Radio Rental - Episode 39

Episode Date: June 2, 2023

On today's tapes... >> La Llorona > Stranger Danger

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.

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Subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus to get early access to episodes, ad-free listening, and bonus scary stories. Visit tenderfootplus.com for details. The following podcast includes scary stories with content that could be triggering to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone, welcome back, welcome, welcome in. Looks like I'm on babysitting duty today. Today I am enjoying the company of, well, stuck with, my niece Susie. And she's right, Susie? Susie, where are you?

Susie's Susie, where are you? Susie Sue? Hide and seek again? This child plays a concerning amount of hide and seek, even for an eight-year-old. Okay, come out, come out, wherever you are. Susie Q. Darn it. Susie keeps hiding and surprising me in the darkest of corners.

She's actually quite, what's the word, creepy for a little girl named Susie. She's like Wednesday Addams without the dancing and the adorable pet hand and charm. She's, well, how do I describe her? She's more like the girl from The Ring without the luxurious hair. She gives me Megan vibes, and yet she's human, so that's any indication. Anyways, she'll probably just turn up when I least expect it. Oh, God! Oh, dear God. Fuck me.

Hello, Susie. Oh, you got me there. Oh, you, you got me. You win. Wow, you're so... You're so good at that. Why are you so good at that. Why are you so good at that? Okay, well, Uncle Terry's had a bit of a heart attack for like the hundredth time today.

So how about I get a tape going for you while Susie here, Susie, dang it, she's gone again. I really have to stop turning around. All right, here's the tape. Let's play it. Let's roll. This will be fun. You'll enjoy this. I was in high school, probably about 15 or 16.

It was my first year of college. My brother and I, we were still living at home. We lived in this house in a suburb of North Texas right off of the lake. Our two bedrooms were at the very front of the house. We shared a wall so we could always hear each other talking back and forth, playing music. It was on the weekend, it was on a Saturday night. The only window in my room and his room looked out into the front yard. I was a little restless. I couldn't sleep, couldn't get comfortable. I had just finished cleaning my room and put a trash bag at the foot of my bed to take out in the morning.

It was maybe 11.30 when I finally kind of set my head on the pillow. I keep hearing outside of my window what sounds like children playing. Why are they playing outside of my window? And by outside of my window, I mean in the front yard. It wasn't uncommon for people to be out and about Saturday night. But these kids sounded younger, like they shouldn't be out without parents. So I lay on my back, kind of shift in my bed, and just resettle. And I remember kind of just shrugging it off, like, I'm not really going to worry about it. It's not going to bug me too much.

And I tried to drift back to sleep. And I fall back asleep. I heard kind of a shuffle at my window. I opened my eyes and I watched a big black shadow step into my bedroom from my window. And I heard at the foot of my bed the crunch of the trash bag. I was looking at a black mass interrupting the grays of my room.

I keep getting jolted awake by these kids outside my window. I want to get up. It sounds like they're right outside. But I couldn't move. I felt paralyzed. My legs wouldn't move. My arms wouldn't move. I'm on my back, so I'm looking down from my chin.

I see the shadow stand at the foot of my bed. And it walks all the way around my bed closer to my ear and it... I was completely frozen. Wanting to scream but I couldn't. I watch it disappear through my bedroom door. The adrenaline, everything going on, I just passed out. All I felt was this sense of panic, this dread over me. And then I kept getting the feeling like I was being watched I remember the only thing that I could really move was my head and look around the room that's when in the corner of my eye I see somebody standing in the corner of my room adjacent my bed I look up and I see this woman. She's got a long white gown, pale blue skin.

Her eyes are all white. Nails are dirty and white. She has long black hair. I see her mouth is moving. I couldn't hear what she was saying or what she was trying to do, but her mouth was pitch black. A void on her face, and it would just go wide open and shut. And I kept hearing the children playing outside of my window.

I'm thinking, what does she want from me? Can I even move? I'm staring and I'm making contact with this woman. She's just staring back at me. After some time, I can get motion back in my hands again, so I cover my face up. I try to just ignore it, but I can feel her still in my room. I can feel her still staring at me. Eventually, I end up falling asleep. Waking up the next morning, the sun was coming through my window.

Started to head to the bathroom and I said, oh, I need to wake up my little brother. I remember waking up and I look up and she's not there anymore. It's Sunday morning at this point, so we got gotta get up, get ready to go to church. I go and knock on his door and I say, hey, we need to leave here in a few minutes. I'm too tired. I don't want to get out of bed. I don't feel good. Leave me alone.

Bro, I hear you, but I had a rough night last night too. I didn't sleep well. Sis, I'm telling you, I'm not leaving this bed. I feel sick to my stomach. I don't want to talk about it, but I'm staying. And I said, well, why don't you tell me about it? Last night, I kept hearing kids play outside of my window, and I couldn't move, and I saw this woman standing in my room. As soon as you said that, I froze.

And I'm telling her the details of everything I experienced, and then I look up at her. She is just pale. And she's crying. This is what happened to me last night. We are both terrified. She's crying. I got tears in my eyes.

We said, well, we have to keep going with our day. So we left that as a weird story we would figure out later. Flash forward a couple of weeks it's another weekend and we decide well we're going to go get a scary movie from the video store we're scanning the horror movie section

and this DVD cover catches my eye that I hadn't seen before. And I'm kind of there again. I feel that sense of panic and dread. I feel a tap on my shoulder a few moments later. I point at the cover of the movie. This is the woman that I saw in my bedroom. And it's a picture of this woman called La Llorona. On the front cover, she's wearing a long white gown,

has long black hair. White face, white eyes, and a black mouth. The movie is this retelling of the legend of La Llorona. La Llorona translates to the weeping woman. Her husband was unfaithful to her. Due to his infidelity, she drowned their children in a lake out of revenge. The townspeople, because she went crazy, think that she's a witch, so they burn her at the stake. And as she burns at the stake, she curses the town that their children would suffer the same fate. Her ghost comes back and every night walks through the town singing to the children.

She lures these children and she drowns them in the lake. That's the curse of La Llorona. Consistently through all the retellings of this folklore, La Llorona is weeping. She's seen crying. When I saw this woman in my room, I think maybe she was wailing or crying. That's why her mouth was moving so wide. I couldn't hear what she was saying. All I could hear was the children outside of my window. She was looking for the children. Mm, spooky, mm. But not as spooky as a time-sensitive discount code.

Ooh, expiration. How does it do that? Use code RADIORENTAL and receive a discount. How do they keep track of that? Let's find out. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What comes to mind when you hear the word gratitude? Maybe it's a daily practice, or maybe it feels hard to be grateful right now.

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She is still nowhere to be found. So... We're back. Well, I'm back. Susie. Susie is not back. She is still nowhere to be found, so. What the hell was that? Oh, dear God. Susie. Susie, stop it. Is that you? I bet you're under this cardboard box.

Aha! What? I could have sworn. Oh, God. Oh, how did you... How did... Okay, that's it. I'm putting a bell around your neck. All right. Just stay right there, please. Okay, time for another tape, my loving fans, before I lose track of... Wait. Susie! God damn it! She disappeared again. Like a little four-foot-tall Snapchat. Just boom. Just gone like that. Okay.

Popping the tape in. Here we go. Susie! Stop it now. I'll make you a sandwich. My family and I are really big on camping. My dad had gone with us. His girlfriend had gone with us, and my husband, and our three children.

My daughter aged eight. My other daughter aged four. And then my son, who was just about to turn two. Our eight-year-old is very bubbly. She likes to talk to people. She makes friends with everyone and anyone and she just has no fear. It was Labor Day weekend. We had gone to a campground that is not too far from us, one that I had grown up going to my whole life. It's almost like this Mayberry feeling. A small feel, everyone you feel is looking out for each other.

We're all watching each other's kids. It's almost like this small community setting with a bunch of people you've never met before. You relax, your kids can ride their bikes around the circle in the area that you're in. Some people are brave enough to let their kids ride the whole campground. For whatever reason, the campground emptied out fairly quickly that morning. There was a playground in a small little alcove surrounded by trees. There's no one there. I mean, it's this clear shot right to the playground, and it's probably about 100 yards or so. While we were packing up, my girls had stopped and asked if they could go play at this playground.

I'm like, sure. You can see it. It's right there. When we pack up, it's much easier sometimes if they aren't just in and out of the camper. We're trying to close things up, clean things out, put things away. My husband and I were folding up our very large camping mat. I just remembered having this very, very uneasy feeling. People can call it their gut intuition, but I felt literally like God Megan, where are your girls? I got this really, really uneasy feeling. Where are the girls at? We couldn't see them anymore.

I walked towards the playground. Once I got about halfway there, I noticed their bikes were there. But I couldn't see them. I ran back. And I'm asking my father and his girlfriend and my husband, Have you seen the girls come back? They said no. Dad, are they in your camper? No, I don't think so.

I can't explain it, but I felt completely panicked. Where did my girls go? Where could they have gone? I took off sprinting towards the playground area again. And I'm calling out for them. I can't hear them and I start walking into this playground area a little bit more. I can hear my four-year-old going, I don't want to go down there. I don't want to go down there. I want my mom. I don't want to go down there.

I can hear it coming from the wooded area. They are just in the woods. I walk in, as soon as I got to where my daughter was, my four year old, it was almost like dead quiet. All of my attention was now focused on this woman who had my daughter. And I could not find my eight year old. I looked at this woman, what the F are you doing? She just looked at me super coldly and just blank faced and just said, I'm just taking them on a walk. She just stood there, acting like this was completely normal which is also what made me a bit terrified. Just made my heart drop. Where is my daughter?

I'm calling her name. She's down this ravine. This woman had directed her to go down there. The ravine was so deep that I couldn't even get a sense of how far it went down. You couldn't see the bottom of it. I'm wanting to look over the edge, but I'm terrified. I don't know what this woman will do. I had this awful fear of her. I was afraid that I was going to get pushed down the ravine.

I would be falling for quite a ways. Once I got my daughter back up the ravine, I grabbed her and I was like, stay away from my kids. Like, what are you doing? I could not get out of there fast enough. Grabbed my girls, my four-year-old is sobbing, and my eight-year-old is just completely clueless. Not understanding why I'm being so hostile to this woman.

I'm asking my oldest a bunch of questions. What were you doing? Why were you down there? Why did you go with her? Who was she? My daughter just seemed completely at ease. She had zero idea. She thought she was nice. She was angry at me.

Why were you so mean to her? Why did you say those things to her? How could you go with her? We've taught you better than this. We've told you all these stories. I get back and my husband's like, what happened? Why are you so upset? We've taught you better than this. We've told you all these stories. I get back and my husband's like, what happened, why are you so upset?

You're not going to believe what just happened. So we sit my eight year old down. And I'm just pummeling her with questions. Like I'm angry, but I'm trying not to be, because I'm just trying to understand what she's doing, what she was thinking. We've taught her about tricky people. We've taught her about not going with strangers. You don't need puppies. Anyone offers you candy, don't get in the car. And as we're talking to her about this, I said, where did she come from? She came out of the woods.

She was at the tree line and said, where are your parents? You should come with me. I could take you on a walk. I'm not allowed to go with strangers. Well, that's okay. I have bug spray. I can put bug spray on you. You'll be fine, and your parents will be glad that I have the bug spray.

When my oldest told me that, my heart just sank. It didn't take a puppy, and it didn't take candy. It took bug spray. Once we were in the camper and I started talking to my oldest and asking her all the questions, that's when she brought up the two boys. She mentioned to me that there were two boys at the bottom of the ravine. What two boys? There were two boys down there.

Two younger boys. How old? Was there anyone with them? This brought on a whole other slew of questions. Did they talk to you? Were they okay? Were they with anyone else? Were they saying that this was their mom? My oldest had no idea.

She couldn't tell me anything, couldn't tell me their ages. Were they little? Were they your age? Were they older than you? Well, they were younger than me, but probably older than sissy. And I'm like, oh my gosh. It didn't even occur to me until I got home that I needed to notify the police. We get home and I call the state police. I had told them what happened and they told me that they would let that county know of the situation. About a week later, I had decided to do a Facebook post about her situation.

It was shared so much that the sheriff's wife in that county saw the post, called her husband and said, what is this about? What happened? They never heard about it. They ended up calling the campground. They saw my post and saw my last name and started figuring out what weekend it had been because I didn't share that it was on the Labor Day weekend. They had called around to all of the Smiths that had had bookings for the last several weekends.

That is how they found my husband who had booked the site and they called him. My husband said you need to get in touch with my wife she can go over all of it with you. Come to find out they were notified of the event but then they filed it not electronically. The sheriff had stated that he kept it in his drawer. It doesn't make sense to me. I don't know why they would do that. It wasn't until then that they decided, when it was made public, to investigate it. That's when I found out that the highway was about a mile away and that there had been

a car parked on that side of that road for some time for that afternoon, that's not supposed to sit there. They said that they never came up with two boys missing, but they never could figure out really who it was. I can't help but wonder that it was something bad. And with the two boys at the bottom, I feel bad all the time. What happened to those boys?

All right, let's kick to some ads, shall we? Actually, why am I even asking? You have no choice. We are kicking to some ads. In fact, we're going to kick ads. Are you ready to kick some ads? We're going to kick ads. See what I did there?

Here we go. 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. 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 so welcome back i finally found suzy She's actually just over there lighting matches. Another adorable little compulsion of hers. Charming. Charming Susie. Thank you. And cute. Cute as a button.

But best of all, visible. I just, I really just can't be enduring all these jump scares. I mean, you'd think I'd be used to it, being a connoisseur of the strange and sadistic and all that, but actually I do really poorly in a haunted house. I prefer my scares on screen where they belong, properly lit and with Korean subtitles. I'll see you next time, beloved fans. Au revoir.

Say goodbye, Susie. Oh, dear God. Oh, dear God. Thank you. is Tracy Kaplan. Associate producer is Jaja Muhammad. Editing by Eric Quintana, Mike Rooney, Sean Nerney, and Sydney Evans. Additional writing by Mark Laughlin. Sound design, mix, and master by Cooper Skinner. Additional sound design and mixing by Devin Johnson. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set.

Video editing by Dylan Harrington. Cover artwork by Trevor Eiler and Rob Sheridan. Special thanks to Oren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, 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 and Twitter at Radio Rental. You can also follow the illustrious 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. 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.