The Lets Read Podcast - 290: THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH MY NEIGHBOR | Rain Ambience / 25 True Scary Stories | EP 278

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about creepy landlords, evil cops & kidnapping experiences. HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT? [e-mail] FOLLOW ME ON - ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ♫ Music & Cover art: INEKT https://www.youtube.com/@inekt Today's episode is sponsored by: - Betterhelp

It's the Lexus Demonstrator event at Don Valley North Lexus. During May, Don Valley North Lexus has rates as low as 1.9%, with savings up to $9,000 on select remaining 2024 Demonstrator models, while supplies last. See DonValleyNorthLexus.com for details, or visit them at 7200 Victoria Park, just north of Steeles. A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group. at 7200 Victoria Park, just north of Steeles. At Don Valley North, Don Valley North for Lexus. A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group. If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your tread's worn down or you need a new wheel,

wherever you go, you can get it from our tread experts. Toyo's open country family of tires will get you through tough weather in a variety of terrains. Until May 31st, save up to $100 in rebates on select Toyo's open country family of tires will get you through tough weather in a variety of terrains. Until May 31st, save up to $100 in rebates on select Toyo tires. Find a Toyo Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. Treadexperts.ca I'm out. When I first told my dad that I wanted to be an artist, he paused and then told me, hope you like buttered noodles.

It was kind of prophetic in a way, because I did end up liking buttered noodles, but what he was really trying to tell me was, be prepared to struggle and starve. And boy, was he right about that. After graduating high school, I opted not to go to college and instead worked a series of menial jobs until I had enough saved to move to San Francisco. After I moved, I lived in a shared Hunter's Point apartment for about 18 months with a bunch of other starving artists as I attempted to break into the local arts scene. That was a tough time for me, and for several reasons. There was a lot of crime, a lot of drugs, and outside of the few bucks an hour I got from my part-time bag boy job, I was dead broke. Then, to top it off, I lived with a revolving

door of unreliable, egocentric bratspon who were out there pissing away mommy and daddy's money pretending to be artists, but instead purchased way more pot and pills than they ever did paints or pencils. And I knew I had to start making some money and find a better apartment because another year with those bums and I'd have gone crazy. And that's when I started job hunting like a son of a bitch, day in and day out for like a month straight. It was exhausting and when it got to the point where I could feel myself starting to burn out, I began to consider running back home with my tail between my legs before starting afresh in New York when I had the cash saved up again. But then, right when things seemed at their darkest, I met a guy named Greg.

We met outside a liquor store when he asked me for a light and he looked like he was having the worst day of his life. When I asked him if he was okay as I lit his cigarette, he told me he was about to be fired from his marketing job for missing a deadline. He had a project that was 95% completed, but after an agreement with a graphic designer fell through, he was lacking a collection of potential logos for some financial firm his company had as a client. And well, long story short, I got him his logos after working all night and for a heavily discounted rate compared to what he'd promised those deadbeat designers who'd left him high and dry. And that was the start of a very fruitful working relationship between me and dear old Gregory.

And off the back of it, I finally got to move out of that pigsty I called an apartment and start living like a human being. Once I started making some serious money, I started looking for nicer single-person apartments around Frisco. And I went to view a couple of sweet places, each with their own individual pros and cons, and I was somewhat undecided until I went to check out a place in Mill Valley. All it said in the ad was that it was a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment on a shared property, and that's all there was to it. But when I went to see the thing, I realized just how understated the ad had been. The single-bedroom, single-b single bathroom apartment turned out to be a guest house

built on the grounds of one of those Mediterranean revival villas they got out in that neighborhood. You know the kind, all earthy colors with tiles and archways and columns and whatnot. I met up with the homeowner, an older guy in his 50s or 60s, who gave me a quick tour of the guest house before the subject of rent came up. When he told me they wanted just $6.50 a month for the place, I couldn't believe it. Because at the time, that was a very reasonable rate for an apartment of that quality. Not suspiciously reasonable by any stretch, but low enough for me to offer a deposit and the first month's rent there and then. The guy definitely seemed a little wary of me, I guess because I seemed so desperate to move in,

so he told me he'd think about it and then let me know. And that's when I told him my story, or part of it anyway. I told him I had this one big shot at living my dream and I couldn't have the gang of nocturnal drug addicted losers that I live with currently messing it up for me. I offered him $700 a month, then $750 which cut even deeper into my earnings but he said he wasn't interested in more money. He said he needed someone quiet, who minded their own business and who paid in cash and on time. I swore on all the saints in heaven that it'd be me, that I'd be too busy working to give a damn what was going on in the big house, and that I'd be damned if I'd be throwing any parties in what I'd considered a workspace. If he gave me the apartment, he wouldn't even know that I was there. The only way that he'd

know that I was still alive is getting that envelope full of cash on the first of every month, and aside from that, I'd be a ghost. When I was done, he stood there for a moment and thought about it, and then told me to come collect the keys on the first of the month. I could have danced down that guy's driveway, dude. I was elated. I only had to stay one more week in that pigsty in Hunter's Point and then on the first of the month, my old pal Greg let me borrow his car to move my stuff and I was out of there. Now moving my stuff into that guest house felt like a victory parade. I had steady work, a really nice apartment, and in Greg, I'd made a good friend who wasn't a complete deadbeat. Things really seemed like they were looking up for me.

But in the words of some old dead philosopher whose name I can't quite remember right now, sometimes, the way up and the way down are one and the same. Which I've always considered to mean that sometimes the things that you think are going to improve your life actually make it way, way worse. And so the first few weeks of living in that guest house were like a dream. I didn't bother the owners, they didn't bother me. I had space to work and I had a nice quiet place to lay my head each night. I saw my landlord maybe two or three times in those first few weeks, but I never, ever saw his wife. I mean, to the point that I thought maybe that they were separated and she lived someplace else.

Then one day, he comes knocking on my door and tells me that he's going away on a fishing trip over the weekend. He's leaving on Friday evening and then coming back late on Sunday night. I tell him, okay, thanks for letting me know, but then before he leaves, he tells me something like, my wife is feeling a little under the weather, so if she starts acting strangely, don't be alarmed, she's just not feeling like herself lately. I was a little surprised that she was even living there, cause like I said, I'd been there around three weeks and hadn't even seen her once. But still, I thanked him for letting me know, and I told him that I'd help out if or when I was needed. That was midweek sometime, then come Friday, I saw him packing up his truck with a

bunch of coolers and stuff, and then wished him a good weekend as I walked toward the guest house. That night was quiet as usual, right up until about two in the morning and I finished up work with the intention of going to bed. I went to the bathroom to take a whiz and it's Frisco in the late summer so I got the bathroom window way open so the place doesn't become a giant condensation trap. And then as I'm taking a leak, I started hearing something outside which caught my attention. It was only very faint at first, but something about it really grabbed my attention. Then as I listened, I realized why. It was the sound of someone crying, and from what I could

tell, it was a woman. I finished up my leak and then walked down to the step outside my front door, trying to work out where the sound was coming from. I stood there, cupping my hands behind my ears like a dumb, red-headed radar tower. It was a trick my dad had taught me as a kid, and just like back then, it worked like a charm. And I quickly figured out that the person crying was around the back of the main house. And that meant that it could only be one person, my landlord's sick wife. Now I know my landlord had talked about needing his privacy and I know he'd already told me about his wife feeling under the weather but I couldn't just hear someone sobbing like that and not at least go check on them. Then once I was 100% sure that it was

someone crying around the corner where the big house's swimming pool was located, I leaned my head around the brickwork and saw a woman sat on a piece of patio furniture. I didn't want to scare her or anything because she had her head in her hands and hadn't seen me lean around the corner, so I made sure to keep my voice as soft as possible and then asked her if she was okay. I was ready for her to jump up, startled, before maybe running back inside the house. But she didn't. She just sat there, her head still in her hands as she continued to sob. Assuming that she hadn't heard me, I repeated myself asking something like,

Ma'am, are you okay? Do you need any help? Only then did she stop crying. But instead of actually acknowledging my presence, the lady turned her head to look at me and just stared. She looked out at me through the few strands of hair hanging over her eyes, but she didn't say a word. It got so awkward that I spoke for a third time, telling her I was the guy who'd moved into the guest house and that she could call on me anytime she liked if she needed any help or anything. I figured at the very least what I said warranted a murmur of a response, but again, the lady just stared at me kind of blankly, almost like she wasn't looking at me at all, but rather looking through me. I asked her again if she needed anything, but instead of answering me, she looked off into the distance, like in another dimension, then acted like I hadn't said anything at all to her. I just kind of waited, just in case she was building up to say something and then when she got off of the patio furniture

I expected her to speak, but once again she didn't say a word. She just got up, turned around and walked back inside the main house before closing the back door behind her. The whole exchange left me just standing there like, what just happened? But also very concerned for the lady's well-being. This was also way before cell phones were in everyone's pockets, so there was no contacting my new landlord to let him know what I'd seen. But then, to be perfectly honest, even if I did have a cell phone, I'm not sure that I'd have been all that quick at reaching out to him. He told me on multiple occasions how they needed their privacy, how I wasn't to approach the main house unless it was an emergency. And so, unless it was just that, an emergency, I figured my best option was to keep my mouth shut,

because I had already run the risk of the landlord's wife telling him, that new tenant just came creeping up to me in the middle of the night. I mean, that's not what I did, I only wanted to see if she was okay. But who's her husband going to believe? Me or the woman he's been married to for years? And besides, she was back in the house now, safe as any place really, so I just went back to the guest house and got some sleep. The next day was a Saturday, so instead of working all day and most

of the night like I usually would, I decided to head over to some of the bars that I used to frequent in Hunters Point before I moved out. I met up with Greg, we had a few beers and talked baseball and then parted a ways around midnight. I got a cab home then as I'm walking up the driveway towards the guest house, I spot someone standing on the second floor balcony of the main house. Someone I was pretty sure was the landlord's wife. I could only see the outline of her because she's standing in the dark with the light of her bedroom shining on some curtains behind her. But on the other hand, I'm lit up like a Christmas tree because I'm walking up the driveway and activating all the security lights attached to the main and guest houses. And I knew she could see me. Or I mean, if she was paying even the smallest amount of

attention to her surroundings, she'd have been able to see me, so just as I'm about to split off toward the guest house, I gave her a little wave just to say hi. I don't know what I was expecting after the night before, but just like then, she didn't move a muscle at first. She just stayed perfectly still. Now this is going to sound harsh, but I remember thinking, Jesus, how creepy is this broad? And I also wasn't about to stand there like an idiot like I had the previous night, so I just walked off towards the guest house. When the guy said his wife was sick, I figured that he meant that she had a cold or something. But by that point, I was starting to think that she was dealing with something more

psychological than physical. And that came with a whole set of other concerns on my part. Say she freaked out and it was up to me to do something. I had no idea how to deal with something like that outside of calling 911. And even then, do I ask for the cops? Do I ask for EMS? I wouldn't know what the hell to have done with myself. But then, in the end, it was her who ended up calling the cops on me. On the Sunday morning, same day my landlord is due to come back from his fishing trip,

I left my apartment to go get some creamer from the store nearby when I saw the landlord's wife standing on the front lawn. I figured that I was about to get more of that silent treatment because she had her back to me when I saw her. But then once I got level with her as I was walking up the driveway, she heard my footsteps, then turned around, startled. I wasn't even going to bother saying hi at this point, not after the previous two attempts, so I just kind of gave her a nod as she looked at me and then kept on walking. But then, instead of ignoring me again, she starts yelling, Hey, hey you! What the hell do you think you're doing on my property?

I was kind of shocked that she even spoke to me, and I had to bite my tongue so I didn't come out with a, Oh, so now you're talking to me. Instead, and bearing in mind I figured that she might be losing her mind or something, I kept it together, and told her very politely that I was the tenant who had been renting her guest house for the past three weeks. The lady then told me she had no idea who I was talking about, and that if I didn't get off her property, she was going to call the cops. I told her, please don't do that, and explained it'd all end up being a huge misunderstanding.

I even showed her the key that I used to unlock the door and offered to demonstrate me using it so she knew that I wasn't some very casual home invader. And again, I kept my voice down and tried my best to remain very non-threatening, but she marched off after announcing that she was going to dial 911. I remember just shaking my head and telling myself, at least this beats Hunter's point. And then I went to the store and bought my creamer. But then when I got back, I look up to see a cop car parked outside the house,

and when I rounded that corner to walk down the driveway, I see the landlord's wife angrily gesticulating to very bored looking officers. My landlord's wife looks past them and sees me and is suddenly saying something like, There he is! That's him right there! Like she's expecting the two cops to rush over and just tackle me. When instead, one of them walks over to talk to me while his partner stays with the lady to keep her calm. I started telling the cop my story and then showed him how I could unlock the door to the guest house with the key in my pocket. And after that, I showed him things like my wallet, which I'd left on the table after taking a few bucks out of it,

and a few other things confirming that I had been the person who lived there. I also mentioned how the landlord's wife had been acting very weird and that I don't go anywhere near the house usually so I barely see her and that's where the confusion is all stemming from. The cop then tells me that the lady seemed to be intoxicated, didn't seem to know where her husband was and was even confused as to what day of the week it was. In light of that, and considering all my stuff seemed to be in the guest house, the two officers gave me the benefit of the doubt and then escorted my landlord's wife back inside her house. I then filled the cops in on where my landlord was and how, since he was returning home that day, his wife wouldn't be alone for much longer. And that seemed to satisfy the two officers,

who told me to call them if anything else happened before departing. A few hours later, my landlord arrives back from his fishing trip, and I caught him in the driveway to tell him what had happened with his wife. I didn't tell him that I approached the house, but I did say that I'd heard her crying, and then all the stuff about her calling the cops on me. He didn't seem to react until I mentioned the cops, like he acted as if it was only some minor concern until I mentioned the two officers showing up and how they took a look around the guest house. Then, and only then, did he act like this was a priority,

and he promised me that it wouldn't happen again before he stormed off, presumably to confront his wife. Now don't get me wrong, I was glad that he seemed to be on my side in this whole situation, because awkward encounters with his wife were one thing, but her trying to get me arrested was something else. But then, having said that, there was something that really bugged me about the way that he reacted when I told him about the cops showing up. He seemed to act like his wife's behavior was a regular occurrence, as in, he seemed only mildly disappointed. But then, when I mentioned the police, his ears pricked up, and his expression changed completely. I get that he'd probably just gotten used to his wife having outbursts or whatever, and that the cops being called represented what you might call an unnecessary escalation. But to me, it seemed kind of fishy that he seemed so uptight about the cops taking a look around his

property, even if it was the one that I was renting and not his actual house. And needless to say, things didn't end there. I've been staying in the guest house apartment for around three months when Greg came by to pick me up from the apartment. We had tickets to a Giants game and I was psyched to be going because I'd loved sports since pretty much forever. And so there's me, jumping into Greg's passenger seat like, hey buddy, how's it going? But Greg, he looks like he'd just seen a ghost. And I say something like, what the hell's gotten into you? But he replied to a question with a question saying something like, you live in that place?

He was talking about the guest house and main house together, the grounds I mean, so I told him sure, that living in the guest house was a pretty sweet deal. Greg then asked me if I knew the folks who lived there, or more importantly, what happened to the folks who lived there. I told him no, and Greg sighed, and then we drove off toward Candlestick Park, and he told me the story on the way. About five years before I had moved to San Francisco, there had been a high-profile missing persons case involving the daughter of a wealthy pharma rep. One day, she told her parents that she was going to walk down to the local park and then never came home again. They called the cops the day afterwards after calling around to all her friends' houses, but they couldn't find any witnesses whatsoever that had seen her anywhere near the park that day.

It was like she'd disappeared in the thin air. The girl's heartbroken parents held a bunch of press conferences outside their home for the benefit of local news. In each one, they begged people to come forward with any information they might have, saying that someone must know where their daughter is and what happened to her on the day she vanished. Greg, being a local, had seen some of the many news reports and with him being a high school senior at the time, it had a profound effect on him and his friends at school, because the missing girl had been the exact same age group as them, a high school senior. So when he pulled outside the house that afternoon and looked out of his window at it,

he knew he recognized it from somewhere, he just couldn't think where. Then by the time I'd climb into the passenger seat he remembered where he'd seen it before, it had been in those press conferences. The missing high school girl was my landlord's daughter. As you can imagine, learning all that meant our baseball game had something of a dark cloud hanging over it, and we spent almost the entire game talking about the missing girl, my landlady's wife, and how it all made horrible and sudden sense to me. The wife wasn't nuts. I mean, she might have been going nuts, but all the crying

and the standing on the balcony, staring into the night, she was just broken by grief. And from the way that she was acting, it was probably stuck at the bottom of a bottle, be it booze or pills or whatever she was using. Greg told me the girl had never been found, but after five long years and not a single clue as to where she went, pretty much everyone assumed that she'd been murdered by a suspect who was later given the name the Golden State Killer. Everyone hoped that she'd just run away from home and she'd show up one day for some delayed but happy ending. But deep down, everyone suspected otherwise. Something terrible had happened to that girl and she was never coming home.

I felt terrible for the landlord and his wife and I wish I'd known earlier so I didn't treat the wife like she was just some crazy old coot. But looks, as they say, can be very deceiving. A few weeks after I found out all that stuff about their missing daughter, I noticed my shower was on low pressure. And since it happened to be the same day my rent check was due, I figured I'd walk over to the house, deliver my rent check, and let the landlord know about the water pressure at the same time. So I grab the check, an argument with his wife about something. And they are screaming at each other. I hear the husband yelling something about how his wife is always feeling sorry for herself. And he goes off like that for a few seconds before I hear his wife scream something back like,

I wouldn't be like this if it wasn't for what you did. My landlord then responds with, what I did? What I did? Are you forgetting it was you who got us into this mess in the first place? And that was the point where I was like, okay, I really shouldn't be listening to this. And I walked back to my apartment, wrote a note about the water pressure on the back of my rent envelope, and then went back to the door to slide it under it. When I did, there was no more yelling, so I figured that they were just done with their fight and then went back to my day as usual. Not long after, I mentioned to Greg that I was thinking about trying to find a new place. He told me that that didn't surprise him at all, and that to him, it wouldn't

be a tough decision in the first place. But that was real easy for him to say because he didn't have to live with the reality of this situation. I figured that the only reason my landlord was renting out his guest house was because they needed the money, and because most people in the city were aware of the tragedy they suffered. They must have had a hell of a time trying to find the vacancy until my ignorant ass strolled up to their driveway and just said, oh wow, isn't this a nice place? If I just walked out on them, God knows what kind of financial difficulties that might leave them in.

I mean, I know it's just a few hundred bucks a month, but they were older folks and sometimes that kind of money makes all the difference in retirement. Or if you got a sick wife who needs taken care of. I knew I'd feel like a bag of crap just leaving them like that, but at the same time, I wasn't sure how long I could go on living with them. It was like there was this very dark cloud hanging over the house, the same one that followed me home from the game that afternoon.

And then, if I'm allowed to swap metaphors for a second, there was the ticking time bomb element to it as well. Whatever that lady was taking to manage her grief, she was either taking too much or not enough, and the way that they were fighting with each other made me think that it was only a matter of time before something happened. I had no idea what that something might be, but you knew it was only a matter of time before something happened. I had no idea what that something might be, but you knew it was coming, and when it did, I sure as heck didn't want to be there when it went down. And so another few weeks go by, and by this time we're into late October, right around Halloween. The house had been quiet. I've gone back to never seeing that

wife around, and I'm actually starting to think that I was a little hasty in looking for some place else to live. The place had its flaws, but so did everywhere else, and I also felt like kind of an asshole for making things about me when it was their grief, their cross to bear, so to say. Maybe the best thing for me to do was to stop thinking about it and remind myself that it wasn't any of my business, and that worked just fine, until it became my business, and in a way that I could never have imagined. So, it's November 3rd of 1989, and I remember that because it was a Friday and I was about to go step onto the old tiles there to get a few beers with Greg. I finished work at around 4pm, took around 15 minutes to get ready, then as I step out of the guest house and start walking down the driveway,

I see a whole bunch of cops turn onto the driveway and start walking in the direction of that big house. I couldn't help myself. Seeing them come up the driveway in their uniforms like that, so I blurted out, A little late for trick-or-treating, isn't it, fellas? Why don't you take off those costumes there? But I didn't get to finish that last sentence because when they realized that I was there, standing off to the side of them, they all pulled out their guns and their holsters, spun around, and started yelling at me to put my hands in the air. It makes me laugh to think about it nowadays, but I was so scared that I had this perfect brain fart of a moment, and instead of yelling don't shoot, or something like that, I literally screeched out, it was a joke, it was just a joke. But then, as they're approaching me,

telling me to get down on the ground, it hit me that the goddamn landlord's wife had called the cops on me for a second time. I'm lying on my face, they're putting the cuffs on me, and I'm telling them things like, officers, there's probably been some kind of confusion here, just let me explain. But unlike the first time around, when the cops were actually calm and polite and whatnot, one of them yells at me to shut up and then I'm being arrested. They're acting tough, like I was the scum of the earth, but still I'm just calmly telling them that there's been a misunderstanding and that I rent the guest house on the property. Again, one of the cops tells me to shut my mouth, and then as

two of them start walking me back to their paddy wagon, the others walk off towards the house talking about securing it, stuff like that. I kept my mouth shut, but I was still acting kind of smug because I knew that when all was said and done, I was just going to file a complaint on each one of those stuck-up pricks for arresting me on the charge of living in my own goddamn apartment. One time I could understand, but two, in the way they did it, that's just not going to happen. Not in this lifetime. Now anyways, they take me down to the old Mill Valley Police Precinct, and I'm still 100% sure that they're arresting me by accident. But then, when we got to this booking process and they read out the charges, I realized something seriously messed

up was going on. I'd been arrested on suspicion of kidnap, false imprisonment, a bunch of other smaller charges, and then get this, the cops charged me with, quote, practicing medicine without a license. That was the point where I lost my cool and I was like, what the hell are you people talking about? Because kidnap and all that other scary stuff was one kind of nightmare. But then, the practicing medicine thing, hearing that made it feel like I was trapped in some fever dream. They might as well have told me that I'd been charged with lettuce and bacon because what I was hearing made exactly 0% sense to me. I knew not to talk to the cops without a lawyer present so I didn't say a word,

and they didn't really ask me anything of substance until the attorney showed up and we could start in earnest. But then, instead of asking questions about me, they seemed very interested in my landlord. They asked me where he was, and I told them fishing trip, but then they acted like that was some kind of cover story. One of them yelled bullcrap, we know he's not fishing, where is he? Then told me all about how, if I didn't cooperate, they were going to make sure that I got a full wrap on each charge and not just accessory, basically telling me that I was going to make sure that I got a full wrap on each charge and not just accessory. Basically telling me that I was going to prison for the rest of my life if I didn't start telling them the truth. Obviously, I had no clue what they were talking about, so I told them a second time that, to my knowledge, I had no idea where my landlord was.

He just told me that he was fishing, and I have no reason not to believe him. The cops then asked me a whole bunch of questions about when I moved into the guest house, what I did for work, things like that. They also asked me a ton of questions about my relationship with my landlord, like if I was close with him. I told him hell no, that he'd actually warned me to stay the hell away from the house because they needed their privacy, quote unquote. And if he was involved in something shady that they were trying to pin on me also, then they were barking up the wrong tree. I then told them that I'd be happy to help with any kind of investigation, especially since the charges sounded so crazy and I wanted to distance myself as much as I possibly could from them. The cops didn't exactly

warm up to me after that, but they sure as hell stopped treating me like something they'd found on the bottom of their shoe. They let me go not long after taking me back to a cell, but warned me not to leave town because I could still be re-arrested at any time. They wouldn't tell me exactly what was going on, only that I might not be seeing my landlord or his wife for a while, which might affect my living arrangements. And that was the last thing I wanted to hear, and I figured that I was back to shopping for apartments again. But not only was I wrong about that, but I was wrong about my other theory too, which pertained to why cops seemed so interested in finding my landlord. See, the whole kidnapping and imprisonment thing really rattled around my brain as I caught a cab back to the apartment. It might sound crazy to say it, but I thought my landlord might have, I don't know, found the son of a bitch who took his daughter all those years ago.

But then, the practicing medicine thing, combined with the kidnapping, that gave me chills just thinking about it. Because think about it, what kind of messed up stuff are you doing to someone where that becomes a factor? Was he torturing a guy? Performing a surgery on him? Just what the hell was going on? I didn't find out the whole truth until much later, but like I must have said a dozen times by now, it was like nothing I ever could have imagined. Since I didn't have anyone to pay rent to, I just stayed in the apartment until the water and electricity were just shut off, and then ended up staying on Greg's couch, with the guest house acting as storage,

until I found a new place to live. This all took place over the course of around two months, with news about my landlord coming out in steady drip until, finally, all the pieces fit together. But probably the biggest one came when the cops found my landlord's daughter. Not dead, not alive, but somewhere in between. In a small rented home up in Los Ranchitos, the cops found my landlord's missing daughter. She was emaciated, bed-bound on life support, and appeared to have been in some kind of deep coma for the last half a decade. My landlord had been keeping his daughter alive, apparently after she'd received some kind of serious head trauma, and he'd been doing so using medical equipment he'd obtained from some mysterious but

obviously well-equipped donor, most likely as a result of his contacts in the medical industry. But then, why not take her to a hospital to get her the proper medical attention? Why leave her to slowly rot in some roach-infested apartment up in the hills? Because it was my landlord's wife who inflicted the crippling head wound in the first place. I guess it all came out once they got arrested and the daughter's location was uncovered. I don't know who spilled the beans first, but someone did, and once the news broke, it was a hot story for a few days. At least until the news cycle switched back to the more interesting story, which was the aftermath of the Loma Prieta earthquake and all the various rescue and

rebuilding efforts. Five long years ago, my former landlord's wife and daughter got into one hell of a fight. I don't think they ever found out what it was over, but it was bad enough that the daughter ended up smacking her mom across the face. My landlord's wife, and loses her mind, grabs some heavy ornament off of a sideboard and then whack, smacks her daughter over the head with it. I guess she either hit her really goddamn hard or landed the blow with a sharp edge or something because her daughter passed out right away and then just never woke up again. And then afterwards, instead of doing the right thing and having the mom sent to prison, they agreed to cover the whole thing up, keep their daughter alive, and then hope that they

could find a way to wake her up someday. Obviously, they didn't wake her up, and after a long multi-agency investigation, my landlord was followed to the Los Ranchitos apartment, where his bedridden daughter was then discovered. I couldn't believe that I'd been sharing a space with people like that, and that I'd rationalized everything I'd seen and heard to the point that I actually felt sorry for them. What they'd done was terrible, an evil thing, but they did it out of a warped sense of love and family preservation.

And that's the thing that I find most haunting about this whole messed up situation. I don't think that they were bad people, but they did a terrible, awful thing, both of them. And if normal, everyday people are capable of stuff like that, then to me, it makes the world seem like a much darker and much scarier kind of place. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. I'd love to hear your take on why looking after our mental health matters and how you think people's perceptions of therapy have changed over time. Mental health awareness is definitely on the rise, but there's still some work to do, as a recent survey found that 26% of Americans have held back from seeking help because they're worried about what others might think. When folks put

off getting help, it doesn't only affect them, it can ripple out to touch families, workplaces, and even entire communities. This Mental Health Awareness Month lets all support each other in prioritizing our well-being and shatter the stigma. After all, a healthier and happier world is a better world for everyone. So why not take that first step that empowers you to be the best version of yourself? With over a decade under their belt, BetterHelp is all about connecting you to the perfect therapist from their huge network of more than 30,000 licensed professionals with all sorts of specialties. BetterHelp is a super convenient and affordable online therapy platform that's helped over 5 million people around the globe. Also, you can change your therapist whenever you

want, and it won't cost you a dime. We're all better with help. Visit betterhelp.com slash read today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash read. Back in the late summer of 2009, I was just about to start graduate school and I had to find myself a new flat for the coming year. I was new to the area so I didn't know the neighborhoods at all and since I needed something cheap and cheerful, I ended up browsing vacancies in some of the city's less affluent areas. Some of the listings were frankly terrifying, and I'm surprised the landlords had the balls to even really advertise them. Others, however, were considerably more livable, or at least they appeared that way thanks to some carefully chosen angles and a lot of window shots.

Over the course of a week, I'd booked ten different viewings, and by the end of the third day, I was on the verge of an emotional breakdown. A playful exaggeration on my part, of course, but honestly, it was just so draining. I'd been to six of the ten viewings that I had lined up, and each and every one had been a complete letdown. The places were either riddled with mold, obnoxiously close to a restaurant or bar, so that they stank of old chip oil and cigarette smoke, or they were the size of a friggin' shoebox. And luckily, my next viewing, which was late in the afternoon the following day, was with a landlady that had advertised a females-only listing. The pictures of the place

made it seem quite nice, and I was very attracted to the idea of living in a segregated space because of the added security it'd bring. I know maybe to some of you that might sound a little bit cynical, and I'm well aware it's not all men who pose a problem, but in the context of what I'm about to tell you, I refuse to apologize for my cynicism, or as other girls might phrase it, realism. Some guys are just creeps. It's a fact of life. So the idea of living with just girls in a shared house was massively appealing. But then, that'd be massively appealing to just about any girl moving to or living in London. Surely getting a viewing appointment would be impossible. But then, it wasn't. I got one within a few days, which I thought was me getting lucky.

But really, that should have been my first red flag. I was just way too optimistic to see it. The next day, as I got the bus over towards Camden, I remember being this mix of excited and nervous. I had so much faith in the place and I texted with the landlady, a woman named Jan, so I was confident that it was going to be a decent place. But then at the same time, I'd been let down so relentlessly over the past few days that I had this looming sense of dread as I got closer and closer to my stop. At the time, I thought it was just residual trauma from being continually disappointed, but now I'm starting to think it was more like a kind of spidey sense. And so I got off the bus and immediately texted Jan to let her know that I was nearby, which she'd asked me to do because she said that she was really busy and might need

a reminder. She texted me back almost right away, but when I expanded the message notification, I saw it was a lot more than just a simple okay or thanks, see you soon. It said something like, hi, I've been terribly busy so my brother-in-law will be there to let you in and show you around. So much for female only, right? I thought that was the whole selling point. But then I understood that Jan was probably a very busy lady if she owned several properties all over London, so I wasn't about to throw my rattle out of my pram over one little thing like that. And so off I went to meet up with Jan's brother-in-law and to view what could potentially be my brand new home. So I got there, and the flats were in a unit above a line of shops.

I'd been instructed to knock on the door, and so I did, and when the door opened, I saw Jan's brother-in-law standing in the threshold. He looked weird, and that's putting it nicely, and the way he looked at me in the first moments we made eye contact made me feel a lot less comfortable than I did before. I mean it when I said that I'm not some man-hater, but I wasn't at all pleased about having to deal with a man in the female-only flat complex, especially not since he was giving off these creepy vibes. If that was any other circumstance, and there's no way I'd have stepped into an empty room with that guy, but I'd pinned almost all my flat-finding hopes on this place, so I put on a brave face and a polite voice and then stepped inside and followed him to the flat.

As soon as we stepped inside, my heart sank. It wasn't remotely like it was advertised, not just because it already looked like there was someone living there, but, like, I'm pretty sure the pictures weren't even the same place. I asked Jan's brother-in-law when the current tenant was due to vacate, and my heart sank again when he said something like, well, yeah, that's the thing. The property we're going to show you just, it's been taken off the market, and this is the The property we're going to show you just...

It's been taken off the market, and this is the only one we've got available for you in this area, and it's a shared unit. And that was all very disappointing to hear. Devastating even, but... The thing that mattered most was securing somewhere to live and making sure it was female only. Potentially I could cope with a new flatmate so long as she was a girl, but when I asked the guy if the current tenant was female, he literally ducked the question. I asked him, plain as day, is it still an all-female occupancy? And he responded with, if you'd follow me this way, I can show you the vacant bedroom and attached bathroom. Then he just trotted off like I hadn't asked him anything and opened up the bedroom.

I followed him, thinking I might as well have a look at the room, and while it wasn't actually all that bad compared to some of the others I'd seen, he still hadn't answered my question about the unit being female only. I had to look around the bedroom and remain polite as I asked him once again if the unit was female only or not, and the man sort of wiggled his head and made a face that said he wasn't sure, and then said he'd have to contact Jan to make sure because he didn't know off the top of his head. I was starting to get really, really annoyed, but I kept my cool as he asked if I wanted to see the attached bathroom.

I was literally on the verge of just saying no when he stepped forward and opened up the door, then as he did, I was hit with this truly revolting smell. It was so bad that I winced, and I know the guy saw me wince from how rank the smell was, so when I said, no thanks, I think I'd like to have another look at the kitchen. I'm pretty sure that he knew that I was lying, unless he really was as stupid as he looked. Honestly, I just wanted to get away from the smell, and I didn't care at all what the kitchen looked like when the bathroom bloody stank, so I was actually just going to walk towards the front door and see myself out after a brief and very passive-aggressive word of thanks.

But then, as I walked, something clicked about all the stuff that was left around the flat. By that point in my life, I'd lived with girls and only girls, even from when I was a kid. My dad wasn't around and it was just me, my sister, and my mom. Then, when I left for uni, I only lived with girls there too. And not to be too crass, but I knew what boys' bedrooms looked like too, and that's what clicked in my head as I walked through the last flat. It looked like a man lived there. And of course I knew that it was a man living there because the guy wouldn't answer my bloody question, but it seemed like a certain type of man lived there. And this is where I made a huge error of judgment.

I put it down to the continual disappointment and the stress of thinking that I was going to be forced to pick some absolute crap house to be miserable in for the next year plus. But when I realized that it wasn't just any old man living there, but the one currently showing me around, it all started falling into place for me. I got out my phone, called Jan's number, and as the guy followed me out of the bedroom, his phone started to ring in his pocket. I wasn't supposed to have his number, was I? He was just supposed to be meeting me there, so having the phone that Jan was texting from start ringing in his pocket, that confirmed all my worst suspicions about this man. And he knew it too. He knew I'd rumbled him,

and I wished that I was wearing a bloody GoPro because the look on his face was one I wished that I had framed as a picture hanging in my bathroom. I think that's the other thing that did it too. How I sort of, I don't know, sensed his weakness. I'd caught some absolute waste man trying to trick desperate girls into living in a spare room that looked like he'd built himself and with some really dodgy plumbing too by the smell of things. Red-handed, that was the phrase that came into my head in the moment, red-bloody-handed, and I'd be damned if I was about to let him live it down. I remember trying to think of something

witty to say, but all I could think of was to ask him the exact question in mind, I suppose by way of humiliation, and so I started asking him, were you trying to trick young girls into living with you, yeah? His face was like a tomato, but he still tried denying it and the indignation that I felt from his denial only spurred me on. I started telling him how pathetic he was, what a pervert he was, how he was probably on the sex offenders registry. I gave him both barrels as they say, didn't hold back in the slightest, but I forgot the golden rule when dealing with men. They're bigger, they're stronger, and the mental midgets among them are only one piece of wounded pride away from using that to their advantage.

I saw the moment I pushed him over the edge, and it really was like that meme of, and it was in that moment she knew she effed up. He stopped trying to talk, gave up on denying everything, then started marching towards me with this wild look in his eyes. I knew he was going to go for me, and I got a head start on running down the corridor to the block's entrance, but it was just too fast. I almost got to the door and just about had my hand on the latch when I felt something tugging on my hair. I felt the pressure on my scalp,

and then the next thing, my neck jerked back as the guy got a handful of my hair and started trying to drag me backwards. I tried to stay on my feet, but the force of him pulling my head back knocked me off my balance and then as I fell backwards, I realized that he was actually trying to drag me back towards the flat using nothing but my hair. I remember screaming for help and hoping someone would appear from the other flats of which there were maybe three or four on that floor of the block. But if they were occupied, whoever lived in them must have been at work or dead, because I screamed so hard that my nose started to bleed and no one emerged from any of the doors. Once I realized that I was on my own like that, and we were just feet away from him dragging me back into his flat,

I tried to flip myself over so I could at least stand up. But right when I found a bit of purchase on the carpet underneath, I felt something slam into my face so hard it made the vision in my left eye go all white. I brought a hand up to my face covering that eye and with my free hand I made a desperately futile attempt to get his hand off of my hair. But the second my hand touched his and I tried digging my nails into the skin of his hand, he tugged violently on my hair again and sent me crashing down on my knees. I remember how as I reached the doorway he tried to drag me through it But I made it very hard on him by blindly kicking and throwing punches

Anything to try and get him in the gonads or scratch his eyes out But then, after making contact with at least one of my swings I have a gap in my memory Presumably from where the guy hit me so hard that I fell unconscious for a minute or two And my last memory of trying to fight him off of me was as we reached the door but then the next I remember I was on the bedroom floor and he was dragging me towards the bathroom that stank of mold and rotten god knows what. There was this pain in my neck when I woke up and I remember having this deep fear that if I tried to twist my way up so I could bite him, that he might tug on my hair hard enough to break my neck.

I was more terrified than I've ever been in my entire life. I had no idea what was happening. But the one thing I did know is that if he managed to get me into that bathroom, it was all ogre for me. I remember rolling over and how it made my scalp burn with pain from all the hair that got ripped out, but it allowed me to kind of wheel around and grab the guy's wrists. He obviously thought that I was unconscious still, so when I suddenly started moving, it took him totally by surprise and I was able to sink my teeth in the skin of his wrist until I saw his fingers open and felt my hair come loose from his grip. I tried to run but he grabbed me again only that time I just remember sort of launching

myself at his face. He was trying to pin my arms by my sides by wrapping his own around me, but I raised them too early for him to get them and just started digging my fingernails into his eyes. It was so horrible because I could feel the bare flesh of his eyeballs giving way under my nails and it really makes me shudder to think about now. But at the time, all I could think about was doing as much damage as possible, and it worked. He screamed so loud that it hurt my ears, and then he suddenly shoved me off of him so hard that I went tumbling to the floor. I felt so dizzy that I struggled to find my feet, but it didn't matter because the man intent on ending my life, and God knows what else before that, was in such pain from me scratching his eyes that he couldn't see.

He was covering them with both of his hands, screaming terrible, terrible, terrible things at me. But I listened to all of that as I was running towards the front door, knowing that there was no chance of him catching up to me. I remember coming out into the street outside, and walking down the metal stairs which led up to the unit really fast, and then some woman saw me as she was walking past and was like, oh my god, are you okay? I had a cut on my face from where he'd hit me.

I'm guessing that was the blow that knocked me out too, and it had been pouring blood down me without me realizing. Then, when I saw just how much blood there was, I was terrified that he might have stabbed me or something. So I unzipped my jacket and started looking for stab wounds while saying to the woman to call the police. Call the police. More and more people came over because the way I looked and the way I was shouting was obviously attracting a lot of attention. I kept pointing to the door that I went through and came out saying, he's in there, he's in there, because I felt my legs getting weak and I honestly thought that I was about to pass out from the bleeding. Then if I passed out, I didn't know if I'd wake up again.

Obviously that was all just the terror talking and despite all the blood, I didn't even need stitches after being taken to the hospital. But in the moment, I was the most scared that I'd ever been in my life and convinced the guy had done way more damage to me. The police managed to track down this man that had attacked me and he ended up getting a prison sentence of six years. I think if the jury were able to see into his head and got a glimpse of what he had in store for me, he'd have gotten much, much longer. But sadly, that's not how the law works here and as much as I have my own trauma as a result of what had happened, my worst fear is that he'll get his chance to do it again,

sooner rather than later. result of what had happened, my worst fear is that he'll get his chance to do it again, sooner rather than later. What I'm about to tell you is a story so often told that it's passed into legend around the hills of northwest Georgia. It's a tale of love, loss, and liquor. A story folks have been telling each other for almost a hundred years. But unlike a lot of old myths and legends that you hear around these parts, this one is 100% true and they got the documentation down in Cartersville to prove it. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the story of Fast Eddie Petamore. According to his birth certificate, Edward Lee Petamore Jr. was born on July 13th of 1904 in a little town called Varnall, just off of Route 2. His daddy was a mechanic, worked his way into fixing automobiles after they became commercially available, and could have ended up quite a wealthy man. But unfortunately for his family, Eddie Lee Sr. was a drunk,

and sometimes only brought home maybe one or two days' wages a week. But then, in early 1920, the federal government instituted the Volstead Act, which banned the sale and manufacture of alcoholic beverages, and the era of prohibition had begun. Now, Eddie Sr. could have taken the opportunity to dry himself out and find his way back to Jesus, but he didn't want to live in a world where he couldn't get a drink, even if it meant living beyond his means. Yet in doing so, Eddie Sr. ended up owing money to the kind of folks you really don't want to owe money to.

They gave him a choice. Make weekly liquor runs up to Chattanooga, across the Tennessee state line, or be found hanging from a poplar tree. Eddie Sr. chose the former, and after getting his hands on an old Model T, he chopped that thing down and souped up its engine until it was nothing short of hell on wheels. Eddie Sr.'s old Ford was now fit to outrun any cop car in America. The only problem was, he wasn't nearly as gifted a driver as he was a mechanic. One night, following a blistering pursuit by state revenue men. Eddie Sr. lost control of his vehicle, careened off the highway, and smashed into an oak tree doing almost 100 miles an hour. The revenue men following him

didn't bother trying to put out the fireball. They let that bootlegger burn, and then simply waited to see who showed up missing. The crash left 17-year-old Eddie Jr. and his mama, a lady named Mary, with only one way of providing for themselves, and that involved Eddie Jr. approaching the bootleggers and offering to work on their automobiles. You see, to Eddie Jr., his dad had always been his hero, because from where he was standing, his deadbeat lush of a father had one day cleaned up his act, at least partially anyway, and had suddenly started bringing home hundreds of dollars a month. Eddie Jr. also noticed how skilled his daddy was at fixing up automobiles, and it was something that he paid attention to from a very

early age. He might not have been anywhere near as experienced as his father, but he was the natural choice for the bootleggers who wanted someone who'd stay quiet and stay loyal. Eddie was obviously very eager to follow in his father's footsteps, not just because it meant providing for his family, but because he felt that Eddie's senior would have been proud. The money was never an attraction, most of it went to his mom anyway. Working with the bootleggers meant Eddie got to work on cars all day, and that's what made him happy. But what made him even happier was getting to drive them.

Once he was a respected member at the bootlegging operation, Eddie's bosses started letting him test drive the cars that he worked on, just to make sure that they could handle being taken to full throttle. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how they discovered Eddie was a goddamned natural. The bootleggers had carved out a kind of racetrack out there in the woods, and Eddie was beating the track times of some of their very best runners. So when Eddie was around 19 or 20, they asked him to start running liquor to Chattanooga for him,

using almost the exact same route on which his father had lost his life. Every night, when Eddie told his mama that he was heading out and not to wait up for him, she'd worry herself sick. But she was just about the only one that did. Rumors started to run wild through local and state law enforcement. The bootleggers had a new driver and he seemed nigh unstoppable. Some officers had never seen anything like it and wondered how in the hell they were going to catch someone

with such high levels of confidence and skill. This new guy did things no one else dared, and the cops started to think that the bootleggers had drafted in some kind of professional from out of state. Little did they know, it was young Eddie Jr. behind the wheel, and before long, Eddie's nickname was upgraded from Junior to Fast Eddie. Fast Eddie was bringing home money hand over fist, with most of it going to his mom, but without a taste for the liquor that made him holler-rich, as you might say,

he didn't have much which to spend his personal portion of the treasure. He kept squirreling it away someplace, letting it accumulate, and only occasionally taking some out to buy new shoes or a birthday present for his mama. Automobiles were his whole life, so Fast Eddie didn't concern himself with much else. But then one day, some of his fellow runners decided it was time for a little bootlegger bar mitzvah, which involved driving him over to a cat house over near Kohada to get him acquainted with some of the ladies there. Fast Eddie had never been with a woman before, and it's said that he looked like a deer caught in headlights as all those peaches lined up in front of him,

each looking fine as wine. Eddie had the cash to pick two, maybe even three girls, but he only chose one, a girl around the same age as him named Lily May. Not much is known about young Lily May, only that she was an orphan and then spent most of her life in an infamously unfit reformatory before finding employment at the Cohutta Cat House. Lily Mae had experience in such matters and Fast Eddie did not. Then true to the nickname he'd so deservedly earned, Eddie fell deeply and madly in love. According to folks who knew him,

Eddie talked of nothing else but Lily Mae for a week straight, until finally, he drove on back to Cohutta Cat House and told Lily Mae that he wanted to marry her. The cat house madame laughed when she heard the news, and said it'd take $500 to buy Lily Mae out of service. Folks say that she looked just about plum speechless when Eddie pulled out a wad of bills from his pocket, and that he and Lily Mae left hand in hand that very same day. As the story goes, Eddie moved his mama and Lily Mae into a place on Alpharetta Drive, just across from where Maple Grove Baptist Church stands today. And for about a year or two, they lived there in peace,

with Eddie's identity as the bootlegger's ace runner being a closely guarded secret. But then one night, a rainstorm left the highway slicker than a greased pig, and for the first time in his career, Fast Eddie had lost control of his vehicle and was sent careening off the road. He managed to bring the car to a stop before it crashed into anything, but after coming to a halt in a patch of deep mud, Eddie realized that there was no getting the tires unstuck before the cops caught up with him. He jumped out of the driver's seat and then ran off into an orchard before the law saw where he went. Once he was at a safe distance,

Eddie stopped, caught his breath, and reflected with relief on what a close call did then. At least until he remembered that he'd left something behind. Because stuck to the dash of the old Model T stock car was a photograph of his darling Lily May. Fast Eddie knew that he had to go into hiding, because now, the county sheriff knew where he lay his head, and that same county sheriff happened to be the meanest son of a bitch this side of the Mississippi. Sheriff William Little Bill Harding was the grandson of a South Carolina slave catcher who ran for the hills come the end of the Civil War. Then his father had been a lawman who went by Big Bill. Big Bill was tough, but he was fair.

Little Bill, on the other hand, was neither. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that he was a downright bully. No one around Whitfield County liked him, and even fewer people respected him. But folks learned quickly that to anger Little Bill, or even worse, to bruise his ego, was to invite a world of hurt upon yourself. By that point, Fast Eddie had been humiliating the law for years on end. So when Little Bill found out who'd been driving those stock cars and making them look like jackasses for so long, he was ready to rain fire and brimstone down on old, fast Eddie Petamore. Sheriff Harding and his boys showed up to Eddie's place at the break of dawn

and turned the house upside down in the hopes of finding him. They trashed the place, terrorized his wife and mama, but Eddie had long since departed. He was still doing liquor runs for his bootlegging buddies and he still stopped by the house from time to time. But where he lay his head and where he kept his money remained a mystery to the county sheriff, as well as the state revenue men who were breathing down his neck. Night after night, Harding and his boys patrolled the highways northwest of Georgia, waiting and watching for any sign of Fast Eddie.

Then in the twilight of a summer's evening back in 1924, two of Harding's pursuit vehicles were involved in a high-speed crash. One of his deputies lost his life. Eddie saw the crash unfolding behind him and he knew it was a bad one, but he kept on driving towards the state line and made his delivery all the same. According to the bootlegger's routine, Eddie would make the delivery to Chattanooga in one vehicle and then return in another, much less conspicuous one and never via the same route. This meant that he didn't return home until daylight the next morning, at which point he'd retire to his hideout to sleep until late afternoon. But upon his return to Woodfield County that morning, Fast Eddie had a bad feeling in his gut and decided to stop by the house to check on his mama as well as his sweetheart, Lily Mae. Whenever Eddie rolled up to the house in the morning following a run,

he'd always smell the fixings of a hearty southern breakfast. There'd be the aroma of sizzling sausage and bacon fat floating on the breeze, maybe the sweet scent of fried apples in there too. But on this particular morning, all Fast Eddie could smell when he opened up the door of his mama's house was the sour, metallic stink of spilled blood. Eddie's mama was nowhere to be found. But in the bathroom, lying in a white porcelain tub now stained with her blood, was the dead body of his darling Lily Mae. Her head had been bashed in with one of Eddie's lug wrenches, and sitting on a nearby bath

mat was a note that simply said, I didn't mean to hurt her, signed Edward Pettimore Jr. Little Bill Harding had avenged his fallen deputy, and in doing so, had framed Fast Eddie for the murder of his one true love. Eddie was accustomed to being a wanted man, but with word spreading that he was Lily Mae's killer, the young bootlegger had no idea who he could and could not trust. I've also no doubt that Sheriff and his boys anticipated some kind of retaliation. Hell, maybe some of them were even a little scared. But as the days went by and there was no sign of Fast Eddie on any of George's highways,

local lawmen started to believe that he'd simply turned tail and fled. Although not everyone believed that Eddie murdered Lily Mae, enough people bought it for him to lose his status as a plucky folk hero, and without being able to hide among the sympathetic, Eddie had no choice but to go on the run. Many months later, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, a couple of deputies were sitting in the Varno Sheriff's Department when a car pulled into the parking lot and started honking its horn. They weren't expecting anyone, so they figured the honking was for someone in the city office on the other side of the parking lot.

But then the driver kept honking, and honking, and honking, until eventually, Sheriff Harding barged out of his office and ordered the two deputies to silence the driver under pain of arrest. But when the two deputies walked outside, they saw the car idling in the parking lot and that it was no ordinary vehicle. It was a stripped-down Buick Master Six, refitted with a state-of-the-art V8 engine, and sitting in the driver's seat was Fast Eddie Petamore. The two deputies turned on their heels, ran back into the office, and yelled to the sheriff that none other than Edward Lee Petamore Jr. was sitting in the parking lot outside.

The sheriff ran out just in time to see Fast Eddie taking off southbound towards Tunnel Hill Road, and then after running to his own car, he and the two deputies took off after him, driving three different vehicles. In the past, Sheriff Harding knew that he and his boys could never catch up with Fast Eddie, but over the previous few months, they too had been chopping down their pursuit vehicles, making them lighter and lighter until they were just about ready to compete with the kind of greased lightning bolts that Fast Eddie drove. Meaning this time, they were ready for him. The sheriff and his boys were tearing down the highway at close to 100 miles an hour, intent on keeping the pedal to the metal until they caught sight of Fast Eddie's Buick.

They must have gone for 15 to 20 miles. Each time they'd see a car ahead of them, and it turned out to be some innocent citizen, clinging to their wheel in terror as a bunch of siren-screeching stock cars burned past them on the highway. They kept on going, praying they hadn't wasted their opportunity until suddenly Sheriff Harding saw a dark speck on the horizon. Believing it to be Fast Eddie, Harding pushed the engine of his stock car to the very limit in the hopes of catching up to him, and he didn't have to wait long. What happened next took place over the course of maybe two or three seconds. Harding spotted Eddie, and as the dark speck on the horizon grew larger,

there was a split second when the sheriff believed that he was rapidly catching up. The only problem was, Eddie wasn't speeding away from him. Eddie was speeding towards him. But by the time Sheriff Harding realized what was happening, it was far too late to save himself. Fast Eddie smashed that Buick into Harding's Model T at almost 110 miles per hour, and with the sheriff's own vehicle scraping triple-digit speeds, the impact was catastrophic. Both cars erupted into a firestorm of steel, shrapnel, and broken glass, which instantly ended the lives of both Fast Eddie and Sheriff Harding, while secondary impacts caused such serious injuries to one deputy that both of his legs required amputation. When the news hit that Harding had been murdered,

and that Fast Eddie had been the one to do it, it sent shockwaves through the whole of Whitfield County. Some said Eddie was a delinquent, who'd murdered his wife, murdered the sheriff, and probably murdered his mama too since she was still missing. Others said that it must have been some kind of crazy accident because, while Eddie was many things, a bad driver he was most certainly not. But while all agreed that the income was completely unexpected, there's another thing folks are certain of too, and that's how fast Eddie Pettimore's funeral enjoyed a much larger audience than little Bill Harding's.

Those that knew him, I mean, really knew him, didn't believe for a second that Eddie had murdered Lily Mae. But the folks who didn't know Eddie believed the headlines, and to them, he was a no-good wife-slayer and a cop-killer. Most people didn't give a good goddamn what anyone had to say about Eddie, but there was one person who cared enough to do something to salvage his reputation. Sometime later, a night train hailing all the way from Washington, D.C. rolled into Atlanta's terminal station, and from the first class car emerged one of the most accomplished prosecuting attorneys on the entire eastern seaboard.

He was there to talk face-to-face with an old classmate from Yale who'd since taken a high position in the Georgia state government. Over lunch, the two men shared shrimp cocktails and pan-fried chapabrian at the Capital City Club, one of the most elite fine dining establishments in the entire country. And we know that because a copy of the bill exists in the state archives over in Morrow. Then that very same afternoon, a team of agents from the Bureau of Investigation, which was only ten years away from becoming the FBI,

arrived in Varnall and began interviewing the new sheriff, as well as the deputies who'd once served under Harding regarding the murder of one Lily Mae McDermott. They reviewed evidence, re-interviewed the deputies, and sought out character witnesses for both Fast Eddie and Sheriff Harding. Then by months in, they turned up the heat so bad that one of the deputies finally cracked and agreed to testify against his fellow officers in exchange for avoiding the state's brand new method of execution, the electric chair. And legend has it that this is how those BOI boys got the deputy to crack.

The governor claimed the electric chair was the bleeding edge in dispatching murderers both quickly and painlessly. And after a rigorous testing phase, don't ask, the chair became the state's primary method of execution. But some devious BOI agent starts telling the deputies how that's all a bunch of horse crap, how he's seen the electric chair in action with his own eyes, and how even with all, how he's seen the electric chair in action with his own eyes, and how even with all the crap he saw in the trenches over in France, it was still the most ugly, haunting, and horrifying thing he's ever seen in his whole life. He terrorized those deputies by telling them how the chair cooks men alive, how they shriek and wail for their mamas

to make it stop as their skin blisters and their eyes boil. He said he'd seen a man burst into flames, another who cried tears of blood, and a third who endured hours upon hours of almost constant agony, pissing in his britches and soiling himself until his heart finally gave up and exploded in his chest. If one of the deputies didn't do the right thing, and told the truth about what happened to Lily Mae Then all of them would be headed to the electric chair And all of them were going to burn I guess it only took so much of that kind of box talk Before one of them cracked

And when he did The whole rotten house came tumbling down around them No one ended up going to the electric chair Not since all attested that it was Sheriff Harding that had wielded the lug wrench and written the false confession. But at their sentencing, the judge made no bones regarding their associated guilt and wondered aloud how men who'd sworn to uphold the law had so suddenly seen fit to break it. What he also wanted allowed was who exactly had prompted the hot shot prosecutor to come all the way down from Washington, D.C. to work on a case that no one believed would bear fruit. That's when the attorney informed the judge that his wealthy benefactor was, in fact, sitting in that very same courtroom with them and directed his attention to the gallery

where a woman in black sat with a long black veil covering her face. As the court turned to look at her, the woman lifted her veil and, although not all those in attendance recognized her, the revelation drew gasps from those that did. It was the widow, Mary Petamore, Fast Eddie's grieving mother. Much like her son, Mary had lived frugally, especially considering that she was set on a nest egg of almost half a million dollars, which would be worth almost ten million in today's money. Her attitude to it was very much easy come, easy go. So instead of spending it and risking alerting people to her family's

vast hidden riches, she let the cash pile up for years on end, until the day arrived when she finally had a reason to spend it. And spend it she did. And that's how she ended up in D.C., greasing the wheels of power with all her accumulated wealth, until she found herself sitting in the office of that hotshot prosecutor who brought the hammer down on the Whitfield County sheriffs. She tasked him with clearing the name of her first and only child, and it was a task that he went on to accomplish with style. It meant a lot to those who cared, but in the grand scheme of things, it didn't really change much. Those that loved Eddie

carried on loving him, and those that didn't carried on doing just the same. Little Bill Harding was now officially a murderer, but he was dead. Hated in life, and then hated in death, and Eddie was dead too. The news hit state law enforcement hard, but it made barely a ripple in Whitfield County. It's not like the Sheriff's Department wanted to go hollering about what had happened, and there was no official apology or anything. Not like there would be if it happened today. I guess that's why folks started telling this story in the first place,

so people really know what happened between Fast Eddie, Little Bill, and Lily Mae. Because a man doesn't die when he passes away, not really. His true death comes when there's no one left to remember him. And that final memory of him flickers out. And he's forever forgotten. We'll be right back. dealer or enjoy over 3,000 games to choose from like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz, make instant deposits or same-day withdrawals. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at

1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Did you know that many products for pregnant women do not have their own clinical trials for safety or efficacy? That's because pregnant women are often excluded from clinical studies. Ritual is aiming to set a new standard with their essential prenatal multivitamin. It's the number one best-selling prenatal and the only leading prenatal backed by its own human clinical trial. Essential Prenatal is proven to deliver key nutrients, including folate, biotin, and vitamin D during pregnancy. Moms taking Essential Prenatal had a lower overall cortisol

level during pregnancy than those taking a leading prenatal. Plus, it's designed to be gentle on the stomach. Ritual doesn't just have your back. They have the receipts. Get 25% off at ritual.com slash clinical. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. I don't know how we lost Afghanistan.

As a former Army officer who served for 14 years with the 503rd Infantry Regiment, I feel like I should be able to provide some kind of cogent answer to the question of how one of the largest and most technologically advanced militaries on the planet just turned tail and ran one day. But I can't. And over the next decade, you're going to see a hundred different books, movies, articles, documentaries, and TV specials, all attempting to explain what happened during the summer of 2021. They'll talk about how rumors of a Taliban troop build up bore fruit, how they captured town after town as they slowly surrounded Kabul, and how what started with innocent Americans falling from the hundredth floor of One World Trade Center ended with innocent Afghans falling from the wheel wells of a soaring C-17. But it'll take a long, long time to be able to piece it all together

and properly explain how the finest fighting force the world has ever known managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. That's something I could never hope to achieve on my own. But what I can do is tell you how the United States managed to lose one very specific district nestled up in the mountains of Kunar province, named Asadabad. Asadabad is the smallest of Kunar's 16 administrative districts and consists of a small village from which it derives its name, along with a 50-mile-long strip of flat, fertile valley carved out by the Kunar River. It's home to around 35,000 people,

a third of which live in the village, while the rest are scattered around the valley floor in mud-brick compounds that are almost a thousand years old. It's a pretty unremarkable place in eastern Afghanistan, and if you don't know what I mean by that, think crystal clear blue skies, stunning semi-alpine vistas, and grinding subsistence poverty. But what did make Asadabad remarkable was the fact that its district center was only seven miles away from the Pakistani border,

which made it a major smuggling route for the Taliban's weapons as well as its opium. I know those guys waged a major PR campaign after they took over and made a big deal out of eradicating Afghanistan's poppy fields to show how anti-vice they are. But when they needed money for weapons and ammunition, the Taliban had no problem allowing opium traffickers to ply their trade, just as long as they got a tasty cut of the profits via the heavy taxes they imposed. They made a lot of money that way, too. So in the winter of 2008, we rolled into Asadabad with the goal of cutting off their smuggling routes.

The first problem we encountered was that Asadabad's chief of police was corrupt to the core. He was taking money from the Taliban to keep his officers away from certain areas. He was taking money from the smugglers to turn a blind eye to their operators. He was also taking money from a group of guerrillas turned gangsters called the Haqqani Network. But try as we might, we could never figure out why they were paying him, only that they were. And so the first thing on the agenda was finding a replacement. The 503rd might have been responsible for the combat and supply end of things, but all of the civilian administration fell under the jurisdiction of the Department of State. The DOS had an HQ over in

Kabul, and every so often they'd fly over a representative on a Chinook to liaise with our battalion commander. Then one day, the DOS Chinook touches down at our battalion HQ, but the representative isn't alone. He brought the chief of police's replacement with him, and his name was Najibullah. Chief Najibullah belonged to a large family that, for reasons that were never fully explained to us, had been kicked out of Asadabad many years earlier by the Taliban. Najibullah and his boys hated those guys, and we were very confident that they performed better than their predecessors, who had melted away whenever the Taliban launched attacks. Then, with more of the Taliban's fighters

tied down in Asadabad, it would be much easier for the teams of Green Berets to swoop in on the smugglers' transport routes and choke off the enemy's largest source of revenue and supply. At least, that was the plan. But whenever I think of plans these days, I'm reminded of a poem that I had memorized back at West Point. But little mouse, you're not alone, and proving foresight may be vain. The best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry, and leave us only grief and pain. For the first couple of weeks, Najibullah and his boys performed exactly as expected, and they were a huge upgrade compared to the police officers the previous regimental combat team had worked with.

Having our Afghan national police officers actually doing their jobs added a very fragile but much-needed layer of security to the district, which meant the Taliban started to have problems maneuvering, evacuating wounded fighters, and getting ammunition to their key firing points during firefights. As you can imagine, that made our offensive operations run much smoother and meant that we finally started to make some serious progress in terms of stopping the flow of weapons and opium going back and forth across the border with Pakistan. Najibullah was tough, and he had an ego about him, but the effect that he had on our area of operations was phenomenal. And so for a while, we were all his number one fans. But then when the winter came to an end, and as the spring

fighting season started to approach, we noticed that Najibullah's methods of enforcing the law were becoming more and more robust, for lack of a better word. One morning, around the middle of February, word filtered down the chain of command that a village elder had approached Battalion HQ to make a complaint about Najibullah. The chief, along with some of his fellow officers, had been searching a compound in the valley when a young boy began to talk back to him. Najibullah flew into a rage and started smacking this kid around. Then, when the boy's father demanded that he stop, Najibullah ordered one of his officers to hold the father at gunpoint

and then proceeded to beat the man's son even harder. By the time the village elder arrived at Battalion HQ, the wounded kid, who turned out to be the elder's great-nephew, had been carried all the way to the small medical clinic near Asadabad's district center and was receiving treatment for a broken eye socket and a severe concussion. The village elder then said that he managed to convince the boy's father not to kill Najibullah and his boys, but that in order for a lasting peace, he'd require ample monetary compensation. If there was one thing that was never short of in Afghanistan, it was cash. So getting the elder and his family their money was never going to be an issue. But on the other hand, the amount of goodwill we had with the local Afghans was, at the very

best, minimal. And so after arranging for a family representative to swim by to pick up their cash, a few officers went over to the district center to talk to Najibullah about his conduct. But when confronted, he seemed confused. Through the translator, Najibullah explained that as part of his training, he'd been told how he had to win the respect of the local population. But how were the people going to respect him, he asked, if they didn't fear him? By the time the spring fighting season commenced, we'd convinced Najibullah that his enemies should fear arrest and detention, not corporal punishment or death. He promised he and

his officers would follow the procedural guidelines we provided and would arrest all future suspects instead of just kicking the crap out of them on the spot. I heard one officer say that dealing with Najibullah was like pulling teeth, but honestly, I think it was more like herding cats. He gave the A&P guys all the guidance in the world, and they still just did their own thing. Sometimes their own thing proved very effective. Like this one time when they rolled back into the district center carrying several kilos of raw opium they'd confiscated from some smugglers who they'd managed to ambush, forced to surrender, without even a single shot being fired. I remember asking Najibullah

why he'd planned such a risky operation, and you know what he told me? He was bored. The Afghans were often crazy brave like that, and it saved the lives of my soldiers many times over. But then other times, the crap they pulled almost got a lot of them killed. One morning, the boys in 2nd Platoon performed a little advance-to-contact patrol at the western end of the valley. They were kind of like the search-and-destroy missions from Vietnam. Soldiers patrolled deeper and deeper into enemy territory until the enemy began shooting at them. But then if the soldiers were fired upon, they knew that they were headed in the right direction, at which point they'd advance under fire, destroy or rout the Taliban,

then return to their operating bases for coffee and MREs. It was a place where, 99 times out of 100, we'd start taking AK fire once we arrived. But then on one particular morning, an eerie silence hung over the landscape and the Taliban were nowhere to be found. That marked the first time ever that we'd reached that western point in the valley and not been fired upon, so naturally we were very keen on figuring out why that was. My platoon made its way back to our FOB, then a detachment consisting of myself and a few guys from 2nd Squad walked all the way into the district center to speak to the lieutenant colonel and give a full in-person report on what had happened that morning,

or more accurately, what hadn't happened that morning. The moment we walked into the compound which housed the district center, which consisted of a whole bunch of administrative buildings, we saw some of Najib's boys hanging out smoking cigarettes and drinking chai. This wasn't out of the ordinary because it was approaching the hottest part of the day when the Afghans traditionally took a break. But as we walked past and said our salams, one of them says in broken English, Taliban finish, Captain. Today. Taliban go home. No fighting. Me and my guys

stopped dead in our tracks like, wait, what? How did they know? While Najib's guys had these big grins on their faces. It was possible that they too had noticed the absence of Taliban fighters that morning, but those big crap-eating grins made me suspect that they knew something we didn't. The second we walked into the room that served as the lieutenant colonel's daytime office, we saw Najib, smiling like he'd just found an extra fry at the bottom of his bag. It turns out, during the previous night he and his boys had gone out into the valley and paid a visit to one of the compounds out there. They didn't barge their way in, and they didn't break anyone's skull either.

In fact, all they did was arrest a villager suspected of supplying information to the Taliban. The lieutenant colonel was telling me all of that, which to me sounded like good news, but the look of disquiet on his face told me that there was a little more to the story, and boy was there ever. The suspect Najibullah had arrested was the mother of the Asadabad Taliban commanders, and in all likelihood, she had indeed provided her son with some kind of material support. But before that day, women and children were off limits. A brother or father that helped build an IED, they could expect to be shipped off to Kabul for a long spell in Pulicharki prison. But we knew that to mess with Afghan women, or worse, mess with their children,

then you'd be asking for serious trouble. But then if Najib had just arrested some commander's mom, why wasn't the whole valley popping off with RPG and mortar fire? Well, that's because Najib had asked the woman's family to pass a message on to the Taliban commander, and that message was this. If one single bullet is fired by a Taliban rifle, or a single IED explodes anywhere in the valley, then the commander's mother would be tortured, violated, and then executed.

We asked if Najib had proof of the mob's material support, and in response, he asked why we needed it. He knew her son was Taliban, everyone did, and to him, that was all the proof anyone needed. If we wanted to beat the Taliban, he said through the translator, then we had to start hitting them where it hurt. I had to then explain again through the translator how that was not at all what we wanted to do, and we told Najib that a hundred times. We wanted to win hearts and minds and contribute to the cycle of

violence as little as possible in our efforts to remove the Taliban. So, without any real evidence of her guilt, he was going to have to release the Taliban commander's mom, and he had to do it immediately. Needless to say, Najibullah was not happy about being ordered to release his prisoner and accused us of undermining his authority. He also said that the moment the commander's mother had reached safety, the Taliban would attack our positions with everything they had, and he was right. We just had a hard time explaining how, when that happened,

it'd be all his fault. But continue to keep her prisoner, and whatever consequences we had in store would be much worse. The second we delivered the commander's mom back to her compound, families started packing up and leaving the Asadabad valley to seek shelter elsewhere. They knew what was coming and so did we, but when it came, we were ready for it. In what amounted to an extremely reckless attack, the Taliban attacked every forward operating base we had, all while dropping 82 and 120mm mortars onto the district center.

It was a revenge attack, but because they rushed to mount it, we scored exactly 33 Taliban KIA while suffering only one wounded soldier. It was the largest multi-contact firefight we'd experienced thus far, and it had been a complete turkey shoot. But then who goes and takes the credit for it? Najee goddamn Bola. He claimed that it was he that had tricked the Taliban into a hasty and disastrous attack, all by merely pretending to arrest one of their commander's moms. And the worst thing attack, all by merely pretending to arrest one of their

commander's moms. And the worst thing was, all the villagers believed it. That's not to say Najib and his boys didn't stand their ground and fight like tigers. They did, and all the civilians who hadn't evacuated the district center saw them doing it. But instead of just chalking one up for the visitors, Najib spun the whole thing into a huge PR victory for himself, which in all fairness delighted everyone further up the chain of command. They were relying on him to win the villagers' respect, and having finally done so, regimental command didn't want anyone pissing on his parade. They told us to back off, let him do this thing, and focus on consolidating

the strategic advantage following our recent victory. So that's what we did. But once he figured out that he was working unsupervised, Najeeb not only went back to his less scrupulous ways, he got way, way worse than before. The first sign of it was when we took some of Najib's A&P guys with us on a patrol, and while we were taking a break to hydrate, they walked away from the larger group. They told the translator that they were going to the bathroom, but maybe a minute later, the very strong smell of marijuana came floating in on the breeze. One of my soldiers then walks around the corner of the compound wall while we were sheltering behind, where he finds the two A&P soldiers sitting on

the edge of an irrigation ditch, high out of their minds in what smelled like some very strong pot. I asked them through the translator, what would Najibala say if he found out about this? But the officers just laughed and told us that it was Najibala himself that had given them the marijuana. I didn't believe them at first because the Afghans had this way of telling you pointless little lies as a way of saying either mind your own business or go F yourself. Like when one of my soldier's Oakley sunglasses went missing after a patrol and we saw what looked like a 70 year old farmer wearing an identical pair just a few days later. I asked where he got his sunglasses then after looking me dead in the eye and thinking about it for a couple of seconds he told me I made them and walked off. It was such a huge lie that it was almost worth admiration, just like a couple

of police officers telling me their chief gave them pot to smoke on patrol. But the crazy thing is, Najibullah really did give those two officers a bunch of pot and he did it as a reward for going out on patrol with us. When we got back from patrol, we went to see Najeeb and tell him about his two pot-smoking officers, but when he walked into the old Soviet police building he'd taken for his HQ, it looked more like a Snoop Dogg video than a police station. A handful of A&P were sitting around a little satellite TV, passing around a hash pipe and giggling like teenagers. When we walked into Najeeb's office, he was just sitting behind his desk with his eyes so pink they look infected,

staring at this big old pile of money. Then behind him, in like an old-timey cloth sack, was the largest amount of marijuana I had ever seen. We got the translator in and asked him where he got all the marijuana. Officially speaking, marijuana was illegal under the laws of the new Afghan government, but unofficially, it was tolerated so we could focus on dealing with the opium crop, which was how the Taliban made most of their money. Plus, marijuana had been part of the lives of everyday Afghans for literally thousands of years. Telling them to stop would have felt pointless.

And on top of that, it would have been exceptionally rude for Najeeb to refuse the farmer's gift. But that wasn't our issue. The issue was that Najeeb couldn't allow his officers to be smoking on duty, and neither should he for that matter. Najeeb just sort of rolled his eyes as the translator relayed our scolding reply, then promised that they wouldn't smoke on duty anymore. But just days later, he went back on his word and explained that he needed to give his officers marijuana to smoke or they'd refuse to go out on patrol. And that was complete horse crap, but it wasn't really marijuana use that was bothering us.

It was all that money that he had on the table. The money that was given to Najeeb to pay his officers always came perfectly stacked and shrink-wrapped, and it was all brand new, crisp, clean bills. But the bills in the pile of cash from Najeeb's table looked old, creased, and used. We asked if he was taxing the villagers for taking bribes of some description, but he took terrible offense to that and insisted that it was his officers' pay. We were soldiers, not cops, so there was only so much we could do in terms of tracking down where the money came from. And even if we could prove that he was taxing the local villagers,

which was well beyond his authority, he could just reframe the taxes as gifts and then intimidate the villagers into corroborating his story. If it sounds like Najib has a pretty solid grip on local power, that's because he did. But although he was helping keep the Taliban at bay, he was causing more and more problems as the power went more and more to his head. But the thing that I have about power is it requires a hell of a lot of self-discipline, because without it, you don't just lose the men under you, you lose yourself too. About a week or so later, we were still trying in vain to get one of the villagers to admit that Najib had been taxing them. They were all so scared of him at first,

and it seemed like no one was going to tell the truth. Then suddenly, someone came forward with an incredible accusation. Two farmers, brothers whose families lived in the same compound, finally confirmed other suspicions that Najeeb had been taxing them. Yet they also claimed that after discovering his family was unable to pay, Najeeb had kidnapped one of the farmer's nine-year-old twin sons as a form of collateral. Since that totally sounded like something Najeeb would do, me and the company first sergeant grabbed our translator and went over to the district center to demand their release. But when we arrived, we were barred entry to the office.

Two extremely stone-looking A&P officers told us that Najeeb was busy and that we should come back later. Through our translator, we told them that Najeeb didn't sound very busy because we could hear posh-tuned pop music blaring from a stereo inside his office. The officers kept insisting Najeeb wasn't taking any visitors, and in the end, we had to threaten with having every single one of them removed from their post before they stepped aside and allowed us into the office. But when me and that first sergeant opened up the door and walked inside, neither of us could believe what we were seeing. We were looking for two missing boys, right?

And I honestly figured Najeeb was holding them in the old station's large undivided jail cell. But when the first sergeant and I walked into his office and we saw Najeeb sitting behind his desk with his shirt open while a small girl stood in front of his desk dancing in time with the music. I say little girl because the kid had a dress on, little sandals with bells on and was wearing what appeared to be makeup. The same could be said for what I thought was a second little girl who was lying under a blanket on the opposite side of the room wearing this dead-eyed expression on her face. That all lasted for only about half a second because the second Ajib saw us, he turned down the music and then started yelling at our translator. I figured our translator would wait to hear him out and then

start translating, but instead, he started yelling back at Najibullah as he went over to grab the dancing girl. The whole time I'm yelling at our translator, ask him where the girls came from, but he's still yelling at Najib who's yelling back at him. And then finally, after screaming so loud at Najib that I thought he was going to shoot him, our translator turns to me and says, They're not girls. They're boys, the two missing boys. He then asks me to help carry the kid lying in the corner who turned out to be completely naked under that blanket. Now side note, I just literally had to get up and pace around the room for a while because what I'm about to go into is

possibly the most disturbing and upsetting thing I've ever learned in my whole life. And for those of you that are about to be eternally scarred by what I'm about to tell you, then I sincerely apologize. And for those of you that don't believe me, then I implore you to look it up, because every word of what I'm about to tell you is true. In Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, certain men practice an ancient tradition that they refer to as bachabazi. Bachabazi is when older men take a young boy who hasn't gone through puberty yet, and then they dress him up like a little girl and make him dance. Now this might just sound a little goofy or perhaps a little cruel, but it gets way worse than that. Because after they're done making the boy dance, the older men in attendance take turns doing things that no grown man should be doing with a child.

Seeing it up close for the first time, but only seeing the dancing face, the first sergeant and I had no idea what we were looking at. But our translator did, and after handing over the kid that he was carrying to the first sergeant, we had to talk him out of walking back into the police HQ and shooting Najibullah dead. As you can imagine, we reported what Najib had been doing to regimental command, but what we were told was jaw-dropping. We were told that it was an internal issue, a problem only the Afghans had the remit to solve, and since Najib was still coasting on the victory of the late spring, none of his superiors wanted to replace him. And in so many words, we were told to ignore it.

And hearing that made us feel physically sick. But even worse, we had no choice but to try and keep word from spreading among the soldiers, and that is something that still keeps me up at night. If I allowed the details of Najeeb's nightly activities to spread among the platoons, one of my soldiers would end up fragging him, and despite me also wanting to end his life, if Najeeb ended up dead, a veritable shitstorm was sure to follow. Our only hope was that one of the higher-ups saw fit to replace him, and sooner rather than later,

because Najeeb's popularity among the villagers that didn't already hate him was starting to plummet. We knew things were reaching a breaking point when some of the A&P officers started to desert their posts. Not all of them were okay with him diddling kids in his office no matter how much cash or dope he offered them, and he did end up diddling more kids in that office. And so one by one, all of his guys just up and deserted in the middle of the night, until all that were left were a handful of his brothers and cousins, who, for the record, were also taking part in the bachabazi sessions. We ended up pleading with our CO to get on the horn to Kabul,

because we needed at least a dozen new A&P officers to maintain security around the valley floor. But before that could ever happen, everything suddenly came to a head. Remember the guy who we delivered cash compensation to after his nephew talked back to Najibullah and got his ass beat? Well, we're out on patrol one day and he's out working one of his fields as we're passing. Then when he sees us, he comes running over and starts yelling at our translator saying he needs to talk to us. The farmer and our translator then talk for a good few minutes before finally they stop talking and our translator turns to me. It looked like he was struggling to find the words for a second then when he spoke, all he said was, I think you need to pull your guys out of the district center tonight. I asked him why and he tells me,

Trust me, take you guys out of the DC or they'll all be killed. Obviously, I'm not taking orders from a damn translator, no matter how much I like the guy, so I order him to start making sense already and to tell me what the farmer had said. According to the translator, the farmer was talking indirectly, in riddles almost, because he couldn't be heard giving Americans information on Taliban attacks. But essentially, what the guy was trying to tell us was that something big was coming, and it was coming that night, and it was going to be bad. Not one to run from a fight,

I started asking our translator what exactly made him think that we couldn't repel a night attack. Seeing as we had around $100,000 worth of night vision equipment with us, I didn't think that posed a significant threat, but the translator was insistent. He told me we couldn't stop what was coming, that from the way the farmer talked, every Taliban fighter in Kunar was headed our way, probably to even the score for the losses they suffered back in spring. Without boring you with too much of the strategic stuff, let's just say that there was no way that we could adequately reinforce the DC against an attack that large without abandoning the

operating bases in the surrounding hills. But if we abandon those bases, the Taliban could simply move into our old positions, concentrate their fire on the district center, and the whole company would be up shit creek without a paddle. But then, leave our soldiers at the DC and they suffer a concentrated attack, they might be KIA before the cavalry even gets there to relieve them. So as you can see, we had no real choice but to pull them out, which in turn left Najibullah and his boys just a little more vulnerable than before, but still capable of defending themselves should they need to. That night, up in one of the hillside outposts, we watched and waited for the Taliban to attack. There was no way that, if they had numbers, the Taliban would focus their attack on the district center.

That's just not how they operated. They like to tie you down in as many places as possible, then have assault teams try and get closer to you once you're pinned. So, if they were going to attack the district center, they'd have to hold us in place at the hillside outpost before they attacked the district center. Then, once we thought we'd figured that out, it was just a matter of watching, waiting, and being ready for anything. Taliban attacks usually came from the direction of the setting sun, and they take advantage of the sun's glare to blind you to their firing positions. No shots were fired at sundown, so we figured the attack was coming later, and then sometime after midnight, we saw the headlights of a truck

approaching Asadabad's district center. It was a lone vehicle, so we didn't immediately suspect it was the Taliban, especially not if they were planning on attacking in large numbers. Then as we watched the vehicle roll past the district center and towards Najib's police HQ, it stopped outside the compound's main gates. We were up on the hillside so we could watch all this unfolding at a distance. Then as the truck's headlights started illuminating the interior of the compound, we figured, okay, it must have been an A&P vehicle or something to be allowed entry into the compound. We all start to relax, thinking the warning of the attack might have been a false alarm, then out of nowhere, boom. The flash of the explosion lit up the hillsides as this huge orange fireball rose up from the valley floor.

We all got into position, waiting for the Taliban to start firing on our hillside positions, but nothing came. Correctly assuming that it was a bomber that had just hit the police HQ, we had a few guys from 2nd Platoon rush down to the DC to defend against any follow up attacks but again, nothing happened. In the morning after the attack we got to get a good look at the damage inflicted then started pulling out bodies from the police HQ which included Nanjiboulas. His body was covered in purple and black contusions from the force of the explosion, and his head had been half-crushed, presumably by falling rubble.

The explosive device the truck had been fitted with was so big that it had killed every one of the police officers guarding the HQ and killed all but one of those inside. The force of the explosion had thrown him off his feet, and apparently he'd landed on his neck, leaving him in a pretty bad way. He could talk, but when we asked him what had happened in the run-up to the explosion, he told us he had no idea. But we didn't have to wait long to find out what had happened. Back then, the Taliban used these small, cheap Motorola radios to communicate with each other, called ICOMs. But we loved those little things because all you had to do to listen in to their chatter was buy your own ICOM radio, then tune into their frequency. We had someone monitoring their radio traffic almost constantly, and while it had been relatively quiet the night before,

they knew that we were listening, so they'd go tactically quiet before an attack. The following day had unleashed a beehive of activity. The Taliban were proud of what they'd pulled off, and they had a right to be, because this was their plan. First off, they'd spread rumors of a huge coordinated attack on Asadabad. Then, once we were all sitting in our positions,

waiting for said attack, they simply drove a stolen A&P vehicle right up to the gates of the police compound and asked to be let inside. Knowing the A&P guys wouldn't recognize the disguised Taliban driver, they had to think of something that would have the A&P letting their guard down, and that thing was this. The driver rolled up to the compound, then when questioned on who he was, as well as what was in the truck, the driver told the guard on duty that he brought three Bacha Bazzi boys to Najibullah as a gift for defeating the Taliban back in the spring. This was all the guards needed to hear, and then after parking his truck right next to the HQ building,

the driver simply grabbed his detonator, shouted God is great, and then blew the whole compound to kingdom come. Killing Najibullah, along with those still loyal to him, was a huge PR victory for the local Taliban, and without A&P officers to back us up and curtail the smuggling, the Taliban had the upper hand. This made the remainder of our tour much, much tougher than it had to be, and I have no doubt in my mind that it contributed to the loss of American life during our subsequent combat operations. But without a doubt, the most significant impact it had was turning the local population violently and irreversibly against us. Under the watch of the United States military, a sick, evil man had been permitted to abuse little boys, and not just on one occasion either. It's suspected that Najibullah and his officers kidnapped more than a dozen children before abusing them in lieu of illegal taxes he'd imposed on their families.

If someone did that to me and one of my kids, I'd do just about anything to see them dead, and I wouldn't shed a tear if the people protecting the abuser died either. Especially if they'd come from some faraway place and had long outstayed their welcome. Like I said at the beginning, I can't tell you exactly how or why we lost the war in Afghanistan. I just know we wouldn't be the first great power to admit defeat there. Because as our own society begins to display some subtle and not-so-subtle signs of decline, perhaps Afghanistan will once again have earned its nickname as the graveyard of 1975, my grandfather worked at a car dealership as a mechanic in a major city on the west coast. That was where my Aunt Cece got her first job as a receptionist for the dealership.

They were from a small town out in the countryside, so she was excited to start work in the big city as Cece had just graduated high school and wanted to save up for an apartment. Despite the fact that she was in a major city, Cece's job was what you'd expect working as a receptionist inside a car dealership. The immediate area was devoted to industry work and other car dealerships. It was, in effect, a social dessert for a 17-year-old social butterfly like Cece. This was a blue-collar area that was predominantly dominated by men working hard and dirty jobs. And despite that, Cece enjoyed her work and the chance to carpool with her dad and get along great with the staff, with what my grandfather called the gift of gab. She could make friends with anybody. And now, as it was 1975, most transactions were done in cash and, as a result, paperwork and money deposits had to be done with daily trips to the bank. That task fell upon Cece as part of her duties, and

she was entrusted with taking deposits to the bank located within walking distance of her place of employment. As she worked in a successful car dealership, she could deliver thousands of dollars in cash per deposit. To put the money in perspective, $2,000 in 1975 equivalates to well over $10,000 USD based on today's inflation rates. And so here was Cece, a lone 17-year-old girl with a daily routine, walking from a popular car dealership to a bank with large sums of money at a somewhat isolated and rough neighborhood inside a major city. To say that her employer did not foresee an opportunity for disaster was naive on their part, and for my grandfather as well. All that I can say about that relaxed attitude was that the 70s was an entirely different world almost 50 years ago,

and Cece was the one to pay the price. On that summer's day, the dealership had quite a few successful transactions that resulted in netting over $3,000. So, with the paperwork done after lunchtime, Cece put the money into her purse and began the short walk to the bank. She was a few minutes into her journey when a rusty van screeched to a halt behind her. Before she could react, the sliding door opened and a man pulled her inside. The door slammed shut and the engine revved as they sped off. And just like that, she was kidnapped. Inside the van were five rough-looking men in their mid to late 20s.

The back seats had been removed to make room for a mattress and several pillows, converting it into a sort of party van, as was typical for the time. And this was evident from the empty beer cans, bottles, and drug paraphernalia scattered around. The men laughed as they shoved Cece onto the mattress, commenting that they had wanted a pretty girl to join the party. She had the misfortune of being the random girl in their path. They seemed either oblivious or uncaring that they had abducted a young woman against her will. There's no need to emphasize how dangerous the situation Cece was in here. She was fully aware of what was likely to happen with five male strangers taking her to God knows where. These

men didn't look like college students. Their rough appearance suggested a very harsh lifestyle. Cece also realized that they were unaware of the money in her purse. These were men looking for a good time at the expense of an innocent woman, not criminal masterminds who had planned to rob her of the $3,000 hidden in her purse. Still, her chances of survival would likely plummet to zero if they discovered the cash, and that amount might be too tempting to leave behind a witness. Cece then did what she did best. She kept her cool and turned on the charm. She laughed along with the men, as if being held against her will was just some joke, saying something like, Ah, well you guys seem pretty cool.

It's too bad I can't party with you since I'm expected back at work. I'd hate for all of us to get into trouble. My boss would be mad if I'm not back soon, and he'll definitely call the cops with what's been happening lately. At the time, the then unidentified serial killer Ted Bundy was active on the west coast, particularly in that city. Cece and her sisters had even cut their hair short as a precaution because Bundy's targeted victims typically had long hair. These murders were at the forefront of the public's minds, and Cece used that as leverage to make their kidnappers take her word seriously. It was enough to plant a seed of doubt in their minds. Their intentions have never been good,

but now they face the added risk of her being immediately missed and the cops quickly getting involved. Cece continued talking to the men as they mulled over this information, all the while downplaying her own fear. You guys don't really want to do this, do you? My boss is really strict about my breaks and we'll all get into trouble real soon. I don't think any of us would want that. In the end, those terrible men decided that she wasn't worth the trouble. They pulled over near a grocery store, opened the door, and let her out before quickly driving off. Cece, still clutching her purse with the $3,000, ran into the store to call her dad. The cops got involved, but without any identification or license plate, these kidnappers

were never caught, and no follow-up was ever made. In retrospect, Cece's kidnapping might not have been taken seriously by the police. I mean, this was 1975, just one year after American women were even legally allowed to open their credit cards without a male partner. It's frustratingly likely that Cece's abduction would be written off as a harmless joyride prank since she was neither assaulted nor robbed. And hopefully, those men thought better of trying again with another innocent bystander, but sadly, that might just be wishful thinking. Now, I want to end this story by saying how much I love my Aunt Cece and how grateful I am that she is a part of my life. She is an incredibly brave woman who has had many adventures traveling all over the world, doing photography and using her gift of gab to cultivate

friendships that cross cultures and language barriers. I'm glad her narrow escape from abduction as a teenager did not diminish her adventurous spirit, but instead taught her how to survive in this very dangerous world. She has many stories, but she tells this one as a lesson in not becoming too relaxed in daily routines and in keeping emotions in check during frightening situations. you can't rely on blind faith to get the pregnancy support you deserve rituals essential prenatal multivitamin is the only leading prenatal backed by its own human clinical trial. Essential prenatal is proven to deliver key nutrients, including folate, biotin, and vitamin D during pregnancy. Get 25% off when you visit ritual.com slash clinical. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.

This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. In 2004, I was 24 and worked at Taco Bell. My manager was 18. It wasn't the best time of my life, but I digress. The manager and I became close friends. My little goth self and my jock altar boy manager were like the odd couple. He loved how I could talk to anyone and that my girlfriend was hot. I liked that he seemed more open and willing to be like a chameleon every time we hung out at the goth bar. He even went as far as to buy fishnet shirts for club nights. And as things happened, we had a falling out a couple of years into our friendship. He got fired from Taco Bell for harassment, which was pretty uncharacteristic.

He thought he was close enough friends with one of the girls who worked nights with us to say, hey, while you're down there, when she kneeled to get cheese from the reach-in refrigerator. He got fired from his second job for altering inventory counts and stealing Gatorade crates from the gas station where he worked nights. And around this time, he decided to start working as a carpenter and began training for it. He bought all the necessary tools and started attending a vocational school to learn the trade. And soon, he was having fun hanging out into the wee hours of the night with his new friends from class, and by this point he was 21. One night while driving back from a bar, he was far too drunk to drive. He hit a median on the freeway, rolled his car, and broke his leg. The rent and cleaning fell to me. I wouldn't have minded, but he didn't even clean his dishes. There would be mold in the sink. These were dishes that I bought

and I told him that if he couldn't wash them, he should just use paper plates and I ended up throwing the plates out. After he healed up and started working as a contractor, he began bringing friends over for loud parties while I was always trying to sleep in the other room. He would be drunk as hell and we would fight, mostly arguments though he did throw a bottle at me once. It was so violent that I decided to just move out and go back home. A few years had passed and in 2012 I graduated from college and moved to northern Wisconsin to work at a TV station. While having breakfast at a restaurant with my girlfriend, I got a text message from a friend back home asking what my old roommate's last name was. I told him, DeHunt, and sent a picture.

Is this him? He asked. Yep, I texted back. And then he sent me a picture of the whole newspaper, and I almost threw up. There was the church kid, and Carpenter turned thief's mugshot. He had just been convicted of murdering his girlfriend. And the story goes like this. He was dating a woman who worked at the courthouse as a clerk. She had never missed a day of work

and suddenly missed three days with no call and no show. Her boss, a retired detective, called in a wellness check. When they went to her house, Will answered the door and held his hands out in front of him in a sort of handcuff me pose. And they did just that and looked inside. What they found was something out of a Rob Zombie script. The drywall was recently patched, and the house had been cleaned. They peeled back the drywall patch and found black contractor bags

with pieces of his skinned girlfriend inside. He had gotten drunk with her and they fought. He threw an ashtray at her, hitting her in the head. She fell and smacked her head on the counter. Panicking, he decided the best thing to do was strangle her to death and cut her into pieces in the basement with his sawzall. And that wouldn't do. On garbage day, people could see that it was a person, and so he used an exacto knife to skin the pieces, put them into the wall, and patched it up. I really did dodge the bullet.

I could have been the first victim if I didn't move out of the way of his beer bottle that he threw at me so long ago. I'm 31 and female, and although I may not be considered old to tell you this story, I have to take you back several years. At the time of this incident, I was 24. I was working for a popular convenience store chain in my area and had managed to climb up the promotional ladder to assistant manager. Often, I was the closing manager on duty, which typically wasn't an issue. I was employed in a suburban area of North Carolina, and my store didn't close until 10pm. I had worked plenty of closing shifts despite the climbing crime rate in my area. I considered myself someone who could handle things on my own.

But one night, that confidence was shattered. Because until you actually have to handle yourself, you truly don't know if you can. I came into work that Friday at my usual start time of 3pm and was scheduled to close. My last employee shift ended at 8pm. Typically after that time, there was nothing much to do in the store except for front facing, cleaning, and other closing duties. And once those were finished, I usually spent my free time on my phone until it was time to lock up and clock out. Part of the closing duties involved taking the trash out to the dumpster behind the store. This night was no different. Aside from the creepy darkness, the back lot was illuminated by a single light in the parking lot. I had never had any issues taking out the trash, and none of my employees had ever reported any problems either.

But this night would prove to be very different. As I approached the dumpster and threw in the bags of trash, I heard a squelching sound. To me, it sounded like an animal possibly eating something, maybe another animal. So I grabbed a long stick, planning to hit the side of the dumpster and scare away whatever was there. I stepped to the side and peeked around the back corner of the dumpster. And that's when I made eye contact with a man crouched down. It was looking over his shoulder with a knife in his teeth. As we locked eyes, it continued to saw into something, producing a lot of blood. Not wasting any time, I maintained eye contact with him as I slowly

backed away. He grinned, the knife still between his teeth and began to stand. I still had no idea what he was sawing into. Honestly, I didn't want to find out, and still locking eyes with him, I backed away faster, calculating when to turn and run for my life back into the store. About halfway through the back lot, the man, now on his feet, began walking toward me. When I decided to run, it was like he read my mind. He charged at me. I took off with every bit of speed I could muster, reaching the back door of the store just as he got there. I slammed the door shut, locked it, and set the alarm. Shaking, I pulled out my phone and called the police.

All the while, this stranger was banging on the door, yelling in some strange language that I'd never heard before. About twenty minutes later, I was hiding between the aisles in the store because the entire front of the store was made of glass and he could see me if he looked in. Then, I heard a tapping sound on the glass door. At first, I froze, thinking it was the man with the knife. But soon, an officer announced his presence, and slowly I crept out of my hiding spot and saw three local police officers with flashlights. I went to the door and let them in. As we made our way to the back of the store, I explained that the guy had stopped banging and yelling a while ago.

I didn't think that he was still there, but there was no way that he could have cleaned up everything behind the dumpster in that short period of time. I turned off the alarm and unlocked the back door for them to go outside, and curiosity got the best of me and I followed, eager to see what they would find. One of the officers asked me to point to where I had seen the man. I pointed to the only dumpster in the lot, explaining that he was crouched behind it, sawing into something that was producing a lot of blood. And just as I finished explaining, another officer shone his light on the asphalt and said, Oh, y'all gotta take a look at this. We could all make out the clear impressions of bare human footprints in what seemed to be a brownish-red liquid,

leading across the lot toward the store and fading out about halfway back. Perhaps to rule out the possibility of some cruel joke, two officers pointed their flashlights at my feet, confirming that I was indeed wearing my non-slip black work shoes and had no blood on me. Approaching the dumpster, one officer positioned himself in front of me while the others drew their weapons. One of them shouted in a very stern voice, Police officer, if you're back there, show yourself. Come out with your hands up.

And there was no response. As they turned the corner, they all sighed in unison, and what they found was a pool of blood, a knife, but no person. There was no animal or body, just blood, and a lot of it. They cordoned off the scene with yellow crime scene tape and began gathering some evidence, eventually allowing me to leave after giving my statement. The man behind the dumpster was apprehended a couple of days later from what I heard in his own home, which was only a few miles from the store. He was arrested and questioned, and after hours of interrogation, the man admitted to abducting and killing a child from his trailer park. What I witnessed was the dismemberment of this child. His pursuit of me was to ensure

that if I had seen something, I wouldn't be able to talk about it. After the incident, I refused to close the store again and my store manager agreed. Not long after, I took a position at another store within the same company

in what seemed to be a safer area. I have been into urban exploration, or urbex for short, for a couple of years now. Living in Europe, specifically Germany, there are always reasonably nearby sites to visit. I started by venturing into well-researched urbex areas with my friends. At the time, I was a teenage girl who was afraid to explore alone, afraid of being assaulted, kidnapped, mugged, or murdered. Eventually, after about a year of urbexing with friends, I decided I was competent enough to explore on my own. I had become knowledgeable about what safety measures to take, for instance, wearing equipment like masks when entering old buildings due to the likelihood of asbestos particles being present. One should also wear

thick clothes and sturdy shoes to avoid stepping on or bumping into anything sharp and harmful. I always scoped out the buildings and pre-planned entry and exit routes. Additionally, I shared my location with one of my closest friends every time I went on an adventure. I had successfully urbexed several times alone and covered many abandoned places across eastern Germany. However, in July 2018, things went very wrong. It was the peak of summer, and because I had explored almost all the places near me, I had to resort to more tedious methods of finding new spots. I began researching bunkers that were used in various wars in Germany, especially during World War II. I came across one in the depths of a forest about a three-hour drive from my city. I was quite certain it would be there,

and when I arrived, it was. I was over the moon would be there, and when I arrived it was. I was over the moon and I felt like a real explorer uncovering ancient artifacts. The bunker was made entirely of concrete on the outside and showed no signs of vandalism, so I assumed no one else had found it. It took me almost an hour to find a way in. I fiddled with the door, banged rocks against it, and prayed until it finally cracked open. And it was almost too easy. I turned my headlamp on and was wearing a mask and gloves for extra protection. Even through the mask, the smell was foul, as if something had just died inside. The interior was surprisingly large, and the floor was littered with papers and trash.

What began to freak me out was in one of the sleeping quarters, I found a pillow that was slightly ripped open and when I picked it up, I realized it was filled with hair. Human hair, I think. This filled me with dread as I immediately assumed it was the hair of Jewish prisoners from long ago and I began to think of the hair of Jewish prisoners from long ago, and I began to think of the horrors they experienced. I suddenly wanted to leave, but I forced myself to stay as I didn't want to drive three hours for nothing. When I pulled my eyes away from the pillow and

scanned the room, I noticed something strange and out of place. It was an eaten can of beans with a plastic spoon in it. The paper can wrap was still vibrant. I carefully picked it up to examine it and read the expiry date. July 11th, 2018. I was a bit freaked out but I chalked it up to someone else exploring this place before me. However, as I continued exploring, I started to see more signs of modern life. Food packaging, decent clothes, an air freshener can. The rotten smell became more pungent as I walked around. As soon as I entered the next room, I was hit by a putrid smell that made me feel sick. As I recovered, I began to look around the room and almost jumped when I saw three bodies.

The first thought that rushed into my head was that this place was occupied by squatters, but clearly, they were dead. It was a heavyset old man, a woman of similar age and very distressingly, a small boy, maybe nine years old. Their bodies were swollen, and their skin was purple and waxy. They didn't look human. The older man was lying on his back, his stomach mutilated, wearing only khaki trousers. The image of his entrails, dehydrated and almost black in color, still haunts me. The woman was completely naked and covered in bruises.

There was blood on her private parts and her breasts had been cut off. Her face stared at me and I was horrified. The poor child's face was unrecognizable. Dried brain matter and black blood covered him. I began to cry. I couldn't even breathe. Thousands of thoughts consumed my mind. What if the person who did this was close by? What if they found me? I would end up dead, just like that poor family. I went to call the emergency services number from my country, but there was no service where I was.

In my shock and terrified state, I decided to take photos of the scene before exiting the bunker as fast as I could. I didn't even bother shutting the door, I just ran. Much to my horror, I froze when I heard footsteps that were not mine. I crouched behind some fallen tree, though I could still see the entrance if I jutted my head out, though I really didn't even dare to. I heard a male voice seething and then yell, I wasn't expecting visitors, in German before stomping into the bunker. I felt the biggest relief that he decided to forego scoping the area out first and when I thought that he was deep enough into the bunker not to hear me, I ran as fast as my body could allow. I remember that the road was about a 30 minute

walk from the bunker and ran for what felt like ages. As I saw the road, I heard a vicious scream and running behind me. Freaking out, hearing the crazed murderer chasing me, I put every ounce of survival I had into running for a few more minutes before finally crawling up to the road and to my car, which was about 200 meters from where I emerged. My keys were in my backpack and my shaky hands weren't helping me open the zipper. However, when I got them, I looked over and saw his figure climbing onto the road from the forest. He seemed to be about 60, was quite tall, maybe 180 centimeters and very bulky. In his hand was a large knife that looked pretty well used, and I managed to get into my car and lock the doors just as he slammed into the window, banging on the glass, cursing at me, his crazed blue eyes wide and bloodshot. I started the ignition and drove over 140 kilometers per hour, well over the speed limit

though I didn't care. And looking back, I'm so grateful that he didn't think to slash my tires and instead was too focused on screaming at me. I stopped at the nearest petrol station and called my father, telling him everything. I arrived home and he met me there. I had only recently moved out, being just 20 years old, and we immediately went to the police and showed met me there. I had only recently moved out, being just 20 years old, and we immediately went to the police and showed them the photos that I took, described the man and gave them the coordinates of the place. They said that they would check the bunker out, but I never heard back. Since then, I have never done urbex again.

And for a long time I couldn't go out alone. I even got therapy to deal with all that trauma. And to this day, over five years later, the images of those victims and the abuser's evil eyes and the sound of his rough, sinister voice still haunts my dreams. To start off, this is a bit longer. I thought about sharing some of these stories before, but recently, some things have happened that I need to get off my chest. I work at a data destruction company.

We provide large trash bins to our clients, which they fill with any sensitive information they want to destroy. Our truck drivers pick up the bins, and then we separate the paper from any trash or folders. There's also a loading dock where anyone can bring items. After that, everything goes to the shred floor, which is where I work. These shredders are large and can destroy up to two tons of paper a day. Sorry for the logistics, but it's hard to tell this story without explaining how it all works. Fortunately, no, this isn't a story about some horrific shredding accident, but I digress. As you can imagine, the documents we destroy are considered sensitive or classified, even if it's just junk mail. Bank statements, medical records, school papers,

court records, pretty much anything you can think of. 90% of the stuff I see daily is boring, and isn't worth looking at for more than the time it takes to throw it into the shredder. But there's some interesting stuff too. In the four months I've worked here, I've seen social security cards dating back to the 30s or 40s, report cards from the 50s, rosary beads, religious pamphlets from the 40s which you can guess are very sexist, condoms, thankfully unused, a family photo album from the 70s full of photos from a trip to Disneyland, and even cash, the largest sum being $11,000 that a family unknowingly dumped after their mother passed away. And with an amount this high, we found the family and returned the money,

and most cash gets thrown into a fund for a Christmas party for the employees. These are just mildly interesting things in what is largely a lot of extremely boring material. However, there's also a darker side to what we're destroying. No one ever thinks about what happens to things like crime scene photos or autopsy reports after they're no longer needed. Well, you guessed it, they end up with me at the shredder. I'm not a stranger to gore or dark subject matter. I'm submitting this to the subreddit after all, but some things you just can't shake off. Experience number one. One time I was sorting through heaps of paper with a co-worker when something caught our eye. A big folder had spilled its contents and there in front of us was a stack of about 20 pages,

each containing a full-color page-sized image that told a story. It was a warehouse setting, with a big red container that appeared to be full of ashes. As we went through the photos, we saw him. Among the ashes was a highly visible vest and in the vest was the charred body of a man. From what we could tell, this man had fallen or been pushed into an incinerator. The aftermath showed him burnt to a crisp with close-up photos of his genitalia, face, hands, and burst abdomen, exposing his intestinal tract. Experience number two. Since we sort out all the trash from the paper, we end up with big bins of nothing but garbage. We're talking folders, binders, glossy advertisements, printed photos, VHS tapes, CDs, Polaroids, you name it.

These items still contain sensitive information, so they need to be destroyed separately to avoid mixing them with our recyclable material. So, every once in a while, we have trash shredding days. Trash days are my favorite because that's where the cool stuff is found. So, I'm enjoying the trash shredding when I come across some plastic pages with slots for Polaroids. Think of this like a sleeve for Pokemon cards. I look at the Polaroids, and it takes me a moment to realize I'm staring at a torso full of stab wounds. There were a dozen or so Polaroids, each showing a different murder victim. Gunshot wounds, people who had taken their own lives, slit throats, accidents. Two of them

stand out the most. One was a woman who had fallen backward off a stepladder and was internally decapitated when she hit the wall behind her. The fact that this was just some freak accident was both humbling and disturbing. The other was a fully nude woman whose head was wrapped in duct tape, with her feet and hands also restrained. The only part of her face visible is from her forehead to the bridge of her nose. A look of terror and pain froze in her eyebrows. There are many other things I've seen here that have haunted me, but maybe I'll share those another time. One of the hardest parts for me is feeling like I can't tell many people about it. I never expected that a paper shredding job would put from Canada to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

As a seven-year-old child, I was excited about moving to a new country and the adventures that awaited me. Little did I know that one of my first adventures would be so sinister. We ended up staying at the Hilton Hotel with other expat families while we waited for the company's supplied home to be ready for us to move into. As a second grader, staying in a hotel for one to two weeks was exciting and felt like a luxurious camping trip. Since other expat families were also staying at the hotel, I had plenty of other children to play with. One of the games we played was hide and seek, which meant using the

elevator to hide on the other 30 some floors or in the stairwells. The hotel gave us children a very false sense of security. One day, while we were playing hide and seek, I took the elevator alone to the top floor of the building. I believe it was the 30th floor. When I exited the elevator and rounded the corner, I ran into a man and a woman. They appeared to be in their late 30s and looked native to the country. I recall they did not look frightening and were dressed nicely, and despite their normal appearance, their actions immediately suggested otherwise. The man tried to grab my arm, but I pulled away. I backed away from the couple until we were standing about 10 to 15 feet apart. I was on the verge of turning

and running, but I understand that there was nowhere to go if the pursuit ensued. A short standoff began. I assumed the man wanted to convince me to come with them willingly because if I screamed, it could attract the attention of other guests on that floor. And so from about 15 feet away, we stared each other down. I was standing closest to the bank of elevators and they were standing between me and the stairwell. The man took a chocolate bar out of his pocket and held it out to me. This, of course, would require approaching them to take it, and there was no way I was going to do that. The man and woman was staring at me with creepy fake smiles and their body language screamed, we may lunge at you in any moment. As a side note, I remember the chocolate bar had nuts

in it, and I hated nuts in chocolate bars. When it became clear that I wasn't going to approach them, I noticed the man's stance shift to, I am about to lunge at you, and my stance shifted to, I think it's time to run. Just as it seemed that the man was about to lunge at me, the elevator doors dinged and someone got off on that floor. I don't remember who it was or what they looked like, because as soon as I heard that sound, I turned and bolted past that person into the open elevator doors. I recall that the man and woman retreated in the opposite direction, perhaps to their room or the stairwell. I never told anyone what happened until decades later, and as a child, I quickly pushed it to the back of my mind until I was much older.

It is sobering how the smallest things in life can be so life-changing. I don't remember who got off on that floor, but I remain eternally grateful to them. I work at a big retail store as a self-checkout host. Most of my days are spent walking laps and listening to customers saying things like, I don't work here or why aren't you on the register? And I understand their frustrations. Usually there would be two or three of us at the self-checkout and maybe two manned registers open. We got a new guy in. We'll call him Terry. Terry always wore a mask since 2021 and COVID was still a concern to him. I was training him, telling him to stock candy in bags and he asked the usual questions anyone would ask. If I was in school,

if I had a girlfriend, I lived in a small city slash big town that had a good college, students from all over the country would come and usually end up working at the prisons or in retail. I usually asked the same questions back. I told him no to both accounts. Then he asked if I ever went hunting. We had a lot of woods and a big forest around the town. No, I don't like guns, I said. He replied that he'd have to take me one day. A few days

went by, and he was over on my side again. He asked if I had family in town, and if they didn't, whether they'd live close. I lived three doors down from my mother, and he started talking about hunting again, and now he went out with his buddies and started using pack tactics, where they would box in the prey and finish it off. It sounded strange for deer, considering they usually flee at the first sight of noise. He was off for a few days because new hires often have problems getting hours during the first three weeks. I talked to one of my co-workers, and they told me that he asked a lot about me. The next time I saw him, his questions were pretty telling. How tall would you say you are? How much do you weigh? How well do

you know the woods past such and such street? I'm a pretty big guy, six feet three hundred pounds, and when he brought up hunting again, a creepy thought sent a chill down my spine. Come on, man, you'd like it. Just some good old boys shooting the breeze late at night in the middle of the woods. And then the real fun starts right before dawn. They won't know what hit them. The mask hid most of his face, but I could see it rise when he smiled. I don't know why he thought that that would be a great way to convince someone. Aside from feeling like they were about to hunt me, it sounded like I would have been bored out of my mind beforehand, and I must have made a face or something because he turned and

walked away quickly. I told a couple of co-workers about it, but that was his last day, and I never saw him again, and I just hope that we never meet again. So for context, my mom took a job years ago at a local laundromat because we knew the owner and needed extra money. I was around 10 when she got the job and she allowed me to come with her because she would give me a little allowance for helping her do small tasks. I ended up going with her every night for years and as I got older I mainly went to make sure that my mom was safe because I was worried about her. We regularly dealt with angry customers refusing to leave, most of which were drunk or high and we had to call the police a few times. My mom was always worried about me tagging along, but I insisted, and to this day I still can't say I regret it.

A lot of good came out of it, mainly the work experience, and that made up for how intense it could be. I have a lot of interesting stories from that time, but this one takes the cake for the most horrifying, and it took place when I was about 12. Being the young and dumb kid that I was, I designated myself the job of chasing people off when it was closing time. We would have people parking behind the building pretty regularly, so I would walk to the side of the building and start yelling that they were now trespassing,

and I'd call the cops if they didn't leave. I felt that this is important to bring up because I now realized that I let any shady person hanging around the building at night know of my presence, and that's a dangerous thing to do when you're a 12-year-old girl. I was blissfully unaware that anything could happen to me, until one night when we showed up to find that the door lock had been broken. My mom had unlocked the building that morning, so it wasn't like this was a break-in attempt since it had been unlocked all day. We were a bit shaken up, but my mom texted her boss to let him know about it and just told me to tell her if I saw anyone pull up. About 30 minutes after, I finished my few tasks and sat down to draw on my sketchbook.

I had barely been sat down for a few minutes when I heard the door swing open, which startled me because normally people just knock when they see the very obvious closed sign. My mom noticed it too and yelled out that we were closed. I heard an older man's voice respond, explaining that he had just come in to use our drink machine. We normally let people in to use our snack and drink machines, so my mom told him that he had a few minutes and went back to the closet to grab something. I was sat about seven feet away from the drink machine, so I heard him walk up, but didn't really pay much attention to him. I continued to draw until I started getting the feeling that someone was watching me and realized that I didn't hear this guy put any money into the drink machine. I nervously glanced to my left and saw a tall man

in his mid-60s staring right at me with this very big smile on his face. I jumped a little, but forced an awkward smile back at him and directed my attention back to drawing. As soon as I did this, I heard what sounded like shuffling and when I looked over again and he was closer, I didn't know what to do,

so I tried to just not look at him. But every time I would look away, he would shuffle closer. His body was still facing the drink machine, but his neck was craned in my direction, and he wouldn't stop smiling and staring. I began shaking, panicking, and my eyes were darting back and forth between him and the closet door while I tried to plan a fast escape. I went to reach for my knife in my bag because I couldn't even imagine this man's intentions and quickly realized that it was not there. I had left my knife at home when I needed it the most and I was petrified.

I decided to just stare back at him, despite being terrified, trembling violently, and after what felt like an eternity, he suddenly broke eye contact and yelled to my mom to have a good night before turning around and walking out. Relief hit me instantly and I tried to calm myself down after what had just happened. I thought I was finally safe and started to get up to splash some water on my face when I saw him sit down on the bench outside. Panic and dread hit me like a brick and I sprinted into the closet to hide. I filled my mom in on everything and she told me to run to the car and she'd get between me and him and pepper spray him if needed. I did as she told me and ran to the car and as I passed him, he stood up and began walking toward the car. My mom yelled at him to get away from her car and his reaction was to

try to calmly start a conversation about the make and model of her car while staring right at me. She ignored him, hopped in the car, locked us in and started backing up as quickly as possible. I ducked down in my seat but could still see him standing there and I know that he could see me because I watched as he lifted his hand and waved me goodbye before walking around to the back of the building and disappearing into the darkness. I felt sick. I couldn't sleep that night and I never dared set foot anywhere near the back of the building again so I guess that was a lesson learned. This happened about 20 years ago. I was nine years old at the time, but my parents have also told me their side of the story on a bunch of different occasions. My parents are both biologists.

They met at work, and from there it's been history. The place where they worked at the time was a government building dedicated to biology research used in government projects turned towards the public, meaning that they were the ones studying the environment and making environmental protection laws around their studies. This being a massive old government building, it always had a security guard present day and night. During the day, these security guards would mostly just stay at reception and greet people, but at night, they would do their rounds and make sure that there were no intruders because of all the science equipment and computers kept in the building. One of these guards is the let's not meet guy. Initially, he seemed like the nicest person. He was really nice to me,

and frankly, all the memories I have from him before this were really nice. He would greet me and talk to me in the nicest way every time my parents brought me to work. He would make me paper planes, which he was surprisingly good at, and throw them around with me and he would stay with me at reception in the days that my parents had to work into the night. Obviously for me that would get really, really fast, so he'd keep me company and entertain me. Mostly we would talk and play with the paper planes and watch TV, and it all seemed nice enough. Nice enough for my parents to trust him with me, which was probably their biggest mistake. One night my parents had to work even later than usual. I think it was around 10pm, they were still at it so this guy,

who was on the night shift, decided to take me around the building with him to do his rounds. We started on the top floor, checking all the rooms in the exterior part of the roof. Every room was so dark that I'd always stay a little behind and wait for him to turn on the lights. Then we stepped down to the second floor where my parents' office and labs were. We checked the opposite side of the building, going into labs with massive extractors, microscopes, and every kind of science equipment you might think of. We walked down the stairs to the first floor, where most of the administration rooms were. I still remember seeing some maps on the walls and embalmed fish everywhere serving as decorations.

First floor was all clear, so it was time to check the two basement levels. I thought it would have made sense to check the labs on the right side first, as the left side had a flight of stairs at the end leading up to where my parents were, but for some reason, we decided that we'd go check that side first. We checked all the labs, but I noticed his pace was accelerating and he was starting to look and sound happier. Excited even. Once again, we checked all the labs, all the corners from one end to the other, turning the lights on ahead of us and turning them off behind us when we left.

When we got to the last area, he turned all the lights on and we went inside. There were three separate offices on each side of the lab, and on the first one, he hurried towards the printer, opened it up, and took out two pieces of paper and made two quick paper airplanes. And that's when everything changed. He picked up one of the planes, went outside of the office, and threw it toward the end of the room, and then he told me the one he just threw was mine,

and that we could throw them around in there. I ran to the other side of the room to pick up my plane, excited to play with it, and suddenly the lights went off. When I turned around to check what was happening, I saw him getting out of the lab, turning the lights off and locking the door. I ran to the door, punched it and kicked it while screaming for him to open, panic taking over me because of how scared I was of being in the dark at the time. And through the glass in the door I could see him scurrying away in the corridors,

turning the lights off as he went and disappearing after turning a corner. I'm pretty sure that everything I felt and every shadow and creepy monster I saw in there while waiting was part of my imagination because of how scared I was. I balled up against a corner and could see shadows moving around me in the dark. I could only cry, lost without knowing what was happening and why he was doing that. My parents finished work eventually and when they did, they packed up their things and made their way to the lobby to pick me up and go home. When they got there, the security guard was at reception but I was nowhere to be found. And they panicked of course and must have shouted a hundred different cuss words at the guy, and I'm not sure how my dad didn't murder him right then and there. But when they first asked

the guy where the hell I was and what he had done with me, he simply said that he had gone to do the rounds with me and that I must have gotten lost somewhere. This is a building that would take you about an hour and a half to check from top to bottom, even if you're rushing, so must have gotten lost somewhere is not exactly helpful. They'd look for hours without finding me. It was only when I saw a light far at the end of the corridors leading to the lab I was in that I got the courage to stand up, rush to the door and start punching it as hard as I could. They finally found me there and made the guard unlock the door and start punching it as hard as I could. They finally found me there and made the guard unlock the door and get me out. I don't really remember sleeping that night and if I did,

it must have been out of exhaustion, but I know I made my mom stay in the bedroom with me that entire night. Of course, my parents made a complaint against the guard and when they did and the guy started being investigated, he was fired and arrested. Not because of locking me away, where he probably hoped no one would find me, but because he had been partnering up with other criminals to steal computers and equipment from the building to sell it in some shady market along with information in the hard drives and make money off of that. But then, he had stolen a lot of old computers without anyone realizing, and who knows what his plans were for me that night. I'm not convinced that locking a crying child in the middle of the darkness, hidden away in some room is exactly the most normal behavior

if you're not trying to hide them and come get them later when everyone has left and sell them as part of your product. This happened when I was back in high school. It was a Wednesday night, and usually on Wednesdays, I would have youth group at my church, and my mom would have date night with her mom where they'd go play cards, watch TV together, etc. And this would mean that they might be gone until about 9 or 9.30 every Wednesday night. For whatever reason, both of us decided to stay home this night.

I was downstairs in my mom's room in the basement watching TV with her. We also had a roommate at this time and Cinnamon was his dog. The roommate was gone this night. He was kind of a night owl, so when he was gone, Cinnamon would sleep with one of us. I slept on a full-sized futon frame at this time, so even though it was a tight fit for myself and a big old pit bull, I always took the opportunity to have her sleep with me. She was, and still is, a great dog. It was about 8.30. Keep in mind, we usually wouldn't be home at this time, and our roommate was not home either,

and I decided to head to bed. The way our house was set up was you'd go up a set of stairs, hit a landing, and then go up another set of stairs and you'd be looking through the kitchen and living room and you could see the front door. So Cinnamon and I are walking up the stairs to my room when we hit the landing. As soon as we do, Cinnamon barks a loud bark and books it up the other flight of stairs. I look up and see her booking it through the kitchen and as I do, our front door bursts open, swings wide, and hits the wall. And I see a man in all black, with his hood up and black gloves on, running out the doorframe, through our porch and entryway, down our front steps and away on the sidewalk. Cinnamon stood barking at our screen door to

our porch. It was a fast, loud, shocking event. And it was winter, and pitch black so I didn't see much else because it was dark and it happened so fast, but I ran over and slammed the front door and locked the deadbolt and then took cinnamon and went to my room and locked my bedroom door. I called my mom and told her what happened from upstairs and she told me to lock the door and stay in my room. That night I didn't sleep much. I was keeping an eye out for any noise or footsteps outside my window and I swore I heard some things, but ultimately nothing else happened. I spent the night snuggled up to Cinnamon, thanking her for protecting me and being a scary pitbull, even though she was always so gentle. And I'll never forget that. To be continued... Hey friends, thanks for listening. Don't forget to hit that follow button to be alerted of our weekly episodes every Tuesday at 1pm EST.

And if you haven't already, check out Let's Read on YouTube, where you can catch all my new video releases every Monday and Thursday at 9pm EST. Thanks so much, friends, and I'll see you in the next episode.