves were breaking about 50 to 70 m off the water. Maybe it was exploring. Now
00:54:56
that I think about it, we really should have done a better job hiding rather than standing on the highest point of
00:55:00
the beach gaping and frozen. Yeah, what are you going to do? At this point we had time to think. What
00:55:04
the [ __ ] was going on? Is it looking for us? Can it already see us? Did it think
00:55:09
our torch light was one of its own and excitedly sprint to greet us only to have to explain, "Oh [ __ ] thought you
00:55:14
were someone else." It's like when you wave at somebody, but they're not waving at you.
00:55:18
"Oh no, this is weird." "But we had no idea. But for the next maybe 30 minutes we just clung to each
00:55:25
other on the sand watching this thing float in the air." "After a while it slowly moved upwards
00:55:30
into the sky and we could still see its glow beaming from behind the clouds, but
00:55:35
we got cold and headed home." "When we got home we didn't tell my family as they would have not believed
00:55:40
us and instead just went to bed. Years later I told my best friend about this experience, but she is still highly
00:55:46
skeptical and told me I only thought I saw something." What a [ __ ] She wasn't there. That's not right.
00:55:52
"Fuck you." It says. Yeah. I didn't say it. She did. "Fuck you," says Betty. "Luckily she has many other qualities
00:55:59
and is still my best friend to this day, but as you can imagine this is not a story I share with people.
00:56:03
Since this experience I've kept a casual eye on other encounters that might be similar to mine, but there's not a lot.
00:56:09
If anything this has made me more skeptical about other people's experiences and definitely YouTube
00:56:14
videos. As soon as I hear things about saucers and metal count contraptions I'm like, "Nope, that's not what aliens look
00:56:20
like." Wrong. Though in truth I can't say exactly what I what it was that I saw, but I saw it and it was something
00:56:26
extraordinary though terrifying at the time. I'm only up to about episode 160 on your
00:56:31
podcast, but catching up fast. I like how you describe the unknowns in your stories and theorize on possibilities.
00:56:37
So, ladies please feel free to tell me your thoughts. Would love to know what your maybes and explanations could be.
00:56:43
While you're baking your noodles, let me add this. A few days later D's father and stepmom unexplained expectedly paid
00:56:49
us a visit. They had to give D the awful news that her mom OD'd a couple of days
00:56:53
before ending decades of struggles with heroin. Well, that's awful. very close and protective of her mom and
00:56:59
was devastated. Related? Probably not, but that was two big events that happened very close together.
00:57:05
Thanks for reading, ladies. I know how much you love Australia, so hopefully I have provided you with another tidbit to
00:57:11
add to your basket of creepy Australian tales. Keep it weird. Love, Betty. Betty. I think you guys saw aliens.
00:57:17
You saw an UFO. I think so. And I do feel like people's experiences with like sightings can be different because I
00:57:25
don't think all aliens come from one planet. we're seeing all kinds of different
00:57:29
ones. Yeah, they are they all have different places where they live. But I don't know what else what other
00:57:33
explanation there is for that. No, you saw aliens. Like you saw aliens. said they're real. Betty saw aliens.
00:57:40
deal with it. You just did. You just you just saw them. Deal with it, Betty. Yeah.
00:57:44
I don't know how I feel. I'm very I'm very in the middle of if I'd like to see aliens or not. I want to.
00:57:50
Really? Yes. For like a hard 100% you need to see it. Wow. I want to see it. I I feel like we've had experience with
00:57:58
You don't want to see them. I I'm not sure. I I don't want to and I do want to. I I want to see them, but like not
00:58:05
get abducted, please. Yeah, I don't want to get abducted. I I Yeah, you're like,
00:58:09
"Let me be clear on that." me be clear. Like I I'm a homebody. I don't like going anywhere. So, like I
00:58:15
don't you won't catch me out. So, you're not going to catch me in an alien ship.
00:58:19
I also don't like flying, so that's Yeah. many issues for me there. Yeah. I'm a Capricorn, so don't touch me. And
00:58:26
like yeah, no. None of this is going to work. I want to see them though from the
00:58:30
distance. And just give a little wave and be like, "Sorry." I feel like we've seen your
00:58:36
photos together. We've like like driving I feel like we've seen things and been like, I've seen some weird things that I
00:58:42
can't Yeah. And John's seen something at least one thing that he's positive is is a like an UFO.
00:58:49
That's a crazy story. You should actually I feel like he's not going to come on, but
00:58:52
have him tell the story. write it down at least so we can read it. him pop on and maybe tell the story if I
00:58:57
can force him to. We'll have to bribe him heavily. We absolutely will, but it's okay. Well,
00:59:02
I'll I'll think of Yeah. Yeah. You know, we'll figure it out. But yeah, I think Betty saw a [ __ ] alien. I think
00:59:09
so. So, you can be comforted in that fact, Betty. Yeah, and I'm sorry about your friend's
00:59:14
mom. That's really terrible and to have all of that to process in a very short span That's a lot to process for poor D.
00:59:21
Yeah. Woof. All right. right, we love Australia. We love our Australians. Let's finish it off with
00:59:26
one more. Let's do it. We have listener tales, the disappearing lady in the ditch and a possible spirit
00:59:31
stalker. Also, yeet. You're welcome, Ash. Thank you. Hello, you beautiful baked potatoes.
00:59:38
That is how I identify. Thank you. just going to say I will not answer to anything else. So, thank you.
00:59:43
a beautiful baked potato. potato. It's like in a bug's life. I am a beautiful butterfly. I am a beautiful baked
00:59:50
potato. With sour cream. I love it. I used to despise podcasts until one day I found yours. That's
00:59:56
wild. Thank you. And it's basically the only one I consistently listen to. I tried listening to other ones, but it
01:00:01
just felt wrong. The other true crime ones are too monotone or depressing. Plus, it made me feel like I was
01:00:06
cheating on you guys in a way. If I listen to a true crime podcast that wasn't you, which I know you encourage
01:00:11
us to listen to other people, but I don't care. I only want you. LOL. Like I won't. Don't make me.
01:00:17
many other good ones, though. So, give them a try. But, thank you. That's so kind. Anyway,
01:00:22
you guys keep me company on car rides to school every single night while studying
01:00:25
for my exams. Med school, baby. Hell yeah. Working hard now so that everyone I love
01:00:29
doesn't have to later. LOL. What a badass. That's queen behavior. Or king behavior.
01:00:35
And basically, anytime I'm doing anything, i.e. cleaning out my car, cleaning the house, walking, breathing,
01:00:39
etc. It's safe to assume that if I'm awake, I have headphones in and Morbid is playing. That's so nice.
01:00:45
that. feel like the big sisters I always wanted. So, thank you. We are. Below, I have attached a double
01:00:51
space potpourri for your reading pleasure. Even though I literally write creatively for fun, I am not a good
01:00:56
storyteller. So, I apologize if we end up bouncing back and forth a bit. I'd like to one day write in about my truly
01:01:02
horrifying experiences, such as the time my possibly possessed neighbor threatened to kill us, broke into our
01:01:07
house, and tried to kidnap my 2-year-old at the time brother. Aw. But, every time
01:01:11
I sit down to write it, I have to stop before it's night time. Otherwise, I will get nightmares and I can't sleep.
01:01:16
So, for now, we're sticking with this less spooky tale. Ooh, I want that one, too.
01:01:20
I want both. Hope you enjoy and my babble is not too chaotic to understand. Mama, I'm a Gemini. Nothing is too
01:01:26
chaotic to understand. This happened recently, around 2 or 3 weeks ago. Mid end of August.
01:01:32
Though it's not my spookiest experience, it is my most recent. Let me start by providing some background. I attend
01:01:39
college near my house and commute every morning to my classes. On this particular morning, I remember being in
01:01:44
a rush. I had slept past my alarm, which in turn had thrown off the rest of my usual morning routine. I took a 5-minute
01:01:51
shower, which I had not thought to be possible for me previous to that morning, threw lunch together, and ran
01:01:56
out the door. I arrive every morning around 6:00 to study for a few hours before my morning class. So, it's
01:02:02
usually still dark out when I leave in the mornings, around 5:15. You could literally never catch me doing that
01:02:07
morning routine. Early. I give you a high five. To get to the campus, I take a lot of
01:02:12
backroads surrounded by cornfields and farmers to get there because there's less traffic and I prefer to avoid the
01:02:18
congestion when possible. I drove past a red barn as I do every morning, and today there was a woman clearly upset
01:02:24
with her Oh, [ __ ] With her car halfway in a ditch across the street from the barn.
01:02:29
She was standing by the back of the car holding her phone to the air as if she couldn't get signal. I found this weird,
01:02:35
even though we were in an area surrounded by cornfields, I always have pretty decent reception. I blast Morbid
01:02:40
on the Bluetooth speaker on my way to school. LOL. But, we probably just use different
01:02:45
phone companies. As a young female, I've always been told to be careful in situations like this, as it's sometimes
01:02:50
a tactic used to hurt or kidnap people. We've all heard those stories where a lady or a child pretends to be hurt and
01:02:56
a guy comes out of nowhere and hits you over the head with something and you pass out or you die. Or maybe that's
01:03:00
just me, since I watch Forensic Files with my mom all the time. But, something felt really off.
01:03:05
I passed her fairly quickly. Speed limit in the area is 45 mph. As I drove by her, we made eye contact for a brief
01:03:12
moment, and I swear time slowed and chills immediately ran down my spine. My gut started twisting into knots and I
01:03:20
felt an indescribable heaviness. I felt like if I didn't stop, I would deeply regret it or something bad would happen.
01:03:26
I got the terrible feeling that this woman was in danger. I quickly estimated in my brain that the probability of
01:03:32
getting kidnapped, raped, or murdered if I were to turn around and asked if she needed help. She was the only other one
01:03:37
out there, and I'm absolutely certain that there weren't any other people or cars. But, just to be on the safe side,
01:03:43
I decided I'd stay in my car, pull up to her with my window rolled down a slight
01:03:47
crack, and ask if she needed help. I turned around in the big driveway of the red barn across the street. As I got
01:03:54
closer to the ditch, I realized she and the car have completely vanished. That's
01:04:00
What? I would [ __ ] myself. Again. It was bizarre, as it couldn't have taken more than 2 minutes for me to turn
01:04:06
around and get back to that ditch. An eerie feeling came over me, but I decided I was probably just paranoid and
01:04:12
should forget about it. So, I unpaused Morbid and continued on my route to school. Everything that day went fine.
01:04:17
Nothing out of the ordinary. The next morning, however, things got weirder. Once I drove by the barn again, there
01:04:23
was another car in the ditch. It wasn't the same kind as the woman had, and nobody was outside the vehicle. The
01:04:29
lady's car was a dark color. This car was white. It looked too clean to belong on these roads, honestly.
01:04:35
I don't know much about cars, but it looked nice to me. All the windows were completely tinted, so dark you couldn't
01:04:40
even see by the driver's side window, which is illegal where I live. Ooh. I also noticed there was a black
01:04:45
There was black writing on the side of the car, but I couldn't read what it said because of how far away my car was
01:04:50
and the speed I was going. Totally wasn't speeding. Winky face. Winky face. Never.
01:04:55
Never. Don't speed. Be careful. This time, I drove straight by it and didn't even consider stopping. My gut
01:05:01
was screaming, "No. Run." to me. I'm not quite sure why. I just got a terribly gut-wrenching wave of anxiety. So, I
01:05:08
kept going because kindness is for dead people and I have an exam that morning and I wanted to study anyways. Everybody
01:05:14
in these stories is having like gut intuitions. Yeah, that's the theme. Yeah. Skipping to the end of that school
01:05:20
day, my friend Peter always gets there to study with me and walks me to my car because we park next to each other.
01:05:25
After class, we had walked to our cars and were just chatting, putting our books away, etc. When a white car with
01:05:31
tinted windows and black lettering on the side pulled in and parks in the spot directly next to mine. My friend found
01:05:38
this odd since there were tons of open parking spaces surrounding us. We park way out in the back lots to avoid all
01:05:43
the congestion getting out. Yet, this car chose to park right next to me. I was internally freaking out a little bit
01:05:50
now, as this was the same car that I'd seen in the ditch earlier. I asked Peter if we could go back inside the building,
01:05:55
and he And he saw the look on my face and knew something was off. He walked me back
01:05:59
inside the building and I told him what happened. We looked out the window and saw the the car pull out of the spot,
01:06:06
roll down the driver's side window slightly, as if it rolled painfully slow by my car, and then out of the lot.
01:06:13
What? That's [ __ ] weird. Oh, I hate that. Oh. Peter walked me to a campus police car
01:06:20
and explained the situation to the cop. We ended up leaving and the officer told
01:06:24
us that the Sorry, the officer told us the next morning that though he saw the encounter on the security footage, he
01:06:29
really couldn't do anything, which I knew and I didn't expect him to. I just guess I wanted somebody to know, I
01:06:34
guess. It made me feel safer at the time, but looking back, maybe it was a waste of
01:06:38
time. No, I would I wouldn't have known what to do, either. Yeah, I feel like I would have done the
01:06:42
same thing. the right thing. After that, I didn't see either cars, but weird things have
01:06:46
been happening. The next morning, I was loading my own car for school, lunch, endless piles of books, scrubs, etc. I
01:06:52
tip I typically have to make three or four trips back and forth Sorry, back and forth from my car in the
01:06:57
mornings because I always forget things and I'm I'm obsessed with being dreadfully over-prepared. Anyways, as I
01:07:04
made my way to the car for the first time that morning, I noticed that the driver's side door was ajar. This was
01:07:09
weird, since I park in the garage and my father leaves even earlier than I do to
01:07:13
get to work in the mornings. He parks right next to me, and with the way that our garage is set up, he would have hit
01:07:18
my door with his car if it were left open when he pulled out. It threw me off, but I brushed it off and assumed
01:07:23
maybe I just left it open the previous day and somehow my dad got around it. Or maybe he needed something from my car
01:07:29
and grabbed it before he left, forgetting leaving the door open. I shut the car door and went back inside
01:07:35
to get my laptop bag. When I came back out, the driver's side door was open again.
01:07:40
I walked around the car cautiously, using the flashlight on my phone to shine under it and around it quickly,
01:07:46
making sure that I was the only one in the garage. I was hit with the overwhelming feeling that I was not. I
01:07:51
swear I felt like I was being watched. Slamming it shut and locking it this time, I went inside to grab my lunch.
01:07:59
When I came back, the garage light was off. This is a [ __ ] horror film. Yeah, it literally is.
01:08:04
Feeling around in the dark, I found the switch and turned it on, only to find that the driver's side door was open
01:08:10
again. At this point, I was quite scared, but also just pissed off. "Oh, [ __ ] off." I found myself groaning to
01:08:17
nobody in particular. I feel that I'm too young to be this over it, but whatever. I'm an old
01:08:22
spirit. I yelled something along the lines of, "Leave me alone. You most certainly are not welcome here, so get
01:08:27
the [ __ ] out or I will get a shovel and a frying pan and beat you until you're
01:08:30
dead twice." That's badass. Damn. Now, this is not where the weirdness ends. All the
01:08:36
uneasiness and gut feelings I had before have ceased. I no longer feel like I'm being watched, but now the people around
01:08:42
me are experiencing weird things. it onto everybody else. That's not good. It's like it follows.
01:08:47
For example, a family friend was over and she fell, {quote} {unquote}, and broke her ankle. She was outside in the
01:08:53
yard and she said she swore she felt a hand push her down onto the concrete. Oh, damn.
01:08:57
Her ankle was red and swollen from the way she land on landed on it. But, do you want to know the scariest part?
01:09:02
Yeah. She showed me her side and there was a swollen red mark that looked like an inflamed handprint. Wow. I don't know
01:09:08
what's been going on. Maybe I just have an overactive imagination or I'm thinking too much into it, but ever
01:09:14
since seeing that woman in the ditch, things have been weird. And that's it. Wow.
01:09:20
I don't like that. I'm worried for you. At all. And just I hate the fact that like as you locked eyes, you immediately
01:09:28
felt weird. Yeah. that's when all the weirdness started happening. It really is like an
01:09:32
It Follows kind of vibe. Yeah. Where she it's like she passed something to you. I
01:09:37
don't like it. were like, I'm not into this. I don't I don't accept this. I don't claim this.
01:09:44
And then and then it went on to everybody else. Very scary. Ooh, that was a fun batch of
01:09:49
listener tales though. and fun. love a spooky ooky moment. we needed some spooky ooky moments
01:09:55
because we have had some really really rough cases lately. So we figured a good, you know, spooky, fun,
01:10:03
chilling listener tale episode was due. It was. You know, and I loved it. Thanks
01:10:09
so much, guys. You rule. Yeah, so we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you
01:10:15
don't write in your spooky tales to us because holy crap, we love them. Write them in. Bye-bye.