Radio Rental - Episode 11

Episode Date: July 9, 2020

On today’s tapes… >> Highway Hitchhiker > While You Were Sleeping

Thank you. stories we tackle next. Plus, you could win a nice prize just for sharing your thoughts. Head over to tenderfoot.tv slash survey and let your voice be heard, and you'll be entered to win a $100 Amazon gift card plus a Tenderfoot merch pack. It only takes a few minutes, and it makes a big difference. Thank you for being part of our community. We can't wait to hear from you. Oh, perfect. Splendid timing. Welcome back to Radio Rental. I'm just having a little personal movie marathon, watching some of my old work from my acting days. You're probably familiar with this one.

No? Well, then let me know the address of the rock you're currently living under. And maybe you only watched that effluvia offered to you on the streaming services. You think you'll find any of the hidden gems I have here on your Disney Pluses and your HBO Maximums, your Hooboos? You think they'll have chopper chicks in Zombie Town? Hmm? The Evil Bong series? Killdozer? Snakes on a Plane 2? Even more snakes? No way. Anyway, this is one of my favorites, the Castle of Blood Island. Well, here I am, about to make my entrance. Oh! Here I am!

My breakout role, literally, at the 1988 Screamy Awards, I won Best Death, Impalement or Explosion category. In my case, I was both impaled and exploded. In the next scene, you'll see the bottom half of my body gets skewered onto the chain-link fence that surrounds the castle and then detonated by a rogue hand grenade. But we're not here to talk about my bowels being skewered. Today I have an exciting lineup for you. Let's jump right in, shall we? I was about 15 years old. My father had retired from the Army, and for just side jobs, he worked at gas stations. I worked with him pretty much every night. He would give me a couple bucks.

I would stock the coolers, run the register if he had to go off somewhere. I wasn't officially an employee of the store. I would just go in with him. The owners knew that I did. They didn't really care. I would stock the coolers, sweep the floors, mop the floors, do my homework. And if he wanted a few minutes break,

I could run the cash register just as good as he could. The gas station was right next to the interstate. And a lot of times, we'd have people walking up from that direction because their cars had run out of gas on the interstate and they would just come walking up. One night, I'm sitting there reading a book, and I look out the window and I see a lady walking up off of the interstate up towards the gas station.

She was 5'6", 5'7", scraggly, dirty-looking, blonde hair. Not an attractive woman at all. I want to say she was wearing just like some jean shorts and like a t-shirt. She looked like somebody who'd been walking along the highway, maybe hitchhiking or something, and had a shower for a couple of days probably, but that was not horribly unusual. She came up. My dad said hi to her. She responded hi back. She went to the fountain drinks, got herself a fountain drink. She walked up to the counter to pay for the fountain drink, and she asked if either my dad or me could give her a ride. A lot of times we'd have people come in, fill up their

gas to go pick up their car back up on the interstate that had ran out of gas. He'd toss me the keys, say, go drive them up there and then come back. She told a story that she was trying to hitchhike to get up to Ocala, which is a town probably about another 40 miles straight up the interstate going north. She seemed very normal to me. If my dad had tossed me the keys and said, take her, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. But something about her struck him wrong. In another circumstance, my dad would have just tossed me the keys and said, get her up to where she needs to go.

He just had that feeling. This time, it was no. My son's only 15, he doesn't have a driver's license, and he can't run the store without me being here. I'm not going to let my son do this. How my dad raised me was always try and look for the best in people and always try and help out somebody if you can. And that's why it was almost a shock when he said no.

We'd normally give people these rides. I guess it struck my dad just that sixth sense. Something wasn't right there. For some reason, he just said no that night. She seemed a little bit disappointed, but didn't get angry or violent or anything like that. She's just like, okay, well, I guess I'm gonna go ahead and go back out on the road. All right, have a nice day. Good luck. Hope you can find somebody. Walked out the door and walked back up onto the interstate. Never mentioned another word about it. Intuition is a funny thing. You never know when it's going to strike, but when it does, you better listen. About six months later, we were at our house.

I'm sitting there in my bedroom reading a book. And I just hear my dad calling for me out in the living room. Walt, get out here now. Immediately rush out and the TV was right there where I could see it. As soon as I saw the picture up on the TV, I immediately recognized her. Oh my God, I know her. And then I read the caption down at the bottom and it said, her name was Eileen Wuornos. She's been called the damsel of death. The story of history's first female serial killer is macabre enough.

Arrested as serial killer. Seven men met the madness of one angry woman. Lee Wernos murdered them, robbed them, and then drove home in their cars. My knees gave out. That lady could have killed me. I could have died that night. Eileen Wuornos, convicted of murdering seven men in Florida between 1989 and 1990. She shot each man at point-blank range. In 2002, she was sentenced to death at the age of 46. My dad just looked at me and he's like, glad you didn't take her now, aren't you?

He told the story for the next 20 years until he passed away. Anytime he'd meet somebody new, that was a story he would tell. It was one of his favorite stories to tell. He was right. He picked up on something and maybe he didn't even know what himself. The back part of your brain just says, hey, hey, hey, something's not right here. No, no, I'm not going to let my son do this. I've got three kids now, and there's times you just get that flash of, no, that's really not a good idea.

I'd like to think most parents have that flash. I'm a big fan of trusting your gut, especially after what happened with my father and this. I tend to trust my gut. Hmm, pretty good, huh? Not what you were expecting. I suppose if you come here you are expecting the unexpected. And this was especially unexpected, even more unexpected than what you were expecting. Speaking of the unexpected, how about an ad? Bet you didn't see that coming. Unexpected ad.

Okay, let's see what we have here. I'd like to announce a thrilling new podcast, Nursery Crimes, the world's first true crime podcast for children nine and under. Get your tots into true crime podcasting straight out of the womb, or even before. This age-appropriate, silly serial is for both parents and young armchair detectives in the making. New studies suggest that there's nothing more nurturing to the developing brain than an unsolved murder.

Want your kids to ace their SATs when they grow up? Get their young minds working on these twisted whodunits. Nursery Crimes is a podcast that'll spawn miniature Sherlock's and budding Nancy Drew's. The Boogeyman poses no threat for a child that already knows the true stories of the Black Dahlia and the Honolulu Strangler. This podcast has all your favorites, including Jack and Jill, referring to Jack the Ripper, of course, Little Dead Riding Hood, and Mary Had a Missing Limb. That's Nursery Crimes, true crime stories for kids,

available wherever podcasts are sold. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at Ben MGM, the king of online casinos. Enjoy casino games at your fingertips Casts are sold. Crime Writers On is the podcast where authors and journalists talk about the latest true crime series, documentaries, and podcasts. Talk about what's on the charts and find those up-and-coming podcasts you'll be talking about. It's like a fun and smart book club discussing what makes good storytelling and teaching how to become a critical listener. Or not. And stick around for the Crime Writers Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down reviews. It's the original true crime review podcast. Crime Writers On, wherever you get your podcasts. Like probably right here.

Oh, here's another gem from my on-screen days. Terror of Tudor Tower. Kind of a historical Elizabethan bodice ripper slasher film. I play a very unpredictable and mysterious troubadour named Gimbels, known for his elaborate purple tights. Seems like a small part, but it's not the quantity of the lines, it's the quality. And I was nominated for Best Scream. Only male in the category, thank you very much. Okay, well, now I suppose you'd like the very next installment in our series very well.

We can always finish this genre-bending masterpiece later. Ooh, ouch! So, we moved into this house probably late 70s, early 80s. I have two sisters and we came from a place that wasn't quite as nice before, so we were excited to move into town and into this two-story house. I was probably six when we moved in there and my sisters are older. They're four and five years older, so one sister was probably 10 and one 11.

The house was probably 100 years old when we moved in. Two-story house, you would walk in, real simple living room. My parents room was to the right, right when you walked in. Off the living room were stairs that went up to the second story. If you turned left was my room. Opposite end of that was another bedroom. In that room was a hatch, kind of like a door. And if you open this up, that's where the attic was. Because there was three of us, we split the rooms up. Right away, we got to be friends with the neighborhood kids.

They would say things like, there was a guy that died in there. The police went and got him, but the guy got out, and they never found him. He's still missing, and to this day, and nobody knows where he's been. But there were things that went on there. Definitely scared us. Gave us a boogeyman kind of feeling. Things kind of started happening right away

when we moved into the house. Right from the get-go, weird things started happening. It started with food. There was three of us, and my mom would go grocery shopping, and she would buy things like tuna. The next day, she would open up the cupboard, and the food would be gone. Not even like somebody took a handful out, gone. My one sister, she started babysitting for some

neighbours. She would come home and she would have her babysitting money, put it on her end table, and then the next day the money would be gone. More and more things started happening. My parents' room was on the main floor, and my mom's always been a pretty good house cleaner. She's always been adamant about making the bed really nice before we'd leave in the morning, and that was just kind of our routine. Before we would leave, we would always have to put the dishes up and that type of deal. She would come home for lunch, and the bed would be unmade, like somebody had

been in it. We would leave and shut the doors and lock them and then we'd come home and the doors would be open. My mom would always say, shut the door, make sure we shut it and lock it. So we would do that. Come home and the door would be open. My sister, she had like two little nightstands beside her bed. And she was 12, and so she had put knick-knacky things on the nightstand, little trinkets or whatever. She would wake up in the morning, and those things would be on the floor in the same exact way.

She would come to me and my sister sister like, what are you guys doing? Because we're all getting kind of scared by now. We'd have fights amongst ourselves. You're doing this to get us in trouble. Everybody was kind of playing the blame game. Must be you, it must be you. And we were all getting scared. Your head starts playing games with you like, is it a ghost? Is it the boogeyman?

What is this? My parents were getting so stressed over this at the time and my dad was gone a lot. He had taken on a new job. So we would decide how much do we tell? And so some things we would tell and some things we wouldn't because we could just see the tension mounting. They were trying to make sense of it, and they knew something was going on but couldn't figure it out. Something was off. My middle sister, she's kind of a chicken like me, so her and I started sleeping together in my room.

Her and I would just lay there, and we would hear a talking sound. And I'd just be like, are you scared? And she'd say, I'm scared. Do you hear it? She'd say, yeah, I hear it. Don't open your eyes, don't open your eyes. We would just listen and try to make sense of it. Tried to shut it out, really. Is our mind doing this? We'd pull the covers over our head and try to decide, do you think it's a boogeyman? She's like, no, I think it's aliens. We would discuss it.

Our alien theory would grow. Maybe the aliens are doing this or they're doing that. Maybe the aliens are coming down, doing things in this house, and you concoct a story in your head of what's going on. We didn't know what we were afraid of, but we knew we were afraid. That sixth sense, I feel that. We have this thing in our family,

and it's called God's honor. You can't ever lie to God's honor. If you do, like, you're going to be struck dead. Don't ever do it. It's really scary. So nobody ever lies to God's honor. My mom would buy something kind of special, like chips or cookies or something, and they'd be gone. I'd be like, did you do it?

No. God's honor? God's honor. We knew we didn't do it. We didn't do it. What is happening here? We ruled each other out. And I think we became more and more aware that it wasn't us.

And we could see my dad getting frustrated and his tensions building. And then one night we were eating dinner, and then there's just a loud crash. In the basement, it scared us. My dad throws his fork down, and he's like, I've had it. I've had it. And he goes to the top of the stairs, and he's like, you need to get out of our house. And we were looking around at each other because we were scared. He was frustrated at this point.

What is going on in this house? Then he came back and we were like, what's going on? He's like, oh, I just think it's an animal. Are you sure? Yeah, yeah, it's an animal, it's an animal. My dad went up to where the hatch was in my sister's room. And he nailed it shut. And then the next day it was open. And there wasn't a nail in it. In the house was this fireplace in the corner and it was moss.

It was a moss fireplace that the previous owners had put in. And it was getting kind of dull, this fireplace. The moss on it was looking kind of brownish. And my dad had read this concoction that he was going to put on the fireplace. It was kind of smelly. If you sprayed it with this stale beer, it would bring the color of the moss back and kind of make it look nice again. So the plan was to spray the fireplace with this, and then we were going to leave for the weekend

because it was going to not smell good, and then come back and the fireplace would look nice again. So we did that. So we came home that Sunday night. There's this huge gouge taken out of the fireplace. So we all got up and we looked, and sure enough, it was like somebody had took a knife and just carved out a huge gouge. Unmistakable. The fireplace went from the floor to the ceiling, and the gouge probably went from the ceiling halfway down,

carved out deep. So it was that point he called the previous owners. And he said, I just sprayed this, you know, and I'm pretty sure this wasn't here when I did it, but I need you to tell me for my peace of mind that this wasn't there. And they said, no, it wasn't there. My dad said, well, we've been having really weird things

happen within the house. We've had stuff happening. Things seem to be progressing, and we don't understand. A few days went by, and they called back. He was super apologetic and said, I am sorry, I have a brother-in-law that actually went to prison over an incident that happened in the house. We were under the assumption he was still in prison,

but they let him out and nobody told us And nobody knows where he's at The things you're talking about could be him If you want us to change the locks We will do that and we'll pay for it They came and to change the locks, we will do that and we'll pay for it. They came and they changed the locks and it was almost instant that things stopped. No more food was missing, no more money was missing.

Things just stopped. My dad decided to add insulation to the house. And when he got into the attic, he started crawling around, and he realized that the attic had a turning point that he didn't realize was there. He turned that corner, and he found his sleeping bag, the food, candles, some clothes, journals, basically where he had been living in our walls. So many things started clicking in our heads, like, this makes sense. On the opposite end of this wall, right where we are, is a man listening to our conversations and living. Ghosts, aliens, paranormal activity, those are all terrifying explanations. But finding out that the creature of the night is a real person, another human, that reality

might even be worse. You didn't know it, but there was a stranger on the other side of the wall, listening to you sleep. He would come out at night. He would come out when we would be gone. He could hear us talking and learn our schedules and things like that. He had a key. He knew the house. And we hadn't lived there long enough to know those nooks and crannies of the house. He knew the house way better than us. He had lived there years, and so he knew the attic. He knew the basement area where he could crawl into and find those places that we would never find him.

His aggression was getting more and more, and he was getting frustrated at us for taking over the house and for staying there and not reading into his cues to leave. How he was making himself more known towards my sister. He was probably really close to hurting her or doing something to all of us. I think it's messed with me my whole life. I feel like I lay in bed just listening for sounds that might not be normal sounds. Saying to my husband, check this area.

Do you think somebody could be in this area? Could somebody live in this area? How could somebody get to these parts of the house? Because you always just have that sense of somebody's watching you, and you don't know it. Sleep has been real weird. Still to this day it creeps me out. I've had visions and dreams of waking up and just seeing his face in front of me saying, don't talk. I don't know, and I don't know if that really happened. And I repressed it because my sisters will say the same things. The whole thing has just messed with us so much.

I just feel like it's made me more aware that there's people out there that sometimes don't have good intentions. Also how easy it is to be watched. that there's people out there that sometimes don't have good intentions. Also how easy it is to be watched. I always bring it back to sleep because to me, that's where I felt the most violated. He came out at night, something that should be so peaceful wasn't. And hasn't been since. How was it? Not at all freaky, right?

I'm sure you'll sleep just fine. In fact, I'm positive of it, because I'm now going to hypnotize you. I will ensure you get a good night's rest. Nothing to fear. I was classically trained in Vienna. Vienna, Virginia. And also at the College of Hypnotherapy in Tarzana, California. Now, let me get my pocket watch. Here we go.

Relax. Lay back. Breathe good. Here we go. Relax. Lay back. Breathe good. You, dear listener, are getting very, very tired. So tired you can't move. Let alone use Fast Forward on this podcast. Picture yourself in a chair at an elaborate theater.

You're at a play. A play that got amazing reviews. But one you think is highly overrated, certainly not worth $250 a ticket. Your eyelids close like the curtains at the end of this disappointing play. They open again. The seats are red, then suddenly black, then turn to ash.

You fall out of this ash chair onto the floor. The play is now a movie. It's Final Destination 4. You raise your hand to protest, but your fingers go limp, like overboiled hot dogs. The theater melts like a crayon in the sun, and suddenly you're floating in an ocean of Epsom salts and chia seeds.

Your eyebrows liquefy, Your kneecaps disappear. Whatever tension you once felt is now eradicated. You've completely forgot whatever it was you were worried about earlier. Your mind is still. You are about to fall into a deep sleep. But right before you do, you pause and think, Terry Carnation is such a big part of my life. Perhaps he should be in my will. Yes,

I love him. I love Terry Carnation. I love Radio Rental. Why not? Leave them all my money. Now sleep. Sleep, dear listener. See you next time at Radio Rental. Radio Rental is created by Payne Lindsay and brought to you by Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta. Executive Producers Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright. Hosted by Rainn Wilson as his character, Terry Carnation. Produced by Payne Lindsay, Mike Rooney, and me, Meredith Stedman. Written by Meredith Stedman with additional writing by Mark Laughlin.

Sound design by Cooper Skinner original score by Makeup and Vanity Set additional production by Christina Dana and Mason Lindsay cover art by Trevor Eiler and Rob Sheridan voice acting by Ryan Jones Casey Willis and the Tenderfoot TV team shout out to Tiny Doors ATL for the creation of our real-life miniature radio rental store. You can check that out and more on their Instagram at tinydoorsatl. Special thanks to Grace Royer and Oren Rosenbaum at UTA, as well as support from the Nord Group, Station 16, Beck Media and Marketing, and the team at Cadence 13. If you have a radio rental story that you'd like to share, please email us at yourscarystory at gmail.com.

Or contact us via the form on our website, RadioRentalUSA.com. Follow us on Instagram at Radio Rental and on Twitter at Radio Rental USA. You can also follow the beloved Terry Carnation on social media. Just search at Terry Carnation. On behalf of the Radio Rental Store, we'd love it if you'd subscribe, rate, and review. And don't forget to share our show with a friend of the genre.

Thanks for listening. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for 20 years and have taken people into haunted places to uncover macabre tales and dark secrets. On my podcast, Haunted Canada, I share bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music,

or wherever you're listening right now. Then join me if you dare.