CreepCast - The Dionaea House | Creep Cast
Episode Date: December 1, 2024This week, the guys read one of the oldest creepypastas to exist. Written by a very talented screenwriter, this thread of email correspondence unravels a theory that a particular house keeps luring th...em in. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Welcome back to Creepcast.
Today we have an OG.
I don't think we even realize the kind of royalty that we were stepping into because
now we were completely blindly.
We're reading the Dianaya House.
Is that how you say that?
Dianaya.
Diania.
Something like that.
I don't know.
The Diania house.
I've known about the story forever.
This has just always been one of the OGs, one of the classic creepypastas.
We did not realize how OG and how classic it was.
until we, like, started looking into it.
So this story was written by a man named Eric Heiserer.
Heiser.
Is that however you pronounce that?
Heiser.
Heiser.
Eric Heiserer, who wrote a couple little movies you may be heard of, like,
Arrival and Birdbox.
So an incredibly prolific writer.
I just want to read this little blurb from Wikipedia,
of the most trusted website on earth.
Of course.
This little thing just is a very interesting beginning.
We've just so floored by the beginning of this first off.
So Heiswer's professional screen on a career was launched with the sale of the Diana House to Warner Brothers in 2005.
So almost 20 years ago, he sold this story to what we're getting ready to read to Warner Brothers,
which I'm guessing they did nothing with it.
And it is considered to be one of the first popular creepypasta stories.
So one of the first.
we did Ted and then now
we're doing the Dian Eye House
very cool. I would say Ted is the first
and then like two years later you've got this
yeah I would say Ted's the first but it's just insane
to say that this guy wrote the story
it's considered to be one of the first
and then he ends up selling to Warner Brothers
and then he ends up making
a full professional screenwriting career
a nightmare on Elm Street 2010
the Final Destination 5
The Thing from 2011
a movie called Hours with Paul Walker
RIP. Lights out.
Oh, fuck. That's cool.
He did lights out with them. And then
Arrival, that same year, Birdbox, and then
Bloodshot, the Van Diesel movie.
Now, granted, whatever you think of these
movies, doesn't matter. The fact
the matter is, this is a
runstanding professional man.
Yeah, and Arrival is an incredible film. He got
an Academy Award nomination
for it. Like, great movie
Dennis Villano, incredible
director, like who he worked with on that
film. So, like, yeah, this guy,
This guy knows what he's doing.
And this is his first, like, at least published or, you know, any kind of popularity work from 2004, which is so weird to think about.
20 years ago. Pretty crazy.
One of the earliest creepypastas.
As a matter of fact, we have to go on the way back machine to read it.
Yeah.
We are on the way of back machine because it said that the, it said that the website or the where the story was at was taken down in 2019 or 2020.
So then that's on the way back machine.
And what's interesting about this story is that it's all a collection of e-mail.
I believe
which is just kind of pog
I like that and
you know he sat there he made a rival
Jeremy Renner's in that
how good of friends do you think he is
with Jeremy Renner
I think they're I think they're besties
maybe show up on the Jeremy Renner app
see now we're talking about real
royalty the Jeremy Renner app
where a psychopath
talks about how he broke both of his legs
really love Jeremy Renner
I do like to think
why do you think he's a psycho
pad. Jeremy Renner? Yeah. I'm almost positive he had, which do not correct me if I'm wrong because I want to live this. I want to live this fantasy. If not, I thought he had a full blown like mental break. And that's also why they didn't put him in son of some of the I'm almost positive because then he went in and he like started a rock band had a mental break did a rock band thing. Had the Jeremy Renner music video that came out. And then they were like they kind of tried to cut him out of the Marvel movies. Is I remember. That's why he's only in like one scene. He's like.
he's like in Japan for like one of the uh in the infinity war i think you're completely making this up
i swear i've heard of this i look up jeremy ritter mental break it's like mental recovery
after his accident how his accident changed his outlook like there's nothing to do with a mental
breakdown i'm saying is the real ones out there are going to realize what i'm talking about i don't know
what kind of seedy parts of the internet i was in but i saw this i swear
This is to be real.
So you made it up.
He hasn't been the same since hurt locker.
His mental determination was the key factor in his recovery.
Oh, sure.
This is all public.
Is this on Jeremy renter.com?
This is the Google, the internet.
Yeah.
Well, where do you think Jeremy renter's app exists?
On the internet, my friend.
He hasn't been the same since hurt locker.
Let's be honest.
Let's be honest.
Okay.
I don't, I don't support him.
I do not tie myself to that image.
Jeremy Renner, if you want to sue him by all means,
No, no, no, don't put that out there.
We don't want to put that out there.
As a matter of fact, I will help you.
I have a whole document ready to go.
I have several post-it notes around this whole workspace,
just full of things that he hates,
including hikers, cream soda, speaking in hallways, and old women.
So I'll help.
I will be your number one character with this.
What is not on the list is, I do not hate Jeremy Renner.
I'm just saying he's a psychopath.
Don't know.
I do not hate Jeremy Renner.
I'm just saying he's a psychopath who can't be trusted.
in professional spaces and should be kept at 10 feet from any self-respecting actor.
And if the app is still up, it needs to be deleted.
Okay.
I can't wait for you to get sued.
That's going to be so funny.
Without further ado, let's get into the Dianaya House.
It says correspondence from Mark Condry.
At the top of here on the way back machine, which is probably part of the original website,
is the September 6, 2004 to October 1st, 2004, which is, I'm guessing just the amount of email chains,
the length of that.
But coincidentally, our first email post here is on October 7th, 2004.
So six days after the last correspondence.
Yes.
So, without further ado, let's get into it.
Jennifer, friends and family of Mark.
As promised, here are copies of the correspondence I received from Mark over the course of the last month.
For the most part, I've merely copied and pasted them from my email application.
As I'll read, he requested this and hopes that you'll better understand.
why he did what he did.
I made the site because it's the most efficient way to share Mark's emails with all of you.
I'm not advertising this to anyone.
But I do think it would be wise to pass this URL along to anyone who may help with the investigation.
As I collect more information from various sources, I'll update this site to keep it an accurate record.
I'll have that link at the end of the series as well.
If you need to speak with me, Jen has my number.
Thank you for your patience, and again, I'm profoundly sorry.
Eric nice little first tie-in also there still is a hyperlink on the all update this site that takes you to the updates page yeah updates and other resources do we read this now or should we wait I think we wait okay I just have a feeling because he says as I collect more information I'll update this site to keep it accurate and the link will be at the end of the series as well so right now we just have Eric sending over his correspondence with Mark yeah
Uh, so now we have, uh, our emails, um, that are between the two. So this first one is from Mark
Conjury on Monday, September 6th, 2004 and at 8 a.m. subject to an old friend.
Eric. Hey man. Uh, it's Mark from Houston. The Saturday night gang. Feels like a long time ago,
doesn't it? Uh, the fuck does that mean. Did you not like that? Hey, it's Mark from Houston, the Saturday
night gang. What the fuck happened on Saturday night? I think he's just, I think he's just, I think he's,
just being kind of cringe.
Like,
I think there's
the town on Saturday night.
Definitely some Jeremy Renner stuff
going on with the Saturday night gang for sure.
What does that even mean?
I think you know.
He's put together some apps.
Yeah, we're all making apps of our lives here
if you want to come over on Saturday night.
Okay.
Saturday Night gang.
Feels like a long time ago, doesn't it?
I found your email from your website.
Looks like you're out in L.A. now.
Cool.
I remember telling you,
You should be out there doing the California thing.
You're still with Connie?
I'm in Dallas now.
I met someone who works in my building.
We've been seeing each other for two years now.
Listen, the reason I'm writing to you out of the blue is because I got this newspaper article
in the mail.
Maybe you got one too.
It's about Andrew.
Do you remember Drew?
Travis would pick him up most of the time.
Messy hair, sort of the fan boy type.
I didn't remember his last name until I got this thing.
and now it's really disturbing me.
Do you know what happened?
Did you hear about it already?
Let me know if you have some time to talk.
I can call you or you can call me if that works better.
I'm going to see if I can track down Travis and Dave.
A quick search didn't seem to turn up any leads,
but maybe they just don't have websites.
If you still talk to either of them, let me know.
Thanks, Mark.
Little dropping clue here of our boy Andrew, aka Drew,
the messy-haired fan boy
something happened to him
you know I don't like about that though
why don't you say what happened
you know what do I have to do all the like work
well because we're having fun
it's feeding pieces of the story to
oh I know something happened to Mark
I'm holding back my complaint because also
I hate the idea of some guy
emailing me out of the blue just being like
remember me how you doing
like dude if I haven't talked to you in a while
I probably don't want to talk to you
you know I mean so let me hold on
let me really quickly add
that. Okay, don't add that. That's just, that's, that's not even a general
talking. That shouldn't be on the list. To
old. No, no, no. Not talking to old friends. Emails out of the
blue. That's what it should be. Emails out of the blue. Let me change that.
Any communication. Okay. All right.
With old friends. All right. Yep. All right. Well, now it's on the list. So is it. Hey, Jeremy. You
need that. There you go. There's a freebie.
me, buddy. He's like, sorry, I've updated the malware on my app. You know, for a fact,
he never updates the malware. Oh, absolutely not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a mistake. Everyone's
supposed to just in the wind. So, again, this is another one from Mark Condry on Wednesday,
September 7th, sent at 7 a.m. subject response from Mark Condry. Eric, thanks for quick
reply. I didn't mean to sound cryptic in my first email. I'm just
reluctant, I guess. I hadn't really seen or thought about Andrew since he stopped showing up for
game night, and that was five years ago. That was about the time we all went our own ways back in
99. You moved out west. I moved up to Dallas, et cetera. So when I got this article in my mailbox,
it caught me by surprise. And yeah, I'll transcribe the thing for you. I wasn't sure if maybe
you were the one who sent it to me. I'll put it into this email at the bottom.
I remember him. He was never the kid with the idea. He was the kid who agreed with yours.
Slowest to get the joke, usually. Laugh the longest.
That's Andrew in a nutshell, yeah. At least that's how I remember him.
He got on my nerves sometimes, but damn, if he didn't love being part of the gang.
He'd ask for some poker chips on card night or borrow dice for my bag, that sort of thing.
Whenever we play Tecmo Bowl on your Nintendo, he'll be able to be.
always wanted to be on my team, which would have been fine if he was any good.
I haven't heard from Travis or Dave in years.
It fell off the radar about the same time you did.
None of us made much of attempt to stay in touch.
It was just one of those things.
That's okay.
I wasn't trying to point fingers.
It happens.
But I was hoping you had already heard about Andrew, like you've gotten a copy of the article.
I still haven't been able to get a number or email for Travis or Dave.
Maybe they know more about this than we do.
Andrew usually hitched a ride with Travis most of the time.
It was on the way home for Travis.
Didn't Andrew live with his mom?
Like in an apartment?
And his stepdad was a real estate broker.
Had that one house way out past Highway 6.
Do you remember that?
Andrew was scared to death of that house.
Here's the article.
There's a photo of Andrew with it.
Looks maybe like his driver's license photo.
Still had messy hair.
Gunman shoots two.
Kill Self at Boise Restaurant.
diners of the roadside breakfast cafe on Interstate 84 fled to the parking lot and panicked
yesterday afternoon when a man entered and began shooting patrons inside, killing two.
The couple, John and Lucy Madsen, were having lunch with when 26-year-old Andrew Hughes
entered, wielding a Smith and Westin 59 pistol, according to police.
Witnesses claimed the perpetrator was muttering to himself as he approached the smoking section
and opened fire.
Something funny, Hunter?
open fired into the first occupied booth,
fatally wounded the Madsen's.
Soon after, he turned the weapon on himself.
All three were taken by paramedics to St. Alfonso's regional medical center,
where John Madsen and the shooter were pronounced dead.
Lucy Madsen, 37, remained in critical condition for silver hours,
but did not survive the night.
Police are investigating huge work and personal background.
But as of this morning, a motive for this attack is unknown.
Okay, see, the only reason that I...
chuckled there.
Was I just the idea of a guy
walking in and approaching the smoking section.
I don't know why for some reason,
but the idea of the people just been,
it was very French to me.
They're smoking.
They're like,
what?
And they said there,
he would blow a big smoke class.
He's like,
you goddamn dirty lungs,
sons or bitches.
And he pulls out of Smith and Winston,
boom,
boom.
So it was the inclusion of the smoking section that made you laugh.
Yeah.
Well,
I like the idea of them be like,
what?
What is?
they're holding their
he's like you you god damn dirty
dirty lung pieces and shit
boom
the way you're saying it applies
he did it because they were smoking
it's why I was laughing
because I like the idea
that this guy being like
you motherfuckers
yeah they've had it too good
for too long
exactly he keep dancing
with death well the dance is over
You don't appreciate what you have.
That's pretty much the plot of the Saw movies.
Exactly.
That's how Jigsaw walks into a place.
He's like, you were smoking.
It's like, yeah, dude, I work 12 hours a day.
Can I smoke?
At the beginning of...
Why don't you try digging this key out of your stomach?
Like, what does it have to do with anything?
Oh, maybe you could unlock the reality that your life's a gift.
It's like, fuck off.
At the beginning of, I think it's the fifth one,
he actually does kill a guy for smoking.
Do you remember that?
I mean, yeah, I feel like I've actually,
ever since I did my saw video,
I feel like I've erased all those from my mind.
Okay, the one,
is it the fifth one where it's all about the one insurance guy
who has to go through?
It's got like the carousel shotgun.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think that's, that's either, no,
I think that's seven, no, no, no, that's six.
I think that's all six.
Okay. Whichever one that is. I don't know.
Whichever one that is, the opening is there in that machine that takes your lungs?
Oh, yeah.
And it's got the big press on the side.
And the old, the janitor is like, he smoked two packs a day for 40 years.
And it's like, that's it.
Yeah, exactly.
It's like, God.
That's why he's looked up.
There's other people where it's like, they watch, they're like pedophiles.
And you're like, okay, well, there you go.
Like fucking get torture.
Yeah.
But some person's just like, oh, because I'm smoking Paul Moles.
Yeah.
Like, what? Come on!
All right, so anyway, after that, saying that the people were shot to death for smoking,
if there's more to the article, I didn't get it.
That's where it was torn off.
The other side is part of a Dillard's ad.
This is really bothering me, Eric.
What the hell was Drew doing in Boise with a gun?
He hung out with us for almost two years.
I just don't get it.
Something else is eating at me.
I can't figure it out yet.
Mark.
I can't figure it out, Drew.
Why was he in Boise?
Not the, why did he murder two people?
Yeah, except just be like, why would he murder someone?
Why the hell was he in Boise?
What was he doing in Idaho?
Who would ever go to Idaho?
Well, he did love potatoes, I guess.
All right, so we have another one from Thursday, September 9th.
Also from Mark says, hey, I know how you feel.
It's hard not to think of the times he sat next to us at the table, smiling like a fool,
rolling dice and moving his pieces around the bore.
that's
weren't it so funny
oh you used to think about the good old days
would he'd roll his dice smile
move pieces around the board
he would get dice from my bag.
Yeah
it's like what do you
can't you just say like the next
line is he loved Monopoly
Night so it's like just say he liked
Monopoly like rolling his dice
moving his pieces the way kids do
he loved Monopoly
Monopoly night. Always wagged his tongue when he counted money. Well, okay, I don't like that.
Always whacked his tongue when he counted money. I don't think he realized he did that.
It's impossible to think of him shooting up a ton.
That's funny. Hold on. Let me read all that at once.
Set next to us at the table, smiling like a fool, rolling dice, moving his pieces around the board.
He loved Monopoly Night. Always wagged his tongue when he counted money. I don't think he knew he
that. Possible to think
he shot up a diner.
So good.
There's no return address
on the envelope? No, but the
postmark is Idaho, not California
or Texas. Not sure if you've
already considered this, but it's
possible the whole thing is fake.
Some sick practical joke made to mess with your head.
You can get newsprint paper for.
Yeah, I've considered it.
I didn't tell you this earlier, but I called up
St. Alphanus and asked
if they had a patient named Andrew
Drew Hughes admitted in the last month, and a record of him.
As if it would show if he had been pronounced DOA and I got transferred to ER, where they
keep paramedic records and info on all DOAs.
They have him listed.
He showed up on August 28th, died of a gunshot wound with the head, pronounced dead by ER
resident at 3.14 p.m.
I asked for some contact info, like a phone or address where he might be living.
I got brushed off, told to call the police for that stuff.
the hospital wouldn't give out any personal info at least not without some signatures i haven't called
the police yet that's probably the next step glad to hear that you and connie are going strong
sorry to sort of dump all of this on you i just didn't know who else could care to listen
all right if anything else comes with this uh at this point i'm thinking maybe drew's mom sent it to me
maybe drew kept track of me when i moved to dallas and had my address i'm listed in the book
that would explain the logistics part
I'm overthinking things
take care Mark
I do like this kind of weird buildup
of reconnecting with somebody
over like a tragedy like this
when someone that you feel like you knew
did something horrible
but there is like a little inkling of
let me ask you this do you think that
are we dealing with a
weird kind of
alternate reality situation
no I think
I think the house made him crazy or something.
Which house?
The Dionea house.
Because there was that mention in the first email where he said, yeah, Drew's dad was a real estate agent.
He had that house out on Highway 6 or whatever that always freaked Andrew out.
I see.
I see.
That's a Dionea house, I assume.
So in the two years, Andrew's gone to that house or it's taken hold of him somehow.
And it's driven him to the point to shoot the.
two people in a diner now were these just two random targets or was drew compelled specifically
to murder them we'll find out but i think i was kind of i think i got thrown off with the whole
thing of him being like this could be fake and i thought that it was going to be not not like a parallel
reality thing but didn't know if it was something where i guess maybe yeah a parallel reality i don't
know why my mind immediately went there i don't ignore i think i think uh the purpose of that the like
this could be fake is just to show
that even Eric is like
there's no way. There's no way
that true did that. Which I mean
I would be saying the same thing.
If you knew somebody, if you do
somebody your whole life or had like a big
they had a big impact on you in a certain
part, it's hard to imagine them any other way than
they were when you knew them.
I feel like if I got a call from Allison
tomorrow that said you shot up a diner, I would
completely, I'd be like, yeah, that makes sense.
Is that true? Would you actually believe
that? Probably.
you know what I can't blame you if I it would depend on who you shot it would depend on what
the target was smoking section yeah I would be like Allison calls and she's like Isaiah she's like
crying and I'm like was it the smoking section like I would just know yeah how did you know
he went straight for the early bird special section at the local Denny's they still have a smoking
section in the back and it was a blood bath I would be like yeah for sure well that seems
he did not care for the smoking
section, did he? She's like, no.
He did not. If there's one thing about
him, it's that he didn't care for the smoking section.
Oh, absolutely not.
Also, I will say this,
over the past couple days, I'm surprised they haven't just given each other
to their phone numbers. They just talk on the phone
versus the email. Well, it's 2004,
right?
Phones.
When were cell phones,
bag phones were thinking like the 90s, right?
We're cell phones. I see this, this goes
back to my computerism.
Even if it wasn't a cell phone, I'm just saying,
like that they didn't even home phone like home phone number yeah yeah uh well emails are the new
happening thing for like text messages uh and also we need some way to visualize the story right
oh sure i guess i'm just which you know getting ahead of ourselves we're derailing the story
too much but it's just the whole thing of like i'm surprised there's not mentioned of like yeah
like they've been talking like oh like we were talking about on the phone the other night
where it's like they've been reconnected and they're talking out of the email chain yeah i think it's
just because they need everything to be visible for us, the reader.
All right.
Okay, so another one from Mark on Friday, September 10th, 3 a.m., subject, thoughts, and concerns.
Hey, again, I know it's late or early, depending on how you look at it,
but this Andrew thing won't go away.
I finally realized what's eating at me, and I need to spit it out.
Do you remember what went on just before Andrew stopped showing up for game nights at your place?
I do.
He was gone for two weeks because he had to house sit for his stay.
stepfather. Boom, bada bing. Look who's right? That's not in the story. That's me.
Boom, Bada bing is what a disc... I did not like that. If that's your catchphrase or whatever,
I did not care for that. Okay. Well, you thought the story was about to go into an alternate dimension.
So I still don't. It might. It might. And if it does, then I'll boom bada bing myself.
That sounds like I'm a pleasure myself.
I'll boom bada bing myself all day.
Yeah. I see if I need you. This morning in the shower, I did a nice little boom bada bing.
mom and stepdad went on a big vacation every summer for like ten days andrew was just expected
to say behind usually just stayed at his mom's apartment but that year he was asked to mine that
house his stepdad owned the one out in that old ridge subdivision west of houston maybe the guy
had a bunch of houses he was big on real estate wasn't he the guy had inherited this dog from one of
his clients somebody who moved out and didn't want to take the dog with him i want to say it
was an Australian shepherd.
Do you remember any of this?
Andrew talked about it the weekend before.
Dog had behavioral problems.
Wind, bark, scratched at the door, pissed on the carpet,
didn't want to be inside, always wanted to be outside.
Dad kept it in a kennel except when it rained.
Andrew was supposed to take care of the dog,
plus a few other things like mow the lawn, that sort of crap.
But Andrew didn't want to go.
Dave got into that argument with him about how it was
the perfect setup for a young bachelor,
house all to yourself, party time,
risky business, and Andrew kept saying
it was too cold there for a party.
Too cold.
I distinctly remember that.
Now, we kept asking us to drive out
and stay with him while he was house sitting.
I don't think anyone went out there, did they?
I never did.
We didn't see him for
two Saturdays in a row.
Then Travis picked him up like usual
since he was back at his mom's place.
That's the one night.
with Andrew I remember the most.
I bet's the same with you.
It was most bizarre,
frustrating night I had with the group.
Andrew walked in quoting some commercial verbatim.
I want to say it was a tie dad.
Travis told us he was like that in the car
all the way over.
Commercials, shows, movies, radio songs.
The first couple of hours gaming
was like being in the room with the TV on.
Then he started parodying us.
He just copied.
That's creepy.
Oh, I like that.
He just copies something we said.
You remember?
Tell me you remember this.
I could see it in my head so clearly.
Oh, and what was his response to anyone's complaints?
Okay.
Drew, stop quoting Law and Order episodes.
Please give the Pontiac commercial arrest.
Dude, shut up and roll the dice.
Okay.
And then he launched into something else a few minutes later.
It wasn't just that he would regurgitate that crap.
It was that he would take.
it so far. Whole reams of dialogue that he'd somehow memorized from one throwaway TV episode,
lyrics to entire songs. It went from odd to funny to disturbing in the first hour. Look, I'll come out
and say it. Whatever happened to those 10 days, it changed him. He wasn't the same person after that.
We all know this. We never talked about it. At least not with me around. But screw it if we didn't
know instantly that the person who came back from that house was not Andrew.
I wrote before that
I hadn't thought about Andrew since 99
That was a lie
You know the way your brain sometimes
Remind you of things you hate to dig up
The ones that sour your stomach
I've thought about him a few times
About that night
Was that the start of his madness
Or whatever it is that drove him to shoot up a diner
Were we there to see him first lose his grip
Eric why the hell didn't we say anything
Okay I'm bought in
That email
I went from like vaguely interested
to very interested.
The idea too of somebody just like
he just copy
copy something we said
is just something that's so childish.
It's just very just very uncanny, isn't it?
Well imagine sitting next to someone
and they're sitting there like
Tide the easy quicker laundry detergent.
Tide's the number one product to help you.
Families love Tide like and he's just doing that for hours.
that's so that's so uncanny it's like a robot I like to think too that the cadence of which he said okay
like they're like hey would you fucking stop he just said okay but kind of like it was kind of like
almost not necessarily like mad or angry but just and not even defeated just kind of almost
emotionless okay yeah yeah just like very monotone but then if he's quoting the commercials he
has the same cadence as the commercial tide has tides gonna get out all the he's like
repeating it verbatim full bore one for one yeah and that to me is unsettled that's where the
unsettling entire episodes of law and order nonstop oh yeah that's creepy uh so the next email is from
friday september 10th subject the door is open eric i woke up to the phone ringing this morning
turned out to be the reporter from the idaho statesman she finally called me back uh did i tell you
i called to track down the source of the article she didn't have any new developments on the story
but we'll continue to follow up with the police.
I asked if she had any other details about the crime,
stuff that didn't find its way into the article,
and we sort of went over her notes.
Most of it I already knew,
but there was one piece of info that caught my attention.
She wrote in the article that Andrew was mumbling
or muttering to himself when he entered the restaurant,
but she didn't put in what he was saying.
According to witnesses, he kept repeating,
The door is open.
Does that make any sense to you?
The door is open.
Write me back, Mark.
When you think of muttering, do you think he's like, the door, the door's open, the doors, the doors, the doors open?
Or is he like, kind of more like, the door, the doors, the doors, the doors, open.
Do you picture him whispering it or do you, like, do you imagine, I imagine, have you ever,
have you ever met someone with like a physical tick?
Yeah.
One of my buddies has, like, like, like, like, like, okay, so I imagine it's more so like that, like
doors, doors, doors open, the door, the door's open, the doors open.
I almost think when I'm thinking of muttering.
at least the way, which I guess when I imagine him walking in, I don't know if this is the wrong way to think about it.
I almost imagine him like sweating.
He's kind of gone and he's like crazed and he's just like, the door, the door is open.
The door is open.
He's like talking to himself in a weird way, almost trying to warn other people.
It's almost like if you're being controlled and puppeted, right?
But inside of you, you're trying to scream out and tell people something.
It's that kind of thing.
It's like that weird like sifted, like lost in translation approach of like trying to warn somebody.
I think it depends on what kind of what the nature of his possession is.
Yeah.
Because it could just be like he's on autopilot.
Like the door is open, therefore stuff is happening.
Yeah, he could have just walked in totally casually and he's just completely on autopilot, like you're saying.
Yeah, yeah.
The door is open.
The door is open.
We'll find out, I think we'll find out more as like a.
Sure.
Just find to speculate on.
I will say the lapses of time or like the email chain format is really fun.
I know that we were talking about I wasn't trying to discredit earlier.
I like the idea of it being able to have these lapses of time.
And it's just like very fatty or like very like tasty bits of information.
You know, not like these longs drawn out kind of flavorful wordings.
It's very like conversational.
And I like that approach to the story like a one side of conversation.
Yeah, this is fun.
I'm bought in. I'm told. I need to know. I think I remember listening to maybe a creepypasta reading of this while I was stronger, but I don't remember what happens. So I'm hype.
Looks at the next one's on Sunday, September 12th, 2004, 510 p.m. from Mark Condry again. And the subject is a plan.
Eric, I haven't heard from you. Just writing to let you know, I had a day to put some distance from the whole thing. And I've made a decision.
I'm going to fly down to Houston and see if I can find someone in Andrew's family. I once rode with traffic.
Travis to pick Drew up. I think I know where his mom used to live. From there, maybe I can find
stepdad and the house. I've tried the Boise lead already. I called the cops and got more
questions than answers. And now some Lieutenant Perez plans to call me back in case he needs
more testimony from me. Like I know anything. Apparently Andrew was living alone in a rental up
there, working at a blockbuster video. That's about all I got from the cops in Idaho. So I'm aiming for
Houston. Even driving my own car and a cheapo motel, it's still going to cost me about 200 for the
trip. Ginny is worried about me. She'd rather I stay and pretend the police will figure this out on
their own, but I have to go down there, Eric. Here's why. I think Andrew was afraid of that house
for a reason. Whatever that reason was during those 10 nights, something emptied him. Got it
Andrew like a fish. Yanked out whatever he was inside or shocked him into forgetting it all
away. He was hollowed out. To fill the void, he absorbed any input he could find. Television,
radio, conversation, soaked it up and presented it as Andrew. He could walk and talk, and he
wasn't injured, not physically, but he wasn't the same either. There's a gap I need to fill
in my head, like the time in that house. Add these pieces of Andrew that don't match,
I need something to match.
Hell, I'll feel better if something will just make sense.
I won't ask you to fly down and join me,
but I could use your help all the same.
I have some questions you might be able to answer.
Please call me or send me a note if you know any of these.
My phone is, and then we get a note that...
Is removed by Eric?
Eric, yeah, Eric has removed the phone number.
So, the questions is,
what was the stepfather's name?
first or last.
What was his mom's name?
Was her last name also Hughes?
What was the name of the subdivision
where stepdad's house was?
I think Andrew mentioned it.
I hope I haven't freaked you out too much
with my crazy talk.
I know it probably comes off
sounding absurd, some of it,
or maybe not.
You were there for some of this.
If you really think I'm off my noggin,
tell me. By all means, tell me.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Mark.
You know what I like so far is, I feel like you can tell Mark is taking this a lot more seriously than Eric.
Even with how this section began with him saying, haven't heard from you.
So it feels like Eric's kind of like, eh, you know, that is weird.
I guess it was a weird guy.
I feel like Mark is definitely more invested into seeing what exactly is happening.
Mark certainly has a, um, a paranoia about it.
Uh, whereas I think Eric's kind of like, this is a lot all at once, you know.
right uh okay so the next one's from monday so the next day 8.22 a.m. subject is a response to the previous
one a plan so Eric thanks again for calling thanks again for calling I got your email as well and it mentions
a few things we didn't discuss over the phone so I want to add a comment or two what I remember was
what Travis told us the time that he went to pick up Drew and had to go up to his room and get to
him this was the last time drew gamed with us Travis went up still
stairs to his room and the kid was pacing back and forth by his bed.
Everything was all neat and tucked in.
But the carpet was worn in the line where Drew was pacing,
like it's all he did.
Yes, I remember this too.
The way Travis told the story,
like he wanted it to sound funny,
but he didn't believe it was.
And Dave laughed.
He said, man, that dude's a broken record.
And we all agreed.
Nodding and chuckling.
Damn, we all just let it go with that.
Like it was easier to ride him off.
Travis was the last one to laugh
He'd seen that room with his own eyes
Go, I really would
But Connie got sick last night
And she's still throwing up this morning
I don't feel right leaving town with her like this
Understandable
You stay there
I'll continue to email you on this thing
I can't really talk about Drew with Jenny
She never knew him
She doesn't get why this is so disturbing
Outside of the horde that took place in Boise
That's why I keep riding you
nobody else gets it hey maybe i'll somehow find travis or dave while i'm in town mark right next we have
a very short one um that is sent from tuesday september 14th to eric eric made it to houston
the drive was hell traffic and a persistent rattle in the trunk to warm me down the ac unit in my
hotel room sounds like a submerged cessna engine it'll be hard for me to sleep with it on and
impossible with it off at least the whole internet
at Access BitWorks, and I'm able to check my email.
Tomorrow's a long day.
I'll be prowling Breezewood and your old neighborhood to zero in on an apartment complex.
I went to once.
Joy.
Wish me luck, Mark.
For that, we have another longer email sent for Mark the next day.
Wednesday, September 15th at 9 p.m.
So theoretically, a day after he's done research.
Yeah, he's like, I had a full day of researching.
subject lots of stuff
Eric
great news I have a solid lead
the whole day felt like I was pulling a string from the sand
but it's pointed me in the right direction
these emails are becoming more of a journal for me
to help me log my progress
I hope you don't mind
took me an hour of driving back and forth
around the Gessner and Breeswood area
before I zeroed in on the right side street
the landmarks had changed
I was 90% sure I'd found the right apartment complex
but I was still grasping air
with no name from Drew's mom and no guarantee her last was Hughes
I went to the manager's office and I just got lucky
her name is Nancy Hughes and she stopped paying the rent in September of 99
Drew paid it for the rest of the lease term which ended the following February
according to the note in the resident file he paid in cash
seems mom moved out or just up and left one day
poof Andrew was living alone in the apartment then
how was he paying for rent with just a
minimum wage job.
I showed the manager the article about Drew, and then I lied.
I said I was a private investigator.
I don't know why.
Maybe to justify why I was having her dig up rental information from five years ago.
Anyway, she got off on it and kept rooting around in the Hughes file for me, like a movie
sidekick.
She found something.
A third-party check covered rent for December of 98, Kurt Malone.
I'm thinking this is stepdad.
The manager photocopied the check.
for me and 10 minutes later I was calling the phone number printed with Kurt's address in the upper left
hand corner. No like they're disconnected. So I took another approach and called 411 for a local
realtor service. You can do a search for contact information for a specific realtor. I remember hearing
about this from a co-worker who sold his place in Greatwood. Malone was listed under a little
Remax affiliate office in Katie. I got that number and called their left message. Evelyn, the owner, the
owner, called me back and said Malone hadn't worked there in forever.
He had been vanished, left her with all kinds of issues.
She thinks he had financial problems and bailed for Mexico.
I find it hard to swallow a theory told to me in Stage Whisper, but maybe that's just her
personality.
Still, that's two people gone.
Before, I thought maybe Mom just moved in with stepdad.
Now, I don't know what the hell to think.
The call went on for half an hour as I got to hear the HR nightmare Evelyn
through thanks to Kurt's disappearance.
Halting his benefits, freezing the 401k plan, surrendering documents to the police, etc.
I finally broke in and asked about the house, the one out in West Houston he owned.
She got very quiet after that.
Took me another ten minutes to answer her questions about who I was.
This time I was honest and upfront with her.
I guess it paid off because she believed me or at least believed in my intentions.
She checked her records.
I have an address, Eric.
Kurt had his own home in Sugarland.
Look at this.
He was renting a house from a client,
way out west near a pecan grove plantation.
The paperwork was curious,
since he was supposed to be selling this place,
but the previous owners had signed off on it
in multiple places,
like it was no real conflict of interest.
She didn't know what happened to the house
after it was seized by the bank.
I guess I'll find out tomorrow when I drive out there.
close man real close well this this is just all kinds of funsies i just the amount of detail
of going into that too but also just the subtle nature of as soon as he asked about that house
i like how she then re-asked him again like who are you you know there's just there's something
that it feels weird i'm always sketched out whenever people also know of like the dangers of a
place you know what i mean yeah like it's like no one else should
know about this creepy weird thing but then other people do as well it has like a reputation of
being something creepy and that's what yeah she goes from like being a gossip queen saying anything
that comes to mind to like very serious all at once yeah yeah that all of a sudden she clams up
and then not until he reveals he's like i'm his friend whatever the she like ends up helping him
first off very cool character yeah thank god man this is sick okay so the next one
uh we have a note from eric that says note mark was able to send text messages from his phone
but I frequently receive them late,
sometimes hours after he sent them,
as is the case with September 21st messages.
But we're not to that yet,
but that's a little bit of a breadcrumb for what's coming later.
Yeah, I love that.
So this is one of the text messages that Mark sent on Thursday, September 16th.
He was received at 3.33 p.m.
Aha, angel number.
Look at that.
All that Mark said was, where are you?
Call me.
All caps.
Oh, shit.
And he receives that hours later, too.
Same day sent, so Thursday, September 16th at 8.25 p.m., another email for Mark, subject, the house.
Holy shit. I tried calling you five times today, but I got your machine. I really need to talk. Call me as soon as you can.
Where do I start? The house is still there. It's this generic one-story thing, bricks and siding.
It must have been built at the same time as the other homes in the neighborhood, but it just looks older.
The roof is scarred in places
The driveway hasn't held up like the others have
Cracks in the pavement
A plank's missing from the side gate
I rang the doorbell and figured I just talked to the new owners
No one answered
I couldn't really hear if it worked or not
Blinds and curtains in the windows kept me from peering inside
There was a dusty pickup truck with a warped front fender
parked in the driveway
A neighbor across the street saw me checking it out
He talked to me for a while as he watered his shrubs
he hasn't met the person who lives in the house now or if anyone is living there really
he remembered kurt but not by name just as the guy who stayed there for a few months
the previous owners kurt's clients didn't live there that much longer
that all sorts of problems with the house electrical heating that sort of thing
moved out left most of their furniture behind he said packed it to a big RV one day and
just drove off he still remembered their names john and lucy madson oh fuck
let's go let's go let's go let's go
this is so Andrew went out of his way
killed the smokers known as John and Lucy Madsen
who were the previous tenants of this house that his dad
for a property that his dad owned
his stepdad yeah or stepdad owned
love that little reveal at the end holy shit
so John so for whatever reason
Drew stays in the house for 10 days
who knows what happens to him a couple years later he goes to boise idaho and guns them down the previous
owners of the house and because drew's mother and stepdad disappeared i'm going to guess they're also dead
yeah i i would have to assume it was a similar fate somehow maybe not gun down but i imagine that
they were probably killed yep the door is open whatever that means so the next email we have is from mark
uh on saturday september 18th uh it is response to the previous update so hey eric uh we're playing
phone tag. When you called, I was already on the plane, and when I called back, I guess you were at the hospital again. Really sorry to hear about Connie. Any idea what it is yet? Food poisoning, something else? What did the doctor say? I'm in Boisey now. Yeah. I'd add the ticket from Priceline on short notice, got on standby. I left my car at George Bush Airport in Houston. She freaked out when I told her, then she got very terse, said, I should do what will make me happy and hung up.
Uh, what will make me happy?
I don't know if Sol in Idaho, I haven't slept in two days.
I'm charging everything to my visa and I have no idea how I'm going to pay it off.
My watch stopped working yesterday.
I've got this weird ringing in my ride here.
Comes and goes, annoying as hell.
I'll tell you what will make me happy, closing my eyes and not seeing Andrews staring back at me.
What are you going to do once you get there?
You plan on telling the police the Madsen connection?
Do you think the Madsen's left something in the house that drove Drew nuts?
And he killed them for it years later?
Seriously, this is fucked up.
Yeah, I don't know what to think.
Right now it's just a connection.
They lived in the same house.
The Madsons were there for four and a half months and Drew was there for 10 days.
I have no idea what it means.
I'll email you and I figure something out.
I feel like I should pass this along to some people.
I'd like to get you some help out there.
Or bring in the feds or something.
I don't know if anyone else has managed the connection you did.
and it's an important one to the case.
Can I forward your emails and contact info to someone?
I've been thinking about that
because I was going to ask you to do that for me at first,
but now I don't think I'll get the kind of help I need.
Let's face it, there are enough unexplainable pieces to this thing.
I'm going to get two kinds of interest, nuts and skeptics.
I wouldn't mind so much the skeptic,
except I get this vision in my head of some guy calling Jenny,
calling my parents, calling my boss at work, looking to paint the picture of a guy who's lost his mind
after hearing that his dead friend went nuts. I really haven't been totally honest with Jenny
or my supervisor at the office because this is not something you can easily explain. I've been calling
in sick to work and I told Jen I had to go to Boise to attend a pseudo wake. I don't want that to
bite me in the ass while I'm looking into Andrew's past. Here's what you can do for me though.
Uh, you can hold on to this stuff as evidence or whatever.
If something crazy happens and I'm in trouble, use this to explain the situation for me.
Forward emails to my friends or family.
Maybe if they read them, they'll understand what I'm going through.
I know you didn't mean to inherit this job.
I'm sorry to make you do it, but I really appreciate the help.
Mark in potato land.
Do you think that you would, if your buddy was doing this kind of thing, would you try even if, like, so Eric's, uh, girlfriend or wife?
Connie is sick in the hospital really bad right um which does it does give it more of an anchor here
as well do you think there's any point of like oh I guess what I'm saying is is there any point at all
where you would be like I'm going to go I'm going to leave or do you think that like would you
be compelled to go and help him depends on how sick um if Kayla was just like throwing up for a day
I'd probably be fine, but if she was in the hospital, I wouldn't leave the hospital.
Yeah, I guess I mean, because that's obvious.
I guess I mean more so that you think that if there wasn't something there, you think Eric would
be there with him or just because the only thing that brings up this question to me is just
a piece of conversation is him being like, well, I haven't even been totally, you know,
honest with Jenny or my boss stating the fact that yes, he doesn't want to look crazy to them,
but also he's probably missing tons of work as well.
Would you jeopardize with these kind of thing, with this thing happening?
do you think that he's at least bought in with that Madsen thing?
Or do you think that he's just like this is like I can't just like uproot my entire life
and go on this goose chase?
Well, Mark certainly is right.
Yeah, I'm saying if you're Eric, if you're, if you're, if your buddy was saying this,
do you think that you'd be compelled enough to be like, fuck it?
I'm, I think if I was Mark's friend after the connection to the previous homeowners, I think I would.
Yeah, assuming that there's, I'm not in Eric's condition.
I have a sick wife or girl. Right. Right. Right. Otherwise, yes, I think I would. I think I would find a way to get out there because up until then, no. But as soon as you find out that the people that he shot to death were the previous owners of the house, now it's really weird. Right. I mean, it's a major coincidence or not coincidence, but it's a major piece of information. I just didn't know with this thing of how much do you also, with your learning that your friend is a psychopath that killed people in a restaurant, whatever.
you find out like, oh, yeah, he was kind of weird and he did some nutty things.
And now you have a new friend who is also becoming obsessive with it.
I just, from a standpoint on Eric, I just think it's a lot going on right now.
Even if it is compelling stuff.
It is.
But putting it this way.
Yeah.
If tomorrow you shot up a diner for smoking, you know, like as any good Christian would.
And then I get a call from like Harry or something that's like I found this Latin book under the floorboard of the bedroom.
I'm flying to Kansas City tomorrow.
Yeah.
I don't think I know.
I have to investigate.
Well,
I appreciate your lack of dedication,
but I'm getting to the bottom of this.
I mean,
I guess.
I'm glad that Jeremy,
Jeremy,
I have something else for the suit.
Something else I just added.
I think of all the other kind of crazy shit
that YouTubers do.
Maybe not to the extent of murdering someone,
but I think about all these different things.
And not that you're desensitized to it or that like,
if someone murder somebody,
it's insane.
But I just think,
I guess I try to put myself in a,
in a situation where
am I even mentally able to handle
all of this? Like I feel like it would drive
me fucking insane. It might
but I'm also weird
and like I couldn't
I couldn't go the rest of my life without
pulling that thread. Yeah. I think.
It would eat at me forever. I don't know.
Maybe a odd side tangent. I was just curious
where you thought how you would approach it.
So another email from Mark dated September 20th
Monday at 10 a.m. subject to new lead.
Update. I called the hall.
hospital, the one where Andrew was taken back in August, and asked some pointed questions about
where Andrew's body went. Who picked it up? Did a relative or friends show up? The answer was no.
But he was tagged with John and Lucy, and I kept demanding some sort of lead, so the intern gave
me the names of the relatives who were called in to confirm the IDs of the Madsons
and to arrange for funeral home delivery. John's cousin lives out here. I'm about to head out and
meet Greg Archer, the cousin, and his wife. Right again from the motel, Mark. So after that,
we have another one from September 20th, a bit later at 10 p.m., subject to the archers. Back,
that was strange. I met the archers. I know what you said last time I called, I need to stop
lying because it'll make it harder on me later, but I wasn't able to tell them I'm a good friend of
the guy who killed Greg's cousin? I said I knew the Madsons when they were in Houston. I had some
burning questions about what happened to them. As I claimed, they practically dropped off the map
when they left town. I had heard from them since. Greg did most of the talking. So I fell in was
pleasant in that stiff smile way, but she found ways to interrupt my chat with Greg and remind him
of other things he needed to get done. The more she did it, the more I encouraged Greg to keep chatting.
The Madsense, as he tells it, had a long future planned in Houston.
John got a transfer to Schlumberger Oil and looked forward to settling down.
Then things started to go wrong after they moved in.
Just little things that piled up.
Their car kept getting flat tires.
Lucy broke her ring finger while fultzing with the dishwasher.
Trouble getting mail.
Their phone got disconnected when they didn't pay the bill for two months.
A bill they never got.
that sort of thing.
Finally, something happened.
Greg doesn't know what.
It was enough to get them to put the house on the market.
That same week, John sold all his company stock,
got it as 401k, quit his job, and put everything into a big RV.
He and Lucy drove off in their new motor home, never looked back.
They've been driving around the country the last five years, nomadic.
Lucy got pregnant in 2002, but miscarried.
They still kept on the road.
Greg thinks they would have just kept driving through Idaho
if the RV hadn't broken down with an AC problem.
Greg says John called him up out of the blue
and asked if he and Lucy could stay over.
Greg made the guest room upstairs.
He and Helen welcomed them in their house for a week.
This was right before the shooting.
Here's where it gets stranger.
Greg took me up to the guest room
and pointed to some spots on the carpet
right in front of the closet door.
Oh, let's go, baby.
this is so cool, furniture footprints, like something that stood there.
Greg says it was the dresser, the one against the opposite wall.
They barricaded the closet door for the duration of their stay.
It was the strangest thing.
He also noticed they kept the bedroom light on around the clock
and bundled up with the spare set of woolen sheets for the bed.
Greg never found the right way to ask a number of questions.
I think he felt a little better talking to me about it.
I'm not his cousin, but I'm someone who listened to him and agreed it was bizarre.
Left Greg and Helen's not feeling any better.
I feel worse now.
I ache the way you're sore right before you get really sick.
Trying to put things together.
I really am.
I have to go to the police now, don't I?
I'll go first thing in the morning.
I promise, Eric.
So it seems like they packed up, did the RV, and now it became a nomadic lifestyle so they could never settle and be caught.
I feel like something was after them.
um so then that way even when they stopped they barricaded the door and stuff like i feel like
something happened to that house they were running from that's what i mean i think that that's why
i was like they had the RV to where they could continuously move and survive without ever staying
in one place you know and that's why when i think when he broke down even then when he stayed in
the guest bedroom he propped the thing up against the door for their safety barricading the closet
and leaving the bedroom light on is interesting
You know, it's like, what, what are you running from that you're afraid of it coming out of the closet in someone else's home?
Well, that's why it makes you think that something that we don't know inside of the house that made them leave makes me think that that's the correlation there.
Yeah.
But between the two, maybe not necessarily the closet.
It could also be them going crazy too, though, like them barricading the closet door instead of the regular door.
Yeah.
You never know.
I'm interested.
I'm so bought in.
So my body is ready.
another transcript from mark this one's tuesday september 21st at two in the morning no subject
hey i just saw this thing on discovery channel probably a rerun i bet you can catch it sometime
all about natural predators and stuff wild things yeah i'm up watching tv since i can't sleep
anyway they had this thing on the venus fly trap talking about how it lures the curious insect to its
slip and then these invisible hairs or something since when one of the suckers lands on it and
wham it swallows the bug just like that later on it spits out the skeleton of the fly and waits for
the next victim some types of fly trap plants emit this odor to entice more food says the voice
on the tv the fancy name for them is dionia muscipula so wonder if that's all this is this whole thing
with the shooting and the anonymous article in Houston and the footprints on the carpet.
It's all to get me into the Venus flytrap. Only the sin isn't sweet sap. It's guilt.
Guilt over all the times I was around you and didn't do anything. You know what I mean?
And I'm flying all over the country. My head's buzzing and I think I'm getting close to the truth.
But really, I'm tickling some invisible hair and the ground is about to fold up on me and
swallow me down into that place where Nancy Hughes and Ken Malone went.
I'm going to go take some sleeping pills.
I hope Connie is going better, man.
I miss Jen.
She has a way of making me feel like I'm home just by being around her.
I'm tired of motels.
I'm sorry, Eric.
I'm so sorry.
Mark.
Do you think Mark is slowly kind of descending into his own madness?
Yes.
I think the same thing that is affecting everyone else who has anything to do with this house
is getting to him.
I mean he did visit it right so what's what I was saying he went out right outside of it never fully went inside so maybe it's just taking him slower which also makes me curious about the people living around there that the guy like watering his shrubs and stuff wonder what the effects are of living next to it oh no maybe that guy's weird too I mean he's obviously lived there way longer than any other tenants had so being across from it hasn't hurt that bad but maybe it's him going up and touching the house that did it I don't know or just the general like paranoia if this whole situation's getting
to him. I think also we're under the impression that the house itself is the evil thing
unless it's something inside or something else. Yeah, yeah. It could be some greater force around.
It doesn't have to be the brick and mortar necessarily. Yeah. Right.
So we have another one from Tuesday at noon, September 21st, 1215 from Mark. Subject where
Andrew stayed. Eric, bingo. I went to the police and asked to talk to Lieutenant Perez. Instead,
I got Detective Sokloff. He said he was working the Hughes case now. I'm more inclined to think
he was just running interference for Perez in case I was a wacko. Anyway, I told him about the
Madsen connection with Andrew to see if that would help. He said they'd look into it. Then he started
with the questions about me and I looked for a way to cut that chat short. Police stations make
me uncomfortable. The rest of the talk was rather banal, but at the end of it, almost offhandedly,
he asked if I wanted to sign for Andrew's personal effects
since they had copies of all the important stuff.
I said, sure, even though it made me feel like they've already written off this case.
Drew's been busy the last four years.
He has driver's license for Kansas, Colorado, Arizona, California, and Idaho.
Looks like he stays at friends' homes
because now the address is printed on the license have apartment numbers.
His Idaho license is just two months old.
And has the address of the rental home where he stayed.
I'm going to drop by this afternoon and see what happened to his things there.
Maybe there's a clue to how he knew where to find the Madison's or why he shot them.
Perez or somebody has done this already, I'm certain, but I'm not sure he looked very far.
Wish me luck, Mark.
Our next email.
There's a funness to, especially on the way back machine where you have to like click a button to go to the next one.
It's like you skip ahead and it's like, uh, what's going to be on?
on the next page.
There's like this tension with it.
I like a lot.
It's a nice actual turn page,
like a actual turn of the page
that I think is lost
with a lot of the other creepyposses
that we read.
Yeah.
Still,
once again,
building the,
building the idea
that people are nomadic in nature
or don't,
or refuse to stay in one spot.
They're afraid of being too sedentary.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
So this is another text message
from Mark sent,
on September 24th at 4.14 p.m.
Standing in front of house now,
it's the same one, the Houston house,
same marks on roof, same fence damage.
Oh, well, look at that.
Interesting.
It's like you're right.
Multiple, multiple different houses of the same.
So wait, hold on a second.
So is he saying that this is the exact same house
that he saw in Idaho?
No, he's in Idaho right now.
Or the same house from, I see.
Okay, so he wasn't Houston.
Saw that house.
That's where he talked to the guy with the shrub.
And now he's in,
he's in Idaho now
and it's the same house
from Houston. That's
that'd be such a fucking mental whirlwind
dude. The exact same house. We'll go to the next
message which was sent 10 minutes later
that says
just talk to old man across street
he says house has been here for years
rented out as far back as he can remember.
It's the same guy.
It is effectively the same guy.
Or if it doesn't look exactly like him
basically. It's the same loop. Yeah.
This is happening
across. This is happening both Houston and Idaho. Yeah. Interesting.
Next message sent three minutes later says, I ring the doorbell, no answer. It's exactly the same.
Eric, I don't understand. After that, we have one from another four minutes later that says,
ears ringing again. I don't know what to do. How is it the same? Next one from four minutes later.
There's a way into the house here. Oh, God.
Oh, this is fun.
Pick up the goddamn phone, Eric.
God.
Where are you?
Pick up the phone.
You know what I mean?
Like, holy hell.
Oh, no, that's the next message.
That's the next message.
That's what I'm saying.
That's what I mean.
I'm like, I'm agreeing with him.
I'm like, where the fuck are you, dude?
Jesus.
Well, I mean, he's in the hospital with his girlfriend or wife.
Supposed.
Yeah.
I mean, dude, she has stomach problem.
Who gives a shit?
And also, well, hold on, hold on.
Remember what he said on September 15th.
I didn't receive the text messages until well after they were sent.
I mean, it's hours later.
I agree.
I'm just saying, like, can you, like, put yourself in the shoes of Mark here.
You get there.
It is photo.
I mean, it is identical to a T.
And you have no, the only person you've been talking to is there's like some kind of like lapse of time as well.
Also, if I'm Eric here, I would be, I would find some kind of way to make sure that I can still answer.
It's like, here's, this is going to sound really bad.
I'm just saying my wife is not, she's in the hospital.
we don't know what's wrong.
We don't necessarily know that she's not like she's dying.
At least that's not what we've been perceiving.
I would at least be like,
I am going to keep my phone near me,
you know,
because this is fucking crazy.
Some of the stuff that's been going on.
I'm just saying I'm on Mark's side here.
Well,
I think,
well,
again,
he said he wasn't receiving the text messages
until hours later.
So all of these could have came in
at the same time before he could do anything about it.
It's true.
It's true.
The technology is not as convenient as is now.
That's what's frustrating.
Yeah.
So, 433, where are you, pick up the phone?
438, I'm going inside.
Love it.
441.
Inside the house, nobody is here.
Air is cold.
Metal smell.
441.
I found stairs going up.
Didn't see second story from street.
447.
Did you call?
Signal cuts off.
Three bars the no bars.
I'm looking for more of Drew's stuff here.
Layout is really bizarre.
Lots of rooms.
447.
Door at end of hall, made of metal, checking other rooms instead.
Okay, definitely getting, I'm not going through the Silent Hill door yet.
5.05.
Call, question mark.
509.
Found something, Drew's backpack, getting out of here now.
511.
I think someone's here.
I just heard something.
Oh, God.
Stop texting and just get the fuck out of there.
And then finally, at the impossible time of 577, the door is open.
Oh, shit.
And that ends the text logs of September 21st.
Interesting.
Okay, so he walks inside, and there is a second story that isn't visible on the house from the outside.
It's like extra dimensional.
he goes up that staircase
at the end of the hallway
and the inside of the house
it's it smells like metal
it's cold, it's very off-putting
on the second floor of that house
there's a metal door at the end of the hallway
and he hears someone else in there with them
and he says the door is open and he disappears
yeah because the last
the last chain here
by the way for people if they don't remember
the last interaction they have
in the document is October 1st
and now with this new one
the next update is September 27th
So, I mean, we are closing in towards what's happening.
And this is actually very peculiar if you want to read this one.
So September 27th, Monday sent at 1.18 p.m.
From Mark, subject for Thursday.
Hello, Eric.
This is Jennifer.
I'm on Mark's PC now.
Fuck.
I did like you suggested.
And I've looked through his outbox.
And I don't see any emails about this to anyone else.
There aren't that many really.
He didn't tell me a lot of this stuff, Eric.
Like now I'm reading the last thing he sent you back on the 13th.
I didn't know he was so emotional.
Why didn't he tell me about this?
But anyway, like you said, he wrote to you from his laptop when he was in Houston and Boise.
And the police up there said they found that in his hotel room.
And they're taking their own sweet time checking it out for clues.
So yeah, I'll keep asking for that to be sent down.
Where else should I look?
I don't know what else to do here except wait until you come down and look at it.
he does have aim
but I can't tell where the chat logs would be saved
or anything if he's done that
please tell me what else I can do
you know more about what he was up to than anyone else
because of this old friend the two of you had
who went crazy and now Mark is missing for almost a week
please send me the other emails he sent you
please I want to know now
Jen
after that we have an email
from Postmaster
this is sent on October the 1st
2004 so this is our last update subject undeliverable mail so an unknown user receipt to generated
following response 550 unknown user original messages follows so this is supposed to be a message
from unknown on October the 1st no subject so this this is just kind of like a ghost email
sort of it's in the win so so no subject october 1st 2004 human arm and leg bones found on street
Scottsdale resident got a shock at the start of their morning commute when they found what seems to be
human bones lying in the road on sage drive crime scene technicians arrive within half an hour and
began to sweep the scene for more evidence that might help identify this human victim or at least
establish an approximate time of death police spokesman daniel swift said bone evidence alone isn't
usually enough to determine identity or even cause of death.
These remains didn't just appear in the road.
They were moved here, Swift said.
Therefore, we're asking any witnesses to contact the police with information that might pertain to what happened.
No other evidence was found along Sage Street or in yards or neighboring homes.
More of this story as it develops.
Whoever you are, whatever you are, fuck you.
I may not know you.
I can tell what this is, and I'm not fooled.
Your Venus flytrap game won't work.
I'll make damn sure to warn Jenny and others too.
So nice try, but no one is falling for your bait this time.
It stops here.
And that's the last of the updates.
And then that's the last of the logs and it goes to the updates section.
Kind of like the idea, though, that this, that Eric comes to conclusion that this thing is like, oh, you're just like, it's almost like a domino effect.
one person gets invested they come in they have a new victim then because people care about that person
they come looking for them and then they're given this carrot that's dangling in front of their face
you know oh yeah it's like well at the end the bones being thrown out in the street is the same as
he said happens with a fly in a fly trap it spits out the skeleton so i mean it's not ticklea skeleton
spits out the remains of the fly after the fly trap's done and that's what the human bones found
in the street were isa was there any other parts that store was there any other
the only other thing really evidence that we had was the shooting right so there wasn't another person
that was discarded bodies there was no other bodies found in the story correct that's the only
mentioned yeah there's to mention that the house smells like metal which you could take to mean
blood but that's not like confirmed right i just think it's i think it's kind of implying that
the house is almost like a living thing right like the house is a natural
predator that
maybe pops up. Maybe it's like a
plant that grows in several places around the country, right?
And like you can be in it for a while
and be okay, but once you trip the hair, so to speak,
once you pass through that metal door, you're gone.
You're consumed. And then the bones spit out. That's why I think
it's meaning. Be kind of sick.
Very odd. Very kind of like
just mysterious outcomes. It would be so brutal
if the house was actually just like a living organization.
And when you step in, it disguises itself as a real house.
But really you're like walking around.
It's like mouth and intestines and shit.
You know, it'll be kind of sick.
Once you go through the metal door, it's over.
Yeah.
It's like it puts this veil over your eyes.
So you think you're seeing one thing.
But then I'm not entirely sure where some of the stuff comes in.
Like you don't like, why then were the mad sins afraid of something coming out of closets?
Why do they need to keep moving?
Why?
I don't know, you know.
Well, the one thing I can think of is that if they did something similar.
So the whole idea here that I think that ties in with the Madsons to me is Mark goes down, he sees the house in Houston, right, goes up to Idaho, sees a similar house.
Could the Madsons have done something similar to where every time that they go a place they're being attacked from, like let's just say a closet or something along those lines where they're losing their own perception of what is the house and what is not to where when they stay in a place, maybe they still see the house, you know, like is that veil put over their eyes, so to speak as they break that kind of.
of barrier when they walk into the house.
I don't know.
We could, we can, we do have the updates at least.
So maybe the more answers can be.
Yeah.
So let's go to the updates.
Uh, so again, this is put together by Eric.
It says it has become painfully obvious that, although I want this to end for all
us to have closure regarding Mark's disappearance.
The trail he left has raised too many unanswered questions.
Since the time I first published this site for Jen and those close to Mark,
new information continues to arrive from a variety of sources.
in my last posted email
I refused to take the bait
I said it would stop here
but it doesn't stop there
not by any stretch
this page will chronicle my findings
and other resources as I discover them
some may have no connection
to how or why Mark vanished
only time will tell
a final note for those of you
like Sandra and Nathan Condry
the truth is I don't know
what to believe with this whole thing
but I know what I don't want to believe
So, first update, October 14th, again 2004.
Jen called, she spoke with Boise Police again yesterday,
and they have finally agreed to ship down the laptop.
Once she gets it and looks at it herself, she'll send it my way.
If I find anything new, I'll edit here.
October 17th, among the spam today, I received this email from someone who seems to have stumbled upon the site.
From Mr. Paranoia subject to the house.
Very interesting.
If it's real, I have some information for you.
I don't know Mark, but that won't matter once I send you this link.
Based on what I've researched,
those who have figured out what this flytrap house is
risk becoming its next victim.
Not everyone is eaten by it or them, maybe.
Some may just not be psychologically susceptible to it.
The way some aren't able to be hypnotized.
But if you walk away knowing too much
about it, the house will get to you. Sooner or later, witness to the Madsons, maybe you don't
want to know anything else. And then back to Eric, well, regardless of how I feel about it,
this site isn't for me. So in case you read it here first, send me what you have and I'll decide
if I want to share it, Mr. Paranoia. Also, don't expect me to publish your messages to me ever
again. I'm not a PR firm. October 22nd. After trading email
several times with Mr. Paranoia, he finally sent the link mentioned in the October 17th email.
Jen, I've read it already, and I want you to treat it as a hoax, unless you get something in the mail from a grocery store in Arizona.
Call me when you've read it and we'll talk.
It's a live journal site, which means to read it chronologically, you need to scroll to the bottom of the page and work your way up.
The journal author is allegedly a 16-year-old name, Daniel Stevens. Here's the link.
Hi, everybody, especially Jonathan.
Eggs go.
Here we go.
It's Danny's first LJ here.
LJ.
Lick job?
What does LJ mean?
Legit job, probably, or something like that.
Here we go.
It's Danny's first legit job.
Well, it took me long enough.
I just needed a reason for one.
My life is pretty boring for the most part.
So try to keep a diary going.
It felt like too much work.
But whenever I get a job, like over the summer,
I always have these great stories to tell.
like when I worked as a lifeguard for Highland YMCA outdoor pool
or a public library last year
you wouldn't think you'd meet so many weirdo people
or end up on crazy adventures
like raccoon hunting with a drain net
but it happens all the time to me
well this time
I will be sure to write them down here
because I have a new job
that's right it's all part of Danny's genius plan to pay for Xmas
I want to get my friends and family nice things this year
so I took a babysitting job at a house three blocks away.
Babysitting.
Yeah.
Doesn't sound like a steady job, but this one is different.
The Ellisons are both full-time working parents, programmers at some tech company downtown.
When big deadlines get close, both of them have to work hella bad OT hours.
And they had someone watch their daughter, Lenny, from 5 to 10, Mondays to Thursdays.
That seriously cuts into my own downtime after school, but it's worth it.
I keep telling myself that.
I went over tonight and met Lenny and Mr. and Mrs. Ellis.
Listen, they look like total geeks.
Gun bitch.
Their living room has a big screen TV and also a table with two PCs and a bunch of other gear like DVD burners.
The place is cold.
They must run the AC a lot to keep the hardware from overheating.
It's like that in school computer room all the time.
Lenny's eight.
She's quiet and shy.
But she has the cutest crooked teeth smile.
She likes Nintendo and Barbie.
I think we'll get along fine.
My first day is tomorrow.
It's so weird to have someone house key on.
my key ring. I guess my references were good for them, though. Wish me luck. X-O-X-O. Danny.
Current mood, bouncy, current music, the killers. Somebody told me.
Oh, it's a good song, at least. The idea, though, of, uh, the fly-trap thing. We've,
we started getting the name of the fly-trap house and stuff. If now it feels like it's
luring in another person. We have the other kind of, uh, we have the other kind of warning
signs as well, it being really cold. Um, and this house is in Arizona, right?
is right because of what he said to her he was like assume it's fake unless you get something from
Arizona right yeah so you don't assume it's Arizona so there's at least three probably more around
the country yeah which the next log in here is Tuesday October 12th 2004 so the next day 1055 p.m. first night
I'm back first night babysitting was pretty easy I got there a little before five and met Kathy
She's the one who takes Lenny home from school
She has a boy who goes there too
She knew Mr. and Mrs. Ellison
When they lived in Chicago
And helped them find a place here
She was in a hurry, I guess
She seems kind of rude
She told me to be on time
So I don't have to wait for you
I was on time
I was early
That's creepy
Lennie was still very quiet
But she doesn't know me
So that's okay
We played some Nintendo
And after dinner
She wanted to play house
She has a dollhouse in her room
It's really cute
I grabbed a Barbie doll and started to play with her, but she told me Barbie wasn't the right size for the house.
It's true, too. Barbie's just way too tall.
So what long legs get you sometimes?
But Lenny doesn't have any dolls for the house.
She says it doesn't need any because it's just a house.
But I think she secretly wants some.
If we get along, I may add that to Danny's Xmas list project.
I got to remember to take a jacket with me next time, though.
It gets way too cold, and I didn't find the thermostat.
I was going to say something
when Lenny's mom and dad came home
but when they showed up
they looked so tired
I don't know how they work such crazy hours
I just got my money and told them I'd be there
tomorrow that was it
pretty eventful first day
so sleepy now off to bed
X OXO Danny current mood
sleepy current music Michelle Branch
are you happy now
so definitely Lenny
was like do not let me fucking stay here long
please be on time like she was already
angsy what's weird with these kind of situations
why do you think the person who in they're like yeah this house is weird why do you think
they keep showing back up is that just because they're like oh my kid goes to school here
but i hate dropping them off they having to drop they they need a job i would think they
they can't say no to good pay right right so you're assuming that the pay is just like
really really fucking good so they're just like oh well i mean like they do they have steady employment
by this one family so they can't say no to that right uh and also it's nothing
express the weird. It's not like they saw a giant mouth
at the end of the hallway trying to kill them.
Well, it's just like this house gives me the creeps.
Wait, wait, wait. So Kathy,
I got there a little before five. I met Kathy. She's the one who takes
Lenny home from school. She has a boy who goes there. So to me,
I don't think that she works there. I think that she's just like
another little boy's mom. And she like takes
Lenny home just because she's like, all right, fine. I guess I will.
But then she's, I think that she understands something weird happens. And she's just like,
I'm going to drop this little fucking girl.
off and I want you to just take I don't want to have to wait here you know that yeah sure yeah
that too that it could just be that family friend next day is Wednesday October 13th and it's 1034 p.m.
Bizarre. Tonight was pretty bizarre then he spent most of it in a room playing quietly which is okay for me
since I had to finish my American history paper. I made her suit for dinner and checked on her for the
first or from time to time but when it got close to her bedtime I heard her talking to someone to
went back to see if she was calling to me or just chatting with her dolls she isn't supposed to be on her on the phone she was moving furniture around her little house just talking to herself i think she was repeating stuff she overheard somewhere maybe even the house you know sometimes kids say stuff and they don't realize she could realize they could get their parents in trouble i think lindy was whispering come on rick answer the phone and the door um is mrs elison maybe saying rick on the side
When I tucked Lenny in bed, I asked her what she was saying before.
And she shrugged and said, it was stuff she heard.
When I asked where she heard them, she said, around.
Well, we'll see if the plot thing is tomorrow night.
Off to bed now.
Danny, current mood confused.
Interesting.
So this daughter, Lenny, she is hearing something from the house is speaking to her,
basically as her picked as the next victim.
Yeah, she's hearing something in the house.
Also, I thought that it was kind of peculiar how, what she said, around?
It felt like something very similar to okay, you know, those responses.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kind of made me think of that.
I don't know if you thought of the same, but that's kind of my mind.
Probably, probably right, yeah.
So the next day on Thursday, October 14th, 11.02 p.m., it's titled Crooked.
Oh, my God, Lenny is a strange little girl.
I love the, I love it's like, yeah, she's cool.
Maybe I'll get her gift.
And they're like, this little bitch is crazy.
Ew. Yeah.
Oh, my God.
Lenny's a strange little girl.
Last night, it was weird phrases.
Tonight, it was rhyme or some children's song.
Something about a crooked man with six pants.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Absolutely not.
Get me out of here.
What the fuck?
Check out.
Check out.
Ding, ding, ding, ding.
Let me out.
Let me out.
Something about a crooked man with six pants.
I don't know.
I mean, she can be cute and smiles a lot, but already I worry she doesn't get enough attention from her parents.
Duh.
otherwise I wouldn't have this job she wanted to go to bed early tonight I tucked her in and she hugged me
I kept her arms around me for a long time she's definitely gonna get an exist present for me
even if I'm not her sitter by then just the crooked man with six pants is so fucked
I can't be good I told her a story to put her to sleep about a family of bears in a big house
I was using your dollhouse as the one where the bears lived you know just improvising
so I was looking over at it and I saw she had colored a room upstairs
and red. Marks it all up in magic marker.
No. I asked her what the room was. She said,
the one upstairs.
Why is it red?
Then he just shrugged like she didn't know.
What's it for?
It smells like cookies and candy.
No, no. Kill me. Get a gun.
See what I mean. Strange, strange, strange.
No idea what that's about.
Oh, I almost forgot. On my way back to the living room,
I found a set of keys on the floor in the hall.
Just lying there.
I was like, what the fuck?
They weren't even mine.
And the house keys didn't work on the doors or for the house.
I don't know how I missed them before.
I think they belonged to Rick.
Anyway, they have one of those grocery keychain cards on them, so I took them.
Maybe I should have handed them over to Mr. and Mrs. Ellison, but what if I'm right and mom is having a fair and these are for her boyfriend's place?
I don't want anybody to get in trouble.
This weekend, I'm going to go to the store and have them scan the little card for me to see who.
it is i'll be good samaritan and nosy at the same time john's little brother sex at the one
on camelback i think oh what a week finally i can get a week into myself though i'll write if i find
anything juicy about the keys exo danny current mood cold current music queens rike sounds silent lucidity
hell yeah i have a bad feeling it's going to be marks i have a bad bad feeling
Saturday, October 16th, 2004.
11.10 a.m. Keys.
Well, that was a letdown.
Okay, so I went and had the keychain car thing scan
at the fries, which worked even though
they were another place because all part of a big chain of stores.
The keys don't belong to anyone named Rick after all.
The guy told me there for somebody named Mark, God damn it.
Mark Conjury.
I think it was.
He lived in Texas.
Mark's last name was Conjury.
Oh, I bet she's spelling it wrong.
hondry condry yeah yeah yeah
he lives in texas i didn't get back to him either
it's policies have some sore mail them back whatever
still makes you wonder what in the world they were doing
in mr mrs ellison's hall hmm
hello listen to me i'm like nancy drew
okay off the mall john is waiting
any curious so hold on hold on hold on okay hold on what date
was this october 16th october 16th
and he died
October 21st.
Or was it December, or was it September 27th was his last email?
No, September 27th was the email Jen sent from his laptop.
Yeah, you're right.
You're right.
The text chain of him going through the house was September 21st.
Yeah.
So like three weeks later, his keys show up in this other house.
This one's in Arizona, though.
That implies that all of these Venus flytrap houses are connected somehow, like dimensionally.
like it digested him in Idaho and spit out his keys in Arizona.
Digesting him through the parallel universe thing and then it just like shits out something into one of the random other houses.
Like it's like they're all connected.
They're all the same, but they're all, they're all in this like, I think the same building,
but there's different versions of them in these different like parallels.
I think you're right.
Very odd.
That's so cool.
This is such a cool concept.
So now she's back on Monday working October 18th, 2004.
10.31 p.m.
Back on the job.
What a weekend.
Let's see.
I hung out with John.
Saw the puppet movie by the South Park guys.
It's Team America.
Okay, let's put some respect on it.
It went lipstick shopping because I read this article about how lipstick is all undervalued now.
Like people don't wear it as often.
And I love lipstick.
Rebel.
Tonight was pretty boring.
Lenny was her usual quiet self and we spent most of the night watching TV.
We watched Aladdin twice and then it was bedtime.
The house wasn't as cold this time.
Or maybe it wasn't that bad since I brought a jacket and kept it on.
Oh, I burned dinner.
That was frustrating.
Because I know I set for the right time.
So I made it as a PB and J's.
Sandwiches instead.
I'm such a mom.
No joking about that.
I got to tell you this one weird part when I was cleaning up in the kitchen after putting
Lenny to bed.
I heard what sounded like something barreling down the stairs.
Jesus.
Only there are no stairs in the Eliasin's house.
I think it was just a.
TV or maybe the garage door just makes it sound like that because the Ellison's came in a few
minutes later. Boy, they look tired. They could have used a couple Danny special PB and Jay's
themselves. I still don't know if I could if I should mention finding the keys that belong to
Mark or not. Anyway, time for bed. Danny. The whole thing with the staircase is very
interesting to me. Well, it's like it presents as a single floor house, but the second floor is like
the extra dimensional part of it. Yeah. It seems like it only reveals itself at one time too.
Like, I don't think at one time it could reveal itself to everybody.
It's like picking and choosing.
Again, given the Venus flytrap imagery, it's like its mouth opening.
Yeah.
But I think that even though it doesn't reveal itself, I think people are still able to hear it in the other dimension.
So like someone was probably rolling down the steps in another one of those houses wherever it was.
I think that's reasonable.
I think that's probably right.
I'm thinking too about when the little girl, when, what's her name, Lenny?
Yeah.
It's a horrible name for a girl.
But Lenny heard, or no, there's the red room that she says smells like cookies and candy.
That to me is the pheromones, the scent of the creature, right?
Lurring you in.
Yeah, like it's supposed to be good almost.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like it entices you to come to it.
Yeah.
That would be kind of brutal.
So the next one is Tuesday, October 19th, 2004.
It's titled, Why Am I Doing This Again?
And it's at 10.48 p.m.
I don't feel good.
I have a headache for half the night, just pounding on the back of my ears.
I've taken like four Advil already, and it won't go away.
Babysitting was a nightmare.
I had two papers to write, plus lit homework.
Plus, two days are workout days for me, but I got up late and couldn't work out in the morning,
so I sort of squeezed in a quick 20-minute session after school.
Oh my God, Lenny kept singing that stupid rhyme all night.
It drove me nuts.
I swear if I hear it one more time, I'll snap.
I had such a hard time with everything tonight.
The house got really cold at one point.
Made my ears ring.
You know that high-pitched sound like they used for the test for emergency broadcast systems?
Yeah, my ear was doing that.
I thought it was the computers at first.
They'd tell you about the PCs in the living room?
Anyway, they're always on.
I went over and checked them out.
The tables like spaghetti bowl of cables leading off behind furniture were into the wall.
Turns out it's not them.
The ring was in my ear.
The Elson's had some sort of monitoring program going.
all these numbers are scrolling like mad in a window the program wasn't anything I
recognized the file name was temp test attic I didn't want to get into trouble so I
didn't touch them got warm in the hall Leonite stayed there for a while it also
smelled good there like a bakery I think the vents must be messed up in the house
seriously I don't know how anyone could live like this all the time I want to quit
but I want to hurt Lenny's feelings maybe should just suck it up there goes
they're ringing again mood drained
I think you're right about the pheromones thing
like I think it's also are we under the impression
too now that the parents are
trying to evaluate
where the other
I wouldn't be surprised
if they're not even the scrolls parents
oh interesting
this could be like two researchers
or something who are opposing to try to do
status monitoring of the
house sure like the
computers everywhere in the temp test attic
it's like they're trying to monitor what's
happening inside of this house and they just need an excuse to get uh test subjects in there okay
that's interesting well this one's a longer one so i'm guessing this is a this one's wednesday
october 20th 2004 1131 p.m home finally is the subject it's taking me this long to feel good
enough to type i got home over an hour ago if last night was awful tonight was a hundred times
worse i don't know where to start i got there at five wave by to kathy played with lindy
um the tv was acting up so we had dinner already or we had dinner early i made some raviolis
with pasta sauce and it was good but when i was taking lennie's plate i thought i felt something
touched me and it made me jump and the bull spilled on the lindy's shoulder she had pasta
sauce in her hair she asked for a bath which is fine but i had not given her a bath before
i was a little uncomfortable just because i wasn't familiar with the temp setting on the tub
and i didn't know how lennie's mom and dad would feel about it but lennie kept pleading with me to stay with her
for the bath so ran the water and helped her into the tub this string came out of the faucet as the
tub filled up made lennie nervous i tried to tug on it and pull it all the way out but it must have
been caught on something inside the pipe just dangled from the faucet and floated on the water
some of the pasta sauce had gotten in lindy's hair so i rinsed out a little there wasn't any soap in the guest
bath so i went into the elson's bedroom to borrow from the master bath that's when lennie started screaming
I've never been so chill to the bone before hearing her tonight.
It was horrific, hearing her scream.
I turned and ran back to her as fast as I could.
And when I got back, she was hanging onto the edge of the tub trying to get out.
And the string was wrapped on her leg.
I yanked and yanked it out again, but it wouldn't budge.
And Lenny kept screaming, get it off, get it off.
And so I started to try and unwind it from her leg, but the shampoo in the water or something had made it slippery.
And I started crying, and then suddenly the string went slack.
and I tore Lenny away
She had set of marks on her like stripes
Where the string had cut into her skin
Later when I went back
With a pair of scissors the string was gone
And the water had drained away
We spent the rest of the night
In the living room on the couch
piled under two blankets of pillows from Ellison's bed
Lennie eventually fell asleep
But I was so worried about her
And confused about what happened
It was a nervous wreck
And around 9pm
One of the PCs started beeping like crazy
I got up to check on it
an alert had popped up.
It said like that.
Then,
oh, it said like that.
That's what the computer said.
It said dot like that.
Oh, it just said period, like that.
Okay.
Then the power cut out and back on again.
Only some of the lights didn't come on.
Just a light from down the hall.
Oh, fuck.
And the hall it was easier to see.
I took a wrong turn on my back on my way back.
Tiny hall and door that leads to the garage was not where I thought it was.
was. Instead, I found a set of stairs, like real stairs, going up. Oh, God. It smelled like
cake, like right out of the oven. I felt so lost and strange. I can't explain it, except I didn't
think the house had a second story. It's too hard to see from outside. I finally found a way
into the kitchen, and from there went back to Lenny who was still asleep. It got real cold
after that.
When the Ellison's got home, I told about the bath and the other problems, but I didn't
mention the stairs.
Then I told them I couldn't babysit anymore.
I think I used schoolwork as an excuse.
They said they understood, but I could tell they were depressed about it.
I'm sorry, I can't keep doing it.
Well, Mrs. Ellison asked me to please just make it for one more night, and then they would
get a new sitter over the weekend to start on Monday.
She paid me advance for tomorrow, too.
I didn't want to say yes, and I don't want to.
go back but I feel so bad for leaving them on such short notice and really what if it's just me
being a spas like I'm freaking myself out or something anyway I told Mrs. Ellison yes oh you dumb
bitch one more night I can do this I will come back and tell you about the final five
hour sitting for Lenny in that house and come Friday I will talk about something new like
friends Don and Kim my friends Don and Kim or how I love Starbucks strawberry cream fraps
me too girl or whatever just to keep me in the habit of writing here I think I've been
pretty good about it anyway. I sort of get on and start typing automatically before I go to bed.
Okay. Okay. I wish I wasn't so scared going back. I feel so empty. Danielle, current mood,
numb. In the last post, did it work out for her? Let's find out. Thursday, October 21st, the next day,
104, 11.41 p.m. There was a crooked man. He walked a crooked mile. He found a crooked six
pence upon a crooked style. He bought a crooked cat who caught a crooked.
mouse and they all live together
in a crooked little house
Red Rover, Red Rover
let Ginny come over.
Let's go.
That is fucked.
I want to say this real quick.
The story of everything was fine, whatever,
that thread is awesome.
I love that thread with Daniel.
All that back and forth. That was a lot of fun.
Oh, this? Yeah, this was really fun. This whole
section was fun. Because it's just like
someone overheard the original story of
Mark and was like, this reminds me of a blog post I saw and then links to this whole thing,
right?
So that's really fun.
I like the idea that the parents are like aware of this or it's some kind of experiment and
they have like these computers going because the computer says like that like period.
Like the computer is detecting that the, uh, the fly trap is about to open its mouth, right?
Like the second staircase, like the staircase is about to appear.
And then when Danny doesn't choose to go into it, uh, it closes back up.
it says the house gets cold again.
It's very creepy to the mention that the house gets warm.
It's like the monster is opening its mouth
and you can feel its hot breath go through the house.
Yeah, and it's like, hey, come here.
And whenever it shuts its mouth, it's cold again?
Let me ask you this, the like that period,
is it trying, is it replicating her cadence of how she's been typing?
And that probably how she talks?
No, I think that is the computer in the May room
that's monitoring the house because the computer, no.
Either it is an extension of the monster house
or it is created by the quote unquote parents to monitor what the house is doing.
I think it is the computer running data and then being like, oh, period.
Like the house is about to open up.
It's about to have an instance of opening.
See, I was reading it like the computer from because I agree.
I do think that they are like people testing it or whatever.
There are people running experiments somehow and who knows if even Lenny's their kid.
I completely buy into that.
It's like an SEP thing.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And I'm wondering if the PC itself is using it.
as a translator to try to decipher the codes or like the kind of things that the house is saying
to them and I didn't know if because of how before the thing was replicating like the
commercials it was hearing and stuff I didn't know if it was also like saying something similar
or deciphering something to her as an indication that she's going to be the next victim
that's how I kind of translated it but I but I do agree like I think I like the idea that
Venus flytrap it opening she's like no I'm so saying
that too. Daniel seemed like such a good character. I like that poem.
The rhyme is so fucked. So there's a crooked man. The six pants is six pints, right? Money. So
there's a crooked man. Watched a crooked mile. He found a crooked six pence upon a style.
He bought a crooked cat who caught a crooked mouse and they all live together in a crooked little
house. Is that maybe that's saying the first instance of this? Oh, wait, wait. I found a
crooked man with crooked smile. Is this not
almost referring to her?
Crooked man with the crooked smile, optimistic
girl, upon a crooked
style, he bought a crooked cat
who caught a crooked mouse.
Is that in reference you think to the parents
catching her? They'll live together
It certainly could be, but this
also, like the reference of the crooked man
could be in reference to like the first
instance of this happening.
Like whatever caused
this house to exist in the first place or it could just be
a case of them killing her. I don't
know. I will say in case you didn't catch it, that ending Red Rover let Jenny come over.
Jenny is Mark's wife. Mark's wife. Yeah. Exactly. So even though
Danielle never met her, the house is now calling to Jenny next. So I think Jenny's going to be
the next target. I think so. That was a link that Mr. Paranoia sent supposedly another,
well, definitely another instance of the house. So now going back to Eric's update blog, we have
update from October 26, 2004.
Jen, please
call me back. I know it must be driving
you crazy, but do not go
to Phoenix. Mark was never
there, despite what the postmark says
on that box. The keys are just
like the article about Andrew.
Bate. Please, please don't
do this. Send me the laptop and we'll
figure it out together, okay?
I wouldn't have to put this here if you'd answer
your phone. I know you visit this page
regularly. Call me.
So that's interesting because it's
It's like the house knew that sending the keys to Danielle,
she would post about it on a blog,
which would then get shared by Mr. Paranoia to Eric,
which would cause Jenny to become obsessed and travel there.
Yeah.
I mean, it's perfect.
It's the perfect luring system.
Emotionally target people.
They're distraught.
They will do whatever they can to get their loved ones, you know?
And also, uh,
the final update,
the whole let Jenny come over was October the 21st.
one day before it gets shared here.
So this is all happening very quickly with each other.
Another one from October 26 later that day says,
lots of responses, I didn't expect this.
Thank you for your support and your technical notes.
At this time, I cannot involve and will not involve to anyone else for a number of reasons.
Please respect my decision on this matter.
I will keep the contact information for the paranormal investigators,
and I will continue to help those close to mark as best I can.
Please, no more phone calls.
Connie is going out of her mind.
Another one from the next day, October 27th.
Sondra, Nathan, check your email.
I've finally heard back from your Sprint PCS service rep today.
No more account authorization hassles.
He said their record show and have billed for only 14 text messages from Mark's phone on September 21st.
The last one timestamped at 511.
He's sending me a copy of the logs, but I'm not sure if they'll do us any good at this point.
Awaiting the laptop now.
on what does that mean okay sondra and nathan who were they where's sondra and nathan was that not his
the cousin no that wasn't the cousins was it uh it might have been let me look real quick i've got
it looks like it's somebody that's related to mark at least no because the cousins were from uh andrew
so that's not so they're mentioned at the top of the updates is sondra and nathan condry so i
imagine family members of mark right that's what yeah that's what i would assume so it's mark's family
members and then he's updating here and saying
that they had the service company said 14 messages were sent for Mark's phone on
September 21st. The last one was at 511, which means the last one they have record of him
sending was the, I think someone's here, I just heard something. And then the 15th message,
577 that says the door is open they don't have record of. So that wasn't being sent by Mark.
that was deposited
straight to
Eric's phone effectively.
Interesting.
That's when the bait
was first sent out.
Yes.
So then now we have one
from October,
the next day,
October 28th.
I've been contacted
by Diane M.
Who says
she was friends
with Lucy Madsen
when she lived in Houston.
Okay.
So,
hello, Eric.
A friend linked
to me to this side
asking if this was
the same Lucy I knew
when I lived in Sugarland.
After doing some reading, I'm convinced it is.
I had no idea what happened to her
after she and John moved.
Lucy and I met through a little book club
some mutual friends started up.
We were both avid readers.
Yes, she and John had all sorts of
unexplainable problems with that house.
I remember seeing some of them firsthand,
like the leak.
After reading about your friend, Mark,
I stood a bit, called up my father.
I often talked with Lucy on AIM when she lived here
and thought maybe some of these old dialogues would be of use to you.
But they would have been on my old PC, which I gave to my dad, oh, a year ago.
I went over earlier tonight and dug through the program files for any signs of my aim chats with Lucy way back when.
Dad had removed a lot of stuff, he deletes things, but I did find a scrap from February of 99.
It's the one I remembered, the one that made me curious to visit.
Note, I don't really think it's a supernatural thing.
I'm more prone to think Lucy had a sort of nervous breakdown
and created or imagined traumatic moments in the house.
The rest of it, like your friend's experience, I can't explain.
But I hope you find closure soon.
The attachment wouldn't open, but hopefully Diane will try again.
Then we have an update.
It says, I got the chat log and converted it to HTML.
I don't know if Diane is still using her screen name
or if Lucy's is taken by a new user now.
So to protect both from any unwarranted IMs,
I've removed the numbers from the ends.
of their Knicks.
If there are users with the Nix in this log,
they are not the same people.
FYI, here is the AIM chat log.
Session's start, this was February the 10th,
1999.
Hey, Lucy.
Hey.
You still at the office?
Yeah, so tired.
Oh, by the way, I finally picked up
that Adam's book. Looking forward to reading it.
Tired.
Still having problems with the house.
what did the electrician say
he couldn't find anything wrong
oh BS
yeah John is calling another tech today
good for him
you want to come over tomorrow night
grab some dinner
I'll bring Paul so the men can talk hockey
but it's just the short circuits
sure that sounds nice
oh Lord is it turning into a money pit
I don't know
I hear things now and then
what
it's just weird
like things in the walls
is it orkin time
not like that
voices
voices
I don't believe in ghosts
but
it's like that
that's the closest comparison
whoa
you're serious
I went to launch your room Monday night
to get an extra blanket for the bed
and I swear I heard someone choking in the hallway
it was like choking
what
That's horrible.
There's a weird mark on the wall there that cuts off at the ceiling.
You think, is it haunted?
Do you know much about the place?
I think it's stress.
I think I'm just falling apart.
I'm so sorry.
The movers and my mom getting sick and John's crazy hours of the new job working for those French oil people.
It's making me all stressed out.
You need a spa day, paranto, but really, I'm here for you.
Thanks.
you're the best D
oh
and did I tell you about the leak
the fridge
no no
in the master bedroom
there's a leak
hold up
the bedroom
yeah from the attic
it's the one on the corner
of the ceiling
a big stain
and spreading
water damage
I know it rained recently
has this something else
it's still eating at the pain
on the drywall
WTF
plumber
John went home early
to meet the plumber yeah they searched the attic up and down and couldn't find where it was coming from
plumber says it doesn't seem like chemicals but it doesn't seem like that what does it smell like
like i don't know like bile vomit no more like stomach acid this is just too weird lucy i want to
come over tonight can i come over i'd rather come and see you if just to get out okay well
Go to Ninfuzz.
First round of margaritas is on me.
Sounds really good.
I got to go now.
Call you later.
Okay.
All right.
So it took us a minute to find the continuation of the story.
Because again, this is through, you know, archived webpages.
So not all of it is super easy to read.
But I believe we have now found an updated edition of the website so that we can continue.
We're almost down just a little bit more.
left. So Hunter, are you ready to, uh, wrap this up? Oh, I am. And also I want to say this is we have
how to break. I still am very moved by the 16 year old babysitters, uh, like blog posts, whatever.
That was, I really, really bought it from there with the fly house with the fly house trap kind of
you know, so that's building. So now we're on October 29th, 2004 posting. Yes, one day after the last
post from Eric. So laptop arrived. Uh, there's lots of
sort through here. Most notably
some pictures Mark must have downloaded from
his camera phone. But his laptop
wasn't equipped with Photoshop or any other
photo app, so I can't see more than
thumbnails. I'll move them to my
hard drive along with recent files and see what I can
find. Also, it's crunch time
at the office, so I'll be working this
weekend, FYI. Maybe
we all could use a little mental break from this.
And there's another update
from October the 31st, Halloween
of 2004, or in other words
a couple days later.
Hooray for automated FTP uploading.
What is FTP?
I was wondering the same thing I was getting ready to Google it.
It is a way faster, a way to transfer files to remote server using an FTP file transfer protocol.
File transfer protocol, got it.
If this sees publication, it means I'm still not back for my trip to the never-ending suburban grid in the valley.
Consider a precautionary update.
When I return, I will remove this link since I can't stand sounding like some sort of martyr.
nor do I like to cause a panic.
In the meantime, in case it could wind up being important,
I've been keeping a personal blog on a remote host.
Don't worry about me, Connie.
I'm sure I'll have quite a story to tell.
Love Eric.
Okay, so that's interesting.
He says that he's going away for the weekend on October 29th.
Is that just a ruse so that he can go check out the house?
I'm wondering if that's what I'm wondering.
If he's also being bought in by this point, I would be surprised.
because he says that he is
navigating the never-ending
suburban grid in the valley
so that implies to me he's going to Phoenix
or he's going to one of the locations
where the house is located
or a house is located
so I'm I think
that's what that this was a dead man switch
of sorts yeah and this also
leads into his personal blog here
and this section is called a quiet space
yeah exactly all right so Tuesday
October 26th 2004
So just a few days before we got the Dead Man Switch message from Eric.
Title, getting surreal.
What the hell am I doing?
I'm going crazy.
Ever since I first got pulled into this whole ordeal,
ever since Mark's first email to me, I've been spiraling.
Now I'm struggling just to separate the facts from the fog,
the real from the unreal.
For weeks, I've been trying to keep his disappearance
and everything trailing after that at arm's length, and I failed.
I'm an absolute mess.
I don't know what to think.
I can't help the Conjuries or Jen any more than I already am,
yet I feel wholly inadequate to answer their questions.
Truth is, I simply don't know.
I don't.
I wish I did.
The one person who can answer them has been missing since September 21st,
and it's possible he lied to me about what he was doing.
And to make matters worse, I can't even lean on Connie.
She doesn't like the fact that I keep updating Mark's site
or that I'm talking to Jen in the middle of the night.
But I don't think she understands.
The question she asks, they're always centered around Jen and what I was talking about on the phone.
I know that tone of hers.
In the midst of this terrifying ordeal, she thinks I'm cheating on her.
I can't dump my thoughts and feelings on the site I've made for Mark.
Too many people, including Jen and Connie, are paying attention now.
And when I've called Cam, he's been more interested in the crazy theories than how I'm feeling.
The email box I set up for questions by Mark's family is now flooded with messages from total
strangers, some of them a little too eager to help. Or maybe I'm just paranoid now. I need a place
to unload all of these things weighing me down, and as I've come to appreciate so well in the last
month, a place to record events in my life. This is just for me, a little sanctuary, or maybe a
confessional. Here's something I haven't told Connie yet, nor Jen, for that matter. Yesterday morning,
when I took out the trash, I saw a man standing at the other end of the alley, over on the Libreo side,
just standing there staring at me he's wearing his sweatsuit like a jogger wears it looked dirt stained his hair was unkempt i try not to stare back i think he may be homeless this morning i saw him again down by olympic just standing and staring at me as i drove by god i'm going out of my mind i just know it
that's any way that could be mark you think i had the idea that it's either mark or uh what was the first guy's name
Drew, because there's the mention of Drew having like a messy hair and look at it.
It could be the body of someone he knows, right?
Mm-hmm.
I definitely don't think it's them alive and well.
No, no, no, no, definitely not.
Well, you know what's kind of funny is with Eric talking about Connie here.
Does it not seem a little reminiscent of Mark and his obsession at first, too, how they've kind of traded places now?
Yeah, that is true.
He seems like he's kind of updating it more.
Whereas before, I know there were some we had comments about being like,
Oh, you know, Mark's way more invested in this than Eric is.
Yeah, I think it's like Eric or Eric now has the same buck
Mark did to the same degree.
Right.
And now from the October 31st message, it looks like he also chased down the house.
So it worked on him too.
These comments are so funny.
They're, it's people commenting.
I guess this was an active side at one time.
would comment on because a lot of the comments are like dude read that girl's blog lennie it's
the same house man it's the same house i was gonna wait for uh i was gonna wait for the ending of this
but since it's so early in the internet you have to imagine same with probably ted right that people
believe this to be like real like they like blog it had to be it had to be because the way that the
story navigates is very interesting it's kind of a choose your own adventure with how you have to go to
different web pages and stuff like that.
You could just read it on one page and be like, well, that was weird.
Or you can keep diving further and further down this rabbit hole and read every single thing.
But it also works as just a standalone on one page if you wanted it to be, which I think is pretty sick.
Yeah, there's a bunch of comments through here that are like, there's no way this is real.
This is fake.
Why are you trying to scare people?
Like, it's before the age of the internet.
We're just posting scary stories with standard.
Yeah, people are like, what, what do you mean?
This is stupid.
This didn't happen.
I'd say, you also know those people are scared too.
Yeah.
Yeah, say, say it's fake, man.
Come on.
Funny game.
Okay, so the next one after that is posted by Eric's same day, I'm guessing.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah, I'm not seeing that different day.
Yeah, I'm guessing it's same day.
Yeah.
Well, it can't.
Okay, previous one was at 11.09 p.m.
And then this one's at 7.36 a.m.
So maybe it's like the next day.
There's not a day, but I guess we just assume the next morning.
Yeah, yeah, that's fine.
So it's, he's out there again.
I can see him between the two apartment buildings across the street,
just standing there.
I'm torn between the urge to confront him or to call the police.
Connie isn't talking to me much this week.
Used to be, we get up together and chat over breakfast.
How she just sleeps through.
She won't let me kiss her on the lips.
I know she's just worried about me.
Maybe concerned.
I've become obsessed.
Maybe she's right.
I'm late for work and the car's been acting up on me.
Damn it.
The last thing I need now is a trip to the dealer in Burbank.
All right.
So he's out there again.
Now we have another one called strange text message.
I got this on my cell phone today.
The caller idea is listed as unknown.
And my text replies bounce back.
The message reads,
beware flesh puppet.
If this is a prank, it's not funny.
Well, that's a horrible.
That's not good.
It's like, well, what do you mean,
Flesh Puppet?
What are you talking about?
Oh, oh, dude.
Okay, all right, this is interesting.
Ooh, all right.
So I was glancing at the comments
to see if anything popped up, right?
And on the last one,
during he's out there again,
where it says,
I'm late for work, the car's been acting up.
A username Ginny Levin commented and said,
Hi, Eric, I'm so sorry to hear about the troubles you're having with Connie.
If you want, I will stop calling, but really, you have been such a big help.
And no, I won't go to Phoenix, but it drives me crazy, Eric, not being able to do anything, Jen.
And then Eric replies and says, Jen, thank you, thank you, thank you.
And I'm sorry if I inadvertently dumped all this personal stuff on you just by getting it off my chest.
Don't you worry about me.
And yeah, I know what you mean about feeling helpless, but hang in there.
So it's like gin is common.
That's why I love these energy things.
Yeah, the ergies are a lot of fun.
Just the interaction is really fun.
How it, once again, it's like that choose your adventure of you can keep diving.
You could never read these comments and it would still be a cohesive story.
But you just get more and more meat out of it by actually digging deeper.
I don't know how many of these are legit.
There's a lot of anonymous through here, anonymous messages.
But some of this, I'll leave for your all.
because I can't parse which ones are canon and which ones aren't.
So you all can have fun with it.
We'll leave links to this stuff on the way back machine in the description as well.
Okay, so Wednesday, October 27th, we have another post by Eric called A Dose of Normalcy.
Good news, Jen.
Not all things are crazy.
I realize that today after shirking off this sense of suspicion and paranoia I've been carrying around.
Maybe it will help you too.
I'm just going to rattle off a few things here.
Call it a mental exercise.
Call it what you will.
It helps me calm down.
The car drove smoothly today.
No engine hiccups.
It actually rained here last night,
and the air has that crisp feel to it.
I walked to lunch from the office
and passed by all these people who were out,
people with normal lives.
I stood next to a guy at the crosswalk
and listened to him chat to a friend on his cell phone
about GTA San Andreas.
Hell yeah.
I brought home sushi takeout for Connie
she's finally able to eat regularly again
and I know she's been craving it
when she gets really excited or happy
it's like she can't talk she just makes this high pitch
giggle squeal and claps the palms of her hands
absolutely adore that about her
sushi equals squealworthy
gross okay so she's a seal
I guess
I'm with you I'm with you on that one
people who like quit talking they're like
oh I'm about to do
God, yeah, that was gross.
I hate that.
Yeah, I hope bad things happen to Connie.
No sign of sweatsuit, man.
I think he's gone.
So, yeah, there's plenty of good things going on.
I can't let the bad thoughts creep in and ruin the rest.
I hope you have some good ones, too.
And I'll let you know when the FedEx guy shows up with the laptop.
Yeah, and he posted on the 29th, right, that the laptop showed up.
So this is two days before.
Yeah.
So the next post is Thursday, October 28th.
Uh, but before that, Jenny left a comment.
Thank you for that note.
Sorry, I haven't been by here in a couple days.
Just spent the day printing up flyers with Mark's photo on them.
I know it won't really do any good, but it makes me feel like I'm at least being productive some way.
And it keeps me from thinking about the fly trap.
So there's further proof that she's gone.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, I think once again, the house is just finding ways to really infiltrate Eric.
Yeah.
Eric, Eric's got it next and he's going to be done so.
And then after that, it's going to be gin and then Connie, if I had to guess.
Yeah, I mean, you're right.
So next up, we have a post the next day from October 28th called Thoughts and Theories.
So, it's been a long day.
I'm buried in more email and I've had two glasses of wine.
Time for a long rambling post full of tangents and disturbances,
staring an ensemble cast of the horrific little thoughts that have been collecting in the back of my mind since September.
Yay.
So, the problem with this whole mess.
With Andrew and Mark and Danielle and who knows how many others, the problem is it's crazy.
You'd have to be crazy to take this all in and convince yourself, yeah, it happened and it will continue to happen.
So let's get crazy, Jen.
I'm already there.
I'm to the point that I think the reason something this horrific continues to spread is the power of human denial.
Skepticism and curiosity, a dangerous duo.
The house knows this.
It banks on it.
It gets its next victim that way and prevents the truth from becoming so widespread and accepted as to blow its cover.
The old line about the greatest trick the devil ever pulled.
All right.
So there's a house, a set of houses.
Identical.
How?
I don't know.
The houses are inexorably tied.
They share some sort of inexorably tied, sorry.
They share some sort of space in some way.
I picked up a science book the other day called the holographic.
universe. Talbot, the author, talks about the phenomenon of this decaying photon particle
and how when it decays, it suddenly seems to be in two places at once. But really, it's just the
way we're perceiving it, with the tools we're using, that gives it that illusion. There's this
whole example. If you had a guy who didn't know what a camera or TV was and hadn't seen a fish
before, and you set him down in front of two monitors each focusing on different angles of the same fish,
His knee-jerk conclusion would be that there are two separate creatures somehow behaving as a unified pair.
What one does, the other does.
I know I butcher that, but the book is in my car, so you'll just have to bear with me.
So this house is like that photon particle.
It's in different places, but also in the same place.
See, yeah.
See, this explains the strange sounds and voices people here inside.
The sound is bleeding through from other locations, other iterations of the same hallway.
For example, maybe Lennie heard Mark trying to reach me on the phone,
even though he was in Boise and she lives or lived in Arizona.
Then there's the way it regurgitate things, like keys.
They don't show in the same place either.
But then again, the entire second story isn't supposed to exist,
so all bets are off, right?
I'd like to find the architect who drew up these plans
and lock that guy in an upstairs room.
So he's saying,
that the house is in, it's everywhere at once.
We perceive it in different locations,
even though it's just something that's spread.
The sounds bleeding through from other locations,
other iterations of the same hallway.
For example, maybe Lenny heard Mark trying to reach me on the phone,
even though he was in Boise and she lives in Madison.
So you were exactly right.
When you heard like the running down the staircase in Arizona,
and you were like maybe that was Mark in the house at a different.
different location. You were, you were 100% right. So good job. Yeah. Okay, so the house can do one of two
things. One, digest you. Two, sort of partially digest you. Hollow you out, as Mark would say,
and make you a subservient tool to obey the house. Why would it need us like that? Again,
two options bring to mine. One, self-preservation and two, appetite. An example of self-preservation,
the Madsons. They'd been in the house.
house, lived there for some time, and they managed to escape. I'm guessing here, maybe they post
a risk like Mr. Paranoia mentions. Was that risk due to them having stayed so long in the house
without falling victim? Or was it a discovery? It had to be something big for the house to keep
tracking them for four years. If Drew kept taking jobs at Blockbuster video stores, maybe
he had the Madsen's account info and could tell where they were renting movies.
Speaking of, Mark mentioned Drew had a lot of IDs for different states.
Did he stay in another iteration of the house in each state?
How many are there?
The appetite theory is self-explanatory.
The house uses people, who then use email articles, etc., as lures to ensnare new victims.
Flies.
I know I'm leaning heavily on Mark's original theory now, but I agree with him.
Maybe I secretly believed him all along, and if that's true, God, it's Andrew all over again.
I let Mark slip away because I didn't want to face this mess,
and now he haunts me the way Drew haunted him as a memory.
I'm so sorry, Jen.
I'm sitting here trying to convince myself of the same ridiculous,
insane, terrible thoughts Mark attempted to share five weeks ago.
Why is the unexplained so taboo?
We can't accept it.
We can't go to friends for help.
Did you know the human eye only sees about 40% of what we think is really there?
Our brains interpolate the rest and fill in the missing space.
Our brains interpolate the rest and fill in the missing space.
There's a visual exercise in this quantum book that demonstrates it.
I don't know what that has to do with this, but it sticks in my head after reading about it.
I want to see Mark again.
I want this whole nightmare to be over, Jen.
I feel so bad.
I wake up aching in my chest at night.
I leave lights on.
I worry that I'm starting to go crazy and the act of worrying pulls me further from sanity.
but I still worry about you, about Connie and me.
Are we in danger?
Are we in a position to kill this monster that took Mark?
Is that also why we're in danger?
Too many questions.
And the wine is doing all the talking now.
Off to bed.
That was fun.
I like that.
I like him like going insane and just like getting drunk and rambling about like what this creature could be.
Yeah.
At first I was like,
is this going to be a thing like psycho where it's just kind of like
telling you all the things we've already been through so far,
but I think it added a lot to where he was at so far mentally.
Yeah.
So in the comments of that,
Jenny replies and says,
hey, hang in there, Eric.
I know what you mean,
and I'm having the same feelings and thoughts just like you wrote here.
It's good to get them out.
Really, it is.
Let me tell you how far I've gone,
so you won't feel so alone at this.
I thought some more about the flytrap idea and went to a nursery
to see one of the plants close up.
Have you seen a Venus flytrap?
I really didn't know what they look like.
I mean, aside from old cartoons.
Here's a picture I found online.
It looks like the one I saw at the nursery.
Notice something, Eric?
All those mouse, they're all alike.
Now, it sounds like I've been drinking all the wine.
Jen.
Okay, so the picture, it seems, is lost.
It's a 404 error when I try to search it,
but I imagine it's just, if you've seen a Venus flytrap plant,
that's what it is.
Right.
And then Eric replies to that and says,
Hey, you, I'm doing better this morning.
Yeah, it comes and goes.
One night all is well.
The next night,
I'm a conspiracy theorist or something.
But you're right.
Feels good to talk about these things just to get them out.
Call you later, Eric.
So I'm almost positive that he is.
I'm kind of with Connie a little bit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, it, you know,
I think she has her rights to be a little upset.
she maybe
might need to be
a little suspicious of his behavior
she's like I'm dying in the hospital
for two weeks and you do this
he's like baby come on
honey gosh
I'm trying to find Mark
hey Jen don't don't let her bother
you mean Jen baby please don't let
this ruin our night thank you so
Jim we got to talk about
your missing husband
that's right
wearing those little mysterious panties
I like, Jen?
You're wearing the trash.
You're wearing those flesh puppet things I bought you.
Venus flytrap panties and we can watch my little shop of horos tonight.
You want that to happen, baby?
Don't worry about Connie.
She's a prude.
Now, babe, I'm talking to my friend's girlfriend.
What is your problem?
I guess I can't have friends.
I guess I can't have friends.
I guess I'm just, I guess I'm the best.
bad guy. Isn't that right?
Oh, what, what? What? Are you
what are you going to go to the hospital?
Like it's visibly leaking down. You're like,
are you going to go to the hospital again? Yeah, I pissed myself.
Enjoy my weekend. No, I pissed myself. It's not that.
It's not that. I was working on model cars
earlier. It's glue. It's glue.
Connie. Don't leave me, baby.
Total 180.
I fucking love you.
It's the middle of the night.
Yeah, it's 3.30 in the morning.
Gin, baby, don't let her bother you.
Yeah, he's not even the same house.
He's talking to himself in a mirror.
He's like wine drunk.
What am I?
What am I?
Oh, this goddamn house!
Fuck!
Yeah, there's like an Italian-American family next door.
Buddy, Jesus Christ, can you?
Just give her a rest, drinks of water and get some sleep.
Fuck you.
The phone's not even...
The phone's not even plugged in.
He's like, yeah.
He's like, Jenny.
Why are we playing all these games, sweetheart?
Well, don't me and you go get a lust in a little house of our own, you know?
You want Uncle Eric to come over?
You got, uh, you got Jenny, baby.
You got yourself a room that smells like cookies, if you know what I mean?
Having the door be, having the door be cracked open and you walking by and there's a man talking into an unplug
phone and his witty tides and he has like a bathrobe on he's like you want me go over there
look at you panties would that not be fucking warfying yeah we're gonna go the house is like
a venous flight trap huh yeah can you like like peek your head in on that and then he like
looks up he has like wine he's like lips his lips are totally stained red from all the wine
and he's like he's like I keep going to houses that are eating me
like a bug. I keep going to houses. I keep eating me like a bug. I'm just a big old bug in the house.
That house wants me to be a bug. I guess that's what they want. House keeping. My buddy keeps
eating like a bug in his house. My buddy keeps getting eating like a bug in his house.
Sir, I need you to
I need you to go
Check out with six hours ago
Everybody keeps getting you like a fucking house
Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you?
You really like that.
Where's Jen?
I bet.
Yeah, I bet you've been to just
So, this hotel
The second store.
Are you, Jen?
I think, are you,
Connie? Are you my wife?
I think there's just 25.
Connie, I told you, Jin's come and go away.
Gin's going to be.
ears. There's 25
empty bottles of barefoot, red wine.
Just all of the, all of the apartment.
25. Good. Oh,
God, I've made some mistakes.
Jeff,
we got to go to the house.
Do I look like Dionysus?
Do I look like
Dionysus, baby?
Just like the
rumble gut. Do I look like
Dionysus is a baby? Because I can be.
Just hear a little panis. Look, I see him.
me like it's
tackled by the cops
have you been in the house
I'm trying to explore your second story
if you know what I mean
you're going to eat me like a bug
do you have a second story
are you going to eat me like a bug
you want me you want to be a second story
I'll crawl into your red room
Eric Eric walks in naked to a cafe
lays on the table
eat me like a bug
You say that fork, you eat me like a bug.
Yeah, you like that.
Yeah, you probably like that.
Tell Connor, I want to come home.
Let's tell us how good.
You tell Connie, I want to get the keys back.
I want to get the whole band back together, please.
That you do that or you eat me like a bug.
There's no, there's no emergency butts about it.
me like a buck
just going to
different
just like harassing
public service workers
exactly
so are you gonna just look at me
you're gonna look at me like a bug
was I gonna happen or not
I mean you just look at me right now
I need you tell me truth
I know I know
I've seen you people before you think you're better than me
you think you're better than me
because you don't because your house
only has one floor
paints himself grain
puts himself in a flower pot
But leaves, he does, feed me.
He's walking into like a Starbucks completely naked.
Scooting forward in the pot.
Like a giant penis flytrap costume on.
Scooting forward in a big orange pot.
So I think I'll take a white chocolate moka with a non-fat milk extra hot and I won't you eat
me like a bug.
He's just completely naked.
I feel like the house is like, I don't want to fucking eat.
Yeah, he like, he's like, he like comes up to the house.
He's like, this is what you want.
Is this what you want for me?
And like the house just like sings into the ground really quick.
Yeah, the house sees him shows up and the locked doors.
He's like, let me in.
They won't let him in the house.
They're going to eat me up.
You're going to eat me all the way up.
I was tasty before, but not now.
Okay.
Still, yeah, just like throws the empty bottle of barefoot wine at the front door.
I'll be back!
He's still in his pot this. He scoots away.
The police show up and he's like, this house sakes, it's better than me.
This house thinks that I want you to shoot me four times in the chest.
I want you gun me down right here in front of his house.
I want to be a.
martyr. Can you make me a martyr please?
God, we got to finish this story.
Get me out of this.
We also, we also have to leave.
We have.
I want to be Mother Teresa.
I want to be like Jesus
and die right. Jesus Christ.
I want to be like
a curatorial.
I'm going to, I'm going to pay the house
to eat you like a bug.
I'm going to enjoy the way to go again.
Return of
sweat suit, man. This is the next day. Friday, October 29th. Yes, he's back again. This time he has
a vehicle. I feel so weird going back to like him being normal. Because I'm almost, I literally when I was
reading it with in my head, I was like, yes, he's back again. This time he has a vehicle.
I saw him parked along the car just across the street from my building. He was in this dirt cake pickup truck with
croaker fender just staring at this main entrance like it was a bank he was about to rob
i guess the rules are homeless so who the hell is that guy i don't like it and i'm really
really trying not to be prepared this character we made up this person i love a idea of a
a drunk guy being like,
um,
guys,
honestly,
I'm really,
really trying not to be paranoid about this.
Guys,
please.
And he's painted green in a flower pot.
Scooter out.
He's completely naked in front of like a city bank.
Like with a giant laptop like this size.
His little pork you.
pig cock outside of a Bank of America
I think that guy's following me
I think this guy is trying
to eat me like a bud
I think he's a bee and he's trying to
take the pollen out of my head
don't
sir
don't let him take the pollen out of my head
I need please don't
let him take the pollen out of my head.
You're all bids!
He's like freaking out.
Scoot for you.
Where's your queen?
He's dressed like that stupid shop plant for Mario.
Me, me, you,
bullet bill should get the hell out of here.
It just went from like he was like he was actually.
actually because they're like,
I'm going to do.
Where's the house going to do?
Is it going to eat me?
You'd like that.
What did you call him?
We cannot record this late again.
I'm sorry.
To all the audio listeners,
my God.
Okay.
I'm crying.
Okay.
Just thinking about a completely naked man and green potty paint.
Like,
I'm trying to keep it together.
I don't want to.
of anyone, but I'm getting kind of scared.
Don't look now, but I think
they guys across the streets
looking at me.
I think he's
kind of weird. I'm crying.
He's just like taking a shit. He's taking his shit.
He's like standing up right, taking his shit
on the ground. I think that guy
is starting to look at me weird.
Don't worry about that. It's my furtile.
it's like rolling down his
just the wettest diaries
it's the fertilizer
don't worry about it just
keep it on that guy
he's on a laptop a
2004 laptop like
guys
yeah
for Tashiba laptop
I aming Jenny
come pick me up
Connie kicked me out again
yeah Connor won't
I keep soil in the bed
with my soil
I should be working
Jen in her head is like
I hope he's doing okay
She pulls up and he's dressed like a giant
Fetus flydress
He'd be gone for six days
Eric
What the fuck
Connie I thought you were dead
Oh I'm blending in
So it won't find me
Connie
Yeah he's like standing by a tree
How could you see me in the garden
Do you don't think the house
Can see me do you
If it sees me
I'd have to delete me like a
You've ever seen a two-story
Victorian house walk around here
Abby
Every house he passes
He like hides
He's like
You can't be too sure
With these things
Oh God
Okay
We have to continue
Yes
So after that
I should be working
Same day
But I keep going back to the printout I took with me to the office, the one from Mark's PC.
This has to be the pick of the house.
It looks exactly like Mark described.
You know the funny part?
It doesn't really look scary.
It's just this generic, slightly neglected thing.
I keep staring at it as if I'll see Mark's face in a window or a second story or the front door will suddenly swing open.
But none of that happens.
It's just a low-rest snap shot.
It's just a low
It's just a low-rest snapshot of a house
I've emailed it to you, Jen
I've emailed it to
Sorry, I've emailed it to you, Jen
I'll send along anything else I find tonight
So far, nothing exciting
He was a great guy, you know, great guy
Yeah, good dude
There's only two more sections left from this
Let's just plow through
Oh, hold on, all over, we're almost there
Jin replied and said, thank you so much, Eric,
just got the email.
Thanks for the comments about Mark.
I miss him so much.
Call me if you learn anything new.
And please stay away from strangers.
It's here.
So this is Eric's post from October 30th.
It's here.
Jen, where are you?
And why haven't you answered your cell?
I don't see how you would check here before checking voicemail.
But just in case, call me.
I got home from work about 7 p.m.
and saw a sweatsuit man driving out of the alley in his pickup.
I don't know if I was fed up or suspicious,
but this time I followed him.
It was night, and I felt that I could follow at a reasonable distance
without drawing much attention.
If he knew my car, it would have been harder to identify at night.
Anyway.
He drove north on Highland and entered the 101 westbound.
We stayed on the freeway all the way to the 405,
where he merged north for the valley.
There was some heavy traffic there,
and for a few minutes,
I couldn't see the pickup, but I found him again as we passed victory.
He exited Sherman Way and headed east.
Then I got stuck at a light at the North Ridge Med Center and lost him again.
I just kept driving and looking.
I thought, I'm sorry, I'm just imagining like a naked guy in green suit.
I'm driving a car trying to be low-key.
It's hard to press the gas and the brakes when you're driving with a giant flower pot still.
so he's like
opening up tiny wines of barefoot red
sipping on up like a baby
sips on a binkie
oh I'm so tired
oh god I'm tired
Oh my gosh
I'm just the thought of it completely naked
and he has on his feet
in a flower pot
and every time he hits the
prank or the gas
it's like the loudest of noise
you've ever heard
just like
click click blake
bobo
like everything is trying to hit the bird
but he's trying to be low-key
and tail someone.
Yeah, large, large green leaves
and stuff are going out of his windows.
He's trying to be inconspicuous,
but he looks like a goddamn parade outfit.
It's like right through.
The car is also painted like a Venus flytrap.
Yeah.
Yeah, it has to,
it has the Rocky Horror.
Or it has the little shop of horrors mouth on the front of his car.
He had it modified its old papered machine and stuff.
He haunts his horn and it does feed me.
I'll finish it.
I got to get through.
I got to get through this.
Oh, I'm so tired.
Oh, God.
Oh, man, I want to go to bed.
Um, I just kept driving and looking.
I thought I saw a pickup take a right on a residential street and followed.
I had no idea where I was.
No way to write down the street names.
I have MapQuest open in another window right now.
I'm narrowing it down, trying to recognize familiar names.
I'd gotten lost after taking too many zigzags.
Chasing after taillights.
Some of the stop signs had no street labels.
Just an unmarked intersection.
But I know the general area.
and I made my way back to the freeway.
I can retrace my steps in the daylight.
I found the house, Jen, and the pickup.
It's the same house.
The lights weren't on, but I could see it well enough under the street lamp.
Same floor plan, same elevation.
Not sure if the gate had a plank missing.
It's too dark, but it's the one.
I called Cameron as soon as I got to a place where I had a signal again.
He's on his way over now.
Connie is at her mother's this weekend.
I think we're going to have to go over tomorrow, middle of the day, and confront the man.
I'll round up anyone else I can, too.
Power and numbers.
If, given the chance, we can enter the house, I'm undecided.
I want to be able to put a stop to this madness to expose or explain it,
and that may require going inside and facing the madness.
But this time, we won't be unprepared.
So, of course, he's doing the very thing the house wants by going straight up to
its open mouth, right? Yeah. All right. So last post to this blog was on Sunday, October 31st,
Halloween day. It's titled Early Start. It's not yet noon, but I haven't been able to sleep since last
night. And waiting seems pointless. Sun's up. Let's go, let's go. Cam is on his way over now.
I went to Home Depot early this morning and bought some supplies for the trip. I already had a few
essentials here, mostly electronics. We're taking two high-powered flashlights, a cana digital
EL, a cana digital elf camera, Sony met a camcorder, nose plugs, Swiss army knives with
built-in scissors, and a laser pointer. This is just house of leaves, by the way, at this
point. Now then, I glance over at the gear and chuckle. It's like we're going on some hiking trip,
except Cam is bringing his handgun. That scares me more than anything right now. I don't want anyone to
get shot today, even sweatsuit man, if he's home. If we need to involve police, the firearm
will change things, we'll make things look worse. And lastly, it's not like he's going to unload
a clip into the drywall. We may have two more coming with us, two friends of cams who are
along for the ride. I don't know either of them, but I guess the more the merrier. An outside
perspective will do me good. Connie won't be back from her mother's until about 4 p.m. Should be home
long before then. The main objective
of this trip is, one, confront
sweatsuit man, find out who he is,
two, document the house, including
an address info.
Update. Cam's friends
can't make it. It's just the two of us.
Well, that makes it easier to keep it on each other.
He's on his way up.
Jen, I'm guessing you had to recharge
your cell overnight or something. Call me.
Here we go.
That is the end of Eric's
blog, so I think it's safe to assume
what happened to Eric.
yeah it looks like jen you've had comments here that said
Eric wait I just now got all your messages
don't go don't go just call the police or something
you told me the same thing when I wanted to go to Phoenix remember
now you're not answering your phone and then she said another one at 1228
please please answer your phone what this waiting is killing me
oh and I see uh Eric said something but this post has been removed by blog
administrator one point that's
It's interesting. This might be real. There's an account, which anyone can make their name anything. But there was one near the top from a O. Danny girl, which that was the name of the girl during the blog, right?
Yeah. Jenny Levin, where are you? The boys are all inside now. Come and find us. The doors open.
I assume that's meaning like Mark and Eric are all inside. They're all consumed by it. Yeah. So now it's Jenny's turn. Yeah. I mean, yeah, as soon as it started,
Eric was super dead, right?
He's not coming out of it.
Yeah.
So Eric died.
We know that because, or sorry, he never came back because his dead band switch lights up on October 31st on the original update blog.
So I think the, the flesh puppet he was seeing, the guy in the track suit, I think that was Mark.
Yeah.
Because we know, we know that that's what happened to Drew, right?
He was scooped out.
And the things he'd heard on the TV became him.
and I think the same thing happened to Mark
here. Yeah. He became a vessel
to kill them. Yeah. And
it did his job. It literally
showed up enough for
Eric to see it. And then Eric
followed him back to the house and Eric goes in the house
and dies. So
Mark's body was effectively a lure
being thrown out in the water to reel
air again.
So then
finally, we have a post
from almost one year later.
So the last post that Eric did,
was October 31st of 2004.
We have a post from October 4th of 2005.
And again, this is on Eric's blog.
So, or not his personal blog, this is the update page.
October 4th, 2005.
This is Connie.
It has been nearly one year since Eric drove off and never came back.
Eric drove off and never came back.
I don't know how to do HTML.
I don't know if this is how Eric did things.
I'll be doing good just to copy this page back onto the website.
What has happened in a year?
A lot, not enough.
I don't have any answers, just a million questions.
Let's see.
I met Jennifer and Rachel, who is Cam's girlfriend.
The three of us still keep in touch.
Legally, Eric and Mark and Cam are considered missing.
That makes some things very hard on us.
What else?
I have a mountain of files, emails, letters, digital photos,
that may or may not have anything to do with their disappearance.
Every time I tried to start in, I got overwhelmed.
So last week, I hired someone to go through all of it for me
and see if anything made sense.
The reason I'm finally learning this thing
is that he has found one or two pieces to this puzzle.
And I feel a responsibility to continue what my husband began.
This is a test post later this week after I hear back from Jenny.
I will post more information.
And it looks like Connie's going to be the next one dead.
Yeah.
So we have another post, a week later, October 12, 2005.
For one reason or another, the new information has yet to be verified.
So, until I hear back from my the source, I can't post the link.
Now I get how hard this is.
You never know who is on the other end of a modem.
Thank you for your patience, all three of you who are still reading.
And finally, we have our last post, I believe, of the whole thing, which is October 14th of 2005.
Despite the fact that she just used her diary to lash out at me, instead of answering me privately,
I will link to a live journal by a woman who claims to know about what both Mark and Eric were investigating.
Edit, okay, I'm still figuring out the link thing.
Here we have the blog of Lorene Maithers, she says, hoping that works.
So, first one, you must hear the truth from August 16th of 2005.
My name is Lorene Maithers, and I don't know much.
about the internet, and I don't care to.
The reason I am in this so-called internet diner in an old downtown,
I'm about to tell you which city, thank you kindly,
is because there's no record of what I did in October of 2001.
Not anymore.
I killed a man.
Killed him dead.
Think of it was he was trying to kill me first.
I don't take too kindly to that sort of behavior.
At the time, I was in another state from the one with my last known address,
tourist
never mind
I had all my shit
in the back
of my station wagon
and a revolver
in my glove box
to anyone else
I was a visitor
from out of town
so I was the man
I shot to death
who wasn't a local either
see
we both were from Boise
there's a trial
there were lawyers
and all that shit
and I would have been happy
to serve my time
in a cell for what I'd done
one of the safest
places for me to be
considering what I know
but the damn lawyer
got me up on the chair
next to the judge
and asked me
I did what I did, and I told them.
I told all of them.
I went on for 11 pages in the court transcripts, laying out everything I know about it.
And my big mouth got me just nine months in a mental facility.
Nine months.
Like my delusion was a pregnancy.
Once I had it out of me, I could go free, out among the world.
Now I'm out.
Been out for a few years.
I still carry a gun on me too, and I'm not afraid to kill again if cornered.
Maybe I've walked right past you, but I guarantee you didn't pay a sin of attention to me.
That's the way I like it.
I would have stayed that way.
Never to go into one of these coffee places with computers hooked up on the tables like were the Jetsons,
because anyone who wanted to know the truth just had to read the court transcripts.
It was all there.
But they're gone.
Disappeared from Boise Police.
A man named Mark Condry came looking for them, then calling for me.
That's how I know.
used to be you could type my name into the search engine things like wahoo my name would get you
these new stories about the shooting in salt lake city now there's nothing well i aim to put a stop to
that i'm gonna tell you what happened and also what happened to that fellow mark slew of other
names you may not recognize first thing i could tell you is this they aren't houses stop
thinking of them like houses soon as i can pay and handle enough money for another hour on this
bitch box, I'll be back.
Bitch box is so funny.
So I assume when it says
she said she killed a man
how long ago, October of 2001,
that was before any of this, right?
But I assume it was after
Mark died in the house or was
scooped out or whatever that
Mark, quote unquote, started
looking for her police records, right?
Right.
So another post from September 20th,
2005. So about a
month later called Newtown Same Lorraine. All it took was one entry on this journal thing
and I had a man in a sweatsuit come trolling around downtown for me. Took me a good week to make
sure I'd shaking him loose. Now I'm in a different place, new Jetson's Cafe, and I got a new shopping
card from the Target down the street. It's a good card. Got smooth wheels. No pulling to the left
or right. No squeaking. I just need to find a good place to sleep tonight. So about Boise.
I best get to that now before someone finally catches up to me.
Now it's really just a matter of time before I'm dragged through that front door of a house
that smells like fresh bread and warm blood.
But as I said, they aren't houses.
Here's what I know, and what I said to everyone in the courtroom.
It started with the little things.
This was a week after I moved in, summer before my first semester teaching.
Sound traveled in odd ways, especially in the kitchen.
No echo, even in empty rooms.
Now and then, I thought I felt the carpet wiggle under my feet.
The outlet things, they felt, I don't know how to put it, I guess soft is the word,
like I was jamming the plug into a jar of jelly.
Power fluttered a lot, but damned if I could find a fuse box.
Thermostat didn't seem to care how I futzed with it.
The air just came on and wouldn't want to.
Most of the time, it was warm and smelled like cinnamon toast.
All of this feels par for the course
When you buy home at auction
I got in on one of these deals
Where the bank offloads all the real estate
They reclaim from defaulted loans or some shit
Get what you pay for
Not this time
Not even close
I tried getting into the attic
Seeing if there was anything like a fuse box there
I searched all up and down the house
For the trap door to the crawl space
No sign of it anywhere
So I did what any self-respecting middle-aged woman
would do, I went out and bought an axe.
As soon as I jammed
the axe into the hall ceiling,
it all started to go to hell.
Shit internet cafe guy is shooing me off.
Be back when I can.
So that's the end of that post.
October 4th, 2005,
so this is like two weeks after the last one.
Continued from last entry.
Let's try this again.
Last two times I got on here,
I was halfway through typing a new entry
when I got kicked out for smelling bad.
Late last night, I snuck into a condo.
took a bath on their rooftop pool,
changed in a fresh clothes I bought at the thrift store.
Getting right back to it, the house bled.
Not like red human blood, but something else.
I got it in my eyes when I chucked the axe into the ceiling,
went to the kitchen and wiped my eyes with a towel.
When I went back to the hall,
a trap door had suddenly opened from the ceiling
and a set of steps or stairs extended to the floor.
Like I had a whole second level or something.
I couldn't see up past a threshold
not because of the angle
but because it was so damn dark
first I thought something black
and large was just blocking the way up
but it wasn't an object
the smell was the most bizarre
a thick, heavy scent of sweets
and baked goods that was trying
desperately to drown out the stench of rotting meat
made me queasy
oh that's so cool
it's got like these
it's got like these
these scent glands to like lure prey in,
but just behind it's all the bodies, you know?
Yeah, exactly.
All the rotting corpses.
And it's like,
it's like this new staircases or the attic staircase
has been rolled out like a tongue.
That's like a tongue sticking out for it or crawl up.
That's so cool.
It's like an adult version.
Do you remember that movie Monster House?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Of course.
It reminds me a lot of that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I wanted to go up there.
no that's not entirely true i didn't want to go but at the same time i had this urge to step up the stairs
like that's what happened next i needed to keep going maybe just poke my head in and look around
and all that dark started arguing with myself about him by the time i finally listened to the screaming
in my head i was already two steps off the floor i turned and ran fast as i could for the front door
the whole house was making these weird noises overhead and the walls cracked like i was in an
old clipper ship out at sea.
The knob on the door wouldn't turn, and my hands were all sweaty by now.
I tried kicking at the damn thing, but it was no use.
The door would not open.
Behind me, I heard this loud sound like a chorus of fat men sucking on their teeth.
Came from somewhere in the middle of the house.
I was going to try and get past the stairs to the sliding door in the back.
It was out the front or not at all.
I grabbed a chair from the little dining area and bashed against the pig
window that looked out on the front yard. Let me tell you, I swung that thing like the bases
were loaded. I am no wimp. I once took down a guy, I once took down a guy full foot taller
than me outside a bar, and that was when I was a little tipsy, but damned if that window
didn't break. Here's what it did. It stretched. It was made of see-through skin. That chair
bounced back and cracked me in the skull hard, and I was left bleeding from my scalp.
Real gusher.
The carpet and living room started swaying like it was grass and a breeze,
and that smell started filling up the front half of the house,
making me wonder why I didn't walk up the stairs in the first place,
making me think the best bet now was to go up and see if there was a way out from the attic.
It took some miracle for me to find my way to the kitchen with a bloody face,
hand scrambling for that towel again.
What I found was a bread knife, those raided ones with the fork end.
I made like I was going back to the living room
then dove at the window again
screaming like a banshee
and I fell right out onto the porch outside
was like the window just opened up ahead of me
that knife was Moses and the glass was the Red Sea
so I remember it Stone Cold Truth
really did the trick was what I found
when I went back two days later
so we have another
that's the end of that entry then we have another one
from October 11th, 2005.
This one says,
vomit notes.
If body fresh,
oh, vomit notes as in just like
unorganized notes, gotcha.
If body fresh, quote unquote,
eaten by house less than 12 hours,
strings attached.
If body cooked inside mouth
for more than 24 hours,
no strings visible.
If body stale,
too long, question,
mark time inside mouth bones physical strings small range just within house can go outside very very
fast movement no strings able to go outside and perform basic tasks slower used as lure or bait
the bones digested and fluid for too long or house gets hungry so that okay that makes sense to me
right because remember in the lonie one how she was taking a bath and the string came out of the drain
grabbed her leg.
Yeah.
That seems like the house physically grabbing you and like puppeteering you around, right?
Right.
As a small range just within house, can't go outside, very, very fast movement.
So is that saying people who are like attached to it?
The strings are moving fast or they're like being puppeted super fast?
I'm guessing that's the strings are moving fast is what I would assume.
Okay.
Okay.
And then no strings able to go outside and perform tasks, lower use to lower bait.
That's what happened to Drew and Mike, right?
Right.
And then bones is just house gets hungry.
Like, it has to digest some to live, and that's where the bones show up when it completely finishes someone, right?
Right.
So warning signs are open sore on nape of neck.
Last string disconnects from here.
Oh, if you see someone who has a sore on the nape of their neck, that is someone who is a puppet of the house.
Yeah, the last string disconnected from that wound on the neck.
Gotcha. Okay.
repeats phrases
unusually strong or weak
okay makes sense
and then connection theory
potentially all same house
TS anomaly
what does that mean T S
I'm not sure
connection theory is
they're all the same house
oh TS time and space
time space anomaly yeah
or multi-dimensional
or just something beyond human understanding
okay so these are just for Vom
notes of how she understands things work. All those makes sense. We've seen clues of all of those
throughout the previous stories. Here's the question I have. Remember how Eric got a message that said
beware flesh puppet? Yeah. What did? I'm scrolling back to that. It says, I got this on my cell
today. The caller ID is listed as unknown. And my text replies bounce back. And it said,
beware the flesh puppet. That was on October 26th. And she's posting this.
on October 11th.
So maybe it was
Lorraine who sent him that message.
If in a second she figures out what he's doing,
it might have been her.
Yeah, she could,
she could have gotten a hold of him.
Yep.
It might have been her message.
So this next one is called,
on October 13th is called for Connie.
Okay, so yes.
Then, okay.
She knows about Eric and Connie
because we knew that
because the only reason we have this link
is because on October the 4th,
14th again of 2005 oh wait no i've got the year wrong um she is posting this stuff in
october of 2005 and that was all happening to eric in october of 2004 it still could have been
still could have been loreen uh but it just would have been a year before this right right so
who knows uh but yeah connie knows about loreen because she's sharing it so now on october 13th
The day before, Colleen shares it to Eric's blog,
Larene posts this on October 13th, called For Connie.
This also makes sense because Connie said,
even though she berated me in her last post.
So, October 13th, 2005, for Connie.
I was going to pick up where I left off last week,
but I had to wait through four email from some woman
before I could get here.
I don't have time to respond to all them.
This bitch box cost me money.
money I could be spending on booze or coffee, my lifeblood.
Look, Connie, or whoever you are.
I don't give a shit if you believe me or not.
It's not my mission to validate my existence for you and your little project.
Yes, I did talk to Mark Conjury.
I'm getting to that.
As for proof or whatever you're looking for from me,
did you not read the bottom entry here?
The proof is gone.
I can't even prove I was a resident in Idaho anymore.
Either you believe me or you don't.
put a blink if you want to get the word out let people decide for themselves no way in hell am i going to
meet you somewhere i didn't survive this long by being stupid if you want i can describe mark for you
i can do that much i'll send that your way as for my last entry with the formulas i just wanted to
get that written down before i forgot i'll talk about them more later some of it's speculation some
of it i've seen with my own eyes i'm not playing tic-tac-toe so none of this
Oh, shit.
All right.
And then finally, we have our last entry from Lorene.
This is on January 17th of 2006.
So this is even three months after the last update on Eric's blog that Colleen posted, right?
So this is three months past anything else we know.
This is the furthest even in the timeline.
We have something titled, I'm back.
So here we go.
Three months and five states later, I got news, kitties.
Sit down and hear me out.
Okay, first off, about what I was saying earlier.
For that woman contacted me and I suddenly got popular.
I mean, about my house.
You know, that was my house.
Maybe that's just how we Americans operate.
But once I put a payment on anything, that sucker's mine.
So after two days, I done came up with a few conclusions,
first of which was to really see what I thought I saw.
It was a monoxide leak.
Or I got sloshed and had some.
episode. Two days in a motel was plenty for me to work up the old courage and go back.
Somebody was living in the house. In my house. Two somebody's turned out. Twin brothers.
My stuff was there. At least the furniture I could see through the windows, but they were
living it up like nothing was wrong. The window I thought I busted through was replaced and everything
looked almost normal, but damn, if you just don't know what to do when you come home and find two
strangers living in your house.
I wasn't even bothered that
they could be out to kill me or something.
No, it worried me.
They were going through my stuff,
put their grubby paws all over my music CDs,
my underwear, sleeping under my covers.
Damn it.
I would have stayed outside,
just watching them move around like shadows
behind the drapes.
Then this nest of blackbird
just made a racket flying out of the little elm tree
in the front yard.
I see those twins at the window staring at me.
Then the front door opened
Like something was there
Invite me inside
No one was there
And something in Lorene's brain said
No monoxide leak
No drunken nightmare
Move your ass
So I listened and I bailed
Left my CDs and my clothes
And my house behind
A few months later
One of the brothers found me in Utah
And I had to kill him dead
Now I got some of the
Now, I got some of that out of the way.
I need to tell you important information.
Enough with history.
I'm your secret agent.
Out of the field.
Getting you the files you need to stay alive.
Theory, somebody had to start building these things, right?
Start snooping around.
Here's what I found.
Get your pencils out.
Near as I can tell,
original designer of the floor plans was a man named Jared Lewis.
He tore down his own house in Topeka and built a new one on top of the foundation.
family left him at some point in the process.
Okay, but there's more.
Lewis was an old student or disciple of some nut named Jack Parsons.
Man, oh man, is there a ton of background on Parsons?
Too much to go into here.
This Lewis guy went after this home building project like he was some land-based Noah.
So I'm still collecting information on this Jared Lewis and his little group of followers.
Should also have some goodies like an actual floor plan and maybe some photos
the house assuming i get up the courage to visit the one in the city where i'm squat now
damn got to go talk more later and i think that's the end of it is that where that ends
that is so sad i don't i feel i feel like there should be more if not that's crazy it's actually
the ending well hold on let me look unless the guy just like stop wanting to write
what name did she say uh at the end jack parsons
Yeah.
Okay, listen to this intro from Wikipedia.
John Whiteside Parsons, born Marvel Whiteside Parsons,
was an American rocket engineer chemist and thelamite occultist.
Parsons was one of the principal founders of both the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
and the Aerojet Engineering Corporation.
He invented the first rocket engine to use castable composite rocket propellant
and pioneer the advancement of both the liquid fuel
and solid fuel rockets.
Parsons referred to Thelima,
a religious movement founded by English occultist
Alistair Crowley.
Oh, okay, I see where this is coming.
Alster Crowley is seen as like the
head of like modern satanic worship
and like paganism and stuff like that.
I know the Ozzy song, dude.
Oh, excuse me.
Sorry.
Mr. Crowley.
Shortly afterward,
Elron Humver, defrauded Parsons
of his life savings.
small world
this is the craziest
his career in rocketry ended
due to accusations of espionage
and the increasing trend of McCarthyism
Parsons died at the age of 37
in a home laboratory explosion
in 1952
his death was officially ruled an accident
but many of his associates suspected suicide
or murder
what the heck?
Are they trying to sit this is Jack Parsons' house
I think that's what they're trying to say.
I, okay, so here's what I suspect happened.
Let me double check this.
I think what happened.
When did he sell this to Warner Brothers?
2000, 2005.
He sold it in 2005?
That's what it is.
Yeah, he wrote it in 2002, started writing in 2002, and then sold it in 2005.
Okay.
So almost certainly what happened, and this sucks, but that's part of it.
I had that pulled up here.
Okay.
So nine months, the final, the fourth story, the blog of Lorraine Mathers is told through January
of 2006, nine months.
She goes to explain various details.
Evidently, it was supposed to be, okay, I'm reading about the Dionea house, right?
Evidently, it was supposed to be made into a movie, but it unfortunately was in development
hell and was scheduled to release in 2011 under the title, The Occupants,
another point the residence according to the creator it's dead for now whether or not the
door shall be ever made seen okay what i think was happening is he was part of writing it and then
they were like you need to stop writing that publicly well yeah i think he was writing it and his
plan was to connect it to jack parsons and a bunch of weird occultists like real world history
alister crowley all the strange stuff and then he ends up like as soon as he writes that last entry in
January of 06.
Or you said he sold it in
05. So right after he sells
it, he makes that entry.
So, okay, so right after he sells it,
he makes that entry
and then they're like, you have to quit.
Because the next paragraph, again, this is going off
TV tropes.org, says
as of September of 2014,
there has been no further word regarding
the Dionea house film. And Eric
Heiserer still isn't allowed
to continue the story. Yeah,
Warner Brothers definitely cucked them again.
and, you know, Warner Brothers does that.
They're pieces of shit.
Yeah, he wrote from autumn of 2004 to winter of 2006.
I bet you anything.
They, because it was in development hell,
they were probably like,
you need to stop adding to this.
I bet you anything is what it is.
Like, they stopped them from doing it.
Yep.
I guarantee you that's what it was.
And then, okay, now I'm interested.
So he had this whole direction he was going to go with like occultism,
stuff like that.
It didn't go anywhere.
But according to tvetrobes.com,
there is another story
that he posted in 2014
called information
I'm dumping here for safekeeping.
And this is on no sleep.
And he post and says this.
This is the first paragraph.
Okay, first things first, I'm Eric Heiserer.
Well, I've been a lurking reader here.
I've been more active on Imger for the past year or so.
10 years ago, I wrote an online epistolary story
called The Dionea House
that caught some attention, including here on Reddit,
and it launched my screenwriting career.
Since then, I've learned some brutal lessons about working for studios,
and I've had some rewarding experiences too,
but the most interesting are the potential horror project
sent my way for adaptation,
either as a movie or a documentary.
The minute you succeed with one scary story,
everyone calls you the horror guy.
For the past years, I've been a kind of catch-all for weird and creepy stuff.
Sometimes I'm approached by a friend or extended family member
with a disturbing experience,
and they just want someone to listen to them
and not say they're nuts.
And then he launches from there,
and it is,
he wrote a creepy pasta
about him coming across
a very strange story.
So he basically wrote himself
into a horror story.
But that opening paragraph
of that story implies to me
that he was writing the dining house,
and then it launched his screenwriting career,
and then as he said,
I've learned some brutal lessons
about working for studios.
So they've shut him
they took the rights to it
were going to make a movie
never made a movie and did not allow him to continue
the story classic Hollywood
I will say if there's another
creepy pasta by him I would definitely want to read it
because this is a lot of fun
it's not a completed story
but once again as I've said
I'm going to be a broken record about it
that you could read part of this
and just end it and you could be like
oh and they're gone you know like
the more you give into it the more
I really like how customizable
this reading experience could be
if you wanted to but you know
I do wish of
there was an ending to it that we could see if he did go into the weird occult stuff and
all that kind of jazz. But, you know, Warner Brothers do be, do be fucking you. That is super
lame. I would like it. Okay, so this guy is still an active screenwriter, right? He like
writes stuff online all the time. And I remember the Dionea house being a huge influence to a lot
of stories I read as a child, even if I don't remember listening to it. People talked about
the story all the time. I would love to
see him continue this story in whatever way needs to be and just tell me who I have to yell at to make
that happen and it'll have it. I would love to see this continue. I'm really bought in. It sucks that the
whole, you know, studio deal went the way that it did. But from everything we got, this was super
interesting. I enjoyed it a lot. Well, you know, it is what it is. This was a fantastic episode of
Creepcast. This is a bit of a journey. This was a long episode for us. We had a lot of different stuff
going on today. We got to record all of it. So I'm glad we were able to do it all in one sitting.
but I am exhausted and tired.
So it is time that I finally get my sleep.
Before you leave, though, how did you feel about it, the dining house?
No, I said, I mean, I liked it.
I liked it a lot.
I think in terms of originality, I mean, you're talking about how it's basically just
house of leaves now.
I would need to read that book to understand the connections there.
But I will say that in terms of just like a weird, like, fleshy house that
eat you and lures people in and it kind of basically creates missing posters out of real
people to lure people in as a Venus fly trap.
I think it's just a really compelling idea.
And then to have it be email exchanges and have it to be blog post is a great Twitter
ARG.
I like that he also included the comments to reflect to make it more natural and real.
And I know that there's people being like, oh, this is fake or whatever.
I bet you 80% of people were buying into the shit because he also, it took a long time to get to
the spot where it's like oh the house eats people you know it doesn't just immediately throw that
kind of suspension of disbelief or whatever uh out i it doesn't happen all at once yeah yeah i i
really like the story i like the way it was done uh i didn't mean to say it directly rips off house
of leaves a house of leaves is about there's a house that becomes multi-dimensional like
it has hallways that extend for hundreds of miles and like these infinite staircases the reason
i said this is house of leaves all of a sudden
is because a lot of the aesthetic of house of leaves
is like guys loading up
like they're going on a winter expedition
like they have coats, they have flashlights and guns
to open a closet in a house
because they don't know how long that closet will go.
So that's why I said this is literally like house of leaves.
Yeah, on that laundryless part.
Yeah.
This realistically had more in common with like monster house
than I think it does like House of Leaves.
Yeah.
So it's just a living house.
and I think that's really cool.
As you said before, too,
I love the idea of it having pheromones
that lures you in
because it's a sweet-smelling thing.
But as you get closer to it,
you can smell the actual dead rotting meat
inside of it that's just been like digesting there.
Also,
whenever she stabbed,
uh,
whenever Lorraine stabbed the ceiling,
I'm guessing it was just stomach acid pouring out of the ceiling.
Um,
and that way,
when,
where the body's been digesting,
I think is in the attic.
Yeah.
Is what I assume.
But it's like the,
The supernatural second floor is like its stomach that it lures you in with.
It's so cool.
I think this is a great story.
I'm a big fan.
Yeah.
No, I had a lot of fun with it.
I've once again,
I've never heard of this.
And I know that you said that this was a classic.
And it's just cool to see these things where we've been lately tapping into these OG creepy pasta stuff.
And people utilizing a new thing like the internet for, uh,
the means of horror storytelling is just extremely compelling.
Um,
and also just want us to give a shout out to to all the people that have picked up some of the
so far. We do have the new hoodie,
the beanie, and the shirt. Our store is
basically stacked right now. So be sure
and check that out because it's a lot
of fun goodies and
they're very, very good. I have...
Get in all the merch if you're... I wear my hoodie all the time.
Get in the merch if you're interested. I think it's very
comfy. And thank you so much to the people
who have already supported us through that. You really don't
have to do that, but it means a lot and lets us
keep doing stupid stuff like this. So we appreciate
it. Thank you. Thank you all so much.
And until next time, everyone, stay
scared. You creeps.
We'll see the next one.
Scare your creeps and be sure to get completely naked on the side of the road and dress like a Venus flytrap with a flower pot.
Bye.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Bye.
Bye.
Yes, yes, yes.