Radio Rental - Episode 49

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

On today's tapes... >> Crazy Documents Guy > They Turned On Me

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The following podcast includes scary stories with content that could be triggering to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Hello, welcome in. Welcome to Radio Rental, a thriving video rental shop and the home of an exclusive collection of videotapes with real-life scary stories from real-life people. I'm Terry Carnation, your favorite entrepreneur-slash-radio-host-slash-horror-expert-slash-cat-owner. I'm a multi-hyphenate.

So, things have been good over here at the shop. I don't know if you remember, but last week we learned we had a ghost, and, well... It's Zeylon, my late wife. I just... I couldn't be happier that we're reunited. We've been communicating by leaving tapes out on the floor. It's so cute. For example, I left out,

Good morning, Vietnam. You see, she's Vietnamese. And then she knocked over Paul Blart Mall Cop 2. I'm not sure why, but she's just, she's got the best sense of humor. Anyway, speaking of tapes, let's pop one of these scary tapes in for you. It was September 2016. I was going to my uncle's home in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

I took a train somewhere northeast Philadelphia. I had to do a transfer in a small train station. And there's a guy there also waiting for the train. He looked a little creepy. His face was so skinny. Like, you could see kind of like a little bit of his bones in his face. He comes to me and tries to make conversation with me. He looks down at my ticket and says, oh, you're in the wrong station.

I was pretty sure that was the right station, because it said the name on my ticket. I said, no, thank you, I'm fine. He's just like, no, you're in the wrong station. I can show you where you have to go. It was a small town, so there's nowhere else to go. No other train. It's not like a big train station. No, thank you. And I walked to the farthest bench and sat down.

He followed me and sat right next to me and tried to start making conversation. That moment, I noticed the guy was weird. Something is off with this guy. Something's wrong. Just a weird sensation. I pretend I'm making a phone call. He still tries to talk to me.

The train comes. I rush to get into the train. To the left there were some seats that were like facing each other. And a train worker was sitting there. I put my purse down, and I put my folder that I had with all my documents. I had my Social Security card, my green card, and a form with all my personal information filled out. I put it to my left, blocking that nobody will sit next to me.

He kind of standed for a while, looking at me, staring at me. At that moment, I was freaking out. This guy's going to do something to me. The train worker was there. He asked me where I was stopping. I showed him my ticket, and he said, your stop is next. He stand up. I rushed to just go behind the train worker because I didn't want to be in that area by myself.

I had my purse. I get off at the train station, walk to my uncle's house. I'm forgetting something. Didn't I have something in my hands? I noticed I don't have the folder. My uncle is yelling at me, how is that you lost those documents? I was trying to explain to him, like, I freaked out with, like, a weird guy that wouldn't leave me alone.

I rushed and I forgot the folder, like, I was panicking. I need to find it. We drive to the train station where I got off. There's no one there. There's no like office open or anything. We called the train company and they said the next stop was Newark Penn Station. We drive all the way there, talking with the train company, see if someone dropped it off as lost and found. Nobody had returned anything. Being a weekend, they wouldn't be able to tell me if my folder was there until the next Wednesday.

Around an hour and a half after I noticed I didn't have my folder, my documents with me, I received this call while I'm outside of the Newark Penn Station. This person says, yes, I have your documents. I'm going to return them to you. Oh my God, thank you so much. Can't imagine how stressed I am. Seriously, thank you. The guy says, yeah, sure, I'll get them to you.

I'm like, well, but give me an address. He will just hang up. He'll call me again and say, I have your documents. Can you come today? Again, yes, just give me an address. He asked me, who else knows about this? The police?

I'm a really great person for returning this to you. You know, people can do mean things and bad things with this. I have your life in my hands. I definitely thought the questions and the calls and not giving me an actual address was weird. I was crying. I was stressed. My uncle was mad at me. I was making him waste a lot of time of

his busy day. I had already missed appointments. It was just a lot of stress to handle. The third call, he gives me an address. I was like, okay, got it. As soon as I put it in my phone, the address doesn't exist. I'm trying to call him back. He never picks up my calls. Before a call, he finally gives me an address that actually exists. My uncle picks me up from Newark Penn Station.

The address is from an old building, five stories. My uncle picks me up from Newark Penn Station. The address is from an old building, five stories. Not abandoned, but it just looked like not very well maintained. Get off the car, we're looking for like somebody with a folder. There's nobody. Out of nowhere, this guy is suddenly next to us we're literally inches away from him and that's when i see is the guy from the train i wanted to tell my uncle this is the freaking guy from the train like what the heck

he was literally in front of us like i couldn't say it without him listening to it so I let my uncle do the talking where the documents though they're upstairs in my office my uncle is like oh well we're kind of like in a rush won't take take long. Let me just grab them upstairs. I just have them in the office. We get in. As we're walking, the guy is sure to be like right next to us. He walks us through his factory. We're walking through hallways full of wood and lumber and fabric and foam.

There was nobody else in the building. I was panicking. This is a perfect place to murder somebody. I grabbed my phone. I pre-dialed 911 just in case he tried to do something to us. There is a couch with the shape of a leaf. He shows it to my uncle and he says, lay down. My uncle says, I'm fine, thank you. He changed his voice and his facial expression. And he says, again, lay down.

My uncle is a little, you know, like, what's going on here? So he sits and he says, it is very comfortable. Trying to be polite and play along. But my uncle just sat down, didn't lay down. The guy repeats for a third time with a very strong voice. Lay down. My uncle looks at me. We're both panicking. And he just started laying down. Very slowly. Once my uncle started laying down, this guy's face just changed completely.

He went back to normal, all hyper, in a matter of seconds. So at that moment, my uncle was already like, OK, we need to get the hell out of here. My uncle returns the conversation to like, hey, the documents. We go to his office. He says, yeah, I have them here. So my uncle says, well, as I told you, we're going to give you some money for returning them. How much do you want?

$3,000. Come on, like, for real, how much do you want? And again, in a matter of seconds, his facial expression changed changed and he says, $3,000. I didn't want to interact with this person anymore. I just wanted to leave. My uncle is like, we're trying to do here a good thing.

We will give you some money, but if you're asking us for $3,000, it's cheaper for us just to get new documents. Michael starts kind of like, come on, you got to help us. You have a good heart. You said you were going to help her. That's a lot of money. We came all the way here already. Again, in a matter of seconds, his facial expression changes, his voice changes, and

he starts laughing out loud. That was a joke, ha ha ha. He gave us the documents. We handed him some money. As we're walking out of his office, he just continues walking next to us. He was inviting us to a type of congregation or something, a meeting with these people. We get together every Saturday night, and it's so much fun,

and you guys should come. But he will never say exactly what it was about. What are you guys getting together for? He just kept insisting, like, we should go, we should go, we should go, you guys are going to like it, you guys are going to like it. My uncle and I respectfully said, sorry, we have a lot of stuff to do.

She has to go back to Philadelphia. I have a family, I have kids, I have stuff to do at home, I can't. The guy kept insisting, insisting, insisting. As we're walking out of his office, he just continues walking next to us, telling us about that nice congregation, telling us to go and telling us to go and telling us to go. We were going down the ramp, looking back at him like,

thank you, thank you, getting far away from him. We rushed to the car. We get in, and my uncle right away said to me, what the fuck was that? I thought we were going to die. That's when I finally am able to tell him,

like, that was the freaking guy of the train. Do you understand now? He texted me probably like three hours non-stopping after he returned the documents to me. If it weren't for my uncle, I think I would have been raped or killed or kidnapped. I don't know. Nothing good. Definitely nothing good.

Ooh, freaky. Freaky Friday. Now let's take a quick break to hear from our sponsors. Unless you have Tenderfoot Plus, which you should. And in that case, I guess you qualify as a sponsor yourself. You are a sponsor. And thank you for your service. And just enjoy that ad-free lifestyle.

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Crime Writers On, wherever you get your podcasts. Like probably right here. And we're back. How did you like... Malachi. Malachi, stop that. You're causing a ruckus. And you know there's nothing I hate more than ruckus.

Malachi has gotten really worked up over my wife's return. He's running around, parkouring off all the walls. He almost fell into the void again. Oh, we don't need that again. That was a whole two-episode subplot. Malachi! Malachi! I don't know what's gotten into him. I had hoped my two closest companions in this world would be able to be friends. Malachi, don't make me choose you or

Zilan. I don't want to play that game. Another message from my beloved. What tape is it this time? It's... It's... Bridget Jones 2, The Edge of Reason. Is that the one where she breastfeeds Hugh Grant? Or was that just a bad dream? Ha ha. Okay, well, hmm. Ha ha ha. I have to admit, her movie pics are getting a little hard to decipher.

Darling, what does this one mean? I'm not sure what you're saying. Please, clearer titles, please. Zeylon. Well, anyway, let's pop in another tape. Eight years ago, when I was around 36 and living in Johannesburg, South Africa, I decided to pop into the mall to pick up some dog food. Our supermarkets are attached to the malls. When I got to the till, there was this really young couple

standing in front of me with their daughter sitting in a trolley. She was little, she must have been about five or six. The mom was at the end of the till helping to pack the groceries. And the father was doing the whole process of paying and getting the last bit of groceries into the trolley. There was this feeling behind me like someone was getting a little bit too close. I just felt super uncomfortable. So I turned around. Behind me there was two gentlemen that were just standing there but trying to make eye contact with the daughter.

I actually thought that they all knew each other because the guys behind them were acting so familiar with the young girl. They must be together, they must know each other. This arm kind of slipped past my waist and grabbed her foot in the trolley. They kept reaching around me and kind of grabbing her foot and being all playful. The more that they did this, the more uncomfortable the little girl got. You could kind of see she was really, really uncomfortable with that.

She kind of pushed herself into the corner of the trolley, away from the guy's hands, whispered in this very little soft voice, Daddy. Very soft and very scared. She was not comfortable at all. Something is off. The father turned around. Kate, dude, what are you you doing stay away from my daughter

the way that he said it it wasn't the first time that they'd had this conversation I just got that feeling like they had been following this family around this shop for a while this guy he was so forward and so confident Like they had been following this family around the shop for a while. This guy, he was so forward and so confident.

He kind of looked at the dad and he was like, yeah, but we're friends, buddy. I don't know you. Stay the hell away from my daughter. That's when I realized that they don't know each other at all. The guy kind of backed off a little bit and the father and the mother's kind of speeded up packing their groceries away. This guy reaches his arm around to grab her foot again. I just shift a little bit to the right and bumped his arm out the way so that he couldn't grab her. I just freak out. I turn around in a very loud voice, say, you know what? You are so lucky that you've got such a good daddy that he protects you from all the bad men.

I said it really loud because I wanted the guys behind me to hear me say that for them to understand that I caught them out. I know that they are not good guys. As I said that the father turned around and we made eye contact and we had this conversation with our eyes. In that moment he knew that I was warning him that something was not good happening here. They quickly packed up their stuff and they walked away as quickly as they could. Then I thought, okay, cool. The girl's safe. I can relax now. I can carry on with checking out and paying for my groceries.

I get this feeling again of someone being really close to me behind me. As I turn around I look and there's just one guy. When I turn and face again to the lady behind the till, I look up. The second guy had moved around to the end of the till where you pack your groceries. He was waiting for me at the end of the toll where you pack your groceries. He was waiting for me at the end of the toll, staring at me really menacingly.

They'd lost the little girl. Now they were going to punish me for getting involved. They shifted the focus from the little girl to me. It was really scary because they were quite intimidating. I have to do something. I'm outnumbered. I don't know what their game plan is. I had to show them that they were not going to intimidate me. In my trolley I had a huge bag of dog food. I thought, I'm going to pick this bag up and I'm

going to make it look like it's nothing. I leaned over the trolley and I picked it up like it was just a roll of toilet paper and I threw it on the counter very casually without a second thought, maintaining eye contact with the guy at the end of the till. I paid for everything. I put everything in the trolley. I'm pushing to leave the till. He moves over and blocks the exit for the till so that I can't get past. Nudge him a little bit with the trolley and I push him a little bit, but he won't leave. Push him a little bit harder and he steps out the way.

And as I walk past, he laughs menacingly at me. It was quite a scary laugh. When I had left the shop, I decided there was no way I was going to go back to my car. I just had this feeling that they were going to follow me. I started walking around the mall to try and lose them within the mall. They just were following me for about 10 minutes. I'm walking through the mall and I turn around. A third guy had joined the other two guys.

I now see three guys following me. The guy who had been standing behind me in the queue made this hand movement across his neck like he's going to cut my throat, while staring at me. My blood went cold for a moment there. That was when I decided I'm way in over my head here. This is a bad situation. I knew that my car was quite far from the exit. What am I going to do?

What is my game plan? Am I going to take them on? Am I going to go into a shop? I'm actually in more trouble than I think I am. I went to the security table in the middle of the mall. I went to the guard that was on duty and I said to him, these men have been following me. And I turned around and they were gone.

Which men? And I said, no, there were three men following me. They've been following me since I finished shopping in the supermarket. While I was in the supermarket, they were harassing this family that was there. It felt like a really dangerous situation to me. Security actually recommended that I give the till number to the supermarket so that they could check on the till camera to see if they could pick up who these guys were that were intimidating this little girl. That was really my main concern. They looked like they were going to kidnap the little girl. The security guard walked me back to my car. I kind of sat in the car to gather myself for a couple of seconds and then I just thought I need to get out of here. I feel like a bit of a sitting duck sitting in the car park waiting. I was shaking, absolutely terrified.

I left the mall and just took the long way home, drove around, took some detours, went home and kind of collapsed. I've never seen them again. I've never seen the family again. I stopped going to that mall for a while. I think it's quite scary to be a little girl and to have two grown men trying to grab you the whole time. The way that I suspect that it wasn't the first encounter in the shops with them. I can imagine there's been this build up to it as well.

So there's really this fear and anxiety, just this helplessness. Their first objective for that day was to try and kidnap the little girl. They were either gonna kidnap the little girl or they were going to follow the family home, either rob them or then rob them and kidnap the little girl.

The frustration of not being able to get the little girls when their focus shifted onto me. I definitely saved her from something. Whether it was being kidnapped or traumatised more or groped more, when I stepped in, it stopped. As I ran through the story over and over in my head, it occurred to me that the whole trying to make themselves familiar with the little girl

and insert themselves in as these kind of subdued, non-threatening individuals, it just made me think to myself, there's definitely some kind of human trafficking thing going on here. We do have issues of kidnapping and child trafficking in our country anyway, so it's not like it's unheard of. The third guy waiting outside the shop, that was definitely an indication for me that something more nefarious was going on. You'll probably find that they would have followed the parents to the car,

built up some kind of rapport on the way. Now you've got three against two in the parking lot. They would have possibly just seen what kind of car the parents are driving, followed them home. That's also a big thing that happens. Your guard is down because now you're pulling into your driveway

and you don't know that these guys have followed you home. They had nefarious motives, 100%. Ooh, that freaked me out. I hope that never happens to me. Oh, here's an opportunity to do some more ads. Now listen to this advertisement. And buy whatever it is. And we're back.

My beautiful Zenon and I have loved having you back with us in the store today. I really am over the moon now that... Malachi! Malachi, stop messing with that shelf! That's the one Zeylon uses to send me her messages. Malachi, stop it! You're gonna tip it all over! Malachi! That shelf is my wife! Malachi, no! I'm married to that shelf! A little respect. Whoa!

Malachi, wait! Wait, what is that? What? What? Oh, my God. Is that a... Is that a mouse? Zalon? Zalon?

Did you turn into a mouse? Well, more likely, maybe it wasn't Zalon. It's just a rodent. Oh, God. That means last night. With the unguents and the gloves. And the patchouli incense. And the white Russians.

All those white Russians. Shut up, Malachi. You don't need to make it weird. What? I didn't know I was saying those things to a rodent. Get it, Malachi. Get it. Sick him.

Fetch. Ah, great. Not the thing to take care of around here. Just what I needed. No, Malachi. No, no, no. Don't eat the mouse. We had an incredible connection last night. No, Malachi, no, no, no. Don't eat the mouse.

We had an incredible connection last night. I haven't known such transcendent sensuality in a decade. Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize. It wasn't a ghost. After all, it was a mouse. Is Elan still there? Above? Below? Somewhere? Watching? Perhaps.

Is she living in a two-bedroom flat in Tijuana? Could be. We'll never know. The point is... No, Malachi, leave it! I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it's reincarnation.

All I know for sure is that I climaxed hard. Good night, everybody. Thanks for coming by. Hit the lights on your way out. Don't slip on the massage oil. Radio Rental is created by Payne Lindsey Thank you. Produced by Meredith Stedman. Additional writing by Mark Laughlin. Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Associate producer is Jaja Muhammad. Editing by Eric Quintana, Mike Rooney, and Meredith Stedman.

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 UTI, the Nord Group, Station 16, Beck Media and Marketing, and the team at Odyssey.

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, RadioRentalUSmail.com or contact 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 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 Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music,

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