Latest / Amigos, Afraid! / 59. Reading Reddit: Cult Hikes and Mimics on the Ring Camera

Transcript

59. Reading Reddit: Cult Hikes and Mimics on the Ring Camera · Amigos, Afraid!

0:00
Hi everyone, welcome back to Amigos Afraid.
0:03
Jerry is sick this week so I'm holding down the Fort with a
0:06
solo episode reading some scary Reddit stories.
0:10
It's going to be a short 1 today, but please tag along
0:12
while I read you 2 scary stories. 1 is about a run in
0:16
with a call while on a hike in LA, and the second is a story
0:19
about watching yourself through your own Ring camera footage
0:23
live. Stick around and listen to these
0:25
stories on this week's episode of Amigos Afraid.
1:07
Guys, the worst thing has happened.
1:10
Jerry is sick. So it's just me today on this
1:15
Thursday, on this weekly a a meeting.
1:19
It is just me, Brian all alone because Jerry is at home dying.
1:28
I really thought we were going to skip a week, but Jerry said
1:32
no Brian, you could do this. You could do it alone.
1:35
I was just telling him a couple days before how excited I was
1:38
for our topics this week. So since he's not here, we will
1:42
not be getting the Mount Everest Part 2 and you will not be
1:45
getting my researched. Do I want to tell you actually?
1:52
So Mount Everest Part 2 will be out next week and I've been
1:56
doing some research into a whole like area of my teen years that
2:03
kind of had these weird legends and lore that I wanted to do
2:08
some digging to either debunk or see if it's true.
2:10
And the stuff I have found has been outstanding to be quite
2:13
honest. So very excited for next week.
2:16
But in the meantime, just to keep things really simple
2:18
because I did not want to do anything pertinent to Brian lore
2:22
without Jerry being here. That is my best friend.
2:25
I need him here to do commentary and to tell jokes and to listen
2:30
and and and have a good time. I feel like I'm going crazy
2:33
recording by myself. Guys this is so hard.
2:36
Well, instead of doing a topic this week, I thought it'd be
2:40
really fun to do some Reddit stories if you follow us on
2:44
TikTok. I put my big boy pants on and I
2:47
was real brave. And I recorded one of the
2:50
stories that you're going to listen to today as a video.
2:53
So it is on our TikTok, so please check it out.
2:55
And he goes afraid. There is a whole community of
2:58
people who just read ghost stories, paranormal experiences,
3:02
Cryptid folklore on TikTok. Love it.
3:06
Some of my favorites are Ghost in the Garden.
3:09
I believe her name is Riley. I love her.
3:14
I love the way she talks. I love the pace in which she
3:16
tells the story, which I think is very important when it comes
3:19
to telling like any kind of spooky stories.
3:22
And then another one I really really enjoy.
3:23
Also her name is Savannah. Her whole like series on TikTok
3:30
is called Tea after Midnight. Love them, please check them
3:33
out. I am trying my hand at it this
3:35
week and if I look weird and awkward and cringe on camera
3:38
it's because that's how I felt. I can't hide it, I can't help
3:41
it. I feel like I was squinting
3:43
trying to read on my freaking iPad off to the corner, but I
3:46
tried my best. Jerry, I miss you.
3:49
This is so hard without you and it's not as fun.
3:56
So today, please give me grace, give me peace, give me
4:00
blessings, give me money and just hang out with me while I
4:03
read you guys some Reddit stories.
4:05
The first one is called I'll Never go Hiking Again on R/NO
4:09
Sleep by user M Path G00I never expected routine hike to turn
4:15
into the most terrifying experience of my life.
4:18
My friend Jesse and I are avid urban explorers.
4:21
We like to push boundaries, abandoned buildings, underground
4:24
tunnels, and sometimes forgotten hiking trails that wind through
4:28
the dry, rolling hills of Los Angeles.
4:31
It started with a rumor about an old New Age commune that
4:33
supposedly vanished in the 80s. No one really talked about why,
4:38
just that they had been there. And then they weren't.
4:41
We found an old map online, marked with a single strange
4:44
word, Alaria. No record of it anywhere.
4:47
Google didn't turn up a single result, so of course we had to
4:50
check it out. The trailhead was overgrown,
4:54
nearly impossible to find without GPS.
4:57
As we walked, the feeling set in.
4:59
Something wasn't right. The deeper we went, the quieter
5:03
it got. No birds, no wind, just the
5:06
crunch of our boots on dry leaves.
5:09
About 3 miles in, we found the first sign that Ellaria had been
5:11
real. A massive circular stone arch
5:14
covered in cryptic symbols, some resembling astrological signs,
5:19
others looking eerily like inverted crosses.
5:22
Jesse was the first to step through.
5:24
The second he did, he went pale. Do you hear that?
5:28
He asked. I listened, and then I heard it
5:32
too, a faint rhythmic humming coming from deeper in the hills.
5:37
We followed the sound. What we found was worse than any
5:41
horror movie. At first it just looked like an
5:43
old hippie compound. Abandoned shacks, tattered
5:46
banners with faded sun and moon motifs.
5:49
But then we saw the altar, a massive stone slab in the center
5:53
of a clearing, surrounded by dozens of wooden effigies, some
5:57
shaped like people, others like twisted creatures.
6:01
The symbols we saw in the archway were everywhere, but now
6:04
they were mixed with grotesque depictions of horned figures,
6:07
their eyes gouged out. And the humming.
6:10
It wasn't coming from speakers or wind passing through the
6:12
trees. It was coming from the ground.
6:16
Jesse grabbed my arm. We need to go.
6:19
Before we could turn back, we heard footsteps, slow,
6:24
deliberate, coming from behind one of the shacks.
6:28
We dug behind a crumbling wall, barely breathing.
6:31
A man in tattered sun bleached robes stepped to view.
6:34
His face was gaunt, I sunken, but wild, like he hadn't slept
6:38
in years. He stopped at the altar and
6:41
knelt, pressing his forehead to the stone, then whispering
6:45
something we couldn't understand.
6:47
He raised his hands, and we saw the knife.
6:51
It was long and jagged, blackened like it had been
6:53
pulled from a fire. He drew the blade across his own
6:56
palm, letting blood drip onto the stone.
6:59
The humming grew louder, and then the ground moved.
7:03
Not like an earthquake, more like something beneath the
7:05
surface was stirring. We ran.
7:08
We didn't stop, didn't look back.
7:10
Whatever Elaria had been, it wasn't just a hippie commune.
7:13
It was something older, something hungry.
7:16
When we finally reached my car, Jesse swore he heard the
7:18
humming. Still, I laughed it off, told
7:21
him it was just our nerves. But when I got home, I found
7:24
something that made my stomach drop, a smear of fresh blood on
7:28
my boot. I washed it off.
7:30
But last night I woke up to the sound outside my window humming.
7:34
And when I checked my phone this morning, I had a new
7:37
notification, a calendar reminder I never set.
7:42
Tomorrow, midnight, Alaria calls.
7:46
Add that to the list of reasons why I won't hike.
7:49
Either I'll have an asthma attack or I'll accidentally end
7:51
up finding a cult, and I don't want to do either one of those.
7:57
Yeah, I kind of do. I have been talking with Andrew
7:59
about doing a haunted Griffith Park hike.
8:01
Ah, we'll see. It's three hours long.
8:04
I don't know if I'm built for that yet.
8:07
This next one I thought was so creepy because it involves Ring
8:10
doorbell cameras and I've seen a lot of like ghost videos, weird
8:16
things caught on camera and they're all through like Ring
8:18
footage. So the fact that you just have a
8:20
camera recording 24/7 and then it picks up something weird.
8:24
Same thing happened to me. I'd be posting it for views, but
8:27
this one is also a story off of our slash No sleep.
8:31
The username is Wisto. That's WHISTOHHHHH.
8:42
It's called If your doorbell camera shows you coming home,
8:44
don't let yourself in. I used to think doorbell cameras
8:47
were for paranoid people. That sounds stupid now.
8:50
Before all this happened, I was the person who laughed at those
8:53
neighborhood app posts where someone shared a blurry clip of
8:55
a man walking past their bins at 2:00 AM and wrote does anyone
8:59
know this person? It was a bridge story by the
9:02
way. As if the poor bloke wasn't just
9:05
taking a shortcut home from the pub.
9:07
My sister bought me the camera when I moved into the house.
9:11
It'll make me feel better, she said.
9:13
It'll make you feel better. Question mark.
9:16
You live alone now. That was how people said it
9:19
after the breakup. Not you're single now or you've
9:22
got your own place always. You live alone now like it was a
9:26
diagnosis. The house was nothing special. 2
9:29
bed terrace at the end of a row, 10 minutes from town if you
9:32
walked fast, 20 if you did it. Red brick, narrow hallway, tiny
9:36
garden, old carpets that smelled faintly of someone else's.
9:39
Plug in air freshener. Every noise had an explanation
9:42
until you were lying awake at 3:00 AM hearing all of them at
9:45
once. Pipes ticking, fridge humming,
9:49
floorboard settling, a neighbor coughing through the wall.
9:54
I've lived through that. I can hear the neighbor crying
9:55
all the time. Normal things.
9:58
I've been there six weeks when the first notification came
10:02
Thursday night, still at work because my manager had decided
10:04
half an hour before closing that the stockroom needed a proper
10:07
sort out, which meant I got home later than usual and hated
10:10
everyone. I was in the staff room with a
10:13
vending machine coffee, waiting for my sister to text back about
10:16
Saturday, when my phone buzzed. Front door person detected The
10:20
preview was black, apart from the yellow glow of my porch
10:23
light. I tapped it.
10:25
The live feed loaded slowly, the little circle spinning.
10:28
Then I saw myself standing outside my front door.
10:32
Same black work trousers, same green coat, same hair tied up
10:36
badly because I'd forgotten a bobble and used an elastic band
10:39
from the office drawer. Same tired face.
10:42
Looking directly into the camera.
10:44
My brain did a strange little stumble, like missing a step in
10:48
the dark. I looked around the staff room,
10:50
as if someone might be playing a joke.
10:53
Nobody there. Just the vending machine, the
10:55
abandoned mugs by the sink, rain tapping against the high window
10:59
on my phone. The other meal lifted her hand
11:01
and knocked three times. I heard it through the app
11:06
Knock, knock, knock. Then she leaned closer to the
11:09
camera and smiled. Not a horror film grin.
11:13
A small, tired, familiar smile. My smile.
11:18
I'm home, she said. I dropped the phone.
11:20
It hit the table hard enough to make the coffee jump.
11:24
I sat there, staring at it, face down on the plastic table while
11:27
my heart did it so hard it hurt. Then I picked it up.
11:32
The feed had disconnected. I opened it.
11:35
Empty porch, no one there. I watched for nearly a full
11:40
minute. Rain moved through the porch
11:42
light. My front door sat there, closed.
11:44
An ordinary. I checked the save clip.
11:48
There wasn't one. That bothered me more than
11:50
anything at first. The app saved everything.
11:53
Cats, delivery drivers, my neighbors teenage son smoking by
11:56
the wall when he thought nobody was watching but the clip of me
12:00
standing at my own front door while I was sitting 3 miles away
12:03
and my work uniform did not exist.
12:05
I called my sister she answered with what's happened.
12:10
I think someone was at my door. Are you home?
12:13
No I'm still at work. The don't go home yet.
12:17
I saw myself. I'm so sorry.
12:20
Silence. But do you mean the camera went
12:25
off and I opened it and I was there outside my house?
12:30
That's not funny. I know it's not funny.
12:33
Could it be someone who looks like you?
12:36
I wanted to say yes. Someone with the same coat, same
12:39
hair, same build, a weird coincidence and bad porch
12:42
lighting. But she had my face and my
12:45
voice. I don't know, I said.
12:50
My sister came to pick me up. We went to the house together.
12:53
The street looked normal, wet cars, curtains, clothes bins
12:56
along the curb. I porch light still buzzing
12:59
softly. No one waiting outside, no
13:02
figure in the alley, no version of me standing under the yellow
13:05
glow. She made me stay in the car
13:08
while she walked up. Don't, I said.
13:11
I'm just checking the lock. She tried the handle locked,
13:17
looked through the letterbox, nothing.
13:19
Then crouched and touched the door mat.
13:22
What? I called.
13:23
She didn't answer. When she came back, her face had
13:26
changed. There's a footprint.
13:29
So barefoot. I laughed because I didn't know
13:33
what else to do. What?
13:36
Wet on your mat? Like someone stood there without
13:39
shoes. I got out despite her telling me
13:43
not to. She was right.
13:45
A single wet footprint on the brown core mat.
13:49
I don't know what core is, so sorry.
13:52
Toes, heels, the curved arch of a foot, small, about my size,
13:57
but I was wearing boots. My sister wanted me to stay at
14:00
hers. I almost did.
14:02
But standing outside my own house, looking at that locked
14:04
door, something stubborn kicked in.
14:06
I was tired, cold. I had work in the morning.
14:10
I hated the thought of being frightened out of my own home by
14:12
glitch or a prank. So we went in together.
14:16
Every light went on. Hallway, living room, kitchen,
14:18
stairs, landing, both bedrooms, bathroom, nothing.
14:23
No one under the beds, No back door force, no broken windows,
14:27
no muddy footprints inside. My sister checked the soft hatch
14:31
with a broom handle and nearly brained herself when it shifted
14:33
half an inch. Empty.
14:36
I said. She looked at me.
14:38
You saw yourself at the door. I saw someone on a tiny screen
14:42
in bad light with your voice. Maybe the app played an old
14:47
clip. An old clip of you knocking on
14:50
your own door barefoot, and an avid answer to that.
14:54
She stayed until nearly midnight.
14:55
We drank tea neither of us wanted and watched some cooking
14:58
program with the volume to loud. Before she left, she made me
15:01
promise to call if anything else happened.
15:04
After she left, I locked the door, put the chain on, checked
15:07
back twice, and took a knife from the kitchen drawer.
15:10
I felt stupid carrying it upstairs.
15:12
I felt stupider putting it on my bedside table, and I didn't
15:15
sleep much. At 3:22 AM, my phone buzzed.
15:20
Front door person detected. My phone lay face up beside the
15:24
knife. Front door person detected.
15:28
Front door person detected. I picked it up.
15:32
The life he'd showed my porch, rain door mat, nothing else.
15:39
Then the handle moved, not much but twitch downward.
15:44
I stopped breathing. Down, up, down, up.
15:51
Someone was trying the door from outside.
15:53
Slowly, carefully, I slid out of bed and crept to the top of the
15:57
stairs. From there, I could see the
15:59
front door at the bottom of the hall, a dark rectangle with the
16:02
chain glinting faintly across it.
16:05
The handle moved. This time I saw it with my own
16:08
eyes. I called 999.
16:11
The operator asked questions. I whispered answers.
16:14
Address, name. Was I alone?
16:16
Was the person still there? Could I get to a room with a
16:18
lock? The handle stopped while I was
16:21
talking. Then my phone buzzed.
16:24
Not the doorbell app, a text from my own number.
16:29
Open the door. I forgot my keys.
16:32
I nearly dropped the phone down the stairs.
16:34
The operator asked what had happened.
16:36
I got a text from who? Me from my number.
16:42
The letterbox lifted, a strip of black appeared near the door,
16:46
then fingers slid through. 4 fingers, wet and pale, barely
16:50
moving, feeling around, slowly reaching for the chain.
16:54
I ran, locked myself in the bathroom, sat in the bath with
16:57
the knife in my hand and the phone pressed to my ear.
17:00
Their operator told me the police were on their way from
17:03
downstairs Came the sound of the chain moving, a soft metallic
17:06
scrape, then another. I had put the chain on properly.
17:10
I know I had. I remember sliding it across,
17:12
tugging the door after, but I heard it fall.
17:17
The front door opened. Not a crash, not a kick, Just a
17:20
small, ordinary sound of a door opened by someone who belonged
17:23
there. A pause, then footsteps in the
17:27
hallway. Bare feet on floorboards, Slow,
17:31
wet. One step, then another.
17:36
They stopped at the bottom of the stairs.
17:38
Then my voice called up from the hall.
17:40
I'm home. I don't remember much after
17:44
that. The police found me in the bath
17:46
with the knife still in my hand. The front door was closed and
17:49
locked. The chain was on.
17:52
No signs of forced entry. No wet footprints, No
17:56
fingerprints on the letterbox except mine and my sisters from
17:58
earlier. No messages from my own number.
18:01
The 999 call was real. The operator had heard me
18:05
crying, had heard me say That's my voice, but there was no one
18:10
there. One officer was kind, the other
18:13
looked bored. The kind when asked if I had
18:16
been under a lot of stress. That was when I knew they were
18:19
done. My sister took me back to hers.
18:21
I didn't argue. For two days, nothing happened.
18:26
I slept on her sofa badly, but I slept.
18:29
She worked from the dining table and kept glancing over at me.
18:32
Her husband tried to be normal. He asked if I wanted toast.
18:36
He said gently that the mind could do strange things under
18:38
stress. I almost believed him.
18:41
Then on Saturday morning, while my sister was in the shower and
18:44
her husband had gone to the shops, my phone buzzed.
18:48
Front door person detected. I opened the app.
18:53
My front door, daylight, Gray morning, rainwater dripping from
18:58
the gutter. A woman stood on the porch, me
19:03
barefoot again, but this time wearing my pyjamas, the blue
19:07
ones with a bleach mark on the sleeve, the ones I was wearing
19:10
at the exact moment in my sister's sofa.
19:13
She looked into the camera and raised one finger to her lips.
19:16
Then she turned and walked away. Not down the path, not out to
19:20
the street. She walked through the closed
19:23
front door. I screamed for my sister.
19:26
She came running in, wrapped in a towel, hair full of shampoo,
19:28
and I shoved the phone at her. By then the porch was empty, but
19:32
this time the clip had saved. We watched it together once,
19:36
twice, five times. My sister sat down slowly.
19:40
That's you, she said. I know she went through the
19:45
door. I know she called the police
19:49
again, different officers this time.
19:51
They watched the clip and asked if anyone else had access to the
19:54
account. No.
19:55
Could the footage to be edited? No.
19:57
Was I sure I hadn't gone back to the house that morning?
20:00
My sister answered that one. She's been on my sofa since
20:03
Thursday night. They went to check my house. 20
20:06
minutes later, one of them called.
20:09
Are you sure you haven't been back there?
20:11
My sister grabbed my wrist. No, I said why?
20:15
Your bed's been slept in. I closed my eyes and there's
20:20
food in the kitchen bin, toast, coffee in the mug by the sink,
20:24
the shower floors wet. That wasn't me.
20:29
When he spoke again, his voice was careful.
20:32
We're going to arrange for someone to take a proper look
20:34
around. They didn't find anyone.
20:38
They found signs someone had been living there.
20:39
No signs of how they got in. Locks intact, window sound.
20:43
The back door was bolted from the inside.
20:45
The loft was empty, but my clothes had been moved, not
20:49
stolen, moved. My green coat was hanging in the
20:52
back of the kitchen chair, my boots placed neatly by the front
20:56
door. My toothbrush was wet.
20:58
The towel from my post shower routine was damp, folded over
21:01
the radiator exactly as I always folded it in my bedroom.
21:05
The frame photo of me and my sister had been turned face
21:07
down. That upset her more than
21:10
anything. I didn't go back inside.
21:12
I stood on the pavement while the officers came and went and
21:15
neighbors pretended not to watch from behind their curtains.
21:19
A woman from three doors down came over Missus Harlow.
21:22
I'd spoken to her twice before, once about bins and once about a
21:24
parcel. Are you all right, love?
21:28
I said yes, because that is what people say.
21:30
She glanced at my house and then at the police car.
21:33
Is it happening again? My sister heard that.
21:37
What do you mean again? Missus Harlow's face tightened.
21:41
Nothing. Oh, I shouldn't have said
21:42
anything. What happened before?
21:45
I asked. She looked suddenly older.
21:49
The girl before you? She was only there a few months.
21:53
What girl? Tenet before he was sold.
21:56
Quiet thing. What nights, I think.
22:00
What happened to her? Missus Harlow looked at my front
22:02
door. She said someone was coming in.
22:06
My sister stepped closer. Who herself?
22:10
The pavement seemed to tilt. She said she kept seeing herself
22:14
in the windows, on that little camera by the door.
22:17
I thought she was having a hard time.
22:19
You'd never know with people what happened to her.
22:22
She left when Missus Harlowe swallowed.
22:27
That's the thing. I didn't see her go.
22:30
One day she was there, and next day the curtains were open and
22:32
the house was empty. Landlord said she'd done a
22:35
runner. Old rat.
22:37
What was her name? I can't remember.
22:41
Emily, maybe? Or Ellie.
22:43
Then she touched my arm. I'm sure it's nothing to do with
22:46
you. She didn't look sure.
22:49
That night I stayed at my sister's again.
22:51
We turned my phone off completely off.
22:53
Not silent, off. At 2:41 AM, my sister's doorbell
22:56
rang. The sound went through the whole
22:58
house. Her husband said.
23:00
What the hell? Nobody moved and rang again.
23:06
My sister's phone buzzed on the bedside table.
23:09
She picked it up, I knew before she turned the screen towards
23:12
me. Her front door camera showed me
23:14
standing outside, barefoot in the rain, wearing the blue
23:19
pyjamas, my hair wet and stuck to my face, my hands by my
23:23
sides. My sister whispered.
23:26
You're here. On the screen, the other me
23:30
lifted her head. She looked into the camera, then
23:33
passed it towards the upstairs window, towards us.
23:37
Her husband got out of bed. Don't, I said.
23:42
He went to the window and pulled the curtain aside with two
23:44
fingers. Empty St.
23:46
No one at the door, no one on the path.
23:49
But on the screen, I was still there, waiting.
23:52
Then the other me smiled. The phone buzzed.
23:56
A message appeared under the feed front door.
23:59
Familiar face detected. My sister made a small choking
24:02
sound, because where the app usually said person detected, it
24:05
had written my name. Not my account name, not my
24:08
e-mail, my full name. Then the speaker crackled.
24:12
She doesn't live here. No one spoke.
24:15
The other me leaned closer to the camera.
24:18
She lives here. The feet cut out.
24:22
All three of us stayed in that bedroom until morning.
24:24
We didn't sleep. We didn't talk much.
24:27
At sunrise, her husband went downstairs with a cricket bat
24:29
from the loft. The front step was dry.
24:31
No footprints, no rainwater. But the clip had saved.
24:35
The police watched it took statements.
24:37
One asked if I had any enemies. Another asked if I had ever
24:40
sleep walked. My sister snapped at him.
24:42
She was in the room with me. He apologized, but I could see
24:46
what he thought, what all of them thought.
24:48
A woman living alone gets frightened by a glitch.
24:50
Her sister feeds into it. They lose sleep.
24:53
The mind fills in blanks. There are always sensible
24:56
explanations when you aren't the one hearing your own voice at
24:58
the front door. By Monday, my sister was
25:00
exhausted. Her husband was scared, but
25:02
trying not to be. I could feel myself becoming a
25:04
problem in their house. Not because they said it, They
25:07
didn't. They were too kind.
25:09
That made it worse. I booked a hotel.
25:12
My sister hated the idea. Stay here, it came here.
25:18
So you're going somewhere alone. I can't keep doing this to you.
25:23
The hotel was a business one near the Ring Rd.
25:25
Clean, plain, bright lobby, board receptionist, third floor
25:29
room with a heavy door, a chain, and a key card lock.
25:32
No letterbox, no back door, no garden, no way to stand outside
25:36
and knock without being seen by half the building.
25:38
I felt safer there for about 6 hours.
25:41
At 1:13 AM, someone knocked at the room door. 3 soft knocks.
25:46
I froze. The TV was on low.
25:49
Rain blurred the window. The air conditioning hummed.
25:53
Three more knocks. I picked up the hotel phone and
25:56
called reception. There's someone outside, Room
25:59
312. OK, I lost a British accent.
26:02
So sorry. One moment, typing.
26:05
Sorry, there shouldn't be anyone up there.
26:07
Do you want me to send someone? Yes.
26:10
Is the person still there? I looked at the door, a shadow
26:15
beneath it, 2 bare feet, toes touching the carpet outside.
26:19
Yes, I whispered. Lock the door please.
26:23
It is locked and the chain, I have it.
26:28
Security is coming. The feet shifted, then my phone
26:32
buzzed. I have turned it back on earlier
26:34
because I needed to call the police, my sister, the hotel.
26:37
I thought. It didn't matter anymore.
26:39
I thought whatever this was had moved past the app.
26:42
The notification was not from my doorbell camera, it was from the
26:45
hotel app. I had not downloaded the hotel
26:48
app. Room 312, key card used.
26:52
The little green light on the door flash.
26:54
The handle dipped. The chain caught.
26:56
The door opened two inches and stopped to the gap.
27:00
I saw one eye, my eye looking in the mouth below it smiled.
27:06
You're in my room, she whispered.
27:09
I screamed. The door slammed shut, Not from
27:12
her side, from mine. As if someone inside the room
27:15
had shoved it closed. The bathroom lights flickered
27:17
on. I turned slowly.
27:20
The bathroom door was open. It had been closed before.
27:23
I always closed bathroom doors in hotel rooms because they make
27:26
the room feel less empty. I couldn't move.
27:30
Security found me standing in the middle of the room, not
27:32
screaming anymore, just staring at the bathroom doorway.
27:35
There was no one in there. They gave me another room then,
27:39
after I refused to stay in it, coffee in the lobby while I
27:41
waited for my sister. That was yesterday.
27:45
I'm writing this from her kitchen table now.
27:47
My sister's asleep on the sofa because she won't leave me
27:50
alone. Her husband is upstairs.
27:52
The police have my phone, they have the camera clips, the hotel
27:56
lock records the 999 recording. They have everything except an
27:59
explanation. I borrowed my sister's laptop to
28:02
write this down. About 20 minutes ago it pinged
28:06
an e-mail notification from me, sent from my own address
28:11
subject. I'm sorry, no message, just an
28:15
attachment, a video file. I should not have opened it.
28:21
The video was from my front door camera tonight, my house, my
28:25
porch light on, my front door opening.
28:27
I stepped out. Not the other one.
28:30
Me. I could tell by then.
28:32
I don't know how to explain it, except that I had watched her
28:35
long enough to see the difference.
28:37
She stands too still. She smiles before she needs to.
28:41
Her eyes copy her face half a second late.
28:44
This was me. I came out barefoot, wearing my
28:46
green coat over my pyjamas. I was crying.
28:50
Behind me, in the hallway, another figure stood in the
28:52
dark, also me. She raised one hand.
28:56
I walked down the path and out of frame.
28:58
The door closed. The clip ended.
29:01
I don't remember going there. I don't remember leaving my
29:03
sister's house. My feet are clean, my coat is
29:07
upstairs in the spare room. But the video is real.
29:10
I can hear my sister breathing on the sofa.
29:12
I can hear the fridge cars going pass on the wet road.
29:16
And underneath all of that, something else.
29:19
A key turning in the front door, slowly, carefully.
29:24
My sister's front door doesn't open with a key from the outside
29:26
when the deadbolt is on, but I can hear it turning.
29:30
The laptop just pinged again, not an e-mail, a notification
29:34
from my doorbell app. The app that is on my phone, the
29:38
phone the police have. Front door person detected.
29:42
I clicked it. It's showing my sister's front
29:45
door. Not mine, hers.
29:48
The camera angle is wrong, too low, like the feet is coming
29:52
from someone crouched on the path.
29:54
There's a woman standing outside, barefoot, wearing my
29:57
green coat, holding my sister's spare key, looking into the
30:00
camera. She's not smiling.
30:03
She looks tired, wet, frightened.
30:06
She looks exactly like me, and she's whispering the same thing
30:10
over and over. Don't let her in.
30:14
There's a knock at the door now from inside the house.
30:17
Three soft knocks coming from the cupboard under the stairs.
30:21
My sister just woke up. She asked me what that sound
30:24
was. I don't know what to tell her.
30:27
I don't know which one of us is outside.
30:30
I don't know which one of us came back.
30:32
I don't know which one of us is writing this.
30:35
But if your doorbell camera ever shows you coming home when you
30:37
know you're somewhere else, don't go back.
30:41
Don't call out. Don't open the app again and if
30:45
you hear your own voice on the other side of the door begging
30:47
to be let in, make it prove it to you.
30:50
Because I think I failed that part.
30:53
I think I left the wrong one in and now I can hear my sister
30:56
unlocking the cupboard. Oh my God that one was so good.
31:03
I know I'm the one reading it, but I felt like I was watching a
31:06
movie and I'm so sorry if my British accent was terrible
31:11
throughout that entire thing, but I was there, I could hear
31:15
the door knocks, I can hear the British accents.
31:18
I don't know what I would do in that scenario.
31:21
You'd have to take me somewhere. That's so scary.
31:25
How would you guys react to this?
31:26
Please comment, let me know, send us Adm on Instagram.
31:32
Wow Dang not me giving myself like nightmare feel.
31:36
That's so creepy. Honestly, that one was kind of
31:40
long, and since it's just me, I'm only half of this podcast.
31:45
I feel like Jerry needs to be here to fill the next 30
31:47
minutes, but he's not because he's so sick.
31:49
Please, everyone, if you know him personally, send him your
31:53
well wishes. He's at home, literally probably
31:56
coughing up a lung at this moment.
31:58
But yeah, it's going to be a short 1 today.
32:02
I don't have it in me to do an entire episode without Jerry.
32:06
So my recommendation for honestly an entire album is
32:12
Rebecca Black's new drop. It is so good.
32:15
It's called the Age of the Exhibitionist.
32:17
It is like pure dance electronic club music.
32:23
It is so good. I was playing it in the car on
32:25
the way home today and I was trying so hard not to just shake
32:27
some ass while stuck on the freeway.
32:30
But please give it a listen. No idea what Jerry would have
32:33
recommended this week. I'm assuming it would have been
32:36
another Motionless and White song.
32:39
He's probably still listening to the album or maybe he discovered
32:43
a new Dolly Parton song. We'll never know until next week
32:47
when we ask. But thank you for listening,
32:50
guys. We will be back next week with
32:53
Part 2 of Mount Everest. And I'll give you guys a little
32:56
tease. The lore and history of the
33:01
paranormal happenings of Carbon Canyon.
33:05
Sounds like a good time, right? Well, we'll see you there.
33:09
Bye.