Morbid: Episode 462: Listener Tales 74 with Jon Lee Brody

You're listening to Amorbid Network Podcast.

Mike Williams set off on a hunting trip into the swamps of North Florida where it was thought

he met a gruesome fate in the jaws of hungry allogators, except that's not what happened

at all.

And after the uncovering of a secret love triangle, the truth would finally be revealed.

Binge all episodes of Over My Dead Body Gone Hunting right now, ad-free on Wondery Plus.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.

And I'm Elena.

And I am John Lee Brody.

And this is a special Listener Tales edition of Morbid with one of our fantastic Morbid

Network hosts, John Lee, Brody of That Was Pretty Scary.

Thanks for being here, John.

Well, thanks for having me as a proud weirdo of, first of all, happy five-year anniversary

of the Morbid Podcast, because I've been a proud weirdo for those five years.

And it's the, what, the wood anniversary?

So wouldn't it be nice if we get five more years?

Yeah.

Someone else wants to say hi.

Hold on.

Shelby is about to make an appearance, and I'm going to lose my mind.

Where is Shelby?

Oh my God, look at that corgi.

Hi there, baby.

Hi there.

Hi, Shelby.

Shelby.

Is she feeling so much better?

She is feeling better, and I think she wants to take her nap right now.

She's like, why?

She's like, I'm not working right now.

She's like, Dad, I'm not a show pony.

All right, I want to do my show.

Bye, Shelby.

I love Shelby.

She's so beautiful.

She knew.

She must have known.

She heard you all's voices because she hears you all's voices all the time, but I always

have the podcast on.

So she's like, wait a minute, are they here?

What's going on?

I love that.

I love it.

She is so cute.

Look, I know them.

Why do they sound familiar?

I know.

Well, this is special because it's the five-year anniversary, like, months, and you're our

like special guest of the month.

I love that.

And it's also AAPI Heritage Month, and it's Mental Health Awareness Month.

So it's a lot of, we got the trifecta going on, and it's very exciting.

I've, it's crazy because I feel like I've known you two, well, I have known you two for

five years, but now we actually know each other.

We're working together and it's a very special dynamic, and it's just, it's all, I have it

all kind of calm and I hear is very, very special.

It is.

This is, this is really fun.

We're really excited for this.

And I know everybody has been obsessed with that was pretty scary.

People are loving it, including me and me.

I'm so glad to hear that.

Well, we got a, you know, we got a long road ahead and we'll get to our five-year anniversary

for that in good time.

And, and also there was a really positive response to my Instagram little mini deep

dive.

So I'll be doing more of those to anyone who is enjoying that.

There will be more of those coming, I think one, one will be coming this week.

So it should be a more good stuff.

I'm glad people like it.

We certainly love doing it and we love working with y'all and we love all our listeners too.

We're so happy to have you.

And I love those deep dives.

They're so fun.

Yeah.

There's more.

There's more.

Trust me.

That might be a longer list than our list of horror movies.

I'm the person that's always looking at those little details and I like to just shine a

light on those things so that people go, Oh, wait, yeah, it's not just a happy accident

that's happening.

There may be a calculated move in terms of why that's there.

I think that's awesome.

Get the inside scoop.

Yeah.

And I think what works with your show is that it's like such good perspectives.

Like it's a different perspective than just taught like, like even like we have scream

and it's just like three, you know, us three idiots talking about horror movies, but it's

like it's fun.

We have no insight whatsoever.

That's fun.

But like it's really fun to hear it from like professionals on either side of the situation.

So I think it's like a brilliant idea for a show.

Well, thank you.

And it's a lot of thanks to you for going for the idea because I know Freddie, it was

on like a random general meeting three because you all have the same manager.

And then he called me said, Hey, I think we got this, this horror podcast idea is going

to go in a different way.

I'm like, Oh, okay.

Great.

All right.

Slug for the ride.

Yeah.

And Freddie's my big brother.

And so to work with someone that you're really close with, like you two, you two are,

you know, obviously best friends and everything.

That's Freddie and myself.

And he came up in the industry a lot sooner than I did.

When he was doing she's all that.

I was in junior high and everybody won.

Every guy wanted to be Zach Seiler and high school.

And none of us succeeded.

Maybe a couple of that.

No, you guys are like the sweetest Freddie.

That really was what it was.

We had like a random meeting with him and we were like, he is so kind.

Kind of nice.

And it was just such a good idea.

We were like, how do we not jump on this?

Exactly.

Well, I'm glad you did.

And I'm glad we're here.

And I'm glad to be, I'm honored to be here for listener tales and the part of the flagship,

the mothership podcast of the Morbid Network.

Yes.

And we heard you have a tale to start us off with.

Yes.

So this is for my good friends back home in Palatine, Illinois.

Shout out to all my friends who I went to friend high school with, even the ones that

made fun of me.

They are now pretending to be my friend because they're like, they love Morbid, but whatever.

Oh my God, I love it.

You gave me so much street cred with the people.

It's amazing.

Good.

I'm glad.

Screw them.

Exactly.

But, but keep listening and subscribing to Morbid.

Exactly.

Yes, please.

Keep on.

Keep on keeping that going.

So there are these two haunted roads in Barrington, Illinois, which is about 15 minutes away

from my hometown of Palatine, Illinois.

And the origin stories are a little murky.

They kind of vary a little bit.

It's like the Joker in the dark night.

He keeps telling a different origin story of how he got his scars.

So we don't exactly know when this originated, but there's a Rocco Cuba road, which leads

to this cemetery called the White Cemetery.

So this does go back to the 1800s and whether White Cemetery means whites only or not.

I don't know.

It could be.

I don't know if I really want to go there, but considering there is a very heavy mafia

and gangster influence in Chicago, we're talking to Al Capone's and the John Dillinger's.

I'm guessing that that might have had something to do with it, or maybe that's for they bury

their victims or whatever.

So Cuba road is known to be a haunted road, which leads to the cemetery.

It intersects with this other road called Rainbow Road, which leads to this secluded

house, which apparently back in the day was this prominent like Scrooge McDuck's house,

Richie Rich's house.

It was a symbol of this wealth that you would never, ever in your wildest dreams get.

The rumor is now that at one point it was actually like an insane asylum and the building

was abandoned.

There's a rumor that there was a house on Cuba road that burned down years ago, and

the ghost of the woman who lived there is still there and looking over the land and apparently

gets angry if you try to get out and see where the house was.

She's like, get off my lawn.

Yeah, I think she's the OG of get off my lawn.

I love that.

Maybe that's why she's so angry, because people are using her phrase and not giving

her royalties, which that does that does play into the WGA strike.

So maybe our old lady on the Cuba road is the the OG of fair practices and fair pay.

Topical. We support her.

Maybe that's all we wanted.

We support my own interpretation of ghosts is we we tend to think that every ghost is

going to be evil because we have like ghostbusters.

We think the exorcist and that's just how they portrayed on screen.

But there's also Casper, the friendly ghost who just tragically died as a kid and is

just lingering in whipstaff.

I'm going off to the Casper movie that came out in the 90s.

It's my favorite Christina Ricci.

Yeah, the human version being Devon Salla and every guy was jealous of Devon Salla

because it's like, wait, every girl likes Devon Salla.

I don't look like Devon Salla.

There's no hope for me.

It was the haircut.

Shout out to Devon Salla.

Anyways, I digress.

It was by the time we all got our driver's license, it is the right of passage was you

have to drive Cuba road because that's the urban legend we grew up with.

That's so fun.

I love this.

If you're really a tough guy, if you're really a manly man,

because remember, this is the late 90s, early 2000s, people still talk like that.

Yep.

If you're really a man, you're going to drive down Cuba road.

I'm like, OK, I mean, I don't know how.

How that correlates.

I don't know.

I was like, I don't know how my anatomy and like this, I don't know how this ties

into the science of whether I'm a male or not.

But OK, let me just go with this because it's high school.

We want to be cool.

Yeah. And I remember as me, my best friend growing up, Chris Ryerson.

So shout out to Chris Ryerson, who is a teacher in Barrington now.

And wow, I was texting him last night and like, hey, man, do you remember

when we drove Cuba road with a shout out to I think it was our friends,

Lauren, Jackie and Kana.

And I think we were trying to impress them.

This shows like how brave we were on Cuba road.

This is amazing already.

It's taking me back.

It's got a nostalgic feel to it.

And it's taking me back.

The more I speak out loud about it, it's it's funny how memories work.

They're pretty dormant in our brain.

But the moment you bring it up, you're like, oh, wow, like the whole

flash of memories come back details.

You can like roll in.

Yeah, you can like smell it. Yeah.

Yeah. And it was our other friend, Pat, who was also in the car.

So Pat, Pat's the friend who, you know, you have the asshole friend who.

But they're your asshole. So it's OK. Oh, yeah.

That was absolutely.

There's always one.

I'm leaving this last thing out because he's a college basketball coach.

I don't want to get him in any trouble.

That he's the asshole friend that you know who you are.

You know, I love you, but you are an asshole.

We feel that. Yes.

So we're driving down Cuba like, are we going to do this thing?

And like, guys, we got to play it cool if we got to be cool.

I didn't know I don't know how to play it cool now.

Like let him on at the age of 16, 17, 18.

Right. What am I doing?

But whatever they do it on TV.

How hard can it be?

So we're driving down Cuba road and right away.

And this is something we always heard about.

There's these little white and green orbs of light

that this isn't just reflecting from our headlights or anything.

These things are like following us.

They're like kind of surrounding the car.

And like this is and there's no street lights on Cuba road.

So you're like, what is?

Like this is not a reflection.

This defies science.

And all it took was one of the girls to say, oh, my God, do you see that?

And then all of a sudden once we wish they said that and we saw that

we couldn't unsee it.

And then all of a sudden in my mind, I'm like, oh, wait,

maybe this isn't just an urban legend.

Like, is this how my story ends?

Like, do I never like get to be Zach Siler and she's all that?

Like no, like I wasn't going to be prom king anyway.

But there was at least a chance if I was alive, it's going to happen.

And so now I'm like, I'm driving in my mom's Volvo 850,

which she still has at this day because we're because we're Korean.

We don't get rid of anything.

So just in our garage.

Shout out to her.

Yeah, shout out to my mom, my mom, who is the real superhero

and with Mother's Day coming up, AKA superheroes.

They she's for sure is that.

But my mom's Volvo and we're listening to like DMX or whatever.

Yes, mixed CD.

She's like, I'm there with you.

I am literally there.

All of a sudden, party up was not as an upbeat tune.

It was as we're tuning up.

I was returning. It became ominous.

Oh, yes.

And then then then again, you hear of DMX's back story.

So maybe that's all on brand or everything.

It was being foretelling of the news we're going to get about DMX years from then.

So we're seeing these orbs of light and then we're getting to the cemetery.

And I swear, I saw a car turn into the cemetery.

I'm like, that's weird.

People are here at night and we go down there.

There's no car.

Now, like I swear to you, this happened.

I'm like, OK, you all saw that, right?

Like, yeah, there was a car.

I'm like, yeah, we saw like some car points in the cemetery,

which one, that's I think a red flag when we're there at eight o'clock.

It's pitch black on this.

You know, I think maybe I don't think it's an unincorporated road,

but it certainly felt that way.

And so we get to the cemetery.

We don't see anything, but we still see the orbs of light.

And and this is before you could just get on your smartphone and Google stuff.

We couldn't film anything because we didn't have that capability,

unless I took my dad's like JVC video camera

and made a movie out of it, which had a real steady hand, which I did.

Just not. I did that all the time.

Yeah. And I used to edit on two VCRs and everything.

That's that's that was my start of filmmaking.

But for some reason today, we didn't bring the camera here

because we didn't think we needed it.

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And and then Pat being Pat was like, I'm going to go into the cemetery

and just look at myself like, what are you talking about in the cemetery?

Like, we agreed we'd stay in the car.

It was like a bad action movie of the 80s.

Like, no, like, don't you know what?

Like in Last Action Hero, don't you know what happens when the partner goes with

he just gets killed like you got to stay in the car.

You know what though?

Classic Pat. It is a classic Pat.

Yeah, he was on a different mission to really prove like, oh, I'm the alpha

of this group. Yeah. Sure. Sure.

Pat, whatever you tell us.

I love you. I love you. But sure, Jen.

So he's like, he gets out of the car and we're like, Chris and I are looking

at each other like, we're going to, you know, like we're going to have to go with

them, but we also can't leave everybody here.

So we're trying to figure out what's going on.

He takes two steps out of the car and it was like before Jordan Peele

even had the idea for this.

Basically, we see Pat go, nope, he doesn't even go there.

And and that was kind of the end of that.

But then we remember there's Rainbow Road and we said, OK, but if we're here,

we got to check out Rainbow Road, which is crazy to me because at this point,

I'm I'm not going to lie.

I'm a little creeped out because as much as people want to say,

there's no such thing as ghosts, like you can't definitively definitively

prove that there are or there aren't.

That's that's my interpretation of it.

Unless you can conclusively prove just like we can prove two plus two equals four

that you can prove there are or are not ghosts.

I'm open to all possibilities.

That's always how my brains worked.

Yeah. So that's my thinking.

I'm like, look, first of all, my curfew is like eleven thirty.

It's not too late.

I need to get this ball back.

Got to press these girls and get out of here.

Hell, that no fury like a worry Korean mom,

one where her son is on a Saturday night.

And let alone as she knew we're on some haunted road in Barrington doing whatever

whatever you've got her volvo.

I have her Volvo eight fifty, the same car that Sally Field drove in Mrs.

Dalfire just in white instead of red.

Yep. Yeah, it's to give you a visual car.

It was perfect.

It took you right there.

Back in 1994 and 20th Century Fox.

So shout out to Mrs.

Dalfire and Sally Field.

So we're like, all right, well, we're here.

I'm looking at my watch.

I'm like, OK, it's 10 30.

I got another hour before I got to get everybody home and meet my curfew,

because I legitimately was the that kid who would get grounded

and wouldn't be able to go out the next weekend if I was there like a minute

later than my curfew. Oh, yeah.

So like, oh, I heard there's an insane asylum on Rainbow Road.

OK, all right. So we drive down there.

I swear I heard police lights.

I'm like, OK, like maybe the police are shutting it down because too many people

go there and they just want to usher people out or maybe people who actually

live there on Cuba Road were like, man, fuck these guys that are trying to look

around all the time.

It's like I'm just trying to live our life here.

Like maybe there's nothing wrong.

So like we're like looking around, looking around.

I swear we heard I swear we saw police lights and sirens.

We get down further.

There's nothing there. What the fuck?

So I'm like, OK, this is this is strange again.

So like, well, which way?

Which way do we go to this same asylum?

And he's like, I don't know.

I'm like, what do you mean you don't know?

Who's your idea?

Like, I just want to do Cuba Road.

You want to do Rainbow Road now? What's going on?

I don't know why my voice is so high now, but I was scared.

And like, I'm not exaggerating.

I'm I'm I'm pretty sure I did that sort of tone, but also

not trying to show that I was that scared.

So we're turning right.

We don't see it. We're in like pitch black.

And now I'm going from scared to kind of being like pissed.

I'm like, well, what the fuck?

And like, it was enough to do Cuba.

You had you had to just take it too far.

Now we've got to go here.

We look down the other side and we do see just this iron gate.

And like, OK, I think we.

Oh, no, I think we found it.

And it's this really ominous and dark, long driveway

right out of a Tim Burton movie, except not as welcoming.

It's like not as fun movies as creepy as they are.

They're like, you're still like, I want to go there.

Yeah, there's a John Cena's to it.

This was like bizarro Tim Burton.

Yeah. Yeah.

Where it's like a level below Tim Burton.

It's like you shall not go and you shall not pass was basically the

the thing here. Pat once again is like, oh, my God, is that it?

Like, we should hot the fence. We should do this.

I'm like, where are you?

Like, who? God damn it.

Why are you giving the ideas here?

Who brought you here?

Oh, wait, it was me.

Oh, wait, it was me because you're our asshole friend.

Again, I love you, Pat.

But still, it's going to be the running joke that every time I come on,

we'll do a shout out to my ass.

Shout out to asshole, Pat.

Yeah, I'm here for it.

So we we see that and like so we all like actually make a choice.

Like, OK, let's let's all get out.

Like if someone's going to get out of the car, we all get out of the car.

We all it's like all for one, one for all. We got to be let's do this.

So we get pretty close to this like iron gate.

And then I swear, like I saw we saw like headlights coming towards us.

Like, oh, no, no, no, no, like this could be a ghost car.

This could be this.

So we never got too far into exploring what the house could be or what it isn't.

There are legends that say some people have hopped the gate

and they actually get into the abandoned rooms of the house

and they make it down to the basement where apparently

I've no way to confirm this or deny it.

So I'm just going to state that this is what I've heard.

So I'm not saying this is a fact to anybody listening.

But apparently, if you make it to the basement of this supposed

abandoned insane asylum, there's like bloody pentagrams painted on the floor

and stuff like that.

And then I remember the mob backstory of Chicago

because John Dillinger and Al Capone used to always come up to the north

suburbs to escape Chicago a little bit for a little R and R or whatever.

But it's also very possible that they could have used this

abandoned place to hide some of the dead bodies one hundred percent.

You know what I mean?

So that's where my brain goes now.

Back then it's like, dude, I got to I got to get home for curfew.

That matter.

And I don't want to look like a wuss in front of these girls.

Because that was so important to me.

So once we saw the headlines, we're just all like, OK, guys,

we got to go like because if the cops get us like we're all screwed

and we were all like athletes and we all had stuff to do.

And like if we all got in trouble,

that actually would be pretty dire consequences for school.

And me, I'm terrified of what would happen if I got in trouble with the.

I'd be more afraid of my mom than the police.

Let's just do that.

So I was like, I would been safer in jail.

Yeah, I don't want to even play with this. Exactly.

So that was my personal tale of Cuba and Rainbow Road.

And that we went a couple of other times.

And the other times weren't as intense as the first time because you're going in.

You don't know what to expect.

Yeah, you've heard people tell you stories, but I swear, those orbs.

Everyone I've talked to that's been there.

They say the same thing.

The orbs like surround your car and they follow you.

They're not just light refractions and I'm not an expert in physics or anything.

But again, there's no street lights.

I don't where were these.

Where are they coming from?

So there's a belief that these are the spirits of Cuba Road kind of being guardians.

And I would hope that they're just nice ghosts and they're hoping

that you're not going to kill anybody else.

That's what I was kind of thinking that they were like surrounding your car

to be like, hey, you should go back.

Like, don't go now. Don't go this way.

It was it was it was the Devin Salah Casper, basically saying like,

you don't go, I can't keep you.

I was just going to say, saying, can I keep you?

That one line.

That one line changed everything for everybody for a whole generation.

Yeah. And you know, it's it can only be said by Devin Salah.

Circa the 90s.

Yeah, I tried to say that any man tried to say it's it's a wrap.

It would be like, oh, that's turned into a movie.

Devin Salah, let's go.

Absolutely, you can keep me.

Yeah, it's it's up there with my favorite line deliveries of all time.

It's up there with back to the future three when

Marty McFly just has his realization about being called chicken.

And he just looks at Mad Dog Tanning and goes, he's an asshole.

So it's like, it's up there with a car with that

in terms of such iconic line delivery.

So so that was my personal tale of Cuba road rainbow.

To be a seventeen, eighteen year old kid who's, you know, just

first of all, trying to figure out who the fuck he is as a person,

which I really haven't figured out.

I mean, it's really in recent years, I figure that out.

But trying to look cool on these girls with your friend.

Also trying not to be the wuss of the group sort of thing.

Not that I think I am.

But look, when you're dealing with the supernatural, anything goes,

you don't know what's going to happen. I was going to say.

I'm not trying to mess with that. No way.

So yeah, and I did put a thing out on my Facebook last night

telling my hometown friends if they had any stories they wanted to tell me

that may have been intense, and I would love to share a couple with you.

Yes, please do.

This first one is from Kristen Kanig.

So shout out to you, Kristen Kanig, who actually helped.

She actually planned our our 20 year reunion last year. Oh, damn.

So shout out to you, Kristen, for doing that.

I don't know why you got tasked with such a thankless job.

I was going to say, damn.

Appreciate it.

So she wrote this on my Facebook.

I drove over on Cuba past the Old Cemetery and saw the floating orb of light

that follows you.

Also got lost searching rainbow road for the asylum, traveled along a creepy

little side road that turned out to be someone's driveway.

Once we realized and turn tried to turn around, a man burst out of his house

with a shotgun and scared the shit out of us.

OK. And then she also mentioned that there is also an urban legend

that if you stop on the train tracks and honk your horns three times,

a ghost train will come.

I love those kind of urban legends.

Those are the most fun. Yeah.

We never found the train track and we did look another time,

but we never found that.

And maybe I should probably should just go on there during the daytime

to get a geography if I was smart back then, but that's just not what happened.

And Kristen B.

Shamil said a bunch of my friends and I drove there way back in our day

late in the fall and we saw a faint green light, not orbs,

more like aurora borealis style green light emanating from that graveyard.

A couple of the guys got out and went in with a flashlight

to see what was going on because they thought someone was pranking

or left glow sticks out there, but came back after a few minutes

with no answers, but both were freaked out because one of them was sure

someone tapped them lightly on the shoulder.

He went around and no one was there.

And our other friend, parentheses flashlight guy,

wasn't close enough to have done it.

To this day, they still get quiet and uncomfortable when we talk about it.

Oh, give me the chili willies.

Yeah, they got right. Yeah.

And so it's it's fun to first of all,

hear people from people that I haven't heard from in a long time.

And some of the others share with me that they heard those same

urban legends and nothing really happened.

But for every one of those, there's those other stories,

like from the two Christians.

I didn't even put that.

I know, it's good to say that it's a wild, wild thing.

And I think that sort of stuff is fun.

And, you know, but also I'm glad I'm in the comfort of my own home.

And it's just it's a big enigma.

And I hope I kind of hope that they make a movie out of it.

Maybe I got to make that movie.

Yes, you should. You must.

I was thinking it could be.

You ever seen the Curacao movie, Rashomon?

I have no, but I've heard of it.

So Rashomon in the nutshell was basically a singular event,

but from different perspectives and how our perspectives can

make the story a little different with the same result,

but the journey getting there is different.

So I figured because.

Yeah, yeah. So I figured because there's so many

different stories and different interpretations,

I think that's how you structure the movie.

It's just maybe these different tales almost and all gets juxtaposed,

almost Pulp Fiction style culminating into like Cuba Road

and what the single thing happening there

and what everybody thinks they saw or didn't see.

Oh, that would be so cool.

I want to see that.

And then we can compliment that with a more of an episode

with a deeper dive in the road.

Yes. I mean, so it's just cross promoting.

All right. I think we have a game plan, guys.

T.M. Oh, yeah.

T.M. T.M. T.M.

That's ours.

Don't. So thank you for letting me share my story of Cuba Road.

This is it's taking me back to my teen years.

I love that.

Quite a bit ago. Yeah.

That was a good one.

Thank you for sharing.

I like the Aurora Borealis green coming out of the graveyard.

I could like picture that immediately.

I was like, oh, I want to go in there.

I want to go to those ruins now and see the pentagrams and shit.

No. Maybe field trip.

I was just going to say field trip.

I would love to host you both in my hometown

because we will do the Cuba Road thing.

But also there's Smunky Dunkers,

which is the only place I get donuts.

It's in my hometown of Palatine.

That's that's sold it.

We love a donut. I'm concerned for several.

And my cousin Natalie is like the head of marketing

for Luma Nadie's pizzas.

We'll get some deep dish pizzas thrown our way as well.

So I just I would love to host you to my hometown

and be cool to just do like a little side quest

with the morbid girls.

Hell, yeah.

See, you just got to double hell.

Yeah, you did.

Oh, my send us dates.

Yep. Hashtag made it.

Our people will call your people.

Let's make this happen.

It's all right.

It is absolutely happening.

Oh, now I want to join us too.

Well, we'll all shall be part of the adventures as well.

So it'll be a great, great thing.

Shelby is part of the squad as far as I'm going to say.

Hell, yeah, that's our girl right there.

Well, should we go on to some random listener tales?

Hell, yeah, brother.

We'll tell you some tales.

Yeah, I'd love that.

All right, so the one I'm going to start off with

is called Boogie Man Birdie and the haunting of Room 118.

Obsessed by Sarah.

Brought to you by Sarah.

It says, what's up, you wonderful weirdos?

My name is Sarah, spelled the correct way

with no extraneous consonants, little winky face.

I love the pod and have been skipping around the episodes

for the last several months.

I've never been much into true crimes,

into the true crime genre,

but decided to give it a go when your podcasters

recommended to me by a co-worker.

I love spooky shit, but tend to gravitate more towards

ghost stories and paranormal type things,

rather than true crime,

because honestly, the real life shit is way more terrifying

because real life or real death.

Accurate.

And it freaks me out.

I don't always have nightmares, but when I do,

it's the kind where you can't distinguish

between dreaming and being awake.

Yes, I said that like the world's most interesting man

from the Dose-Eckys commercials.

Stay spooky, my friends.

We'll do.

Anyway, I've been listening for a while,

but the heebie-jeebies got the better of me

and I had to take a break after having a nightmare

involving Richard Ramirez.

That's right.

The night stalker descended his way into my dreams

one night recently and proceeded to chase me

through the halls and classrooms of the high school

where I currently teach.

I don't love that for you.

Being a teacher in these times is scary enough.

I don't need some psycho killer thrown into the mix,

sheesh, and you are right,

being a teacher is scary enough now.

And we appreciate you.

They don't pay me enough to deal with that level

of bullshitery and you would think

that the terror would stop there,

but plot twist, my mother decides to make an appearance

in the scholastic hellscape.

My subconscious has so elegantly designed

and is waiting in my classroom to convince me

to sit down with Mr. Ramirez for a nice chat

because he is, and I quote, a lovely young man.

Excuse me while I schedule an emergency session

with my therapist because I feel like

there's a lot to unpack here.

So needless to say, I stepped away from the pod

for all of about 24 hours.

What can I say?

Y'all are just too good at what you do.

No need to fully hold onto your butts,

but maybe make sure they are secure

in case we encounter any turbulence.

I'm quite proud of the fact that I've lived most of my life

free from supernatural encounters.

It's somewhat of an achievement considering I grew up

in uber rural Georgia and spent a few years of my young life

involved in a Pentecostal church

where belief in the supernatural is very real.

Thinks, speaking in tongues, spirit, possession,

all that sort of carrying on.

Anywho, after graduating high school

and way back times, 2006.

That's vintage.

I'm 2004, so.

2002.

There you go.

2014.

Oof.

Stabbed right in the chest.

I attended Carson Newman College in another rural town

in the foothills of the Appalachian or Appalachian Mountains.

Which one is it?

I think we've been told more often that it's Appalachian.

I'm gonna go with that.

I think that is, yeah, Appalachian.

I had a softball scholarship, not super relevant,

except to denote my tough girl status

into late-blooming lesbianhood and subsequent detachment

from my alter-conservative religious upbringing, shrug.

All female athletes were housed in Butler Hall,

named for the late Birdie Maples Butler.

It's a grandiose three-story brick dormitory

complete with classical Grecian facade.

Ooh, that sounds beautiful.

That does, I was just thinking that.

And in the lobby of the dorm hung Birdie's portrait.

See the first detached image, and they put an image of him.

Note the creep factor of the eyes.

Birdie is a moment.

Or I meant her, sorry.

So old Bert, there she is.

There's Birdie.

Very regal, Birdie.

Gorgeous, gorgeous girly.

So old Bert, a former graduate and faculty member

of the college had made a sizable contribution

towards the construction of the dormitory

in the early 50s.

Apparently bestowing a ludicrous amount of cash

to an Institute of Higher Learning

is enough to get your name on a building,

but not enough to have a say in the location of said building.

Because the brilliant minds behind the construction

decided it was a fine idea to plop a girl's dormitory

in the front yard of an oldest fuck cemetery.

Sidebar, it is not a fine idea.

Side sidebar, I'm still convinced there are graves

under the foundation of the dorm.

Side side sidebar, the threat of dead bodies

didn't deter my friends and me from sledding down

the cemetery hill behind the dorm on cafeteria trays.

Oh my God.

Also, the dorm shares a property line

with an abandoned hospital, insert heebie jeebies.

So when I moved into Butler Hall my freshman year,

I managed to snag a sweet, sweet on the first floor

of the East Wing of the building, room 118.

Most residents lived on the East Wing floors

because the West Halls were always vacant

and we were told a myriad of reasons why.

Mold, electrical issues, plumbing problems,

hauntings, et cetera.

I love that it goes from mold, electrical, plumbing,

hauntings, you know, like just throw that in there.

Well, naturally the little asterisk

about hauntings caught my attention.

And after some light reading through the annals

of the college's history, I discovered that many

of these stories that cropped up over the decades

featured the ghost of the one and only

Bertie Maples Butler, gasp.

But it really wasn't too big a deal

because no one lived in those halls, right?

Well, sort of.

A few years before I arrived, a fraternity on campus

had managed to obtain permission

to host an annual haunted house

in those abandoned halls of Butler Dorm.

That was actually quite surprising

because Carson Newman is a conservative Baptist school

and this particular haunted house, dubbed Frightmare Manor,

was not some lighthearted, cheap-ass carnival funhouse.

I'm talking scenes of demonic conjuring

dismemberment, gore and abundance,

chicken gizzards and livers,

sign a waiver to a haunted house, damn.

That's wild.

Complete with gallons of rather tasty,

albeit realistic, fake blood,

concocted from Hershey's syrup,

peanut butter for texture, corn syrup and red food dye.

That's interesting.

Sounds like a good combo.

We smelled like Reese's Cups for weeks.

I say we because as soon as I heard

about the open cast call,

I decided to participate as an actor in the haunt

and it was totally rad

or whatever the youths are saying these days.

I think they still say rad.

I still say rad.

So. That's rad.

That's rad, right?

I think that's rad.

I think it's rad.

Every weekend in October,

in the entire week of Halloween,

residents of Butler Hall were serenaded with screaming,

wailing, chainsaws and other spooky sounds

that emitted from the rooms of the West Wing,

from the basement to the second floor.

That sounds awesome.

Sounds rad.

Sounds fucking rad.

Aside from the general creepiness

of the scenes in the haunt,

there always seemed to be a presence

that most of the actors, myself included, were aware of.

Like something was watching us

from just beyond the next shadow.

And occasionally we would catch drafts of icy wind

blowing down the corridors,

despite the fact that the AC units

on that side of the building had not worked in years.

Yep.

You bet I noped my Reese's Cup ass right out of there

as soon as the haunt closed for the night.

Hebe's and Geebe's galore.

I thought for sure I'd be rid of those Hebe Geebe's

once the haunting season ended.

And I went back to my comfy Hebe Geebe free zone

on the East Hall.

Nice wish, you naive child.

I didn't say that, she did.

That Christmas and keeping with the spirit of the season,

I decided to help decorate the lobby of the dorm.

Remember the creepy portrait of dear sweet birdie?

Yeah, I hadn't forgotten her either.

And after a night of good wholesome,

Baptist college beer pong,

my jolly inebriate itself thought,

hmm, this old lady looks a little too scroogey.

Let's deck her halls.

So I promptly cut out a quick Santa Claus hat and beard

and taped that shit to the glass

with the confidence of Pablo motherfucking Picasso.

Had iPhones existed at the time,

you best believe I would have plastered my handiwork

all over the gram.

I stumbled my way back to my room,

pleased as could be,

and filled with, dare I say, Christmas spirit.

And promptly passed the fuck out.

We only had a few weeks left before Christmas break,

and every time I walked past birdie's portrait,

I got a good laugh at the ridiculous decorations.

But that was the wrong thing to do.

I had a feeling.

I don't think birdie's gonna like this.

You don't lull at birdie, okay?

Birdie just has that vibe, you don't lull at birdie.

No.

About three weeks after my little craftcapade,

the spooky started,

this portrait looked like something like the second image

after I added my festive decor.

I can't talk.

Here's the second one.

Birdie's Santa Claus edition.

Mind you, I didn't have a roommate at the time

because the girl who had been my roomy

got a promotion to RA on the second floor and moved out,

which fist-pump the air, heck yeah,

I'll take the solo room that's gonna be sweet.

Boah-ha-ha, oh my sweet innocent summer self

shaking my head.

That night upon the stroke of, you guessed it, 3 a.m.

Dun dun dun.

I was rudely awakened by distorted muffled screams

coming from the massive 20 inch box TV on my dresser.

The same massive 20 inch TV

that I had turned off prior to going to bed

and whose remote control rested peacefully on my desk

five or six feet away from the bed

where I sat now rigid and heart racing confused as fuck.

The white static illuminated the room

just enough for me to see my way over to the desk

and retrieve the remote to turn the TV back off.

It took a few minutes, but I managed to fall back asleep.

Still too disoriented to think clearly about the incident.

So she just woke up to like blood curdling screams

and static on her TV and she was like, okay.

A good night's rest is important.

I guess so, all right.

Sarah.

Priorities man, priorities.

You know, everybody's count them.

Sarah's a tougher chick than I.

I would have burned my house down.

And I also played softball.

I can't claim to be that tough.

I played softball, but it's actually like,

this is Sarah Connor from Terminator basically.

It's a really bad ass.

That would make more sense here.

It took a few minutes,

but I managed to fall back asleep, too disoriented of course.

Three weeks passed with no further disruptions

and I thought it had merely been a fluke

until it happened again.

Same time, 3 a.m., same shit.

TV turning on to static and muffled screaming.

I don't like that.

Only this time, the closet light was on.

No, no.

Now I'm someone who requires complete darkness

to go to sleep because ADHD be fucking around

when there's any kind of illumination.

Dumb.

So I don't sleep with any kind of light on

and the closet was on the opposite side of the room

from my bed.

And again, the TV remote was on the desk.

This time I managed to game some modicum

of mental coherence to weakly vocalize

what the actual fuck is happening.

And as the last syllable passed by my lips,

the closet light clicked off.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

As though whatever or whoever was saying,

oh my bad, bro, I forgot you were asleep.

Let me get the lights for you.

Let me get the lights for you.

That would have freaked me out so bad.

I feel like that was just like fucking around with her.

I would have loved if she actually heard from the closet.

Oh my bad, bro.

Like I forgot you were asleep.

Let me get the lights.

I would have changed this story.

The movie version that's like, oh, it's okay.

Oh, what?

What?

But at this point, I'm like, nah, don't bother

because I sure as shit ain't sleeping

for the rest of the night.

The following day, I recounted the story

to my good friend and fellow Butler resident M,

who listened with interest and said,

as nonchalantly as can be, hmm,

sounds like Birdie is messing with you.

Great, nothing says happy holidays

like a good old fashion haunting

by the ghost of Christmas past.

While I was thoroughly disturbed by her revelation,

my inner Dean Winchester of supernatural fame

had sparked to life and was running through

old episodes of supernatural

to remember how to 86 a ghost.

Of course, salt and burn the bones, brilliant.

Or would have been if I fancied desecrating

Bertrude's final resting place, which I did not.

Good, good.

And actually had no idea where it was actually located.

Even better.

I love how that was just like, yes,

I will just burn the bones and salt them.

It'll be fine.

So I spent the next few nights

anticipating her return to my room

and sure enough, three AM on the nose,

TV static, closet light, and oh lovely,

the mini fridge is now opening on its own.

Like Birdie is rooting around for a snack.

Something about that is really funny.

A mini fridge just like opening and closing by itself.

I like that visual.

I like that.

Yeah.

That one doesn't feel as threatening.

No, that just feels silly.

It's because it's small.

Yeah, it's small.

It's small, you know?

That would humanize the ghost for me.

I'm like, oh, I get it.

You know, like in Casper, when like fat, so stretch

and stinky, they're eating food.

Yeah, yeah.

Ghost get hungry too.

Look at yourself.

I love snacks.

Looking for a snack.

We got hummus, we got carrots.

Help yourself.

Let me know what you want me to stock in there.

I'll do it.

I'll just leave a post-it.

Exactly.

I got a Costco membership.

It's all good.

Yeah, yeah.

What do you like together?

It's cool, Bertrude.

What do you like?

I'll buy in bulk.

At my wit's end, I yelled into the semi-darkness,

what the fuck, Bertie?

Get a life and leave me the fuck alone.

I don't know if that was quite the way

you wanted to go about that.

Yeah, that was mean.

It's swear to dog in the midst of the static buzzing

from the TV, I hear Santa Claus is coming to town.

She said, get that hat off of my GD portrait right now.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I had just shit, the portrait.

Bertie apparently was not a fan of her jolly old St. Nick

get-up and decided to seek retribution

by freaking me the fuck out until I removed it.

So I scooted my flannel-clad ass out the door down the hall

and skidded to halt in front of the damn portrait,

ripping off the construction paper hat and beard

and one sweeping yonk.

I love that they did it that night.

They're like, you know what?

I got you, girl.

I'm not waiting.

I'll take care of this.

I trashed the offending paper and tape

and slumped away to my room.

The eyes of Bertie Maples Butler burning

into my retreating backside.

Bertrood.

I peered cautiously around the door frame into my room

into my utter amazement and relief.

The TV was off, the closet light was out,

and no sound or sign of any disturbance could be detected.

Bertie had left the building.

Well, not really the building, but at least she

had returned to the West Wing, seemingly appeased.

But there was a little posted on the fridge

that said, get more Oreos.

I never heard anything else out of Bertie

in my remaining time at Carson Newman.

But I also never looked that portrait in the eye again,

though I could still feel her chilly gaze follow me

any time I passed through the lobby.

So that's it.

I apologize for the lengthiness, but what can I say?

We English teachers are a loquacious bunch.

Oh, I like that word.

I love that word.

It's an SAT word.

Yeah, it feels right, like loquacious.

I'm going to try that on Scrabble.

There you go.

That's a lot of points.

Don't forget to keep it weird, but not

to wear the yonwidenlian salt, the resident ghost

of the oldest creepiest millionaire

namesake of your college dormitory,

and she decides to haunt you right before Christmas

because your drunk ass thought it would be funny

to dress her equally creepiest portrait of Santa Claus.

Bye.

That was a good one.

That was impressive.

That was really impressive.

That was great.

Sarah, you need to be writing for every movie and TV show.

Truly.

Writing of that, it was so good.

That was really good.

I was there painting a picture.

Yeah, I liked that.

Or maybe a portrait.

Ooh.

But a Bertrand portrait.

I love it.

I'm waiting for the movie version of this, too.

Maybe Nick Cage will be this investigator.

Investigator of this dorm.

He has to be.

What's going on here, guys?

They're a ghost here.

You know, you're a part of it.

That's true.

Thank you.

I like how southern you got there.

I know.

Whatever, man.

Those are both fantastic, and I loved them.

It felt right.

Well, our next one is Listener Tales Haunted Roads, the time I let my teenagers talk me

into dumb shit, and I noped the fuck out of Hatchetman Road, Michigan.

Why did you know?

Why did you yes the fuck into Hatchetman Road?

Hatchetman?

Yeah, that's absolutely terrifying.

I would have always noped out of there.

Me, too.

This says, hello, ladies.

Here is my Listener Tale of the time I let my teenage daughters talk me into doing something

I knew better than to do and saw a demon ghost girl and had to nop the fuck out of there.

Please excuse the bad grammar and punctuation.

When I started this, I had a cold and my eardrum ruptured as well.

Oh, that's fucking awful.

That's horror.

That's my biggest fear.

I think I get a new biggest fear anytime somebody tells us something awful.

There it is.

I kept myself busy for a small time doing this.

I'm not tech savvy.

Yeah, no, still not tech savvy.

So I did make you a Puddafa, but I didn't know how to double space it.

I did make it a size 14 font for your viewing pleasure, though.

So just know I tried.

And we appreciate it.

And this is perfect.

I think it is double spaced.

Hello, ladies.

My name is Amber, and yes, you can say my name.

You can also use my teenager's names because if you read this on the pod, we will all

just shit ourselves.

Just poop everywhere.

I'm so sorry.

Not a good visual, Amber.

Well, shit.

Literally.

That's some good shit.

Let's start off with the normal gushing.

We love you.

You ladies have made us laugh and cry and feel so many emotions.

I appreciate everything you ladies do and all the time you take to making sure you have

all the facts while respecting all the victims and their families.

Thank you.

Thanks.

We started listening to your pod during the pandemic.

I had never listened to podcasts before and you were the second one I'd found and

I was hooked.

Then they'd listen to me or then they'd listen to it with me in the car and soon me

listening without them would hurt feelings because they loved you just as much as I

did.

I love that.

Thank you, guys.

Listener tales are their favorite and they've been begging me to send this in for a couple

months, so I'm finally taking the time to do it.

Hell yeah.

So when I was a teenager, I grew up living about a mile from the creek.

This was the road or this was a road that the pavement ended on and about a mile up

was a one lane bridge that was over a small cold creek.

The creek?

The creek.

It was definitely not the most perfect area to smoke, pod, an underage drink, a couple

of beers that we'd hidden from our parents during the week.

Nope.

As far as my kids are concerned, their mother was a perfect angel who would have never done

things like that.

No.

And that's definitely not why they never would get away with anything because I had

never been there, nor have I ever done that.

Of course you have not.

No, me either.

I believe that.

Never.

Now fast forward to last summer when I was talking to an old friend from that time period

and she said something about Hatchett Man Road and I'm like, where?

And she says the creek amber.

That place we used to hang out at is one of the most haunted roads in Michigan.

Looking back, we'd never been there at night except one time when my brother's car broke

down.

It just wouldn't start.

So we ended up walking home and as it got dark, I had been terrified.

I chalked it up to just being scared of the dark and my brother trying to scare me.

So I of course tell my kids about it during one of their sleepovers where they're all

trying to scare each other.

I tell them about how the man was scared of the apocalypse, built a bomb shelter where

he made them all live until he slowly went mad.

Then trying to spare his family of what he believed was coming, he murdered all of them

with a hatchet and then killed himself.

Damn.

That's dark.

And I love that you told that story at a sleepover.

I know, I love it.

Nighty night, kids.

Bye.

This turned into all four of them begging me to take them on a drive down Hatchet Man

Road.

Those are some cool kids.

I love those kids.

And you're a cool mom.

At first I said no, but let's face it, I'm kind of a pushover and I love all the spooky

things and I've definitely created these monsters of mine so I cave and I tell them

all the load up.

I feel that.

Hatchet Man Road is still only a hop skip and a jump away from where I live now so it

didn't take long for all of us to pull onto the dirt side of the road and come to a stop.

Just a pause so I could roll down the windows and turn off the radio to set the mood while

Alexis started recording on my phone and placed it back in the mount.

It was fun, creeping at all of about six miles an hour and hearing all the cracks and breaks

of the twigs and the chirping of the crickets.

I'm there.

I planned on trying to scare my kids like a good parent would.

Of course.

Asking if they saw that while actually seeing nothing.

And if they heard that while knowing it was just their own heavy breathing, you know,

just character building.

I love you, Amber.

I do too.

My oldest daughter, Alexis, who's 16, was sitting in the front with me while my middle

daughter, Ashlyn, 15, was in the back with two friends.

I can't wait for this with my kids.

Oh my God.

I can't wait until they're like 15 and 16 and I can do this stuff.

You don't pick me up on the way.

You're fake.

Of course I will.

Let's go.

So Lex started doing the normal talk to the ghosties, asking if anyone was there, if they

were and if they wanted to talk to us, they could, but there was nothing much.

So we come up to the crick and I pull over so they can get out for a minute and goof

off.

I get out with them and friend number one starts telling us that she's had some medium

experiences and that she's sensitive.

The other girls, mainly Lex, started rolling their eyes at her.

So of course, I being the sensitive that I am, tried to validate her when we all just

got a terrible feeling and heard the loudest woman scream from the woods.

No.

I'm unsure of the kids at this point, but me being the whole ass adult that I'm supposed

to be at 35, stomach dropped, and I had zero issue at that point leaving a child if they

did not get into the car fast enough.

I will leave your ass.

You better get in this car.

We are leaving.

So as we all fumbled over each other tripping and getting into the car, we rolled up the

windows and locked the doors because ghost can't get in if the doors are locked.

Of course not.

That's the rules.

I know, right?

As we flipped around and started to head out, friend number two and Ash were giggling in

the back seat about how she almost lost a shoe.

And what on earth was that scream when friend number one grabbed my seat and said, there's

a little girl and she's crying.

No, I'd be out of there.

I'd be like, you get out of the car.

Out of the car.

Out of the car.

No more.

Tuck and roll, baby.

Yeah, no.

I just got all quiet because, uh, fuck that.

Indeed.

Fuck that.

Oh my God.

That's absolutely terrifying.

Sorry, I lost my pulse.

I would have literally, if she said that, I would have just turned around and been like,

fuck that.

Absolutely.

Get out of the car.

But then Alexis turned and looked at her all mean and says, you're full of it.

You're the only one saying those things to make yourself feel cool.

I hit the brakes and was just like, what's wrong with you?

And why would you say that?

Lex says, if there's really a ghost, make yourself known right now.

I bet you won't though, because you're just a giant pussy.

Oh, damn.

My jaw hit the floor.

Friend number one with the shaking voice says, Lexie, stop.

You don't say things like that.

She went full send.

She said, I even chime in and tell her to stop.

We were just trying to have fun and now she was turning into a real jerk.

She then started to throw her 16 year old teenage attitude around and I just looked at her and

said, that's it.

We're going home.

We're done.

You're being mean to the ghost.

No.

I tell the kids to make sure that they're buckled and apologize again to friend number

one who's visibly shaken and pale.

Alexis isn't a jerk like that.

She loves all her friends.

She's a really sweet, caring and compassionate kid.

It was at this exact moment I went to turn the phone recording off.

When I looked at my phone that was pointed in front of the car, my blood ran cold or

hot.

I don't actually recall if I knew the exact temperature, but I know that I couldn't feel

my legs.

I couldn't even talk.

I had just hand nudged Alexis and she started freaking out and soon all the girls in the

car were shrieking.

It was all I could do to reach up and push in the two buttons, that screenshot in the

trees.

You could see the perfect little image of a little girl with long hair hanging around

her face, just past her shoulders and in one of her hands was a teddy bear.

I would pedal to the metal out of there, goodbye, see you never, fast and the furious

let's go.

That's like a straight up little girl.

With a teddy bear.

With a teddy bear?

The teddy bear makes it real.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, no.

I don't like that.

No, no, no, no, no.

And then part of me would want to make sure that it was not a real little girl just hung

up in the trees.

Yeah.

Oh, I hate it.

I don't like it.

I don't like it.

So I look from the phone to the actual trees and there's nothing.

Okay.

Well, I guess you checked now.

It's time to leave.

But I look back at the camera and she's still fucking there.

No.

It's one of those things where you can't believe your own eyes, open, close them, rub

them.

It doesn't go away.

So it almost paralyzes you.

But there she was standing in the trees.

You could feel her or no, no, no, sorry.

You could see her from head, from her head to her feet, black hair and a white knee

length gown with the teddy hanging from her hand.

Her eyes were all you could make of her facial features.

And it was the darkest, blackest holes I've ever seen.

It's Samara.

I literally hate this.

David.

I don't like it.

Once I came back to the realization of what was going on and gathered my bearings with

teenagers screaming on all sides of me.

I hit the gas and very, very vocally said, fucking no, fuck that, no fucking way.

We were no longer doing six miles an hour to get the actual fuck out of there.

We were actually levitating.

We took flight.

It was weird.

All of a sudden we were just flying.

In this moment, I no longer wanted to be the adult.

I wanted my bed, my safe and my warm bed.

The one that has my big 230 pound burly husband in it.

The same husband who probably would have said no and stuck with no, because even though

he's not the responsible one in the relationship, he is not going to go ghost hunting with teenagers

at midnight.

Nope.

That was my dumb ass choice.

So we finally get to the pavement.

The whole mile we had to drive out feeling like an absolute eternity.

And I head towards our house.

It was a quiet ride until about halfway there.

Lex turns to friend number one and says, I'm really sorry I acted like that back there.

I honestly don't know why I did.

I just felt so angry and frustrated.

And she says back to her, that's okay.

It wasn't you.

It was him making you feel that way.

Oh no.

And every single hair I have stands up on the back of my neck.

While girls, I have sage, every single one of you is getting some when we get home and

so is my car.

The rest of the trip was all chatter from the girls laughing and giggling.

And I just can't wait to get home and change my underwear that I'm pretty sure I've shot

myself in.

We pull into the driveway where we get out once again, tripping over each other to get

into the house.

Ash immediately grabbed the sage I did and lit it while Lex started mirroring the phone

to the TV so we could all watch the video that we'd just taken.

I went into my husband still shaky and not exactly sure if I could feel my legs yet,

walking up to him telling him he needed to come out and watch this.

So as we all sit there and watch the recording, there is nothing.

The screenshot I took where the girl was, you can only see the blackness of where her

eyes were.

Oh no.

But that's it.

So we all went to bed with 14-aged girls sleeping on our bedroom floor because they were too

scared to sleep alone.

Now, I don't scare easily.

I never really have.

When I started, I was sensitive earlier.

I just always know if a house is haunted or not just from walking into it.

I've cleaned houses since I was a kid with my mom because she owned her own cleaning

business.

When doing what we would call the empties, I'd walk into a good handful and know I was

not alone.

There's a couple of great stories from the ghost who would slam doors and turn the lights

off while I was in the room but would stop if I sang along to my MP3 player or the one

where I went to walk into the basement and was so overcome with dread, I refused to go

all the way down the stairs.

So while I was vacuuming, the hose came undone three times.

The third time I was watching it and I, eight months pregnant, noped the fuck out of there.

But this is a road, this is a roadtale.

So I'll save those for a later date.

Hopefully by then I'll have another ghost story because I just moved into a house that

was built in 1900 on a hill with a giant front porch overlooking the city where I can drink

tea and glare with a cemetery as its backyard.

It really is just a witchy kind of perfect.

Hell yeah.

It sounds like it.

Anyways, keep it weird, but not so weird that you think it'll be fun to go on a midnight

haunted adventure with a bunch of teenage girls and realize that you see a little demon

ghost girl and you no longer want to be the adult anymore and you know yourself all the

way home.

That was so freaky.

In the Midwest too.

So like Midwest, we got our Haunted Road theme.

Yeah.

I love it.

You guys have like a monopoly on the haunted road, at least.

You really do.

Absolutely terrifying.

Damn.

I remember.

Illinois, they're a little more stealthy about it.

It's a Cuba road.

Like, yeah.

And sounds like the hatchet.

And I'm like, whoa.

I know.

They're like rainbow road.

That's a lot better.

This one's like hatchet man road.

I'd hatch you in the face road.

Yeah.

I'd take the orb so for the little teddy bear girl any day.

Oh, the teddy bear girl I don't like.

And the deep black eyes.

I hate to.

It's a scary thing.

I'm not into it.

I am not into it.

I don't like it.

Oh.

Yeah.

That's a good story, though.

That was a really good story.

And then this little possible like spear possession too, saying like you need to feel that way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That she was suddenly being like nasty when she's really not.

Yeah.

She was like, yeah, sorry.

I was back in like a turd back there.

That wasn't me.

And she's like, no, it's fine.

It was him.

And it's like, we never got further explanation on that.

Was it the hatchet man?

Maybe.

It was the hatchet man.

I think it's like if you took a ghost and juxtapose that with like get out, like it's

like, you know, like when the ghosts are going to the bodies, but this ghost puts you in

the sunken place.

So you're fully aware.

What's going on?

You can't do anything.

Oh, I don't like that.

I hate that.

Guys, you always send in the best freaking tales.

I really do.

Keep it coming.

So good.

I think that's probably all we have time for today.

Yeah.

I got to go pick up my kids and take them to a haunted road.

Yeah.

We're going haunted shopping.

Let's go.

Well, John, thank you so much for coming on and thank you for bringing stories with

you too.

Thanks for having me on and I adore both of you.

We adore you.

It says podcast house, but as humans and I can't wait till we have an in-person meetup

and we'll do it in my hometown at some point.

I can't wait.

Deep dish pizza.

BFFA.

All the deep dish.

All of it.

Is there anything you want to plug before we let you go?

Well, as people know, that was pretty scary as every Wednesday.

This we got a we got a really fun list of movies coming out.

So just it's going to be a long first season, but we got other seasons planned as well.

So just stay tuned.

And I'll be doing some more of those mini deep dives on Instagram, which look for that

on my Instagram.

And also Ash and Elaine are always very gracious about shared it on their Instagram stories

as well.

So if you don't see it on mine, you'll see it on theirs, but at some point you'll see

it.

Because we love you guys.

Love you and we love those.

Go listen to that was pretty scary.

Well guys, we love you so much.

We hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird, but not so weird that you go

go.

No, I think you should keep it so weird that you go ghost hunting and experience terrible

things.

Keep it this weird.

Hell yeah.

Yeah.

Bye guys.

Bye.

Bye.

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Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.