Endless Thread - Endless Dread: Campfire Chills 2... Campfire Kills!

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

It's that time of year. Spooky stories from the internet — again! Last year, Endless Thread brought you "Campfire Chills," an assortment of hair-raising tales from the dark depths of Reddit. Now, Ben Brock Johnson, Amory Sivertson, and Dean Russell reconvene around the fire to give you even more reasons to stay awake. Happy Halloween! ***** This episode was produced by Dean Russell, Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson. Mix and sound design by Paul Vaitkus. The co-hosts are Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson.

Support for endless thread comes from Mathworks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com. Support for this podcast comes from Nature is the Solution, a podcast from The Nature Conservancy. This show tells climate stories like a stubborn optimist, because hope, innovation, and nature itself are key. to solving the challenges ahead. Follow on your favorite podcast app. I'm too close to this fire. It is huge. Wow. Oh my God.

Take your microphone. You're crispy. Oh my God. Just a little extra crispy. Can we just record on the record? You, Ben Brock Johnson, singed the dead. Ted Cat for the shotgun microphone.

I was at a very reasonable distance, and nobody asked me to move the mic away until it was too late. I'll break it down a little bit. We are back sitting around the fire pit in my backyard, just outside of Boston. And we've got some spooky stories for you for this month of endless dread. I love this. I'm so glad to be back with you guys in this spooky story. this lightly singed microphone cover situation. What would this sequel be?

What would this sequel to Endless Dread be? We called the first one Campfire chills. So... Campfire thrills. Campfire kills. Campfire kills. Who wants to go first? I've got one that I can start with.

Please. That I picked for you just hoping that you would hate it. All right. So it's gonna, someone, Dean might hate it too. I don't know.

Yeah, probably will. I feel like you've said to me many times, I don't like eye stuff. Oh, God. Great.

We're going body horror on this one. Oh, no. Where's it from? Short, scary stories. Okay. This is known to be a fiction subreddit.

I would say so. Yeah. The description is, We enjoy our horror short and sweet, 500 words or less. Wow. Okay. Today, my little sister woke up missing her eyes. What? This is the title of this story.

Posted by user Kasuyagi. All the tests showed no abnormality except for her skull x-ray missing her eye sockets. The doctors were speechless. This is how the story is. starts. The little sister of the person who's written this post is named, can you guess? No eyes.

It's a good guess. Iris is her name. Cruel. The person writes that Iris adjusts to her new life without eyes slowly. She takes a break from school. She's out of school for a while.

This older brother, whose name is Isaac, says... Isaac. Actually, she was always strange prior to this incident. And the way that he describes her strangeness is she's 10 years old,

but she could speak really no more than two words per sentence. So she, you know, she is kind of a strange 10-year-old. So she'd say things like, Isaac, hungry, to tell her brother that she's hungry. She used to draw flowers on everything. and when her eyes mysteriously went missing, Iris draws something different. She starts drawing eyes.

She draws them everywhere on desks. She draws them on the wall. She draws them all over the place. And it's really tiring. The family has to clean up the eye drawings. Every time mom tried to make her draw only on paper, Iris threw a tantrum. She said that she saw,

with the eyes that she was drawing. Then one day she starts saying something. She starts saying, mom fell. At first, the older brother doesn't understand it. She draws a bunch of eyes around the stairs and says, mom fell. Weeks later, the mother falls down that flight of stairs. The mother's in the hospital.

So now the older brother, Isaac, is home alone. alone with Iris. He takes away all of Iris's art supplies, because it's really annoying him, how she's drawing eyes all over the place. Yeah. Her mood gets worse and worse. He comes home one day from school.

The living room is coated in eyes painted with ketchup. She's found her way to the ketchup and has painted eyes. Horrifying image. Yuck. And then something worse happens. His little sister, Iris, starts saying Isaac dead.

Oh, Isaac. Dead. Get out of there. So he's freaking out. One night he buys a UV lamp. What he discovers is eyes are all over his house on the walls. In invisible ink.

She steps into the living room with him. and the black light shows that she has drawn eyes all over her own body. She starts saying it again. She starts saying, Isaac dead, Isaac dead. She sprints and tackles her brother screaming. She says, Isaac dead. Isaac dead. He's really freaked out.

To put it lightly. Put it lightly. He's really freaked out. The eyes. on her body start to shine brighter and brighter. And then the whole room lights up, followed by a loud bang. He turns his head and half the living room is destroyed. As the dust clears, there's something large in the middle of the room.

It's a truck that has crashed through the front door right where he was standing a few minutes before. Then his face feels a splat. Clear water dripped from each of the eyes painted on his

little sister. Her voice trembles and repeatedly she says Isaac safe. She saved him. Yeah. She's trying to save her mom and her brother.

I have to admit, when it first started, I was like, nah. I want to just like make this girl creepy just because she doesn't have eyes. And then with the eyes getting drawn everywhere, once we got to the catch-up. And once you remember that when she draws eyes everywhere, she's saying that she can see through those eyes. Right.

That's, that doesn't work for me. I think there's something creepy about seeing into the future. Yes, very much so. Because if you know, that you're going to... I mean, that's a very terrifying thought. Knowing to some extent that you are going to die and not knowing what to do to prevent it.

Or that someone else is going to... Someone close to you is going to... Right. Can we add more logs to the fire? Yeah, yeah. We'll be back after these messages. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. We do also like to get into other kinds of stories.

Stories about policing or politics. Country music. Hockey. Sex. Of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew.

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Whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org slash creative studio. Okay, Dean, you have a story. My story is taken from R slash true scary stories, which is a subreddit for true scary stories. Yep. And I'm going to call it, the name of the actual post gives away too much. So I'm going to call it late night drive. Yes, Amory?

You have something to say? I'm wondering if we have the same story. Go ahead. Proceed. Oh. Was yours by U-Sash Practical Sink? Yep. Was it?

All of the stories on Reddit? The entire existence of Reddit? All of the stories on Reddit. You guys filter in the same way. I like the idea of telling it together. I think that would be nice. I can start with how I was going to start for the two of you. Sure. Let's do it.

Which is just to say a question. from your lives. What is the creepiest thing that has happened to you while driving? I will say this actually happened like two weeks ago. I was driving home from work, from Boston, and driving back into the woods in central Massachusetts. And there's a road that I get off the highway and I get onto this road that's like a long road that goes through the woods and kind of like up and down through the mountains.

Yes, I know the exact road you're talking about. But I was driving down that road a couple of weeks ago, and I was talking on the phone with a friend, and there was a motorcycle overturned in the road. There was no person or body there. And I was like, oh, my God. And so I, like, hung up with my friend, and I turned the car around, and I came back to see what had happened. I was like, oh, my God, what am I going to, like, come upon? Yeah. And then this like, bad ass old lady walks out of the darkness with her little dog.

It was her motorcycle. And she was trying to take a turn and it fell over. And she lived like right there. And so I helped her pick the motorcycle up. And she was like, oh, you know what? I have something for you. And I was like, what? And she opens up one of the saddlebags on the motorcycle and pulls out a piece of chocolate.

cake. It was like she was coming back from dinner. And she was like, would you like this piece of chocolate cake? And I was like, no, I don't. And she was like, no, I want you to have it. And I was like, yes, ma'am. And I took the chocolate cake home with me. And it, yeah, it was very nice. Wow. Wow. That's my creepy story. So I was in Boy Scouts and we were at a camp where all the Food was terrible. And someone knew about a grocery store that was supposedly like a mile down the road. So at midnight, we snuck out. Classic moves right there.

Love that. How old were you? Teenagers, but young teenagers. Yeah. And so we snuck out. We got to this highway, just like one lane highway and dark and you can't see anything. And we started running. and then we keep running and then we keep running

and then it's like an hour has passed. Oh no. And so we start walking. Then we start to hear this like yowling in the woods and it's like that's cool hard to identify. I feel like you just made up a word. It's not howling.

It's not yelling. It's not yelping. It's yowling. I'm going with it. I can picture what a yowl is. Okay. Yeah. And then we hear it again.

And then it starts. to get louder. And then we start to hear movement around us. And now we start to freak out because we're like three 13 year olds in in like the middle of nowhere. Who have exhausted their running abilities. Yes. And we're like convinced that some sort of like mountain lion or something like that's kind of like tear us to shreds. Yeah. And then the dumbest thing I will ever do is that we saw one car come and we like desperately waved down the car using our flesh. It pulls up. It's not a car. It's like an 18 wheeler. Oh, my God.

With this, like, huge, like, dude who was just like, you kids need a ride. And we took a ride with this complete stranger at, like, two in the morning. I would say 99 times out of 100. That's fine. I don't know if I'd say 99 times out of 100. I feel like 99 times out of 100. This OP has said that the reaction that they get to this story is that people either don't believe them or people say, I had something like that happen. And I just think freaky things can happen behind the wheel that have nothing to do with operating the actual motor vehicle.

So let's set the scene a little bit. Yep. Okay. It's 2018, 2019. this person thinks. Okay. They are 18 and 19 years old themselves. Okay.

They live in Nebraska. It's funny, they say, I lived in the largest city in Nebraska. It's like, it's Omaha. It's Omaha, dude. So they're living in Nebraska, but... By the way, I gave her a name. I named her Marion, because I thought it'd be easier to tell this story. Marion, I like that.

Yeah, sure. I don't know. Okay. So Marion's living in... Omaha, Nebraska. But, Nebraska, Omaha is going through this, you know, period of time, like a lot of these cities that are, start more rural, where they're building a lot of bigger houses as they expand from the kind of rural part of Nebraska into the city. So you've got some, you got some houses on the border, shall we say, between city living and country rural, nothing really out there living. That being said, they don't live in one of these areas, but they have a friend who lives in one of these areas.

Yeah. So the road there is a sort of like narrow, vacant road. And it goes from this quiet, smallish city with lights and traffic to these quieter fields of like Nebraska corn and wheat and forests and dense pine. And they keep spinning or Marion keeps spinning. or Marion keeps spending time at this friend's house because they have a lot of, it's like this expansive property, they have plenty of room to sort of drink and drive four by fours and be young, careless adults. The only thing that Marion does not like about the place

is driving the road at night. There's one particular night that they're making this drive, presumably back from their friend's house, right? It's dark, we think it's late-ish. It's 10 p.m. just after 10. That's late enough for me. And also on this road to get back to their house,

you drive by a cemetery, which only makes things worse. But on this particular night, they're feeling like a teenager. They've got the windows down. They're listening to music. Okay. Rocking some tunes. They're rocking some tunes. And they're coming around a curve in the road

when they see something that makes them slam on their brakes. Oh, boy. The tires skid and her, like, body jolts and her heart stops because they're in the middle of this unlit road just before Marion's car is a family. Oh. They're holding no flashlights. They're just standing with their backs to Marion's car.

No. See, I hate that. Any situation in which somebody is standing, not facing you, it's a real Blair Witch vibe, and I am not here for it. And we're in the total darkness. So it's just her headlights and this family, which consists of a man of medium height. He's dressed in nice enough clothes. A woman was tall and slender.

And a child of about eight years old. Okay. And the woman appears to be pushing a stroller, but it's difficult to tell because none of them turn around. In fact, none of them seem to even register the car's presence. They are just there. Don't like this. Marion didn't like this either. And she's kind of slowly driving behind the family as they keep walking in the direction that her car was going.

She gave a friendly beep. Beep, beep, beep. Hey, I'm here. You know, it's not in the story, but sure, that's what Ben would do. That is totally what you would do. Oh, my God. You would get out of your car and be like, You guys need something?

You guys need anything? And they turn around and there's zombies. So this family is walking, even though Marion's driving slowly behind them. Maybe it's just dark and they don't hear a car. Who knows? Okay. Marion turns their music down because, again, they had music blaring, and they wanted to see, like, are they talking?

Are they not into Taylor Swift? Are they into Taylor Swift? Like, what, should I turn it down? Or what? Okay. So they're not. They're not speaking to each other. And as the silence of this all becomes very apparent,

Marion says, the hairs on her arms immediately stood up. And just as she said, She's wondering if she's lost her mind. The family slowly, in unison, turns around and looks dead at Marion. Oh, God. She just puts the car in reverse. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And says that she is not looking them in the face because she's so terrified about what she might see. Oh, wow. Okay. So she doesn't look at them in the face. Okay. No, she doesn't get a look at. at their faces. But she does get a look at the stroller and believes it to be empty. So they're pushing an empty stroller, doesn't see the faces.

Strike one, strike two. She puts the car in reverse. She says she puts it in reverse probably for a full 20 seconds, which is a long time. That's a long time. That's like 200 yards or something. Yeah, so she's checking that rear view mirror. She never gets another glimpse of them. See, I hate that. I hate that. I hate that. She looking at the corn, the walls of corn? God, I hope not. And she says she never sees this family ever again. And she tries asking her friend about it and her friend's family about it.

And they kind of all think she's nuts for bringing it up. As do many people, but not Reditors. Some of the commenters are like, you need to find out who this family is. This is a ghost family. and you need to find out who this family is. I'm exaggerating a little bit. Like nobody is saying, like, figure out who it is. But there were some clear hypotheses that if they are pushing a stroller and the baby is missing, one hypothesis, the opposite.

One hypothesis was, yeah, go ahead. The family's dead, but the baby lived? Yes. That this is like the result of some car accident in which, Everybody died except for the baby. Wow. And now these ghosts are stuck just pushing around an empty stroller. Yeah, I'm creeped out by that.

I do not, like hard, do not believe in ghosts, but that's creepy. Yeah. I want to know, like, why this kind of thing is scary to us. Do you know what I mean? People in the road. Is it just, like, danger? Because people don't belong in the road. Right.

I think that's what it is. It's like you're, it's, you're alone. You know, right? Like you're on a lonely road, so it's not like there's other traffic, presumably, in most cases, or at least. Right? And then, yes, a person doesn't belong in the road. It's like something is out of place. Yeah, something's wrong.

And that person is either like in trouble or they are trouble. Yeah. So, a little scary story dessert. Okay. This was from an Ask Reddit thread. The title of the post is, what's the scariest 100% true story you've heard? heard of. This redditor,

Malice Fairwind, I'm probably mispronouncing all of that. She writes, I'm the firstborn, and when I was just a wee babe, I already loved this person. My mother put me to bed and headed off to bed herself. Being new parents, they were all about the baby monitor.

Dad was already asleep, and just as my mom was drifting off, she heard the tell-tale crackle. And the voice says, Don't worry, sweetheart. Mommy's here. Needless to say, my mom about shit herself

and catapulted to the nursery to find me fast asleep and totally alone. Turns out the neighbor just had a baby too and they were picking up each other's signals. Yes, that's what I'm talking about. I don't need no weird-ass signals

from the neighbor's house. Yep. And then somebody's. comments. Funny version of this story. My nursery was closest to the neighbors and one particular evening, my dad was on solo baby duty while my mom had a girl's night with my older sister. Well, apparently I was inconsolable and refused to sleep. Typical baby stuff. And my exhausted dad was fed up and just began saying, what do you want? How can I help you? Well, rocking me. Then he hears the baby monitor crackle and the Australian accent of our neighbor,

who also had a six-month-old baby. She wants the baby nightlight with the lullaby, mate. Your wife keeps it in the top drawer under the changer. My dad was so stunned and grateful that he just blinked and said, thanks. And an equally tired voice replied, no worries. And they carried on with their nights alone, yet side by side. This has been a good,

campfire chills Campfire thrills Campfire kills Endless dread is always Spreading the Spookies Can't wait to drive home Oh God Talk about spookies

You're gonna go on that creepy road Oh I'm gonna go on that creepy road You're gonna go on the highway Endless Thread is a production of WBUR in Boston Sometimes in my backyard This episode was produced by Dean If You Dare Russell And co-hosted by Dean

Ben Brock Bone-Chilling Johnson, and me, Amory All Hallows Eve, Siebertson. Mix and sound design by Paul Pumpkin-Eater Vycice. The rest of our team is Grace Tatter, Emily Jankowski, and Sumitajoshi. Endless thread is a show about the blurred lines between truth and fiction, at least when it comes to scary stories online. If you have a story, perhaps in untold history, an unsolved mystery, or some other story from the internet that you want us to tell, hit us up endless thread at wbUR.org.

Happy Halloween.