And That's Why We Drink - Listener Stories: Vol. 72

Episode Date: October 1, 2022

Happy Halloween season!! We've got some extra scary listener stories this October to get you in the spirit: everything from demons in church camp Polaroids and a terrifying black-eyed deer to a murder Christine might have inadvertently helped solve. This episode also inspires us to start a spiritual hotline for all of us who need paranormal cleansing because we just might have hit our creepy quota, in our creepy coat-as... and that's why we drink!Don't miss our Halloween season Here for the Boos shows in LA, Charleston, Atlanta, New Orleans and Nashville! andthatswhywedrink.com/live

spooky scary skeletons i almost did the same thing oh well happy spooky season officially my friends can you believe it we've made it uh we've made it to october it's leona's birthday today as this comes out so happy birthday leona happy one year of keeping her alive oh i thank you i'm pretty impressed with myself i feel like i know like i'm it's your baby so you can tell me to fuck off but i think like you keeping her alive for a year is like significantly more important than her having a first birthday yeah I mean we're we're having a birthday for her but like she's not gonna know and so the birthday is more for me and yeah it's a symbolism yeah it's actually just a big party because um we're making cocktails and we're doing um all sorts of fun stuff uh it's

gonna be more adult friendly oh there's paint your own succulents I am very sad I'm not going to be more adult friendly. Oh, there's paint your own succulents. I am very sad I'm not going to be there because of my... I know, I'm really sad too, but it's okay. I will, I'll tell you though, I am officially in therapy now though. So hopefully this... Oh my gosh, that's exciting. So hopefully this plain panic disorder, it's like so much more than just having nerves. I'm telling you, I really think I'm just going to die every second. So I would like to not be ingesting as much Xanax as I currently am. So I'm excited for therapy to kick in and then we can do a

belated thing for her and we can finger paint succulents with her or something. I don't know. Oh, I'm so glad. What is happening? What do you mean? Bye. Okay, for those who are not watching, Christine made a call. Hello, spooky. Certainly picked the scariest thing you could.

But Christine is apparently in a sex dungeon with Zach Bagans on Zoom right now. Oh, no, that's way scarier than I intended. It's how it looks, my friend. He's waiting for you to approach him, it seems. Oh my gosh. And also, you're doing it in a very fancy, and that's what we drink, witch hat. Can you believe we sell witch hats now? This really is the dream.

We were like, what could we sell? We said witch hats. And they were like, okay. Yeah. Wait, really? We were just looking for anything Halloween-y. And we were like, well, I love a good witch hat. Who doesn't? And there you go. This one is extremely like, I didn't know. I feel like I'm going to wear this one pretty regularly. It's it's it's flattering.

It doesn't feel like a costume hat. It's sturdy. It sits on the noggin real good. Yeah, it does. Yeah. So I'm pretty into it. So that's how I'm celebrating Halloween. And you're right now. I feel like I am in a sex dungeon. I feel like maybe I did download one more photo. So let me see if that'll work. He wants to go check out your immortal portal, if you know what I'm saying. Stop. I don't. And I don't want to.

You're not going to tell me any more about it. And before you do, I'm going to change it. Let's see. What does this one say? Okay. That's better. At least you now just look like you're sitting in front of a backdrop versus like in his home in the sex engine that's in his home right can you handle the lockdown that's what he says to you when he's

investigating your immortal portal stop it you are making me extremely uncomfortable and i know i brought this up look at how scared they all are adventure look at how scared they all are of you they have to obviously do it with night vision so they can see what's going on honestly they should be um well i wanted to i feel so silly because we decided very last minute we were doing uh our our october listeners episode and i tried dressing like you i was good because I think last year I dressed like the baby. Oh, wait. Oh, my God. You're totally right. But that was for our Halloween episode. That's true. I still have time to catch up, I guess. To buy those creepy bottles on the Internet that you had and like passive adult pacifiers. I had a lot of props

for that situation. Yeah. Do you still have those or did those go to goodwill uh i think the only thing i have left is the baby bottle from like the the big adult baby bottle you can drink out of it's like a two liter bottle that has like a sucker on it oh my god you're i do have that because it was it was excuse me we all drank out of those during your baby shower and we all enjoyed it so yeah i don't know what you're talking about, but I tried to dress like you and I am. Yeah. I went into for a, for a spooky,

there's nothing scarier to me. So, and I was going to put on a trashy, classy headband and all this stuff. Apparently while we were just on our most recent, uh, tour, we did our,

our Houston and our, our Dallas leg, uh, Alison, like, um, Marie condoed her whole vibe. We're just on our most recent tour. We did our Houston and our Dallas leg. Allison Marie condoed her whole vibe, and so she doesn't have any trashy, classy headbands. Excuse me? Now my sensibilities are offended once again. I really, I didn't mean to do that, but I see where you feel. They don't spark joy?

I think, honestly. Are you kidding me? She hadn't worn them in a long time. I think she think she went through a problem a phase and then they fizzled out but I had a whole thing I was gonna get like a wine glass and all the stuff so maybe for actual Halloween I dress like you let's fix her aesthetic before we do our Halloween episode please you know we ought to yeah ironically she had she's going through a phase right now where she said that she wants to care more about her looks and I was like oh so she got rid of all the shit that made her look like me uh-huh yeah that that stings just a little bit but like it's fine i'll get over it crazy though i know i always rag on

you for the trashy classy headbands but they actually look great on every single person i've ever seen wear them so like i am probably just gonna insert them back into her closet and i'll be like oh i was trying to surprise you and then she'll she'll she'll maybe feel so bad she won't throw it away I don't know but I uh I think she looks great in them I think you'll bring them too so her birthday is coming up but maybe I'll just give her some and say um these are really special and so then she can't throw them away they're they're like friendship bracelets before your head their friendship head friendship headbands. I mean, if I find one and I think she'd like them, but then she doesn't want them, I know exactly who to give them to hand be them. Ding dong.

Because you rock them all the time. Aw, I do. It's mostly because my hair's dirty. But, you know, sometimes you just got to go with it. Anyway, I'm sorry I didn't dress like you yet, but I got 365 other days. I'll figure it out. One of these days you'll hit the nail on the head. You'll hit the mark.

Maybe a good random dress like Christine day isn't due. It's not. I think I don't have the mental wellness to really cope with that as a surprise. You don't have to tell me you don't have mental wellness when I see what you just did with your backdrops. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh, um, cool. Well this month, uh, October, happy October. I forgot that this was coming out on Leona's birthday, or we could have maybe done like a little, um, birthday thing, spooky baby thing, but we are doing Halloween-y or spooky or autumnal stories that Eva picked out and we have not yet read. Yes. There is no particular theme this time around except general Halloween creeps.

Spooky, scary skeletons. Have you been blaring that through your speakers yet? Only in my head, which is slightly more disturbing, I think, than playing it out loud because it feels like my own personal concert in my brain that just repeats that same line over and over again. Have you decorated before we get into this? I got to know what the spooky vibe is. No, because I'm decorating for Leona's birthday. And so the vibe, I do have some new decorations for Halloween. The second Leona's birthday is over, I do have some new decorations for Halloween. The second Leona's birthday is over, I'm going to replace all the wild one decorations with Halloween.

So we're on a wild one kick. It's very lots of animals and, you know, leaves and stuff like that. Leaves are a thumbnail, but those can stay. Well, they're like palm leaves. Oh, OK. So not quite. Oh, man. Oh, well're like palm leaves. Oh, okay. So not quite. Oh, man. Oh, well, that's gonna be so cute.

Well, you know, if she's gonna be your child, I feel like eventually it'll just be like, oh, this floor is birthday themed all month. This floor is Halloween themed all month. This floor is autumnal themed. What I'm hoping is that she kind of adopts what I feel like Allison did, which is sort of a combo deal of my birthday is in October. Why not make it a spooky birthday? And so then we could kind of just cover all our bases and decorate, you know, for both. I think since you're the one that gets to indoctrinate her into her ways of thinking,

that would be how to do it. You get it. Thank you. You get it. You get it. Well, okay. I'm very excited for her. I'm very excited for you and your spooky mansion or whatever it becomes. Thank you. I get it. You get it. You get it. Well, okay. I'm very excited for her. I'm very excited for you and your spooky mansion or whatever it becomes. Thank you. My spooky mansion with palm leaves, just fronds everywhere. With lions and tigers everywhere. All right. So should I go first?

Sure. Okay. So here's our first official halloween listener story and this is from kara or kara i i usually lean towards kara uh who uses she i was waiting for you to tell me that i was stupid and wrong i don't know anybody listening the first time must be like wow that christine must be such an asshole and leaves blank spaces for her to jump in and say, you're wrong. I just I'm used to always being like probably not totally right. So I'm just waiting.

I don't know how to pronounce someone's name. All right. I'm gonna go with Kara. Please issue her pronouns. Subject line. Oh, you'll like this. Okay. That's what I'm not kidding. That's not what the subject line oh you'll like this okay that's what i'm not kidding that's not what the subject line says it says halloween truck driver and glitch in the matrix wait oh truck drivers we

asked for that oh we did oh well good job to eva remembering that so we've got a truck driver and we've got general spooky okay i'm into'm into it. And you're going to absolutely. This is the best salutations we've ever gotten in a letter. You ready? Yeah. Hello to Deb the web only. Agreed. I want everyone to sign their letters like this now.

Deb deserves all of the greetings and salutations. I like how even Skylar isn't involved in this. Is this meant to be like a Halloween-y salutation? Because it's scary. Yeah. Oh, I love it. All right. Hello to Deb the Web Only.

It was October 2016, and my best friend and I were driving home to Jacksonville, Florida after spending the day in Orlando visiting friends and going to Halloween Horror Nights, which I will be going to in a couple weeks. Very excited, I think. I was the driver and it was late. We were talking and listening to fun music to make sure I didn't get too tired on the way back. Not to brag, but we had annual passes to Universal at the time, so we had made this drive plenty of times before i was very aware that i had been following the same group of cars for miles once we were on i-95 a small red car in front of us a couple around us and a semi truck that went that kept riding right beside me i get super nervous driving next to big trucks so they were on my radar i always i hate driving next to big i also

do it makes me so nervous like you're going to careen right into me. And two of them have, by the way. What? My fears are justified. Wait, what? I've been sideswiped by big trucks twice. Oh, God. What?

When? One. When did I know this about you? Well, one happened before we were friends. And then the other one sideswiped me, but like it wasn't, it was like not life-threatening. It just like got me. And I tried to chase it down. I tried to chase it down, but it knew it was in trouble.

And so it went like 200 miles an hour on the road, so I couldn't catch its license plate. Yeah, that happened to me too with a double-decker bus. And I had to go to court. Oh my God. I had to go to court and miss Lollapalooza. It was so sad. I was subpoenaed. Wow. Your story is much more interesting than mine was. I'll tell that. I'll do the line from the podcast, but that's a story for another day that everybody writes in and we're like, wait, no, I want that story. We thought that should be our theme actually for one of the listeners episodes coming up

where they just all end with, but that's a story for another time. Yeah, we should do that. That would be funny. Okay, so she's trying to avoid the big truck driving next to her. All of a sudden, it was as if someone switched off the lights to the entire world. The sky, the streetlights, the lanes, everything was gone. Oh my god. my headlights were shining into oblivion all the lights from cars around me disappeared all i could see was the semi truck riding alongside me what the fuck not only was it pitch black but there was a deafening wind

tunnel sound although all the windows were up i look over to my friend to make sure he's also freaking out and to yell for him to look at the truck driver to see if they were reacting. He made eye contact, but said they didn't seem concerned. The only way I could hope not to crash into anything was to stay parallel to the truck. What the fuck? This is bizarre. The entire ordeal lasted about three minutes but felt like an eternity then as if the switch was flipped back on everything was back to normal it wasn't gradual or hazy like smoke or fog it was something almost impossible to explain more like a glitch than anything else i pulled off at the next exit to get a water and breathe my friend and i drove in near silence the

rest of the way back home and he still hates discussing it. It was one of the scariest and most bizarre things either of us have experienced. Hopefully this isn't sent too late. I saw y'all on St. Patrick's Day in 2019 in Jacksonville. Good times. Where I believe Emothy was the sickest in nautical way. That's true. Fluorida. Fluorida got me. Hope to see you again someday in good health and spooky spirits cara the good health won't happen anytime soon for either of us but you know the good health i'm still waiting for that day but yeah i definitely don't have that cold anymore which i'm convinced was like a like a beta test early yeah it might have been honestly but sorry so it happened for how many minutes uh she said it was just like three minutes but three

minutes of terror is a long time a long time i thought i thought i said three seconds i was like i must have misheard that because three minutes like you're you're in a long time this isn't like oh you accidentally fell asleep for a second at the wheel it's like several minutes this is like no three minutes feels like you have enough time to like gather your your really process it and be like okay i'm seeing this yeah yeah well and the other thing with the three minutes is like you must be petrified like think about two minutes and you're like is this forever like is this the rest of my life like you're like when is it going back you know also the fear of like not knowing if there's something in front of you you're about to crash into because then like my first thought my honestly my first reaction would have probably been to

slow down but then like if you're in some weird glitch bubble and no one else can see this like are you slowing down on a highway and someone's gonna crash into you like yeah you don't want to get rear-ended in in the glitch have you ever had those uh a driving um experience like in the snow at night when like you turn on your brights in the snow coming at the windshield looks like you're like in us like that scene from star wars yeah yeah yeah and like i that's the closest thing i can imagine except you're going probably on 95 i think the you can go get up to 70 or probably 80 or something um damn that's really scary what do you have any theories em i have no theories i have no idea i have a theory i don't it doesn't mean anything because

it's just coming out of my brain but my thought is because i've heard glitch in the matrix stories happen when people kind of jump because they were almost killed or they were almost in an accident or um so it makes me wonder what if maybe there was an incident there like the truck did sideswipe you and your oh yeah existence shifted into the closest parallel dimension and you avoided that accident i don't know oh my god that that requires some marijuana to process i think um i promise i didn't take any edibles today well i just covered didn't i just cover something wow i like didn't i just cover something that's very specific i know but didn't i just there was something about being on a road and there

was a conspiracy not conspiracy theory but there was like a glitch in the matrix theory where like like a glitch in the matrix theory where like fuck there was i'm i'm agreeing with you i feel like there's some sort of glitch into another near like you just like hopped into the next yes so i i wonder dear listener cara or cara um if you could let us know if anything was weird after that like did you come home and notice things were a little bit off did anything seem different like just little things did anything seem strange for you or your friend I don't know oh gosh oh my gosh I I can't imagine have you ever yeah it's definitely not falling asleep at the wheel have you ever fallen asleep at the wheel oh yeah it's horrible feeling it's this it's I've it's only happened once it's only happened once and it was the scary it was obviously for like half a second

so like i hadn't even like started drifting into another lane but it freaked me out i didn't even realize i was so tired oh yeah it's sometimes you're like not even aware of how tired you are and it's like the monotony of just like going especially on a road trip yeah luckily the the panic of waking up and realizing i fell asleep that kept me real awake to drive the rest of the way because i had to stop and sleep on the side of the road. But, you know, you can always sleep in a McDonald's parking lot, folks. Not a McDonald's, I'm sorry, a Walmart. You're allowed to sleep in a Walmart parking lot, PSA.

So if you're ever in a position where you're like, I need to nap because I'm too tired to drive, go nap because it's really dangerous to drive tired. There was one guy in high school where he was driving he offered to bring everyone home after like prom oh boy and he was so tired because there was like an after prom that lasted to like three in the morning and after he had dropped everyone off he was just so exhausted when he was driving home he fell asleep at the car and it was like one of those like crazy miracles because he ended up flipping his car i think and like a fence post went through the windshield but the way that he moved in the car like the the fence post should have gone right into his body

like surely right into his body and stabbed through his chair but the way that he moved in the car while it flipped completely dodged it that's why i'm never the designated driver people always ask why do you avoid that responsibility well it's a very dangerous one and now i'm terrified because i'm always the designated driver yeah it's a dangerous role you partake in anyway everyone be safe on the road please especially cara especially Kara okay so next one I have let's see this is from Katie she her and the subject is Ouija on a haunted oh I think they meant haunted Ouija on a haunted bridge nightmare oh god that's a lot of buzzwords back to back to back a lot of buzzwords okay okay hello atwwd crew i started listening to your podcast in 2021 and i've already caught up wow that's a lot holy wow you really have just been i feel like you slept through a few of them i feel like we've just been on and honestly that's

fine because we still get the downloads so thank you i love the show and your dynamic so for some context i live in san angelo texas there is a bridge here called the lone wolf bridge named this because of the lone wolf bar right beside it it was around halloween during 2019 and my roommate and i were very bored we went to spirit halloween to waste some time and ended up buying a ouija board a group of us went to the LWB. That's the Lone Wolf Bridge for all you novices. That's me saying that. Not Katie.

She didn't say some assholey line. I did. A group of us went to the LWB and started messing with the board and using an app to record everything that happened. We got a few responses that I no longer remember, but toward the middle of the session, I started crying because I got an extremely overwhelming sense of pure grief. I looked up and on the edge of the bridge in the shadowy tree line, I saw a shadow figure. Oh boy. It was a woman wearing a dress with very long hair and she was holding her arms out in a relaxed T shape. That's not relaxed, my friend. That is a very intentional shape to be standing in.

Gives me the shivers. I shut my eyes for a few seconds, hoping that when I opened them back up, she would be gone. I was wrong. She was closer to us. Absolutely not. Oh, no, no, no. to us. Absolutely not. Oh no, oh no, oh no.

My roommate's brother looked over in that direction too and asked if anyone could see the man with the top hat standing there. I don't like that you're both seeing different things at the same spot. That disturbs me. I told the group what I saw as well, but no one else could

see anything. All of a sudden, one of the girls that was there with us passed out and started seizing. Good night. Holy shit. Good night. That's really scary. So only some of them can see these things too, by the way? I think only two because her friend saw a man with a top hat and she saw this woman, but nobody else saw anything.

So maybe they're both sensitives and could tell that something was coming towards them. but nobody else saw anything so maybe they're both sensitives and could tell that something was coming towards them and then this other person who so sorry to her couldn't see anything all of a sudden is now seizing that's so creepy especially because she saw it come closer so yeah especially when you think like oh usually think if someone were to see something you always hear the stories of oh i blinked and it was gone and And it was gone. It's like, if that's what you expect, it's like, oh, shit. Oh, no, it's worse now. Actually, it's worse because it's bigger and it's closer. And also my friend sees her friend with the top hat. And blinking is somehow not my superpower to get away from this anymore. Oh, and that was my one trick that I had in the bag. And now my pockets are empty. Oh, boy.

Oh, and that was my one trick that I had in the bag. And now my pockets are empty. Oh, boy. So my friend passed out and started seizing. We threw the Ouija board off the bridge and carried the girl to my truck. We drove to a nearby gas station where we got the girl who seized some water, but we didn't speak to each other. After getting home, I realized that I could not. Oh, God. I'm sorry.

I already have a goose camp. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Why? not oh god i'm sorry i already have a goose camp oh my gosh okay why after getting home i realized that i could not look into any mirrors because i knew that if i did i would see the woman standing behind me oh my goodness okay i just absolutely can't tolerate that also um you know the next people who were walking around by that bridge and found a on the through the tide, an old Ouija board. They were like, what the fuck happened here?

That's the most cursed item you could find washed up under a bridge. I mean, really, of all things to find. And also, OK, so now she can't look through mirrors because she knows that thing has followed her home, which, by the way, means throwing the Ouija board in the water didn't work either. Which, by the way, means throwing the Ouija board in the water did fuck all. Didn't work either. Because obviously she came home with you. And I wonder if they ever closed out the Ouija board and said goodbye. Which is why this thing is. Katie, have you tried blinking?

Oh, wait. Oh, wait. You did that. That didn't work. Blink harder, girl. Blink more. Go to sleep. Maybe that'll help.

Oh, my God. How effing terrifying. Especially if you've seen it twice and you were like, she's behind me. I trust that you know that, you know. Oh, I know you. I'm. No question. effing terrifying especially if you've seen it twice and you were like she's behind me i trust that you know that you know um oh i know you i'm what you would have to tell me twice i'd be like got it we're keeping you away from all reflections we're not looking in any mirrors today okay this is wild i didn't look into a mirror for over a year because i just knew that if i saw her again something bad would happen. Holy shit. This is

really frightening. That's brutal. I mean, fully by definition traumatic. Yeah, absolutely. And I'll be honest, like this is the first, I'm going to be honest. This is the first time I've ever felt hesitant about using a Ouija board before. Like this is the first story I've heard where I'm like, finally, Katie. Yeah, finally, Katie, you might have really done the done the trick here. M's been trying for years, but I didn't know I just needed to contact Katie all those years ago. He was like, I listen, I had a feeling this would fix it. OK, sorry. So I just knew that if I saw her again, something bad would happen.

I was sitting in the armchair in our dorm when my roommate was at work and my bedroom door creaked open very slowly i ran out of there as fast as i could ran down three flights of stairs and slept in my truck that night i still get the feeling that the woman is nearby but i do oh now i'm freaked out to be home alone right now honestly it's also not helping me because i'm watching you freaked out but to me it looks like you're suffocated in a small room with the ghost adventures crew with them like doubled up in many different angles behind me i mean this is a scary setting i have i just can't see depth for you so i feel like you're closed in and like very you know what i mean can you imagine i turn the background off and then all of a sudden there's someone standing right behind me? Don't do it.

Katie, don't watch this YouTube episode just in case. Okay. I was sitting in the armchair in our dorm. Okay, the door opened. I ran out of there and slept in my truck that night. I still get the feeling that the woman is nearby, but I do not feel as threatened as I did before. You should get cleansed, girl. Yeah.

Thank you for reading my story. I have more as i've always been around paranormal things since a very young age please continue doing what y'all do we all really appreciate it much love a taurus katie you know i understand why zach bagans has his museum like first of all i think i know we rag on him a lot but that guy's a fucking businessman like oh for sure i gotta i gotta give him credit where credit's due. He knows how to make a dollar. Oh, he's successful.

Yeah. But also, if your whole career is fucking around with things like this, of course you need a place away from your home to store it all. Yeah. I can't imagine if Katie and her friends were like, okay, time to bring the Ouija board back. And then whoever's house it's sitting in is just riddled with problems. Like, Katie, get yourself a museum.

And then go fish out the Ouija board from the river. And then just keep it there. And your problems should be handled. Put it right up front and be like, this is the Ouija board that started it all. I also feel so bad that you still feel something. Like, if you thought hard enough and long enough about it like something might come back i just i just i can't imagine i hope you're able to find someone to help you cleanse your space and your because it sounds like you

need it like really i'm surprised by now that we don't have our own little like group of people who like all like a like a little task force and that's why we drink group of people who get together and like you know cleanse folks i wish we did i actually now that you're saying that i'm like maybe we should look into that does anybody know like know somebody i mean i feel like it could very quickly be a controversial situation because like how do you vet who actually has expertise versus who's new to this and not doing the practices the right way or you know who's accidentally or intentionally using closed practices when they shouldn't I feel like I could get really muddied quickly but I feel like by now someone probably listens to us who

could be helpful to others I feel like we've we've just got such a concentrated group of people who have experiences that could surely use a cleanse yeah Yeah. Someone out there has got to be reliable. And I'm pretty sure you need their permission to do it. So I feel like you would need to make sure everybody that you're cleansing like is aware and consenting. So I don't know. It would be probably. But I mean, at least we could use it. Can you send some my way? Yeah, I'm surprised you don't. I would call them like some sort of like spiritual Avengers of like, OK, well, we're just going to like go like assemble, like reach out to. And that's why I drink.

If you need a cleanse and then we've got the connections, we got the hookup, the hookup. I'm always so jealous of Zach Bagans. He has so many like spiritual hookups that like actually are probably so useful. Like I would love to have some more like people I can call on to help me. I would love that. Like I think, I think by now it's overdue. Why not? I agree.

We've gotten ourselves into some spiritual quandaries and I would love to have like a hotline I could call or just somebody I can text at the very least. At the very least be like, how do I fix it over here? What's like a temporary bandaid for this situation? All right. Well, Katie, you might have sparked an entire new focus group that we're going to be putting together. And honestly, you also convinced me Ouija boards are more dangerous than I knew. So you've really done a number on us today. I told I told Christine, I've seen a Ouija board on fire, but that wasn't enough. So thank you, Katie, for finally, I've seen a lot of things on fire, but that wasn't enough. So thank you, Katie, for finally.

I've seen a lot of things on fire. That really doesn't do it for me. Sorry. As long as you're making it click. I'm just glad someone got it to click. All right. Thank you, Katie. And then this next story is from Lindsay, who's a she, her pronouns.

And the subject line is, oh, hi, Eva. And then. Not the web. dub the web uh a shadow figure haunting and a murder to top it off oh boy okay oh boy okay here we go not even a high to this one just says y'all so i like how eva gets a high we get a listen the fuck up. Listen, you're from Virginia. I live in Kentucky. The y'all speaks to me. I heard it. I got shivers.

Okay. I've got a tale that's a bit true crime and a bit spooky ghost in one. Growing up, I had a best friend. We'll call her Mel. Her life started off with tragedy as she was in a car crash at one year old that took her mother's life. Oh, fuck. And left Mel with scarring on her face that would last her lifetime jesus she was raised by her grandparents who were the kindest sweetest people you'd meet but were very religious and as such wouldn't allow television in their house cell phones weren't a big thing yet for kids this was

the early 2000s so i believe there was only a landline phone and maybe a radio in their home because of this we mostly played with dolls and house and explored uh and explored outside we were both very sheltered mel shared a room with her sister and one night i'm staying at mel's house and we're sleeping in her bed when i wake up out of a dead sleep and look to my right there in the center of the room was a black gray figure. A tall male looking shape. Thinking back on it now, it had no defining features. It didn't look like a shadow or someone dressed in black.

More so, it just looked completely devoid of light. Ugh, forget it. It was so still, I looked at it for several moments, watching for breath or movement or anything. I convinced myself it was a shadow or something reasonable, like it being Mel's sister standing there ominously in the middle of the night. I don't know. With a top hat and a cape and not breathing. And devoid of light.

With her arms in a relaxed T-shape. So I rolled over closer to mel and went back to sleep the next morning i looked for it or anything that could have resembled it as soon as i woke up and there was nothing i told mel what i saw thinking she'd call me crazy and she became very solemn oh geez she replied yeah i've seen it too oh i used to think it was my mom watching over me but i don't think so I used to think it was my mom watching over me, but I don't think so. Oh my God. Wow, that was heartbreaking and terrifying in one sentence.

Like the worst, worst of the worst. I used to think it was my mom watching over me, but I don't think so anymore. Which means like I used to think it was the safest thing that could be in my room and now it's probably not. I used to hope that that's what it was. Oh, that's so fucking sad somehow at 12 13 uh you just move on from these things and forget them for the most part so that's what happened oh my god until a year later or so when my childhood church held a youth trip to uh to a set of cabins in the woods for new year's eve the cabins were at the bottom of a hill around a curb and the celebration was at the top of the hill, out of sight from the cabin, and vice versa.

Anyone that was at the top of the hill was having a good time, and I wanted to go back to the cabin to get my chapstick, because 30-degree weather outdoors for hours will parch a girl. That's what I always say. Me too. hours will parch a girl that's what i always say me too uh being 13 me and my friends all had to go as a group of course so about five of my friends mel included and i went down the dark hill to the cabin i got my chapstick we goofed off for about five minutes and then started back up the hill think of the hill as a big uppercase L with the top left of the L being the top of the

hill where the party was and the cabins being at the right end of the L in the dark. So you probably have to do like you have to walk left and then go up. Okay, I'm picturing like a cliff, just like a vertical cliff. Okay. This sounds terrible to walk up. We're about to find out who's right with our imagination. That's not me. I'm sure. We get about halfway up the first part coming up on the curve and we all stop dead in our tracks. Six teenage girls were talking and goofing off and then we were suddenly silent and still. Up ahead standing at the edge of this curve was this thing.

No. The man shadow thing from Mel's bedroom. What? It's just standing there, stone still, facing us. It's almost hard to describe. He should have either been in shadows from standing just off the curve, almost in a tree line,

but the color of him didn't match the shadows of the trees and things behind him. Oh no. He just felt like an outline of an absence of light. I know that probably doesn't come across clearly, but that's how I think to behind him. Oh no. He just felt like an outline of an absence of light. I know that probably doesn't come across clearly, but that's how I think to explain him. Okay, on Jim Harrell's campfire, when people talk about shadow figures,

they often describe them as being blacker than black, like darker than dark, like there's no light that could get through. So even in a room where it's already dark, you can see it perfectly. The thing is, yeah, darker than anything around it. Ugh. God.

Also, like, let's really unpack the fact that, like, if this thing was only stuck to Mel's bedroom this whole time, like, has it been following her? Yeah. Great point. The whole time? It's like, oh, we're going on vacation. Yeah. We're going to the cabins with you. So it's not attached to the room

is it attached to her like i'm sad about that the six of us are all standing there dead in our tracks and one of us whispers who is that but nobody answers no one no one had to point him out it's all it's like we all became aware of him at the exact same moment another of our group we'll call her m was the bravest of us all and started yelling at this thing. Hey, is that you, counselor's name? Quit trying to scare us. It's not funny. This thing doesn't move, doesn't acknowledge us, just stands there. M steps forward one time before stopping. When I say M scared of nothing, I mean it. This girl pierced her own belly button with a safety pin in the fourth grade okay say no more say no more i'm not questioning it so for her to just stop and not

challenge this thing further was huge then just as quickly as we became aware of it we all simultaneously turned and hauled back down the hill to the cabin holding on to each other and half crying we stumbled into the cabin pulled all the blinds closed, locked the door and huddled together on one bed and cried. We also prayed because we'd been raised to, and none of us had a cell phone. So we couldn't call up to the counselors and tell them to come get us or what happened.

Oh, that's so scary. You're stuck. Yeah. And like, now that we don't know what happens to the shadow, like did it go like vanish away into the ether? Did it secretly invisibly follow you?

Is it still just standing up there waiting? Like what was its purpose? Like what would have happened if that if the friend kept approaching? Yeah. Was it trying to stop you from going up the hill? Like, ugh. Yeah, I don't know. stop you from going up the hill like yeah i don't know after 10 or so minutes of panicking and crying and trying to talk out what that thing had been a counselor knocked on the door and asked why

we'd been gone so long can you imagine a scream when there's a knock on the door oh my god from all the girls forget it but also the counselor was probably like they're in there telling each other fake ghost stories yeah they're like they're scared to walk back really they just wanted a chapstick and now they're stuck down here. Yeah, unaware that they actually did have a horrid experience. Crisis. We explained what happened and she said she'd walked down the hill by herself just then and there and had seen no one or anything. Right. She was sure we just spooked ourselves with a tree shadow or something.

So she led us back up the hill with her flashlight and all of us clinging to one another. a tree shadow or something so she led us back up the hill with her flashlight and all of us clinging to one another we all stared closely at the spot in the trees where this thing was to see if anything even resembled a person's shape but there was nothing so i want to know like how did it become nothing does it walk away into the woods does it vanish does it move or does it just appear and then like does it fade oh uh everyone back at the camp swore they didn't play any tricks on us and didn't see anything at all none of them believed we actually saw anything just blamed it on our overreactive imaginations overactive imaginations i wish this story had a better ending or update but i don't have one

uh mel was oh my god okay okay so mel continues to have a tortured life oh god what um lamentably mel was barbarically murdered what a few years later at 18 while pregnant with her first child wow her death rocked the town we lived in and it's been long thought her murderer is not the man who's been convicted for it. She was bright and bubbly, and her life was needlessly cut short. It was years before I remembered the shadow thing that used to follow her around, and that made me think back to when we'd gotten back from that trip for New Year's. We used a disposal camera that weekend and took a bunch of pictures. Mel brought them to school to show us

after they were developed and as we were going through them we noticed two in particular one looked like a picture had been snapped while the camera was being put into a purse or held down by someone's side because it was just a blurry movement but in the picture is clearly a mouth eyes and dark face all elongated and hollow looking alongside a leg of the pool table from the mess hall at camp as if something was beneath the table i don't know this one could be an overactive imagination and easily explainable if i could see it as an adult but the other photo is mel playing pool with a couple of people and behind her is a window with no blinds shades or curtains it's pitch black outside but you can make out a face in the window.

There's no discernible features, just a shadowed outline, as if someone is standing just far back enough from the window to not be seen. When we were looking at the pictures together and noticed this, Mel leaned over closely to me and said, I think that's the thing you saw in my room. I think it still follows me. With the horrific way her life ended, I can't help but wonder if in some way or another this thing caught up to her oh the podcast is my favorite thing on the planet and i love you both so much p.s christine please tell leona how much we adore her squishy face and i am being requested to cover the dog man eventually

what the fuck oh that was heavy with all kinds of twists oh my god i did not see that coming even with the subject line yeah oh i totally forgot about the subject line wow i mean this puts a whole new level on our like, Oh, we should find people to help cleanse up, you know? Oh my God. I mean,

yeah. Woo. Also, that's just tragic as fuck. What's the color? The color of, is it that, that Mantum,

but it's like the blacker than black color. Oh, I don't know the name of it. Um, i don't think it's what you just blurted out but maybe something with a b or a v a v um um vanta black vanta black or something like that yeah i was trying to think of how to describe the shadow because i've also seen shadows that are like that, just completely void. And I know we just talked about this, but it really it's indescribable. I've never seen one. Knock on wood. It really looks like you're looking into someone.

I think Kara earlier said oblivion. Yeah. But like it's it really is like I don't know how to describe it it's just the darkest thing like it makes normal dark I mean look bright it's yeah yeah you know I'm looking right now at this Vantablack I've never seen this before they have paint they have paint that can give you Vantablack it's kind of scary I'm looking at it now it's like extremely dark like no reflective surface they have um i think there are cars that are that color but then i also heard that they

were trying to make it illegal to make it that color because at night you literally wouldn't be able to see the fucking car point great point that would the whole point of it yeah because if you have headlights on the whole point is it doesn't absorb any light so like your headlights wouldn't show you a car so i mean that's just an accident waiting to happen yeah oh man but anyway i just to go back to this i can't believe that that happened to your friend i'm so sorry i'm so sorry and also on like a definitely a less significant note but like i hate that y'all never get answers as to what the fuck this thing was so like i fucking hope it went away i'm like honestly it just clearly was nothing good you know yeah and i don't blame you for wondering if if it were some was somehow responsible or connection to her i mean it's spiritually nearby connected to it that's just tragic the whole fucking story from start to end um and i'm very sorry um how

horrid well uh once again if you would like to join our hotline for um you know spiritual crises uh hit us up because we apparently need all the help we can get for our beautiful listeners because it sounds like there's a lot going on in people's lives. I would love to have a true working hotline. Seriously. Okay. So this is from Kay, she, her, or they, them. Thank you for normalizing having double pronouns.

Double pronouns. The subject is not dear, but it's N-O-t hyphen d-e-e-r not dear not dear not dear so okay i'm assuming we'll find out what that means if not what a silly out of context thing to confuse us with what a fun joke you've played okay hi christine and m i love the show but i only started listening recently and i'm catching up i've just listened to your first anniversary episode oh i don't know who was it katie who was like i've listened to the whole thing uh so you know katie set the bar really high for you yeah just saying okay everyone everyone here though i'm i'm very amazed that uh very amazed that you're here listening at all.

So thank you. I'm in the same boat. I'm totally kidding. Okay. I know you guys mostly do ghost and true crime, but I actually have a cryptid story to share with you. So let's crack into it. I get the not dear. It's a not dear.

It's a not dear. It's not a dear, but it's something. I live in Texas and have all my life. When I was in high school, I was very religious and was super involved in all things church. Not so anymore. But at the time I played in the praise band, I led a small group. I went on every mission trip the church led. You name it, I was involved.

And some of the things I was involved with was summer camps, disciple now weekends, and fall retreats. was summer camps, Disciple Now weekends, and fall retreats. It was at one of these such fall retreats that I found myself on a crisp autumn night my junior year. One of the traditions we had on all of these off-campus retreats was playing Capture the Flag. We would wait until dark one night. I love Capture the Flag, by the way, just a side note. I feel like I used to get bullied during Capture the Flag. Oh, i'm sure i did too but i think i honestly i think i was oh i wasn't bullied i think people just didn't like me on their team because i so quickly volunteered to go to jail i was like you just wanted to be be i didn't want to have to sitting i was like and nobody wanted to give me the flag and so i felt bullied but also i was

100 causing that you just didn't want to play yeah okay okay okay we would wait until dark one night divide up into two teams and try to sneak each other's flag across the boundary line i understand that most people normally play this game during the daytime oh we always played at night but there's like flashlight capture the flag and yeah that's what we would that's what we would do. And we would do it on a golf course at night. And so you'd run across the green to get to anyway. Okay.

I understand that most people normally play this game during the daytime, but that's just not how we did things at my church. We're a fun church. We're wacky. We're a cool, quirky church. We are wacky. We're a cool, quirky church. We are wacky. We waited until it was dark and scary, but the night we picked on this particular trip actually happened to be lit by a full moon. So, yeah, you know, take that as you will and keep it in mind for the rest of the story. Now, I was not the quickest runner and therefore not a great scout. I would get caught and go to jail too fast if I tried to cross the boundary line into enemy territory.

caught and go to jail too fast if I tried to cross the boundary line into enemy territory. But while I was not too quick, I was a cross-country runner and had hell of a lot of stamina, and I had one more advantage that no one else had. I am colorblind. Interesting. Okay, interesting to see how this is an advantage. What a plot twist. Yeah, where are we going with this? I know that doesn't seem like much of an advantage on its face,

but I've learned that while it isn't great during the daytime, it makes me see uncannily well in the dark. What? I didn't know that. I got a colorblind uncle. I got to talk to him about this. Blaze's dad's colorblind. I got to hit him up, too. Yeah.

Even with the bright full moon, it gave me an edge. My team capitalized on that and my stamina and placed our flag as far as physically possible from the boundary we hid it in a small circle of trees barely into the tree line and i was left to lie in wait this was ideal for several reasons first although the rule said that any guards had to leave a five foot buffer between themselves and the flag unless someone was actively taking it i could pretty easily hide a little further into the trees and still comply with that rule. Second, the flag was far enough away from the boundary that I would be able to outpace any thieves,

even if they were sprinters. Third, I would see and hear the thieves crunching in the leaves long before they would see or hear me. This is funny, and I wonder what Kay does now for a living, because I'm like, did you use these skills to your advantage in your adult life? I just wonder. Are you a PE teacher? you uh into chess strategy what's happening are you a navy

seal what do you do or a pe teacher have you been on survivor i'm confused you should be yeah if you haven't you should be if your plan is has something to do with crunching of leaves as people walk by you should be on survivor oh you could probably do a good pi job too like laying in wait and like being patient and stamina you know i mean you have quite a few skills that most of us don't have um not naming names but it's me and m we don't have any of these skills yeah you never had by the way if uh this person and i ever had to play capture the flag together I was not someone they were actively worried about. You were like crunching. They were like, even if you're a sprinter.

I was like, I'm not a sprinter. Even if you're Emu who already volunteered and said, I'm just going to go sit in jail. Who's just crunching the leaves for fun because they're leaves. Yeah. Okay. Let's see. If you've played Capture the Flag before, you know that sometimes the hardest and most time-consuming part of the game is just finding where the enemy flag is planted. That's especially true when playing at night, so I was left alone to guard our flag for quite some time.

An hour passed, an hour and a half, two hours. What the heck? Not one single scout had figured out our flag's position, and, well, I was getting bored. Eventually I got tired of watching vigilantly for scouts and instead turned so that my back was against the tree that I was using for cover, and I leaned back against it and closed my eyes. I still listened closely for the crunching of leaves, but I wasn't going to watch any more for scouts or thieves that it seemed probably wouldn't be forthcoming. I'm not sure how long I stayed like that, but suddenly I heard it. The steady crunch crunch crunch of dried autumn leaves under someone's feet when they got close enough still

leaning back against the tree with my eyes closed i said you're not very sneaky you know oh god oh god it's always when you think you're cool enough to say something like that with your eyes closed a hundred percent you're like i could pull this line. You're like, I'm going to fool them. Oh my gosh. I'm cool, calm, and collected. Oh goodness. The footsteps stopped. I opened my eyes and looked around for the source, only to find a lone deer looking back at me from further into the woods. This didn't seem particularly extraordinary at first, as I was used to seeing deer.

I lived in the piney woods and had seen tons of deer, even just passing them on the road while driving or walking. That wasn't what made this one weird. We stared at each other for a while, this deer and I, and I couldn't quite put my finger on what was off about it. Normally, when I saw deer before, they stared until I moved like a game of chicken. So I figured I should just move and it would run off. I pushed myself off the tree I was leaning against

and stood upright. And I was right, the deer did move, but not like any deer should move oh for fuck's sake i'm already thinking black-eyed kids deer version trying to act like a real deer he's like is this it is this it am i doing it it okay that sounds pretty correct um it took a few stumbling halting steps in my direction which was the first wrong thing it should have been closer running away right not coming closer on the second or third step i realized that this thing's joints did not move right its ankles knees shoulders and hips almost moved backward and outward instead of straight forward. It almost looked like, oh my god, it almost looked like how a spider's legs moved.

Forget it. Forget it. Throw up. It almost looked like how a spider's legs moved, but not quite as pronounced. It started breathing really hard, and that's when it hit me that this thing didn't actually look at all like a deer that's not you've been looking at its fucking face this whole time and you are just not realizing it's a different animal they probably were staring at it and were like oh a deer and then like in those five seconds we're like oh not not deer not deer not deer that's not what deer like. It just took it moving for me to realize that.

For one thing, it was a lot taller and its torso. You're welcome, Christine. Thank you. I still don't like torsos. I know you're still on, you know, episode 50, but I'm still not into the torso thing. You're welcome, Christine. It was a lot thicker than a normal deer's. I don't know how to explain it. It was a deer, but only if you didn't look too close. This feels like a black-eyed deer. It does. I feel like we need a, what do you call it, a sketch artist, like a police sketch artist to draw this thing, you know?

With its little creepy crackly joints. Spider legs. Ooh. What was most unnerving was the intelligence with which it watched me. It was like it knew I was alone and far from the others. It looked at me like it was a predator and I was the prey, not the other way around, like most deer seem to assume. When I was able to move again, I bolted out of the tree line. Okay, also remember it's nighttime, which is just making this so much worse.

I hate it. When I was able to move again, I bolted out of the tree line, but unwilling to leave the flag unguarded, parentheses, stupid, I know, I stopped. Loyal to the game is what maybe my dad would say. I was going to say, not what you or I would say. We were not loyal to the game when there was not a not deer hanging around. Right, right, right. say we were not loyal to the game when there was not a not deer hanging around right right um i stopped when i felt i was far enough out of the woods for some reason i knew that it wouldn't follow me out of the trees and i was right it followed me to the tree line and no

further it looked at me again for a moment and seeming to recognize that i wasn't going to go back into the trees while it was there. It finally turned around and headed off, still doing the horrifying spider walk and looking like it was having a really hard time walking on all fours. Okay. This is creeping me the fuck out. I really hope. I don't hope actually. But it's either supernatural or this was like a, like a, maybe some sort

of like, like joint issue. Like maybe it was just like born, like a sick animal, like a sick animal, or maybe it had been injured and was like, like limping a weird way. If that's the case, it makes me sad. If it's just an alien disguised as a deer, I immediately am so much more afraid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I feel like for somebody who sees deer all the time and at first was like oh it's a deer like wasn't like what the fuck is that but was like oh a deer and then was like wait a second yeah hang on it's off wait a tick wait a tick wait a tick tack okay um but about when it was far enough into the tree cover that I could no longer see it the sound of its walking changed again. Forget it.

I'm off my – maybe it's a limping deer thing. I've spent enough time around horses and other four-legged animals that I know what the sound of their walking is when compared to a person walking. Four legs sound different than two. And I realized when the sound changed that now it sounded more like two legs. And it had sounded like that when I first heard it before I opened my eyes oh right because you thought it was a person come and get your flag oh my god gross truly just I can't believe I almost made it sad for a second like you were you were you were dead set on that uh I was really trying to think realistically there's no way this thing is but there but you're

i'm back i'm back it's a shapeshifter 1000 and nothing else horrific that really makes me wonder whether it was somehow walking on its hind legs before i called it out and just dropped to all fours when i looked at it maybe that's why walking on all forms seem fours seemed so unnatural or like you said it had shifted from human form to like yeah gross i've never gone back to that particular camp and thank goodness i never want to see that thing again who knows what it would have done if it had caught up to me or if you hadn't opened your eyes oh forget it i don't like that i have plenty of actual ghost stories from what i think may have been an actual possession to hauntings at my local community theater but this is easily the creepiest thing that has ever happened to me I hope it terrifies

you too as much as it did me this is the kind of story if somebody read this to me at a campsite I would be like I'm going home like I'm really scared I'd be like this has to be it for me like there's so right there's simply no more that I've reached the pinnacle of creepiness i've hit my creepy quota in my creepy coda stupid nailed it oh god well thanks thanks for that thanks for that oh god i don't know why it chose a deer unless maybe it only gets one animal, you know? Oh, maybe. Because I guess if it was trying to just convince you that it was an animal in the woods, a

deer would be the- When you pick something, like, even, like, if it was trying to approach you- Like a squirrel or, like, a kitten or something that, like, a child would want to pet, you know? Yeah, I see what you're saying. Like, more approachable. Like a lost puppy in the woods like oh no that's so scary it's so scary but like why a fucking deer unless like maybe that

is just what it can transform into isn't it like anamorphs like for millennials and i guess not gen z because i don't know if they know what anamorphs is but uh they all like had like one animal that they could turn into right so maybe this was just the deer animorph can you imagine being the deer animorph you're not even good at it because you look like a spider it's like you're still clearly in training like this deer was bullied during flashlight tag and wasn't but this deer for sure was you know what it might as well have been me in another world because we both have tarantula legs, apparently. You're right. That's a great point. All right. The next one is from Tristan. He uses she, her pronouns. Thank you for normalizing pronouns.

And the subject, Christine, is going to blow your little socks off. Okay. Christine helped solve a murder. What? Oh, my goodness. What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? Say more. Hook, whine, sinker. Oh, I then it also says, it says, and a little ghost story for him.

So both, both are winning. Both of us. Hello, fur babies, human baby. Love that. Em, Christine, Eva, and all petrified fruits. I've been listening to your podcast since 2018 and I'm finally caught up. So I'm listening backwards in that it says cringe which i can't tell if you mean we're cringy or no i think they meant they know that they're doing it wrong oh

okay i mean we also the further you go back the more cringy we are certainly true yeah so uh be prepared for the second time around i suppose um i've gotten tons of my friends hooked and my mom too, and my mom too, but I've never submitted a story. This may be long, but I've been sitting on this one for a while and I had to wait for the case to be solved before I could submit part of it. What? So first off is for Christine and second half.

Oh, so the first half is for Christine and the second half is for him. Let's crack into it. I live in a small town and one of my family members is a detective i was in school for criminal justice and so i got to hear things about cases without ever knowing the names of who they were happening to because of legal reasons someone in the town someone in the town over went missing and it wasn't a runaway situation they found his car wrecked into a ditch and left on the side of the road with all of his personal belongings including his phone inside and cctv footage showed him getting into his own car with two unidentifiable men

they hadn't searched the victim's house yet but i had just listened to episode 158 where christine covered the murder of kevin bacon oh yeah the cases were so similar in the lead-up to them that i told my relative to search his phone for the grinder app of course he had never heard of it so i had to explain what it was and tell him that there was a case in 2019 where someone was a victim of a hate crime murder after being baited on that app after and after searching his house they find some things under his bed that proved my theory and also found the app on his phone and were able to go through past messages and find out who he was meeting and where he was going to be meeting them

and were able to get a warrant to search the house of those two men. Christine? What the fuck? Are you kidding me right now? Come to find out, they were brothers, and they had baited that man into coming with them for what he believed was going to be a hookup. They murdered him and buried him on their property. If I would not have listened to that episode on that day, that I, on the episode, if I had not have listened to that episode on the day that I listened to it, that would have not even been a factor because he was closeted and closeted and all of his family said that they had no inkling that he may have ever been LGBTQ.

Wow. Listening to your podcast solved the murder and got their family closure. And the family may never know, but I would like to say thank you. Aw, Christine. Oh my God. I'm like, I'm honestly like mind blown right now. Seriously. Wow. Okay.

Well, so we've got, we have a spiritual hotline we need to figure out. And now apparently you also have to go back into being a detective. What the hell? I'm like shook. I'm really'm really i never say that but like i'm shook well because of that story you were able to give another family that's really incredible and who's sent us in again tristan tristan i'll be honest you really just shook my brain i don't really know what to do with this information. But thank you for sharing it. And thank you for solving it. I mean, it sounds like Tristan solved it, not me. I just blabbed around.

You were the lead. You were the lead. I was just blabbing. And Tristan was like, I think I'm going to take something from this. Well, also, if Kevin Bacon's family happens to be out there, know that, you know know if something good could come from their situation at least another story was able to be closed too so all right now here's a little ghost story for m me and my friends went to charleston for a 21st birthday celebration and we were too poor to afford a ghost tour and after about 10 jello shots each yikes i decided that i was into creepy enough

things to lead the tour oh Oh my gosh. Love this. And yes, this was after listening to your episode where you covered the old Charleston jail. Everything was funny and normal until we got to St. Philip's Church. He was telling them the history and about some of the ghosts when one of my friends said, hey, maybe you should whisper. There's someone in there. Whoa.

Whoa. Oh, so like as they were telling the story, they're like, hey, maybe you should whisper someone. Keep it down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never become so sober so fast in my entire life because it is a felony to be in a graveyard after dark. Oh, shit. I told her this and she looked just as scared as I did and pointed behind me into the graveyard and said, something is crying over that grave. Me and all my friends look into the graveyard and we see what looks like a person crouched near a grave the way people look in movies.

Tell everyone, we tell everyone we need to leave immediately because I don't fuck with demons. And no sooner had the word demon left my mouth that this giant shadow stood up. It was almost as if it was unfolding. Oh, God. Because it didn't stand out like a person. It just rose. I immediately felt sick to my stomach, and my friend asked if it was cold. It was 95 degrees outside, so obviously us 10 drunk girls started sprinting down the street away from that

stupid church it has some awesome history and some really cool ghosts though just not cool enough for me to hang around after seeing that sorry for how long the story was but i've been wanting to write in about the ghost story for a while and just got the okay to write in about the murder case so i figured i'd kill two birds with one stone i've got some really creepy stories about the woods near my old college, which you kind of covered in Listener Story Volume 19. And I suggested one of the murders that happened up there. So, Christine, if you ever want the details about the Meredith Emerson case, let me know. Can't wait to see you guys at the Halloween Atlanta show. Live, laugh, lemon, Tristan.

Tristan, I would love the details on that. laugh lemon tristan tristan um i would love the details on that and also like did you solve that one too because i feel like you're giving me credit and like i didn't do jack shit i just kind of read my notes and you i mean if you're not doing all this detective work on your in your free time i don't know what you're doing because it sounds like you're good at it. Oh my gosh. Well, talk about a very moving story at the very least. Very moving. I mean, these stories, I gotta say, this is one of the, maybe it's just me, but I feel like this is one of the creepiest,

wildest episodes we've ever done. Definitely the darkest. Eva was certainly in a mood when she was curating these stories. We had just traveled with her for three days. So maybe she was like she was like that put her on edge you know yeah twist of the knife okay so this is i think the last one right um this was sent in by frankie she her and the subject is murder revenge and a little ghost stuff

oh okay it's a lot of true crime today too hi and that's why we drink fam i suck at first impressions icebreakers, and openers. So let's get right to the story. I think you did an excellent job, honestly. Yeah. Yeah. Crutch of the chase. When I was in high school, my 18-year-old cousin, oh, great, was killed on Halloween morning.

Oy. There was an argument while he was stopped at a gas station at about 4 a.m., and he was shot in the face. Oh, my God. Jesus H H Christ. We grew up together. We're only a year apart and this happened about two blocks away from our grandmother's house

where we grew up. Every holiday, birthday, and most summer days were spent together at this house. Well, this house and our childhood happened to be on the wrong side of town in Northern California, which meant that a young Hispanic man being shot and killed was no big deal and immediately thrown away as gang-related.

It wasn't. The next day, a candlelight vigil was held at the site by close to 100 friends and family members. While remembering what side of town we were on, cops showed up to monitor the situation. Okay. That's right. We were not allowed to grieve. When people started to disperse, a few officers came over and told us to put out the candles that were left at the site. Get over yourself. We blew them out, but they stayed lit.

We tried to smother the flame, only for them to pop right back up. This ghost said, A cab, A cab. He was like, I don't think so, officer. We tried to smother the flame, only for them to pop right back up we poured water on them waited a few minutes poured the water out and watched the flames relight okay this are there visual candles that are like those trick candles trick candles i mean i don't know i if there are that's like kind of a fucked up product.

But I mean, I guess in this case, it sounds like it worked. It's doing the trick. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I'm not a believer in the supernatural at all. I'm a show me the proof kind of gal. But this is the only instance I had no other answer for. That was him, my cousin Jay, refusing to let his light go out. Oh. Him, my cousin Jay, refusing to let his light go out.

Aww. We all made the joke that of course Jay would die on Halloween when he could come back the next day, Day of the Dead. Uh-huh. A week later, I walked up to his open casket and stared at my childhood best friend for the last time. Yes, we had an open casket funeral, and while I could still see a small area of discoloration, that was him. This experience is the reason I became a mortician. Oh, wow. I'm going to cry again to give family members peace from behind the scenes as I am extremely awkward and antisocial.

Oh, you're cracking me up, Frankie. I'm a supervising embalmer and funeral home manager because of this horrible experience, and I hope I can give others a goodbye someone gave to me and my family now i use the word i'm like so goose cammy and crying at the same time now i use the word revenge in my subject line so you may be wondering where that comes into play my cousin's murder is unsolved kinda we knew who the murderer was and that he fled to mexico remember this was the murder of a young hispanic man on the wrong side of town. Local law enforcement at the time did not see a need to actually pursue this case.

They called it gang violence and through statistics and victim blamed. If you ask anyone in my family what happened to that person, there's always the same response. We took care of it. That's all I will say. And that's just the end of the email. What the fuck? And you know what good for you honestly as you should whatever that means for you that closure seems like it is there um and I'm happy to not I'm happy about that for you and happy to not know anymore as well so oh wow wow wow Frankie what a story these are next level I was gonna say I'd like to know if something happened to me I would have family out there who would just take care of

it oh I would take care of it don't worry okay I just rolled your eyes I I would I would love to know what that looks like but I uh I thank you in advance if that is what ends up happening so uh wow no this really was a really particularly heavy and creepy episode you know when we started this episode and i said it's leona's birthday that eva was like oh shit the energy has changed quickly that was my bad i didn't think about that but honestly um i think this is one of the creepiest ones we've ever done i at least i'm freaked out yeah definitely the freakiest definitely one of the freakier ones wow but i'm gonna have nightmares about that deer thing for the rest of life you know usually you hear like cryptid and it's like okay cryptid like you know bigfoot footsteps or something but like like that was very descriptive and terrifying.

No good. No good. Not a deer. Not a good thing either. Yeah. I really hope that this got everyone in the spooky spirit. Yeah. I hope everyone's primed to be freaked out wherever you're going today.

No matter what you do. primed to be freaked out wherever you're going today no matter what you do uh do you have any uh plans any spooky plans besides the birthday coming up that you're excited for well tomorrow uh october 2nd 10 2 as you like to call it uh i think we're gonna poop day i think you better make you better take a mean poop on poop day that's all i'm saying uh i can't promise that but i can promise that i think we're going like pumpkin patching and, you know, stuff with Leona. So doing some harvest stuff. I was going to say, you know, Kentucky's got a sick fall festival. Yeah, we got to find those fall festivals because I don't think we went last year.

I don't remember. Oh, I'm like, I don't remember why. Well, yeah, I was in labor on October 1st. I'm like, what did I do last year for October? Oh, right. There was a newborn in my house. You also need someone to babysit for the night and go do Halloween stuff. You know I'm scared of that.

I know they've got a haunted hayride. Well, I don't think I need a babysitter because Blaze would never go with me. So he can stay home and I'll get dragged. I'm always convinced by somebody who's like, it's not that scary. And then I go and I regret everything. Alexander, are you listening? Yeah, he'll do it. Probably.

I will. Alexander, I will Venmo you good money to get Christine to the creepiest thing in Kentucky. Yeah. OK. Scared. Anyway, good luck with whatever you do. What about you, Em? What are you doing?

We haven't gotten any tickets. I've been hesitant about getting tickets because I still have this stupid anxiety. Sure. But I need to figure it out. But usually we always do at least, oh, you'll like this. So we always do Universal with our other friend, Christine. That's without, you got to do that every year. um that's without you got to do that every year then we do um uh we were doing the the hayride the haunted hayride but it's it's dwindled over the year so i think we might replace it this year

with something else um and then we do uh oh man i'm forgetting one of them but the the fourth one is dark harbor at the queen mary but here's the thing apparently during covid dark harbor no longer really and guess who bought it and has now made it their own halloween experience shack oh i thought you were gonna say zach bagans i was like i'm sorry no not zach shack shack is honestly speaking of great businessmen, Shack, I mean, he's got the Papa John's, I think. Yeah. He really said, I'm just going to invest in everything. And so I guess he like bought Dark Harbor and now it's called Shacktober. No, it's not.

I think it is. That's insane. That will probably be something we do. Well, he also at Papa john's makes a um a pizza what's it called a chacaroni this guy i'm telling you between him and zach bagans like you know do you know what's next he's gonna buy a shake shack and be like i'm on it that was the smartest most clever thing you've ever said your entire life well i'm out then because i don't want to i don't want to fall from here okay well anyway i'll be if i can get myself to we'll be doing some halloween stuff but

um yeah it'll we'll hopefully we have some spooky fun but i guess next time we talk about halloween it'll probably be when i'm dressed up as you or dressed as someone i guess so dressed as someone okay well i hope everyone has a great halloween and next time we see you we will stay in the autumnal uh with the autumnal festivities of november yes and i guess we'll see you then with more listener stories send in your stories too and that's why you drink at gmail.com that's why we drink