Just Creepy: Scary Stories - 4 Terrifying TRUE Horror Stories That Will Haunt You Forever

Episode Date: July 26, 2024

These are 4 Terrifying TRUE Horror Stories That Will Haunt You Forever Linktree: https://linktr.ee/its_just_creepy Story Credits: ►Sent in to https://www.justcreepy.net/ Timestamps: 00:00 Into 00:00:18 Story 1 00:14:42 Story 2 00:29:06 Story 3 00:51:04 Story 4 Music by: 'Decoherence' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM_AjpJL5I4&t=0s Business inquiries: ►[e-mail] #scarystories #horrorstories #redditstories 💀As always, thanks for watching! 💀

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Those who are going to give me problems and those who aren't. They come in all shapes, sizes, and characters. But you can always categorize them into one of those two groups, and you can tell which one they will be from the moment you lay eyes on them. I figured Mike would be the troublesome kind, not so much because of what he had done, but because of whom he had done it too. Back in the late 80s,

Mike worked as a tunneling engineer for a major construction company in the southwest. He worked on tourist attractions, mining sites, waste management sites, and even an R&D facility for a pharmaceutical company. He made great money, but then one day, Mike's boss told him that all the work was drying up and his services would no longer be required. This left Mike in a difficult situation because he had a mortgage, credit card, and car payments to keep up with.

And a seven-month-long crash in the regional construction business meant that he couldn't get a callback from any other company, let alone a sit-down with a CFO or a workable contract. As the prospects of defaulting and foreclosure started to loom large, Mike got a call from a guy asking, if he was free to do some work. Mike said it was like a bolt from the blue. He was ready to dig a tunnel to China if it paid enough to keep the repo men away. However, the more he talked to the representative

of his potential new employer, the more he realized it wasn't going to be like any other job. Mike offered to send over his license number, insurance, and bonding information, something 95% of employers would ask for before even discussing a project with a potential contractor. contractor. But the guy on the phone didn't seem interested. In a way that would have been creepy if it weren't for the friendly manner of offering work, the caller told Mike that they were familiar

with his work, had done their due diligence, and were ready to offer him the job once he'd signed a confidentiality agreement. In all the years Mike had been digging and blasting tunnels, no one had ever asked him to sign anything resembling a confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement. So right away, he figured this particular job was going to be different. But when he heard what the rate of pay was going to be, he almost choked on thin air. The most he had ever been paid for a single day's work was about $800, which, as any contractor will tell you, is a solid amount, especially during those first five to ten years of trading. But the job Mike was being offered by the guy who didn't seem to care if he was legit or not was 2,000.

$2,000 cash in hand at the end of every single day. Mike said it was like a kiss on the cheek on one side and a slap in the face on the other. $2,000 a day was good money, but in cash every day, it was way too good to be true. But at the same time, Mike wasn't in the position to turn his nose up at that kind of money, so instead of flat out refusing, he thought he'd play along, see what the job entailed, and then make a definite decision at a later date. A few days later, the guy called him back and told him to drive out to the parking lot of some diner near Columbus, New Mexico. But he was to get there at 10 p.m., Mike showed up when he was

supposed to, thinking that the job was going to be at the diner. But instead, he found a whole crew of guys standing around in the cold. When he got out of his car and identified himself, someone with an authoritative air about them told him to wait with the others. Some time later, a long Greyhound-style bus showed up, and Mike correctly assumed that they would be traveling to the work site. What he didn't expect was for everyone to be given their very own blindfold. Obviously, this made everyone pretty nervous, but they were reminded of the pay, and that they could walk away at any time they wanted. The only condition was that they wear the blindfolds when traveling to and from the work site. Mike said a couple of guys actually walked back to their cars and drove away,

which, in all fairness, is exactly what he should have done too. But, as we've already covered, he had his plan laid out. So he got onto the bus, put on his blindfold, and then waited to be told to unmask. Mike said the bus must have traveled down a highway for a while because the ride was pretty smooth, but then that all changed when they turned down what was obviously some kind of side or dirt road. The journey continued for a little while, then the bus came to a little while. then the bus came to a stop, but instead of being allowed to take off their blindfolds, Mike and the company were let off the bus still blindfolded,

then walked all the way into some large building before being allowed to demask. Mike said that the inside looked like a warehouse that had been gutted of shelving before all the floor paneling had been ripped up. Someone had already gotten to work digging a pretty deep hole. They just had to wait for the engineers to get there before really opening up the tunnel. Mike said that, aside from the real secretive nature of it all, it was a very professional operation. Whoever wanted the tunnel dug had all the right materials and machinery. They just didn't have the expertise.

Before they got to work, someone asked why all the secrecy, and the group was told that it was a decision from corporate. They operated in a viciously competitive market, and so certain security measures had to be taken to ensure their employer maintained an advantage. For the most part, this answer seemed to satisfy, but Mike said that there was still a handful, himself included, that had a feeling what they were doing wasn't strictly legal. And he was right. Mike said that he made close to $30,000 before one morning, as the bus rolled back into the diner parking lot just before dawn, a bunch of federal agents ambushed the bus, dragged everyone out, and arrested them on the spot.

It turns out their task had been to dig a tunnel under the border with Mexico. and their employers had been the Juarez drug cartel. In light of that, Mike and the rest of the guys he'd worked with were hit with a ton of different charges, big ones too, some of which implicated them as active members of an international drug smuggling operation. He got 45 years, but that's not really the story that I want to tell you today.

You see, as crazy as that story is, it's not the most frightening one Mike ever told me. This one occurred during his first week in federal prison, when he found himself a very small and very new fish dropped into some very dark and stormy waters. Mike said that the first week or so in prison was the most terrifying of his entire life. He'd spent a long time in jail, and that all counted toward time served, but being busted to a federal lockup was when he finally gave up hope that he might somehow be able to appeal some of the charges.

The prosecution painted him as some hardened cartel operative, who had put the nation's security at risk in exchange for personal gain. All the cash he earned was seized, and he liquidated all of his assets to buy the best defense attorney he could afford, but it was no good. And when his cell door closed shut on that first night in prison, it took everything in Mike's power not to break down and weep. You've got to remember he was only 24 at the time of his arrest,

25 by the time he got to federal prison. I'm almost 60 now, and looking back on 25, you're basically still half a kid. How Mike managed to get himself involved in such a hairbrained scheme to begin with is beyond me. But even as someone with such a strong inclination toward law and order, I can't say Mike's punishment entirely fit the crime. Mike was scared, but he was an adult. He knew what he'd have to do to survive,

and that was to get into the good graces of a pre-established group to gain safety in numbers. He did so as quickly as he could, and was told his timing was perfect because anyone who showered alone became a target for Black Betty. Betty wasn't the guy's first name. His last name was Betany or something like that, and he wasn't called Black because he was African American.

He got that part of his nickname because he scared the living crap out of people. He was just shy of seven feet tall, I heard, but a lean 200 pounds in change. He was mean, he could fight. But the worst thing was that every so often, Black Betty got a taste for his fellow convicts. If you were in with a bunch of guys, you could shower together,

and although Black Betty sometimes followed and just stood there watching, he didn't make a move on anyone. But then, if you weren't with anyone, and you were one of the stragglers who showered alone, Black Betty would follow them in and take them, as he said. Mike said that he didn't shower for days, not until he and his new buddies decided to head down to the showers together, When the time came, Mike said that he was hugely looking forward to it, as he had a bad case of stink ass, and underarms that smelled like hot death.

But when it came to heading to the shower block, Mike was told that he was going alone. At first, he thought it was some kind of joke, but it wasn't. His new buddies, who all of a sudden weren't acting very much like his buddies anymore, were deadly serious. He was going to go first, and he was going to go alone. and if he had anything else in mind, he could expect not to survive the night. Mike said he was stunned. It felt like a nightmare that he was going to wake up from at any moment. Only he didn't wake up because it wasn't a nightmare.

It was actually happening, and he was screwed. He said he needed to take a shower, not wanted to, needed to, so he waited until a few other new fish headed down, looking scared and alone, and hoped that he would get lost in the crowd. and when I say crowd, I mean maybe two or three other convicts, aware of the threat Black Betty posed. Everyone tried to wash up as quickly as they could, but it wasn't fast enough. Betty had seen them walking off to the showers and followed, soap and towel in hand. As soon as he appeared, everyone started rushing off, but Black Betty didn't pay them any mind.

Instead, he had his eyes fixed on old Mikey Boy, and when he tried to slip past like the rest of the new fish, Black Betty blocked his way. Betty backed him all the way up to the back wall of the shower block, saying all this stuff that was making Mike's skin crawl, warning him that if he fought back, it was only going to make things worse. Mikey was thinking that there was no way that he was about to just give up and give in, but at the same time,

there was no way that he was going to win a one-on-one fight with Black Betty. But even so, the best option was to give it his best shot, and if Betty killed him in the process, well, There were worse fates than death. Mike's back was right up against the wall, and he was about to tell his would-be violator that he would die before he turned around when he saw this flash of movement over Betty's shoulder.

Suddenly, someone hooked a towel around Betty's neck and then jerked it back, sending him slamming backwards into the tiled floor of the shower block. The impact cracked Betty's head open, and while his eyes were still rolling in their sockets, the guys that had ordered Mike to shower alone appeared and stuck Black Betty so full of holes that he looked like a blood sponge by the time they were done. Before they departed, Betty's killers told Mike that, and I quote, you didn't see anything,

which is exactly what he told the warden when he was dragged into his office later on that day. He was so traumatized by what he'd seen that the warden and his top guys had no trouble believing the story. They knew it wasn't Mike who had stabbed Betty over 100 times. They just didn't know who did. When Mike wandered back onto the wing, the first people who wanted to talk to him were his buddies. They showered him in smokes, contraband, and all kinds of commissary. Mike said that they even had a plastic cup full of prison wine waiting for him to glug down, out of sight of the guards. Long story short, they used him as bait. Betty wouldn't go for just anyone. Mike was his type, and it was either risk him or keep everyone at risk, because Betty wasn't just a habitual

predator. He was an opportunistic one too. While Betty was around, no one was safe, but with Betty gone, Mike amounted to a cell block hero. It was his arrival that had given them a golden opportunity to take Betty down, as they knew that Mike was the kind of new fish that Betty would have his eye on. The thing was, Mike's buddies knew that if they let him in on the plan, there was a chance that he'd be too scared to go through with it, and so a little coercion seemed in order. Mike stayed with the group of guys for a long time before later being transferred to a medium security prison called Three Rivers, where he served out the rest of his sentence. Luckily, there was no one like Black Betty around to terrorize the inmates. To me, the idea

of being used as bait to lure out a human animal is one of the most frightening concepts I can possibly think of. But while I've heard that ignorance is bliss, I think not knowing you're the bait might be even more terrifying. What's worse, Betty's killers floated the idea of only beginning their ambush once he was, shall we say, occupied with Mike. That way they could ensure that he'd be suitably distracted, but it also meant condemning Mike to a truly nightmarish fate. Thankfully for him, they decided that they couldn't live with that, not by unanimous decision anyways, but they came to that decision all the same. Last time I spoke with him, Mikey was driving for Uber up in Dallas.

He said he had a girlfriend and that she had a kid and that he felt more and more like a father by the day. He's come a long way since digging tunnels in Mexico, and he's come a long way since being used as bait for a monster. How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount, safe driver discount, new vehicle discount, storage discount, legacy.

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to little rascal nuggets or minor nuisance nuggets, definitely Diablo. New Diablo-dusted crispy chicken nuggets, a brand new classic. Only at Taco Bell. At participating U.S. Taco Bell locations for a limited time and while supplies last. There's so much strangeness,

and so much can go wrong for a person. out in the desert. It's no wonder places like this are considered some of the most dangerous in the world. There's no cover from the elements, no water, and everything in the dirt seems intent on hurting or even killing you. This is a countdown to my most messed up desert experience. Buckle up. To start off lightly, once on a remote dirt road in Joshua tree, I saw a decomposing rattlesnake. I pulled over to inspect it. It was three to four feet long and had been dead for perhaps a week, still mostly intact. The snake had been run over, and I found it with its neck turned sharply, biting its body. I tell you this story to put the desert into perspective for those who haven't

really experienced it. This rattlesnake preferred to break its own neck and commit suicide with a fatal bite rather than suffer under the sun. It's absolutely brutal to see. Next, I was in Butt Valley for a few months after the Death Valley Germans disappeared, and explored some of the places they had been to. For those who don't know, the Death Valley Germans were a family from Germany, a husband, wife, and two children. They were on a vacation trip through California when they decided to tour Death Valley, not fully understanding the dangers.

After the father got them lost, he got their van stuck, and the family was forced to walk. This all took place in 1996. They weren't found until 2009. by then reduced to nothing but bones bleached by the sun. These folks were simply unprepared for the harsh realities of the desert. Stories like these need to be talked about and understood to prevent them from happening again. Too many day-trippers head out into seriously dangerous territory only to find themselves stuck, lost, or both.

Rescue services often don't even know where to begin searching for them without proper precautions, and attempts at retrieval are almost always too late. It was a shame because there were two well-equipped cabins they passed less than an hour's walk away, but they could have thrived for a month if necessary in the opposite direction. The wash is soft and sandy, and walking it was like walking down an escalator. On the few steep parts, it intersects with the road. Eventually, the lights of the distant town of Shune are visible along that canyon as well. Instead, they made this grueling hike over an extremely difficult mountain range,

expecting to run into guards that would be patrolling the remote military base they saw on the map, which in fact is actually a seldom used bombing range protected by its remoteness and inaccessibility. It's really remote out there, and occasionally spooky at night if you're all alone. When I went camping in that area, I could see fires burning off in the distance. Some looked like well-placed campsites, but others were smack-dab in the middle of nowhere, almost where one would expect a wildfire to be. Instead, I would see little figures dancing around the flames, jumping and doing all manner of weird stuff.

It looked almost ritualistic, barbaric. But I have to admit I was squinting through the dark for possible miles. Aside from those fire dancers, the noises were really weird too, hollers and chants echoing between the canyons and the rock bases. Nothing animalistic, but almost like they were singing. It's hard to explain. It almost sounded like the wind when I heard it, just voices being carried on the wind. And since it's just rolling desert out there, the sound has this creepy way of carrying itself from one area to another. All this just to set the tone for the creepiest thing to ever happen to me, out in the desert after decades of scurrying around those dunes.

One time, I was taking my young teen nephews out to a remote but well-known desert canyon for a weekend of quadis. and exploring. I went on seasonal trips in the later months, starting to teeter into the winter. My nephews at the time were just boys, maybe eight and twelve years old, respectively. This was one of those trips to give my sister a break from her kids, but also to do my part as an uncle, to make these boys into men. A little rugged dirt camping in the desert is a perfect recipe for such an endeavor. We zipped out of civilization quickly, disappearing into the California backcountry. As we were doing so, a ragged woman was walking down the road, which was almost a mile from the canyon mouth to the paved road, not in distress, but apparently grown bored with

whatever party was happening in the hills and going to hitch a ride back to Barstow. The party favors are never running low, and casts of this variety weren't too uncommon, especially for this recreational area at the time. We weren't really in the sticks yet, just barely off the main drag, so campers and day-drinkers would still be plentiful. There was no room to drive around her, so I slowed down and stopped a good distance away. She kept walking toward a motorhome at the same pace until she got to the bumper and just stopped,

then stared at me with this ragged tweaker face. We looked at one another, engine still idling, as my nephews waited in the back for something to happen. Is she okay? One of them asked. I don't know, was the only thing I could reply with. Should we help her?" Absolutely not, I said very clearly.

This wasn't a situation where you stopped, let alone open the door for someone with a face like that. Still, I understood where my nephews were coming from. They were good kids. This woman did kind of look distressed, like someone you might reach a handout to help. After a minute or two, I was wondering if I was going to have to get out and move her so we could continue down the road. She had this determined look, then started marching around to the passenger side. As soon as she was clear of the front, I gunned it and drove off before she could even start trying our doors. It was the most unexpected place to encounter this stereotypical, opportunistic urban junkie.

It was clear as day the second she made that face that she was going to try to get in the car and do her best to force us to turn around and drive her back to the city. This lady had this dried up desperation, needing to get high again. We bolted by, and as I looked in my rear view, I watched her throw her arms up in defeat, screaming all manner of crazy stuff back at us. But then she did something that I did not expect. She turned on her heel and started following us. Not quickly, but at the slow walk, the same she had before when we rolled up on her.

She was in it for the long haul. I just remember swallowing and thinking there's no way she'd, going to be able to keep up, but damn, we were in a camper, not going very fast, and created a lot of dust. If she was persistent, she could probably find us. I just hit the gas and mozied on toward the campsite. I knew the area well, much better than some barstow-bound meth head. We wound back into the desert, well out of sight of that woman, until we hit the spot that we'd call home for the next couple of days. It was well out of the way, totally out of view from the mini dirt road and other camping spots inside that area.

We hadn't seen anybody else on our drive back there, so we knew we were set in regards to getting some alone time. Still, in the moment, I couldn't shake the image of that crazy junkie lady turning and following us. Eventually I just lost myself in the chores of setting up camp, getting the fire pit ready, gathering wood, and when we were ready, setting up a makeshift area for us to relax, all that normal stuff. My nephews helped, of course, ignorant to the fact that that lady might

still be out there looking for us. The day drifted by, and of course, I forgot about that entire encounter. In all honesty, we were something like 15 miles away from where we saw her, much further than she'd be willing to walk. I was sure of it. Probably lost the nerve after a mile or two, turned back around, and headed the other direction. Either way, way, we were saddled up for the weekend, with no plans of moving. You'd be hard-pressed to find us out in the dark. We relaxed as the sun drifted away, leaving us with just the flames for light. The two dogs told spooky stories. I showed the kids what constellations we could see through the trees. We ate, relaxed a little more, and just as I was starting to get tired, I heard

something, the kind of thing you don't want to hear when you're all alone in the middle of the desert. Voices They seemed far off at first, but soon I could make out the cadence, the words. It sounded like two or three more people, a girl, and at least one guy. I relaxed, thinking it was just some other campers out for a late-night stroll, or maybe even coming back from the spring around the bend, where a little swimming could be done if wanted. I told you it was them, the voice screeched from just outside view.

me and the boys jumped at the sound, unsure of who or what was around us. Before I could even get up, she strolled into the firelight, pointing an accusatory finger directly at me. It was her, that tweaker that we had encountered on the road. I couldn't believe she found us, with company no less. Hey, uh, can we help you with something? I asked. Yeah, you piece of crap, you left me out on the road. She screamed over the fire at me. So you come back to my camp and attack me?

Get a grip and get the hell out of here, I explained in a stern voice. I had to make a show of this with the kids still wide awake. I gestured to my nephews and went on. I'm taking the kids out camping. I don't have time to play 20 questions with some lady who's standing in the middle of the road. Better watch your mouth, boy, some guy said as he stepped out of the shadows, skinny, inked up and missing a good nine or ten teeth. He had cheap, shiny jewelry on his wrist and in his ears, looking like your average. street wrapper, a piece of crap out of Fresno, or whatever part of California you're familiar with.

I made it very clear to these people that I wasn't watching anything. This was my camp, my property, and my family. I wasn't obligated to help anyone out or do any favors for strangers in the woods. The fact that they had tracked me down was grounds enough for defense, or maybe just a call to the sheriff's office. This didn't have the effect that I thought it would. Instead of tucking tail and going back into the darkness, they doubled down, started screaming all kinds of threats and insults. I ushered both boys into the RV. We were quickly getting very upset before turning back and casually talking to the people.

What I really was doing was packing up our loose belongings, all the stuff that mattered, and tucking it into the storage areas of the RV. The whole time, I was just pacifying, trying to talk but more as a distraction. That was until Tweaker Dude picked up a rock, then threatened to smash my head in. At this point, I fronted like I had a gun, which I did. It was just inside the RV. I reached into my back waistline, and that made the guy freeze up for a second, just long enough for me to literally drive full bore through the door and inside the RV.

I locked up behind me and ran for the driver's seat. By the time I got there, this idiot was smashing the outside of the RV with the rock. I was pissed, but I didn't have any other options other than flight. I fired up the engine, shifted, and then started that slow slog back to the main campgrounds. When the headlights lit up, I was in total shock. There were at least six or seven more tweakers all milling around outside the camp, waiting to see what happened. It dawned on me then that this was some kind of setup or something.

We were in the middle of a campsite robbery out in the middle of nowhere. I gunned it. At this point, there was no chance of me and the boys getting trapped out there with all of them. God knows what they'd do to us after they got us outside. The RV had a pistol with eight rounds in it, unchambered, as well as a 20-gauge single-barrel bird gun, also unloaded. The time it would take me to get into gear and load them up, they'd have all the windows smashed out and would be on top of me already.

Driving was the best and only option for us at the moment. I looked in the rear view as I swerved out of the campsite and, finally saw some good news, not a single person tried to follow us. We rambled onward, as the meager pile of belongings I'd left behind was enough to distract them all. There was a hammock, a couple of folding chairs, maybe even a small empty cooler, stuff I could easily replace. Besides, there wasn't a cost for protecting my nephews. They were obviously the top priority. We rambled out of the canyon as quickly as that RV would allow us. The boys finally calmed down once we left that chaos behind. Everything seemed to wind down. Stars twinkled overhead.

I tried to enjoy our escape as much as we could. Up ahead, though, as we closed in on that paved roadway, I saw some headlights cutting through the brush. I figured I'd flash them with my brights and speak to them through the window if I could warn them about those thieves out in the campground tonight. To my utter surprise, it was a pair of sheriffs with the game warden in tow. They'd all received reports of a group of lunatics roaming the area. I confirmed everything that they had heard, told them exactly where they could find them, then proceeded on our way back home. There was no way I was going to make those kids sleep out there with the police combing the forest. It was better to go back to the lake or something, somewhere more populated and civilized. That's exactly what we did, and that, folks,

is my crazy Desert Tweaker story. I hope you enjoyed it. Predator Badlands, now street streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. Here, you're not the Predator. You're the prey, prey, prey, prey, prey, prey, prey, prey, prey, prey. Critics are saying it's epic, stunning, and breathtaking. Many have come here. None have survived. Predator Badlands, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus, rated PG-13.

I'll be completely honest with you. I had next to no idea what I wanted to do with my life when I first applied to university. I'd always been interested in crime and police dramas, so I had an inkling that I'd end up doing something related to criminal justice. I just wasn't exactly sure what it would be. My mom had dreams of me being a barrister or an attorney here in the UK, but I didn't think I had the smarts for that kind of thing. I also didn't fancy anything too morbid,

which put me at odds with almost everyone else on my course. Most of them wanted to get into forensics or CID, which is where you go to be a homicide detective or join the drug squad. On the other hand, I felt like I wanted to do something more analytical, something impactful, but more behind the scenes. I know that makes me seem like some fussy little bugger, and I wouldn't blame you for thinking that. Yet if I can make one little correction, I think I was more like an indecisive little bugger. But a few years of study helped me see to that. The more I studied, the more I approached a kind of epiphany. Statistically, it's only a small portion of the population that commits crime,

usually less than 10% of the country's overall population. Then, with certain crimes, that statistic is even smaller. For example, with shoplifting, it's only something like 0.2% of the British population that accounts for all incidents of shoplifting. That's only about 100,000 people out of a population of almost 7%. $70 million. My point is, it seemed like the best way to reduce certain types of crime was to focus on preventing re-offending, as opposed to imposing harsher sentences for said re-offending that would inevitably cause a person to sink deeper into criminality. Once I'd made my mind up about that,

my ever-elusive career path lit up in front of me, and I took my first step on the road to becoming a probation officer. I volunteered with the Prison Advice and Care Trust when I was in my third year, an organization that provides support services to newly released prisoners. I honestly just did it to get a taste of what it'd be like working with former prisoners, as I still had a few lingering doubts over whether or not I'd be any good at it. But when it came to applying for the trainee probation officer program following my graduation from uni, the Ministry of Justice practically bit my arm off owing to that prior experience. I spent six months attending a nearby learning development unit where I was taught the

tricks of the trade. Then, after a series of rigorous computer-based tests, I was cleared as an officer of Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service. It was a bit surreal at first, especially when I told all my mates from back home about it. They couldn't picture me dealing with hardened criminals on a daily basis, and honestly, neither could I. I did a load of conflict management and de-escalation training at the LDU, and it was all great training that I learned a lot from, but I also heard a couple of horror stories that served as examples of how not to tackle a tense situation with a client. And that's the word we were taught to use, client. Some think it's a much better term than probationer or ex-prisoner in that it's a much softer, much more hopeful terminology.

But it never really sat right with me. Client makes it sound like we're doing them a favor, when really, I think going straight is them doing us the biggest favor possible. Anyway, my first few cases were massively challenging, but after that, I started to get the hang of things. I dealt with a lot of lads who had been caught in one little street fight on a drunken Saturday night. They weren't hardened criminals, and the last thing they ever wanted was to go back to prison, so getting them into work and sticking to routines we'd laid out was easy.

Then there were people who had been in prison for dealing drugs. Those who had been in for lengthier stretches sometimes seemed like they genuinely wanted to get out of the game, but the ones who'd been in for three or four months for selling cannabis, you knew that they were going straight back to dealing no matter what you said or did for them. I had this one lad who said that he'd signed up to do bicycle deliveries for Uber Eats. I personally saw him whizzing all over town on two different occasions. I'd literally never seen anyone so keen on getting back into work, but then, when I checked with Uber Eats and gave them the bogus courier ID that he'd given me,

I discovered that he must have done a grand total of two or three deliveries before he started using his big green delivery bag as essentially a cover to go back to dealing. For the most part, that was about as exciting as it got. Clients trying to give you the runaround, having to chase down where they are and what they're doing. But I quickly came to prefer that more mundane sort of work as the alternative was much, much worse. Every so often I was given one of two cases. a sex offender or a murderer. There were exceptions here and there, but when you're around someone who's taken a life,

it's like there's a heaviness in the room. I'm not talking about people convicted of things like manslaughter or death by dangerous driving, who are more often than not haunted by the people whose lives they've taken until the day they die. I'm talking about murderers, people convicted of killing in cold blood, or for money, or just for the sick, bloody thrill of it.

One or two of them, I'd have never guessed were killers without having seen their case file. And I think they were the creepiest of the lot because you could see why someone might trust them enough to put themselves in a vulnerable position. But the single creepiest client I've had so far was a sex offender. Now don't get me wrong, they're all frightening people in their own way, but they're especially frightening if the offense has anything to do with children.

Obviously I wasn't dealing with child killers, or dangerous predators against children. because they tend to get whole life tariffs, and therefore no probation. But some of the clients that I did deal with who had been to prison for these offenses were just as sick, just as predatory, and just as creepy as the ones who'd killed. They just never crossed that line and took a life. I was about two and a half years into my career, when my boss dropped by my desk with a caseload for me to work through.

A caseload contains anywhere from a handful of cases to two dozen of them, sometimes even more. You can generally count on a bigger caseload to include a lot of low-priority clients, i.e. those released after serving sentences for relatively minor offenses. You could get a drink-driving case, maybe someone who perjured themselves in court, which happens a lot more than you'd think, and all you had to do was stop in with them every so often, have a chat and a cup of tea,

and they'd always be sticking to their post-release goals. It'd be a time-consuming caseload. but generally not a stressful one. The stressful ones came when a caseload was only three or four files deep. And if it was that small, you knew what to expect, murderer or sex offender. And this caseload was no different. There were four cases, a murderer, a second murderer, a third murderer, and a sex offender. As usual, my heart sank when I saw the words on that fourth file.

Like I said, dealing with a third murderer, a third murderer, and a sex offender. with these types of people was always an unpleasant experience, but when the offense is related to the abuse or exploitation of children, it's doubly skin crawling. With some clients it pays to be emotional because when they see that you really give a toss about them, that they're not just a number or a statistic to you, they start to give a toss too. But every time I walked into a room with a convicted sex offender, I had to leave my emotions at the door. It's not exactly an unconscious act either. In the past, I've had to actively pretend that the person in front of me was no different than any other client. I made no reference to what they'd done, focused entirely on their

future, and kept whatever they'd been convicted of completely out of my head, because if even just for one small second you remind yourself that they prayed on a child, you just can't do your job anymore. And it's the process of switching off my emotions that I found myself repeating one morning on my first visit to the offender that I'd been assigned to. Now, I'd get the sack if I used this bloke's real name, so I'll just call him Jimmy because, as repulsive as it is, this bloke had a very weirdly similar vibe to Jimmy Saville. He didn't have the hair or the chains or the track suit, nothing like that, but he had this let's be friends kind of vibe to him, along with this air of arrogance, like he'd forgotten where he'd just come from and why. He was in his 50s and looked

relatively harmless at first glance, but once you knew what he'd been convicted of, you realized just how dangerous he really was. Back when he was in his 20s, Jimmy had been working for a painting and decorating firm and drove a small three-wheel van from job to job. One day, he sees an 11-year-old girl playing in the street with her mates after school. He calls her over and starts offering to teach her to smoke, wild thing to do in this day and age, but it was the 70s back then, so a very different time. Anyway, the girl says yes to the offer of being taught how to smoke, because again, different time, but is scared that her mom will see. Jimmy then gets her in his van and drives her off somewhere secluded. But then, he doesn't try to teach the girl to smoke.

Instead, he tried to teach her to do something else. When the girl refused, Jimmy tied her up, beat the girl black and blue, and then kicked her out of his van and drove off. The girl walked two miles back into town, binding still around her wrists, and went straight to the nearest police station to make a report. Jimmy was convicted on the testimony of the girl, her friends, and a passerby who'd said that they'd heard a girl crying in the parked van, but didn't think anything of it until the police made an appeal for information. That, along with a trove of indecent images found in his flat,

landed Jimmy with almost 50 years in prison for each separate offense, and he got out after 35. My first meeting with him was the same as any other, a basic introduction to myself in the probation scheme, then a rough outline of what would be expected of him over the months to come. Obviously, clients are sometimes restricted from going near certain places, and in Jimmy's case, he was barred from anywhere where there'd be kids. But then, the probation service very much takes a busy hands or happy hands approach

to rehabilitation, and the way you keep a person from being tempted to go to set places is to make sure that they've got hobbies. I know it sounds daft. Give this creep a jigsaw puzzle and he'll stop wanting to touch kids. But they've done studies on it, and if you keep these people occupied, if you can tire them out entirely, mentally or physically, the risk of long and short-term re-offending drops by 50%, which in our game is a significant number. So on the first visit, when it came to briefly covering the whole hobbies thing, Jimmy mentioned that he'd taken up sketching in prison, and that he'd continued it post-release as it kept his head straight, as he put it.

I then asked if he had any drawings to show me, and he said that he did. A lot of lads will make out that they've got a hobby, or that they've taken up running, or any number of things, but when you call them on it, they've yet to pick up the trainers, or yet to sign up for X, Y, Z, because they've been oh-so-biz, post-release. But then Jimmy got up, walked over to the little coffee table in his living room, and then brought back a sketchbook of things that he'd been working on. He opened up the book, and right away, I was struck by how bloody good he was.

There were all these horses, amazingly drawn ones too, in all kinds of different poses. I asked Jim if he liked horses, and he told me, not really, they're just the hardest thing to draw. Draw a horse, and you can draw a human. No problem. He mentioned a few other things about form and curvature, but I wasn't really listening at that point. I was completely dumbfounded by how good his drawings were.

But then, considering that he'd been practicing for the better part of two decades, he was exactly as good as he should have been. Still though, I was awfully impressed, and if he already had a hobby boxed off, then it made my job a lot easier. If I could just use the drawing as proof of his extracurricular activities, it also gave me huge peace of mind too, because offenders have a recidivism rate that floats around 15%, depending on which studies you read, and that's always in the back of your mind when you're dealing with them.

It could be your actions or your observations that send them back to prison before they get a chance to re-offend. But then, obviously, that's a hell of a lot of pressure. Having a serial shoplifter go back on the rob, and the Gordon's gin company loses a tenor, have a kid-toucher re-offend, and the victim deals with it for years, possibly even for the rest of their lives. I kept a close eye on Jimmy, and although I won't say where, I managed to get him back into work. Everything appeared to be going okay, and for a while, I was half convinced that he really did want to go back on the straight and narrow, but at the same time,

there were other things that made me suspect that he hadn't quite turned over a new leaf. He seemed to be trying a bit too hard to convince me that he was a very much. ready to live a normal life, and then whenever something in our discussions didn't go his way, it was like you saw his fake happy-go-lucky persona dropped for a second, and you saw the real Jimmy underneath. It was that duplicity that made me want to keep a closer eye on him, and in situations like that, the devil can quite literally be in the details. For example, the halfway house we placed Jimmy in was in this big old Georgian-looking building, and each of the rooms had these floor-to-ceiling windows. This meant that on the way in to have a chat with him, I could actually

see into the living room of Jimmy's little flat there before I got to the front door. And then one day, as I'm walking in to see him, I spy him through the window doing another one of his drawings. But then, instead of a book with a gray cover like the one he'd showed me during the first visit, I could quite clearly see that the book that he was drawing in then had a sort of pinky-purple cover. I think if it had been any other color, I might have missed it, but the distinctive hue just so happened to catch my eye. Once I was inside, it was down to a motionless business as usual. But then, just as I was leaving, I asked him.

Moved on to a new sketchbook, huh? But instead of showing me his latest work, he gave me this confused look and then told me, No, I'm still working on the same one. I told him I was quite certain that he'd been drawing in. in a pink sketchbook as I caught a glimpse of him on the way in, but with the same bewildered expression, Jimmy claimed to have no idea what I was talking about. I knew that he'd been drawing in a different colored sketchbook. There was no way that I was mistaken. So I reminded him that hiding things or engaging in any kind of duplicity whatsoever was a very bad look for someone in his position.

He put on that let's be friends attitude again, and then invited me to search the flat for any sign of this non-existent pink sketchbook. I didn't call his bluff, not right away. If he was confident enough to invite me to search his flat, then he probably had a very effective hiding place. And although I had next to no idea what was in it, I knew at that point, I had to find it. As I said earlier, if a client displays any kind of duplicitous behavior, it can speak volumes. In the case of that Uber eats cannabis dealer, the consequences can be minimal. But in the case of someone like Jimmy, incompetence on the part of a probation officer can spell disaster for an innocent member of the public. The only problem was, I couldn't exactly go throwing around allegations

willy-nilly. Say I went to my bosses and told them I suspect a client is doing something rather sneaky, so I need officers to turn his flat upside down so I can find a notebook I'm not even certain is there anymore. And then the police don't find the book? I could lose my job. I'm not saying I want to live in a world where past and present prisoners don't have any rights and are denied a chance to turn their lives around. I respect the fact that I needed evidence of my suspicions, but sometimes bridging the gap between suspicion and accusation can be very frustrating indeed, especially when it comes to someone as downright cunning as Jimmy. That took about six or seven weeks before I was able to catch him drawing in that little pink book again. I was in my car, binoculars in hand,

which, by the way, was about the only time I ever felt like the trench coat-wearing noir detective that I'd always dreamed about and read about when I was a kid. Then, once I was satisfied that he was using his little pink book, I gave him a quick call on my mobile as I continued to watch him. He actually jumped when he heard his phone going, and when he picked up, I saw him do that reverse werewolf transform of going from startled and moody-faced to greeting me like a long-lost friend. I told him that I'd been a right div and had messed up my diary and had double-booked for our meeting the next day.

I followed up by asking him, in the nicest way possible, if I could stop by for a chat, maybe in the next five minutes or so, because I was just around the corner. Jimmy said, sure, no problem. And then we ended the call. I then watched as Jimmy closed the pink book, picked it up, and then walked off to a corner of his flat before bending down. Next time I saw him, there was no pink book in his hand. Wherever he was hiding it, it was in that particular corner that he just scurried off to before he appeared empty-handed. It made sense that he couldn't hide the book in his bathroom, as the moisture would probably ruin the pages or something.

So it had to be in his living room somewhere, and it had to be down pretty low. The next time Jimmy was at work, I enlisted the help of two community support officers in a search of his flat, with me instructing the pair of them to pay particular focus to that one corner of the room. About ten minutes later, after pulling up a loose section of carpet, one of the PCSOs called me over to a gap in the floorboards and asked me, Is this what you're looking for? It was the little pink book. In a weird way, I was actually quite excited to see what was in it.

A lot of criminals try to reestablish connections when they leave prison, so there was a slim chance that there might be details of other. active predators in that book, which would get me a massive pat on the back if I turned it into my bosses. But if I'm being honest, nothing could have prepared me for what was in that book. About one-third of it was filled with incredibly detailed drawings of school-age children, all bound and gagged by various means and in various positions. Much like the horses Jimmy drew, the pictures of the children were shockingly detailed and lifelike. Their little faces were either twisted up with pain or fear, or they stared back at their creator with wide, frightened eyes.

But unlike the horse drawings, which were so unexpectedly impressive that they verged on awe-inspiring, these drawings made me feel sick to my stomach. It was like I was holding a piece of radioactive material or something. Now I know that might sound a bit melodramatic to some people, but that's what it felt like to me. It was like I could feel all this hideousness just radiating off the book, Like I wanted to seal it up and burn it and bury its ashes under 20 feet of earth. Whoever drew those pictures was a very, very sick person, and the idea that I'd been sharing cups of tea with him made me want to take a shower in hot bleach.

I only got a good look at about two or three of the drawings before I slammed the book shut. My heart was pounding as I asked the support officers to hang around for a bit. Then I gave my boss a call to let him know what we'd found. Seeing those drawings was probably one of the darkest moments of my entire life, but then knowing that I'd secured my evidence was one of the highlights, and it came with an adrenaline rush to match. Within the hour, regular uniformed officers were dispatched to Jimmy's place of work,

and he was placed under arrest. Then he was promptly transported back to prison to await the decision of the parole board. Once it was determined that he'd breached his license, the board announced that he'd remain in prison for the remaining 15, years of his sentence, and that, thank Christ, was the end of my working relationship with Jimmy. Back at 45 Division, which is what we called H.Q, it was pats on the back all around for yours truly. I was the office favorite for about two weeks after, because it felt like we'd achieved something really significant. Everyone, the parole board included, felt that Jimmy was almost certainly

on the path to re-offending, and if he'd kept us all fooled and been allowed back into society, He could have done untold damage to any number of children, including those of the people we worked with. I think that's why the result was received so well. I'd diffused a ticking time bomb that could have blown up in just about anyone's face. In a way, that goes right back to why I joined the probation service in the first place. I'd found what I was good at, and what I was good at made a difference. I've spent countless days hunting in the southern Texas desert. It's where my family is from, and I grew up dusting critters.

from 100 yards under the careful supervision of my pop and granddad. Over time, I became a solid hunter all on my own. I bagged just about everything you can along the border, and I've done every kind of trip that you can with family, friends, or even by myself. It's a fun, if not therapeutic, investment of my time, and one that I've always really enjoyed. One trip haunts me, though, and it was about ten years ago. My buddies Tim, Carrie, and I decided,

to solo hunt for wild pigs, or boars, as some folks call them. We've been coming to this region for years, and knew the terrain like the back of our hand. We were probably the best hunters out there among our immediate group of friends, which was one of the reasons we all wanted to go together, to keep the dead weight off and just bring back trophies. Every afternoon we would compare the height and weight of our kills. The desert stretched out before us like an empty grave, sandy dunes rolling out in the distance, We set up camp in a secluded spot far from any prying eyes.

This wasn't an area known for anything nefarious, but being in the middle of nowhere, especially near the border, you just never know what could happen. So we learned early on that it's better to be safe than sorry. Besides, getting out away from the rest of the world was where we'd find good hunting. We all settled in for the night, passing a tinfoil wrap full of tamales around the fire. We heard a strange sound like nothing any of us had ever heard before. It started as a low hum, then rose to a piercing wine before dropping back down to a gentle whisper. We all exchanged uneasy glances but said nothing.

Yet it was as if we were all thinking the same thing. What the hell is that? It has to be just a coyote or something, Tim said, finally breaking the silence. Yeah, or maybe it's a plane flying overhead, Carrie added. though we all knew it wasn't either of those things. That sound continued for a while, then abruptly stopped. We sat there listening to the silence, our ears straining to pick up any further noises. But there was nothing except the crackling of the fire and the occasional hoot of an owl in the distance.

All right, well, I'm turning in, Tim said, standing up and dusting off his pants. Got an early start tomorrow, boys. Yeah, I guess I will. too, Carrie said, following suit. I nodded, though I wasn't tired at all. I stayed up for a while just listening to the darkness, still wondering what that sound had been. But it didn't come back, and eventually I drifted off to sleep with my dreams filled with strange, unsettling images. Like I said earlier, I've spent decades out in this region, hunting, camping, and generally just roughing it. I've never heard anything even close to that, and those dreams I had were even more

unsettling. They were all more than likely unrelated, but at the time, I thought something was trying to speak to me through my thoughts. It kind of freaked me out. As I lay there, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched, that something was out there waiting for us to venture into its domain. I quickly pushed that thought aside, telling myself I was just spooked. After all, we've been hunting in these woods for years and never seen anything out of the ordinary. As I drifted off to sleep, wondered, what if this time it's different? It has to happen sometime, right? We woke up in the morning, and everything was fine. We got up just before the sun when everything is suspended in that weird, hazy blue. Camp was intact. There weren't any weird sounds, no signs of critters

or humans alike. We brewed a pot of coffee and killed it immediately, then got our gear together for the hunt that day. Now, I knew how Tim and Carrie hunted. They follow really, bridgebacks at a slope and try to flush little herds of pigs out into the open. They'd walk with their backs to the sun, which was smart, but I wanted to be on my own, not just taking pot shots at pigs on the run. No, if I was going to outhunt either of these guys, I was going to have to take a different approach entirely. We all wished each other good luck, then wandered off in our separate directions. Tim went north and Kerry went west. I started hoofing at southeast, the exact opposite direction.

I wore full desert camo, but just the light stuff, nothing heavy or paramilitary, just enough to let me disappear from vision if I stumbled upon a herd. I was going light for this first hunt, as it was mostly just for scouting anyway. All I had on me was a seven-shot three, 57 magnum on my hip, binoculars, and a camelback water system. Just the basics.

I moved along ahead of a plateau, until it dipped away into this long, winding gully. Even in the early morning light, I could see it snaking off for at least a mile. This was the kind of terrain feature you might find some pigs in, especially with it being so long. There might be water or little pockets of cactus fruit to eat. I dropped down below the gully from the top lip so I could easily look down inside of it, rather than up and out.

It allowed me a vantage point into the pockets of the ravine, but it also let me see the flatland on the other side. I kept my binoculars handy as I kept my binoculars handy as I used. trailed along those badlands under the bright sky. Thirty minutes later, I wasn't seeing much sign of pigs. Then I heard some gunfire off in the distance. In the moment, it was kind of hard to tell which direction it had come from, but I thought maybe back west, the way my buddy had gone. It was possible he came upon something and decided to drop it. Part of me thought it sounded dead south, though, and the border was only a few miles away. It was kind of a little of a little. It was kind of

uneasy feeling for a moment as I walked out in the open that gully wandered on. I crossed it and started walking to the other side before eventually finding a little game trail through the brush. I abandoned the gully and followed the trail. Soon there were some scat and scratch marks, all kinds of evidence of pig. I unlatched my holster and scanned the area, following the heaviest traffic trail. About half a mile later I came up over a ridge and heard some rustling, Sure enough, a monster boar came around this huge boulder and gave me its broadside. I went still and let it wander before drawing and dropping that sucker right there in the dirt. It was almost a wide shot, but the thing was so big, it was impossible to miss a kill shot on,

especially that close. It weased a little, but went down in a second and died without much suffering. I was stoked. This thing must have weighed at least 300 pounds. I wasn't sure how I'd get it back to camp. but I'd killed it nonetheless. I was fairly certain I had those boys beat too, so I holstered my gun and got to gutting the thing.

The quicker I got it broken down, the quicker I could haul it back to camp. About halfway through that field dressing, I heard something off in the distance. My eyes peeled wide when I recognized the sound from the night before, the thing me and the fellas heard right before we went to bed, some weird droning, whining and whispering, yelling too far away to understand it. Still so bizarre. After only a few minutes, I understood what it was.

It got closer and closer until I could hear the whine of an engine, the chug of cylinders. Those whispers turned into lyrics from some rock song. It was a side by side, a razor. It was coming up on me fast. For some reason, I took a few steps back and tucked myself behind a little brush. I wasn't totally hidden, but I was positioned in a way that I could disappear in a hurry if need be. The place we were at didn't really have a lot of off-roaders, a desolate but ugly area very far from anything else. Now, I had a feeling that whoever would be trouncing around here was probably a peacekeeper or a criminal. Just a minute later, that razor came blasting into the little clearing area where I shot the boar. It skidded to a stop, and I could see two guys.

and goggles looking around in every direction. They spotted the pig, looked up, and quickly spotted me. I waved. They undid their seatbelts and hopped out, at which point I noticed that they were both carrying AR-15s of some kind, scoped up in everything. They yelled something over to me, but over the sound of that side by side I couldn't hear anything but my own heartbeat. The driver leaned over and killed the ignition so we could talk. I figured they were hunters too, looking to get directions to the herd that I just hit. Something to that effect. Hey there, you got a driver's license? The passenger asked me, the last thing I ever expected to be asked in the moment. Uh, what? You got ID. I furrowed my brow. Were they border patrol? I mean the short answer

was definitely no. My wallet was back at camp, secured in my truck. The only thing I had was my hunting permit, a faded scrap of paper in my pocket. Even then, it didn't really count as ID, as anyone's name could be on it. No, guys with the Border Patrol or something? I asked. They sort of laughed, and that's when I sized them up, dirty, greasy, unkempt, wearing vests, but only in decoration. They didn't have plates behind them, just pockets full of cheap plastic magazines. I looked at the guns and saw they weren't anything special. Hell, even the razor was a piece of junk. Nope.

These were just two good old boys who lived in the middle of nowhere and fancied themselves agents of the law or something to that effect. Now we're a little different from that, one explained. You got anything to tell us who you are? My first thought was of the three, 57 on my hip. Now it was my turn to laugh, but I thought better of it. I didn't want to make any moves and try to get smart. I just kind of shrugged and said,

Nope, I'm a Texas resident, long-time local, just out on a pig hunt. Then I gestured to that big, dead boar that was between us. Yeah, we heard that. He made a gimmie motion with his hand as he spoke. Gonna need you to hand that over until we can get your paperwork squared away. Now I really froze up. I was willing to stand and talk, but this was the moment that I drew a line in the sand, literally. I wasn't going anywhere, and I wasn't going to hand over any of my property to them either.

This was all legal. My gun was legal. Everything I was doing was well within the law. These pricks just felt holier than thou and wanted to jam people up, likely looking for illegal immigrants. Silly of them. This area wasn't really known for that kind of traffic. Didn't matter to them, though. The situation wasn't going away. I took a breath, then a single step backward into the brush. They did exactly what I figured they were going to do. Start to bring their barrels up. They looked startled, almost excited. This was probably a wet dream for guys like this. Every couple of desert rat clowns who saw themselves as freedom fighters,

resisting some kind of invisible enemy. Well, now I was the only enemy out there, and I wasn't about to get juked up by a couple of racist rednecks trying to be border patrol. I took another step back and got a little brush between us. I was talking. I don't remember exactly what I was saying, though, probably something to the effect that they were out of line and didn't carry jurisdiction that anyone recognized. I remember my hand coming up to my handle on my pistol, but I didn't draw, just a comfort.

Someone did draw, though. Three sharp reports leveled the area and sent birds and rabbits scattering in every direction. I turned to find Carrie standing up on a ridge that overlooked us, his own mini AR-15 pointed barrel up and smoking. He then waved a hand down to me to let me know it was all good. Then I saw Tim. He was much closer, only 50 or 60 feet away from our little standoff. He was posted up behind a boulder, looking down the iron sight of that old military surplus

rifle that he used on these hunts. It was a tried and true man-killer, more than enough to punch a few holes inside these dweaves. Once Tim and I made eye contact, he slipped around from the boulder and started approaching me, never taking his rifle off the guys in their razor. What's going on? he asked. Nothing. I downed a pig when these fellas rolled up on me on their side by side. That racket sound familiar to you.

Oh yeah, Tim nodded. Same stuff from last night, right? Yep, I said. Now remind me, what you boys need again? I wish I could explain the look on their faces, like a couple of kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar. I mean pale, blank faces. tears bubbling up and ready to cry.

They bit off way more than they could chew, and they immediately knew it. Nothing. We were just coming to check out that shooting is all. One of them stammered out. They explained that they lived nearby and had been dealing with all manner of different kinds of crime, whether from cartel members or just strangers passing through. We explained that we were hunters, and the only problem we were having with criminals was them right there in that moment.

Ultimately, we just went our separate ways. We didn't hear that razor or their loud music for the rest of our trip. Nobody else bothered us. It turned out that Carrie and Tim weren't having any luck. So when they heard me take my shot, they decided to come and see if anything had gone down. Just as they came over that ridge, the razor came skating up near me. That's when they jumped into action and decided to rescue me. Carrie took up that position on the high ground

while Tim snaked down to me to put a gun in their face. Thank God they did that because those fellas rolled up on me ready to shoot, ready to tie me up and drag me behind their little off-road machine. The scary thing is, it happened. It pays to have good friends. This podcast is brought to you by Carvana. Selling your car should feel like one less thing on your list. Not one more.

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