Morbid - Frederic Bourdin and the Disappearance of Nicholas Barclay

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

On the afternoon of June 19, 1994, thirteen-year-old Nicholas Barclay left his home in San Antonio, Texas to play basketball with some friends. Hours later, he called home to ask his mother for a ride, but was told he would have to walk home, but Nicholas never came back. His mother reported him missing and an investigation was started, but it quickly stalled when there was no evidence of what happened to Nicholas.Three years passed and one day, out of the blue, the family received a call from the US Embassy. Nicholas had been discovered in Spain, they said. He had endured terrible trauma at the hands of a human trafficking ring and he was desperate to come home. The family was elated and eagerly welcomed Nicholas back into their home. But to some of the people involved in the boy’s return to Texas, there were just too many things about his story that didn’t quite add up.Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!ReferencesAssociated Press. 1998. "Fugitive poses as teenager." Orange Leader (Orange, TX), September 12: 5.Davies, Nick. 1998. "The Lost boy." The Guardian, October 17.Flynn, Sheila. 2023. A French serial imposter convinced everyone he was a missing Texas teen. This PI convinced him to confess. January 27. Accessed May 24, 2025. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/imposter-netflix-frederic-bourdin-nicholas-barclay-b2269897.html.Grann, David. 2008. "The Chaemeleon." New Yorker, August 8.2012. The Imposter. Directed by Bart Layton. Performed by Bart Layton. Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this right here is morbid. Just started singing. It's morbid in the morning, but it very much is not. It feels like it. It's morbid in the early afternoon. Yes, that was so beautiful. It doesn't flow as well. You could say just morbid in the afternoon. All right, fine. I guess you're better at this than me. What about that? It's because it's my origination station. Your origination station. Your hair looks really good today. Wow, thank you. It really does. I washed it.

You should do that more often. Actually, I'm just kidding. Don't do it more often. The amount that you're doing it is great. I haven't washed my hair in a week. Hey, good for you. Thanks. You're not supposed to.

Don't wash your hair. But I did wash it. It was due. Yeah, like sometimes you are supposed to. Yeah. Sometimes it needs to be confusing advice that I'm giving here. I'm like, you wash your hair. Good.

Do that more often. You shouldn't wash your hair, though. Do it often. No, don't. Don't do that. It's been a week for mine. I'm like, oh, shit, it's been 12 hours. for mine. Well, yeah, no, that's good, though. But thank you. You're welcome. Everybody notices

when I wash my hair put on makeup, which is like an interesting commentary on my life. Oh, same here, though. But I love it. Every time I'm like, hey, like, Gwendolyn, our barista. Gwendolyn, are you listening? said, I love your makeup. And I was like, I actually wore some today. So thank you for commenting on that. I wish we could tell you the Starbucks we go to. We very much can't because it's scary. But it's scary. Don't triangulate your own location. But I just wish that everybody could experience our barista because she's our barista and not yours. It's true. And yes, that is a Trixie and Katya reference.

Gwendolyn is ours. But shout out to Gwendolyn. Hey. It's a listener tale in case you couldn't tell. In case you couldn't tell by the just chaos that happens in the beginning of everyone. Absolute buffoonery. Also, as I was opening my mouth to say that, my jaw, like, cracked really a lot. I heard that.

Yeah, it kind of hurt. And I could see you're like, what happened. Yeah. Yeah, I was like, oh. Because she just, she just opened her mouth while I was talking and waited for me to finish with her mouth. I do do that sometimes. And then she started talking. You know why I do that?

It's because I am, according to TikTok, I have ADHD, like the rest of you. Yeah, I was going to say. Like all of us. But. Oh, there it is. Did you lose it? No, that was the ADHD. No, people with ADHD, I guess, like interrupt people.

more often. Like, again, generalization, who knows? But I also am a Gemini, so like my brain works really fast and I like to talk a lot. So instead of saying my thing that I'm going to say, I like go to open my mouth and I'm like, oh, you idiot, shut up. You're never an idiot. Thanks. Oh, you rude person. Don't interrupt. That's what it says. Although you're not rude either. Hey, girlie. Wait a second. There you go. That works. That's what my brain says. But then my mouth is already open and I just, uh, it works because it's funny because you just sit there with your mouth open and it's nice. It's very polite because you're waiting for someone to finish. But it's not good for me because I have tumja, tumja, TMJ in case you're wondering. So you know what? Let's get

into. This is a listener tale. So it is, what is it, Ash? Brought to you by you, for you from you and all about you. Sure is. Yes. Sure is. And the first one, so we decided we were going to theme today's Listener Tale episode. Do you remember how we're supposed to say it from like two years ago? Do you remember? No. You forgot our special moment? Oh, no, I did.

What did I forget? Halloween. Oh, I like that. Okay. I feel you. Wow. What a good memory you have. I don't know if I could do it anymore, though.

I guess we'll just have to let that moment die. We'll just say, it's a Halloween. It's a Halloween listener tales. Not as fun. Halloween Listener Tale episode Yeah Because you know

It's October Basically It's the first week of October Yeah right Right yeah So it's the first No it's the second week Wasn't it

No it's the first week I was like wait a second I know it's October period There's October happening So it's the first week of October And it's the first listener tale of October So we're like Let's Halloween it up

Let's set it up with a bang You guys did not disappoint You never do You never do If you happen to have more Halloween listener tales, send them on in because we'll throw these in all months. Yeah. Oh, put like Halloween in the subject line. Yeah, make sure it's in the subject line because otherwise it's a little hard to find because sometimes you'll search for Halloween and it's in the body of the email, but it's not about Halloween and it gets confusing.

Yes, who else? But the first one that I'm going to read is Buffy, bats, and booze. Oh, my. A Halloween listener tale. I love it. It says hello to both of you awesome spooky ladies. My name is Abigail. You can use my name, and I was just making sure.

And it said, just like it's spelled Abigail. I'm a longtime fan. Oh, gee, baby, L.O.L. But seriously, y'all are great. And listening to Morbett has gotten me through a lot. The pandemic and recently my father's death. Oh, I'm so sorry. He was a teen during the 70s and said he remembers all the news about Ted Bundy,

John Wayne Gacy, and more. Wow. He said it was wild. I do miss him greatly in his crazy stories. Speaking of stories, this is the first time. I'm writing to you all, and I have many other listener tales to send in, but the one I have today for you is the best. I felt right out of Buffy for a moment, L-O-L. I have included my story in a put-a-fah, ha-ha. But first, I must tell you an itty-bitty quick story about a scam that some

sick fucker fucker fuck a scammer. So it says definitely watch out because we got a call early one morning. A young woman or teen was crying and screaming call 911. And this is only two days ago, by the way, this is recent. My husband asked who she said and what was wrong. Who she was and what was wrong. Excuse me, who she was and what was wrong. And she repeated call 911. Then a man came on the line. He said, hello, your daughter is here and she's hurt real bad. Well, we do not have a daughter, so my husband hung up. I got worried, though, and called 911 to report this. The operator searched the number and could not find any info on it and told me it is a scam that she's

heard of before. What sick fucking fuckers do this? Looks like This D bag was that type of person. So my hubby, Chase, you can use his name too. He's in both stories. Hi, Chase. Called him back and asked for his name. He would not provide that. Just stated, come get your daughter.

She needs your help. Oh. To that, Chase replied, what is her name? He said, I don't know, I don't know, but she gave me your name and your number. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he had his full name and phone number. What the fuck? Chase asked what his name was again, or what his name, sorry. and he gave him a ridiculous and fake name.

Then my husband's last reply to the fucker was, I do not have a daughter. And the scum bag hung up. A text message was sent from my hubby saying we caught him in the act and reported him. And this nasty motherfucker came back with all these insults and garbage messages like we were the bad guys. The nerve. Whatever. He was just salty.

We didn't fall for his tricks. So yeah, that's what happened. I just cannot believe the lows of this scum will go for money. Geez, go get a job like the rest of us, but I digress. That's also so confusing because I'm like, what the hell? Yeah, like, what the, well, you know what it is? Because I've heard of these happening before. And, like, usually they target, like, older people who will fall for these things.

They just do it until they find someone who does have a daughter, and they pretend that they have their daughter. So far. Or they'll say that the daughter or the son was in a car accident and they can't get on the phone, but they had your number in their phone as mom and dad's. So I called you, you have to like, you know, they're like, I don't even know what it's for. It's basically to get money in some way. But people do that.

And they pray on people that like love their families, like help their families. That's so fucked. But I've heard these come around in like cycles. These happen. So just everybody be aware of that because I don't want anyone falling for that. I've heard of them going different ways too. I actually saw a TikTok recently. And I don't know how true it is because I know like sometimes things get a little crazy.

Yeah. reiterated. But this one TikTok was saying that like this girl showed up on somebody's porch and she was like they thought she was bloody and she was screaming like call 911 like please let me in. Like they're after me. And this couple was like kind of a little bit like they were like, I don't know what's suspicious of what was going on. Yeah. And when they didn't let her in, they saw like two, she got into a car with two guys. Oh, I've actually heard of that kind of thing happening. Yeah. And it's like, what were they going to do? Just be really careful everybody. I just don't answer.

my door if I don't know who's at the door. Honestly, don't. Because I've seen like things where, you know, somebody will come up and say, like, can I use your phone to call 911? Always, if you're talking to someone outside of your house, that's saying, can I come in and say, I'll call for you, what happened? You got to stay outside. You got to stay outside. Never let that person into your house. No. Like, as much as you want to help people, and, you know, we have told stories where people have been hurt and, like, have been able to be helped. But I think it's just such a scary world these days. And I think a lot of those incidents were like in the past. Yeah. So far in the past that things have changed so much now where it's incredibly more dangerous.

Yeah. And as long as you can help by calling 911 or something, you're doing your help. Like you're doing what you're being smart by protecting you and your family, but also taking care of someone else. Just a little PSA. Now it says at the end of this, I've been working on this for a while. And like I said earlier, my father passed away. He moved on a few months ago and I've not been myself. I'm so sorry. I know. I can't imagine that. I really can't. I'm trying to work on that these days. finishing my listener tail and sending it in would help me in this journey. I hope all of this is not too long. I was just going to send in the tail, but this scam thing happened recently and got my blood boiling.

I had to include it to warn y'all in all of the wonderful morbid fans. Thank you for doing that. So without further ado, here is my spooky oaky Halloween listener tale attached as a double space put a-a-oh. Oh, you know my love language. Let's go. My story takes place in my hometown of Bluefield, West Virginia, on Halloween night in 2014.

My husband, Chase, and I rented a small home downtown. Not a fancy house, just a first home type of deal. Halloween night, we decided to throw a party. And as the night went on and we got tired of beer pong, we came up with the brilliant idea to make a homemade Ouija board and do a seance. No. You think I would know better being a die-hard Buffy fan, but living in a small town, there was not much we found to do other than get together,

drink and do stupid things such as burning old couches, etc. We did our research online. Yeah, we did the damn thing. Not. With a big piece of cardboard and sharpies, we made a poor attempt at a Ouija board. I know it's supposed to be Anne, but that sounds weird. So spell check can suck it, L.O.L. It's a Ouija board. Yeah. It is. It's hard because it's like Anne Ouija board, you know. Yeah, like that sounds stupid. It sounds stupid. It doesn't make sense. Of course, nothing happened except for a few of us pretending to be a spirit and pushing the shot glass around to scare the group. After the failure, we laughed at the whole thing and went about our evening. Not thinking straight, again, alcohol. Do not drink and try to summon ghosts, y'all. We forgot to burn the Ouija board, and it got thrown in the trash bin with the rest of the garbage from that night and hauled away the next. I thought that you weren't supposed to burn the Ouija board.

I don't know. There's varying things. So I don't think there's one, like, strict belief system for what works. But she says, I realize this too late and thought, oh, no, hope that doesn't come back to bite me in the ass. You know what? I feel like it does. for a little while. Foreshowing.

Things seem cool, nothing going on, but some things falling off our brook shelf in the living room. We just thought it was not level or doors closing must have been the cause. But one evening, it became clear it was something else. I was home alone watching TV and painting my toenails. A vibe. I was still leaning over with the polish in one hand and the brush in the other when I felt something bump onto my hand.

Nope. At that moment, the polish was knocked from my fingers. Now you would think it would have just fallen straight to the floor, right? Nope. The bottle made three circles, three circles, and then fell to the floor. What? I felt a little crazy. Like, that didn't happen. But clearly, on the carpet, there were three bright pink circles. What? I even left it for Chase to see to make sure I wasn't cuckoo crazy bananas. Oh, well. He saw it too and mentioned things have been falling off the bookshelf. We shook it off and left well enough alone. If there was a ghost, I say leave it alone and let it be a nuisance. I'm not messing with it and pissing it off. No, nope, won't do that, not today. That's my attitude.

After this, life went back to what we considered normal, and then one evening we were startled by a loud noise in my kitchen. My husband went in and turned on the light, and a bat flew down from the top of our cabinets, scaring us half to death. No. Scared as fuck, but wanting it out of the house, we eventually chased it outside with a broom and mop.

So scary. Thinking things were over and it was a rogue bat, we went about our lives. Yeah, we should have learned better by now. Uh-oh. We did live in West Virginia, After all, and the wildlife is abundant and does make its way into your house every once in a while. A few days passed, we were sitting on the couch watching TV, and another bat flies into our living room.

This is Elena's dream, by the way. This is pretty great. She loves bats. She loves bats. Yeah, I love bats. Yeah, I feel like this is weirdly your dream. I'd be like, oh, we got to get it out. Like, I'd be so excited, but like, oh, we got to get it out.

They're also, like, if you do end up having a bat problem, they're so expensive to get out. So hard to get out of your house. So she says, what the fuck? Our landlord discovered that we had a colony of bats living in our roof and walls. That happened to my boss once, and it was like $1,500 to get rid of them all. We moved out of that house shortly and never had any issues after that. We fully believe we let something out that night. Too many coincidences and weird things happening to convince me otherwise.

Just saying, so yeah, the lesson of this today is alcohol does not mix well with seance. L.O. Oh, and scammers are terrible, horrible people. Watch out. Thank you, Elena and Ash, for all that you have done for us, morbid beasties and besties. Y'all are fantastically awesome, spooky ladies. Peace and love, Abigail. Abigail, you're so sweet. And I really, I really hope that helped to write that down. Like, helped you get through what's going on, losing your dad. And I wish you had a picture of the, uh, of the nail polish rings. I know. I want to see it. Because I believe you. I just like I need to see this. But I can picture it in my head and I wonder if it's the same thing I see.

Yes. But if you ask Ash, you did in fact release something with that fake Ouija board. Yeah, you did. Yeah. So. It's a Ouija board. It's not fake. Like, you made it.

It's a Ouija board. It's like when people are like, is that a fake bag? I'm like, it exists. Are you seeing it? It's a bag. Like, shut up. You made a Ouija board. Oh, man.

Thank you, Abigail and Chase. I know. Thank you. For your cameo. And I think it's Abigail. Abigail. Yeah. Oh, okay.

But yeah. Thank you, guys. Thanks. So the next one is listener tale, the night I was stranded on an island in Massachusetts during a nor'easter and a ghost kept calling the police. Yee. I love that. I love that.

I love that. Hi there, you beautiful, magical weirdos. My name is Deanna, like Damian Eccles, witchy, gothy, misunderstood girlfriend. Oh, yeah. I love that you brought it there. And they said, I totally screamed, That's my name! When she came up in the West Memphis three up.

I fucking love you already. I love when people have my name because I do that exact same thing. I'm like, that's my name. Like it's about me. Just like what a great connection to make. It's awesome. My name is Deanna. Yep. Like Damienette goes, which she cough and misunderstood girlfriend. I love it. I've never met a Deanna that introduced themselves like that. I'm for you. So I'm excited. Oh man. That was great. I fucking love you both. And as a native manor, I love listening to other New England gals talk about spooky, fucked up shit. Yeah. Yeah. Every time I listen, I feel like you're my hashtag. tag BFFs and we're hanging out shooting the shit. We are your BFFs and we are shooting the shit. Thank you so much for bringing so much joy and murder to my life. No problem.

Elena, congrats on the book. It is bold, underlined, italicized, amazing. All the font choices. Thank you. Amazing. And you should be so proud of yourself. How many people get to say that they're in New York Times best selling author? Thank you, Deanna. You witchy gosh, misunderstood Damien Echle's girlfriend. Tiny URL.com slash the butcher in the red or Target, BJ's Walmart or Kroger near you. There you go. Ash, I literally squealed when you announced that you and Drew were engaged. I did too. Finding your person in the shit show of life is truly a gift. Also, I cannot wait to see the wedding picks, mostly because your wedding dress, because knowing you is going to be hashtag fierce. It is. Thank you. I got my wedding. I don't think I even said anything about that. Yeah, I got my wedding

dress. Yeah. Oh yeah. I posted on Insta. But for those of you that don't. partake in the social media sludge. Yeah, I'm not going to be partaking much longer. No, Elon Musk has bought Twitter. I was like, bye. Oh, I immediately deactivated my Twitter. Hi-five. Yay.

I was like, oh, this is not the place for me anymore. But yes, I did get my wedding dress and I think it is pretty fierce. I cried. Nobody prepares you for what an emotional day that's going to be. It is very emotional. I cried. Especially, it just like brings out all the like, ooh, I got to spend the whole, the whole of this life with my person.

And it's so special because my grandparents bought my wedding dress. So I love them. But anyways, laity-di-d-u, feel free to use mine and my friend's names. I like attention, same. And we'll make everybody I know listen to this if you read it. Also, I know this is long. And I feel like I should tell you to edit it as needed. No!

No way. I worked fucking hard on this. And you never shorten people's stories anyway. So fuck it. Read the whole goddamn thing. We'll do. I've attached it as a double-spaced size 14 font put-a-fa. I was almost about to verb.

I'm sorry. Thank you for being my best friends who I never met and don't even know I'm alive. Now we do. And enjoy the story of the night that I was stranded on an island in Massachusetts during a nor'easter and a ghost kept calling the police eat. Let's fucking go, Deanna. Also, just a quick thing to say at the end of this, like how she's like, thanks for being my best friends.

I've never met. I feel like lately it's like hit me even harder that I'm like, you guys really are. Like, whenever I get to, like, we get to talk or see. one of you, like at the book signing and all that, I was like, oh shit, you like really are. Just like best friends that we've never met. Like every time we would meet someone, I was like, no, we know each other. And like I meet you and I'm like, wow, I like you so much more than like people that I've known for 14 plus years. Yeah, I'm like, shit. Where have you been all my life? Literally. Damn. So thank you for saying that because we really do feel the same way.

We truly, truly do. All right. This story takes place in Massachusetts, kid, on Plum Island, which is connected to Newburyport, Massachusetts, by a small bridge. Remember that piece? It is important later. I got it in my noggin. Me too. I also love that you did this size 14 because my eyes are just focusing. Your eyes are just like, yeah. They're like so pleased. Just living.

One of my best friends from college, Matt, was a park ranger on Plum Island for a few years. On Hallow weekend, I haven't heard it called that in so long. Wow. The stelge. On Hallow weekend of 2018, me and our other friend Jake went to visit. We were expecting Nor-Easter that weekend, which, for those of you who don't know what that is, It is a big tropical storm that's left the south and then decides to blow its bitch ass up through the northeast, causing people to forget how to drive, hoard food, and generally lose their fucking shit. We got to get the bread in the water.

That's what they say. A norista kid. There's a norista coming. Good to Shores. In reality, they're usually not that bad and are more of an excuse to stay home and eat said horded food. 100%. Anyway, my friend had his housing provided to him through the park service and was living in an old light keeper's house. Big fucking red flag right here.

But for some reason, I decided to run towards this red flag and not away from it, probably because I didn't have your podcast to warn me. I arrived that Friday night to Matt's house and enjoyed catching up with my friends who I hadn't seen in a few months. All is normal. We're talking about Halloween, eating candy, watching cartoons on Netflix because, duh. Matt tells us a bit about the house, how sometimes the heat acts funny and doesn't work, but that he generally likes living here.

He does warn us that sometimes if storms get too strong, the bridge on the island floods and people get stuck out here until low tide. Something likely to happen tonight. Fucking lovely. At this point, nothing in the house was screaming, I'm haunted, bitch, buckle up. Imagine if it didn't, though. I would love that. If I ever haunted a place, I would literally just go, I'm haunted, bitch, buckle up.

Just warning. But the vibes were definitely a bit off. But I'm an anxious bitch, so I just thought it was my own bad vibes. It finally gets late enough that we decide to go to bed. I was staying on the second floor in my own room. in the eastern corner of the house. My friend Matt was in the room next to me, and Jake was downstairs on the couch.

Matt also had a co-worker who lived in the house with him, and her room was on the other side of his in the western corner. So I brushed my teeth, put on my warm PJs and fuzzy socks, yes, a must for an old New England house, and settle down into bed to play Candy Crush so I don't slip into a merry-go-round of internal doom while trying to fall asleep. Elena plays Candy Crush before bed, too. I do. I also play Best Fiends,

And I do little brain games. Look at you. Yeah. I watch TikTok before, but by this point, the wind has really picked up and is slamming into the houses making everything creak and shake. I try to fall asleep, but I just can't. Something feels off. Everything seems too loud, too unsettled, and I have this weird hypervigilance that I can't shut off more than just my normal anxiety. I'm tossing and turning all night and mixed in with the sounds of the storm.

I keep hearing somebody walking in the hallway. My rational self told me that it was either Matt, Jake, or the roommate, but my weirdo self was like, girl, this is some fucking supernatural shit. Despite my gut telling me to peek at my head out of the room, I was not going to be that bitch that goes looking for ghosts in the middle of the night on an island during a fucking Nor'easter on Hallow weekend with a full moon. I love a good bit of trouble, but not the supernatural kind. Needless to say, I did not sleep that night. Morning finally comes and I pull my tired ass out of bed to go eat breakfast. I asked my friends if they or the roommate were up during the night and walking around and then tell me no, they slept all through the night.

I told them that I heard footsteps in the hallway and how I was literally terrified all night and couldn't sleep. They just sort of looked at me like I was crazy and chalked it up to the sounds from the storm. Fine guys, whatever. Fine guys. I'll just go fuck myself. Shortly after this conversation, while we're all still sitting at the breakfast table, somebody loudly knocks on the front door. Matt answers and it's a police officer. Now, being a small, mostly law-abiding white girl who hates being in trouble, I have literally no reason to be afraid of the cops, but I still am. I don't know, man. A cop just showing up at your house first thing in the morning while you're still in your PJs just isn't a good thing. Yeah, it's just got bad vibes. Yeah.

Like you're like something bad happened. Yeah. Because like, why would you be here if anything good was happening? Yeah. But like, they're not coming to be like, you guys are doing great. Yeah. Bye. No.

Like, it's something bad happened here. Exactly. The officer tells Matt that they got several. calls from this address last night, but every time dispatch answered, no one was there. They would try calling back, but the phone would just keep ringing and nobody would answer it. What? Matt tells the officer that the only landline on the property is across the yard in the barn and that the barn stays locked and only certain park staff have the keys to open it, but that none of them live here. I am about shitting myself at this point. Who the fuck was calling

the cops in the middle of a fucking North Easter from a locked barn? Nope, I'm done. I'm done. I will fucking swim across that bridge to get off this haunted spit of land. I've seen Shutter Island. This is not end well. Bye. Amazing. I love you. So the cop goes and peaks in the barn, finds nothing, and leaves.

My friends are a little weirded out at this point. Just a little? I know. I'd be like really weirded out. But Matt, who besides being one of the chillest people I know, is also highly logical and scientific, so he just kind of shrugs it off. But not before nonchalantly telling us that this has happened. before. Matt. Matt. You got to share that information. Also, Matt, what's the logical explanation

for a locked barn being opened in the middle of a Nor-Easter and somebody calling 911 multiple times, but not picking up the phone when 911 called back? Yeah, my brain would have a hard time making sense of that. How do you logic that? I do not. Not me. I'm sorry, what? You have a literal ghost who walks the halls and calls the cops and you're just fine with it? I can't. Thankfully, my friends decided we should go into Newburyport for the afternoon and get off the island. And luckily the tides and storm cooperated with us. We ate grilled cheese. Yes. And soup. I bet it had to have been tomato. Please tell me it was. You have, can we get that? Oh, we already got lunch for the day. We should do that tomorrow. Make a note. Make a note. Grilled cheese and tomato soup. Absolutely.

So we ate that from a sticky wood paneled restaurant, bought a board game from a toy store in somebody's basement and watched the massive waves breaking over the sand dudes and flooding the parking lots and streets. We finally have to go back to the house, but eat pasta for dinner, so at least I'm not scared and hungry. I was going to say, so there's a positive. Yeah, pasta always makes things better. That night, I am way too fucking terrified to sleep alone in my room. So I make Jake drag my mattress downstairs and I sleep next to him on the floor. Good call. I was finally able to get some rest, but I woke up multiple times throughout the night and always felt like someone was watching me. Fucking disgusting. Nothing else weird happened that weekend, but I was fucking glad when it was time to

to go and I could get the fuck out of that house. Flash forward to a few months later. I'm catching up with Matt and Jake again, and Matt just casually mentions that he talked to his coworkers about how I was convinced the house was haunted. And apparently they go, oh yeah, one of the old lighthouse keepers hanged himself in that house. Oh, excuse the fuck out of me?

Part of me was terrified that I actually did spend the weekend with a cop-calling motherfucker undead lighthouse keeper. But a bigger part of me was thrilled that I was right. I'm a Sagittarius, so you know, I have to be right all the time. I'm a Sagittarius rising, and I just realized why I were friends. I'm a Capricorn and I also have to be right all the time, so this would also please me greatly. Oh, no, no, no, you have to put the whole effect on it. You're a Capricorn and a Virgo rising.

You have to be right all the time, or the world will explode. Literally have to. I'm just a Gemini, so even if you don't think I'm right, I am right. But I tried to do some research to see what I could find about the lighthouse and who died there, but there isn't much listed. What I did find was that the son of the original lighthouse keeper, Lewis Lull, died there in December of 1823. According to New England Lighthouses.net, we use that a lot. It was a freezing cold night, and he started a charcoal file to keep the whale oil, which was used to keep the light lit, from congealing.

He died at his post from asphyxiation. Maybe this was why the heat was always messed up, literally freaking out writing this because, oh my God, that makes so much sense now. It does. Anyway, that's how I spent Halloween stranded on an island during a Noreaster with a ghost who kept calling the cops. Thanks for reading it and keep it weird, but probably not this weird. P.S. Maybe I'll make my little sister write in and tell you about the night she drove a murderer home from work. Get rid of that maybe. Say, I'm going to make my little sister right into you. Bring her to the keyboard right now.

I need to know. Love you. Deanna. Deanna, we love you. You are amazing. Holy shit. So funny. What a tale and what a name. You have a really great email picture too. Look at you. You do. I know. I love seeing your email pictures. I know. I do too. A lot of you guys are just like, I mean, you're all wonderful. But when you put a picture on you. You're all cute and gorgeous. We get to see your faces. Yes. And all I'm saying. So my next tail on here is just called listener tail. All right. No, I'm just kidding. I'm excited. Just listener tail. But don't worry about it.

it because they kept the climactic for the part in the story where it kept climactic this is a nice slow burn where they're like I don't know it's a listener tale you want to check it out and then you open it up and it's like boom it's a choose your own adventure it's like maybe open me maybe don't but like you might be fucked up if you don't just saying so this is hi ladies I am so excited to share my listener tale with you I love your podcast your banter and your love for each other oh thank you we don't even like each other I'm a pilot what I'm a pilot I'm a pilot you looked at me When you said that. That's so cool.

It was right out. That's incredible. That's incredible. I thought Elena was like, I'm a pilot. Because you guys said like we didn't really like each other. And I was like, well, I'm a pilot. I was like, you have a fear of flying. Sure do.

Could not be a pilot. All right. Back to you. Wow. That's awesome. Well, says, I'm a pilot. That's fucking rad. And you girls have gotten me through so many red eye flights through the

of night when all is dark and quiet and I'm just trying to stay awake and engaged. Shh, don't tell. Too late. That didn't help my fair flying at all. Thank you so much for that, friend. I listen as much as I can, especially when getting ready in the morning. Let me just make a quick mental note. Do not take a red eye flight.

Yeah, I don't think that's like the best place for you. No, my little girls refer to you guys as the ladies that say bad words. They're not alone in that. So many people tell us that like their kids are like, oh, those are the ladies that say the F-Palm, right? I love that. I've been called worse, so. This is the best I've been called.

I've been called way worse. I hope you enjoy my little tale, and I would be so stoked to hear it on the pod. Thanks for reading. I'm not going to say your name yet, because I don't know if I can. Oki-dokey. Nikki, yes, I can't.

Yay. Nikki. Nikki's a fucking pilot, guys. I was just going to say, I don't think we fully, like here, I'm just going to put a blanket statement on everybody. I don't think all of us take into consideration, what a badass you have to be to fly a whole ass plane in the sky. I can't even fathom it. Yeah, you have to be like pretty badass.

Like, you're just flying a whole plane full of souls. Yeah. Through the sky, thousands and thousands of feet up there. And then you land it. And then you land it and you just land it and you just go, have a great vacation, everybody. And nobody's like, what the fuck did you just do, Pilot, Nikki? You do it multiple times a day. So that's just wild. Pilots hell, you're crazy and awesome. Yeah, that's why I'm always super, super nice to the flight attendants.

And then if you do get, you know, like when you go on, sometimes you'll see the pilot. Yeah. I'm always like, thanks so much. Yeah, because I'm like, no, really. Thanks so much. I even used to thank the bus driver when I would get off at school. And like, a few other people did. But, like, a lot of people don't.

I know. And it's like, these are people responsible for your safety. Yeah, so say thanks. They do a good job. Say thank you. Say thank you. So thanks, Nikki. Thank you, Nikki.

All right, it says that time my mom directed traffic into a dead body. Oh. So you see why that listener tale. Very the lead. Was a very smart ruse to get us in here. Oh, I like that word. It says backstory. I was 14 living in Colorado, 1994.

My older brother, Jeff, who was six years older, six years older, was in college. He was a good-ish football player and was the kicker. He had earned himself a scholarship to play college football. Cool, right? Wrong. This was a partial scholarship at a tiny college in bum fuck Kansas that literally no one had heard of. Oh. So every weekend, my parents and I had to drive 10 hours to watch the games.

Oh, that. Because they were so proud. Naturally, my football-hating ass had to come and support him. Oh, yeah. That sounds terrible. I'm not going to watch. I'm sorry, America. Football is like watching paint dry.

And there's new rules every five minutes. I'm trying to understand it, but it's real hard. Actually, Trid explains football to me. I saw the wheels turning. I know Trid's real name, but Trid. Yeah, Trid did explain football to you. Yeah, through a whole entire game. He didn't have to do that.

But he made it more palatable than anybody else. Of course he did. still don't quite get it, but go, go watch, uh, go watch Trid and Sheena Malwani on TikTok because they're amazing. Or YouTube. And they're also just amazing humans, by the way. They've become our actual best friends. No, they're like amazing. Yeah, I would trust them with my life. In fact, we just talked to Trid for like an hour and 10 minutes. We certainly did. So, all right, back to the story. Ugh. He literally ran on the field, kicked the ball and ran off. I know that's tough too when he's the kicker. That's all you see of him. Yep. It was like two minutes of playtime,

but I had to sit there and freeze my ass off pretending to cheer for the entire goddamn game. Naturally, my cheap-ass parents never got a hotel, so we would have to drive back home after the game through the night. Oh, so that's a 20 fucking hour back to back. Holy shit. But like, wow, that's some real, that's some parental commitment there. This particular game was homecoming and was on Halloween. You can bet your ass I was pissed to have missed Halloween for this of all things. That's shitty of them to put it on Halloween.

Yeah, that's not cool. We began our 10-hour road trip home after the game at 8 p.m. I, a cranky teen, was shoved in the back of my mom's escort wagon with nothing to do but sleep. At about 3 a.m., yep, you heard me right? 3 a.m. I was awoken with startle to my parents saying, Is that a dead body? I popped up so fast to look out the window and saw the figure lying in the middle of the interstate.

Oh, no. As we approached, we all assumed it's Halloween and probably a scarecrow or prank. My dad slowed and as we got closer, we discovered it was definitely a man's body. We pulled to the side of the road and mom got out. My dad was yelling at her to get back in the car. That she was crazy and you can't just get out in the middle of the highway. But her crazy ass just went anyway. Oh, she's an empath.

I should explain that my mom, a four foot five inch Italian lady, doesn't take shit from anyone. Hell yeah. And certainly doesn't ever listen to reason. I love her. She's amazing. She approached the body and kept yelling. It's real. Oh my God, it's real. She was telling me to stay in the car, but for my dad to come help her. Neither of us moved. Hell no, we're not getting out of the car in the middle of the night on the highway on Halloween. To what? Help her move a body? No fucking thank you. Yeah, don't touch that. It was pitch black and super creepy. There were no cell phones at the time. So we just had to wait for help to arrive. Oh, my God. I didn't even think of that. Due to the time, there were, due to the time, there were very few cars out. Soon we saw headlights approaching. Did my mom get out of it? the middle of the road? Nope. She decided it was her job to direct traffic around this body all the while

my dad begging her to get back in the car. This is the best. This should be on the sitcom. What a chaotic scene. The first car was approaching very quickly and saw my mom did not slow down, but in an effort to not hit my mother flailing her arms like a crazy person, the car diverted and went straight over the body. Oh. After the impact, they stopped about 10 feet past. The car behind them, did the exact same thing. However, this car was going fast enough that they hit the body, went airborne, and literally landed with the front of their car directly on top of the rear of the previous car. On top of it.

Oh, this was a disaster, and my mom had directed them right into the body. Oh, no. This is horrible. It's terrible. I am sure you can imagine the sound of the cars impacting the body at 70 miles per hour. It is something I will never forget. At this point, chaos. ensues, bone crushing, cars colliding, my poor mother screaming in horror, my dad is yelling at my mom.

You directed them right then to him. Get back in the damn car. The drivers of both the cars were obviously terrified and screaming, looking between the body and their super fucked up cars. Because they're probably like, oh, fuck did I kill him? That was walking. I'm pretty sure drunk from the Halloween fun they had. Their cars were piled on top of each other and the body was still wedged under the last car. It was unreal. Eventually, a truck. driver stopped and was able to radio for help. We stayed for questioning and I remember listening to the officers and my dad yelling at my mom for the myriad of shit she had done wrong. Ooh, but as soon as the officer started yelling at her, I'd be like, back the fuck up.

Back up. Do not yell at me. That's my mom. What would you do? We later found out that the man was murdered. Oh, shit. He was a college professor in Boulder who had been at a club that night. He was gay and it was suspected that he was taken from the club he was at murdered and thrown from the vehicle. Why are people such? What the fuck? This was a senseless hate crime. I've looked back and have found nothing pertaining to this case. That's shocking. Other than the one newspaper article we saw that Monday morning. It's shocking, but is it? Well, that's what I mean that's shocking. Exactly. Like sarcasm. Right. The driver and passengers of the first vehicle sustained minor injuries, while the driver of the second was arrested for reckless driving and DUI. Oh, ma'am. Needless to say,

I didn't leave my parents' side for the next two days. I couldn't stop picturing. and hearing the man's body being completely decimated right before my very eyes. That's terrible. I can safely say this was the worst talent lean ever. Thanks for listening. Oh, man, Nikki. What a tale. Oh, my God.

Nikki. My goodness. I am at a loss for words. Me too, and that doesn't happen a lot. But thank you for sharing that. That poor professor. I know, like the fact that he was murdered, first of all. And then like a literal hate crime happened.

He was murdered. And then he's like desecrated. Like his body was completely decimated through no fault of anybody like, you know. Yeah, it just happened. Yeah. It's like, oh my God. What a terrible series of events. And then for you just to have to witness all of that.

That's terrible. Also, what's the difference between desecrated and decimated? Have I been saying the wrong thing? No, they're both words. They are both words. I can tell you the actual definitions of both of them. I love that. I'll give you some elevator music.

Yeah. Thank you. Beep, boop, boop, boop. A tuba in the wind. Yeah. So that's what, so desecrate is like you would desecrate a grave. Oh. Or like desecrate something special.

But decimate is to spread or disperse something wildly. Widely, excuse me, or wildly. So take that he could be desecrated and decimates. Absolutely. And he was. Yeah, it makes sense both ways. Okay, good. I was like, oh, fuck, did I say the word wrong?

I love words. No, you're good. All righty. Now that we know how to say words. and different versions of words, we can go to the next listener tale. Words. I thought you were just going to say, words. I was going to, but then it went into words.

I like that better. Yeah. It's very authory of you. There you go. Tiny Royal.com social. Listener tales. A ghost yeeded my stand-up closet on Halloween. Whoa.

Here's a spooky 2020 listener tale for you. Hell yeah. All right. Happy spooky season, weirdos. My name is Ashley. Me too. Kind of. Yes, you may use my name and any other names in this listener tale.

Hell yeah. And I am from the middle of nowhere Nebraska. I've been listening to your podcast for about a year now, and y'all have forever changed my podcast life. I was never a podcast person until I came across your show. And since then, not only have I been hooked, but my boyfriend and my whole college cheerleading team listens to you now. Oh my God, I love it. That's so cool. You're hilarious and so true to yourselves, and we need more people like you on this planet. Oh, same goes for you, man. Back at you. Now, let's go to the good stuff. I am going to first take you back to my end of sophomore year of college in 2018. I had just transferred from a community college to a very fucking expensive private college in Hastings, Nebraska.

I will regret this decision later in life, but I depressed. I was living in an apartment at the time and decided that it was time for an upgrade. A couple girls on my cheerleading team, and I decided to move into a new house. It looked like any other ordinary house. I was the last one to move into the house, so I got the last pick of bedrooms. Mine happened to be the smallest room of the house in the basement. Oof. You like can't do that to somebody.

I'd be so mad at my teammates. Yeah, I would not be happy. I'd be like, no, no, no, we draw sticks for that room. Exactly. About a week after moving into the house, everything was normal. I was still putting shit away because I'm a nasty procrastinator. Same. And I had random stuff everywhere.

One day, we had cheer practice and we all left the house. I returned from practice later than everybody else because I decided to go get some food. When I returned, I went to my bedroom and I noticed that things were a little off. Everyone has random decorations in their room like mason jars, pictures, a decorative beer bottle still full of beer, LOLL college things. When I walked into my room, these little items, oh no, no, no, no, no, were all fucking upside down. Eek. That's not good. That's weird. That's not good. I don't know why it's not good, but it's not good. It's not good when things are upside down. They're just the wrong way. They should be right side up. Exactly.

Mason jars full of shit, picture frames, and yes, the full ass bottle of beer standing on its cap. I looked at everything just standing in the doorway. I quickly put everything right side up and ran upstairs to bitch at my roommates for touching my stuff. I still ask my roommates to this day if they touch my shit to scare me and they deny it every time I ask them. Huh. All right. Huh. I feel like I don't know if I trust these roommates. I know. I know. I trust these roommates. I know. I don't know about it. This was the first of a handful of times that my shit was touched or moved. Nothing ever happened upstairs, though.

Pompoms would wrestle as if somebody was moving them. Things would fall off the walls, but those things can all be explained like the command strips suck ass. Yeah, they do sometimes. And the air conditioning turned on. There is one night in particular, though, that I will never forget. And to this day, it terrifies me and cracks my shit up at the same time. Oh, man. In October of 2020, yes, it was October 31st, the spookiest Halloween news. yet. My wonderful boyfriend, Gerard. Jared. Jared. Jared. Jared. Jared. Gerard? Gerard? Jay.

Can I call him Jay? I just want to keep mispronancing his name. Well, I was just going to say we don't want to mispronounce the name the whole time. So Jay was over at the house and just chilling in the basement. It was around 5 p.m. and I needed to go to work. Jay was from out of town at the time. And when I decided to go to work, he would just hang out at the house while I was gone. I gave him a passionate kiss goodbye and off to work I went. Good for you giving him a passionate kiss goodbye before you go to work. Girl. So sexy.

This morning I literally like push Drew away from me and got out of bed and then like smooched his forehead and I thought that was sweet. Passionate. Passionate. At this time I was a waitress at a restaurant and I was always super busy for supper. I was still there only an hour when my phone started going off the fucking hook, call after call. Normally I wouldn't answer my phone during work but I noticed that it was Jay and I thought something might be wrong with him calling me so many times in a row.

So I answered him and asked if he used. was okay. Jay said, Ashley, I am coming to your work. I cannot stay at this house alone. Whoa. What would be the first thing to come to your mind if somebody said that to you? I'd be stressed. I'd be like, what happened at the house? Yeah, I'd be like, more context, sir. You gotta give me a little something. Yeah. Confused out of my mind, I asked him why. So you're in Elena. There you go. He proceeded to tell me that he was just on the couch watching some TV with our house cat, Stormy on his lap. Stormy, I have to, Stormy, you look like Mommy. Mommy baby. Have you heard that? Nope. It's a Kylie Jenner thing. But it's like a TikTok sound. I was like what? It's a TikTok sound. I'm surprised you haven't gotten it. Actually, I'm not. I was just going to say, my for you page hasn't given me that. No, I'm not. No. Stormy apparently got up from Jay's lap and looked into my room to the right of Jay. The room was dark and Stormy just sat in the door frame as if he was looking at something. After a few moments, the stand-up closet I had in the room crashed to the floor with clothes flying everywhere. It scared the fuck out of it.

both Stormy and Jay, and Stormy began running all around the house in a panic. Jay said that he sat there for a good long while just out of disbelief. He quickly picked up all my clothes that were thrown. You could tell that he put them away in a hurry and left the house. That was so cute that he actually like stained to pick up your clothes. I can tell you with full certainty that Drew would have ran the fuck out of their clothes be damned. John would have put the clothes away very neatly. Absolutely. More neatly than they had been put away the first time he would have like colored coded them and then thrown some away or donated some. Not in the right spot. No. Not in the spot that I put them. He would totally change it and then he would donate a bunch. The pick bags everywhere.

He's a minimalist. That's another TikTok sound. When he came to the restaurant, excuse me, to tell this story again, I just could not help just to laugh. What else was I supposed to fucking do? And the thought of a ghost eating my entire closet on the floor was just fucking hilarious. It is pretty funny. Didn't think this was amusing at all. This stand-up closet had never fallen on its own before or after this night. There were too many clothes on the rack for it to just topple over on its own. Honestly, when he told me what happened, I was more interested than scared.

It had never done anything to me. Maybe it just didn't like my tasting clothes. What the fuck, man. Everybody's got an opinion nowadays. In May of 2021, it was time to graduate and move to the big city of Lincoln, Nebraska. Nothing has been thrown or moved since October, so we're doing all right. While going through so much fucking random shit I'd accumulated over the years, I noticed something odd in the storm shelter, which is a room right next to my bedroom. I see random bags of clothes, books, decorations, and glass. Shattered glass all over the floor.

There happened to be a light fixture right above that shattered glass. Somehow, sometime, within the past month of me going through everything to move, the light bulb unscrewed itself out of the ceiling and fell to the floor. Huh. Now, I don't know about you, but I've never had a light bulb do that before. No. Not really a normal occurrence, especially when I rarely ever go into that room. I would like to think it was one last hurrah from our ghost before we all moved out of the house. We now refer to the ghost as Quinn. Cute. We do not know if they're a boy or a girl, so we keep it gender neutral. I often talk about Quinn when I get together with my college roommates and kind of miss my stuff being thrown around. Life was more exciting with Quinn around. Since the new people moved into that house, I wonder if Quinn is living in

with them or giving them any hell, L-O-L-L. I really hope so. This was a shorter story, but I hope it made for a good story. I love you guys, and thank you for reading. Have a very happy, spooky season, friends, your morbid friend, Ashley. Ashley, that was like an adorable ghost story. I like that, Quinn. That one was really cute. I like it a lot. I like that Quinn you have. And you know what? We're going to go right into a pretty gnarly story. Okay. This one is called The Time My Leg Got Straight Zooted at my 18th birthday party. A stabbing parable. Your leg got zooted?

I think you got stabbed. I don't think your leg got high. Hey, fam. Here's the story of the time I got stabbed. Yeah. Homegirl went to town. The dock is nine pages, but five of those pictures are pages are pictures.

That's okay. Also, I think this is right up Ashes Alley for reading purposes. Too bad. I'm reading it. We're the same age and my cousin is the same age as Elena. That's kind of fun. Oh, that's cool. Enjoy. Embo.

Let's see. I hope I do. with justice because you will. You know. All right. I can't read even. I want to start off by saying that I love your podcast and I just can't get enough. My cousin introduced me to your show while we were on a COVID conscious road trip out west.

I graduated college in the dead center of the 2020 COVID lockdown and this was our celebration months and months later, yeating ourselves into nature. Yee ha, I guess. My cousin is 35 and I'm 23. I love that. We're both top tier true crime junkies and I consider us to be soul sister best friends. So I feel pretty confident saying that there's no other duo out there who vibes more with your podcast than us. We're really picking up what you're putting down, to say the least.

Are you smelling what we're stepping in? I love you guys already. I could tell you stories about our road trip and how we repeatedly felt like we might be zoinked out of existence in some sketchy places along the way. But for this email, I'm taking you back Raven Simone style to 2015 on the night of my 18th birthday party. That's so, Raven. It's the future I can see. There is. She recently came out and it's not Raven Simone. It's Raven Simony. I had no idea. Yeah, I guess she said that like Disney didn't like how that sounded or something. That's fucked up.

It's real fucked up. You can't rename people. Damn, but they did. All right, Raven Simonia style to 2015. On the night of my 18th birthday. The main reason I decided to send this story is because of Amy's February listener tale about being shot and what it felt like. I really resonated with what she went through and decided to go ahead and send my historian. Now, no one was deliberately trying to murder me, but I came pretty fucking close to dying, so I figured this story might make the cut. I just typed it out and realized it's accidentally a pun for my life, L-O-A-O. Quick aside, for legal reasons, you can call me MBO, only because I have some thoughts on this period of my life, and since there were lawyers involved at the time, I don't want anyone coming for me. Anyway, here's my story about getting stabbed at my

birthday party. Oh, it's your birthday and you can cry if you want to. It says, cue the rainbow tunnel vision. In 2015, I was throwing my annual Halloween birthday combo party. Hey, hey to my fellow Scorpio's. Looking back on it now, I was extremely type A when it came to planning these things out, because I always made sure that every guest had two people there that they knew. I guess you could call me the spider woman of party planning, weaving a web of friendships and making sure everyone felt comfortable or just a quirky gal with quirky undiagnosed ADHD. That's what TikTok wants you to think. Well, not too long after the party started, things got pretty damn uncomfortable and hectic for everyone. Oh no. Some friends and I were playing a game like hacky sack with a balloon, hitting it from

person to person and make sure it didn't land on the ground. Oh, you mean keepy upy? Where are my blueie fans at? That's what we play in this house. We play keepy upy. T.T. Will you play keepy Happy with me? I love it. The amount of times I hear that. At one point, I lunged and kicked at the balloon with my foot and ended up getting myself knifed. I didn't really see what happened. I only have a blurry memory of the motions that landed me in that position, but I can remember exactly what it felt like. I want to give a quick trigger warning for my pals out there with freak accident trauma before I explain. Basically, when I first felt off, I thought someone had punched me in the leg. Then when I noticed the large pocket knife on the ground, I thought someone had accidentally

thrown it at me and it bounced off my leg. Then I felt my ankle starting to get very, very warm. When I looked down, my ankle was covered in my own blood, which was streaming down my leg and pouring on the floor. I can totally vouch for the fight, flight, or freeze phenomenon, and believe me, I went into commando fight mode. I immediately sat down on the floor and started yelling orders at my friends directing them to where they could find towels and how they could hold my leg up high and wrap it tightly with the towels to stop bleeding. Good for you. That's incredible that you had the wearwithal to do that. I love this. I even tapped into Keeper of the Peace mode, making sure everyone else was doing okay. You're like, do you have a drink? You need some popcorn? All right.

You were still the hostess with the Moistess, with the Morrist. No, no, I'm fine, really. It's going to be okay. Who's calling the ambulance? Can someone call my mom? Oh yeah. My parents were out buying more pizzas for the party when this shit went down. They were literally gone like 15 minutes. Parents' nightmare. Do we know how old you were when this happened? That 18th birthday. Oh, yep. Okay. So there I was, chilling out, maxing out, relaxing all cool in a pool of my own blood, staring wistfully at my crush. No. Who was talking to the ambulance dispatcher and making me fall even more in love with him because of some please save me complex. I didn't even know I have. And trying to convince my friends that I was totally fine because it didn't even hurt that much. We, that's

Like your dream, like that would be like one of my dreams, though, my crush talking to the ambulance driver. Like I think I have a police save me complex. There you go. I think we all kind of do. I think everybody does. Like, just care for me. Deep down inside, everybody has it and it comes out in situations like this. Yeah.

During this time, everyone was confused. I'm still confused. But the story my friend circulated was that my Boy Scout friend was using his large pocket knife to cut open a bag of glow sticks and his hand slipped and hit me. Now, the glow sticks had a tail. So either he was being completely over the top and wanted to use his big boy toy, or it's not really what happened. To be honest, I kind of feel like maybe he was trying to pop the balloon to be funny and it ended up in a not funny turn of events. But that's neither here nor there for legal reasons. Eventually, the ambulance arrived at my house and I got to have the rock star exit of being carried by a mega hot EMT to the

gurney outside because it wouldn't fit through the door of my house. Yikes. I remember bits and pieces of ambulance ride but didn't think too much of it until recently. For one, when the paramedic asked me how I was feeling, I replied, oh, I don't know, wonky? And then promptly after that, I had to muster all my remaining energy to explain what the hell wonky meant to this poor woman who was just trying to do her job. She's like, so on a scale of one to ten, how wonky are you feeling? On a scale of one to wonky, where are you? I also remember the ambulance stopping halfway down my street, which really confused and bothered me since we only lived like six minutes away from the hospital. It wasn't until recently that I realized they had to stop because I was literally dying.

My stats were dropping like crazy, and they had to take a beat to regain control of my leg bleeding out. Oh, my God. I'd like to thank my local EMTs for not explaining that that was happening to me at the time, because I would have been gonzo. Imagine if you're a friend who was just like trying to show off his big boy toy, murdered you at your own party by accident? in this freak accident?

Like, you were dying. That's wild. Meanwhile, my younger sister was riding up front with the ambulance driver, and the dispatch radio was blasting 911 calls and accident reports from all over the country. I feel really bad for, or county, excuse me, I feel really bad for her because I know my experience was fucked up, but wow, she was really going through it too. She's like, what's going on in this town? Also, they made an exception to let her ride with us because she was a minor, and I was only

allowed to be taken to the hospital without my parents because I had turned eight. 18 two days prior to the incident. Thank goodness. If it had been even a day before my birthday, there's nothing they would have legally been able to do, which is absolutely whack, in my opinion. Yeah, like, sorry, we can't save you because your parents are not here. Your mom and dad aren't here. Also, she was probably, I can, like, think when she's saying right now how she can barely

remember parts of this because she was literally bleeding out. Yeah. That's what, when I had the girls that happened to me, and I remember only bits and pieces. So it's such a weird thing when you think back to it because you're like, oh, I remember this. Yeah. And I remember this, like little like patches come out. It's so weird.

It's like shock. Yeah. Anyway, we finally got to the hospital where my parents were waiting for us. And a small group of my closest friends followed closely followed closely behind, crush and toe. My emergency room visit was pretty weird. And I only remember bits and pieces. But I do remember that doctor is asking, is she always this pale? I swear that was the same thing.

And the answer was no. Not gray. She's usually not gray. She's usually pale, but not gray. And my friends explaining that they used more than three towels to clean up all the blood I had lost. So no, I wasn't just an anemic ginger with a cullen-esque skin tone. Also, I can't remember the name of the procedure, but I was putting the same machines as Amy, where the text let you, you know, it'll feel like you're peeing, but don't worry about it.

Is that a cat scan? Is that a cat scan? I know, I don't know what happened there. It must have been whatever they, like, it might have been like a spinal or something. Oh, because I'm not really sure. I think it was a cat scan and they were like, it's going to feel like you're peeing, but you're not. Maybe. Honestly, I don't remember that part of Amy's story.

So I don't know what machine that was, but you're probably right. And let me tell you, I was worried about it. I really came out of the machine in my woozy state of consciousness. Like, listen, I know you said I wouldn't pee, but I'm totally not sure. And I'm really sorry if I did. It was definitely one of the most uncomfortable feelings in the world. Yeah, because not only if it was like a cat scan, not only does it feel like you're literally peeing yourself, it burns. Like your throat burns.

Oh. Yeah, I don't, I didn't like it at all. Oh, that's stressful. You're probably right, because I was more thinking of like childbirth when they, when they give you the shot in the spine and you're like, oh, I'm peeing. They were probably trying to see if she had, like, injured any, like, tendons or anything like that. Fast forward to the next day and the painkillers the hospital loaded me up on were beginning

to wear off. My mom hadn't gone to the pharmacy yet because I was feeling fine, so I didn't have any medicine to take when shit hit the fan and the pan. And the pain hit me all at once. Oh. The ambulance had already. been called to my house earlier that morning because I passed out while trying to crutch my way to the bathroom. But I played it off cool to the EMTs and made sure to let them know I was fine.

When the pain kicked in a few hours later, though, they were called again. And my calm and collected repose flew out the window. I remember just being curled up on the couch crying and clutching my favorite stuffed animal, which ended up escorting me to the hospital. I'm pretty sure the same mega hot EMT who had carried me out the night before carried me out of the house again. Only this time I had my stuffed tiger with me the whole time. Big ego boost for an 18-year-old girl. Let me tell you. Now, if you've watched John Malini's stand-ups, of course,

then you might remember his story about the Batman nurse. Oh my God, yes, I do. I'm pretty fucking sure I met that guy's twin brother because I was helped by a bubbly gay male nurse with exactly the same energy. For example, example, do you have said? I just like took that soul on. When he came in to give me pain medicine,

he explained it a sing-song voice, oh, honey, we're going to get you fixed right up. I'm here to give you the good stuff. It's basically heroin, but legal. Thank God my mom wasn't in the room. After that, I was so relieved and slumped from the medicine that I took a little nappy nap and let the doctors do their thing. I'm going to try and make the rest short

because holy damn, this is longer than anyone needs. But hopefully my trauma has been entertaining in the least. It has. After all of this, the doctors found out my tendon had been. cut. I knew they were looking for that. And I needed to have a graft tendon put in from a cadaver. Woohoo, dead body parts. After that my leg was sewn up and everything went back to normal. Oh, that's so weird to like know that you have like a dead person's thing in your body, but like, great, that it could help you. Well, until the graft tendon got infected and I had to spend

months and months in the hospital in wound care and having multiple new surgeries to take it back out and fix everything again. They ultimately decided to not put in any other donor tendons in because they afraid my leg wouldn't recover. So now I'm missing half a tendon and can no longer lift my right foot. Whoa. And you should probably say this last part. What's good? There you go.

Eventually, after upwards of 11 surgeries, eight months of in-and-out hospital stays, and lots of physical therapy, I was able to walk again. Hell yeah. But you can't raise your right foot. I know, that must be so weird. Like, does that mean? Like, because you must be able to walk, obviously. Yeah, but like the tendon that would pull that foot up.

Like flex. that would flex that foot. Why? Yeah. I missed half of my senior year of high school, but I recovered in time to walk at graduation and go to two proms with my crush. Oh, yeah. Who went to a different high school and spent a lot of time coming to visit me in the hospital.

Oh, my God. You are his crush. Throughout my experience, I had an amazing support system of friends and family, and I never once felt lonely during my time spent in the hospital. It's actually kind of weird. Hospitals used to freak me out, but now when I visit them, I feel an overwhelming sense of calm. And I guess a feeling you might.

call homesickness? I don't know. What originally started as a pretty, quote unquote, pretty 16-inch scar ended up being jagged after all the follow-up surgeries. And I was pretty insecure about it for a long time. Just like Amy in her hand, I refused to look at my leg from the night it happened until I was almost fully healed. It nauseated me and made me feel overwhelmingly scared because it meant I wasn't okay. I would always crop it out of photos. And I remember when I went on my first college date, I was always, first few college dates, I was always worried the people would be freaked out or grossed out by how it looked. And occasionally, I even apologized for it. And it says, who is she? I don't know her. Good. But now I'm proud of it. And I think it's gnarly and pretty damn cool. Yeah, it's a battle scar, baby.

Unfortunately, Crush Guy and I didn't last through the freshman year long distance struggle, but we're still friends and things are chill between us. Just wanted to make sure I didn't leave you guys stranded on that one. Thank you. You are a real one. I was just about to ask, like, are you so in them? I skipped ahead and looked at the pictures of them at prom. Oh, my God. I can't wait to see it. Thanks for taking the time to read my story, and I hope it makes it onto the show. So Amy and others like us can hear it. You guys are the absolute best, and I know you get this from your listeners all the time,

but it's cool to be part of a group where true crime junkies are validated. And weirdos like me have an outlet for wackadoo thoughts and experiences. Keep it weird, but not so weird that your birthday party turns into a slasher movie, Embo. B.S. I'm attaching photos of my leg for you viewing pleasure. And so prompics as well. I call this one one foot wonder. Oh my God. It's her in a bathing suit with just the foot out like in a one foot little pool.

Wow. Also this one says. That is a scar. And it says there she is. Ignore my leg hair. There's literally nothing I could do about it. Literally. You're beautiful.

Oh my God. You and your crush are everything. Oh my goodness. You're everything. Oh. I love these. And then it says, by the way, because there's like a crazy. zigzag pattern of like where the stitches were. It says, by the way, the crazy zigzagging pattern of

the stitches was because during the second round of surgeries, they had to get rid of a lot of infected muscle and pull my left skin over together as tightly as possible. Oh my God. Isn't that fun? Wow. You are a, you're a Titan. You are. Is what you are. And you know what? Like your scar now, it's like, it healed incredible. I don't think I would even notice that if I was walking past you. And if I did, I'd be like, wow, that girl's really cool. What happened? That's incredible healing right there. And both your prom dresses were so gorge.

Oh, my goodness. Wow, what a bunch of cuties. You guys, that's wild. That was a crazy story. For real. The fact that you were just playing keepy-uppy upy. I know. And you kicked in the air and then you just got your leg sliced open.

That's wild. That's absolutely bonkers. But damn, you know how to tell a story. You guys all do. These were incredible. Yeah. What do you say? we do one more just to finish it off, right, Elena. Let's do one more. Okay, this one is called

Fun Listener Halloween Tale, where my friend met Michael Myers. Wow. How could we not read that? And, oh, I went to the other place to, oh no, I'm good, okay. You're good. I have never sent in a story to a podcast before, so I'm a little nervous, and I hope I get this right. You can't even get it wrong. Don't even worry. Never. I have a super fun, lighthearted Halloween tale. Buckle up. It's crazy. There's a surprise ending. Oh, we love a twist. Here we go. I live in San Diego, California, and there is a well-known hiking spot called Elfin Forest. Oh, I read about this place. Oh, you did? Yeah. For spooky forests. It's rumored to be haunted. Yep, it is. Okay. I'm 26 years old, so this is like back between 2009, 2012, because they found out that it was haunted during their high school years.

There you go. I'm not sure if this rumor is still circulating, but if it isn't, bring it back, Gen Z. Let's go. Anyways, it was really common for people to go there to smoke weed, drink, and hang out, but especially, during Halloween. I'm not sure why the fuck we thought this was smart, because the idea of being hired drunk in the great outdoors in the dark sounds terrifying as an adult, but nonetheless, it was a thing. So when Halloween night in 2010, I get this really panicked phone call for my best friend. We'll call her Taylor. Taylor was telling me about how something insane happened at Elphin Forest. She told me that her and about six other friends decided to go there and you guess it, smoke weed, drink and hang out. They were having a really great night until they got a little

turned around because they went off trail. Also, full disclaimer, this is by no way an actual forest. Like, this is a cluster of trees in a canyon. For San Diego, it's a forest. But think oak tree surrounding a cute little creek that stretches out for a few miles. Adorable. All right. Back to our story. They got lost. It was dark. Everyone was increasingly getting weirded out. Eventually, they got back to the car. And as they're walking back to the car, one of the boys, will call him Andrew, stops dead in his tracks. The group is confused and asks why he's stopped, but he doesn't answer. After a few moments of silence, they see what he sees and they are absolutely stunned in fear.

There is a man in a Michael Myers mask standing in the dirt parking lot holding a fucking knife. That's just Michael Myers. That's actually just Michael Myers. That's just Halloween. On Halloween. That literally is it. Halloween. Halloween.

Now somehow they were calm at first, thinking that I'm just. it was another friend in the group playing a joke. But after making a quick count of everything, they realized that it is indeed not someone in the friend group. Needless to say, they book it to the car. Everyone's screaming, crying. There's an all-around total panic. The Michael Myers dude is running toward the fucking car.

Does he not method act? You're not supposed to run, Michael. You're out of character. But luckily, unlike the real Michael Myers, who moves ungodly slow and fast, Taylor and the gang all get away. I'm glad. They end up going back into town and stopping at a gas station or some shit I totally don't remember.

But what I do remember is Taylor telling me this. When they were stopped, a car pulled up and started circling their car. What? This guy's hand was out the driver's side window holding a knife. No mask, but it was too dark to see his face. Everyone freaks out again. And they drive back to Taylor's. I'd be like, wow, this Halloween was a bust.

Yeah, I'd be like, fuck that Halloween. Being 15 years. Oh, my voice just cracked. Is that puberty? Maybe. Being 15 years old and hearing Taylor tell me this story, I was mortified. But this is where it gets funny and weird. So fast forward from 2010 to 2012.

Silly bands are in. Wow. Was that really when Silly bands were in? I feel like they were in before that. I don't even know what that is. Oh, did you not remember Silly bands? Like from my generation? No, I was getting married in 2012.

I don't think I was around Silly bands. Yeah, no. And that's the thing. Well, what are they? Silly bands, they were like a little. animals that were like bracelets. But it was like animals or like, I don't remember if they're like food ones. But they were cool.

I don't honestly, they were never really cool. But it was more when I was in like freshman year or like even like middle school. Yeah. I don't know. I never knew. I never heard of them. Yeah. Silly bands.

They got banned at my school actually at my middle school. What are they weapons? No, but like people were getting distracted. Oh, I was like what? Because people would like trade them and stuff like that all the time. Oh, like pokey. Monkarts. Yeah, exactly. When I was in school, Pogs, you lost me there. Yep. Wow. Yep. Yep. But it's 2012. Silly vans are in. You can't wait for the final Twilight movie to come out. You still have a

tumbler. Whoa. That's not really, well, you were excited for the new Trilight movie. We liked Twilight a lot. Oh, yeah. I'm sure. So we're all graduated and was with an old high school friend named Hazel. We were spending a ton of time together during Halloween, in particular, binging scary movies. One night we were going to her house with two boys I'd never hung out with before to watch the movie about the Jersey Devil. While we were watching the movie, something about the plot made me think of what Taylor had told me a couple years ago. I told Hazel and the boys, and Hazel was like, holy shit, that is terrifying. While the boys began to laugh hysterically. Huh. I was super confused. After laughing, one of them explained how they would dress up like

Michael Myers every Halloween and go to Elfin Forest to scare people. Oh, no. My mind was so blown. I had no what to say, but we called Taylor to tell her and we all had a good laugh about it. But he chased them to the car with a knife. It's like, dude, taking it too far. That's how accidents happen. That's a good way to get yourself killed. Yeah, or arrested. Self-defense. At the very least. After the laugh, though, I asked them why they would also choose to follow their friends to the gas station with a knife and how that's super uncool. Like, this whole thing is uncool to be honest, hearing people in the middle of the forest. Come on now. You don't have a prank. You don't have a TV show. You don't have a prank TV show. The boys went quiet and said, yeah, that part wasn't us. We stayed in the parking

lot the rest of the night and just kept scaring kids. Oh my gosh. That's terrifying. It was a wild Halloween wherever the fuck you were. And that's the part that gets me. Who the fuck followed them to the gas station with a knife? We'll never know. Dun, done, done. Damn. Elfin Forest, to this day, scares the shit out of me. My boyfriend and I go quite often because it does have good hiking during the day like sane people. And we will hear human-sounding footsteps following us nearby with zero sign of a person around. It sounds nothing like the scurrying of an animal, I promise you. I often feel like I'm being watched there. It's only happened a couple of times, but needless to say, I avoid it during the Halloween season. Yeah, as you should apparently. You definitely should.

I hope you enjoyed my tale. I really love your podcast, and it's been getting me through this cluster fuck of a year that we call 2020. Whoa. Don't worry. We're in 2022 now. We got through it. I mean, it still sucks, but we're here. Happy spooky season, weirdos. Shane. Say it like Shane, but I'm a girl. Shane. That was a good one to end on because it was like, oh, that's funny and like spooky Halloween fun. But then it was like a weird twist. Who was that person at the gas station? Like, what the fuck was that? Halloween was wild for you all back then. Damn, you guys are outrageous with these tales. Outrageous. I do that every time we say outrageous lately. When I'm at a party.

Outrageous when I read a listener taley. Wow. You're welcome. Gotta go. Yeah, with that being said, we do hope that you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But that's where you start singing Britney on your podcast like anybody asked you to. Bye.