The Lets Read Podcast - 352: I LEARNED THE HARD WAY THAT NATURE IS TERRIFYING | 8 TERRIFYING True Scary Stories / Rain Ambience | EP 338

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Wilderness Guides & Driving at NightHAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT?[e-mail] ME ON -►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/♫ Music & Cover art: INEKThttps://www.youtube.com/@inektToday's episode is sponsored by:- Omaha Steaks --> Go to https://OmahaSteaks.com and use promo code READ at checkout for $35 off. Minimum purchase may apply.- Betterhelp --> Use Code "READ"

I'd been working as a wilderness guide out near Mount Shasta for about three months when I first met Noah. I moved to California from Minnesota, so I didn't really know anyone outside of my coworkers. And since the town is mostly a lot of tourists, I'd have to drive down to Reading to find people that weren't just working or passing through. And that's how I met Noah and her friends while hanging out and watching the Vikings at a bar. She was nice and really pretty, too, with those deep brown, eyes that she said came from the Italian side of her family. We swapped phone numbers, went for some coffee and drinks a few times, and then when things started getting a little more serious, coffee and drinks turned into longer and less public meetings. Noah thought it was cool that I got to work with

nature, but it never occurred to me to turn a trail hike into a date. She lived down in Reading, and I preferred heading down there since she had a nicer apartment, and a cat. And there was also way more to do down there, so in the end, it was Noah who asked me if she could drive up to Shasta some time to check out the trails that I worked. No, I thought it sounded like a great idea, and like I said, I was kind of kicking myself for not thinking of it sooner. She was super into nature, and so I could impress her with all of my accumulated knowledge, and it'd be cute to spend some time out there alone instead of surrounded by other people down in the city. She drove up to Shasta in the morning, and then after spending some time putting a little picnic together, we drove out to the

trailhead near the upper sand flats and then hiked into the woods from there. The first thing I told her about, because the ladies always loved this one, is how old-timey prospectors used to keep ringtails as pets. A ringtail is a small rodent, kind of like a cross between a fox and a squirrel. They're very cute, and I strongly recommend you Google them to see just how cute they are. But the miners didn't keep them around because they were cute. I'll know. They called them miners' cats because they were great at scaring off the rats that tried making their homes among the camp. I talked about how wolves had been reintroduced into the area and how it stabilized the deer population. Then I remember mentioning the prairie falcons and how they reached speeds of

200 miles per hour when their dive bombing prey. But one of my favorite little factoids, and one Noah loved too, was a behavior in black-tailed deer that we call flagging. And just like their name suggests, black-tailed deer have black tails, but only on the tops and sides. The undersides of the tails is the same color as their butts, a sort of off-white, and when they detect a potential threat in the area, their tails shoot up to show the white and then not the black side. And it's kind of like a collective traffic light, something that says ready, steady before the go when the threat proves significant, and it's just one of many examples of how animals have developed methods of wordless communication.

Now we walk for a few miles, with me dropping the aforementioned facts here and there, and then when we stopped for our picnic, I told Noah how Mount Shasta has its share of carnivorous plants, like the California pitcher. I also told her how growers have been trying to introduce the Matsatake mushroom to the region, which is highly prized in Japanese cuisine. The only thing is, it can take up to a century for the fungus to form the symbiotic relationships with the pine trees that allow them to mature before fruiting. And that means that people trying to introduce will probably never even live to see the fruits of their labors.

They're doing it entirely for the next generation, and we agree that there was something very beautiful about that. And I remember at one point, Noah, who was having a great time, said something along the lines of, oh man, my dad would love this. We should totally bring him up here some time. Now, I went quiet for what felt like the first time on the whole hike because she kind of casually let slip that I was the Bring Them Home to Dad type. Now, I was really into her, and so it felt amazing that she saw me that way.

And then after pivoting towards family, we spent a little while talking about more personal stuff. Up until that point, it was probably the best date I'd ever been on, talking about something that I was passionate about, but impressing someone that I cared about all the while. But I had no idea at all how wrong things were about to go. And as the sun reached its peak and the day got to its hottest few hours, we were sort of taking on water like nobody's business. And so inevitably it came time for a little bathroom break. We agreed to walk off the trail in different directions,

me taking on some trees on the left while she walked up this very steep slope to the right where it leveled off for a little more privacy from the trail. I figured that we'd be separated for a matter of minutes, and I also figured that I'd be done much quicker for reason of mail logistics, so I wasn't alarmed or anything when I got back to the trail and Noah wasn't there. But as the minutes ticked by and Noah still hadn't reappeared, I started to get a little worried. I took a few steps up the slope, not all the way, as to impede her privacy,

and then I called out her name and asked if she was all good. At the time, I thought I expected to hear her say something back, but I think looking back on it, it was more like hoped, because I remember that feeling of hope turning into this very rising panic when Noah didn't reply. It was dead silent from the top of that rise there and it worried me so much that I walked to the top to see where Noah was. But when I looked, she was nowhere to be seen. Now, I think I hesitated for a moment looking at all the trees and bushes in front of me because it seemed totally logical that she'd walked off into the trees and out of sight to get her privacy.

and it also didn't seem out of the question that she just didn't want to yell back at me because she was in the midst of peeing. I know that might sound dumb, but I was honestly just trying to rationalize the situation and not totally catastrophes it. But then looking back, I was a fool not to trust my instinct and go looking for her, because only seconds after calling out Noah's name a second time, I heard her scream. And without thinking, I started running in the direction of that scream before suddenly stopping myself. I dropped my backpack from my shoulders and was just totally frantic as I tore it open and went for the little pouch meant for my 45. I hadn't told Noah that I brought a gun with me. She was really anti-gun, so I didn't want to freak her out by announcing that I was carrying. But I also wasn't about to head out into the trail without a means of actually protecting us, so given the circumstances, you can bet that I was glad that I brought it.

And I guess I should also make it clear how just from the sound of Noah's scream, I knew that. that she hadn't just sprained her ankle. It wasn't a scream of pain. It was a scream of terror. And I wasn't about to square up whatever scared her so badly without protection. I found the gun and then went running off into the trees

while calling out Noah's name. I called out maybe two or three more times as I was running, but again, got nothing in reply, so I kept on moving through the trees with my head on a swivel, until suddenly I saw her. Noah was being dragged along the forest floor

by her hair. And the person dragging her looked normal. Now remember this sort of split second thinking total confusion almost as I locked eyes with a guy dragging her. I guess in my head this guy should have looked like a monster. I mean, quite literally some big lumbering beast that was hairy and teethy and clawy, you know. But he didn't look like that at all because like I said, he just sort of looked normal. He had a blue t-shirt on, khaki shorts, and then tan hiking boots with colorful socks sticking out the tops. He looked like your average hiker, completely unremarkable aside from the fact that he was

dragging my date across the ground by the hair. We locked eyes, and in that split second, I could see how scared he was. All I remember thinking was good. You should be scared. And then I aimed that gun at him and screamed at him. him to let her go. The guy looked terrified, but he didn't let go of Noah's hair. In fact, after maybe only a split second of him being still, he kept on polling her like twice as hard. He was obviously trying to get away, but there was no way that he was about to outrun me while trying to drag a human

body. The smart thing to do would have been to just let go of her hair and run, but he didn't. He was so fixated on her that he made this laughable, futile attempt to cart her away and escape. I mean, it might actually have been funny if he wasn't dragging Noah by her hair, but he was, so it was this weird combination of insane and horrifying to me. And with the gun still aimed at him, I yelled at him to let Noah go or I'd shoot. The guy stopped again and looked at me with that sort of same scared look in his eyes, and when he didn't let her go, I remember thinking, Okay, it's happening.

But then as I began to line my sights up on his chest and went to squeeze the trigger, I found that I couldn't actually do it. I felt the cold metal of that trigger on my finger, but right as I was about to pull it, it was like I heard this voice in my head yelling, don't do it. You hit Noah. And I knew that was possible, but given the relative position of her body

to where this guy was standing, it had to have to either be the worst or the unluckiest shot in the history of firearms. I wasn't a bad shot either, like I knew I could have dropped the guy at those kinds of ranges, but like I said, when it came to pulling the trigger, I locked up in a way I never anticipated. And then when I locked up, the fear and doubt started to completely overwhelm me.

I was frozen to the spot, not being able to shoot but not daring to lower my gun either, but the worst thing was the guy could tell. He saw a fear bigger than his own reflected in my eyes and when he did. I think it calmed him. He didn't smile or laugh or anything sinister like that. He just sort of turned his head to make sure that the way was clear, and then just kept on dragging this now semi-conscious but still weak Noah through the trees. But that spurred me into action.

I still couldn't bring myself to take a shot right at him. I was just scared to, I guess. But what I could bring myself to do was warn him. Now, I can already hear all the ultimate badasses in the comments saying, Oh man, such a pussy couldn't bring himself to shoot a man to protect his girl. Well, while you might be the super-success, soldier who inspired John Wick, I'm not him. And while you might be so skilled with a pistol that you give yourself prostate exams with him, and I'm sure you do, that's not me. And so the only

shot that I knew would be 100% safe was a kind of warning shot above the guy's head, the kind that had absolutely zero chance of hitting either of them. And so that's what I did. I aimed higher and fired a warning shot that flew well above his head, but it was enough to make him jump and turn back to me with this look of absolute terror in his face. I yelled the only thing that came to mind, which was how if he didn't let her go, the next bullet was going to find him. It was the only remotely badass thing I did during that whole encounter,

and I guess it only worked because I needed it to, but it was effective. The guy then let go of Noah's hair, then turned, and ran off through the trees. I immediately followed, rushing forward to where Noah was lying. At this point she was half awake, coming too after having been hit pretty hard in the jaw was something. There was blood coming out of her mouth.

Her eyes looked like they were struggling to focus, and I had to support her after helping her to her feet. I put her back down again once we got to the trail, and then as she realized where she was and remembered what had happened, she just started crying. Since the cell signal was so shoddy on account of being relatively low altitude, I did the only thing I could do, which was try and console her.

She kept going back and forth between apologizing and thanking me, and while I'm not sure what the apologies were for, she certainly didn't have to thank me. I told her it was okay, that the man was gone and he didn't seem to be armed, but that we needed to get her out of there to get her jaw checked at the hospital. We can move at whatever pace she wanted because I had my gun to protect us, but the longer we stayed, the more chance that he'd try and come back to find us, and maybe that time he'd have something to fire back. We were up and moving again seconds later, at a mixed pace of jogging and walking fast.

I think all the heavy breathing brought Noah a kind of calm because before long, she was able to tell me exactly what had happened after we went off to pee. And even all these years later, thinking about it scares the hell out of me. So Noah said that she'd walked off into the trees at the top of the slope and then put enough of them between me and her

to ensure that no one peeking up from me, the trail could get a look at her. She drops her shorts, does her thing, but then as she's buttoning them up again, she hears something moving kind of close to her. She stayed put and stayed quiet, and then when she heard me calling out her name, she was too scared to respond. She said it felt like the thing close to her was hunting her, and calling back to it would have allowed it to find her. But then seconds later, she hears a sort of thud, thud, thud of fast footsteps behind her, and then when she turns to look, bam. The first hit did knock her out, and that's when she screamed.

The second one knocked her unconscious briefly, but by that time, help was on the way. I was worried that she might have a fractured jaw, maybe some kind of damage to her teeth, but luckily the only wounds were to the inside of Noah's cheek. She had some pretty nasty bruising on her face, and it took a while for the inside of her mouth to heal, but I'd say that she escaped some pretty nasty injuries, and if that guy had gotten her to wherever he wanted her, I'd say that she might have even escaped a fate worse than death, too. We obviously filed a police report at the Shasta Police Department that very same day,

right after Noah was discharged from the hospital. It was stressful for her, really stressful, having to kind of relive those events so soon, but we agreed it was better to get it on paper while it was fresh in her mind. We thought it paid off, too, when the cops told us they'd arrested a guy. But after we drove back to the department, and Noah checked out the guy's booking photo, we both agreed it wasn't him. The guy in the photo had a bunch of violent convictions, many of which involved female victims,

but as much as we wanted it to be, it wasn't the same guy that attacked Noah. It affected her for a while after, like she said she had nightmares about seeing the guy's face suddenly in places that she didn't expect it to be. I really felt for her, and I made myself available in every case. capacity I could. And then as messed up as it sounds, it was that horrible event that brought us way closer together and put us on the road to where we are today. Me and Noah are still together, coming up on seven years now, and this year I'm finally going to do the right thing and ask her to marry me. And maybe if you read this on your podcast, it'll be how she finds out what I'm planning. But if not,

well, I'm sure I'll think of a way to ask the love of my life to be my lawful wedded wife. and so I can spend the rest of my life protecting her the same way I did near Mount Shasta that day. More than three decades ago, back when I was a much younger man, I helped a mate of mine moved down to Glasgow from our home city of Newcastle. He'd managed to get a job as a football scout for Glasgow Rangers, which was basically his dream career. And so while me and all of our mates were sad to see the back of him, we were all really proud of him too.

Now, we drove up early in the morning, and then once everything was unloaded, we had some pub grub and a few loggers, shandies from me, and then I started on the drive back to Newcastle. I'd left it quite late to drive back, so it was about midnight by the time I started to see signs for the English borders. The roads were quiet, with only the occasional lorry thundering past me, and I remember there being some phone-in thing on the radio, but I wasn't really listening. I was in my old Vauxhall Cavalier, an 82 model that I bought on the cheap about four years, years prior. It normally served me well and had been running fine all day, but just after passing a place

called Jedbra, the temperature warning light flicked on. I looked at my dash, watching the needle climbing into the red and swore under my breath as I eased off the accelerator. Since it normally bought me a few minutes, I cranked the heater up full blast and try and pull some heat out of the engine. But that time, it seems my luck finally ran out because just a minute or so later, there was this loud from under the bonnet before steam started pouring out the seams. Seconds later, I heard this horrible metallic knocking sound coming from under the bonnet, and so I coasted over to the hard shoulder and then came to a stop just in time for the engine to seize up completely. And after that, aside from the ticking of my hazard lights and the

sound of hot metal cooling down, it was nothing but silence for a few seconds until I erupted. I remember shouting, Are You Fing kidding me a couple of times, and then, after taking a few deep breaths, I got out of the car and tried to fix it. And I tried it for half an hour, and in that time, a grand total of two cars passed me. But even with me waving at them as they passed, neither of them stopped. I didn't just stand there like some plonker for the whole 30 minutes, mind you. I popped my bonnet not long after getting out, but when I did, a load of steam and the smell of burnt cooling. and came wafting up into my face. After waving away some of the steam,

I spotted a crack in the top radiator hose and then noticed how loads of anti-freeze was dripping onto the road and forming a big green puddle. I didn't have a spare hose, and neither did I have enough water to top it up properly, and even if I had, the engine had overheated so badly that I didn't trust it not to seize up again. Basically, I wasn't going anywhere in my old Vauxhall,

and since there were no mobile phones back then, at least none for the likes of me, I had no choice but to walk if I wanted to get myself some help. Now, I reckon the nearest emergency phone would have been about a mile down the road, maybe more, and so I locked my car, left my hazards flashing, and then started walking along the dark grass verge with a torch in my hand. Now, I thought I'd be on the move for quite a while, but then no sooner had I started walking, I came to a dirt track, previously concealed by a long hedgerow, which led to what looked like, like a big three-story farmer's house. Now, I was so happy that I was literally punching the air because despite the fact that there were no light switched on on the ground floor, there was what

looked to be candlelight in both the front facing upstairs rooms. I felt bad for calling so late, but since the alternative of walking along the motorway was a much more dangerous one, I reckon that I didn't have much choice. It was a particularly dark night, small moon and cloud covers, so it was only once I got closer to the house that I saw how run down it was. The ground floor windows were either cracked or newspapered over, and there were cracks in the wood, too, along with a lot of peeling paint. And as you can imagine, I started to get really bad vibes from the place. But I try not to judge books by their cover too much, because you tend to be rewarded more times than you're burned for it. And so with that in mind, and granted very foolishly,

I decided to knock on the door. I didn't knock too loud or aggressively. I didn't want to frighten anyone. But when my first knock got no answer, I knocked a little bit louder. Again, there was complete silence. No footsteps behind the door, no talking inside, nothing. But then after taking a step back and looking up at the top windows, I saw someone peeking out at me from behind a dirty-looking curtain.

And I can't lie. It did scare me a bit seeing a pair of eyes. staring back at me through the dim light. But as soon as I reacted, the eyes disappeared and I began to hear voices inside the house. Now, it sounded like a fair number of people, maybe half a dozen, and they were whispering like they were talking among themselves. I heard a little voice in my head saying, they're awake, knock again. But before I could even dismiss it, I heard the sound of someone laughing inside the house. Not loudly, though, more like a muted sort of wheeze as they tried to keep their voice low. The bad vibes that I was getting ramped up to 11, so instead of risking a

confrontation with whoever was either living or more likely squatting there, I decided to make a move. I turned around and walked back up the dirt path as fast as I could, looking over my shoulder every so often make sure that no one was following me. Now, I was quite certain whoever was inside was watching me from those windows, but as long as they didn't follow me, then I didn't mind what they did. I'd almost got into the end of the path to where those two wooden gateposts held no gate when I started smelling something strong on the breeze, something that smelled like burning. And then when I turned the corner and could see out onto the road again, I felt this almost involuntary scream jump out of my mouth as I realized what the smell was. It was my car.

My car was on fire. Now, I suppose I acted on complete instinct and my mind. running over to it because there was absolutely bugger all I could do about putting out that fire. All it could do was just stand there, effing and blinding and looking around for whoever might have done it. But as you can probably guess, there was no one, and the whole area looked deserted. And I knew for a fact that it wasn't. When I realized just how much of a bad situation I truly was in, I started jogging along the road until I got back on the motorway. Now it was only a four-lane carriageway, so I could walk along the verge without being in too much danger,

but no matter how much danger passing cars posed to me, it still seems safer than hanging around my burning car in that creepy house. Now, I think probably about a half an hour must have passed, with only the odd car going past me, and in that time, I didn't try to get anyone's attention just in case it was the people from the home. I mean, the joke was on them in a sense, because that poor kid. Cavalier was definitely on her way out, but on the off chance they wanted to do more than just burn my car. I had to be very careful about who I revealed myself to. Now, I was re-bloody nervous for that first half an hour, but after that, I started to calm down a wee bit. I hadn't seen any cars or anything parked outside the house, and if they really did want to chase me down for

whatever reason, I reckon that I'd have encountered them already. So once I'd calm down a bit, and after maybe two or three more cars past me with me sticking to the trees on the verge, I made my way to the edge of the road and then stuck my thumb out that would look like a land rover of some kind coming my way. Now it slowed down as the driver saw me. But then instead of switching on the light above the wheel, someone in the passenger seat started shining a torch in my face after lowering their window. And right away, I knew that wasn't promising behavior when I realized whoever was in the car

didn't want to be seen, and I turned and started walking away. Now, a second later, I heard a very promising, Need a lift, pal? Now, one that was just friendly enough to slow me down and make me think that I might have been overreacting. But then the second I slowed, I turned back to face the car, and the passenger doors opened up, and I heard someone shout, Get them! Now I remember running right at the trees at the side of the road.

Not along the road where the car would have been able to cut me off, but at and then through the trees and bushes at the side of the road. I remember closing my eyes as I felt things scratching against my face, and then when I opened them, I found that I'd come to a fence on the other side. I hopped over it with speed and power that I didn't even know I had in me. I mean, I was hardly some couch potato back then, but I wasn't exactly in perfect shape either. But I swear, I think I vaulted that fence like an Olympic athlete. for fear of what might have happened if those men had caught up with me. It's strange thinking back on it as well because these days, all I do sometimes is sit and wonder why those people chose to go after me like they did.

But in the moment, as I was running, it didn't matter a jot to me. All I knew was that those people were out to get me and all that mattered in the world was getting away from them in that moment. Now, I ran across this big dark field from what felt like ages, running and running until I couldn't anymore. And then when I got to the other side and spotted a road ahead of me, I swear I saw that same Land Rover, driving along the road with someone shining a torch out into the field. I had to change my route and head off at an angle to avoid the Land Rover,

and along with anyone to my rear who might have followed me. I had to force myself to run when I didn't think that I could run anymore, and even though I was quite a fit young lad and one pumped full of adrenaline, and I soon felt like that I was about to cough up a lung and fall over. In the end, I found myself staggering onto a road and then right back onto another dark field because it was too scared to be out in the open with a car full of blokes trying to find me. I kept on going like that until I came across a small town.

And then as I was walking, it's dark and empty streets, looking for anyone who might be able to help. A police car appeared, and an officer asked what it was doing walking the streets a little. alone like that. When I told him what had happened to me, he told me to jump in the car and then off we went to the police station for a cup of hot tea and a few biscuits while I went into more detail about what had happened. As soon as I mentioned the house that I'd stopped by and mentioned how there had been people inside, I remember these two officers giving each other a look

because they told me that the people inside must have been squatters. I thought that they might have been, partly because of how run down the house was, but the police confirmed that it derelict and that there shouldn't have been anyone in there. They said that they'd head over and check it out, but they doubted anyone would be there. Squatters are kind of like rats. They're annoying and sometimes they're dangerous, but they're not stupid, and they'd just move on someplace else and then maybe return when things all blew over. But in all likelihood, they were gone from that house for good. I remember asking the two policemen, why? As in why had they burned my car before were trying to hunt me down like that.

And the first words out of the policeman's mouths were, well, what did you see? He was convinced that I'd seen them doing something that they shouldn't have been doing, and after spotting my car, which they assumed was still functional, they tried to make sure that I couldn't get away before chasing me down. But that was the thing. I hadn't seen anything, and once I'd established that, all we could think of was that those squatters just wanted to scare me off.

One of the policemen said that since they didn't know who I was, they might have assumed that I was some kind of bailiff or law enforcement agent. And at first they might have been worried that I was a policeman. But then when they realized that I wasn't, they must have reckoned that I was fair game for a kicking. And if only to make sure that I was too scared to return. And with nothing else to say, I gave the police the phone number from my flat in Newcastle,

and then since I literally lost everything but my wallet, One of them was kind enough to give me a lift to a nearby train station. It was long past dawn by then, so the trains were running, and I didn't have to wait long before I was on my way back to Newcastle. They phoned a few days later saying that that house was empty, and there wasn't much in the way of evidence tying anyone to the arson. They promised to keep their ears to the ground and would let me know immediately if there was any progress.

But till then, they advised me to be patient because things like that took time. Sadly, that was the last I heard from the police, marking the end of my first encounter with squatters and hopefully my last, too. I had no idea that those people could be so violent. I mean, call me naive, but the squatters I was familiar with were the hippies who took over empty houses in London in the 60s. I thought that they'd be more into peace protests and drum circles than chasing down strangers. But I suppose times had changed then, and people change with them. This episode is sponsored by Omaha Steaks. Before Omaha Steaks, buying protein usually meant grabbing whatever looked decent at the store and hoping for the best.

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focused on delivering premium proteins with no compromises. Taste the Omaha Steaks difference and never settle for grocery proteins again. Get flavorful, high-quality protein, delivered by visiting Omaha Steaks.com, plus $35 off when you use promo code read at checkout. That's Omaha stakes.com code read. Terms apply. See site for details. My name's Hank. I'm a proud Texan, and I work as a bus driver taking folks all over this great state of ours. Most of those journeys take place during the day, but sometimes I'd like to earn a little extra pay by taking the overnight journeys or what you might call the red eyes. I fire up that big old rig around dusk, load her up with the sleepy travelers heading either home or away,

and then take off along those long, lonely highways that stretch from Houston to El Paso and every place in between. I wouldn't call it a difficult job, but as long as you can keep the wheels turning through the witching hours and dodge all those back-road deer, you can almost guarantee everybody gets where they're going safe and sound by sun-up. And as not often the bus causes you problems, because if you keep her clean, and well-oiled, and she'll keep you moving and happy. It's the people that complicate things, though. Not every kind of person, but a certain kind, and all the worst rides have been down to that certain kind of person,

including this one, which was probably the worst I have ever experienced. Driving the bus across Texas at night with nothing but country songs and the stars to keep me company, it sometimes makes me feel like a night watchman, one charge with guarding the whole damn state. Now, I meet all kinds of interesting people on that open road under the big Texas sky. And then watching the sun rise over the prairies after a long shift, it's pure gold, but the cons hit hard too. Your sleep schedule gets all turned around, so whenever you're working nights, you miss out double on family dinners and weekends with the kids. The fatigue creeps up on you, too, and dealing with rowdy passengers or breakdowns in the middle of nowhere is no picnic.

But every so often, you get a special kind of a very time. Browdy, the kind that's not just drunk and loud or complaining about fellow passengers' body odor. The kind that's dangerous, real dangerous. Back during the fall of 2007, I was in a run from Dallas to Austin, driving through the pitch black with nothing but tumbleweeds and truck stops for miles. I had this fella riding with me about six rows back, one that had been staring out the window and kind of muttering to himself, at least according to a fellow passenger anyway. I couldn't hear him at first, so it must have been nothing but a few grumbles and not enough to cause a scene. But then after maybe an hour on the road, I started hearing him as he started to raise his voice.

I looked up into my mirror to see folks shifting uncomfortably in their seats, but nobody said a word. That happens more often than not. People learn to tune out the odd balls on long bus rides like that, but the guy didn't get any quieter. He only got louder, and as he did, the tension in the air got thicker and thicker. My guy twisted something fierce knowing trouble was simmering, and I just prayed that it'd blow over, sort of like a false alarm, but it didn't. When it came, the guy went off like a firecracker on the 4th of July,

almost like his fuse was sizzling away for a while, and then bang, off he went, and there was no stopping him. I heard someone say something to him, I guess to sort of shut up or something to that effect, and the guy replied with a full-throated roar and then went at that challenger like a freaking skunk pig. I look back for just a second to see him leaning across the center aisle, lunging at the person I assumed did the back-talking. I had to keep my eyes on the road, but I looked up into the mirror to see fists raining down.

And then the sound of passengers screaming along with a doom, doom, doom at the big guy's fist against the other's face. They weren't fighting. It was like a beating. the kind that if it wasn't stopped was going to end in a casket and a family dressed in black. The bus exploded into chaos as the beating continued was some people running for cover toward the rear and others charging the attacker to try and end the assault. And when he realized what was going on, the attacker sort of wheeled around and started swinging on the folks trying to stop him. And let me tell you, this man was no small specimen.

From what I could tell, he made short work of the people trying to stop him. him and I think he straight up knocked a guy out too because something freed him up to go back to wailing on the first guy he attacked, who by then was out cold and leaking blood from his nose and mouth. I didn't get a picture of all of this until later, obviously, because I was mostly trying to keep my eyes on the road while keeping an eye on the situation behind me, using my driver's mirror. But then as soon as I realized the violence wasn't about to stop anytime soon. I started slowing us down so I could pull us over and get as many people as possible off that bus. I didn't hit the brakes in a sort of screaming tires kind of way. You can't do that on the

bus with people standing unless you want them falling head first. And while I didn't mind if our psycho-attacked or banged his head on an armrest, I had to consider the other passengers too. I brought the bus to the side of the road as fast as I could, which felt painfully slow given what was happening right behind me. And then once we'd come to a stop, I opened up the doors and began hollering for people to get out as quickly as they could. I think I heard it about 12 to 14 people out of the front, and there were women clutching their children, a couple of old-timers who couldn't move as fast,

but everyone else moved like grease lightning. Everyone except the people trapped on the back of the bus who were being blocked from the front exit by our raging psycho. We had an emergency exit at the back of the bus, so I started yelling at the people in the back to pull the lest, lever and pushed the door open so they could all scramble out onto the road. I don't know if they just couldn't hear what I was saying over the sound of their screams, or they were too scared to turn their backs on that attacker, but they didn't do as I asked.

I kept on yelling louder and louder, but then the psycho turned his attention to me, and then came charging down the bus while roaring like some beast. I tried to put something between us. That's something being the driver's seat, but as most of you can probably imagine, all he had to do was move a yard to the side and his fists had unfettered access to my face. I felt a couple of punches and kicks, but all it could do was try and shield my head in the hopes that he didn't do any serious damage. At one point, the guy actually grabbed one of my arms by the wrist and pulled it away so he could punch me right in the eye. All it took was one

punch and it felt like I couldn't see out of it anymore, and I knew it'd only take a couple a more of that to do some serious damage. The same pattern played out again was people trying to get him off of me before being beaten back, and then he turned back to me and started all over again. But he didn't last long because maybe a second or two later,

all I heard was, Hey, right here! It was a young voice. Almost sounded a bit like a kid's, and then bam, there was a gunshot. And then I heard that attacker start to groan. I looked around, The vision in my right eye is still kind of cloudy, and I saw the attacker was curled up on the floor of the bus near the exit stairs, and he was clutching at his belly with a blood stain getting bigger and bigger on his shirt.

Standing over him was this black kid with a gun. And I say kid, as he must have been in his late teens, probably early 20s, but there he was, standing over the guy with a smoking pistol telling him, if he tried to get up, he'd blow his head off. With the attacker put down, and with all the fight having left him, the other passengers were able to get off the bus. People were treating the kid with the gun like he was some hero, but all he seemed interested in was getting out of there. I told him to hold his horses because the cops wouldn't arrest a man for defending people like he did. But he turned to me and, with a sort of scared look in his eye, he says, it ain't legal. It ain't legal, man, I got to go, I got to go now. And then off he went. Lord knows where, and that's honestly the last I saw of him.

With folks huddled outside in the cold, yes, Texas nights can get cold. I called in what had just happened on my cell and then waited with the rest while they either cried, hugged each other, just stared into space like I did, wondering how the heck things all went so bad, so fast. And not long after, we all saw lights flashing red and blue across the flatlands, and then as they got closer, they were joined by. sirens. State troopers rolled up first, their guns were drawn so they could secure the scene, and then they gave them the lowdown on that berserker. I mentioned the shooter, too, and I know I should have been honest with them, and I might have been a little selective over what I remembered,

because God knows I didn't want that kid's good deed treated like a bad one. Once the cops had the scene secure, the EMTs came right behind them. They hauled off that unconscious fellow with his face all busted up, and then stretchered off that young woman, too. the one the attacker had given a few hard licks. And they even checked the attacker too, who was still alive, but in a lot of pain. And then with him handcuffed to a stretcher, they took him away with a cop sitting in the back of the ambulance with him. The cops questioned everybody, taking statements while I stood there, feeling like I'd aged

a decade in about an hour. And the company I worked for got a replacement bus out to us as quickly as they could. And then once the dust settled and the authorities cleared us to go, we were back on the road again. We were minus a couple of passengers because some had chosen to wait for kin or friends so they could ride with them instead. We were also plus one because I got to sit back and enjoy the ride with the new driver at the wheel. The atmosphere on the bus now was pretty dark, with folks whispering to each other about what had just happened. But I preferred the talk because when it came, the silence was honestly heavier than a lead blanket. I still think

about that kid sometimes, the one who shot her at attacker before he could do any serious damage to me. I guess if you told me about a guy like that walking around with an illegal gun, I'd have assumed that he was the bad guy. And I guess he sort of was one of the bad guys if he was a felon or what have you. But then all it took was one pull of the trigger at that right moment, and he became kind of a hero to me. I know there's no such thing as a perfect person, but since that night, I've never been so convinced of the existence of flawed heroes. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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That's betterh-E-L-P-com slash read. Many, many moons ago now, back when I was a college kid, with a bright future ahead of me, I volunteered as a trail guide at the McCurtain County Wilderness Area down in southeast Oklahoma. Having grown up on the ranch, my paw worked out, I'd always been an outdoorsy kind of guy, not a cowboy by any stretch, but I knew which end of the bullets came out of a rifle. And I'd think I'd have been happy working on that ranch, too, if only to stay close to a family, but my pa always did want more for me, so when the time came, I decided to make him

proud by becoming a lawyer. I studied at Texas A&M, then while I was there, I heard about the volunteer program. It wasn't offering any extra credit, but the university would pay my expenses, so it amounted to a sort of free spring break vacation in my native Oklahoma. The county wilderness area was a real hidden gem, with about 14,000 acres of rugged Washtata Mountain terrain stretching right up to the Arkansas state line. It's got the thick pine forest with cool, clean creeks running through them, and then all kinds of wildlife, too, like deer and turkeys and the occasional black bear. It's a prime spot for hiking, fishing, all that kind of stuff. But some folks don't feel entirely comfortable out in the wilderness all alone, and that's where I came in.

Now, I led groups on trails like the Beach Creek Loop or up to the overlooks to point out the native plant and bird species, along with a little Choctaw history since their roots are deep around those parts. And for the most part, all my trips out into the wilderness, including my solo ones, went perfectly fine. But then there was this one trip that I made back in the summer of 1995 that I'll never forget and the reason that I'm writing you. I used to do a bunch of different things as a trail guide, not just guide people, and one of my favorites was what amounted to a sort of campsite scouting. We'd host a lot of overnight camping trips, mostly for younger or older folks, so we needed tried and tested places to take our guests. For example, you needed a piece of flat, solid ground large enough for at least four or five tents.

It couldn't be in a low spot either, where rain could pull up and turn your sight into a swamp after one of those quick Wachita storms. The ground had to be nice and clear with no overhead widow makers either, and by that I mean dead branching. or leaning trees that could crash down in a wind gust. And seeing as we were in bear country, scanning for scat, tracks, or fresh diggings were more important, too. And if a place seemed active, I just moved on. Because a bear encounter was not something I was willing to risk. And then once you had a spot close to water,

with a place for a good fire pit, it was marked on the map before being field tested, as it were. And that field testing involved one of us heading out to the proposed site and staying there overnight. On the occasion that I'm about to speak on, I was asked to check out a potential campsite around the area called He Creek. He Creek was a runoff of the Mountain Fork River, and was about an eight to nine hour hike from where we were based.

We didn't have many campsites in that area, and I agreed that we could find better ones that we already had, especially in a place with intersecting bodies of water and such varied topography. And it took me all day to get out there, and that's after hitting the trails at 7 a.m., but once I arrived, I soon found a sweet little vacation on a rise, but flat peninsula, which overlooked the river. It was perfect for fishing and hunting, and ideal for families with kids, too, since the creek was ankle-deep, and the river moved nice and slow. And the only thing left to do was set up my little one-man tent,

get a fire going, and see what the night brought me. I hadn't seen any bear or cougar scat, which was a big plus, but out in the wilds of southeast Oklahoma, it's not just the obvious creatures that you've got to be wary of. We've been known to get an alligator or two in the marsher regions of the southeast, and bobcats and coyotes can be a treat to small children. Rampaging herds of feral hogs pose a danger to just about anything that gets in their way, large vehicles included. And so the whole idea of staying out there overnight is to get a real feel for the place, since it's at night when the wilds really come alive. And after easily putting together a campfire, thanks to the abundance of firewood in the area, I made myself a campfire dinner and then took to reading some Call of the Wild

by Headlamp. I'd read it before, but I figured that there was no better paperback for a night in the wilderness, and I'd just gotten to one of my favorite passages. Quote, he was beaten, but he was not broken, etc. When I heard a noise about 20 to 30 yards away through the trees, I don't spook easily, and I spent enough nights outdoors to know nights can be noisy, so since oh, you normally need to do with an animal is let them know that you're there, all I said was, howdy y'all, as I looked up from my book. No, I didn't hear any more movement after that for a couple of minutes anyway, so I figured maybe it was just a dead branch falling from a tree.

But it wasn't long before I heard it again, and that time it was even closer. Someone or something was moving through the darkness, getting closer and closer to me with each passing minute. And so I did what any other right-minded person might do in that situation, and I'd reach for my gun. Now, I carried a super Redhawk, but in a 480 Ruger, so I had a little less recoil. Now, it was very much my choice sidearm for those, oh-crap moments,

so I was confident that I could put down whatever charged at me. My only worry was that it wasn't an animal, and whoever was out there was similarly armed as myself. So in the off chance that that was the case, I remembered saying, You gotta be real brave or real stupid to be sneaking up on someone who's camping after dark. Now it served as a dual purpose, making it clear to an animal that I wasn't going anywhere, and clear to a person, that I wasn't some pushover. And then when I heard the sound again, just beyond the light of my campfire,

sounding like it was coming from behind a nearby tree, I cocked the hammer of my Red Hawk and aimed for its trunk. My hands were shaking as I tried my best to focus on getting my breathing right, so when whatever it was came around the tree trunk I was ready for it. But then, just as I managed to get my heart rate just a little less frantic, I heard the sound of fast-moving footsteps just off to my right. Whoever it was was so fast that I didn't even have time to turn and aim at him, not without giving him a clear shot at me with whatever kind of blade he was holding.

I didn't get a good look at it, but I saw it shining in the firelight as he came at me, and it gave me no choice but to basically dive over my own tent in order to put something between us. I heard him yell something as he took a single swing at me, and then by the time I was up on one knee, I only saw the back of him lit up by the campfire as he ran off into the trees again, and I wasn't about to let him get away. So I aimed, steadied myself, and then took a single hail-mare, he shot at him. And that bang was so loud it had my ears ringing, and I hope to hear him scream

before tumbling into the dirt, but there was nothing. Just the faint sound of heavy footsteps as whoever it was was fleeing the area. I spent the rest of that night watching my own campsite from a distance, just watching and waiting for whoever attacked me to return. Packing up and heading back wasn't really an option, as it'd give whoever was out there a really good opportunity to track my movement on account of how noisy moving around at night can be. But it also raises the question of how the hell did that person manage to approach my camp so quietly, and why the heck would a person try and murder a complete stranger like that in the middle of a wilderness area?

At dawn, once it was light enough to see, I walked off in the direction my attacker had run following the encounter and quickly found a trail of blood. I followed it for quite a distance. moving slowly and quietly with my pistol at the ready until I reached a small chest-tight cave set into a rock face. It went deep, but I only went in for enough to see where the blood trail ended, and there were all kinds of animal bones in there. Random pieces of camping trash, too, like empty cans and plastic water bottles. But unless they were hiding at the very rear of the cave,

seeing my flashlight and keeping quiet as a mouse, I don't figure anyone was in there at that time. I got back to the compound about nine hours later in the mid-afternoon. I went straight to my boss, told him what happened, and that's why they stopped taking camping parties up near He Creek. The local sheriff said that he'd keep an ear to the ground, and I was well within my right to shoot at him, but in all likelihood, they probably wouldn't find the guy with so little to go on.

Now, I'm not sure if they found the blood trail and took a sample or whatever they might do. Hell, I'm not even sure they sent anyone out there at all, really. but it just goes to show you that even when you're out there in the middle of nowhere, it's not just the bears you've got to worry about. It's the men. More than 20 years ago now, back when my son James was still in elementary school, we took a trip down to Bethesda, Maryland from New York, so he could see his grandma. It was kind of messed up from the start, I guess,

because I had something come up at work on the Friday we planned to leave. And this meant that I couldn't get on the road until about 8.30 in the evening mean I wouldn't arrive in Bethesda until after midnight at the latest. Now, I called ahead to my mom and made sure that was all okay, and she wasn't happy at having less time with her grandson, but there really wasn't much that could be done. And so after getting her to agree to stay up later than usual, me and James hit the road. About two hours into the journey, I stopped at a little gas station in Maryland when I realized I needed a coffee and a bite to eat. James was asleep in the back seat and I was worried about waking him up as I shut my car door,

but he was still at that age where when he was out, he was out, and his eyes stayed closed after I shut the door. I got one of those big, super strong gas station coffees, a soda for James, and then a bag of those mini-powdered donuts because I knew all that sugar would push me through the rest of the way. And then after walking back to my car, I found James was awake. And thinking that shutting my car door really had woken him up, I apologize and then turned in my seat to hand him his drink. And that's when I saw the key ring that he was now holding. At first glance, it looked like a little clown holding a sign of some description.

When I asked him what it was while taking a look at it and saw how the clown's little sign read, Flying Plow Circus. It wasn't plastic either, like it was mass produced. It was wooden and looked almost handmade. And when I asked James where he got it, he said a man had given it to him. Naturally, this didn't ring any alarm bells at first, and I was about to just let it go.

But then I asked when the man gave it to him, to which James replied, a minute ago, while you were in the store. Again, this didn't scare me like it should have, because I'd locked my door. No, I'd never leave my kid in an unlocked car like that while I went into a store, and since sleepy six-year-olds aren't the most reliable and frequently play pretend, I didn't really take him seriously. But that's when James said something along the lines of, yeah, he did something funny to the door, like, then it opened, then he told us to go visit some time. Now, I remember my pulse getting faster as I asked James if he was serious and if he was sure.

He told me he wasn't lying, and that the man used some kind of wire to open the door. Now, by the time he said that, my heart felt like it was about to burst out of my chest. I asked what the guy looked like and James just said normal. And then as I got out of my car and looked around the parking lot, I don't think I'd ever been so close to a panic attack in my whole life. I tried to call myself down as best I could and then I asked James to tell me the whole story again from start to finish. He was starting to pick up on my vibe, so he was starting to get all confused and kind of upset. And I had to assure him that he hadn't done anything wrong and that he just needed to tell me what happened.

and then he went over it with me a second time. It made my skin crawl to think about, and it still does. The thought of some creep watching people, waiting for an opportunity to break into someone's car so they could creep on their kid. Like I know all the guy did was give James a key ring, but that's his cover story, right? All he's doing is giving the kid a key ring

till the parents take too long coming back, and then it's dittling or abduction time. I asked James if he said or did anything, or if he acted in a weird or creepy way, and James said the only weird thing he said was, your dad knows me. And even though he was sick, he was skeptical seeing that we didn't even live there. I was freaked out, y'all. The idea of what might have happened scared the hell out of me, but once I saw that there

was no one around for me to blame, that fear turned to frustration and then straight up anger. I think if James had pointed someone out like, that's him, I'd have straight up torch that dude, and I'd be writing this from prison or something. Not that a jury in their mother-effing land would convict me of something like that, but you see my point. I told James to hand me the key ring, and then told him if anything like that ever happened again, he should yell for me, as loud as he could, and he wasn't to stop until I'd appeared to protect him. I told him he'd been very brave, and he hadn't done anything wrong, and then gave him the speech on how not everyone who acts friendly, wants to be friends. And then once all that was said and done, and my heart

rate had returned to normal, sort of, we got back on the road again. I remember the name of the road that I was on a couple of minutes later because I looked it up later when I decided to call the cops. It was called Conowingo Road, a name I don't think I'll ever forget because I was driving down and I saw the sign saying flying plow circus one mile ahead. I remember how the rage boils up in me like he wouldn't believe and I actually put my foot down thinking I'm going to give these A-holes a piece of my mind. I've powered along the highway, probably dipping over the speed limit a couple of times until I finally found the sign saying flying plow circus next right. I don't know exactly what I was planning, maybe just fine where the Carnie's trailers were

then curse up a storm on how they needed to keep a leash on their pedo co-workers before he gets himself shot. I wasn't dumb enough to start a fight with a whole bunch of random circus folk and I wasn't about to let their buddy get away with what he did either. But then after making the turn and driving down this dark dirt road to where a circle of trailers were sat, I changed my mind completely. If I could describe that collection of trailers in two words, those two words would be horror and movie. And there was a fire in the middle of them and a bunch of people gathered around it. And then when they saw my car, I saw a couple of them turn to look at me. I couldn't make much out.

They were just these dark shapes with the fire in the background, but that made them even creepier looking. I realized that it might not be a case of one rogue carny, and for all I know, the whole gang might have sent that one guy out looking for a kid to snatch and bring back to them. Now, I just kept on watching them, watching me for maybe half a minute more,

and then after taking one look at James in the back, who by then had fallen back asleep, I thought, screw this and then turned around and drove off. Now before James was born, if something like that happened where someone made me mad enough to hunt them down, then yeah, maybe I'd have gotten my car and been dumb enough to get my ass kicked by a dozen pissed off carnival folk. But after he was born, it was like I had this safety software installed onto my brain where everything I did sparked the thought of, how is this going to end for me? There was no point trying to defend him from something I wouldn't survive confronting

because being a parent is literally all about living to fight another day. Life's not a game anymore for me. I have to do everything I can to protect my kid, and it's just scary as hell when you try and do all the right things and still end up with some creep breaking into your car. I called the cops from my mom's place that next day after telling her all about the man, the key ring, and all the signs from the flying plow circus. They called me back basically saying that they'd been stonewalled and that no one admitted to slipping out from their camp after dark, not even for a second.

And that's what confirmed it for me. If they were just a bunch of innocent, good-natured carnies just making their way in the world, then I doubt that they'd have stonewalled a pair of cops who came around asking about a kitty creeper. If there was some sketchy loner on my crew and I thought that they were up to no good, and I mean really up to no good, I'd want them gone. So the fact that they all sort of said, I don't know what you're talking about, officers. And that made me think that they were in on it and they were just covering for their boy. On the journey back from my mom's and while driving in daylight, I slowed near that turn that I'd seen the trailers on but didn't see any signs for the Flying Plow Circus. Now, I'm guessing that they moved on after the visit from the cops and after looking it up.

I don't think the whole Flying Plow thing was the regular name. Flying Plow Something, I can't remember if it was a road or a lane or whatever, it was the name of the place that they set up on, so wherever they went, they'd probably put up some new signs and under a new name, and then on and on they'd go. I don't even know if they were running an actual circus. I saw plenty of trailers, but no big top. But what I do know is that one of them went out looking for kids, and almost certainly for no good reason at all.

Almost 10 years ago now, way back in September of 2016, I drove all the way from L.A. to Phoenix to visit an old high school friend. Now, I was 31 and female, but still Hispanic and still small. And I drove out on a Friday, and we spent all day Saturday together. Then, even though I planned to drive back home in the mid-afternoon on Sunday, I didn't end up leaving until about 9 p.m. at night. Now, I know, I should have left earlier. and I know what I'm about to tell you is basically my own damned fault for not sticking to my plan. But even so, there are still nights sometimes, even all this time later, when I find myself waking up from nightmares with a cold sweat forming on my chest,

having relived it all over again in my sleep. I was just after midnight when I rolled into Riverside County after passing over the Arizona State line. Now, a few people were still up in that area, so it wasn't completely dead, but after I passed the airport and the Mesa Verda complex, the 10 got super quiet again, and it seemed like there was no one but me out there for miles and miles. I was just trying to keep myself awake with some music and by blasting some cold air when suddenly,

I noticed a pair of headlights in my rear view. Someone was coming up on me, and really fast too, and seeing how fast they were going, I honestly figured it was the police. I didn't panic or anything. I wasn't doing anything wrong, and I didn't have anything in the car that I shouldn't have, and so I just sat tight, kept my speed, and let them get closer and closer.

When they got so close, their headlights were blinding me if I looked up into the rear view, I figured they'd pass and keep going. But they stayed put, right behind me in the same lane and didn't budge for at least a couple of minutes. I'm trying to figure out if these guys really are cops because it looked like they were driving in one of those big sliding door vans. only this one was all blacked out, like even the windows looked like they were tinted.

Now, there was nothing on it to say that they were police and no lights on the top either, so I started getting really nervous thinking, what the hell do these guys want with me? Like I said, they stayed behind me like that for a couple of minutes, and then by the time they dropped back a little, they sped up to try and pass me, and I was actually super relieved. Now, I thought because they weren't trying to follow anymore, I was out of danger. when in reality, I was in more danger than I could have ever even imagined.

I just let them pass, because what the heck was I going to do? But then instead of passing me and speeding off, the black van pulled back into the same lane as me and then started cruising maybe 10 to 15 minutes in front like he was trying to block me. I thought, oh, big deal, right? Like I could just slow down and lose them. But I didn't think that I'd need to, so I didn't. I stayed right where I was, slowing only a little to just a safe distance between us,

and then kept on cruising just like the van was. I had no idea what they were up to, and I think maybe curiosity really did almost kill the cat here, because when the van's rear doors swung open, and I saw a man in leathers with some kind of bandana wrapped around his face, I kind of just froze up. I couldn't think of a single good reason why he'd want to open the back doors like that, and for a second I thought that he might be planning on jumping out for some reason. I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking.

All I did was lean on the brake a little and put just a little more feet between myself and that van. I just had no idea that I'd moved right where he wanted me. I dropped back a little more, still wondering what the hell these guys were doing and why they didn't have any plates on the back of their van. I then watched as the man with a bandana around his mouth began to smile at me. I obviously couldn't see his mouth, but I could see it in his eyes. That or the dust was getting to him because it's like he squinted before turning his back on me and carefully leaning down to grab something.

No, I might sound crazy or dumb to you all who are reading this back in almost slow-mo, and maybe I was just too tired and slow or naive as heck, but it could not conceive of what he was about to do next, no matter how obvious it seems looking back on it. And so I just watched. watched as the guy hauled something up into his arms, turned around, and then tossed it out into the freeway in front of him. I saw what it was way too late, and I guess that moment of panic really did slow me down,

but I had just enough in me to turn the wheel at just the right moment, so that when that old engine block came bouncing up off the blacktop, it smashed into my windshield on the passenger side and nod into me. And once it hit, instinct told me to slam on the brakes. and so that's what I did, bringing my car to a spinning, screeching stop, before I realized that I was covered in glass and there was basically a giant gaping hole where my windshield used to be. I just remember sitting there and shaking after I turned off my engine, and then I got out,

walked to the side of the highway with my phone and dialed 911. And it wasn't until I described exactly what had happened, as calmly as I could, that I suddenly just broke down when the operator told me to stay in the line while she transitioned. for me to someone. And after that, it was a case of guiding the cops and EMS to where I was, so I could be taken to the ER. Aside from a few cuts and some mild whiplash, I was pretty much good to go, but I was reminded of just how lucky I'd been by that doctor. The cops had said the same thing, and that's why I say reminded, but at the time, it didn't all the way feel lucky, and it wouldn't for quite some time. I knew I was lucky to be alive, and it wasn't like I was

completely blind to how lucky I'd been in that respect. But all I could think about in the months afterwards was, why me? Like, why do they pick me of all the people they could have picked to throw a damn engine at? Like, I know they were trying to kill me. I just want to know what it was about me that made them think, yeah, this is the one. Let's turn her into hamburger meat. The cops didn't find that van or the people inside it, and I don't mean any disrespect to the boys in blue when I say this, but I didn't have much faith that they would. would. It was a black van, no plates traveling in the middle of the damn night in the middle of the damn desert, and it might as well have been a ghost. And that fits too, because you know something

as sure as heck haunts me like one. So I used to drive taxis in Liverpool back in the 80s. Now, it was great money for what it was. And so even though I only planned on doing it long enough to find a replacement for the job I'd lost, I ended up driving for almost three years before I finally gave up. A big appeal was that I could work when I wanted. If I had something that any doing in the daytime, be it something with the kids' school or whatever, I could just take a few hours off, take care of business, and then head out on the jobs again at night to make up the hours. And there was no doing that in the factory or down on the docks, not without getting your pay docked anyway. But it wasn't all sunshine and roses, and I remember one particular job where for a minute or two,

so it didn't look like I was going to make it home to my family that night. It started when a job came through just after 10 p.m., asking me to take someone from Agberth Vale to unfield. I got the address, drove over, and then parked up outside a small two-up, two down, on a dark and quiet street. I didn't want to beat my horn, which was the usual method of letting a customer know that we were outside, so I gave dispatch a buzz on my radio and asked them to call the customer back to let them know that I was waiting. The dispatch said no one picked up the phone, but then maybe a second or two later, I saw someone walking out of the house and towards my car. Now, as I said, it was dark, so even though I saw the shape of them moving towards the back passenger door,

I didn't get a good look at them until they were sitting behind me. And when I did, I almost pissed my kecks. He was wearing a balaclava, and after he shut the door, he sank down low in the seat to make it harder for him to be seen from the outside. side. Now, he had what looked like a jerry can of petrol in one gloved hand, and then with the other, he pulled out what looked like an old detective gun from his jacket, like a proper six-shooter and pointed it directly at me. He said if I tried to run, I'd be shot. In fact, if I did anything that even remotely upset him, I was a dead man. Now, my only job was to do what he said, and when he said it, and if I did, I'd go home alive that night. And so seeing as I didn't have much of a choice,

I drove where he told me to go. We ended up parked up across from a pub not far from the Rialto on Upper Parliament Street, I remember. And the lad in the back told me to turn off the engine and then spent the next 15 minutes or so checking his watch, and peering up over the solid part of the door to watch the pub through the window. He kept on checking his watch, and I kept getting the urge to try and talk him out of whatever he was about to do. But every time the words were about to come out, something stopped them. I stayed quiet and then noticed that when the clock on my dash hit 11 p.m., the lad in the back started getting even twitchier. When I noticed people coming out of the pub, obviously around kickout time, the lad told me to start the engine.

He was watching the pub doors like a hawk, and then suddenly he started rolling down the window all frantically before he pointed the gun out the window, shouted something I couldn't make out, and pulled the trigger. One of the fellas who just walked out of the pub hit the concrete like a wet sack of spuds. Someone screamed, and then the guy in the back seat let out a scream of his own as he told me to drive. I obviously had to stay under the speed limit where possible, but it was tough with a gun pressed in the back of my head every so often, with its owner telling me that if I stopped for the police or took us down any dead ends, I'd be getting one to the back of the dome. The lad directed me to drive all the way out towards speak to some of the derelict land near where the airport is today. He told me to get out of the car and then started emptying that can of petrol all over the seats after joining me outside.

And that was the closest I had got to trying to do something when I realized that I was about to lose my car. I know that probably sounds horrible, seeing as I didn't do anything about him shooting that fell outside the pub, but I wasn't really in any position to do anything back then, whereas why, Watching him pour that gasoline with his back to me, I knew that there was a very slim chance that I'd be able to get the drop on him. But if I didn't, I was a dead man. And so I basically talked myself out of it in my head and then watched as he set my car on fire and then ran off into the darkness. I just remember feeling numb. Less than an hour before I hadn't even received the job yet.

And then just a short while after parking outside that house to pick them up, my life had been changed forever. We obviously didn't have any phones back then, so I couldn't just call the police with a mobile like I would now. I had to walk all the way to a pay phone, which took quite a while before I could contact the police, and only then could I give them any details. All I wanted to do was go home, get in the bath,

and crack open one of the beers that I had waiting for me in the fridge. But the police wanted me to wait where I was, so I could guide them to where my car had been dumped. It honestly didn't take all that long, and I'm grateful the police got out to me so fast, but the last thing in the world I wanted to do was go back to where my car was still smoldering and repeat my story for a second time. But I had to, because the most important thing was making it really bloody clear that my part in the murder was an unwilling one, and I did that by giving them as much info as possible on the man that had done the shooting.

But when they asked if I'd be willing to appear in a court at a later date, I told them, No. Call me a coward, but to me, you'd have to be mental to testify against some gangster in this city. Maybe if I was in London or New York or somewhere like that, but not Liverpool, because everyone knows everyone around here. And they said that I might get asked again if murdered detectives were put on the case, and they found someone they wanted to charge. But the fact that I never got that call is the only proof that I need that they didn't catch anyone. I used to have nightmares about it, too.

proper horrible ones as well. But nowadays I just have these dreams. Not quite nightmares, but still clear enough for me to remember when I wake up in the morning. And sometimes in those dreams I do what I wanted to do in the moment and beg the killer to reconsider. But no matter what I say and no matter how I say it, he never, ever listens. I grew up in Fondalac, Wisconsin, but I drifted out west in my teens, ended up getting hooked on heroin and then spent a little time in federal prison for something I'm not too proud of. Probably goes without saying, but that was rock bottom for me. I made it through without taking any kind of beating, but when I got out, I knew I had

to get myself together. For the first time in my life, I had to think about what I wanted to do with myself. I knew I liked being outside, even more so after my stretch in prison, but I knew the chances of me becoming a park or forest ranger as a felon were slim to none. I knew I could try to try to be a lot. I knew I could try out to be one of those wilderness firefighters because they allow felons to apply if their convictions weren't for violent crimes. But then after stopping at a bar for a couple of beers one Thursday night, I ended up talking to a guy whose cousin operated a tour company out in the Pasaden wilderness. I told him my story over those couple of beers, all the honest to God's truth, too, no bull crap. And when I was done, he asked if I was interested in being a tour guide. And then since it involved walking the

trails all day, sometimes even camping out overnight, only had two words for him. Hell and yes. I got a call the next day from my future boss, asking if I was okay interning for a couple of months so I could prove that I was on the level. He'd give me a place to stay, make sure I was fed, watered, and washed, but while he didn't mind taking a chance on me, he didn't want to pay for the privilege. I didn't tell him this, but at the time, I think I'd have happily worked for a whole year for free if it meant having my dream job at the end of it. So I accepted his offer and then made my way to a small town up in the hills called Barron. I honestly had no idea what to expect, but when I arrived, I found the place was way more comfortable than I ever expected. There were four other guides

staying up there, not including the boss who lived down in Wilthrup, and they each shared a cabin that had full amenities. There were three of them, so I got one all to myself for a while. I knew it was only because the other guides didn't trust me, and probably because the boss had warned them that I was an ex-con. But they were nice enough, so I didn't mind having to earn their trust and respect over time. I really didn't know what to expect from the clientele either, but they proved to be a real mixed bag. You'd get your tourists and your adventure vacation types, who you're only there to make sure that they didn't get lost or wander anywhere they shouldn't. And then there were the corporate team builders or the bachelor parties who were, were more party than peace. And I fell into the rhythm of that place pretty quickly and started

making friends pretty quickly too once people saw how serious I was about it. And then once my trial period was up and I was a fully trained and fully paid up member of the guiding team, I was able to head out with parties all on my own and sometimes for a night or two of camping. And that's how I ended up meeting a family of four headed up by an older lady named Patty. Patty and her husband must have been in their 60s, maybe early 70s, and they had their two grown-up kids with them. They decided to spend a little time in the great outdoors together on account of raising their two grown-up kids on concrete, and right away, I could tell that they were going to be great guests. They were just about as wholesome of family unit as it was possible to get, at least in my opinion anyway.

They clearly loved each other very much, but they were real funny too, and the way they went at it, with each other had me laughing along with them. They were interesting folks, too, and had some amazing stories to share, so it was one of those parties that was such a pleasure to guide that if I was a millionaire, I would have happily guided them for free. And so we hiked all day, stopped for breaks here and there, until we reached our campsite for the night. I got us a fire going with the help of Patty's grown-up son,

then she insisted on doing all the campfire cooking so I could relax and take a load off. We had two tents with us, one for the parents, one for the kids, and a reminder that they are grown-up people. And then my small one-man pup tent. We got them all set up, went over a few emergency procedures in case anything happened in the night, and then each went to our sleeping bags for the evening. But what I didn't know, what I could never have known, was just how wrong things were going to go for us during the next day's hike. I remember waking up to the sound of voices and being blinded by flashlights when I looked out of my tent. There, standing outside their tents and what amounted to their nighttime where, were Patty's husband, son, and daughter,

but there was no Patty anywhere to be seen. The three of them were whispering at first, but when they heard me asking what was going on, they told me that Patty was missing. Her husband said that he woke up to noises beside him in the tent, but figured his wife was just rolling over in her sleep or something. And then when he asked if she was okay and he didn't hear any reply, he realized that not only was the tent's front flap unzipped, but his wife was nowhere to be seen. Patty's husband then takes a walk around outside for her just to make sure that she really is off taking a leak somewhere. And then when a couple of minutes went by and she hadn't returned, he woke up his kids. And that's when they realized that Patty hadn't even put her shoes on. We briefly

discussed the procedure for someone going missing. And so after a quick reminder, we each walked off in a different compass direction with our flashlights and then started yelling out Patty's name. We kept each other's flashlights in view and we didn't go too far, but we kept on yelling her name as loud as we could. And when we didn't get any response, we kept on pushing outwards a little more until we were maybe 100 meters apart on all sides. We yelled and yelled and yelled and kept on yelling, but still didn't hear a thing from Patty in response. And since I didn't want anyone wandering off and getting lost, I called out for everyone to return to camp. I planned on contacting the local Rangers and enlisting their help while I got the family back to headquarters,

but Patty's son didn't like that idea at all. A small argument broke out between myself and the son, who insisted that we stay and keep on looking. Now, she was an older lady, so she couldn't have gotten far, I think, and while I agreed, we had certain protocols to follow in the event of someone going missing like that, and those protocols were based on keeping everyone else in a group safe. Yet Patty's husband agreed with their son and insisted that they stay at the camp and keep calling out her name in case she got lost, and so she could find a way back to the camp. I had to work with them. I had to at least give them some hope in that respect, and honestly, because that's the exact same thing I hope someone might do for me if that was my mom out there lost in the dark forest.

And so, while I started to pack up our stuff, I told Patty's son that I wouldn't stop him if he wanted to take one last look around the perimeter. And as you can imagine, he was grateful for my cooperation, but I also get the feeling that he'd have punched me right in the face if I had insisted on leaving. And so off he went, him and his dad, while I tried my best to keep Patty's daughter, calm as I packed away my gear and got a start on the group stuff, too. I didn't think they'd find anything. I mean, I hope they did, but the wilderness makes you a cynic over time on account of how cruel nature can truly be. And so imagine how surprised and relieved I was when maybe ten minutes after they left. I heard the sound of the son's voice coming

through the trees as he yelled, we got her. Patty's daughter burst into tears when she saw her dad and brother approaching with their mom in tow, and I'm not ashamed to say that I wasn't far from tears myself by that point. I'd never had to deal with anything like that before, so to have it over and done with so quickly was an incredible relief. Patty seemed really shaken as we checked her over for injuries, and while her son kept asking what happened, where did you go, she didn't seem to have an answer for them. When she did talk, she just kept saying, I don't know, I can't remember. I think I got lost. That all kind of made sense to me once I realized that she'd walked off without a flashlight

because it gets so oppressively dark at night out in the wilderness that it can get really disorienting and frightening very quickly. And I remember telling everyone not to worry, that Patty would probably be more articulate once she'd gotten some sleep and some food, and we were all pretty exhausted by that point. But even after a few hours of sleep and some protein bars and coffee for breakfast, things continued to get worse. To stay on schedule, we could only get a couple of more hours to sleep before we had to wake up, pack up, and make our way back to HQ. And that meant that we were all kind of tired and cranky waking up at 6.30 a.m., but still super relieved that we'd found

Patty and avoided any major disasters. I made that coffee, handed out those bars, and while I did, I noticed that Patty was still unusually quiet, especially in comparison to what a chatty Patty she was the day before. I didn't press her too much on it. I just asked if she was feeling okay and was good to walk back to base, and she said, sure, after apologizing for scaring us. She seemed like her usual self, or at least the usual self that I'd come to know in those 24 hours,

but there was something, I don't know, missing. Like she was still a little confused or spooked regarding what had happened that night. And like I said, I didn't press her on it, as I figured that she was probably dealing with a lot of mixed emotions at that point. But as we got back to the trail and started heading back to HQ, Patty's behavior took a series of dramatic turns and very much for the worst. I think we were maybe 20 minutes into the hike, and it was a nice quiet morning, too,

so you could hear a pin drop whenever the birds weren't tweeting. Now, I'm leading the group. The two grown-up kids are behind me while Patty and her husband are at the rear, and I could hear them whispering to each other, not to keep secrets or anything, just to preserve that early morning calm. But then at one point, I hear Patty's husband say something like, What did you say? In fact, you know what, don't?

We'll talk about this later. Now, he didn't raise his voice or anything. He just sounded irritated, and since it's my general policy not to intervene until tempers start to flare too badly, I didn't even acknowledge what was said. It's not entirely unusual for folks to get a little snippy with each other, especially when they're tired and out of their comfort zones. And generally speaking, the best course of action is to not escalate, i.e. don't get involved. Little tips like that generally smooth themselves out, as no one wants to have a big family

or inter-friend argument in front of the trail guide. But not in this case, not at all. It must have only been a couple of minutes later that I heard Patty's husband behind me say something like, I told you, Patty, this is not the time. We can talk about this later. To which she replied, and these were her exact words, We'll talk about it, and then we'll go running off into the arms of one of your whores. Now, both her grown-up kids gasped and were like,

Mom? What the hell? Now, I felt the exact same way. Having seen this sweet old lady go from a ray of sunshine the day before, to having a mouth like a damned sewer rat the day after. I mean, that probably sounds a little rich coming from someone who curses up a storm every now and then, but my point stance. Something about Patty was way different, and even with all that crap I've been through in my life,

I found the change to be very unsettling. She started off on some rant about how her husband wasn't faithful, how he hadn't been so for years, and he thought that she was dumb for not knowing, but she knew. I remember the husband snapping into her and then yelling, Patty, I told you, this is not the time. And that silenced her.

And I turned to tell them all very politely to just keep moving as fast as they could so we could get them back to base on schedule. I remember turning around and walking backwards while I said it, and considering what she just said, I expected Patty to have a face like thunder. Unless she didn't. Quite the opposite, actually. She was sort of smiling, ear to ear. And that was the point where I turned to Patty's son and asked him to drop back a little so I could talk with him in private. And then with his sister now at the lead, we dropped back away behind his parents and got to talking. Now, he was understandably on edge, but even more so that we'd talk because I told him strange turns and behavior like that could be caused by some pretty serious head injuries. And he knew that all too well himself, as I think he was some kind of personal injuries

specialist, but here's the stickler. Patty didn't show any sign whatsoever of having any kind of head injury. We checked her pretty much all of. over the night before, especially her scalp, because her hair does a real good job of hiding bumps, cuts, and bruises, especially when those cuts aren't bleeding particularly heavy. But like I said, there was nothing, not even so much as a bump on her head. That didn't mean that she'd taken some kind of fall, but regardless, she needed to be taken to a hospital and checked out for anything that we might have missed. He agreed, and then said the first thing that they'd do once we got

back to H.Q. was driver to the nearest hospital. But as it turns, turned out, we didn't make it back there at all. As we kept on hiking, Patty started getting very snippy and mean again, but this time it was directed at her kids. Now, I couldn't believe my damn ears as some of the stuff that she was saying. Now, it sounded like she was dragging up age-old fights and wrongdoings, but then from the reaction of her kids, she was putting a particularly venomous and untrue spin on things. such as one point she accused her son of selling pot in college and he just about exploded saying something along the lines of no i did not i got high like one time mom one time i could be disbarred if people heard you talking about this

now she says something really mean to her daughter too but i'm not sure that i could say what that was without if this ever makes it to a video on youtube and might get nuked you know and i mean it's not even worth typing out for you to decide which part needs to be removed because all of it was a about as poisonous as you could possibly imagine. I mean, imagine the worst stuff you could ever accuse a woman of, and that's what Patty's mom was accusing her daughter of. It was so bad that the daughter burst into tears, as she asked her why she was acting the way she was, and then just kept going on like that until Patty's husband yelled at her to shut the hell up. It all got so bad that I had to step in and ask them to calm down, and I never do that unless things get really, really bad. The daughter was in tears. The son looked next to traumatized,

and Patty's husband had turned so red that he looked like a tomato in hiking gear. But Patty, you guessed it. She's just there smiling ear to ear. Like what she'd said and the reactions it had gotten was the most amusing and satisfying thing in the world to her. Now, I was so alarmed by it that I asked her, very nice and polite if she could just refrain from starting arguments until I'd at least gotten them safely back.

Now, most folks don't want to argue in front of their guide, and they tend to treat me as a kind of neutral party, too. But in this occasion, that formerly sweet old lady looked me dead in the eyes, told me to shut the F up before she got her husband to knock my teeth out. Well, everything exploded again. The daughter cried. The son comforted her, and the husband started really roaring at Patty, asking what the hell had gotten into her that she'd say something like that. Now he turned to me and said, I'll do nothing like that, Devin, rest assured. But then turned back to Patty and started screaming at her again. And I had to seriously step in that time and ask everyone to just calm down before things escalated even further.

I didn't even know what the escalation might even look like. I just knew that I didn't want to see it. But I don't think I've ever expected things to happen the way they did, because after another period of silence, after calming everyone down, and I was at the lead when I heard Patty's husband scream my name. I turned around to see her with a rock in her hand, a big one, and from the looks of things, he was trying to smash her husband in the face with it. Everyone jumped up in to stop it,

as in me, the son, and the daughter, while Patty's husband looked so shocked that his face turned from that deep red to an almost bright pale white instantly. Her son grabbed her, her daughter pulled the rock out of her hand, and then they actually took her down to the ground. as really carefully and gently as they could, which in fairness wasn't all that gentle, considering that she was kicking and flailing and even trying to bite them at one point.

I told Badi's husband to just keep her where she was, no matter what, don't let her run off into the woods and get lost again. It was really shaken, but assured me that she wasn't going anywhere, and neither were they. And so after dropping my pack and telling them that I'd return as quickly as possible, I ran off in the direction of headquarters, keeping a steady jogging pace until I arrive back maybe 20 to 25 minutes later. I felt ready to puke up my own lungs by the time I stopped running,

and I had to spend maybe a minute catching my breath before I could actually describe the situation that was happening back on the trail. We had an ATV with a med-light transport trailer attached, which are those gurney things that you see attach to them so injured people can be moved around off-road. And so after a co-worker grabbed the keys, I rode back to where Patty and her family were. I was terrified things had gotten even worse in my absence,

but while things seemed to have calmed down a little, Patty's condition hadn't improved any. It had actually gotten worse. She was still in the ground when we arrived, but she wasn't being restrained by her kids anymore. Instead, she looked exhausted, and there was a little puddle of puk nearby where she'd been vomiting.

All that venom seemed to have left her, too, because when I asked her if she was awake, All she'd say was, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I don't know what happened. And that was all perfectly normal sounding to go up and down like that, I mean. They call them mood swings for a reason, right, and that only further convinced me that Patty was suffering the effects of some kind of head injury that we didn't know about. But then Patty's son took me aside, and with his sort of scared look on his face, he says, I think she's losing her mind, man.

Now, I reassured him that that probably wasn't. what was happening, and the people don't just lose their minds like that after getting lost in the woods for a brief period of time. But he still needed to rush her to a hospital once they were able to do so, and with that, he agreed wholeheartedly. But he did say something that frightened me too, and that was how she hadn't responded when he called her, Mom. Patty's son described how after asking her something along the lines of, Mom, are you feeling any better? She acted like she was ignoring him. And he got kind of mad and then says, don't just ignore me, mom. But then she looked at him from where she was laying with this very confused look on her face. And it was like he had to remind her

that's who she was to him, his mom. And after that, she just kept apologizing and saying she could remember where she was. And even now, I find all that very confusing because while that's all still consistent with someone receiving a major head injury, an injury like that would not have been difficult to detect. So the fact that there was no blood in her hair from a gash or a big lump where she'd suffer a nasty impact to make her concussed, it made no sense to us at all. Once I told them what happened, everyone back at headquarters agreed that it was best to contact EMS. And then since we were way out in the sticks and Patty's conditions seemed really serious, they ended up sending out an air ambulance. Now, I've never seen a helicopter hover so low before, but I didn't exactly have time to enjoy it either.

I was scared for Patty, and I felt so terrible for her husband and two kids, who, as you can imagine, were in a really bad way by the time the helicopter showed up. All I could do was tell them that I'd be praying for them and that our doors were always open to them. And then after they drove off, that was the end of it. We didn't hear anything more about Patty or what happened to her that night on the trail, but we didn't forget it, especially not me. Time went by, but I found myself just thinking about Patty on a daily basis and without fail. Anytime I was out in the trails, especially when the day got close to being done, I picture her waking up, climbing out of her tent and just wandering off in the darkness in her bare feet. We could understand her putting her boots on and walking off to go urinate somewhere, but walking off without them seemed to suggest that she was either really scared of something or just wanted to run or she was in some kind of trance. Now they call it a fugue state in psychology you may have heard of it, and me and the other guides have talked about it at length.

It's rare as hell, but every so often, someone's mind stays asleep while their bodies just keep moving, like there's someone or something else at the wheel, like sleepwalking. And that's kind of what we think happened to Patty. Then maybe she fell and bashed her head, and that's what brought her out of it. But all we had were guesses and theories, and none of us wanted to contact Patty's family out of respect for their privacy. I hope that maybe they'd call one day and let us know how she was, but why would they? I was just the trail guide, and by the looks of things, they had way bigger fish to fry than checking in with me. I just wish I knew what happened to that poor lady because sometimes

thinking about that just scares the hell out of me. 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. E.T. And if you haven't all ready, 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.