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59. Beware of the Dog! (The Thing Between Us) · The Book-Watchers

0:05
On it and you the opening theme, opening credits, maybe a quick little
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hot take here and there for communic effects, and yeah, Hi, welcome
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to block watchers. Thank God for all Right, enough with the gay ship.
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Let's get back then, let's just jump right into the gay ship.
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Hi. I'm Jay, I'm your host Jacob and I am I am joined
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today of course with our regular permanent because you know him, you love him.
1:03
He's bald, mad ginger. It's it's it's all my Devin. Uh.
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Yes, don't make fun of me. Don't make fun of me,
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babe. I see you look over there. He's very sensitive, y'all.
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So just be here, just be kidful. Yeah, X kid, you're
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right, You're right. Hi, we came the book watches. In the
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scripture below will be the link tree to the Twitter if there ever will be
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one. I don't know imda one day, but the scripture below will have
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out the other podcast We've got ooogy Spooky Ship for days and like D and
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D which will be coming new games should be coming up here soon future,
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Devin, what are you doing get all that ship. God fucking lazy ass
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anyway, getting today's episode. Yeah, so sorry, no you're find Yeah.
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So today we are going to be reviewing a yet another horror thriller themed
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book. This book is called The Thing between Us by Gus Moreno yeah and
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no no no, no, no, no go ahead and yes, I
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was kind of very quite rudely. Uh anyway, so we are. Uh
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so this week is gonna be another week where Devin gets to gets to review
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this book. Let's talk about a nice little summary of its plot and you
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know, you just go for it. Tell me more I want to know.
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Okay, So getting into The Thing between Us. This is the first
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novella written by Gus as far as I know, from what I've looked up,
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I think he's done, Like he might have done some short story stuff
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for other like another anthology book, but I think this is like his first
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like novel novel novella. It's not very long. It's another one that's a
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that's on the shorter side of things. But let me tell you maybe it's
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it's good. It's good. It's it's one of the many books I got
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into the last like month or two actually, I've probably read this like a
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month or two ago. But it's a fun horror, well cosmic horror.
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It's weird in like the best way. It's not like it's not on the
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same end of the horror spectrum as like uh slew Foot like last week.
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Because again, if you don't, you haven't listen to that episode, please
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go do So that was a fun one. So The Thing between Us now,
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The Thing between Us was released in oh gosh, I didn't have that
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date open. It was released October twelfth, twenty twenty one. So this
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book is a it's a couple of years old. It's about two hundred and
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seventy two pages. And yeah, let me look up the stuff on the
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author real quick, full bio. Yeah, he did an anthology series and
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it was part of an anthology series before this, and yeah, this is
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his first technical technically his first book. Yeah, so getting into the plot
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up trigger warning. This book has gore, it has violence, it has
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things being ripped to shreds, things and people. Has some very tough,
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very deep conversations about grief, family tragedy, and a big trigger warning for
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a unliving that happens towards the end without getting into it. I'll get into
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it when I talk about the story, but that's the I would say,
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that's the biggest trigger warning. If you're okay with all those topics, please
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go let's go listen to the book audible or go read it. It's relatively
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cheap on kindle or even paperback, so getting into it. So The Thing
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between Us, The Thing between Us is a book that centers around a guy
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named Thiago and his wife Vera, who at the beg end of the book
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are going or starting their life together. They got read, they got married
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not too long ago, they recently just bought a condo, and they're starting
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to like just live their lives in Chicago. In the new plays that their
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first home is this condo, and as things progress in the beginning of the
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story, they start hearing things and this con is condo, condo, condo,
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footsteps, scratches in the middle of the night, random cold spots,
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scratching up the walls, ceiling, floor, Weird things are happening. And
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then things get even weirder when Vera, Iago's wife buys a little device that
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reminds you of a little Alexa Alexa or Siri. When theo's little devices that
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you have in the house that you can talk to. Hey Google, do
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this. It's along those lines. Start getting they get that, they'll bring
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that into the house, and then that device starts acting strange. So the
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device will start We'll talk to something that's not there. They'll randomly turn on
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the middle of the night. It'll buy random It bought random things off off
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of I don't know if they said Amazon, but off off the Internet,
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and it'll be mailed to their house, like they got a Katana other random
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ship. The funniest thing they got they got Adelda that came in the mail.
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So whatever it was talking to this device ordered Adeldo. For whatever reason,
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I thought that was funny because they made a point that in the story.
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I was like, Okay, so random shit comes in the house and
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they think it's pretty funny. But then it starts getting weirder. When the
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device turns on the random random points in the middle of the night, starts
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playing creepy music around. They start hearing it again. They start hearing the
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footsteps and ship on top of all that, so they start thinking that there's
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something in this house with all those weird things going on. They start looking
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into the place's history right, and they find out that an old woman who
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used to used to live there before they did, but she got kicked out,
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thrown out on the streets, and they where they can really get into
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what happened there. I think Thago ends up calling the realtor, that's the
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word, the relator that told them the place, and they said that the
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woman apparently was a as you call a blue haw. He came into the
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house, I guess the relator came into the house and they found a skinned
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animal and some weird symbol painted in the animal's blood all over. The blood
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and guts were everywhere, and they cleaned obviously, they cleaned out the that
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mess and kicked her out and then they moved in not too long after.
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So they're thinking the Thago and Vera are thinking that she has something to do
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with this. He tried contacting her. She always spoke Spanish, he does
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not, so he never quite understood what happened before they could dive in any
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deeper together because Bira, Bira knows how it speak Spanish. But before Thago
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can get his wife tell her the update on what he found out, she
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dies. She ends up getting pushed down to fly the stairs by a young
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man fleeing a crime scene, and she ends up getting very badly injured,
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and after several weeks of being in the hospital and presumed brain dead, she
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ends up. They end up pulling the plug and she dies from that interaction.
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From there, theo Fiago and her family are thrown through a media circus
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of politics, political media that's dealing with the fact that at the person,
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the young man who killed Vera was a immigrant. There's a lot of that
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conversation going on there, thrown through the whole media mess and out of grief
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and just wanting to be alone. After Theago got the life insurance money from
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vera passing, Basically she set up where he wouldn't have to work a day
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in his life after her passing, which happened, so he came into a
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shit ton of money and to the point where her family was looking at him
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for handouts and people were coming up to him for money and shit, and
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between that and the media circus, he went it out. He was done
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and strange, and the strange things started started continuing to happen as he was
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still living there by himself. So he ended up packing up his ship and
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he left for Colorado. He bought a cabin. He called up. He
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called out some realtor in Colorado that had great reviews or whatnot, and he's
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like, what do you got that's secluded and not around people? And he's
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like, I got this cabin. Don't you want to see it. She's
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like, nah, I'll buy it straight out right now. So he bought
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it basically over the phone, and then he traveled from Chicago to Colorado by
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himself, just so he can get away from everything, because he's tired of
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being around people. He's tired of the media frenzy. He's just done with
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it all because he's also dealing with all that and grieving for his now past
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and wanting to get away from this thing that's been followed, that's been haunting
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him and following him for god knows how long. So from there, when
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he's heading down to the cabin, long drive, he doesn't really stop adding
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the hotels. He kind of just drives through the night. He pulls over
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every once in a while and take a couple hour nap, and then he
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continues. So he's in the mountains of what he thinks is around Colorado or
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close to the Colorado border and he comes across a old timey timy diner out
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in the mill of fucking nowhere, and he not just is that there's a
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there's somebody in there, one of a worker that's in there. And he
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goes in there hopefully wanting some food. And the guy's closing up for the
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day. And the guy's like, okay, cool, well, come on
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in. I already turned off the grails, but I can make you a
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milkshake or some shit. He's like Sure's like sure, I'll just chill here,
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and he started getting to the conversation with this guy, with this cook
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as he is called, and forgot to mention throughout this whole thing, the
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way the story is written is writing this story on a bunch of letters and
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notes that are addressed to his wife. So this story is written in a
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way that's like he's telling his wife what's happened since her death, if that
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makes sense to all of you out there. So this this book is written
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in a very particular way that's quite interesting. Back to the cook, So
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he's waiting for his milkshake and he's having an interaction with this cook talking about
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how this diner was made on this particular road because they were told that a
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highway was gonna be placed here and there's going to be bustling business. That
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highway never came. They built a highway somewhere else. And now this diner
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is a muddy pit and the diner, the cook is talking about how his
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father started this place and he's continuing it and he's thought about selling it,
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but he's like, who's gonna buy it. It's randomly out in the middle
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of nowhere. And then he started talking about tragedy, grief, bad things
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that happened to people. Why do bad things happen to people? Why do
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things bad? Why do bad things happen to you? Is it something is
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a force? Is it an entity? He starts talking. Then he starts
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talking about this an entity web It's an entity that's millennia years old. It's
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just bored or tired or hunger. It's something you something that you have that
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he wants that is causing all this grief. But he's talking about in a
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very metaphorical way. But as the reader, you kind of like side eye
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the cook, like, what's going on here? This seems suspicious. That's
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a spit that's weird. Side I so that. So Thiago is trying to
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find a way out because he's just like, I don't want to deal with
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this person not catching on what the cook is throwing down, uh, with
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the weirdness. He's just like, I don't want to have a conversation with
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this person anymore. I'm done. He's a lot. I'm done. I
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went out. So eventually he does leave and continues on driving. Eventually he
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does get to his cabin. U. Yeah, he gets his cabin that's
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literally in the middle of nowhere, and he has no neighbors whatsoever. He's
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surrounded by woods, and he's just like, ah, this house that looks
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like a four year old druid the zac, same design and everything, A
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big old box cabin. Oh my home. And he goes there and he's
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having a great night's sleep and he has a dream. He has a weird
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dream that kind of gives him the idea that this thing that was haunting him
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or whatever in Chicago is out looking for him or has found him. So
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he wakes up with a weird feeling like, oh God, did that thing
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follow me here? Fuck? So from there, the next day comes around
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and he decides to take a trip to a hardware store. The closest hardware
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store to him is called hardware store. Yeah h manh yeah yeah. So
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he goes to his hardware store and for whatever for stuff, never indicates what,
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but for stuff. And he finds a Saint Bernard sitting outside the hardware
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store and he's like, oh my god, that's cute. Whose dog is
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that? And no one knows who this dog belongs to, where this dog
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came from. It's like this dog just randomly appeared on that this hardware store.
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So Thiago takes the dog, takes him home. He's like someone's gonna
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look for him one day. And the dog's full of energy, he's cute,
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he's a big old he's a he's a Saint Bernard that thinks he's a
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lap dog. And the way he describes it is just like, oh my
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god, I love big dogs. Saint Bernards are adorable. They're just big
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babies. They're just big babies. So exactly what he has to say it
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is very energetic, big baby. And he takes him to the vet and
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he has no chip. Being that it's a small town in a mountain area,
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uh, they pretty much know all the dogs around the area. As
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well as like strays and stuff, so not many strays come up come up
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this way. So the fact that he's like, there's a random staper an
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art up here. That's weird, and I'm like, as a reader,
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that's weird. Take another of that, that's weird, right, So from
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huh oh, yeah, totally weird, totally weird. No coincidence then whatsoever.
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And from there he decides to name the dog Wilfred Brimley. They calls
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him Brimley for short. So him and uh Brimley go back home and they
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make up, stay the night together, they sleep together, they cuddle.
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He's getting all cute. Within day, the AGO's hooked on this dog.
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He's like, ah, my puppy, everything's better with a puppy. Everything's
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better with a dog, which is true, isn't true, everything's better with
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an animal, dog or cat, But it's like Brimley is exactly what he
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needs at this moment. Next morning, he takes a dog out for a
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out in the backyard to relieve himself whatever else, and then the dog sizes
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to make a run for it into the woods. He should have thought about
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that before walking out with the Saint Bernard have a leash, but he didn't
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have one. He didn't take his leash, so Brimley runs for the woods.
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Niggin that he's playing chase me like most dogs do, so he runs
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after Brimley and eventually he does catch catch him, and on the way back,
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the Ago is actually paying attention to his surroundings because when I was running
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after the dog, he didn't notice certain things. So on the way back
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he notices a big a big wall slab almost like a monolith, randomly in
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the woods and he's like, I didn't notice that running down here. That's
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weird. A big stone slab like the like the stone hinge style, randomly
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out in the middle of the woods. So I'm like, that's suspicious,
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huh where? And then he walks back home with Brimley and from there a
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day I think, like a day or a couple of days past, nothing
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really happens. Brimley gets into a what he finds out later a sinide bomb
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that is left in the woods because I guess back in the day, farmers
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use sin eye bombs out in the mountains to ward off wolves and shit so
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their thin. So he finds out that this land might have been like a
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farm or some shit. But nonetheless, Brimley got into a sin I bombed
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up, blew up, and he inhaled a bunch of the orange powder and
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dust inside of it, and the Ago panics, takes the dog back to
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the vet, to the doctor, and unfortunately he passes away. The dog
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dies not even a week with him, and the dog dies, I know,
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I was like, oh, this poor man, this poor man,
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he's like not he in the book is basically like not even a week and
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then this dog's already dead in my care I said, I took him to
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the pound, but he didn't take him to the pound because the pound would
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have He didn't want the pound to put him down or anything, so that's
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why he took him in the first place. But like, he's like not
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even a week. He I should have took him to the pound, he
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would live longer. So the idea of the Ago kind of painting himself as
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everything around me dies kind of starts setting in, like I can't nothing,
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no one should be around me. I am dead. Everyone around me is
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dead or dies. Why because he else talks about like his family history,
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his father left, died, his mother died of cancer, like everyone around
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him. His family unit is died or dying or dies throughout his life,
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and he's just like, I can't take this out. I love Brimley.
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And the doctor tells him maybe should go to the hospital check herself out since
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that was a cyanide bomb, just to make sure, and he's like,
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I want to bury. They talk about cremating Brimley and he's like, do
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I get the ashes back? And then all she's like no, because they
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cremate a bunch of animals at once, and they really can't sort out the
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ashes like that, which which is a very common thing amongst when creamating animals,
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ladies and gents, if you never had an animal die on you,
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because I found that out the hard way when I had to cremate my cat.
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And no'm I do I get the ashes back? And they're like,
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unfortunately, no, because yeah, we're not sure. You can't really be
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too sure if it's the ashes of your animal or someone else's animals. So
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they keep all the ashes and they dispose of them together, and I'm like,
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that's depressing. So that's the thing. And he's like, well,
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okay, then I'm going to take Brimley home and bury him. In the
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backyard. So he takes the dog home after going back to the hardware store
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to get a bunch of supplies to and learns how to dig in frozen ground,
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and he digs a big, gaping hole in the ground to put his
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Saint Bernard in. Saint Bernards that, if you don't know, are huge,
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So he has to make a hole big enough to put the dog in
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as well as you gotta make the hole bigger than the dog. So it's
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a lot. That's a lot to do. So he buries the dog and
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then he later on the night, he has a dream what he thinks is
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a dream, he's not sure. With the dream. Orever he's awake,
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he sees the monolith that he saw in the woods over the grave like a
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headstone, which is weird. Where is this monolith coming from? And he's
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looking out and he sees the monolith at the top at the at the front
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end of the Brimley's grave and he's like, the fuck is this And he
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assumes obviously that okay, this thing might have followen. So he gets in
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his truck and he tries to cray just truck into this monolith. When he
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gets close to heading said monolith. It turns into smoke and he drives right
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through it and hits a tree on the other side. The monolith vanishes and
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boom being by boom Monolat's gone. He's like, maybe I'm imagining it.
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That's weird. Car does a little damage, car gets a little truck,
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gets a little damage, but still able to drive a bowl and shit,
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and he's like, okay, cool, I'm just gonna go to bed.
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This is fucking weird. So he's weirded out, kind of thinks he's partially
24:41
in a dream and shit, and he wakes up. He goes out to
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outside his house and he sees Brimley sitting there wagging his tail at the front
24:49
door or the back door, sorry, the back door, and he's like
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what And it's the same dog, same marking, same look, everything.
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And he's just like wait, but Brimley's dead. What huh? Confusion.
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So he takes the dog to the vet and the vet's like, okay,
25:14
cool, are you sure this is the same dog. He's like, it
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looks like the same dog. Isn't the same dog? And he's like,
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ah, did you try? I don't know. Digging up the grave to
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see if it's the same dog, because he's like, you're crazy, this
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is not the same dog. And he's like that, how do you explain
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another saint Bernard that looks exactly like him right here? And the dog was
25:37
like, okay, well did you dig up the grave to see? Kind
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of feeding into his illusion because he thinks he's illusional at this point. So
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the dog was like, huh, I didn't think of that. So he
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goes home and he digs up the grave. What do you think he finds
25:56
in the grave, Jacob, I'm assuming the dog he finds nothing. There
26:03
is nothing in that grave because he thinks he digs it up, finds nothing.
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He's like dad digging the right place. Hmmm, I must not dug
26:12
in the right place. But like the sheets of metal that he stuck the
26:15
body on her here, but there's no dog. He gets weird. He
26:21
starts getting really weirded out. Obviously, it's like, what that's weird?
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Mhm. Then he goes inside his house and these weird and then a weird
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weird events are happening with these books. So these books are flying off the
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shelves of his house and they say different things like oh, let me out
26:47
of the wall. Another one, it's like pages full of let me out,
26:52
pull me out the wall, Pull me out the wall, pull me
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out the wall. Another one says his mother in law's name Diana, Diana,
26:57
Diana, Diana, Diana, and a bunch of other creepy ship like
27:02
that, And for a minute he thinks it might be as the ghost of
27:04
his wife trying to communicate with him, and then not so much. Then
27:15
he starts thinking about the monolith. He's like, what the monolith is dead?
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What the fuck is that monolith? Why is all this shit happening to
27:26
me? He's confused, confusion is real, and he the wall comes back,
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The monolith comes back. Outside, he walks to the wall that's out
27:38
in the woods and he sees the staircase, and then he says his wife,
27:45
his dead wife, and basically because he's at because at this point he's
27:48
asking, okay, if you're if you're my wife, prove it. So
27:52
he see again, So he sees a modelith outside, sees the staircase.
27:56
Really he basically sees his wife death replayed because this monolith is projecting it in
28:03
some fucking weird way. And he sees his wife walking up the stairs sees
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the guy that bumps into her. She falls to her death, to her
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hurt for the injury and shit, and he just relives it. He wants
28:15
to stop it, but every time he tries to get close to her,
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she disappears and smoke. And then he's like, after seeing reliving the event
28:26
of her death or her demise, he's like, my wife wouldn't show me
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this if she was the only she was able to talk to me, say
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one thing, why the fuck would she show me her death? And then
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the monolith you could tell, oh shit, I fucked up. So the
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dog attacks him because uh Fiago is getting a little too smart for his breeches.
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So the dog, Brimley starts growling at him. He's like, uh,
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down boy, good boy, and then the dog jumps at him and
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bites into his are, ripping his arm to shreds and clamping his fangs into
29:04
his arm. As he's trying to get Brimley off of him, he gets
29:10
the sharp shovel, the sharp pointed shovel that he has, and he slams
29:15
it into the dog's face under right above his left eye. Flesh is chopped
29:21
off, his eyes hanging out, his ears hanging on by a single throat
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of flesh and knocks off part of his jaw, Like this dog is basically
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a walking like pieces of flesh. His face ends up getting disfigured at one
29:36
point because he's still walking around his eyeball's hand and I'm just like, yeah,
29:45
bro, let's say your dog no more. I don't think what was
29:47
your dog here at all to begin with? That just me. But the
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dog won't die, and he's trying to get away from this dogs. He's
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chasing around the around the perimeter of the house, and then he sees that
29:59
his mother in law, his wife's mother, pulls up in a lift and
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she sees the scene that's happening, the dog chased, the half flushed,
30:10
melted off, chopped off dog chasing after her son in law, and she
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runs out of the lift, ends up with the help of Thiago, traps
30:18
the dog in the truck and they get into the lift and drive back in
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the town with the dog still in the truck. They called the police.
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The police go to the house cabin, they shoot the dog. Killem and
30:36
Theago apparently was having a full on conversation with his mother in law, but
30:41
he doesn't remember any of it because he kind of just blanked out through because
30:45
of the injury. And he wakes up in the hospital realizes, oh shit,
30:52
my arm is fucked from like the elbow down, and I'm like,
30:56
ouch, that hits home for me. I didn't need to relive an elbow
31:00
injury. Thank you. If y'all don't know, listeners, I broke my
31:06
elbow. I only have part of an elbow now, so so here in
31:12
that I was like oof, traumatic. But he's fine. He just needs
31:18
like therapy on his arm and he should make a full recovery from the dog
31:21
bite. He finds out the dog was shot and killed. He's like,
31:23
cool, let's leave, let's get into a hotel or sorry. His mother
31:29
in law's like, cool, let's go back to the cabin and Fango's like,
31:30
no, we're going to a hotel. I'm not going back there,
31:34
and she's like, the dog's dead and he's like, hotel. So on
31:41
the way too, said hotel. It go drive by the vet that he
31:47
has been to a couple times now for Brimley. The vet is closed off
31:52
due to a crime scene. He gets out of the car and he walks
31:55
over and he's like, what the fuck is going on. Becau's like,
31:59
I'm getting a vibe. I'm getting a vibe. And he walks over there
32:01
and the police let him in. He's like, does this deal with me?
32:05
And he's like, this steals with your dog and he's like, what
32:07
about my dog? I mean he bit me and y'all killed him. So,
32:12
like, what's what's up the doctor that he's been talking to about his
32:17
dog. Apparently when you kill an animal in this area or just in general,
32:22
they always take him to the vet and they do a biopsy on the
32:25
body to make sure that this dog, the animal doesn't have rabies. Right.
32:30
Apparently that was the night before. Oh, and the doctor never went
32:37
home. So his wife called the vet assistant like, hey, the doctor,
32:43
my husband never came home, and she's like, the fuck. She
32:45
went into the office and found a very gruesome scene. So and he's like,
32:52
what do you mean what happened? So apparently when he walks into the
32:57
vet office, everything looks pretty much the same. Assule it says foul,
33:00
stench of flesh and gore, and the observation room or the examination room.
33:07
Sorry that the doctor was cutting open the dog or doing his proper work for
33:13
rabies. Apparently the dog's body seemed to be exploded, and these bones,
33:20
flesh, tendril things are spread throughout the walls, ceilings, and floor in
33:23
a very odd pattern. Almost. I was kind of imagining it like a
33:29
web, Like there are these tendrils that kind of stick to the ceiling,
33:31
and it's like the chest cave is open like something exploded out of it.
33:38
And I'm like, oh, the thing, okay, got it? Got
33:45
it? Giving me the thing vibes, got it. I'm sorry you said
33:49
that the dog's dead body when the doctor was cutting it open doing his proper
33:55
examination for it, apparently the way they describe it, because he didn't actually
33:59
see it, but the police described what the scene was. The dog's chest
34:02
cavity was busted open, like something exploded out of it, and everything.
34:08
There's gore, tendril things, body parts everywhere from the ceiling down to the
34:15
floor. And I was thinking like there'd be like tendrils sticking up from the
34:17
body to the ceiling and shit, almost kind of like the thing. I
34:22
was imagining a scene from the thing, and I'm like, oh, Jacob's
34:25
not gonna like that, because ladies and gentlemen, Jacob here does not really
34:35
care for the film the thing that traumatized them as a child. I mean,
34:39
I get it, I get it. I understand because I think that
34:42
thing is terrifying. Let's take a like a quick segue, because you know,
34:46
I do feel like I can explain that, because go for it.
34:51
So my mother and my brother were both weirdly obsessed with that movie. Uh
35:01
yeah, my they both loved that movie so much, and I mean,
35:07
good for them, good for them. They were they like what you like,
35:15
I'm not judging, but like, bitch, the fuck, why the
35:19
fuck do you need me to watch it? Because like so, I mean,
35:24
my mom was usually good about it. Uh, she wouldn't like tell
35:30
me, like she wouldn't say, oh no, you gotta like get over
35:32
that and like watch it, keep watching it, blah blah blah. My
35:37
brother was the one who is like like, oh, you gotta watch it,
35:44
you gotta watch it, and I'm like, fuck, I think the
35:47
fuck not yeah. So yeah, so my like I finally just said like,
35:59
okay, I'll watch it. Like I don't know, I don't really
36:01
remember the first time I watched that movie, but I remember I did,
36:05
Like I just remember like the long lasting effect it's had on me, like,
36:12
ugh, I can't stand watching it. Even now when I watch it
36:16
as an adult, I'm still just like that, still lingers mm hmm.
36:25
Yeah. I for one, ladies and gentlemen, I do love the thing,
36:31
but I don't make Jacob watch it constantly. I think I've only watched
36:36
it with him, maybe once because my boyfriend wanted to watch it. But
36:42
I get it. That thing is terrifying. The way the stomach opens up
36:45
and bites off that person's arms terrifying. Oh my god. It was like
36:51
b who feels like oh no, oh Lord, no, Lord, Jesus
36:54
Christ. No. And if I were to make this book into a movie,
37:00
I would do a whole scene of that dog exploding. I would do
37:04
a whole scene inspired by the thing that's obviously not in this book, what
37:07
happens with the doctor in the in the dog's corpse. But I would have
37:10
done a whole scene for that, and obviously inspired it by the thing,
37:15
because that's all I was thinking about was during that I'm like, oh,
37:17
how would a play out terrify? Gross? And I'm just over here like
37:25
oh fuck this. Yeah. So one thing I did forget to mention while
37:34
he was out when he passed out when he got to the hospital, initially
37:38
for his bite on his arm. When they were cleaning the wound, and
37:40
shit, he had this dream about an island, an island that was surrounded
37:45
by the spiky rocks and the wall. The monolith was there on set island,
37:52
and he was looking around, going what the fuck is this? And
37:54
he sees the cook they saw before, and the cook's like, oh,
38:00
where are you here? This place is not ready for you yet. The
38:05
banquet's not ready, and he's like, banquet, banquet for what. He's
38:09
like, Oh, everyone's here. Everyone you've ever loved is here. And
38:15
he's like, what the fuck does that mean? And then he woke up.
38:21
So apparently in some islands somewhere there's the cook gathering fish for some banquet
38:28
with everyone that Fiago loves. In Thiago, I'm like, that's that's weird.
38:34
That cook is getting more and more suspicious. He's not already suspicious to
38:37
you. This is in the uh the dream. Yes, this is all
38:45
in the dream that he had. It's weird and oop, so Gore as
38:52
we jumped forward back to the dog. The dog chest cavity exposed and exploded
38:57
and the doctor is missing, and they're like, where the fuck is the
39:00
doctor. From there, they decided to go to the hotel. They sit
39:04
around, they watch Western films. His mother in law's drinking because she's still
39:08
not over the fact that her daughter's dead. And it's only been like six
39:14
months, five or six months since the death of his wife and her daughter,
39:20
so she's not completely over it yet. And he tells her what's happened,
39:25
but she's like, this is a lot. I can't deal with all
39:28
of this. And then the conversation comes up again. Now was at the
39:30
hospital. Conversation comes up again at the hotel room, and she's like,
39:35
Okay, spill your guts. So he spills everything that's happened, between the
39:42
random footsteps and scratches, to the device that activates on its own orders random
39:45
stuff for them, to the monolith, the dog coming back from the dead,
39:52
the thing talking to him through the books, thinking it's his wife,
39:54
but it wasn't his wife. It was the dog and the monolith. And
40:00
he's like, I don't know what the fuck is going on. All this
40:01
ship is weird. I know this stuff doesn't make any sense. It's super
40:06
isn't super natural? None? Of this ship makes sense. I understand that,
40:08
and she's like, yeahgo, I was born in Mexico. This ship's
40:14
like everyone hasn't everyone has a tea that can like talk to the dead,
40:21
or everyone's seen the la la rona or some there's a blue hot down the
40:25
street like this. I'm sorry, I'm sorry to take a step back.
40:29
What did you just like what did you just say a blue hot before that?
40:36
Before that la corona? Are you saying la or I can't? I
40:45
can't roll my r dude, the crying mother, the woman, Yes,
40:52
we woman. I am white. I can't roll my ars. Okay,
40:54
I'm trying here. No, no, no, I wasn't. I wasn't
40:57
getting I wasn't paving ship for not rolling your ours. I can barely roll
41:00
my ours as it is, and I am Hispanic. But no, I
41:04
thought you said lo rona as in low rona, like you know, pronouncing
41:08
the ls instead of pronouncing instead of with what I might I might I might
41:13
have Again, I'm not fluent in Spanish in any sense of the word.
41:15
I'm only exposed to to the Latin culture because I live in a prominent Latin
41:21
area of Texas. So forgive me I'm white. I'm a green go okay,
41:27
I was over here. I was over here, just like, do
41:29
I need to chime in if I mispronounced anything, because I am not perfect
41:35
by no means. Do I find this. I'm interesting most definitely, But
41:39
I I am not a Latin descent. I am of Irish descent. So
41:47
what I'm just like Irish exactly. So, ladies and gentlemen others, my
41:54
mispronounced. I think that's Spanish Spanish word or term. I am but a
42:02
white man who's trying. White man who appreciates the Latin culture. Back to
42:14
the story, She's like, Okay, let me make a couple of calls
42:16
to different family members and shit, and we'll figure the shit out. I
42:20
got you. So she gets on her phone. She calls several people from
42:23
down in Mexico up to the up in the States, her husband back in
42:28
Chicago. Like, she calls everybody, and apparently she gets a bunch of
42:31
different methods to handle stuff like this from like she had a nephew or a
42:37
cousin visit a blue haw down the street in the wastelands of Mexico or some
42:40
shit, and now, my damn get it. Girl. So she's devising
42:45
all she's devising a battle plan on how to handle this thing, because they
42:49
think this thing is like a ghost or spirit demon thing. So she's like,
42:52
I got you. We're I'm from Mexico. We deal with this shit
42:57
daily. I got you. So they devise a plan and they're like,
43:00
cool, we're gonna head back to the goddamn cabin. But as they're devising
43:07
the plan the first time, they get interrupted by a shadowy figure of something
43:13
banging on the door of their hotel room and they're like, what the fuck
43:16
is that and goes like, yeah, we're not gonna do with this,
43:20
So they change hotels and then they finished devising their plan. They're like,
43:23
cool, we got a battle plan, let's go, and they I go
43:27
tell this mother in law you're not coming, and she's like, fuck you,
43:30
I'm not the fuck I'm going. The fuck you don't got handles of
43:35
shit by yourself? I got you. So they get weapons, they get
43:37
guns, acts, axes, they get all kinds of weaponry because they think
43:42
they're done with something that could be killed by a gun and or an ax.
43:46
So they get all this shit and they get ready for a bachelotte.
43:52
The cabin. They get there, they put salt lines everywhere and they just
43:55
now wait for the thing to show up. So later on that night play
44:02
the music. Later on that night they see coming out of the woods limping
44:08
very uh not human, the doctor, the vat the veterinarian. He comes
44:17
limping out of the woods. His face is fucked up, his eyeballs hanging
44:27
out, he has a gaping hole from like claw marks and shit in his
44:30
face. His body is like he's basically a walking corpse. He's like a
44:34
zombie is not a proper term for this of what I'm seeing here. And
44:37
I'm like, ooh, love that. So the thing starts to uh the
44:44
thing. The thing tries to get inside the house and he does. He
44:49
looks at the salt line and he's like hot and he moves the salt like
44:52
that's gonna stop. He's like hot, bitches. Oh, and this corpse
44:58
of a white man comes running. It comes walking in and the mother in
45:02
law, Diana, has a gun in her hand, and she's hidden in
45:07
the kitchen in the darkness, waiting for a moment to strike. And she
45:09
goes up to the doctor and she foots him in the face, making a
45:14
gaping hole, more a much bigger gaping hole in his face than there was
45:19
before, because his face is unrecognizable. It's almost like sheets a. I
45:24
mean, they described it for the dogs the dog when the dog's flesh was
45:28
getting ripped off in the when they are trying to put the dog in the
45:30
truck, they're saying, she's a baking. We're falling off of them.
45:34
Now I'm like, that's gross, and I love bacon. That's gross.
45:37
Why would you do that? But he has a che flash face, flesh
45:45
from his skull is falling off or getting blasted off, and there's like a
45:51
gaping hole in his face that starts becoming a vacuum sucking everything in, almost
45:57
like a black hole. This is where the cosmic horror comes in, because
46:02
they're like, cool, we shot him in the face. And then she
46:05
can't pull her arm away because her armor is getting sucked in from this weird
46:08
vacuum that's that's pulling everything towards the hole in this person's face, and she
46:15
gets her arm stuck up in there up to the shoulder and she's obviously screaming
46:20
her fucking head off as you should, and is like, oh fuck,
46:23
So he pulls her out of the black hole. Abyss that's coming out of
46:29
this person's skull of whatever the thing is that's possessing this corps, reanimating this
46:34
corpse. And her arm it looks like a mummified shriveled up bone, like
46:43
like all the flesh and all like the blood and stub was all sucked out
46:45
of it and everything that's sucked out of the pores. So when they pull
46:50
her arm outside, being looked like it's mummified. This yellow goo is pouring
46:54
out of her pores. It's like it was sucking everything out of her skin
47:01
through her skin, And I'm like, that's disgusting. How would that look
47:06
on film? I want that? Have you ever seen the Mummy Returns?
47:13
Yes? I have. I was kind of think of that too. I
47:15
like, hmm, that's an idea used to as a reference for that,
47:19
because I was thinking the same thing, but just worse. And she's screaming
47:24
bloody murder, and they try to take out the doctor. Nothing they do
47:29
works, and then the police come and get involved and they shoot down the
47:32
doctor of course, and sadly, from this altercation, the mother in law
47:37
Diana passes. She dies as well. Unfortunately from the injuries and the traumatics
47:45
of it all. And at this point, the Aga Khan just gives up.
47:52
He's just like, I don't know what to do anymore. Look where
47:55
this? Look where this got? You got me? My wife is my
48:00
mother in law's dead because she tried to help me, So now she's dead.
48:02
Everyone I tries to help me or interacting with me in anyway is now
48:07
dead. And his wife's side of the family kind of just disowns him,
48:13
doesn't anything to do with him, because obviously they've lost a mother and a
48:17
daughter now because of him, regardless if they think it's his fault or not.
48:24
He's not really looked fondly of currently because it's like everything he's around dies,
48:32
So touch dies, yeah yeah. And this poor man is living by
48:43
himself and he's trying to figure out why why is this happening? To like
48:49
why or forget? He has a dream or some shit, and the Cook
48:54
comes back. You haven't quite figured out the Cook is a demon, demon
49:00
entity wherever you want to call it, love Craftian horror, that's the way
49:04
I see it. And this movie is very love Craftian everything, like the
49:07
way they describe like the hole and the skull that's sucking in Diana's arm is
49:10
very the way they try to describe it as like very abstract, and I'm
49:16
like, okay, unexplainable terror. God it Boo Lovecraft gots you corr,
49:22
that's my bread and buttera. So he's like, I can't explain what's happening
49:28
to me, and no one's willing to help me, and this demon thing
49:30
keeps the cook keeps talking to me, saying the banquet's ready for you,
49:37
blah blah blah. And he has a like a dream of his wife,
49:43
his mother in law, his father, his mother, everyone who's ever loved
49:45
had this big banquet of like fish and food at this like last supper style
49:51
thing with the cook there on this island, and he's like, join us.
49:58
We're all here waiting for you. And he finds out that this is
50:00
like a curse that is passed down from his family, from one person to
50:07
another in his family, that death just follows them, which is kind of
50:12
honestly, when we really think about it, it's a big metaphor on how
50:15
sometimes some families are just prone to tragedies and grief at every waking turn.
50:22
So I'm like Okay, I see what the author's doing here. I see
50:24
what he's illustrating. And at the very end, he basically decides to take
50:31
actions into his own hands. He's like, I'm not gonna have this monster
50:37
thing entity take me. I'm gonna go off by my own terms. So
50:44
he finishes off his letters he's writing out. He says, Oh, I'm
50:47
finish writing this out and then I'm gonna burn it. And then I am
50:51
going to take action into my own hands because I'm not going by his rules
50:55
or I'm not going by his hand, by the entity's hand. And he
51:00
talks and he's in a bathtub where he's like, I'm gonna be in a
51:04
bathtub and I'm just going to sleep, and that'll be it. Future Devin.
51:12
If you want to take this part out, hate this part out.
51:14
But the way he dies is he talks about how he's gonna be in a
51:16
bathtub and he's like this liking in. I'm auri feeling nice and warm when
51:23
I sleep. That'll be it. So it ends with him killing himself or
51:32
off or taking care of business his way. I hit that, Devin,
51:37
wherever you see fit. He takes business, He takes actions to his own
51:40
hands, and that's how the book ends. Again, there's some detail that
51:47
did leave out, so so there's some little things, a little interactions here,
51:52
but the main story points. I've all, I've all been through people.
51:55
Some people didn't like the ending. That was a big thing I saw
51:59
in the review of this book, is that a lot of people didn't like
52:00
the ending or the ending was confusing or and how did it make sense?
52:06
And I I think personally it made perfect sense, especially the way it was
52:09
written. He was writing, he was finishing off the letter the letters before
52:15
he did his action, recounting all the events and stuff and the fact that
52:23
he won. Sorry, I think you can it's safe to say, you
52:29
know, like he took his own life. Oh no, yeah, most
52:32
definitely did so. Like it's of course we've already we've already put the disclaimer
52:37
that this book has deals with the you know, with self harm and taking
52:47
your own life. That's the end of the book. That's how the book
52:51
ends. Pretty much. It doesn't really go after that, obviously, because
52:54
he finished writing the letters to his wife. Again. Yeah, the book.
53:00
The ending is what people didn't like and found confusing. I'm like,
53:04
I didn't find it confusing. I thought I made I thought made perfect sense
53:07
on how it was written in what he why he did what he did because
53:12
he's like, because the curse continues on with his family, so he's like,
53:15
cool, it's gonna end with me. And that's part and a good
53:20
thing that he didn't have kids either, because otherwise we want to pass on
53:22
with his kids. Now. The fact that the woman, the the old
53:27
woman that lived in the house before them, uh, I did leave this
53:30
part out. They did find out what symbol she made in the condo before
53:38
she left. She made a slab like a box shape. So the monolith
53:45
was brought up by the blue ha But the thing has always been following him
53:50
around his whole life. The blue Hot is made easier for him for the
53:54
for this entity to get to him. She made the doorway for him to
53:58
walk through basically, so because he finds out at the end of the thing
54:04
that this thing has been following him for for his whole life obviously, but
54:08
the doorway that was opened just made a whole lot easier for this thing to
54:13
get to him. And I'm just like, damn, I would give this
54:19
book a I give it a four. I give it a four. It's
54:27
it's good, but I don't think it's like it's not like slew Foot,
54:30
but it's like, this looks good, This looks good. Okay. I
54:34
would add this to the book to the list of books that one turn that
54:37
I would want to personally turn into movies, because I think this one be
54:39
fun to love. Horror that uses metaphors for like human emotions or human events
54:50
or grief stuff of that nature. I find that rather interesting on how people
54:54
write that into existence, how that really mirrors those emotions or or in this
55:05
case, how that entity represents the family, their family's tragedies that happened through
55:12
I was life, loss of both his parents, his wife, his mother
55:15
in law, and how it sometimes it's just sometimes families get dealt the the
55:23
bad hand and ship like that just happens. Yeah, Unfortunately that's part of
55:30
life, some people's lives, some families lives. Of course. Yeah,
55:37
you want to check out this book. Check it out is on Kendle on
55:40
any digital reading app audible because the audiobook was actually really good. Well listen
55:46
to that. It's very short, it's like five hours long. It's great.
55:52
Final thoughts were we in today's episode? Uh? Yeah, it's definitely
56:00
a good It was definitely a good read. If you recommend it, then
56:07
I highly recommend it. Maybe I should be able to read huh hell yeah,
56:15
all right, well I definitely will try to give it a read.
56:21
Ah, but I have, oh my ship to read. Yeah you do?
56:25
There, you do. How's the Wheel of h Wheel of Time going?
56:34
It's going? Do you sell a book? Four? Yes, I'm
56:39
a little a little like I'm a little bit like trying to like finish reading
56:50
what I can, and also like I've been trying to find time to read
56:57
those other books I have because like a I read The Wheel of Time on
57:01
my kindle. Yeah, and then I have the heart. I have a
57:07
couple of hard copies that I got to start reading, Like I started reading
57:12
Dead Silence, but I only made it past the first chapter and I'm like,
57:19
I haven't touched it since. And I'm like, that's fine. You
57:22
can put a you can put a hold on that if you want, because
57:23
I'm gonna read the I'm gonna listen to the audiobook of that so we can
57:27
do that episode. Together. Yeah. Yeah, I'll get the I'm gonna
57:31
get the audiobook at some point. W But because I was like if I
57:35
was reading the back of it while I bought it, I'm like, oh,
57:37
this actually sounds good. Ship. So it's on my list of books
57:43
to get to. But that is will be today's episode Gotches. Next time
57:51
I have to talk about a different book. What that What will that book
57:53
be? I have no idea yet. I have to pick one. Until
57:58
then, Bye bye,