The Lets Read Podcast - 323: MY FRIEND BECAME OBSESSED WITH BLACK MAGIC | 12 TERRIFYING True Scary Stories | EP 308

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about bad friends & pizza delivery encounters 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: - Aura Frames https://on.auraframes.com/READ. Promo Code READ

From Adams Morgan to Anacostia Park, we all want safer neighborhoods. But what does real safety mean? Real safety means preventing crime before it happens, by having police work with communities to disrupt cycles of violence, by supporting families with stable housing, and providing more mental health and drug treatment. We know that adding more police and locking up more people doesn't make us safer. Real safety means investing in the things that help prevent crime.

Learn more at Real Safety, D.C., I'm going to be. I was in college in 2007, and I had a buddy, we'll just call him Kieran. Now, I'd known Kieran since middle school, and he'd always been a bit of a weirdo. He also had to be alternative, but in a way that felt very force, like he was being different for the sake of being rebellious and different. Like he'd get into metal and emo bands, but as soon as any of us liked them, then he'd call them crap. He had a raging hate boner for Metallica, who he saw as the biggest sellouts of all

time, and he'd do weird performative stuff like buying Metallica posters just to tear them up. He had this story that he'd tell about buying a Metallica CD and wiping his butt with it. It was pretty stupid, right? Except he'd used this story to try to impress chicks, as if they'd find it sexy that this smelly metal kid with an infected eyebrow piercing had smeared feces on a Metallica CD. Like I said, he was an odd duck. I can't really explain why I stuck with Kieran. I guess it was more like he stuck to me and I didn't have the energy or drive to get him away from me. He was just there through middle school, high school, and then he was part of my group of loyal slackers who went to college in our hometown. And because of this, most of our little group either lived at home or

in the case of a few of the guys in a shared three-bedroom apartment that had extremely questionable hygiene. This was known as Andy's apartment, even though Andy just rented it with two others. We were stoners and metalheads and slackers, but I like to think that we were all good guys and gals. Kieran didn't really live anywhere exactly. He had loving, supportive parents, but chose to couch surf crashing on someone's floor or my basement couch. He'd spend weeks at a time sleeping in the bathroom of Andy's apartment until one of them would get sick of him and kick him out. Then he'd do the round staying with me or one of the other guys until he was back begging Andy for room and board. This all began when Kieran showed up at my place one night, sliding through the basement window at around 11.

He had a method of getting the window open even when it was locked and would occasionally show up and help himself to my snacks or weed even if I wasn't home, and it drove me nuts. Thankfully, this night I was home, chilling and playing some doom on my PC, which I had finally upgraded enough. to run that damn game. Kieran flopped onto my couch, dropped his ratty old bag onto the floor, and told me that he was going to be staying with me for a few days. Okay, then? He lit up a bong and sat there smoking it for a while before asking me if I was into occult stuff.

I said I'd never really thought about it. Despite being a diehard metalhead with an interest in horror, I'd never really considered myself into the occult. I was and am a Christian. which I reminded Kieran of then. And he responded by doing this weird demonic cackle, like he was trying to act possessed, but obviously wasn't. And then he made some absolutely cringe statement

about how he was allergic to Christianity, which was odd because he'd never had a problem with my faith or even commented on it before. Check out this book, he said, or something like that. And I paused my game and turned around a look at him because I was so baffled by his cringe lord behavior. The god delusion had, had just gotten really popular the previous Christmas, so I figured that he was going to tell me

about that. And instead, he was waving around a copy of the Satanic Bible, and it looked like a library copy. Kieran had, he told me, gotten heavily into magic and rituals and crap. According to him, the Satanic Bible was filled with spells and mystical rites that let you summon all sorts of demons. I mean, it isn't. And even back then I knew that, but I couldn't be bothered to argue with him. Next, he pulled out this collected works of H.P. Lovecraft titled The Necronomicon. He told me it was the genuine book of the dead and contained dark and terrible secrets. Okay, clearly he hasn't even read it. And he kept going on showing me a bunch of books, clearly ones that he'd stolen from the library, mostly fiction, and I carried on pretending to be interested, but paying no attention, and I thought

nothing more of it until maybe a few days later. I was walking through the park at the center of town. It was a huge park that connected to the college and the local high school, so you'd often see high schoolers and college students hanging out in their various groups. You'd rarely see the two together, though, so I was surprised when I saw Kieran sitting with a group of goth emo-looking high school students. Our eyes met, and he gave me a kind of angry look and a little shake of his head, like, don't come over here, bro. Now I was curious, though, so I leaned against a tree just pretending to study a textbook. Kieran was talking to the high schoolers, most of whom were girls, about how he could do magic. He knew how to summon demons. He's done successful rituals many

times, he said. Typical Kieran bull crap. And then the conversation took a darker turn. He started telling them how he could grant wishes, as long as the wishmaker engaged in blood-sex magic with him. He was waving his freaking satanic Bible around and heavily implying that he could help. Obvious garbage that nobody would fall for, right? So you're probably already seeing the problem. These kids look like sophomores at best. Kai, one of the girls, was a freshman, the kid's sister of a buddy of mine called Jonas. She was 14, maybe 15, and Kieran was 22, and she was the one he was directing his attention at.

I watched them a bit longer, very dumb of me, but as much as Kieran annoyed me, I wasn't ready to throw away a long-term friendship over this without trying to reason with him. On top of that, the rest of the gang was overly forgiving towards Kieran and would rarely accept anything bad about him. And as I was watching, a couple of my buddies from college called me over, and we got caught up in conversation very briefly. And when I looked back, Karen and Kai were gone. I asked one of the boys where the older emo guy who had been hanging around had gone,

and they told me that had gone with Kai to the store. I knew the store Kai had probably gone to, so I jogged over there. Kai was standing outside, looking around awkwardly. And casually, I asked her if Kieran was with her. She acted suspicious and very cagey, and I thought that she wasn't going to answer. Then the bell over the door rang, and Kieran came walking out, holding plastic bags filled with

what I could tell was two six-packs of beer. And he looked at me, very guiltily, and mumbled something about seeing me later. And no way was I leaving Kai with Kieran. Kyi was looking uncomfortable and awkward and kept glancing at the beer. I could tell Kieran had bought it for her. And he asked them where they planned on going, and he told me they were heading to Andy's apartment. and I told Kai that I didn't think her brother Jonas would be cool with her hanging out with Kieran, and Kaya looked like she was about to cry. Kieran suddenly got in my face, pulling me to one side and hissing at me to not ruin this for him. I pointed out that Kai was like 14, and buying her alcohol was messed up on top of God knows what else he had planned.

He assured me it was nothing, and Kai did as well. If they were going to Andy's apartment, I didn't figure that the others would let Kieran get up to anything weird there. They might have been forgiving of him, but they wouldn't let him take advantage of an underage girl. Unfortunately, I had practice and I had to leave them. I hated that fact, but called up Andy who I trusted with my life and explained that situation to him. I told him where Kieran and Kai were and to make sure that they did end up going to his place and then asked him not to let anything happen to Kai. Fast forward to that evening, I got home, grabbed a bite to eat, showered, and then headed downstairs to the basement with a towel

around my waist. Kieran was sitting in the middle of the floor, a book open in front of him. Next to the book was one of those huge plastic, slushy soda cups that you get from the convenience store. Kieran was bare-chested and looked to be covered in blood, and he was holding a long, thin knife. I asked him what the hell was up and what he was doing here, and his face was all battered, bloodied, and swollen. He forced the words out, explaining how the guys had just turned on him and that they were all dead. At first, I panicked, thinking that Kieran meant that they were literally dead. And then he kept going on ranting about how they'd all get what was coming to them, etc.

Kieran drew blood and started smearing it on the book. I have no idea to this day what kind of ritual he thought he was performing or why he decided to act like this. I'd also like to stress up front that his state of mind was the product of being drunk and high, not some kind of serious mental illness, at least I think. And of course I didn't know this at the time, but I do now, and I wouldn't be sharing the story of Kieran was a victim in all of this. Now, since Kieran was holding a knife, I decided not to approach him for now, and instead retrieved my cell phone.

I had a bunch of missed calls from Andy and even a couple from Jonas, which didn't surprise me. I called Andy back and he explained that Kieran, had brought Kai over and tried to get her drunk. Then right in the living room, he started trying to persuade her to do more intimate things with him in exchange for, quote-unquote, magical blessings. Of course, they weren't having any of this, but Kieran became very belligerent. The guys called Jonas to come get his sister out of trouble, and when Jonas turned up and found his drunk, stoned, 14-year-old sister with Kieran, all he saw was red. After being beaten up, he was Andy said Kieran had fled, and I explained that he was in my basement doing blood rituals.

And after laughing their ass off, Andy'd offered to come help. And so that's how Andy and I spent the evening wrestling some drunk-stoned bloody Kieran out through my house and hurling him unceremoniously onto the lawn. We told him in no uncertain terms that he was no longer welcome around any of us, and if we even heard that he'd been trying to hook up with those high schoolers again, we'd make him wish that he'd never been born. and then Andy helped me add a new, strong latch to the basement window. Kieran became something of an infamous figure around town over the next 15 years. Thankfully, I never had to deal with him again outside of some evil looks, but he went on to become the town creep, basically. All sorts of dark rumors swirling around him,

but they're mainly of the predatory, creepy, loser, weirdo kind. And thankfully, he never succeeded in his attempts at blood magic or seducing high school girls. I'm a lot of school girls. I'm a pizza delivery guy for a small delivery guy for a small independent joint in Kentucky. Now, I won't brag, but we have a reputation for being the best there is in our town. And I can't take much of the credit. I'm not one of the chefs. One of the reason we're so popular, though, other than our buy one get one free Fridays, is that we deliver a bit further out

than our competitors. You see, we had the genius idea to invest a bit of extra mula into a couple delivery cars with heated seats. This has the bonus of keeping the pizza warm for longer, so we can deliver further out than our rivals. One of our regular stops is a local halfway house just outside in the boonies on the outskirts of town. We're the only pizza joint that delivers that far, and our competitors claim it's too far, but I don't believe them. I think they just don't want to deal with ex-cons and former or supposedly former addicts. But, you know, I'll tell you what, most of these guys who are just out of jail or down on their luck,

they're some of the best tippers you ever meet. Most folks like this aren't bad deep down, at least not when they're faced with a delicious piping hot pizza pie as a reward for a hard week's work anyway. So yeah, I always enjoyed getting sent on a delivery to the halfway house. I met some real interesting people, too. Sometimes they'll order real late, especially if pizza was on the supervisor, and he'd invite me to join them for a slice if my shift was over. That's the beauty of working for a little independent joint.

My boss doesn't care if I'd chill with the customers, and I bet Papa John's doesn't let you do that. Now anyways, this one night, I got an order for a single 12-inch pepperoni. Uncommon. Normally, they'd order enough to feed half a dozen or so guys, but not unheard of. When I pulled up outside the halfway house, most of the lights were off. It didn't look like anyone was in. Except there's this guy pacing back and forth in front of the steps. He's studying his cell phone, looking very very. nervous and bothered. And I could see his very pale complexion in the headlights of my delivery

car. Well, no worries, I thought. He's probably just jonesing for some pizza. And so I fished the bag out of the heated passenger seat and headed over to him. I opened with a nice greeting, but my words just die right there on my lips. I can just tell this guy isn't right. He's acting like a heroin junkie desperate for his next fix, scratching his neck, his eyes, darting this way and that, and I checked the name on the receipt. Uh, hey, you Freddy? I asked him. And he looks at me, nods, and then his phone seems to buzz.

His eyes are darting back down to it, like the phone itself is what's giving him his fix, but if this was a fix, it was a bad trip. And by now, I've taken the pizza out of the bag, ready to hand it to him and head off. He's already paid through the app, and something told me this guy wasn't giving me an extra tip. or inviting me inside to shoot the breeze with the other guys. I'm real sorry, Freddy says. And for a moment, I don't understand what he's saying. And then this fella just sort of fully uppercuts the pizza box that I'm holding.

Just punches it upwards and towards me, so the damn pizza, thankfully still boxed up, smacks me in the face. I'm momentarily disoriented. And then Freddy continues to charge me. for this small wiry guy let me tell you that he was strong i take a blow to the head thankfully softened by the pizza box in my face and a swift jab to the ribs then with the strength of someone who absolutely has to be driven by more than just regular energy he shows me to one side runs straight from my car and leaps in now the fool that i am i left the keys in the ignition to keep the headlights on so freddie does this absolutely epic U-turn, which would have been more impressive if it hadn't nearly hit me. Meanwhile, I'm tossing the pizza box aside and trying to get to my feet. Where's my damn cell phone, I thought? It turns out it had fallen into the bushes somewhere, and I could search for it later,

but for now, I just had to watch as Freddy peels off in my wonderful new Toyota Prius that belong to my employer. And let me tell you, this guy clearly could not drive. At the time, I had no idea if this was because he was on something or he simply couldn't actually drive, but I later found out that, yeah, he had no idea how to operate a car. So I just watched as my beloved Prius disappeared around the bend out of sight. Well, never seeing that again, I thought. Moments before I heard a terrible crash, and then the sound of multiple car alarms sounding at once. Freddy had made it about two blocks before reaching a more built-up area, spinning out of control and crashing into three parked cars. I didn't see this actually go down, but the owner

of one of the totaled cars immediately calls the cops. I was torn between sprinting down the hill and checking out the side of the accident, or knocking on the halfway house to ask for help finding my phone and getting a general idea of what the hell was going on. And I opted for the latter. And so here's what happened. Freddy had done a short stint in jail for possession. He was a reformed meth addict with reformed very much in air quotes, and he's been at the halfway house for just a few days. Apparently his girlfriend had been cheating on him while he was in jail, which really meant she'd broken up with his ass long ago, and for some reason when he got out of jail, he expected her to be waiting with open arms, and instead she was engaged. So Freddie,

in his infinite wisdom, decided that the best solution was to go and kill him. the fiancé. Then his girl would want to be with Freddy again or something, I guess, I don't know, I'm not on meth. But Freddy couldn't drive. So, he found our pizza flyer pinned to the halfway house notice board, read the note that we delivered there, and decided his grand plan would be to order a pizza, hijack my car, and then go and kill his ex-girlfriend's fiance. Maybe his ex-girlfriend, too. I found out later that they now lived three states away. He was convinced that he'd managed to drive across multiple state lines in a stolen vehicle having never operated one before in his life,

and this master plan would go off without a hitch. He didn't even have a weapon. But the next day, he also didn't have any legs. I don't mean to make light of the situation, but it's freaking ridiculous, isn't it? This guy screwed up his heist so badly that when he crashed into three parked cars, the collision was so bad that it resulted in both of his legs having to be amputated, one just above the knee and one just below. Sucks for him, and I really mean that. I feel bad for this dude.

And the rest of us, I guess we got off lightly. Damaged vehicles can be fixed. Amputated legs, as of now, not so much. Freddie went back to prison, of course, for parole violation and then a whole host of different offenses, and I still work for that same pizza joint. But now, I'm manager of a new branch that we actually recently opened, and I still make sure our guys deliver to that halfway house. One bad slice doesn't need to spoil the pie, as they say, and on the occasions where I feel

like doing a delivery myself, you can best believe those guys invite me in for a chat and ask me to tell them the story of the time a pepperoni pizza nearly cost me my life. countryside in the 1980s. And I had this mate called Gordon, who was properly obsessed with the army and all that stuff. And ever since I could remember, he'd been a military nut. He was the type of kid who played with little plastic army men, collected action dolls, and spent his pocket money at the wartime memorabilia shop in town. He had airfix model kits of a thousand different tanks and planes that he meticulously glued together and paint. And I tried to make a couple of kits one time and just got glue everywhere, and my paint applications would have made a Warhammer

fan weep. Gordon's grandpa Derek was a World War II veteran. He lived alone in a little ground floor flat, and Gordon and I would often go visit the old man on a weekend. He was a genuinely lovely fella. Imagine the classic loving grandpa archetype, and that was basically him. My parents and Gordon's parents were friends, and my nan and granddad were friends with Gordon's grandpa Derek. And so it was never considered strange that Gordon would bring his friends over to visit Grandpa Derek, especially me. Now, don't worry, this doesn't end with Grandpa Derek being outed as some nunts or anything. He was a lovely man, right up until his death in a nursing home in the 90s. Alzheimer's is a real bummer.

No, the issue you see was with Gordon. It was pretty obvious even to me as a kid that Grandpa Derek didn't really like talking about his time in World War II. He especially didn't like how excitable and bloodthirsty Gordon would get when he asked his grandpa repeatedly about those he'd killed. I'm sure Grandpa Derek had loss of thoughts about his grandson's idolation of the war, but he was a loving grandpa who didn't want to upset a little kid, so he just smiled and told whatever stories his PTSD would allow. When the event I'm going to talk about happened, Gordon and I were maybe ten. It was a Saturday, and we've been to visit Grandpa Derek along,

with our third friend, Eugene. Eugene wasn't one of Gordon's preferred friends. He kind of tagged along with us and complained about everything, and I understood why Gordon didn't like him, but I did. Gordon was in the mood with me that day for letting Eugene hang out with us, but after we'd visited Grandpa Derek, he kind of perked up. I had no idea why, but I knew that it had something to do with the fact that he disappeared off into the storage room in Grandpa Derek's flat while we were there.

after grandpa derricks Gordon led us out into the woods to play we had a sort of tree fort thing that we were building there that summer and this was the first time showing Eugene Eugene whined and moaned all the way through the undergrowth of course complaining about brambles and thorns and branches and midges and pine cones when we got there and he saw our cool fort Eugene got excited and we played soldiers for a bit of course it was soldiers Gordon only ever wanted to play soldiers, rampaging through the forest with stick guns,

pretending to kill each other in a myriad of gruesome ways. And after a while, Gordon called us over and asked if we wanted to see something cool. Of course we did. So he grabbed his backpack, reached into it, and produced two items that forever changed my life. One was a gun, which I would later discover was a Lugar P-O-8. and the other was a grenade. There were always stories in the news about kids finding live grenades and fields or things like that, and would even have an assembly about it when a guy had found one near us.

Even if we hadn't, though, I would have recognized what it was because Gordon was so obsessed with war and weaponry, so I also immediately recognized the fact that it was missing the pin. I was concerned that this meant that the grenade was live and dangerous. Eugene wasn't just concerned. In that moment, he was petrified. He pointed at the grenade and actually shrieked at Gordon that it was going to explode at any moment, and that Gordon had no idea how dangerous that thing was that he held.

He could kill all of us with it. And I'll never forget the smile that crept over Gordon's face. I know, he said. Eugene and I looked at each other exchanging a silent agreement not to make any sudden move. moves. Gordon carefully tucked the pistol into his jacket pocket and gripped the grenade. If I pressed this lever, it'll blow us all up, he said. Now, being the voice of reason, I told him maybe don't do that.

And Eugene just yelled something else. Gordon was looking wistful, talking about how if we blew up, we'd be heroes, dying heroically in battle, he said. I pointed out that it's only a battle if there's a battle. an enemy, that it would just be us dying in a stupid accident. Eugene was starting to get frantic and I could see him glancing over his shoulder like he was getting ready to run. I was genuinely terrified that if he did, Gordon would throw the grenade and just blow us all up. Please, Gordon, I said. And Gordon gripped the grenade tighter, and now he was talking about honoring his

grandpa Derek's fight. What? I thought. This kid was mental. And I told him as much, and Gordon just stared at me and stepped forward menacingly. I didn't stop to think. I grabbed the grenade out of his hand and flung it, and then I braced myself for impact. Silence. We all stood there frozen for a moment, and then Gordon started laughing, like a maniac. It was a model. It's fake.

I stared at him. absolutely astounded and speechless. The whole thing had been a prank. Serious po-faced Gordon had pretended that he was going to kill us all as a prank. That was awesome. I started laughing too. Eugene didn't really see the funny side, but even he was keeping his calm. I think we were both just relieved that a friend wasn't actually mental and we weren't going to die.

I shoved Gordon in the shoulder, kind of just good-naturedly, and he laughed and sort of stumbled backwards. Something fell from his jacket pocket, and I heard the clunk of metal, then a loud, echoing bang that made my ears immediately ring. Gordon's face went white. Eugene crumbled to the ground, almost in slow motion. I turned to look at him, mouth again. I could see a bloody wound on his forehead. When I had shoved Gordon, the pistol he'd stolen from his grandfather, Derek, had fallen out of his jacket pocket and hit a rock. And as I said, we later found out it was a Lugar P-O-8.

Grandpa Derek had kept it ever since the war. He thought it was unloaded and non-functional, so he said anyway, but it turned out it must have just been jammed or. hadn't been used in a while. Hitting the rock caused it to discharge, and the angle that it fell meant that it shot Eugene right square in the middle of his forehead. And shockingly, Eugene was fine. The wound looked nasty,

but in actual fact, the bullet had grazed him and ricocheted off the hard, bony part of his forehead. It turns out it can actually be quite hard to lethally shoot someone in the head, but nevertheless, Eugene was incredibly incredibly lucky here. It also turned him into the coolest boy in school, a reputation he maintained from then on. And we're still friends to this day, old geysers ourselves now, I guess, and Gene often jokes

that being shot in the head as a kid was the best thing that ever happened to him. Grandpa Derek managed to avoid any real trouble for owning that gun. This was quite a while before UK gun laws became a lot stricter, so he got away with a bit of a telling off from the Rosers and his daughter, Gordon's mom. Gordon was in the absolute doghouse, though. His parents made him get rid of all of his military models and toys, and they banned us from visiting Grandpa Derek without adult supervision, mostly for Grandpa Derek's protection, really.

Thankfully, things ended up okay and Gordon grew up to become normal, a well-rounded adult, and the incident in the punishment absolutely put him off any and all interest in the military, though. and the kid who always insisted that he was going to grow up to be a soldier, ended up as a manager at Sainsbury's. Jean and I still keep in touch with him, and Gene takes great delight in never letting Gordon live down the time that he shot him in the head. If you're someone who always leaves shopping to the last minute,

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of England, so I'm very sorry for any strange punctuation and such. And I hope I don't come across like a thunder-twunt-cuck-wit. Now, any road, I was a pizza delivery guy in the UK for a few years, ending in 2020 after I got COVID and had to self-isolate, but at which time, people just weren't ordering pizza in our little village anymore. We have a bunch of things in the UK. Proper cheese, marmite, old remnants of World War II, where you least expect them, Cornish pasties. You know what we don't have, though? Kaju. At least I thought we didn't, up until that night in the winter of 2017.

I was sent out by the big pizza chain that I worked for to deliver a pizza to an address I'd never heard of. It fell just inside of our delivery area. And I was one of the moped drivers, and it was a bit of a struggle to follow the GPS directions while riding a scooter. So it kept having to pull over. I knew for sure that by the time I reached the customer, the pizza and pizza and sides were probably going to be cold, which meant a complaint and probably a discount that would come out of my wages. To make matters worse, the route seemed to be leading me down the back roads through the forest. Now, nothing wrong with that in the daylight, but I've always been a bit

of a scaredy cat not going to lie, so I just hunkered down and headed for roughly where I thought the location was. And then, I heard the kaiju sound. You know the sound. You probably heard something like it a thousand times, even if you haven't seen a single Godzilla movie. It's like that bong from inception mixed with Godzilla's roar. Hollywood uses it in trailers all the time, but less so back in 2017. But every time, it's an indicator that something big, bad, and terrifying is coming. Bwong, I heard it through my crash helmet. Bong, I kept driving, not wanting to look up. Now, I knew deep down that a freaking Godzilla wasn't going to be towering over the trees. I knew a T-Rex wasn't going to come charging after me, and I knew King Kong wasn't about to beat his chest and howl at me.

And I knew Leonardo DiCaprio wasn't about to tell me I was in a dream. But the sound was happening. I wasn't imagining it. Things just got weirder when I saw a cardboard sign up ahead attached to a tree. It literally said, Pizza Guy, this way. Yeah, that wasn't sketchy at all. Godzilla roars and a mysterious sign, I should have just booked it out of there, except now I realized where I was. Out in the woods was an old World War II bunker.

We used to hang out there as kids sometimes, and there was an old broken air raid siren attached to the outside. Wincing against the sound, I realized that someone had got it functioning, at least enough to play their own recorded sounds through it. Now, you might think I was a total mutton head for grabbing the pizza and heading to the door of the shelter. But I kind of knew who was staying there. It was a group of squatters, hippie types, who wanted to live off the grid and had decided to make that air raid shelter their home until, presumably, the council came along and kicked them out. I knew because a buddy of mine had been hanging out with them a bit, and it made sense that he might have been the one to order pizza or at least orchestrate it. I knocked on the door to the bunker. No answer.

Well, I wasn't having that. The order was a cash on delivery. If the pizza didn't get paid for, I didn't get paid. And so balancing the boxes of pizza, garlic bread, and chicken wings on one hand, I gave the door to the shelter a shove, and it just swings open. The sporadic siren sound was still going off. I kept my crash helmet on, if only so I didn't have to hear that annoying kaiju roar. They'd done up the main room of the shelter pretty nicely,

and I remember coming here as a teen to drink and smoke and clumsily try and hook up. up with girls. The place used to be covered in shite graffiti and stank of piss, and now it looked like the hippies had painted it, spruced the place up. There were even a few potted plants sitting around. It would have been nice, if not for the utterly eerie feeling caused by it being deserted. I was getting pretty fed up with carrying the food around and also that roaring kaiju sound, so I looked around, and there was a desk and would look like some kind of audio equipment. Although to me it looked defunct, switched off maybe, but at least I had somewhere to put the food down, and inside the shelter the noise was nowhere near as bad.

But then, even through my helmet, I heard the distinct crack of a footstep behind me stepping on something. Then, I felt the distinct crack of something hitting me square across the shoulder blades, hard. I let out a loud yell and whirled around. The guy who stood in front of me was topless, his hair long, lank, and greasy, and he had a wild and unkempt beard. His torso was smeared with something. Let's just say that it didn't smell good. He was holding a pole cue, and that's what he'd hit me with. I can't tell you exactly what he yelled at me, but it sounded something like,

Terrible lizard man sucking him, Willie! And then he smacked me with a pole cue again. This time he hit me in the head and the pole queue snapped in half. I remember, I was wearing my moped crash helmet, so I barely felt the blow. But then this deranged lunatic started lunging at me with the snapped pole queue. I did the only thing I could think of. I jumped forward and head-butted him full force in the face. And in that moment, his nose pretty much exploded, sending blood all over my visor.

And I could barely see. so I let up my own feral roar. Godzilla himself would have been proud. Then I delivered the hardest kick I could muster right into the deranged hippie's taint. He hooted and hollered, and that was all the time I needed to shove him away, dash outside, flip up my blood-covered visor and very slowly speed away on my piece of chain-branded moped. When I was what felt like a safe distance away, I called the cops. Of course, this was the British countryside, so it took them hours to show up at the old shelter, and by then I'd already gone back to the restaurant and explained what happened. I don't think my manager believed a word

of it until the cops eventually called. They hadn't found anyone in that old shelter. They did find some blood and the broken pool queue and the jerry-rigged siren in the laptop. The hippies themselves weren't there, though. In fact, they were all accounted for at an outdoor rave in a farmer's field, all above board. They claimed they had no idea whom my assailant could have been, and he was never caught. But the worst part, the pizza and sides had also been taken by the time the cops arrived. Thankfully, I did eventually get answers a few months later. The same guy tried to rob the local village post office. He was a violent crack addict or something who had been in and out of prison for years. When I was called to identify him in a lineup for one of his many crimes,

an officer let slip that I'd gotten off really lucky. Here's the weird part. This guy swore blind that he did not set up that laptop to play kaiju, roar, inception, bong sound. He copped to everything else, attacking me, the armed robbery, a few other things too. But that, he insisted it wasn't him, and so did those other hippies. None of them had any reason to lie, though, and nobody would have gotten in trouble for that. So who or what the hell was causing that strange, terrifying monster roar? I'm not sure I'll ever know, and frankly, I think I'm just okay that I survived.

I finished high school a few years ago, just before COVID hit. In my senior year, though, my buddy James became a major weirdo after getting heavily into anime. Now listen, I'm not trying to generalize here. I'm into all that kind of stuff as well. I love Dragon Ball Z as a kid, and I've kept up with a few animas over the years, like Bleach, Tokyo Ghool, Attack on Titan, etc. I love Akira and Ghost in the Shell as much as the next man, and spirited away is my favorite movie of all time.

And I'm not here to dunk on James for liking anime. The problem is the kind of anime he became obsessed with and how it changed him as a person. I think you can probably guess the type. I won't go into details. It happened after he broke his leg just before summer break leading into our senior year. He was immobile, so he spent the whole summer just shut up. way in his room, watching anime and posting about it online. At first, I thought it was great. I was the one who'd tried to get him into a few shows previously, but then his tweets and

Facebook posts got weirder and weirder. And like I said, I won't go into details and give examples. You just can imagine the kind of weird wifu types of posts, just strange and a bit perverted. Now, he's always been kind of a malady, nice guy type, but harmless with it. He was a bit goofball, just a sort of silly, fun guy. And after that summer, though, he was downright odd. He'd also gotten some kind of job working online, so between a lack of going out and an increase in disposable income, he'd developed the means to start a particular collection. I first saw it when I got back from a European vacation with my family. I'd been on vacation for just over three weeks, so I hadn't seen James in that time. I'd drop by his house to check in on

him and it turned out to be the day that he'd had his cast removed. He was back on his feet, so to speak. James led me up to his room and proudly displayed his brand new wall of shelves. Filled was anime figurines. They weren't normal anime figurines, no. They were all girls, and most of them were in various states of undress. James told me that the collection was displayed in order of when he'd first bought them, and I could see a noticeable uptick and explain. implicit imagery as I went down the shelves. I started out with just girls, and girls in bikinis, and then girls wearing less than bikinis, and then girls engaging in, well, acts. James was like super proud of his collection, and I almost thought he was trolling me,

if not for the fact that he clearly spent thousands of dollars on these plastic girls. It made for the most painfully awkward, uncomfortable afternoon. If you've never seen, spent a few hours with the guy talking you through all the plastic toy girls he owns, while the girls in question gaze at you lustfully, then I severely don't recommend it. It was a big yikes. School started back up after summer break, and I was kind of dreading seeing James again after following his social media posts and seeing his collection. I hadn't exactly been one of the cool kids in the first place, but I'd seen some of the replies James had been getting from our friends and classmates, and I knew that they were laughing at him.

not only behind his back, but straight to his face. James had been my best bud for the three years that we've been in high school together. There was no way that I wouldn't end up seen as uncool by association. It would have been different than I felt like I could stand up for him or justify his weirdness, but nude anime chicks. Come on, man. At least keep it to yourself. And sure enough, when school started again, James was just talking about anime and wifus and crap like that non-stop.

And looking back, I should have told him to go pound sand much earlier than I did, but I was too nice for my own damn good. Or too lazy, I don't know. Thankfully, James wasn't my only friend, so I started hanging out with Peter and Trent more often, messing around on our skateboards or hanging out in the quad. Strength and numbers meant that even though James was around, I wasn't too tarnished by his weird anime girl persona. And then the transfer student showed up. her name was hi she was a korean american and of course james was immediately hopelessly smitten by her he was a sad loser though so of course the idea of just introducing himself to her and being normal

never occurred to him instead he got this idea from some anime he'd watched that the way to hie's heart was leaving notes from a mysterious admirer in her locker this lasted for three notes when and High caught him slipping the third note into her locker. The way High reacted sealed her doom, though. You see, it turns out that High was one of the nicest, kindest, sweetest, sweetest people ever put on God's Green Earth, and so her natural reaction to James' unrequited love was to let him down gently by telling him she wasn't looking to date anyone right now. She followed this by trying to be a good friend to him.

On one hand, I wasn't complaining because it meant that one of the prettiest girls I'd ever seen was hanging out around me. On the other hand, it meant that James would not stop harassing her and hitting on her. He was just gross, always making suggestive comments, always leering at her being real vulgar and awful, and I just kind of smiled and took it. Meanwhile, she and I were getting close. I'm not sure whether James had worked this out already, but he started showing us photos of his anime girl figurine collection.

and he'd constantly buy new figures and thrust his phone in her face, showing weird photographs of his silly little statues. And High was very polite about it, but it made her more and more uncomfortable until one day, she broke down in tears in my car and told me just how awful James was making her feel. That's when she showed me the DMs. It turns out James had been privately messaging her with his fantasies about her and being his wifu. To this day, I'm not sure that he knew or even cared that she was Korean, not Japanese. Again, not giving examples, but it was vile.

And, of course, it made my blood boil extra hot because I was really starting to actually fall for this girl. Now, next day at school, I told James, in no uncertain terms, to back off and leave high the Frick alone. Amazingly, that worked for about a week. And then, all the madness started. explicit images were stuck all over Hye's locker. She found an open condom in her bag. Someone wrote a slur on my locker. Someone keyed my car.

Crudely photoshopped images of H's face stuck on these H girls that we found around school. And, of course, it was James. He managed to avoid me directly for a few days, and then one day he came storming towards us in the quad, and he started ranting. yelling, crying even about how high had broken his heart and ruined him. Then he grabbed her. James grabbed high, pulled her towards him into an embrace, and according to him, accidentally

groped her chest. She screamed, I screamed. Then I was on, James, punching and pummeling and pounding him, feeling his face under my fists, all my rage and disgust at him just pouring out. I was suspended for about a month while the school administration pieced things together. Thankfully, there was security footage and witness testimony that James had grabbed high and groped her. I very narrowly avoided expulsion in a criminal record. Thankfully, everyone was so disgusted with James, even his family, that I got off lightly.

I absolutely do not recommend solving your problems by punching them repeatedly in the face. I regret what I did, but not because I feel bad for James. James pretty much got away with assaulting high, and she wouldn't press charges because she was concerned that it would get me in worse trouble. Honestly, she was probably right, but I hated that creepy anime James basically got away with it and had nothing more than a bruised face and a deservedly damaged reputation. At least he eventually transferred schools and via some Facebook stalking,

I had the satisfaction of knowing that he didn't graduate that year and actually had to repeat his senior year. I know the story would be a lot scarier from Hye's perspective, but, and I kid you not, she feels bad for talking smack about James. So she asked me to send this in from my perspective instead. In case you're wondering, Hye and I are still together six years later,

and as for James, we can only guess. I work for a pizza restaurant that prides itself on getting things right, and we're hella anal about it. We literally have one of those signs, like in the intro to the Simpsons that says XXXX days since the last incorrect order. Whoever's on shift at the counter has to be reset to zero, we all have to do a forfeit. It's all in good fun, but it just goes to show you how much care we take over getting things right. The funny thing is we've never had a customer complain on the rare

occasion we have made a mistake either. It's not like anything drove us to set up this little game. It just seemed like a cool idea. All of our regular clients were chill. And that is, until Colleen. Actually, in all fairness, Colleen had been chill in the past, but then we'd never gotten her order wrong before. Obviously, I was one of the unlucky ones due to a forfeit that day. I was the delivery driver, which meant that I should have quality checked the order before heading out, so, yeah, it does suck.

But part of our perfect pizza promise is that if we get your order wrong, even one bit of it, you don't have to pay for any of it. It was around five in the evening. I arrived at Colleen's house minutes before the estimated delivery time. She'd clearly just gotten back from taking her kids to band practice or ballet or something, and she was hustling her children, a boy who looked about 12, and a girl who looked about eight out of their station wagon. When she saw me, she huffed and was clearly flustered already,

scolding me for being early. And as politely as I could, I told her that our estimated delivery time was just that, an estimate, and six minutes early was typically considered good. I could see her eyelid twitching at this, and her face was going red. The term Karen really wasn't a thing at this point, but Colleen was clearly going to be a Karen before Karen's were cool. The kids were both just really excited that the pizza delivery girl had shown up. Colleen, meanwhile, was determined that because I was early, there had to be something wrong.

First, she inspected the garlic bread. I've never seen anyone study garlic bread with such scrutiny. At one point, she was sniffing it so closely that I thought that it might go up her nose. The garlic bread was fine, and so was the rice, and so was the pasta. And then she opened the 20-inch pizza box, a delicious-looking margarita pizza with extra cheese. The kids looked on with awe and excitement. Colleen, meanwhile, flushed beat red. Her eyes opened wide in that kind of angry, preemptive way that some people,

managed when you just know that the poop is about to hit the proverbial fan. She looked at the pizza, and then she looked back at me, and then back at that pizza again, and then back at me. She spoke her next word slowly, carefully, deliberately, like I was the stupidest person she'd ever met. There is no pineapple on this pizza. Uh, that's correct, ma'am. And for a moment, I was confused. Why would there be pineapple on a double-cheese margarita?

They're supposed to be pineapple, you little idiot girl! Colleen hissed. I looked down at their seat. Ah, balls, she was right. She'd ordered pineapple as an additional topping on the margarita. Oh, ma'am, I'm so sorry. I said, but good news. This means your whole order is free. Colleen stared at me like I just told her we'd filled our stuffed crust with her dead grandmother.

Angrily, she shout hiss that she does not care about free. She cared about the missing pineapple. She wanted the missing pineapple. And then her kids, bless them, spoke up. They said they really didn't mind, that they didn't actually like pineapple on pizza, that much. I thought I could see fear in the sun's eyes as he spoke and that's when I knew something was very wrong. We ordered pineapple! Colleen shrieked. Then, with a dexterity that only an angry soccer mom can muster, she hurled the entire 20-inch pizza box straight at me. It hit me square in the face, and I just stood there for a second, trying to push down my bubbling anger. I couldn't retaliate. I couldn't even yell back. Never before had I experienced a customer

hurling a pizza in my face, and it was still hot. It hurt. The most I could do was quickly reach up and try and wipe the melting cheese off my skin before it burnt me. Colleen's daughter had begun to cry. Oh now look what you've done! Colleen screamed at me, as if it was my fault and not her lunatic rampaging outburst. I didn't think that it could get worse from there, but I didn't factor in Colleen's insanity, nor did I factor in her seemingly fresh manicure. The smartly-dressed, tightly-wound woman in her 30s

leaped at me like some kind of horror-movie werewolf. Her claws were out, and she wanted to hurt me. I screwed my eyes tightly shut to protect my eyeballs, and by God I'm glad I did, because I felt her sharp nails raking down my face across my cheek. Her kids were screaming. I was screaming.

Colleen was screaming. Then, my savior appeared. I couldn't see her at the time, but I later recognized her as another customer, Shana, who lived a few doors down. A large woman, she barreled into Colleen so hard that Colleen went flying along the sidewalk, crashing in some plastic recycling bins. I wiped at my eyes, desperately trying to clear them of cheese and tomato sauce. and Shauna started to ask me if I was okay while Colleen's kids screamed and cried.

Then Colleen was up, charging again, this time directly at Shauna, and through blurry vision I saw that she was holding her keys like some type of weapon. No, I wasn't having Shauna, my savior, getting keyed by this dumb party soccer mom over the lack of pineapple on pizza. I can't explain how I did this. I had zero experience in fighting or combat, and especially, not wrestling. But as Colleen charged Shana, I reached out my arm and braced myself and fully, perfectly clothesline that bitch. This might have been my imagination, but I swear both of Colleen's kids cheered. With Colleen winded and knocked to the ground, Shana proceeded to

straight up sit on her until the cops arrived. Next, the kid's father, Colleen's ex-husband, Colin, I'm being serious when I say that name, turns up. The cops took Colleen away away, Colin took the kids away, and Shauna and I had to go to the station to give our statements. Colin and Shauna both remained loyal customers, so I got to find out a little more about what happened. You see, Colleen had developed an addiction to both Xanax and Adderall, and between that and a messy divorce, I guess she had gone a little cuckoo. Colin had been fighting for custody of the kids, but the courts in our state aren't particularly known for siding with fathers. After Colleen's pizza attack,

though. Thankfully, the kids got to live with dad and eventually had court-appointed supervised visits with Mom. Colleen didn't go to prison. She went to a psych ward for a bit and then rehab, and I agree with that decision. Meanwhile, Shauna, Colin, and the kids were given VIP cards to our restaurant, which meant that they could eat there twice a month totally for free. Oh, and in case you're wondering, the boss decided we could waive my forfeit for the incorrect order this time. Being almost blinded by pizza and false nails was deemed punishment enough. ever had was a kid called William. I was kind of forced to be his friend, and we were put together at kindergarten because our moms were friends, and William decided that I was going to be his.

I don't mean his friend. I mean his. You see, in his eyes, he owned me. I was a walking, talking, living, breathing toy for William's amusement. And what I mean by that is his favorite game was making me cry. We were like five, and already William knew a dozen ways to pinch, rod, poke, and stab me, and his bullying never got noticed. He was the type who'd reach under the table and pinch you on the soft flesh of your thigh or flick the back of your ear with a rubber band. Because of William, I got a reputation as a cry baby, prone to bursting into tears over nothing. I was too scared of William to tell anyone that he was actually hurting me pretty consistently. Sometimes at recess, he'd make me go behind the school and choke me with my t-shirt

collar until I puked. Other times he would do this burn on my arm and it felt like the skin was going to split. He pulled my hair out. He just prod me with these pins that he had and I was known as the clumsy kid who was always breaking his toys or tearing his clothes or tripping and crying. But no. Looking back, it was always William. I wish there was a twist that I could add here. Like a, and William was my imaginary friend, but he was very real. And this very real, and this very real very unpleasant torment continued throughout elementary school. There had been one blissful moment where William's family decided to move away because his stepdad got a promotion, but then that fell through and I was stuck with my bully and tormentor, and it seemed like it would last

forever. The wildest part is that William also seemed to actually like me and enjoyed spending time with me. Over the years, he'd made sure that I had no other friends, so back then I guess I thought this kind of friendship was normal. Looking back now, it fills me with terror, but back then I genuinely thought William was my friend, and I convinced myself I enjoyed spending time with him in return. I'd invite him over to play most weekends, even though it would inevitably lead to my things getting broken or William somehow getting in trouble with my parents. Occasionally, we would play at William's house. His family was a lot richer than mine. William had a dog, an older sister, and Nintendo. William would never let me play the Nintendo, but he'd let me watch, always promising

that I could get the next turn until inevitably we ran out of time. Another thing William had was bunk beds. This meant on the rare occasion we had a sleepover, it was usually at William's house. Somehow my childish mind would allow itself to be afraid of William at night, so I never wanted to sleep over at his, but occasionally I had no choice because my parents were going away or something. My mom and William's mom were friends, like I said, so William's house was always the first choice if I had to stay overnight somewhere. We were eight and nine when this happened. I was the older of us by just a few months, and it was the middle of the night. When I slept over, William let me take that top bunk, and this seemed really exciting to me as someone who didn't have a bunk bed.

But later I realized it was because William always slept on the bottom bunk because he was afraid of heights. I woke up to William tugging on my arm. He made me get out of bed and threw water in my face to wake me up. This was typical William fashion. And next he told me we were going to the park. I knew we weren't supposed to go out in the middle of the night, especially not alone at that age, but I really couldn't say no to him. I didn't even have to say anything.

He was already reaching to pinch me if I started to protest. Now this was around May and it was warm out. I didn't mind too much that William made me wear my pajamas to the park even though he'd been allowed to dress, and at least he let me wear shoes. At the park near William's house, there was a really tall jungle gym that William never let us play on because he said it was gay. That night, though, it was the focus of his attention. Climmed to the top, he commanded me. Now I should point out that this was a children's park in the 90s, so there was minimal lighting, and there was one lamp that made things barely visible, but nowhere near enough light to

let us play safely on the equipment at night. William didn't care, though. He wanted me to climb to the top of that jungle gym, and by God, was he going to make me do it? Thankfully, I was a pretty agile kid, and the thought of climbing to the top didn't really bother me, even in the dark. Now, I climbed up the netting and onto the top bars, knowing it was far easier than facing William's anger. And when I was at the top, William told me to do a handstand. Now, I say I was at the top, William told me to do a handstand. Now, I say I was agile, but I wasn't Spider-Man. William could hurt me as much as he wanted to. I couldn't do something I couldn't do.

He knew it, I guess, because when I said no, he just shrugged and turned away. I lost sight of him in that darkness. And then something hit me in the head, hard. Pain and light flashed before my eyes, and I stumbled backwards, which of course meant that I fell 12 feet to the head. ground. I slammed into the ground and just felt myself, for lack of a better words, break. I have no idea how else to describe it. It was like a sudden, sharp, cracking ping through my body and then nothing. I could taste copper, though, and smell it, too. I could feel a wetness around my

cheek. Was I crying already? Now, I was bleeding from what I'd later discover was a serious skull fracture. I tried crying out for help, but there was no sound coming out of my mouth. I just let out a few wet gasps. I couldn't even move my head or turn to look. And I heard William walking over to me, though, and then he sat down facing me. Why wasn't he getting help? And he proceeds to say, See, this is what happens when you don't do what I say. Then my supposed best friend in the world went off on some rant about how I always needed to obey him because it would keep me safe, that if I'd just on a handstand, I wouldn't have fallen off the climbing equipment. I remember him rocking back and forth a little as he talked, like he was just in

complete shock. And at first, I hope that was the case. But the more he talked, the more I realized that he was just excited to see me broken, bleeding. And as far as I knew at that time, I knew, time, dying. And that's when the pain kicked in. This sort of white hotness throughout my whole body, so bad that I can't even recall how it felt if I tried. I remember feeling relief, too. If my legs hurt so much, then I couldn't be paralyzed, right? I still couldn't move, though, not at all. I was starting to swim in and out of consciousness. Meanwhile, William, eight years old, let me remind you, kept lecturing me about how this was my fault, how I brought this on myself. And in that moment, I finally realized that William might actually, genuinely let me die.

And nearly a whole hour later, that's how long William waited before going to get help. And I actually believed that he was hoping that I'd die so he somehow wouldn't get in trouble. But he didn't. He had no choice but to go and wake his mom and stepdad. I barely remember the paramedics finally getting there, or the trip to the hospital, or the immediate recovery. What I do remember is the relief that people believe me as soon as I told them everything. It all came out, this years of bullying and torment and torture,

how William had forced me to climb up that jungle gym and then throw a rock at my head. The rocket hit me square in the temple and was consistent with that projectile, and I later found out that the doctors had already told my parents that it looked like someone had thrown a rock at me, so I guess they already suspected my friend. I'd suffered a broken arm, two broken legs, multiple fractured ribs, and vertebrae. I required numerous surgeries and still kind of walk with a limp almost decades later. William's family was responsible for all my medical bills, and still I think my family would have given that kid the death penalty on top of it if they could have.

He didn't get sent to Juvie or anything, but his mom and stepdad sent him away to some kind of long-term behavioral camp for troubled kids, and apparently he was the youngest kid ever to get sent there. A few years later, William wrote me an apology letter. I didn't even want to read it. My parents let me throw it on a bonfire, and I'm forever grateful to them that they didn't force me to accept his apology, because refusing to do so was an incredibly healing experience for me.

I could have never believed his apology was genuine, not after having to lie there bleeding out on the ground as he lectured me about how my fall was my own fault. Now, I don't know what became of William, and I don't want to know. This is the first time I've talked about the experience in years. And to me, the best revenge on William is to treat him as an insignificant footnote. But, William, if by some chance you're also a let's-read listener and you hear this, Then I want you to know you almost killed me. From Adams Morgan to Anacostia Park, we all want safer neighborhoods. But what does real safety mean?

Real safety means preventing crime before it happens. by having police work with communities to disrupt cycles of violence, by supporting families with stable housing, and providing more mental health and drug treatment. We know that adding more police and locking up more people doesn't make us safer. Real safety means investing in the things that help prevent crime. Learn more at Real Safety, DC. ago, I worked delivering pizzas for a small family-owned pizzeria. Look, I'm not going to pretend that I

was totally oblivious to what else I was delivering along with delicious pies. Occasionally, along with the food, I'd be tasked with handing over a padded envelope that smelled suspiciously like weed. And back then, it was more common than he might think, pizza delivery doubling as a weed-dealing syndicate. And maybe I was naive, but I wasn't too worried about being busted. Wasn't my business, of my product, and I could just plead ignorance about what some of the sides actually were. It turns out I was an idiot. I wasn't the only delivery driver. I was just the low stakes guy, the one who did the weed runs. But the owner and his dad were into some much heavier stuff. I found this out the hard way, although I guess it was harder for them than it was for me.

So here's how my average night shift would go down. I was nearly always paired with this guy named Dan. Dan was an old-ass man, easily in his 60s, probably older, and he was the father of Kernow, the owner. Dan and Kernow were two of the best pizza chefs that the world has ever known, and I stand by that. Once you've tried a deep-ditched Dan or a stuffed crust kernel, you'd be converted. I'm convinced they could have dominated the pizza business even without the side trade and drug dealing, but I guess we'll never know.

Kernow has his own delivery boys, and I was always paired with Dan. I think when Dan and I were working, that was just the soft stuff. Kernow and his boys handled the crack, the smack, and God knows what else was doing the rounds in those days. Dan, full name Bogdan, moved to America as a teen from Serbia, so who knows what kind of thing he knew how to cook up. I heard Crocodile mentioned in the aftermath, but I think that was just a rumor. Now, anyway, I love Dan. He was one of the nicest, sweetest, most gentle old men you've ever met. I vaguely knew that he'd seen some heinous stuff in Serbia, but he never talked about it.

He made a killer pizza, and sometimes he'd hook consenting adults up with a bit of weed before it was legal, big frickin' whoop. I loved him, and I loved working with him. Colonel, not so much, but just because he was aloof and a bit scary. He was a big, stoic and cold individual, and I was a scrawny-ass little runt of a kid who grew up with a stepdad who was a bit of a dick weasel. The point is, I loved Dan, and I loved working for him. It was a Saturday night. We got the call in, a normal order of a deep dish Dan, our Saturday signature special. Probably some sides, too, I forget.

So these were the days before GPS and apps and things like that. So if you had to deliver an address you didn't know, you used a map. And so that's exactly what I did. Dan cooked up a mean pizza, and I headed out in the van to deliver it. When I reached the location, I figured that there must be a mistake. It was a boarded-up condemned building that clearly did not have anyone living there, let alone someone ordering pizza. I double-checked the map. Definitely the address I had written down on the order slip.

Thankfully, there was a payphone nearby. Remember those? I sure freaking do. And I called up the restaurant to check with Dan in case I'd written the address down incorrectly. Dan didn't pick up, and that was weird. Maybe we'd had a rare walking customer. It wasn't impossible. I called a couple of more times over the next 15 minutes and there was still no answer.

I was beginning to get a real uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. By now, the pizza had gotten cold anyways, so I made the 20-minute drive back to the restaurant. I could tell something was wrong as soon as I got there. The front door was open. Dan never left it open. If a customer left without closing it, Dan would be there in seconds to keep the heat. in. The second indication was the smell of barbecue coming from the kitchen. Sure, we had meat feast pizzas and other meat dishes, but nothing that smelled like this. Our food didn't smell

wrong. In the kitchen, I didn't want to look at the elephant in the room, and so I looked at what had been written on the wall first. It was written in tomato puree, I found out later, but of course at the time I thought it was blood. It was a simple message. Your pizza, is done. Then I looked at the man, shoved into the pizza oven, only his lower torso and legs visible. I could see that the dials were turned all the way up, and I could smell that the dials were turned all the way up, too. I think that's what makes me feel the most sick to this day. The fact that Dan's roasting face smelled almost appetizing. Somewhere in my primal brain, I just smelled cooking meat, and I felt a pang of hunger.

before realizing this was freaking Dan, my beloved co-worker, the owner's dad. I just hoped he hadn't suffered. A large butcher's cleaver was embedded between his shoulder blades. I really hoped that he'd been murdered before they cooked his face off. And later I found out that he was very much alive as they held him in that burning hot oven, and I don't like to think about it. And as I stared, horrified, frozen, about to piss my pants.

I heard a scream from behind me. A guttural, tortured howl of grief. Colonel, shoved past me like he didn't even see me there. This man, this unflinching man who had always thought was made of cold steel, was weeping and howling like a baby, calling for his daddy, begging him to be okay. Before I could stop him, he pulled Dan from the oven. Most of Dan's face stayed behind.

Kernow fell to the floor with the body rocking back and forth, sobbing over his beloved father. And then he looked at me. His face hardened, and if Kernow scared me before, he terrified me now. You will not call the cops. He commanded me. Tomorrow you will find a new job. You will be taken care of. And so were they.

I didn't know exactly what he meant by they, but I knew enough to understand. I never went back to the pizza restaurant. I don't know how Kernow covered up the murder of his father. I don't want to know. I handled one final brown padded envelope, and this one didn't contain drugs. It contained enough money for me to comfortably move out of state and spend a few months looking for a new job, which is exactly what I did. Call me a coward, but I did not look into the after.

of what happened in my hometown. I know some kind of gang violence erupted. I know Kurno wasn't openly implicated in any of it, and for my own safety, I want to remain ignorant. Besides, this was decades ago. I have my own family now, and I set up my own restaurant. It's not quite the miraculous pizza joint that Dan deserves as a tribute, but it's the closest I can get. I hope that he's looking down at me from heaven with at least a bit of pride. Whatever his son was into, Dan didn't deserve this. As much as I don't want to know the details, I hope that Kernow was able to dispense some good old-fashioned justice.

I had a friend in high school who very nearly ruined my life. Their name was Leo, and they were smart. Genius-level smart. Too smart for his own good, really, which is why I got bored and did things to amuse himself. I hadn't really known him coming up through middle school in most of high school. I was kind of an average normal kid who was decently okay at school and decently. good at football and baseball. Most my buddies were more jock types, and Leo was a quiet, smart kid who I always just

figured was a band geek or a theater kid. Well, he was certainly theatrical anyway. One day in junior year, he just walked up to me, introduced himself, and told me that he was going to become my new best pal. I was kind of amused by this, and I'm a pretty easygoing and placid fella, so I sort of say, sure, why not? From then on, we spent the next year just hanging out, playing video games, going to the mall, fishing, just normal stuff that kids in the 2010s would do. I grew to really like this Leo guy, and he was a bit strange and mysterious, but it didn't really

bother me. We'd never hang out at his house, and I never met his family or knew anything about them. He told me he had a younger brother who died, but I later found out that wasn't even true. He had an older sister who was alive. And that was the first weird thing about Leo. Almost everything he told me during the few months that we were friends was some lie. Just completely made up, but in a meaningless way. He told me he lived in one part of town. It turned out to be another.

Not for any possible reason either. It just was a part of him amusing himself, I guess. I have no way of knowing exactly the extent of how many lies he told me in that time, but knowing what I know, I'm pretty sure. everything he said had a degree of untruth to it. And like I said, Leo would get bored and do kind of insane things just to amuse himself. When all of this was over, he confessed to me that at first he wanted to see if he could befriend someone and sustain acting like a completely different person to them. Why? Well, he would just say that he was bored. And if this was the

extent of it, then it would be a pretty creepy and pointless but ultimately harmless thing. Unfortunately, it didn't stop there. I discovered the following through hindsight so bear in mind that I didn't know any of this was happening at the time. His project was to steal something from my house every time he visited. It was always something meaningless that we wouldn't notice was gone or wouldn't assume it'd been stolen. A bottle of bleach. A ceramic banana. A small ornament from my Graham's bedroom.

My grandma lived with us when I was a high schooler. A pill from a prescription bottle. Various other things I forget because they were so insignificant. I only know about it because Leo presented them all to me one day. You'll see. His pen ultimate game was to convince me to be afraid of him. We were in senior year by this point, and he did this by repeatedly dropping hints that he was a serial killer.

I didn't work out what some of this meant at the time. He'd tell me that he enjoyed hurting a neighborhood cat or casually let slip that he'd been following a woman in the dark. Then he started referring to his trophies, and when I asked about them, he became coy and mysterious. And this is when I kind of stopped enjoying hanging out with Leo. I gradually started to drift away from him, and we went on with our lives. Then his final game began. One day I was minding my own business, happily working away in math class when I get called to the office. I had no idea why, of course, so my first thought was something bad.

had happened at home. This made me anxious and a bit jumpy, which really didn't help. And when I got there, the principal and her secretary were waiting for me, along with a member of the security team. They told me they needed to search my bag in my locker. And to this day, I have no idea if they were really allowed to do this, but I had no reason to deny them. First, I emptied out my school bag. Nothing weird to note here, just some books and a pair of gym socks. I remember the principal and security guard giving each other an odd look. I didn't even think to ask what was going on. I was still generally shell-shocked. Next, they marched me to my locker. They opened it up and searched through everything and again found nothing. And now I finally asked what was up. Sternly, the principal

told me that they'd received reports from multiple students about me. Apparently, I'd been talking about a hit list and had confided in a few kids that I had a locker full of firearms at school. Now, of course, all of this was nonsense, and the accusations made me freak out. I broke down in tears there in the hallway. I guess my reaction was so severe that they believed me because the secretary even took me back to the office and made me some tea. I asked who had accused me because they must be trying to frame me for some reason. The secretary stressed that she couldn't tell me anything, but that it had come from multiple students. And I was so, so confused. Again, let me remind you that I had no idea about Leo's

games at this point. At most, I just thought that he was an unsettling weirdo. A week or so later, I got an apology from the school. They were pretty brash about it, but they said that After further investigation, it turned out that the accusation against me was not credible, and that the students themselves have been misled and thought that they were helping. This last part, in particular, made me extra suspicious and curious, but I was so relieved not to be under suspicion that I just let everything drop. I only found out the truth of everything after graduation. I just started college away in a different state.

I had no idea where Leo had gone away to college and I didn't care to know. I'd always suspected he had something to do with the accusations against me. I'm sure he deliberately waited until we'd gone our separate ways, and he couldn't be traced before emailing him. And like I said before, I was a placid, an easy-going kid, but I think I would have kicked the crap out of Leo over this if I'd been able to. I got an email. He sent it to my private college email address, of course,

just to flex to show that he could track me down, I'm sure. And that's when he told me the truth about everything, or what I'm supposed to believe is the truth anyway. All the random, meaningless lies, he told me, compared to what the truth actually was, a whole bunch of things that were just utterly meaningless. And next he revealed all the things that he'd stolen from my house. He took in a photograph of all the items. It had a copy of that day's newspaper in the picture, too. Another pathetic little flex, I guess.

I'm sure he thought it made him seem cool and sinister. sir, that he kept all those items. To me, it just seemed pathetic. The idea of him transporting all this crap to his new life away at college just felt so sad to me. And then, he went on and on about the serial killer stuff, how he'd been trying to scare me and hoped it had worked. And I guess it sort of had, now.

And then finally he explained how he'd managed to convince a bunch of students I was going to do something terrible at school, how he'd managed to work things so that no Nobody knew the rumors came from him, and everybody involved genuinely thought that they were doing good by reporting me. Then he made sure to add that it was also his doing when I'd been found innocent, because he didn't want me to suffer from being falsely accused. He just wanted me to know that he could. And when I think about it, that's true.

It could have been so, so much worse. If someone sets their mind to ruining you, there's a good chance that they can do some degree, especially when you're a kid and can't necessarily work out how to fight back. If Leo had wanted to make things a lot worse for me back then, he probably could have because he was literally bored. And that's why I decided not to even reply to his email. Let him get it out of his system and forget me. And I never did hear from him again.

It's been quite a few years now, but anytime something goes wrong for me, I have to wonder. Anytime something happens that I can't explain, my first thoughts go to leave. Leo? Is he back? Is he screwing with me again? Has he thought of another game? I have no idea what became of Leo since he last emailed me, but I hope he's occupied. I really don't want to find out what happens if he ever gets bored enough to remember me again. I'm a delivery guy, but not a pizza delivery guy. I'm a long-haul trucker, delivering all manner of things. Usually washing machines or games, consoles, or fridges. Things you'd think are safe to transport, but you'd be surprised what people will heist. Now, true story, a truck carrying the entire U.S.

shipment of the killing joke action figures got robbed at gunpoint recently. Google it if you don't believe me. Anyway, when this went down, I was on a cross-country hall to Albany from Dallas. I'm legally not allowed to say what exactly I was carrying, but let's just say it was very expensive, very desirable equipment of the medical variety, the kind of cargo that it'd make me a bit more jumpy than microwave ovens or custom kitchen deliveries. If you get that reference, congrats. You're an old man like I am. The journey was said to be just over 24 hours, which meant that there was a rest stop and a few hours sleep on my itinerary. I timed things, so I'd get to stop at one of my favorite rest stops in Kentucky at around midnight. They had a killer 24-hour diner there,

and some other truckers I'd become familiar with over time often stopped there too, so we'd meet up and shoot the breeze. Imagine my disappointment when I pulled into the truck stop, only to discover that the diner was closed for refurbishments and the only other vehicle in the lot was a beat-up old range rover that looked like it had been abandoned there months ago nobody was answering the cb radio either just a completely dead night oh well i thought it happens i always planned for such eventualities and i'd packed a bunch of healthy well-rounded meal options such as slim jims twinkies cheetos and mountain do. You know, all that good stuff that helps keep my trucker bod slim and sveled. I chowd down on some dried meats, mainline to Twinkie or four, and listened to a couple of CDs and then decided to catch

a few hours sleep before continuing on. Normally on the road, I sleep like a baby. I just slip into the passenger seat, recline it a little, and I'm out like a shot. That night, though, no dice. Something felt off. Maybe it was the diner with all the lights off. Maybe it was the empty truck stop lot. Maybe it was the flickering street lamp near the turnoff. Now, I'm not a superstitious man. I can't explain it. I just had a bad feeling. Real bad. Like something about the whole place was wrong. Now, let me stress this year, I'd been to this truck stop at least a dozen times in the past. It was a favorite, but it was usually a hub of activity, even in the middle of the night. Being here alone felt like I'd cross some kind of portal, like I was in another world. I really am not the

kind of guy who falls into this type of thinking, though, I promise. I love horror movies precisely because they don't scare me. Yeah, I get a little paranoid about my cargo getting robbed very occasionally, and I guess that played into it here. But this was something else, man. It sounds like a cliche, but it was like an ill wind was blowing. And I mean that figuratively and literally. it had been a calm night but as soon as I parked the wind kicked up dust and leaves and debris billowing up around the parking lot then there was the abandoned range rover i could swear the windows had been busted out was it burned up i couldn't tell and then a voice in the back of my head was telling me to go check it out i had my trusty sidekick kirsty kirsty's my shotgun don't go anywhere without her

If I'm not supposed to have her, then I have a hiding place and, well, I'm not going to implicate myself, but she stays with me at all times in the truck. The idea of walking over to this abandoned car, though, just gave me the full on unfiltered hebi-jeebies, and the more I thought about it, the more it started bothering me. My mind started drifting towards various possibilities, and then it started drifting in general until suddenly I was falling asleep. I was nodding off into dreamland. I was... At that moment, I heard a knock, knock, knock. And holy freaking Christmas, I jolted awake. Was I dreaming?

Knock, knock, knock again. A little quieter this time, but someone was tapping on the driver's side window. And as I mentioned, I sleep in the passenger seat, and with a truck cab light off, I couldn't really see who was knocking. I could just see the vague shape of a human. I flick the interior light on, which made it even harder to see who was out there, and I gestured for them to come around to the passenger side, hoping they get the hint. And then, it was like they just disappeared, like they ducked down out of view.

What the hell? I shut off the interior light. A minute had passed, and then too, and I was starting to think that I'd imagined it, and I'd still been dreaming. Knock, knock, knock again, harder. this time right next to me, the passenger side window, and I jumped up. Okay, this wasn't cool. I grabbed my flashlight from the glove compartment and shown it at the visitor.

He was dressed in a pizza delivery outfit, a very well-known brand. He had the jacket, and he had the cap, brim pulled down low over his face. He didn't seem bothered by the flashlight shining rate in his face, but I angled it away regardless and then, against my better judgment, wound down the window. Can I help you, buddy? I asked. The pizza delivery guy seemed to grin at me.

I got the pizza you ordered, my friend. He said. I had not ordered a pizza. I was in the middle of an abandoned truck stop. My phone didn't have reception. The only way I could have ordered pizza was over the CB radio, and obviously I hadn't. I explained this to him, and not once did this guy's grin, falter. I could barely see him in the darkness, but his smile was like this bright white

catching the light reflecting off of it. The pizza delivery guy reeled off some real name and said that no. Definitely the pizza was mine and I'd ordered it. I reiterated that I had not and I didn't want pizza. In truth, I did, absolutely, but I wasn't accepting a strange pizza from a strange grinning guy. Now I shone that flashlight at him again. that's when I noticed the absolute state of his uniform. If this guy was a domino's employee, then his uniform had not been replaced since probably the 90s. It was torn. It was filthy. His cap was ripped with bits of hair sticking through places, and the logo was partially unstitched. Buddy, just move along, I said. I don't want your pizza. He told me he couldn't do that,

that I had paid for the pizza, and he'd be in a lot of trouble if I didn't accept the food I'd paid for. I'd reach for Kirstie. Usually, Kirstie's appearance causes even the most aggressive weirdo to back down. Not this guy. I still couldn't see his eyes, but his smile grew wider, almost admiring. He held up the pizza box. You really don't want this pizza? He said, and my stomach growled. And that's when he tilted his head back and I saw his eyes, or more accurately, his eye. His left eye was bloodshot, wide and staring, and his right eye was just missing. It was covered, not by an eye patch, but gauze.

And for a moment he stopped smiling and somehow that was a relief. And then I cocked Kirstie. Listen, buddy, I'm going to drive off now. I suggest you step back. I said, no way was I staying here any longer. I'd find somewhere else down the line to rest. No! His sudden yell made me jump and cursed myself for being fearful.

The smile didn't leave his face, though. But his eye looked almost sad. It's your pizza. You have to take the pizza. I'm going to put it on the ground and leave, and then you can get it. And with that, the pizza guy in the filthy uniform to walk straight backwards, place the pizza on the ground, and then continued to walk backwards towards that range rover, never once taking his eyes off me.

Finally, when he was far enough away, he did turn and got in the car. I heard the engine start and he drove off, and sure enough, in the glare from his vehicle's headlights, I could see that all the windows had been smashed. I know I should have just driven off, but I was curious. Clutching my shotgun, I climbed out the truck and walked over to the pizza. I picked it up. Open the box and reared back.

There was a pizza inside, but it was clearly about a week old. It was moldy, rancid, reeking, maggots crawled all over the surface, and I recoiled and tossed it across the lot. Then something occurred to me. I went to the back of the truck to check the doors. Had I been robbed or scammed somehow? No. The truck was still locked up tight, but scratched into the paint were two words.

Don't. Eat. I hopped into the driver's seat and high-tailed it out of there. I didn't stop until I reached Albany. Kirstie did not leave the seat next to me for that entire trip, and I have no explanation as to what happened. Now, I don't believe in anything supernatural, and the man clearly was flesh and blood. I'm pretty sure it was just a couple of tweakers who wanted to put the spooks up some hapless trucker, maybe robbed them.

And if that was their plan, it worked. While it scared the crap out of me, it has given me an excellent story to tell over the CB radio over the years. However, on the downside, I've never been able to look at pizza the same way again. So just a quick story that I wanted to send to you, I wanted to tell you about an absolutely terrifying encounter I had with a now very much ex-friend of my own. mine. This was a few years ago when I was living in Brighton in the United Kingdom. I had this mate, we'll call him Ken. And like me, Ken was part of Brighton's thriving LGBT-I-P-2-S-A-A-plus scene. Whereas I'm a pansexual woman, Ken was a very flamboyantly gay man. Despite being pansexual, I'm nearly always only attracted to guys, so Ken and I would have many nights out in the poll,

gossiping over dudes, pulling hotties, and all sorts of good times. He was quite the giggle, but for two years of our friendship, I would have told you that Ken didn't have a bad bone in his body. But, boy, was I bloody wrong. That Friday evening, Ken dropped by for some pre-drinks before we were going to hit the nightlife. It was peak summer, and a big party was going down in Brighton Beach, hosted by a local radio station. and me and Ken were sipping dacqueries and talking about something, probably BGT or Strictly or some show we used to watch back then. And that's when I casually mentioned that I was meeting up with a new Tinder date at the party that night.

And Ken sort of froze and looked really weird. I asked him what was up and he launched into a rant about meeting strangers on the internet. Now bear in mind, this wasn't too long ago, so it was way after online dating apps had become very, totally normal. And I laughed and told him that he sounded like my old nan and not to be such a worrywart. Ken wouldn't let it go though. He just kept going on and on about it, how it was a bad idea to meet a guy from Tinder and I'd regret it. I laughed and maybe snapped at him a little because I was really excited for this date and why should Ken be panicking now? I'd met guys on Tinder

before and he'd met people on a bunch of apps. I was doing my lippy in the mirror when I saw a Ken come up behind me. He grabbed me from behind in a chokehold. His arm locked around my neck. He started hissing something about how strange men can easily overpower me and there would be nothing I could do. I started to laugh nervously and try to wiggle away from Ken's grasp. He would not let go and, in fact, his arm tightened around my neck. I could barely breathe. My vision was starting to blur at that moment. Get the F off of me, I shrieked. I tried jerking away from him. I elbowed him in the side and I guess I did it harder than I meant to because I actually felt a faint crack from his ribs.

Ken absolutely lost it. He slammed me forward, smashing my face into the mirror which shattered with the blow. The next thing I know, I'm on the floor. Blood was pouring into my eyes and Ken's on top of me, punching me in the face and neck. I'm screaming, howling, slapping at Ken, scratching in his face. and I felt one of my teeth break, and I spat blood in a tooth at Ken. And that must have somehow snapped him out of it because he jumped up off of me and started screaming in terror.

And then he frantically was moving about the room like something was after him, and I'd never been so scared in my entire life. Suddenly he calmed down out of nowhere, sat on the sofa, and just started sobbing quietly to himself. well it turns out that that afternoon ken had done a bit of a certain white powder but i guess it was laced with god knows what and caused a bit of a temporary psychotic break my face tooth and well-being took the brunt of it i guess and i found this out later at that point obviously i called the law and got ken taken away and then i went to the hospital got checked out treated and stayed with

friends. Obviously, I realized something had gone seriously wrong with Ken and he wasn't behaving normally. I'd found out what had likely happened through some friends of mine who'd bought from the same dealer as Ken and had been told that the drugs had been contaminated. I decided to drop any charges against him if he paid for my tooth replacement and then kept the hell away from me. And yes, Ken didn't mean to go that far, but it was his choice to partake in the nose candy and and he still had that kind of violence deep within him. While I don't hold any hatred in my heart for him, I simply couldn't ever feel comfortable around him again,

and I severely hope that wherever he is now, he isn't endangering anyone else. Just a real quick one here. When I was backpacking in Colombia, I did a bit of work as a delivery guy for a local cafe, delivering food on a busted, barely functioning moped. And I'm not sure how illegal it was. I was there on vacation and didn't really pay much attention to visas and the right to work and all that stuff. But given the other crimes that went on, I'm not sure.

the delivery takeaway for cash under the table really compared. I don't know why I was targeted. I'm not even sure I was targeted. I think I just got extremely lucky. I was working for a little cafe called Popoos, rattling around on the moped to bring food to all sorts of shady characters. In this particular instance, I was delivering maybe four sausage pizzas to what I'd been assured was a gentleman's club,

and what was almost definitely a gang hideout. I say that almost definitely because I never actually made it to my destination. Sure, there I am, my moped puttering along down a deserted road late at night, when suddenly I see something fly across the road. I don't react quick enough and run straight over the spiked strips that have been tossed across the street. Next thing I know, multiple voices are yelling variants of get him, kill him, butcher him, etc., in Spanish. And then four masked men come bursting out of the trees. charging towards me. Two of them are swinging machetes. One of them has a freaking sithe,

and the other has a baseball bat. Now, surprisingly enough, I don't want to die for no reason in the middle of nowhere, Colombia. So, I run for my absolute life. Genuinely, I ran through the forest and scrubbed in for a solid 40 minutes, and these guys would not relent. They wanted blood. And to this day, I have no idea why. They thought it was a member of the gang that I was on my way to deliver a pizza to. Maybe they wanted to send a message to Papu's the cafe. Maybe they just really enjoyed killing tourists. Who knows?

Eventually I came across a farm. I was dead tired. It was pitch black by now. And I followed the sounds of oinking into the barn. Inside were at least a dozen huge pigs, and I won't lie. I'm a bit scared of pigs. They bite and tug and crash into you, and they're generally pretty intimidating. beasts. But it was either the pigs or the machete-wielding maniac, so I slipped inside one of the

pig pens, crouched in the corner, and tried to cover myself with straw. Then, the biggest pig I'd ever seen in my damn life came over to me, and for a moment it looked like it was going to sit on me. I'd escaped being hacked apart just to be crushed by a piglet. But then, the pig laid down in front of me, it grunted and snorted and a few other pigs joined in, and they created a sort of pig shield, hiding me from view. The machete-wielding gang members burst into the barn. Some of the other pigs started grunting and honking at them and began to bite at their ankles. I was worried they'd start attacking the pigs, but no. These armed men seemed pretty petrified by these hogs. And that's how I spent the rest of the night, cowering behind a gang of pigs, hoping that the

machete gang wouldn't return and thank the Lord Almighty above they didn't and when morning came I stumbled out of that barn and came face to face with the farmer thankfully I spoke enough Spanish and he spoke enough English for us to understand each other he gave me a ride back into town I didn't even bother handing in my notice to Papu's I checked out of the hostel I was staying at and got the hell out of the country as soon as I could I'm never going back to Colombia never will And you know what else I've never done? I've never eaten sausages again. a preamble or anything, just know that when this played out, it was the early 2000s, and I was

a 20-year-old woman working a pizza delivery job to help pay my way through college. I was based in a city, so we had so many different customers it was hard to keep track of regulars. One regular order I did remember, though, was this really sweet old couple who lived in a small suburban bungalow. They usually just ordered a pizza and some other stuff on a Friday night, so I was a little surprised when one day we got an order to their address for like eight huge pizzas. So we get everything cooked and I take the delivery because I love this old couple and we usually chatted for a few minutes and the tip was a nice bonus too. So I get to the house and even before

I knock on the door, something seems wrong. Loud pumping techno is coming from what seems to be the basement. I knock and the door gets opened. I'm not 100% sure but I am 99.9% ensure that the person who opened the door wasn't either of the old people. In fact, this person was dressed in a black and white wolf fur suit, and I guess he was nonverbal because he gestured to the pizzas, pulled out his pocket to show it was empty, and then did a sort of fake crying gesture before pointing for me to come inside. Now, going inside a customer's house is usually a huge no-no, but I normally would drop in on this couple, and I was concerned about them, as well as being morbidly curious. I moved to follow the fur suit wolf into the house, and as he turns

around, I realize, oh, it's one of those furies. I can tell because, well, his fur suit includes assless chaps, and I tried to avert my eyes and made this stupid mistake of stepping over the threshold of the house, and the front door clicks shut behind me. I turned to see a moth-eaten-looking bear standing there, and I swear to God, you know that creepy blowjaw bear from The Shining? This guy made that character look like yogi. The way I can describe this first sona was a bear wolf. I just wanted to know what happened to my old couple. So I took the pizzas through the kitchen and put them down on the counter and told old assless chaps wolf and no uncertain terms that I needed payment.

And also, I'd really appreciate knowing where Mr. and Mrs. Smith were. The Wolf and the Bear both mimed laughter, as if this was the funniest thing they'd ever heard. I know, I know. Please don't scream at me for this next bit. They gestured toward the basement where the techno music was coming from, and against everything I've ever learned from every horror movie and listening to Let's Read, I followed them. And Christ Almighty, there was every kind of animal thing you can imagine, an owl dressed in leather bondage, a unicorn showing off almost everything, cartoon cats and diapers, and at the center

of everything was a man wearing a bat mask in a cape, and I know that he was a man because that's all he was wearing. And there was my beloved old couple, sitting on a couch, looking absolutely terrified. "'Are you guys okay?' I asked them. Mr. Smith looked at me, and Mrs. Smith looked like she was about to burst into tears. "'Our grandson came to visit,' she said, gesturing to the assless chap's werewolf. "'And he brought some friends,' Mr. Smith said. "'I had no idea what to do.

The furries hadn't done anything directly threatening, but I still felt unsafe and uncomfortable, and clearly so did this older couple. That's when I saw the table set up in the corner with what was very obviously a makeshift meth production lab. And from the looks of it, and the haphazard way these fur-suit-wearing freaks were tossing around chemicals, this was unsafe enough to take action. Now I hurried over to the old couple saying, come on, we're leaving, and they both got up. We made it to the basement stairs, then up the hallway, we were nearly home free.

And then the bear reared its ugly head, and Mrs. Smith began to cry. Then from downstairs, a low but audible explosion. Suddenly, furries were streaming out of the basement, coughing, screaming, yelling. The naked Batman came barreling past us, swinging free in the open air as he dived out the front door. The grandson, the assless chap's wolf, literally shoved his grandmother out of the way to get to safety. I caught her, dragging both her and Mr. Smith out into the lawn. We took in the fresh air just in time for another explosion to rock the house. Flames began to spread from the basement into the hallway.

Furries were fleeing left and right. Mrs. Smith continued to cry. Mrs. Smith just stood there shaking his head, and the grandson leaped into a car with that bear and the pair of them took off. Soon, nearly all the furries were gone. the only one who remained was the naked man bat and i'm so grateful that he did because he testified as to exactly what happened even if it meant outing his double life as a lawyer with a fetish bat persona props to him not all heroes wear capes although this one did and only a cape i did stop

delivering to that old couple though things just felt different after that and while the story may seem borderline comedic, it was genuinely one of the most terrifying moments of my life, barely making it out in time. Hey, friends, thanks for listening. Don't forget to hit that follow button to be alerted of our weekly episodes every Tuesday at 1 p.m. 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 9 p.m. EST. Thanks so much, friends, and I'll see you in the next episode. Thank you.