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Horrifying Stories From The Deep South · Stories from the Dark

• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I'd like to begin this story by explaining how I
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: have two great-grandpas and all on one side of the
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: family too, my dad's side. Now obviously that's impossible and
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I only say that as a kind of bait to
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: draw people in, but in a way it's kind of true. Sure,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: only one of these men is my actual biological great-grandfather,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: but it doesn't feel like the title belongs to him,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: at least not him alone. I imagine y'all are pretty
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: freaking confused already, so I'll just get on explaining. Back
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: during Prohibition times, my great-uncle Gene used to be the
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: town marshal of a little place called Coden. I'll just
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: call him Uncle Gene from here on out, but just
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: to be clear, he was my great-grandpa's brother. Coden was
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: and still is a small fishing village in Mobile County,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: not too far from the city itself. It's named for
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the bayou Kodan it's nestled on, and it used to
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: be quite a wealthy resort town. But in 1906, a
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: hurricane came along and destroyed most of the hotels and
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: boarding houses. A lot of the richer folks moved on
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: to other places and used their insurance money to set
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: up new hotels or new boarding houses, and everyone who
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: used to stay behind was in the seafood industry, harvesting
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: shrimp and oysters and crabs. It was a living, I guess,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: and Over time, more socks, oyster houses, and fishing boats
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: showed up, with daily life revolving around the tides and
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: the seasons. People were close, too. They knew their neighbors,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: they took care of each other, and while they could
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: be welcoming to strangers, how warm that welcome was depends
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: on what kind of person you were. Which is why
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: they didn't take too kindly to a bunch of rowdy
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: roughnecks showing up in town one day. My Uncle Gene
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: hadn't even been marshal for a year yet when Prohibition
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: came in, and he only got the position in the
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: first place because his predecessor died so suddenly. He ended
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: up standing uncontested in the election that followed, then presto,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: he was the youngest town marshal ever elected in Mobile County.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: But there was a reason he stood completely uncontested. When
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: people hear Prohibition... They probably picture Al Capone shooting off
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: a Chicago typewriter next to a dozen barrels of Canadian rye.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't all Irish and Italians in New York
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: and Chicago, as us folks south of the Mason-Dixon like
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: to wet our whistles just as much, if not more,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: than your Marios and your Moriartys. You had gator trappers
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: in Florida meeting with rum runners out in the swamps,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: places Johnny Law was too scared to venture. and they
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: were making a killing from nothing but moving it where
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: it needed to go. And the same was to be
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: said for the Gulf Coast, too, and waters between Mexico, Texas,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: and the Deep South became a damn highway for traffickers
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: of illegal booze. Criminals of all creeds and colors joined
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: up with smuggling crews because more men meant more boats,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: and more boats meant more liquor. Small-time moonshiners had been
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: making money selling their product for years, But even the
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: bigger shine operations couldn't compete with the smugglers, who could
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: just sail down to Mexico, fill their holds up with
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: what must have seemed like an infinite supply of tequila,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: and then sell it all off for a major profit
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: as the real McCoy. As in, the real deal imported liquor,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: not the fake crap made in Philadelphia bathtubs that made
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: folks go blind. And that's if they were lucky. Bootleg
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: booze could kill a liquor-tough man stone dead if he
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: had but more than a glass. And so selling all
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: that tequila made a lot of bad men very rich,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: and after a while, they started to make it Coden's problem,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: which in turn made it Uncle Gene's problem. Now, the
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: outfit in question was headed up by a man named
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Bootleg Bob Hook, and he and his boys would offload
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: their liquor up in the Bayou La Batra. But then,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: rather than poop where they ate, so to speak, and
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: spend their money in town there, They'd head down towards
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Coden with their flask of liquor, just in time for
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: the diner there to open, and they'd occupy the place
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: until near enough noon. Feasting and causing trouble, but spending
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: a heck of a lot too. The diner's owner and
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: operator didn't like it because as much as they cost
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: him in broken glass and crockery, they made him a
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: heck of a lot of money as well, and he
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: didn't mind how drunk they got, how they cursed up
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: a storm and scared off all the other customers. but
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: my Uncle Gene did, and on account of all the
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: trouble they caused. They'd be drunk in the streets in
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: the middle of the day, but that was the easy
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: side of things. The rest would get into fights, cause
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: damage to public property, and sometimes break into private residences
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: to do things like use the bathroom or take a nap.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: The county sheriff had to show up with a bunch
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: of deputies to help Uncle Gene shoo them off, but still,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: they came back. racing their automobiles through the center of
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: town while falling down drunk and almost killing people in
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: the process. The problem was, they had money, and so
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: they could pay for everything they'd damaged if one or
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: two got busted. It didn't matter, because they could be
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: out on bail again in no time. Now, feeling like
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: they could get away with anything made the smugglers worse
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: and worse, and while they'd mostly come in the mornings
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: after a run, they sometimes came early, too. And by early,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: I mean they roll into town at about an hour
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: before dark and then keep the diner open past closing
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: until they were ready to head out on a run.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: But if a run got cancelled and a bunch of
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: rowdy bootleggers had nothing to do or nowhere to go,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: things could get nasty. And one night, they did. After
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: a run was cancelled, one of Bob's boys went walking
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: around town with a flask full of tequila. And a
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: few hours later... A kid being paid to guard the
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: town's stables at night came hobbling home with blood running
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: down the backs of his legs. Bob's tequila-swilling friend had
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: found him alone, cornered him, and then, well, done something
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: no man should ever do. Not to anyone or anything.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Uncle Gene found out from the kid's mom, who showed
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: up at his house in the middle of the night
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: with tears streaming down her face. He drove over to
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: the barn where, unbelievably... he found the boy's attacker lying
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: asleep in the hay. Gene didn't waste any time. He
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: took a rope from the back of his automobile, tied
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: it to the hitch, and then looped a noose around
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: the sleeping drunk's head and yanked it tight. He then
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: walked back to his car and drove it up and
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: down the 188 before hanging what was left of him
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: from a tree. The county sheriff came over the next
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: morning to cut the body down, and while he was
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: in town, he asked Uncle Gene if he knew who
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: did it. I was told he struggled and after telling
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the sheriff what the man had done, that it was
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: reasonable to believe that just about anyone could have strung
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: that predatory piece of garbage up that night. It turns
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: out the sheriff agreed with him and that he and
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: his deputies would be in no rush to catch the
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: man's killer. But there would be someone else who was
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: interested in who hanged the man and that someone rolled
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: into town with some of his boys at around noon.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Bob Hook. drove straight to Uncle Gene's office, and demanded
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: to know who hanged his boy. Gene gave him the
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: gee-whiz-I-don't-know routine, just like he did to the sheriff, only
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: without a wink and a nod, as it were. He
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: said that he'd be keeping an eye out for the killer,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: but that his eyes were already tired from dealing with drunk,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: aggressive smugglers coming out of the town diner at all hours.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: And so as it stood, Bob might be waiting a
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: long time before there was any progress, if any. Bootleg
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Bob was no dummy, though. He knew exactly what Uncle
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Gene was laying down, and he was only too happy
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: to pick it up. He said the town had until
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: that night to find the killer, and if they didn't,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: he and his boys would hold them all responsible, and
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: they would all pay. Well, Uncle Gene knew how much
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: trouble they were in, so he called up the county sheriff,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: and then went off rounding up volunteers for an armed posse.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: And by nightfall... They had a small army gathered in
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: town of maybe 20 to 30 guys, but after waiting
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: hours and hours for Bob Hook and his crew, none
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: of them showed up. They waited until something like 3
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: in the morning, well into the next morning before calling
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: it a night, and then when they did, Uncle Gene
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: caught a ride back to the home that he shared
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: with his young wife, intent on some well-deserved rest. But
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: after he walked through the door and upstairs into his bedroom,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: he found his wife was neither asleep nor alone. Two
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: masked men were holding her hostage with a gun to
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: her head, and then after disarming my great-uncle Gene, they
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: shot him, once through the heart and once through the head,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: just to make sure. My great-grandma Mira let out an
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: ear-splitting scream when she watched her husband shot, and I
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: was told that she carried on screaming as the men
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: who killed Uncle Gene held her down and violated her.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: the men who did it were never caught. The county
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: sheriff had a good idea, of course, but bringing it
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: all to trial was something else entirely. Evidence was gathered,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: there were arrests, and people were questioned. But in the end,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the DA said no dice. The men who killed Uncle
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Gene were part of a large and well-considered network, meaning
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: it could have been any of them. And so unless
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: they uncovered some real compelling evidence, they'd have to find
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: another way to bring in Bill Hook and break up
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: his gang. I was told the sheriff thought about doing
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: things the old-fashioned way, and by that I mean taking
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: off their badges and hunting down the smugglers at night
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and beating them at their own damn game. But there
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: had already been enough bloodshed. Any more would only keep
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: the cycle of violence spinning, and so, until they could
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: find a way to do it right, the scales of
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Lady Justice would remain sadly uneven. In the weeks that followed,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: the town struggled to reckon with Uncle Gene's murder. They
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: couldn't elect a new marshal, as no one wanted the job.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Everyone just felt kind of hopeless, like if the best
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: of them got got. then what chance did they have?
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: And that terrible feeling of hopelessness only got worse when
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: everyone found out my great-grandma Mira was pregnant. Not with
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: my Uncle Gene's baby, though, but with the baby of
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: the man who violated her after his buddy held her down.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: She never knew exactly who it was, she never saw
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: the man's face, but she was almost certain it was
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: bootleg Bill Hook come to avenge his fallen henchman personally.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not 100% sure why she chose to
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: keep it. My grandpa doesn't remember her being particularly religious,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: but personally, I think she too had decided that there
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: had been quite enough death for one year, and that
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: an innocent life didn't deserve to suffer for another's actions.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: And so, she decided to keep it. And that baby
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: grew up to be my grandfather Joe. Over the next
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: couple of years, Bill Hook's liquor smuggling operation grew and grew.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: with their reputation preceding them thanks to the quality of
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: their product, and they were soon patronized by all kinds
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: of high society folks, which not only meant more money,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: but better protection from the law. Bill and his boys
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: made so much money over the years that eventually, he
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: was able to purchase a large, upscale mansion outside of
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: town for them to lay up in. I hear it
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: was a real nice place in its day, with enough
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: room for himself as well as a sizable contingent of
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: his boys to act as pretty much bodyguards. They'd mostly
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: sit around all day and night either sipping iced tea
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: on the porch or playing poker inside at night when
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: the bugs got too frisky. But just knowing whose place
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: it was kept the mansion safe from intruders. Because no
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: one in their right mind was going after old Bill Hook,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: not with how well armed he was and not with
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: how well connected he was either. But someone did approach
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: one night when the moon hung fat in the sky
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: and Bill and his family were fast asleep. And that
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: person was not in their right mind. The first they
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: knew of it, the boys playing poker inside were plunged
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: into darkness as the power went out. This wasn't entirely
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: unusual at the time. The energy grid was still pretty
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: much brand new in places and the kinks hadn't all
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: been ironed out yet. Power normally came back on if
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: they reset the breaker box down in the basement, but
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: this was tried without result. The boys were left scratching
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: their heads as they went about lighting some candles. But
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: as they did, they heard a muffled cry coming from
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: out front of the house. A cry which was suddenly
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: and violently cut short. Two of them rush outside to
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: see what's going on and are immediately shot by some
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: kind of silenced weapon. wielded by someone out of sight.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Somebody was out there, moving quiet as death itself. Inside
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: the home, Hook's henchmen took cover where they could, not
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: daring to peek through any windows for fear of being shot.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: They were expecting shots to come from the front, but
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: when they heard a window smash in the rear of
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: the house, followed by quick but muffled footsteps, they realized
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: that someone was inside. the candles that they lit through
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: long shadows around the interior as one of the thugs
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: grabbed a shotgun from behind the bar and told the
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: others to spread out. There were four of them left now,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: hard men who'd never shy away from a fight, and
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: so after a word from their captain, they spread out
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and began their hunt, completely unaware that it was them
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: who were being hunted. Two of the men headed down
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the wide hallway towards where the sound had come from,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: while another slipped through the kitchen to work the flank.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: The last climbed the curving staircase toward the upstairs windows
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: to stop whoever it was from gaining access to bootleg Bill.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: For a while there was silence except for soft footsteps
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: on old pine floors, and then suddenly it started. There
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: was a soft scraping sound from the parlor, and the
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: man in the kitchen somehow never made it to the
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: back door. One of his buddies found him and gasped,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Whatever took him had been quick and quiet and razor sharp.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: The others heard only a brief thrash and then nothing.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: No shouting, no gunshot, just the sudden absence of one
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: of their own. The two in the hallway pressed their
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: backs on the wall, scanning the darkness and terror. One
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: of them whispered the name of the guy who went upstairs,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: but he didn't reply. And then one of them risked
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: a glance, and they saw the man at the top
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: had simply disappeared, as if the house itself had swallowed him.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: they decided to move upstairs to make a last stand
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: near Hook's bedroom, who by this point was awake and
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: dressing in preparation to make an escape. He knew his
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: men were dying down there, he could hear it, and
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: there was no way he was sticking around to find
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: out who was doing it. The first man moved toward
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: the staircase when a floorboard groaned somewhere behind the heavy drapes.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: A shadow shifted that didn't belong to any of them,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: and while one thug spun with his pistol raised, it
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: was already too late. The silenced weapon spoke again, soft
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: and final, and the man dropped without a word. The
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: last man standing bolted for the back veranda, boots loud
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: on the boards as he tried to save his skin,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: but he never reached the steps. The night took him
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: the same way it had taken the others, swift, quiet,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: and absolute, leaving the mansion a little emptier than before.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Bootleg Bill was held up in his bedroom with a shotgun,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: wanting to blow the head off the first person who
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: barged their way past the locked door. He stood there
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: a long time after the silence returned again, but then
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: he started to smell smoke. Whoever had just killed his
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: man had just set his home on fire, forcing Bill
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: to make his escape. I heard he jumped from the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: second floor balcony, intending to run across his big backyard,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: but the landing sprained or broke something. and he only
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: managed to limp halfway across the grass before one of
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: them silenced gunshots took his legs out from under him.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: He goes down hard onto the grass, grimacing in agony
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: and crying out for help, and then as he reached
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: for his shotgun to rearm himself, someone blew his fingers
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: off from a full 15 feet away. Hook reached with
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: his other hand, the one that still had fingers on it,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: but the shooter had closed the distance and pulled the
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: thing away from him before he could use it. Cook
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: started begging for his life, offering a blank check to
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: the hooded figure now standing over him, if he'd only
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: spare his life. Lots of people wanted him dead, and
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: only the richest of his rivals had the cash to
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: hire what appeared to be some kind of super-assassin. And
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: so it stood reason that all he had to do
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: was offer this guy more money than he was already
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: being paid, and he'd stand down. He said that too.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: That whatever his would-be killer was being paid, he'd double it,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: triple it even. But the hooded figure didn't utter a
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: single word of reply. Instead, he kneeled down next to
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: bootleg Bill and slowly pulled the hood away from his head.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: And then from what I've been told, what Bill saw
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: drove him completely mad. Because looking back at him, face
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: lit up by the moonlight, was my great-uncle, Gene. Bootleg
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Bill had ordered his death. Everyone knew it. But Bill
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: knew it better than all. He also knew for certain
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: that Uncle Gene was dead. Saw it in the paper.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Heard about the funeral procession. The whole nine yards. And
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: yet there he was. Standing in front of him like
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: he'd risen from his grave. He's yelling. It can't be you.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: You're dead. I had you killed. You're dead. And while
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: that was true, it couldn't have been my old Uncle Gene.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: The man kneeling beside him wore an identical face. And
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: that face was the last thing bootleg Bill Hook ever saw.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: The man with Uncle Gene's face blew his brains out
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: and then left him there for folks to find before
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: slipping off into the night. No one even found out
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: who it was. I mean, no one official, of course.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: But I know. Me and a whole bunch of other people.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: because the man that slaughtered bootleg Bill Hook and his
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: men was my great-grandpa Eustace, the identical twin brother of
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: my great-great-uncle Gene. Now, y'all were probably wondering why my
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: great-great-uncle was heading back to my great-grandma Mira, right? Well,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: that's because despite the fact they were married, they never
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: had any children. The first kid great-grandma Mira had was
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: the son of the man who violated her, the man
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: who'd lived to be my grandpa and who told me
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: this story. But upon hearing of his brother's death and,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: more importantly, how this widow had to raise a child
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: with no real means of income, he came straight home
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: to see her and get the full story on how
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: his brother had been murdered. You see, Grandpa Eustace had
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: fought over in Europe during World War I, but when
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: he was discharged at the end of the war, he
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: couldn't bring himself to head home yet, not with all
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: these horrors still in his head. And so instead, he
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: took to the sea and joined the Merchant Navy. Great
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Grandpa Eustace went all over, South Pacific, China, Africa, anywhere
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: that wasn't America. But then somehow, I guess some attorney
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: contacted his bosses, and he finds out his brother had
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: been murdered. and that calls him home. Well, he gets
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the whole unfiltered story from great-grandma Mira, and he knows
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: what he has to do long before she finishes it.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: And so after a whole lot of hiding out and planning,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: so as not to ruin the surprise, he ends up
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: traveling up to Mobile one night to where bootleg Bob
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: was living to enact a bloody and terrifying revenge. And
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: after that, He moved Grandma Mira up to Birmingham and
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: stuck around to raise my grandpa after finding himself a
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: job in a factory. He's who I consider my real great-grandfather,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: even after seeing an old photo of him and knowing
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: that we look about as different as different gets, and
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: I still think of him as my ancestor, and not
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: the no-good son of a bitch whose blood really runs
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: through my veins. When I was a kid, the town
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: I grew up in seemed like a very scary place.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: I was raised out on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: in a very Catholic parish and in a house that
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: overlooked the town cemetery. My dad was the grave digger
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: there for something like 40 years before and it never
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: made sense to me, but he loved his job. Because
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: once I actually understood what he did for a living,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: it took a long, long while before I was okay
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: with it, shall we say. He used to call it
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: planting stiffs, and around the age of 13 I asked
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: him if he ever had trouble sleeping, like I did
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: after thinking about the cemetery too much. He said it
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: was nothing a little whiskey couldn't fix, and then when
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I asked if he ever got haunted by people's souls,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: he said he reckoned he buried them too. He used
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: it to scare the hell out of me, but that
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: was just a fraction of what I grew up with,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: which had me convinced my hometown was legitimately cursed or something.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: First off, when I was seven, four people went missing
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: one summer after venturing into the same part of the bayou.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: First it was two kids, then a lone teenager, and
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: then a fisherman who used to lay crawfish traps out there,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: all within a couple of days of each other. No
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: one found any trace of them for weeks after they
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: went missing, and then one day they all showed up
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: at once, bloated and partially scavenged by turtles or gars.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: No one ever figured out exactly what happened to them,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: whether it was swimming or maybe a boating accident or
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: something far more sinister. But local kids stopped playing near
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the bridge close to where they were found and started
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: saying that something lived under it. Something that snatched kids.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: This is all with the backdrop of the fall's fogs,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: by the way, which settle over the Gulf Coast around
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: October and don't stop until early spring. So, you can imagine...
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: It gave the town this creepy, otherworldly feel to it,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: while all people talked about were the missing and the dead.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Another time, just after my 10th birthday, all the animals
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: in the farms surrounding town started dying off, and not
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: all of their deaths could be explained. Some of them
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: were confirmed to have died from anthrax outbreaks. Others were
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: determined to have eaten toxic plants that ended up in
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: their fields after flooding. But the rest, no one could
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: figure it out. It was like they watched their buddies
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: die of disease or a bad diet and just figured, heck,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: I had this childish idea that the land itself was evil,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: or at least had a kind of badness in it
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: that made it impossible for things to live. And then
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: years later, it seemed like even the dead couldn't catch
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: a break. After a particularly hard hurricane season, the cemetery
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: near my house flooded, and it flooded bad. All that
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: water had coffins shifting underground, and some were even pushed
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: back up to the surface, rotten and cracked open. My
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: dad had to rebury each one of them that came
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: up again, and something he found a little more than
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: an annoyance, but to me, it was yet another sign
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: that the land around us was bad or cursed. The
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: sight of disturbed graves, not to mention the mud-smeared statues
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: of the virgins standing all askew, It looked incredibly devilish,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: like Satan himself had reached up from hell to push
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: all those bodies to the surface. And then there were
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: all the miscarriages that happened suddenly one year. Prenatal care
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: in mid-70s Louisiana was not great, put it that way.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: And so women suffered all kinds of miscarriages or stillbirths.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: But when three different women all suffered them around the
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: same time, people started to talk. And to some, a
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: cluster of isolated tragedies started to look a lot like
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: something much darker, especially after the crucifix from the church
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: showed up, desecrated. Someone found it floating in the water
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: out near the same bridge the kids now said was
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the home of a child-grabbing monster. The effigy of Jesus
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: had a cracked face, a missing hand, and would look
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: like gouge marks all up and down the body. And
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: while it was almost certainly just bored kids being vicious
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: little vandals, The discovery had people talking about some kind
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: of satanic cult hiding among the town's good church-going folk.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Those rumors scared the bejesus out of me once they
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: started circulating around school. But the worst thing, the thing
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: that really shocked everyone, had yet to even happen. And so,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: there was this man, I'll call him Mr. Thibodeau, a
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: real pillar of the community type of guy. He was
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: never one to miss mass and Every time he'd be
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: sitting front and center with his family, rosary beads click
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: clacking away as he worked through his Hail Marys and
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Our Fathers. Now he was always the first to volunteer
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: for church cleanups, always quoting scripture, but his daughter on
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: the other hand, she was a rebel. She liked staying
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: out late and hanging around with boys, and not the
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: good kind either. Because one night she ended up in
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: the hospital, beat half to death. I heard her face
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: was so badly swollen that her own mama barely recognized
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: her when she showed up at the hospital. She had
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: one eye sealed shut, her lips split open, and her
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: ribs were cracked in three places. Then she had a
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: streak of bruises the color of ripe plums running from
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: her neck down past her hips. The word around town
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: was that one of her boyfriends did it, but some
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: said the people responsible were the same ones that made
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: those others go missing years before. and the same ones
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: who stole the church crucifix. People crossed themselves and muttered
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: about the devil's servants testing the righteous, and few were
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: surprised when Thibodeau sent her off to a convent upstate
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: so she could rest up, recuperate, and get closer to God.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: It seemed noble enough at the time, sending her someplace
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: else to get away from it all, but not everything
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: is what it seems on the surface. Maybe a month
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: after Thibodeau sent his daughter away, somebody broke into his
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: house in the middle of the night. They called it
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: a home invasion. The front door had been kicked clean
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: off of its hinges, and the inside looked like a
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: storm had torn through it. But whoever it was didn't
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: take anything but the daughter's belongings, and when he met
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Thibodeau in a hallway, they fired on him without hesitation.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: The killer then went about smashing all kinds of religious stuff,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: snapping crucifixes, smashing bottles of holy water, and stomping on
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: statues of the saints like they had a real personal
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: grudge against the Almighty. They found Thibodeau in the hallway
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: leading to the bedrooms, and whoever shot him cut his
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: throat so deep his head was almost off. I heard
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: his eyes were wide open and staring at the ceiling,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: like he'd seen something that scared the living hell out
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: of him. People were so unsettled and scared by what
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: happened that the parish priest came and blessed the house
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: three separate times before anybody would set foot in it again.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: The town lost their collective minds for a while, I guess,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: talking about satanic cult this and devil worship that, and
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: everybody started locking their doors at night, tighter than a
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: bank vault too, whispering about black masses taking place out
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: in the woods past the refinery. Mothers started keeping their
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: kids inside after supper, men started carrying pistols to the
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: grocery store, and everyone looked sideways at people who skipped
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Sunday service or stayed out past dark. And then all
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the while, the fog just made things worse, which was
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: thick as gumbo most nights from October onwards. I was
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: 13 then, still living right across from the cemetery where
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: my dad planted stiffs, as he said. Our house sat
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: on a little rise so that the front porch looked
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: straight out over the iron fence and the rows of
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: headstones beyond. Most nights the fog rolled in, swallowing the
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: markers until only the taller ones poked up through the haze.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: I'd gotten used to it, or at least I thought
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: I had until the night I heard the screams. I
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: was lying in bed when I heard this noise coming
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: from over the fence. It wasn't the usual night sounds.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Not an owl, not a dog. It was high. ragged
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: and full of something that didn't belong in a graveyard
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: after midnight. I got up and cracked open a window,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: then as the sound hit my ear, I realized someone
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: was laughing and whooping out there, like someone was having
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: themselves a fine old time out there among the headstones.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: I crept out the front porch and listened from there.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Then the whoops came again, followed by a long, keening
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: kind of wail. that rose and fell like it was
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: someone's soul straight up leaving their body. I thought it
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: sounded like a death scream, like someone was being murdered
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: out there, but then I heard more wild laughing, like
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: whoever it was didn't care if anybody heard it. I
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: couldn't see who it was because of the fog, and
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: so I couldn't tell if it was just some drunk
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: kids from the high school daring each other to run
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: around the place or Maybe one of the older heavy
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: metalheads who had been talking about summoning spirits like their
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: idols sang about. But the sound kept on and it
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: was coming from the far side near the older plots,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: the one that flooded worst after the hurricanes. I was scared,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: but I had to know. And so I eased the
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: door closed so it wouldn't squeak and wake my parents,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: slipped off the porch in my pajamas and bare feet
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: and then stepped onto the wet grass. The fog was
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: so thick that I couldn't see the fence until I
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: was almost on top of it, and the air had
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: that wet earth and low tide smell that always came
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: with the fall fog. I followed the noise, slowly but carefully,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: one hand on the cold iron bars as I moved
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: along the perimeter, and then I saw her. A figure
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: out among the graves, maybe thirty yards in. At first
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: it was just a dark shape against the grey fog,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: moving in a way no person should move in a
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: cemetery at that hour. It was a girl, and she
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: was spinning in slow circles right on top of one
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: particular grave. She had her arms flung wide, head thrown back,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: and the whooping came out of her open mouth and
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: bursts mixed with this awful laughter that sounded like... almost
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: like it had some pain in it too. Her nightgown...
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: or dress, or whatever it was, was plastered wet to
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: her legs, and then every few turns she'd drop to
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: her knees in the mud and rock back and forth,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: and then scramble up again and start dancing harder, with
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: bare feet slapping the ground. In that moment, she barely
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: looked human. She looked like something from the stories old
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: ladies told, about witches who came up out of the
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: swamp to dance on the graves of the newly dead,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: and call even worse things up with them. Seeing it,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: my whole body went cold from the inside out, and
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I could suddenly hear my own pulse in my ears
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: even louder than her laughing. Part of me wanted to
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: yell for my dad, but the other part, the smarter part,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: knew that if she turned and saw me, I'd never
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: make it back to the house. As the whooping rose higher,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: into an almost scream, I took one step backward, and
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: then another as she flung herself down again. She was
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: clawing at the mud on top of that grave, like
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: she was trying to dig her way in or drag
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: something out. And then I guess I was so distracted
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: by what I was seeing that I didn't notice the
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: stick lying in the grass behind me. My heel came
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: down hard and the stick snapped loud as a gunshot
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: in the quiet of the night. The figure went still
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: for half a second, but I didn't wait to see
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: if she looked my way. I just turned and ran.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: and bare feet were pounding through wet grass until I
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: hit the back steps hard enough to skin my shin.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: I yanked the door open and didn't stop running until
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: I was back under the covers with the blanket pulled
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: over my head. I lay there shaking like I was
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: five years old again, terrified that I'd hear the sound
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: of the door opening behind me or footsteps in the hall.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: But nothing came, only a final thin wail that could
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: have easily have been the wind. And I didn't sleep
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: the rest of that night. I kept picturing the girls
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: spinning on that grave and how it was or wasn't
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: connected to the smashed crucifixes, or the man with his
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: throat cut, or the way the whole town was whispering
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: about satanic forces. To 13-year-old little me it all made
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: perfect sense. She was a witch dancing on the fresh
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: grave of a God-fearing man and one who'd been carved
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: up in his own hallway. I never said a word
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: to anybody, especially not my father. The last thing I
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: wanted was him going out there with a shovel or
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: a shotgun and ended up getting himself planted in the
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: same dirt that he'd been digging all of his life.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I went to school the next day with dark circles
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: under my eyes and kept my mouth shut when the
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: other kids talked about the latest rumor. Some kids talked
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: about black candles being found out by the old oak
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: or of a goat's head being left on the church steps.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: But I already knew better. I'd seen the real thing.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: and I kept that secret for years, thinking it was
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: just one small facet of the curse which plagued our town.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Witches dancing on graves, satanic bastards killing good Catholic men,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: all while the whole town rotted from the inside out.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't until a long time later that the
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: real story filtered down to me. It turns out that
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Thibodeau wasn't so God-fearing after all, and it was him
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: that had beaten his daughter half to death because he
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: found out that she'd slept with her boyfriend. He didn't
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: send her off to some convent because he wanted to
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: keep her safe, or because she wanted to go. He
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: sent her to keep her under control. When the Thibodeau
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: girl's boyfriend found out what happened, it was him that
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: kicked her father's door down and did the killing. And
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: then I guess it made him sick to see all
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: that religious stuff around such a monster's home, and so
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: he smashed it. But then the witch... The woman doing
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: black magic rituals on the dead man's grave. It was
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: his daughter. Back from the convent after her daddy was
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: in the ground. Dancing and laughing with joy right there
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: on top of him. The boyfriend was caught and went
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: to jail for what he did. But I heard he
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: went smiling. Smiling at a job well done. Because... What
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: he did allowed his girl to have the final moment
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: of joy with her late father and celebrating the fact
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: that that rotten son of a bitch had finally got
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: what was coming to him. The truth came out eventually,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: but at the time our parents seemed content to let
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: us keep our ghost stories and fairy tales about witches
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: and curses. It must have seemed that way, way easier
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: than looking square at the truth of what really went
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: on behind closed doors in a place supposedly so full
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: of good church-going people. In the fall of 1987, I
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: was a junior at a small liberal arts college down
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: in Mississippi. About 95% of the money that I was
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: getting from my parents was going to books and tuition,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: so I really needed to find a job. But after
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: looking through the campus-based work-study positions, I saw they paid
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: next to nothing. I started looking at off-campus positions, and
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: that's how I ended up getting a very unusual but
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: very promising offer. While taking a break from handing out resumes,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: I stopped by a little coffee shop for a slice
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: of cake. And the place was so nice that I
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: figured that I'd hand in one of my resumes and
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: then on my way out, I was approached by a
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: well-dressed older lady. She said that she couldn't help but
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: notice that I handed my resume in and asked what
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: kind of experience I had. I was honest and told
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: her that the only work experience I had came from
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: volunteering at some stables when I was 14, but she
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: didn't seem to mind. In fact, She seemed to like
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: the answer. She went on to tell me that she
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: had a cousin, a very elderly and infirm one who
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: required day and night care. She already had a team
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: of private carers, and they were all very dedicated to
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: their work, but therein lay the problem. They didn't get
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: much time off, like at all, and then after one
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: of them retired after 30 plus years of service, they
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: had a really tough time trying to find an adequate replacement.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: The lady's regular staff had been working 24-7, seven days
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: a week, for coming up on two months by the
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: time I bumped into her cousin at the coffee shop,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: meaning they were in dire need of a few weekends off.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: and that's where I came in the pay was generous
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: to say the very least and then after a short
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: telephone interview with the head of staff I was driving
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: out into the country to what turned out to be
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: an old plantation house I'd imagined it to be a
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: grand place and maybe it once was but by the
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: time I got there, it wasn't very grand-looking at all.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: It stood at the end of a long, weed-infested driveway
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: about 40 minutes outside of town, a huge two-story building
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: with peeling white columns and shutters that hung at odd angles.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: It had been in the same family since way before
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: the Civil War, but I guess despite all of its
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: rich history and once-deep coffers, as they say, it was
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: a family that was coming to an end. because the
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: only person left living there when I showed up was Mrs.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Annabelle Harrison. And her head of staff met me at
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: the door that first Saturday and explained how she suffered
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: from what everyone called her spells. During the daytime, Annabelle
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: was frail and mostly confined to a wheelchair or her bed.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: And then whenever she spoke, it was mostly in short,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: tired sentences. She was a widow in her 80s, one
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: whose kids had either moved away or met tragic ends
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: in ways I never got the details on. But while
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: she spent most of the days sleeping after she took
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: her medication, at night, especially after midnight, something shifted. She
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: would get up in the middle of the night, full
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: of this wild energy that seemed impossible considering how weak
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: she was in the daytime. She'd then wander the halls
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: of her old decrepit mansion, talking, but in all kinds
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: of different voices. I was told these voices were all
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: very distinct, and that despite her advanced age and poor
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: state of mind, Annabelle exhibited a chilling talent for mimicry.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not dumb. It sounded creepy as hell.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: But she was also a sick old lady who needed help,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: and I was a college kid in dire need of cash.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: And so learning of her condition did nothing to deter me.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: I was to stay overnight in a small guest room
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: on the second floor, with my duties being preparing simple meals,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: checking on her every few hours, and then helping her
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: back to bed if she ever got up and wandered.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Her team of regular carers looked exhausted when they handed
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: over the keys each Friday evening, and when I started
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: they said the nights had been getting worse and worse.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: They seemed super relieved to see me too, which made
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: me a little more nervous than I already was. But
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: then after the first few weeks passed without issue, I
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: figured that I'd been making a mountain out of a molehill.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: In the mornings, Mrs. Harrison would do nothing but doze
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: in her chair by the window. Then in the afternoons,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: she might watch an old movie or read a book
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: with her legs covered up by her favorite blanket. After dark,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: she only occasionally woke up, and whenever she did, all
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: she'd do was move slowly through the upstairs corridor, muttering
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: to herself quietly before I escorted her back to bed.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: She always got a little startled when I got to her,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: I guess because she was sleepwalking. But I heard those
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: voices up close a few times, and my God, were
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: they creepy. Her staff were 100% right, in that they
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: were distinctly different from her regular voice. One sounded high
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: and broken, like a scared young woman. Another was deeper
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: and tired sounding, and she'd repeated phrases about children being
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: taken away or Hunger that never ended. And then in
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: the higher-pitched voice, she spoke of mothers who stopped eating
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: after their infants were sold off, of people working until
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: they collapsed in the fields, or of punishments that left
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: bodies too broken to recover. From the scraps of conversation
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: the day carers shared, and from the way Mrs. Harrison
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: herself described the place when she was lucid, I learned
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: that the plantation and its owners weren't exactly your average
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: cotton producer. Locals whispered that the family who owned it
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: treated their slaves with unusual cruelty, even by the standards
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: of the time. Children were separated from their parents as
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: a matter of course, while those who resisted were whipped
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: until they could no longer stand, and sometimes died days
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: later from infections which festered in their open wounds. Some
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: of the more virile male slaves were forced to fight
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: one another while their masters watched, and dogs were used
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: to track runaways. But, and according to the voices that
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: came from Mrs. Harrison at night, the plantation owner used
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: to do far worse to her slaves. Some nights I'd
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: find her standing in a doorway or at the top
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: of the stairs. Her eyes would be half open and
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: there was clearly no one there. But the way she
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: spoke in those voices, even when it was in whispers,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: was so eerily clear and precise. Most nights I could
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: take her gently by the arm and guide her back
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: to her room. Sometimes she'd resist a little at first,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: but more often than not, she'd soon grow quiet and
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: allow herself to be settled under the covers. In the morning,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: she rarely remembered anything and was back to being her
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: usual tired but friendly self. And so I figured for
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: as long as it lasted, it'd be a great way
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: for me to make some money. But I don't think
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: it was even a week after I had that thought
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: when things started to unravel. It was a Saturday in
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: late October. The nights had started to get colder, and
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: the wind made the old house creak way louder than usual,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: but Mrs. Harrison had been unusually active during the daytime,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: so I figured the night would be a quiet one.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: I heated up some soup for her supper, helped her
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: into her nightgown after she'd eaten, and then left her
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: in bed with the nightlight on, just as she liked it.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: I think she fell asleep as soon as her head
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: hit the pillow, like she seemed beat, and so you
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: can imagine my surprise when at around one in the morning,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: I heard floorboards outside my door. When I got up
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: and stepped into the hall, she was already at the
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: far end, moving with a steady stride that did not
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: belong to a woman who needed help standing most afternoons.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: The voice coming from her was lower than any I'd
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: heard before, but it was only when I got closer
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: that I actually figured out what she was saying. She
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: was talking about the old order of the place and
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: what used to happen to slaves who didn't obey. I
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: heard her say something about backs opened by lashes until
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: bone showed and how bodies just came apart if dogs
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: fought over them hard enough. I called her name and
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: walked towards her the way I always had. She turned
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: when she heard my voice and for a moment, her
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: face looked the same. But as I got closer in
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: the low light, I realized the expression on it was
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: not hers. Before I could reach her, she closed the
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: distance with a shocking speed. and grabbed hold of my
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: left forearm. She was strong, impossibly strong, and after she
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: dragged my arm towards her, she brought her head down
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: and bit me. The teeth sank deep enough that I
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: felt the skin break as I screamed. I jerked back hard,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: breaking her grip and stumbling away down the hall. But
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: she followed, and the voice that came out of her
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: was clearly the voice of a man, recounting what he
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: intended to do once he caught me. Annabelle said that
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: when the whipping was finished, anyone looking would be able
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: to see the backbone. She said the dogs would be
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: set on me, and that they'd chase me down, and
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: that before they tore me apart, they'd give me their puppies.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: She spoke with as terrifying kind of glee as if
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: the person she was mimicking, or channeling, or whatever, took
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: exceptional pleasure in the cruelest of tortures. I remember running
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: past the stairs and into one of the unused bedrooms,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: shutting the door behind me and pressing my back against it.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: My arm was throbbing with pain, and blood had already
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: begun to soak through the sleeve of my shirt. Then
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: outside the door, I could hear Annabelle pacing. She continued
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: in that same low voice, talking about the people who
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: had lived and died under the family's ownership. She spoke
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: of mothers who starved themselves after their children were taken,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: of men and women made to fight until one stopped moving,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: and of the infections that followed the whip, which often
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: finished what the lash had begun. I stayed silent, listening
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: in absolute horror as the footsteps passed and returned, and
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: then after several minutes, I heard the steps move further
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: down the hall. I opened the door a crack, saw
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: Annabelle's back, turned at the end of the corridor and
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: slipped out of the room moving as quietly as I could.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: I went into the room that she'd just left, the
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: one that still held an old iron key in the
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: lock on the outside, and then when she turned and
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: started toward me, I stepped aside and let her walk
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: into the room and pulled the door shut. I held
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: it closed as I pushed the key into the lock
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: and then after it turned with a dry click, she
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: realized what was happening. and began striking at the wood
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: from the inside. Still speaking in that same gruff voice,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: as she listed the punishments that awaited me once I
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: was caught. But it was over. She couldn't catch me,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: and somehow, even though she was nothing but a sick
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: old lady, the relief of knowing I was safe brought
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: tears to my eyes. I went downstairs to the phone
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: in the frontal and, with shaking hands, dialed the number
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: the agency had given me for emergencies. Blood from my
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: arm dripped onto the floorboards as I told the person
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: who answered what had happened, that Mrs. Harrison had attacked
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: me and that I had locked her in an upstairs
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: room and that I needed someone to come. and then
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: I sat on the bottom step with the kitchen towel
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: pressed to the bite and waited. The night carers arrived first,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: followed by two men from the agency, then eventually an ambulance.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: They found Mrs. Harrison behind the locked door, her voice
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: quieter by then, but still not yet her own. After
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: they sedated her and took her to the hospital, I
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: gave a statement and then had my arm cleaned and
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: bandaged at the emergency room, and I never went back
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: to that house. I took one of those on-campus jobs
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: for a while just to make do and then found
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: something off-campus that padded my purse a little better. My
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: arm eventually healed and time passed and I got over
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: what happened. But sometimes I still think about the way
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: her strength returned after dark and the clarity of those
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: voices that very clearly did not belong to Annabelle. Hey friends,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: thanks for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: of all future narrations. I release new videos every Monday
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: and Thursday at 9pm Eastern Time. And I never take showers.
• 51:11
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  Speaker 1: Please go... Follow it, and there will be links in
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  Speaker 1: the description. Thanks so much, friends. And remember, the most
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: northern battle of the Civil War occurred at Schrute Farms.