Radio Rental - If You Don’t Slow Down >>

Episode Date: November 12, 2019

A man turns out to be a character... in someone else’s nightmare. >> Laura of the Woods

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But since some of you are just learning about the giveaway, we're doing one more. We're picking 10 more winners of real-life VHS tapes from Radio Rental and one more winner of the store clerk action figure. To be eligible, all you have to do is subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating, and one more winner of the Store Clerk Action Figure. To be eligible, all you have to do is subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating, and a review. We're randomly selecting 10 people from their username and their review, and we'll call out all the winners in episode 6. So, go subscribe, go rate, go review, and tune in to episode 6 to see if you won. As for the winners of the Instagram contest, stay tuned to the end of the episode. Welcome in. Welcome in. How are you, dear friend? I've missed you. It's me, Terry Carnation.

Welcome to Radio Rental. I'm sorry the place is a little bit of a mess. Papers everywhere, props, toys, all kinds of nonsense and mishigas. I've been working on a scene from my latest film, a little thriller of my own I've written. I'm a bit of an auteur, you might say. It's titled The Mindbender's Midwife. It's about a midwife who can psychically communicate with babies in utero. And when they emerge, they do her bidding. Ferocious babies of death.

Toddlers of carnage. Crawling their way to terror. So I'm quite busy today, as you can see. That's why I have all these animatronic dolls here. Listen to this one. I'll pull its little string. Cuckoo, cucka, must destroy mama. Adorable.

But as I do so enjoy your company, my dear fan, I'll take a little break from pre-production to explore the tapes. I'm sure that I've gotten you quite addicted to my little shop of horrors here, so I'll put this project on hold. I'll set the midwife, the midwifery,

aside to dive into another story with you. Let's see what we've got today. So it's about noontime, right in downtown Boston, right by the statehouse. It's a very warm June day. It's a very bustling area. It's lunchtime. A lot of people are leaving the office and coming back. So I'm standing at the stoplight, waiting for the light to cross, and someone steps in behind me.

And I start walking up the hill, and as I'm walking, I still feel this person behind me. People are turning off the various roads and going into various stores and I've been walking about a block and I could still feel this presence directly behind me and then I hear him and I'm pretty sure at this point it's him gasping almost like a prank phone call, just... This heavy breathing. Gasping right behind me, almost right in my ear. I start to walk a little faster, and I think he starts to walk a little faster,

and we're reaching now a couple of blocks. You always hear these horror stories, you know, someone grabbed off the street, abducted in midday, no one stops, no one tries to help. I'm already scared. I don't know why this person is following me. I don't know why they're breathing like a horror movie. I kind of speed up my pace and still follows.

I get to the top, very crest of the hill, the big sort of open courtyard area. And I hear him say, if you don't slow down, I'm never gonna be able to catch up to you. So now I know this person is trying to follow me. I've been speeding up, he's been speeding up, and now he's telling me I need to slow down

so he can catch me. Turn around, look at this guy, he's a big guy, six foot. And I look him in the eye and then I look and I see on his chest one of those paper name badges and on the badge it says Department of Mental Health. So here I am being followed by this guy who's gasping and wheezing and he's telling me to slow down so he can catch up to me and he's a mental patient. I don't stick around, I don't debate, I just turn around and I hustle down a side street. It appears I'm being followed by a mental patient who's trying to catch me.

Well, what really happened was I was the mental patient, but not really. I wasn't the person being followed, I was the one who was accidentally following. This is the story of how I scared someone. Completely on accident. Ha ha! I had you there, didn't I? Have you ever considered that, dear patron? That you may be the monster in someone else's nightmare? Ha ha ha? What a creepy, ghoulish thought. But I can't help admit it's a little thrilling to me. Positively Cronenbergian. If someone is creepily wheezing behind you, breathing down your neck for blocks, then

tells you that if you don't slow down they won't be able to catch you, you should probably bail. Odds are are this is a potentially dangerous situation. But what if that strange encounter was just a complete misunderstanding? So here's what really happened. For about a week, I had been very, very ill with a bout of bronchitis. I had been at home, very sick for about a week, hadn't gone to work, hadn't left the house, barely able to breathe, sick as a dog. I'm finally feeling a bit better and that morning I decide to go to work.

First time back in the office for about a week. Unfortunately, my girlfriend is now just as sick as I was because she was taking care of me and got whatever it is that I got. I'm back to work and she's now back home resting. My girlfriend is an avid player of a video game called The Elder Scrolls Online. We actually play together. And The Elder Scrolls Online. We actually play together. And The Elder Scrolls Online had just released a new expansion. We had planned to play this together. So now I'm back at work, she's back at home,

and I decide I'm going to go do something nice for her. On my lunch break, I'm going to walk to the nearby game store, maybe a quarter mile from my office, and pick up a copy, digital copy, send her the digital code so she could go ahead and start playing. The thing is, between my office and that store, it's a very big hill. There's really no way to easily go around it. The only way to get to the store and back is to go up the hill, down, and then back the other way.

I get there fine. I buy the code. I text her a picture. And I give her a call and say, I know you want to play. Wait for me to get home. Don't start without me. Of course I know she's going to start without me. That's fine.

I'm just teasing her. I got it for her so she could play while she was homesick. So I head out, back to my office. It's about 80 degrees. I'm wearing my work suit. I start walking up the hill. This is where being sick for a week is starting to take its toll on me.

And I am breathing heavy, gasping for air. This is a very busy area of town and a lot of roads intersect in each other and cross over each other. And as I'm waiting for one of the lights to change so I can keep walking up the hill, I happen to fall right behind a woman. She was somewhat small, maybe about five foot. I'm not really thinking much about it. I have my headphones on. I'm listening to music and also breathing pretty heavily because again, I'm walking uphill. So I fall directly behind this woman and she just happens to be going in the same direction that I'm going. I'm a fairly large person. I'm over six foot tall. I'm about 240 pounds. I played football in college. I still exercise regularly. I give off the vibe of someone who's big and tall

and can hurt someone if I had to. That's not me. I don't believe in violence, but I recognize that I'm scary looking. I'm kind of a tech nerd. I have a lot of all the sort of various gadgets and Bluetooth headphones and smartwatch and all of that. I have my smartwatch on. My smartwatch is paired to my phone and I have my Bluetooth headphones, which are also paired to my phone. And as I'm walking, I see on my watch that my girlfriend is calling me. I tap my watch to pick up the call. When you connect my phone through my Bluetooth headphones, the other listener hears a very audible beep. My girlfriend knows this beep means I've now picked up. I don't say hello. I never say anything. She hears the beep and immediately starts talking about how she couldn't wait. She's already started playing and she's gotten a couple of levels on the new character. And this is fine with me. I know she's homesick. She took care of me. I'm happy she's having fun, but

I couldn't resist giving her just a little shit. And I tell her on the phone, honey, if you don't slow down, I'm never going to catch up to you. By which I mean, of course, she's going to get ahead of me in the game before I can get home from work later that evening. The woman in front of me has no context for any of this that's going on she only knows that someone is behind her gasping and wheezing and has just said directly behind her as she's been speeding up

if you don't slow down I'm never going to catch up to you. So she whips around to confront whoever it is that is stalking her down the streets of downtown. At that moment, I realize I have been following her for two blocks, audibly gasping and wheezing. And she thinks I'm talking to her. And when she spins around, I realized something else. I still wasn't feeling 100% and I had left my work badge at home. I worked for the Department of Mental Health. This is a very, very secure government building. Despite looking sort of like a bigger, aggressive person

who may have gone by the name Moose at some point in his life, I'm actually the regional legal director for the State Department of Mental Health. And it doesn't matter if you've worked there for 10 years and have gone to work every day and you know all the security there, even if they know you. If you don't have an ID, you need to go through a metal detector. You need to have human resources validate that, yes, you still work there and that you weren't a former disgruntled employee who's there to steal files or do something worse. You're getting screened in, you're going through the security, and you're waiting for human resources to verify that you work there.

Once you've done this sort of invasive near-colonoscopy level of a security check, in order to leave and come back through the building throughout your day, they give you a little sticky paper badges. And that badge is visible on your shirt in case security sees you, and it also has the name of the government agency that I work for, the Department of Mental Health. Part of my job is to ensure that if the government makes efforts to detain someone or commit someone for mental health issues,

we have the necessary evidence to show that we are actually detaining this person against their will in a legal capacity. But I'm still wearing a badge that says Department of Mental Health. I've been walking behind this woman, making her think that I'm following her, and I look like a mental patient. She turns around, looks up at me, because I'm about a foot taller than she is. Her eyes go down to the badge, and she sees Department of Mental Health. She whips around and sort of hustles off to a side road and sort of disappears.

And I'm still standing there in the middle of downtown on the phone with my girlfriend, and all I could say was, I think some lady just thought I was trying to kidnap her. And I still feel really bad about this. I just wanted to say, if you're listening, I'm sorry. I wasn't following you. Even though the event might be kind of funny and kind of comical, she thought she was going to get kidnapped. Like, no, she thought she was going to get kidnapped.

That's not funny. I think her reactions were perfectly appropriate given what she perceived the events to be. That's a preservation instinct that I think, unfortunately, a lot of people, especially women and people of color and other groups and minorities, have developed because the fears are rational. Oh, confound it, bullshit machinery. Never fear, I just need a pencil, a paperclip, and some scotch tape, and we'll get right back to it. How about we go to a quick break while I work on this? 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. Get ready

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People don't appreciate these majestic devices anymore. They want their plasma and their flat screens and their 4K, Blu-ray, Bluetooth, 5.1 surround sound with their comfortable chairs. It's asinine, as if that's what makes good cinema. Anyway, I digress.

Next story? The things that happened to us when we were kids can have a profound effect on us. And something traumatic or truly puzzling, like this next story, can haunt you for years afterwards, even when you're an adult. I looked you guys up after I talked to you and listened to some of your other podcasts. Cool.

I'm a machinist at a Mitsubishi plant, so I work 10 hours a day and I just listen to podcasts. Oh, really? Let's do it. Okay. Set the stage for me, the time and place and how old you were when this story begins. Okay, it was 1988. I was 10 years old.

My family and I lived in a small town called Trafalgar, Indiana. When you think of out in the middle of the country, that's what it was. We finally got a Dairy Queen, I think, when I was in high school, and a gas station. That was big. All the kids knew each other. We all liked each other. Some kids are nerds and some kids are cool, but in the summer, on the street, everyone's

friends. Everyone hangs together. It's your typical 80s childhood, you know. Before computers, everyone's riding their BMXs around town, playing Star Wars, G.I. Joe's. Pretty much a Steven Spielberg movie. On our street that I lived in, there was about five houses, and in between was a giant wooded area. All these neighbors we knew, the Mitchells on one side, they rode our bus.

They were a little older than me and my sister. Down the other street, we had Mr. Robinson. I mean, he's a really good guy. And then one of the other houses was a teacher of mine. They didn't have any kids. And then there was another house. We called it the mystery house around town. No one knew who lived there.

You could hardly see it. You could see it if you went back in the woods, but you could only see, like, the top story, the roof, the window. We kind of became fascinated with it, the kids around town. You know, we'd spy on the mystery house, try to catch any sign of people coming in or out, and we never did really. You could tell they wanted their privacy.

No one knew who even lived there really. The look of the house was kind of, it was different than all the other houses. You know, this is 80s in Indiana. Most are just one-story brick houses. This was like three stories very gothic just stood out he's out of place and it wasn't just me the other kids we talked about this house to talk about vampires you know stuff like that

I think my buddy Mike early wine said he saw a family you know we made up stories it was a house that was connected to the woods that we were all connected to, but no one knew a thing about it. We just referred to it as the mystery house. All of us did. I had two sisters. I was by myself a lot.

You know, I was a middle child. My oldest sister, I'm good friends with her, but you know, she had her friends. And in the summertime, I just liked going out in the woods. I just liked being out there by myself. I was kind of a loner. I'd take a bag of G.I. Joes out in the woods. I wouldn't take my Star Wars because they were too precious, you know. But G.I. Joe, that was fine to put in the creek or bury, you know, or play in the woods with.

And one day I went back there, this little spot by the creek where you could kind of see the woods with. And one day I went back there, there's a little spot by the creek where you could kinda see the mystery house. I'm out there and I'm playing with my GI Joes, then all of a sudden, just an overwhelming feeling of paralyzing fear basically. I don't know how to explain it besides, I knew someone was or

something was watching me out there. I don't know if it was a human or an animal or what, but I just could tell I was not alone. I don't know if I heard a branch crack or a leaf or whatever, but I just remember stiffening up and being scared shitless, basically. I didn't turn around. I didn't want to know what it was. And I remember putting my GI Joes back in the bag. I still remember the bag. It was blue with yellow straps and a yellow zipper. Calmly stood up and walked back to my house without turning around. Freaked me out and I didn't go back in the woods for a few days.

I didn't tell anybody either because I was a kid who watched horror movies. I loved stuff like that. Even at that age, trying to read Stephen King books, but I don't think I was getting very far in them. Few days went by and I decided to go back out there. I don't know if it was morbid curiosity or what, but I went back to the exact same spot. This time, I didn't take anything with me.

Probably because in case I need to get out, I could just get out and go. And sitting there, I was sticking sticks in the creek mud. And then all of a sudden, I don't know if I heard something or not, but I just knew. I don't know how to explain it other than someone's there. And I started walking away, and all of a sudden, the voice came. It scared me, but since it was a gentle voice, I turned around, and there was a girl standing there and she simply said you don't have to go home and this is how I met Laura Laura was kind of strange looking. She had like a mop top hair, kind of messy.

Her clothes were kind of weird. She explained to me that she lived in the mystery house. She was an only child and that she was home taught. That's how we struck up our friendship. She was wearing clothing that you shouldn't be wearing this summer. She had a long sleeve flannel buttoned real high. It looked very uncomfortable to me. It was like too tight in some spots and too baggy in other spots. And her hair was like a mop top, kind of slobby, you know, like she hadn't combed it. For like a week or two, I kept going out there and hanging out with Laura.

I just was having fun out there, you know. I met a new friend in the woods, which is kind of strange. She explained to me that her room in her house was the whole top floor, like a giant attic to herself. You could see one window from the area in the woods, and that was her window. The way she made it sound was a giant, basically, toy room. She just told me she was homeschooled and that her parents let her basically run the top floor of the house, basically like a giant toy room. Never gave me their names, never invited me up,

definitely didn't invite me up to the house. I don't know if I invited her to my house, to be honest with you. I think we kind of just agreed to have our meeting spot out there. Eventually she took me around to a spot on the other side of her house, which I had not been to previously. She showed me a swing hanging from the trees.

It was a wood swing with rope and it was attached to two different trees, but the branches like came together. She swung on it. I remember pushing her. She asked me about my life a lot. I just pushed her while she asked me questions about my life. And whenever I'd ask her about hers, very vague, not much answers. She never said much about her parents. I don't know why I got the feeling something was kind of off there. I asked her why she

was homeschooled. I didn't quite understand what that meant at the time. I wanted to ask her if her parents were strange, but I never did. She didn't want to talk about herself. I'd be pushing her on the swing and I'd ask her a question and then she would just come back with a question of her own. Just change the subject. No one ever asked me about myself really, so I'm probably just out there blabbing away about my life. I think maybe the fact that this older girl was talking to me, I probably had like a little schoolboy crush going on,

even though I didn't find her pretty, really, but she was paying attention to me, you know? One day, she said, very matter-of-factly, come here, I want to show you something. She took me to this little area, and there was this tree. And her name was carved on the tree. And then she said, I want to show you something else. One of the limbs had fallen off, and there was like a hole.

And she put her hand in and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Marlboro Reds. Soft pack like they used to sell. I don't think they even sell soft packs anymore. I'll never forget it because it was all crumpled up. She taught me how to smoke cigarettes out there. I remember feeling, oh man, this is not good. I'm out here breaking the rules, you know.

She pulled one out and lit it, smoked it like half down, and then handed it to me. And I took, at the time, my best attempt at inhaling a cigarette. I think I did like two of them. And she smoked a lot. I think I watched her smoke like ten cigarettes out in the woods. She had a lot. I think I watched her smoke like 10 cigarettes out in the woods. She had a smoking habit. I eventually told my parents that I was hanging out with someone out there, and they thought it was cool.

You know, they didn't really question it. My older sister kind of teased me, saying I had a girlfriend out there. And, you know, looking back on it, I probably did have a little adolescent crush that I developed on this 11-year-old. And I'm 10, and she's teaching me to do bad things and showing me around. And then one day, I went out there, and she was gone. I went back out there a few times, and she never came back. I just thought maybe she didn't want to come back out, or I didn't know.

Maybe her parents caught her smoking out there. But she never came back. For weeks that summer, he played in the woods with his new friend Laura. And one day, in what seemed like a blink of an eye, she was gone. But little did he know at the time, the story of Laura was far from over. 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. Growing up, he'd always been more of a loner. But that summer, having his new friend Laura around was a pleasant change. He even started to develop a crush.

Laura was different, often vague about her personal life. And strange looking, as he described. Mop top hair, clothes that didn't fit. But nevertheless, he was thrilled to have someone to hang out with. Someone who would listen to him, made him feel good. But one day, she was gone. No trace of Laura at all. School year started, and so life went back to normal. The year after, the house was for sale. They were having an open house like they do. All of a sudden, Laura came back into my head. We talked for years about this

house, and finally it was open to the public. So we pleaded and pleaded with my mom to go to the open house. We knew we weren't going to buy the house, you know. But finally, mom gave in. I think even the adults wanted to see what was going on in that house. And we went to the open house. I thought I might see her, you know? Plus, we just wanted to see what the house looked like. My mom was even excited, I remember. So we felt like we were going to something special, you know? Like any open house, there's other people there.

I remember some other people like us looking at the house. And then there was a man, which I assume was Laura's dad. And then there was Laura's mom, and I could tell right away it was Laura's mom. They looked a lot alike, only she had real short hair. But they looked alike, and you could just tell that they were related. She's showing us around the house, and my mom's striking up a small conversation, you know, saying, we've small conversation, you know, saying, we've lived here, you know, been neighbors, you know, it's a shame we've never met.

Her mom said, yeah, although I feel like I recognize this guy here, and pointed at me. I don't know if she was watching me and her daughter out there playing or what. Kind of creeped me out a little bit. Walking around doing the tour of the house and we get through the second floor and that's it. That's the end of the tour. And I know there's a third floor because she's told me there's a giant attic up there and I've seen the window. She didn't mention it. She just said, and that's the house. I was 10 and I was kind of shy. I wanted to stay. I knew it was the third floor, but I didn't. My mom was talking to her and eventually she said that they lost their daughter years ago. She said her daughter had passed away and that point, I'm freaked out. She said years ago.

It hadn't been years since I'd hung out with the girl. Me and my sister, I'll never forget, we looked at each other and thinking, who have I been out there hanging with? I must have looked funny because the mom said to me, what's wrong, buddy? Looks like you've seen a ghost. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

You know, I played out there on multiple occasions. She never came to my house or anything, so no one saw her but me. She was not in school. There was no yearbook pictures to look up. We were walking to the car, and my mom said, No more. No more going out there. I don't know what's going on here, but you're not going out there by yourself anymore. I don't know if she believed in ghosts or what, but she, you know, you're not going back out there without someone

supervision. It wasn't real scary until we got back to the house and I was thinking about the ramifications of what, oh my God, is it a ghost? Am I playing with a ghost? And I didn't think she was dead. It's still creepy thinking about it. It's been 31 years. Already with my interactions with Laura, I already had a bad vibe about her parents because she would never talk about it.

I didn't trust the lady. I thought Laura was in that house. I honestly thought Laura was locked in the attic. Maybe something bad's going on up there. I physically had pushed this person on the swing. I don't know. I just feel like I wouldn't be able to touch a ghost. And I, you know, I smoked the cigarette. I didn't take the cigarette out there myself. I was 10 years old. I didn't have a way of getting cigarettes. After the open house, I disobeyed my parents one time and did go back out there. I kind of thought maybe Laura was locked up there.

I thought she was being held hostage or something in the house. Being a kid, very curious. Thought maybe I could save Laura, I think. And I thought maybe if she was in the window, maybe she'd try to signal me. And I went out to the exact spot and I went to where I could see the window. And I looked up at the window

and sure enough, I was being watched. But it wasn't Laura. It was her mom staring at me me like she was waiting for me. And it scared the piss out of me. She was staring right at me out the window. There was no smile, just staring at me. I turned around and got the hell out of there. My sister coined the name Laura of the Woods as the ghost out there, and it sounded like a pretty cool name. So eventually it kind of became a cool story. I was telling my buddies that I had a little ghost friend out there, and Laura of the Woods, you know, out there roaming the wild woods at night or whatever, and it kind of became a myth of its own.

But I just, I didn't think it was a ghost, really. I just kind of went with the ghost story eventually in my head. Finally I started believing it over and over. Eventually, a couple years later my parents got divorced and in that process we sold the house. So I moved and I never went back there for a long time. Eventually, Mr. Robinson passed away, and my Uncle Bill bought his property. So now I had a chance to go back, not to my house, but to the wooded area that I knew. And one day when we were at a cookout, I took my wife, which I had told her a little bit about the story, but not too much.

And my sister brought up, remember Laura of the Woods? We were all sitting around drinking beers, and I started telling the story again. I never told it fully to my wife. And then I realized after I was telling, I never told my family about the cigarette part and all that good stuff. So that came out. After a few beers, you know, my wife and sister were like, okay, let's go see it.

The spot that I hung out in with the swing and the tree. Mr. Robinson's trails were grown up, but they were still there. It was just like being a kid again. I was tracing my own footsteps. We're going along the trail, and finally we get to the part where I used to sit with my GI Joes, and we found it.

The swing was amazingly still hanging there, although I wouldn't have sat on it. It looked like it could have snapped at any moment. And the tree was there, and the name was still on the tree. And without really thinking, I walked up to it and put my hand in the tree and pulled out the old pack of cigarettes that was still there. We were all freaked out at this point. I thought I was maybe playing with a ghost, you know, but now it's physical. I'm feeling this. So we're like, okay, it confirmed what I was telling them.

What the hell was my childhood? What was I doing out there? It's true. Let's get the hell out of here. For the next week or so, it was on my mind, big time. And one night, I had some kind of food poisoning or something. I was real sick and in bed having like fever dreams and sweating and I had this dream. I'm walking out on the trails, Mr. Robinson's trails again. It's dusk, it's gray outside, it's fall. The trees have no leaves, but the leaves are on the ground.

I'm on Mr. Robinson's trail. I know the trail well. It's the one with the bench overlooking the creek. I'm just following the trail, and I don't want to, but I just keep walking. Turn the corner, and there's one of the benches. Sitting on the bench was Laura. Mop top hair from the back. She was facing the other way. I was coming up

from behind but I could tell from the hair, everything, that it was her. And then you get closer and she's like laughing, this weird little giggle. She's laughing and I feel like she's laughing at me. I feel really stupid. She lifts her head up and when she does, her hand is on her hair and it just comes off. And what I saw then really freaked me out. My wife said I sat straight up in the bed panting and sweating and screaming. It was always her. It was always the mom. It was the mom the whole time. Decades later he had a horrifying revelation. The mom. It was always the mom.

It explained everything. Her weird mop-top hair, the strange clothes she wore that didn't fit, smoking cigarettes. He always knew it wasn't a ghost. He just couldn't explain it until all these years later. It's one thing to think you were playing with ghosts as a kid. It's even creepier to think that you were playing with an adult woman dressed as a kid, pretending to be a kid, just playing games on a little boy. That's the conclusion I've come with, and that's what I, in my heart, know what happened to me. And I believe it wholeheartedly.

The dream was so vivid and so lucid and so real and people ask me how could a 10 year old be so stupid to think a grown woman's an 11 year old 11 year old kid. I don't know I guess I was gullible but I thought it was an 11 year old girl. I felt kind of stupid to be honest with you. This was a friend I thought I had. I think I knew maybe when I even when I went to the open house and saw how similar they looked. And I just wouldn't admit it to myself, suppress memory or whatever you want to call it. I had a feeling. I know in my heart that's exactly what happened. I think I knew long before the dream actually.

I don't think I wanted to admit that such a weird thing happened to me. I have a 10-year-old son right now, and I could see him being fooled too. The idea of a grown woman out in the woods waiting on anyone to come and then befriend for like two weeks or so and teach me to smoke cigarettes, make me push her on a swing. Just weird. She even talked like a kid. Her voice was not the same as the voice at the open house.

She like had a kid voice. Here's my theory. I believe her daughter did die. And I believe she was acting like her daughter. Maybe as a coping mechanism, I don't know. I just can't imagine a woman with no kids thinking that was a fun idea. Unless she was just total batshit crazy. I feel like she did lose something and she was trying to let it live through this weird

game. Oh, terribly traumatic for that young boy. What a bizarre play on the classic Mrs. Robinson situation. Was it a ghost? Was it the mom? Well, dear fan of horror, occult, paranormal, and the absurd, I would like to thank you again for choosing to spend your day with us here at Radio Rental. That's Radio Rental, where your mind can unwind. No. Let me try another one here.

Um, it's Radio Rental, gateway to your darkest fears. Uh, Radio Rental, come in and hit play. Radio Rental, be kind, rewind your mind. Radio Rental, weird true stories from the internet people. Radio rental, be afraid, be very afraid, but not too afraid. Radio rental, come on in and get turned on. Well, that didn't make any sense. So if you like any of these catchphrases, please write to at Radio Rental USA

on the Twitter feed. And is MySpace still around? We should get a MySpace. Or a Friendster, perhaps. Anyway, let us know. We're also taking suggestions. That's it for today, my dear fans. Until next time, this has been Terry Carnation for Radio Rental, but since some of you are just finding out about this, we're going to do one more. To win an exclusive Radio Rental VHS tape or a real-life Radio Rental store manager

action figure, just do the following. One, subscribe to Radio Rental. Two, leave us a rating. And three, leave a review. In episode six, we'll be announcing 10 more winners of VHS tapes and one more lucky winner of our store manager action figure. Now for this week's winners. If I call out your name, please send an email to RadioRentalWinner at gmail.com. Again, if you hear your name, please send an email to RadioRentalWinner at gmail.com. Again, that's RadioRentalWinner at gmail.com. Okay, the following usernames are winners of our Radio Rental VHS tapes.

Mbreezy12, MissRosaAAA. Sorry, these are kind of funny to read. Jeremy underscore of underscore M. Not sure what that means. The underscore real underscore AP underscore 15. Riley underscore Haynes. Anthony underscore Vega88. And finally, drumroll, the winner of the store manager action figure is Carter Intense. And don't worry, you still have a chance to win too. Just go subscribe, go rate, go review,

and in episode six, we'll announce 10 more winners plus one more winner of the action figure. Thanks, guys, and see you next week. Radio Rental is created by Payne Lindsey and brought to you by Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta. Executive producers Payne Lindsey and Donald Albright. Hosted by Rainn Wilson as his character Terry Carnation. Produced by Payne Lindsey, 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.