Radio Rental - Episode 18

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

On today’s tapes… >> Roo’s Hollow > Deep Sleep

I am so dreading groceries this week. Why? You can skip it. Oh, what? Just like that? Just like that. How about dinner with my third cousin? Skip it. Prince Fluffy's favorite treats? Skippable.

Midnight snacks? Skip. My neighbor's nightly saxophone practices? Uh, nope. You're on your own there. Could've skipped it. Should've skipped it. Skip to the good part and get groceries, meals, and more delivered right to your door on Skip. What could make your listening experience even better? Your feedback helps us grow and deliver the content you care about most. It's super simple. Just fill out our quick survey.

You'll be part of determining what 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. Aha, welcome, welcome. Well, as you know, it's that time of year again, October, and you know what October means. Well, literally it means eight, or eighth month, which it certainly is not.

Therefore, October itself is already a duplicitous conspiratorial time of year, is it not? Fitting. The Latin octo was popularized by my favorite of the Bond films, 1983's Octopussy, starring Roger Moore, the best of the Bonds. Speaking of which, I was considered for the lead villain on that particular Bond film, but later I was told by my former agent that I came off too intimidating. And also, they weren't looking for unsolicited audition tapes for Bond villains. Their loss. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yes, October. Well, of course, it means changing

foliage, pumpkin spice lattes for Malachi, and having to surrender to my yearly candy corn addiction. But it also means the World Series. Just kidding. I don't care about baseball. No, of course, October means Halloween, and more importantly, Halloween parties. And I'm hosting a doozy here at Radio Rental, and I'll have a very special surprise for you. So don't forget. Now, on to the next tape, shall we?

Right before summer, before school went out, behind my house there is a hiking trail. Hiking, biking, it's pretty multi-use. And there's two ways down. There's a roadway, which is usually locked. Then there's like this little sketchy off-the-road thing. You can go down the hill. It's a pretty steep hill, but a lot of people know about it.

It's not like too off the grid, but it's just indie enough that you know you're not going to be the only one there. When I first discovered the hollow, it was pretty off the road, I'd say. There was a lot of trees covering it, and there was bushes and an old river trail that used to run through there. The entrance, you have to go aside from a river, and you have to go on a very thin path that's maybe a foot wide. And it was covered by brush, and I was just going past it. I didn't see it at first.

I caught a glimpse of something in the trees. It didn't move, so I didn't think it was an animal. And when I stepped closer, it was a stuffed animal, which made me feel a little better, but also it was a little weird. This is a valley that's maybe two stories down from a main road. How would this get here? There was a kangaroo, and I named it Roo after the kangaroo in Winnie the Pooh. It was all dirty and musky, of course. I spetted maybe from the rain.

From then, I just called it Roo's Hollow. It always seemed appropriate, and every time I'd walk by, I'd say, Good morning, Roo, or that's just a fun little game I just called it Roo's Hollow. It always seemed appropriate and every time I'd walk by I'd say, good morning Roo, or, that's just a fun little game I had with it. I just would see this kangaroo hanging in the tree and it gave me this sense of like, I wasn't alone in the wood. So it gave me a little more confidence when I'd go hiking. At first I thought maybe it was like a memorial. Like maybe some child died and it was a memorial to them.

I think I just made this scenario in my head that there was just a child that died and people come by and put stuffed animals down for it. I think I was just trying to rationalize why anything would be there. There was no sign, there was no entrance. It was just random and weird. Three stories up, it wasn't even a road. It was like a power plant. I don't think people just throw stuffed animals and they'd end up in a tree like that.

It seemed very weird that it was just staring me in the face in that tree. It was just unsettling, but it gave me a sense of calm. Growing up, my siblings are all older than me, so I'd always play with stuffed animals, and I just had a connection to them. I just felt so bad seeing it hanging in that tree. Every time, I would say hello, just so it wouldn't be alone anymore.

I would walk by again, and I had this feeling that I should just go explore more. So I'd only seen the entrance of it. I'd only seen a little bit. So I wanted to go in and see more of it. This was a few days after I first saw it. So it was a few days of me going back and forth saying, hello Rue, like a crazy person. So I went in. I had a feeling that it was just so sad, a feeling of just overwhelmed sadness and like grief. That's probably where I got that idea of the child. I continued on and I found more. It was alarming at first, but again, comforting in a way.

I first found a little red parrot, a brown bear, and then two Eeyore dolls, which I thought was strange because I named the kangaroo Roo after Winnie the Pooh. They were all dirty and messed up like the first. For some reason, I wanted to take them home and clean them up. If this was a memorial, I wanted to respect that and clean them up and put them back so it wasn't dirty and it was just like a good place to rest, I'd say. So when I took them home, I just put them in a bathtub, Clorox, whatever. I was washing one of the Eeyore dolls and I felt something crawl in my hand and I flipped out. It was a giant black widow. I just like slapped it

off and put it in the water and just drained the bathtub like forget it I'm doing the washer. I wanted to put some personality or some handmade touch into the animals. It didn't feel like a kind gesture it felt like either responsibility or like a need to. Something was compelling me to do this, just to clean them up and fix them or take them home or just acknowledge them in general. Like it was something that I had to do. I remember when I was playing with my friends,

I would see stuffed animals they would leave outside and I'd just feel terrible for them. So that empathy part of me from my childhood that I just remember stuffed animals. I was going through a hard time and I just felt like maybe this is what I need. Maybe I need something to take care of for a little moment. I went out again while they were in the washer. It was a few days after I picked them up. I went out with my dog Bubba this time.

A brown and white dog. He has a little red handkerchief. Usually he's a Brittany Spaniel. We got him from a breeder when I was young, so we've kind of had a good connection. He's very adventurous. He's 12 years old, but he will still go running forever. He loves walking around.

He loves going into the bushes, getting all the rosemary stuck in his hair. Bubba just got a haircut. He was all clean and shiny and he ruined it, of course, by going in the mud. He got his little red bandana all dirty. So we went back in the woods and we visited Roos Hollow. I didn't expect anything else. I thought maybe I got them all, but my dog kind of like, he just looked in the bushes for a minute. Like he didn't expect anything else. I thought maybe I got them all, but my dog kind of like, he just looked in the bushes for a minute. Like he didn't see anything. I didn't hear anything move, but he just looked in the bushes for a moment. And then he just ran off into the bushes. And

obviously I had to chase after him. And we came upon this clearing in the bushes. It's a clearing, maybe like six feet wide. And in the middle, there was another stuffed animal. This time, it was the same Eeyore doll that I'd pick up days earlier, but its face, it was torn. I thought maybe an animal got to it. I don't know, the years just got to it or something. But when I looked closer closer it was scorch marks it was burned his face had been burned and just tortured and it gave me such a weird feeling

because I had that exact same doll that I picked up the day before and just seeing it burned and tortured in the middle of clearing, forgotten, it scared me so bad. I was so afraid that empathy and that sadness just filled me. I was, I didn't know what to do with it anymore. At first, I thought I should take it home. But then again, I was like, wait a minute, this is how people die in horror movies. I'm not going to take it home. I'm going to bury it. This thing has gone through enough. I need to let it rest, let it die, or finally put it to peace. I had to take care of these things one way or another.

I picked it up. I looked at its scorch marks a little more. I found a little ditch I actually cried a little bit because I felt so overwhelmed and so sad for it something had happened to this something wrong it broke my heart but at the same time

I wondered who did this why when I buried him I just I didn't feel like the story. When I buried him, I just, it didn't feel like the story was over. I hadn't done everything yet. Something was still out there for me. So I go home, I put the stuffed animals in my garage. I just had this sinking feeling.

I think I had a nightmare about the animals. In my garage, when I was falling asleep, I could see them in that box staring at me, and it just felt horrible. That empathy was kind of fading away, and it just felt horrifying. So every time I'd try and go to sleep, I'd just see them. I'd see them in the garage, I'd see the box,

I'd see the eeyores, I'd see the parrot, I'd see the little bear,'d see the Eeyores. I see the parrot. I see the little bear. And then I saw Roo. And I think that one creeped me out the most. These are probably haunted. What was I thinking? Been in the woods for who knows how long, placed by who knows. And I just took them home because I felt sad for them. It started everything. It started these weird nightmares and these weird visions that I had before bed.

It was so gross to me, like, why this was happening. I decided I needed to go back. I needed to face my fear. I needed to get over it. There's nothing crazy going on. These just happened to be here. So this time I went without Bubba because he's quite a hassle. The second I went down the steep hill, something felt wrong.

Same feeling as when I found Rue. Something was in that tree. I wouldn't say I was being watched, but I felt like something else was there. It wasn't just me anymore. This wasn't just my problem anymore. As soon as I got to the hollow, there was another one. Right where Rue was, there was a little brown and white dog with a red bandana. He wasn't there before, and he was right where the first one was. He had a tag. Someone

bought this and put it here. It was a new toy that was put there and of course since the rain it was a little weathered but it was new. Someone put that there and I think it was for me. At that point I just looked at it. I couldn't do anything. I just threw it on the ground and went home. I couldn't do it. I didn't want to know what was out there. I didn't want to know who put that there or who watched me, who saw that dog with me.

They were close enough to hear me call the kangaroo Roo, who knew I named that stuffed animal Roo, who knew I liked that show and gave me two Eeyore dolls. Why would someone put something in a tree and why was it for me? Thinking about the burned one, if that was a sign to me that I shouldn't come back here or maybe to make me more intrigued with it, with the whole situation, to make me more interested, to lure me in. Someone saw me there. Someone knew I was there.

And someone wanted to tell me that they knew. Someone wanted me to know that they were watching. I shouldn't have taken this home. I shouldn't have messed with this. If this is a memorial, what have I done? What have I done to it? I started blaming myself for a moment. Maybe this is my fault. Maybe I did something

I wasn't supposed to. I didn't want to know, and I didn't care anymore. And after a while of having those stuffed animals in my garage, I just, I gave up. I gave them to a thrift store and now there's someone else's problem. I still go back to this day and I still check. I think I was just waiting for the day when I'd find a doll that looked like me. I think it just got bored with me, whatever it was, and I'd just gotten bored.

It freaks me out, man. Someone made a little bandana and put all that effort just to scare me? It doesn't sound right. It wouldn't be just to scare me, right? Now it's time for an ad break. Finally! To be honest, I was getting a little weary of you. I find it a bit clingy, the way you just sort of stand there and listen so closely, breathing through your mouth.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. We kind of rushed into things. We got married after eight months of knowing each other, and then we found ourselves pregnant like six months into our marriage. It was easy to transition into because I'd worked in child care before, but it was much more involved it was way more physically and mentally exhausting than I would have ever anticipated we had an idea of what parenthood was like and you think oh I'm

gonna put my baby in a crib they're never gonna fall asleep on us they're not gonna be rocked to sleep every night. You go into parenthood with all these ideas. And then in reality, you're like, I'll do anything to get this kid to sleep. Even if it means that she's on me or I have a hand on her because she had a little bassinet next to our bed. And usually I would just fall asleep with my hand on her belly because I was terrified. Just all the stories I hear about these babies and the problems that could arise. And so sleep was, sleep was hard.

And she was probably about two months old at the time. Tim, he was working all the time I wasn't working. So he was taking on a lot of extra hours, working long days. He's an electrician, so it's laborious work and it's physical. We were still kind of getting to know each other, and I knew he had these sleep paralysis episodes. It's like he's trying to yell out for me or for something or yell at something to get off of him, but he can't make the actual sound. It's like grunting and it's a very panicky moaning sound. All he told me to do was to try and like kick him out of it, wake him up, like bring him back from

it because it is terrifying. Just hearing the way that he would react to these experiences sounded Sounded beyond scary. And we were young. We were very young parents. Obviously, we were not getting much sleep. If it did come, it was usually pretty restless, because as first-time parents, we were very nervous and anxious. And, you know, you look over your baby as she's sleeping just to watch her little belly rise and fall, make sure she's breathing the whole time we had finally gotten everybody to sleep her little bassinet

was next to us and i was hoping because it was a couple months after she was home that she was starting to get into a routine and that i would be able to get a couple hours of sleep anything like even just to close my eyes for a few minutes. So we fall asleep without issue and a couple hours later I hear my husband next to me and he's making these vocalizations that he makes when he has these sleep paralysis episodes. I heard him next to me making those sounds and I'm turned to my daughter. And I open my eyes and I'm kind of irritated. I was so ready to have that slumber that I desperately needed.

And so I look at our daughter, make sure she's okay and that she's not going to wake up, because that was my biggest concern. I don't want this child to wake up. As I turn over to try and shake him, I felt like there is a presence. I was not even really sure how awake I was. It felt very similar to being kind of like in a dreamlike state, but I was awake. I distinctly remember checking on my daughter,

pulling down the blanket, seeing her little belly moving up and down, putting it back on her before turning to Tim. And when I look over at him, there was a person, a woman standing over him. I could see her staring directly at Tim. She had one hand on his chest and it was like she was like breathing him in. I couldn't see her face, but she was probably two inches away from his nose. I couldn't see parts of his face. She was so close to him.

She was breathing him in. Every time he would try to yell out, his breath would cause a disturbance. It would make her hair move. When he was exhaling, I could see a curtain of hair that covered her face was moving. When he would make noises, it would move her hair, just nose to nose with him. That's when I got a good glimpse of the eyes. I couldn't see the full view of her face.

I could see the whites of her eyes. She was staring into the essence of him. Never once did she take her eyes off of him. It didn't feel like a dream. Who got into our house and how do I get her out of here? And why is she so close to my husband's face? What is this thing in our room? Being a new mom and already kind of at my wits end, I sped right past being scared and just to being angry. Why today?

I'm trying to sleep. Who is this lady? I'm pissed. In a voice I tried to make as menacing as possible, but quiet so I didn't wake up our daughter. I leaned as close as I could into her, trying to break up whatever this connection was between the two of them and I whispered to her and

said, he's mine. After I said that it didn't move right away. It was like just slowly backing away, still dead set eyes on Tim, never really looking away. And I just sat there expecting her to go out the door. And I was still trying to register what this person was and why they were messing with my husband. She backed into the corner of this room that we were in, and it was an older house, wood paneling in our room. And she stood in the corner there, and then all of a sudden I could see the grain of the wood paneling through her body. And she just kind of evaporated. I'm either dreaming or I've lost my mind.

I just need to lay down and go to sleep. I was so tired. I fell back asleep and I woke up the next day and there were so many little details that were so realistic about it. Her clothes, she had the white button-up shirt on, it was maybe a little dirty, maybe like a little bit big for her. She just looked like a homeless lady, really, that had broke into her house and I think somewhere in my brain it told me that,

yeah, it's just some crazy lady that broke into our house or I dreamt it. So he leaves work pretty early in the morning and he left before we woke up. And so I didn't see him until about 2.30 or 3 that afternoon. And after everyone gets settled and making dinner and kind of chit-chatting, I finally ask, it's like, hey, did you have a sleep paralysis episode last night? And he kind of looks at me, he's like, yeah, I think I did, but it didn't last long.

Like, I remember it happening and then it just stopped and I don't really remember much after that. I then told him, I think I saw whatever bothers you. And he was like, no, you didn't see it. We were having a dream. This isn't real. I was like, no, it was a woman. At that point, he kind of got quiet. We'd never really talked about what this thing looked like because I could tell it disturbed him and I didn't want to push it. Sensitive stuff like that needs to come organically from somebody you care about. You don't want to like force it out of them. But I explained from the hair to the way that she was looking at him and how close she was to his face and then to what she was wearing.

And he just looked at me and was like, that's what I've seen since I was a kid. I had that happen about five or six years old a couple of times and then I had this weird thing where I got Giardia and I think it started happening a little bit more after that. She pretty much described exactly the person that I'd seen since I was like five or six and I had never described her to Desi before. It was something that would happen around two or three times a year, I'd say.

So it was kind of just like getting familiarized with what was going on, and then all of a sudden I'd see the lady. Usually started at like the foot of my bed. Sometimes she would just get like really close to my face, and it was like a weird thing, like I would try to scream,

and I don't even know what the goal of hers was you know because like she would just come and i'd open my eyes she would be there and i would go to like scream and i couldn't and like she would let me know that like i couldn't scream via telepathy when the lady does that like gets, like I feel, it's kind of a weird feeling and like you're frozen. You hear their voice, but it's like they know what I'm saying too as it's going on. I can hear what they're saying pretty much. Not with words, but kind of like with thoughts. ESP.

I still have sleep paralysis, but the crazy thing about the whole deal is, like, I haven't seen that lady since. I think I saw her, and I told her, you know, I said, he's mine. I didn't know what to make of it at that point, because we'd really not had a whole lot of conversations about, you know, what happens during these episodes and other than how to get them out of it. And so it kind of changed how I felt about a lot of these sleep paralysis things. Cause people will say, it's just a dream. It's fabrication. Your, your mind is making up these images, but how does one person experience it and kind of keep it to himself? And then someone else sees the same exact thing and gets to see exactly what he was having happen to him all the time. It kind of rocked our world for a little bit. It was like, oh my God, we just kind of experienced something really strange together.

Also included with this whole change of becoming parents and being freshly married, it was kind of like a co-motive moment of our years together. It's like, oh, holy shit. We kind of, we need each other. We can help each other out. 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 that you'll be talking about.

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I don't know what the problem is with this story. I don't find it creepy at all. In fact, I find it somewhat arousing. And besides, paralyzed couple that views the woman with long hair hanging over them stays together. Oh, shoot. I just dropped the bone garland I've been crafting for weeks. Ugh!

Now I'll have to start over. I was planning on making a little Halloween mistletoe here with this tiny metatarsal. Well, if you are looking for something to detox with until next time, might I suggest a nice movie from our collection of nicer films from the nice section?

Perhaps this copy of Midsommar? No? How about Goodnight Mommy? Or perhaps that light family romp, Cape Fear? Whatever you do, I hope you will be revved up again when I see you next time, where we will have more stories to make you sleep with the lights on for a month.

Must put on the bone garland. Mm-hmm. Produced by Payne Lindsey, Mike Rooney, and Meredith Stedman. With additional production by Eric Quintana. Written by Meredith Stedman. Additional writing by Mark Laughlin. Sound design by Cooper Skinner. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set. Cover art by Trevor Eiler and Rob Sheridan. 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 via the form on our website, radio rental, USA.com. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter at radio rental. You can also follow the illustrious Terry carnation on social media. Just search at Terry carnation to hear more from Terry. Listen to his podcast,

dark air, special thanks to grace Royer and Oren Rosenbaum at UTI, the Nord group station 16 back media and marketing and the team at cadence 13 onTI, the Nord Group, Station 16, Beck Media and Marketing, and the team at Cadence 13. 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 Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you're listening right now.

Then join me if you dare.