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Halloween Stories That Get More Disturbing As You Listen · Stories from the Dark

0:23
Speaker 1: So last year, me and my boy Kaio got invited
0:26
Speaker 1: to a big Halloween party. The kid's parents had given
0:30
Speaker 1: him permission to throw a Halloween party, and apparently there
0:33
Speaker 1: was going to be a DJ, all kinds of party food,
0:35
Speaker 1: and a bunch of kegs, too. So me and Kaio
0:39
Speaker 1: were from a way sketchier part of town, so the
0:42
Speaker 1: idea of spending a Friday night eating fancy party food
0:45
Speaker 1: and drinking free alcohol had us majorly hyped. Just for reference...
0:50
Speaker 1: We were just over a year out of high school
0:52
Speaker 1: at the time, so we were both 19, and the
0:54
Speaker 1: party meant seeing a lot of our old high school
0:57
Speaker 1: friends who were a little bit younger. Now, a few
1:00
Speaker 1: days before the party, Kaio texts me asking if it's
1:03
Speaker 1: cool if he brings a date. Now, I didn't mind
1:06
Speaker 1: it at all. I just wanted to know who the
1:08
Speaker 1: heck was dumb enough to go out with him. But
1:10
Speaker 1: after sending me back a middle finger emoji, he told
1:13
Speaker 1: me he couldn't say. Now, I respond saying, bro, come on,
1:17
Speaker 1: what do you mean you can't say? thinking he was
1:20
Speaker 1: just playing because I told him he was dumb, blah
1:22
Speaker 1: blah blah. He made some joke about me being gay
1:26
Speaker 1: so I wouldn't understand, and then after sending him a
1:28
Speaker 1: middle finger after a crying laughing face, I then asked,
1:32
Speaker 1: for real, you're just not gonna say? And to which
1:35
Speaker 1: he replied something like, I'm for real bro, I can't say.
1:40
Speaker 1: Now I managed to at least get him to tell
1:42
Speaker 1: me why he couldn't say, but when he did, I'm
1:44
Speaker 1: not gonna lie, at that point it gave me chills.
1:48
Speaker 1: He says, If I told you who it was and
1:51
Speaker 1: it got out, someone might literally shoot me. And then
1:55
Speaker 1: followed up with a bunch of on God and for
1:57
Speaker 1: real for reals and blah blah blah on my mama.
2:01
Speaker 1: And while I guess that might sound a little funny
2:02
Speaker 1: or cringe or probably both, at the time it was
2:06
Speaker 1: very serious and I was thinking, damn, what's he gotten
2:09
Speaker 1: himself into? Now he was always kind of a ladies man.
2:14
Speaker 1: He just knew how to talk to girls, I suppose.
2:16
Speaker 1: And while he wasn't a jerk about it, he had
2:18
Speaker 1: a habit of oversharing about his love life. And so
2:22
Speaker 1: for him, of all people, to say, I can't talk
2:25
Speaker 1: about it, it was kind of crazy. Now anyways, cut
2:29
Speaker 1: to the night of the party, and he texts me saying,
2:32
Speaker 1: I'm going to be running a little late to pick
2:34
Speaker 1: up my date. I swear I'm not ditching you there.
2:37
Speaker 1: I wasn't mad. I knew plenty of people there, but
2:39
Speaker 1: the whole time waiting for him, I'm just joking with
2:42
Speaker 1: people saying, who the hell is he bringing to this party?
2:44
Speaker 1: The CIA? Yeah. What's with all this secrecy? But when
2:49
Speaker 1: Kaio finally showed up and I saw who he was with,
2:52
Speaker 1: my goddamn jaw just about hit the ground. And honestly,
2:57
Speaker 1: so did everyone else's. Around that time, there was this
3:01
Speaker 1: dealer around. We named him Stacks. Now, Stacks made a
3:05
Speaker 1: lot of money. Stacks of it, actually, which is how
3:08
Speaker 1: he actually got his name. So Stacks had a crew
3:11
Speaker 1: behind him, as they say. but I can guarantee you
3:15
Speaker 1: that they would have called him something else if they could,
3:18
Speaker 1: and they only called him his preferred name, Stacks, because
3:21
Speaker 1: they were freaking terrified of him. He'd earned the reputation
3:25
Speaker 1: as being an absolute psycho for doing things like forcing
3:29
Speaker 1: a guy to OD on product Stacks found out that
3:32
Speaker 1: he was stepping on too hard, or beating a guy
3:34
Speaker 1: half to death and putting him in the hospital because
3:36
Speaker 1: he laughed too hard at a joke. Stacks always made
3:40
Speaker 1: it about himself. And the only reason he didn't get
3:43
Speaker 1: popped is that his closest guys were his uncle and
3:46
Speaker 1: two cousins, aka family. And he made them so much
3:49
Speaker 1: money that they didn't care how he kept his operation going. Now,
3:53
Speaker 1: everyone was scared of Stacks, even the cops, I heard.
3:57
Speaker 1: And so when Kyle walked into the party and his
3:59
Speaker 1: date was revealed to be Stacks' little sister, Trina, people
4:03
Speaker 1: got kind of nervous, obviously, myself included. Now, after he
4:08
Speaker 1: walked over to us and introduced her, I said, dude,
4:12
Speaker 1: Can I talk to you for a second? I then
4:15
Speaker 1: took him somewhere Trina wouldn't see and basically went nuts.
4:19
Speaker 1: Are you out of your freaking mind? I asked him.
4:22
Speaker 1: He gave me some speech about her being the most
4:25
Speaker 1: incredible girl he'd ever met, how she wasn't like her
4:27
Speaker 1: brother at all, and how he wanted me to support
4:30
Speaker 1: him more than anything. But for the first time in
4:32
Speaker 1: his life, he was actually in love, he said. And
4:37
Speaker 1: I guess it was sweet, I can't lie. I'd never
4:39
Speaker 1: seen him like that before. And so after I quizzed
4:42
Speaker 1: him on how he could be certain that Stacks didn't
4:45
Speaker 1: know that she was there, I started to relax. Stacks
4:49
Speaker 1: didn't like her going to parties, probably because he knew
4:51
Speaker 1: the stuff that he sold would be there. But since
4:55
Speaker 1: she told him that she was staying at a friend's
4:56
Speaker 1: place and that the friends were prepared to lie for her,
5:00
Speaker 1: brave girl, everything was going to be fine. But everything
5:04
Speaker 1: wasn't fine. And if it hadn't been for a few
5:07
Speaker 1: chance coincidences, that night might have ended up the last.
5:11
Speaker 1: of Kaio's life. And so a couple of hours later,
5:15
Speaker 1: the party's in full swing and everyone's having a ball.
5:19
Speaker 1: The DJ was set up inside and was dropping bombs
5:21
Speaker 1: left and right, but me, Kaio, and Trina, and a
5:24
Speaker 1: few others had occupied a room upstairs. We were smoking, talking,
5:29
Speaker 1: and catching up, and getting to know each other all
5:31
Speaker 1: at once. And it was a vibe. It was great.
5:35
Speaker 1: And that's not even touching on all the costumes. Then
5:38
Speaker 1: at one point... I volunteered to go down and bring
5:41
Speaker 1: up a bunch of party food before it all disappeared.
5:44
Speaker 1: The place was packed out like sardines, just wall-to-wall people
5:48
Speaker 1: in some places, and so it actually took me a
5:50
Speaker 1: minute to get from the third floor bedroom down to
5:53
Speaker 1: the kitchen. Now, there was a ton of food, too.
5:56
Speaker 1: All kinds of different fancy-looking stuff. But then as I'm
5:59
Speaker 1: trying to figure out exactly what all that stuff actually was,
6:03
Speaker 1: this dude happens to catch my eye. And like I said,
6:06
Speaker 1: there was some dope costumes at that party, obviously. I mean,
6:10
Speaker 1: these were rich kids, right? They had the money to
6:12
Speaker 1: spend on stuff. And so there were like legit Stormtrooper
6:16
Speaker 1: and Batman outfits that looked like they were taken fresh
6:18
Speaker 1: from a movie set. And that's why I noticed when
6:21
Speaker 1: this dude walks in wearing nothing but black sneakers, black pants,
6:26
Speaker 1: and a black jacket, and some tacky-looking skull mask. It
6:32
Speaker 1: was without a doubt the most low-effort costume I'd seen
6:35
Speaker 1: that night. Worse than mine, even. and that was the
6:38
Speaker 1: first time that I'd seen him all night, so I'm
6:39
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, who's this dude? I didn't follow him
6:43
Speaker 1: right away. I just kept on loading up plastic plates
6:46
Speaker 1: with whatever looked good, but then as I looked up
6:49
Speaker 1: a second time and saw how the guy was obviously
6:52
Speaker 1: looking for someone, it hit me. He was walking from
6:56
Speaker 1: room to room with a pair of black gloves on too,
6:59
Speaker 1: by the way, and that skull mask was turning left
7:01
Speaker 1: and right, and he was checking out everyone there before
7:05
Speaker 1: moving to the next room. Now, I lost sight of
7:08
Speaker 1: him for a second because of the way the house
7:09
Speaker 1: was laid out, and so I put the plates down
7:12
Speaker 1: and moved into the hallway, only to see him doing
7:15
Speaker 1: it there too. It was real busy, so it took
7:18
Speaker 1: a second before I saw him again, but that skull
7:21
Speaker 1: mask was locking onto people as he was legitimately looking
7:24
Speaker 1: at every single person who passed him. I got this
7:28
Speaker 1: sick feeling in my stomach as I watched him go
7:30
Speaker 1: for the stairs, and it didn't even occur to me
7:33
Speaker 1: that I might have been drunk and high and just paranoid.
7:36
Speaker 1: I just pulled out my phone and started calling Kaio.
7:40
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, come on, come on, pick up. But the
7:43
Speaker 1: phone kept ringing as I watched the masked guy making
7:45
Speaker 1: his way up the congested staircase. People were just sitting
7:48
Speaker 1: on the stairs like benches at this point. Now I
7:52
Speaker 1: kept the calls going while I lowered my phone and
7:54
Speaker 1: texted him two simple words in capital letters saying, GET
7:58
Speaker 1: AND OUT. I couldn't just stand there either. Not with
8:02
Speaker 1: him sitting up there none the wiser to the facts
8:04
Speaker 1: that STACKS, might have showed up to find his sister.
8:09
Speaker 1: Even if it wasn't Stacks and it was one of
8:12
Speaker 1: his cousins or uncle, all infamous faces, which is why
8:16
Speaker 1: the mask, Kaio was still in deep crap. And so
8:20
Speaker 1: instead of just standing there with my freaking thumb up
8:23
Speaker 1: my butt, I moved for the stairs and followed the
8:26
Speaker 1: masked stranger. But it wasn't easy. I knew if I rushed,
8:30
Speaker 1: I'd risk spilling a drink or bumping into someone, and
8:33
Speaker 1: therefore it might be a fight if I bumped into
8:36
Speaker 1: the wrong person. Now, that couldn't happen. I needed to
8:39
Speaker 1: be careful, but that meant that I got up those
8:42
Speaker 1: stairs even slower than the guy did. And when I
8:45
Speaker 1: got to the top, I saw him talking to someone.
8:48
Speaker 1: Someone with big, wide eyes, like they were clearly scared.
8:52
Speaker 1: And then a second later, the stranger went for the
8:55
Speaker 1: stairs to the third floor, where Kyle and Trina... were
8:59
Speaker 1: held up. Now someone had told them, and it was
9:02
Speaker 1: that person he talked to, it had to be, and
9:05
Speaker 1: I swear if it wasn't a girl, I could have
9:07
Speaker 1: punched them right in the face as I made for
9:09
Speaker 1: the stairs again. I tried Kyle once more on my phone,
9:13
Speaker 1: only that time it seemed like he rejected the call.
9:17
Speaker 1: And at the time I was mad, thinking his dumb
9:19
Speaker 1: stupid self had just ended his own life by not
9:22
Speaker 1: picking up, but when I got to the doorway of
9:24
Speaker 1: the room that he'd been in and saw the masked
9:26
Speaker 1: man dragging Trina toward me, I couldn't see Kaio anywhere.
9:32
Speaker 1: I had to step back while the masked man barged
9:35
Speaker 1: past me with Trina in tow. She obviously looked mad
9:38
Speaker 1: as hell, but I guess she knew better than to
9:40
Speaker 1: try and resist. Now this guy kept barging past people,
9:44
Speaker 1: trying to get to the stairs, and then he did
9:46
Speaker 1: the same thing I was scared to do. He managed
9:49
Speaker 1: to knock a drink out of a girl's hand, and
9:51
Speaker 1: her man then says, Hey, where you going, a-hole? The
9:56
Speaker 1: guy just ignored him. and kept dragging Trina towards the stairs.
10:00
Speaker 1: but that only made the dude mad and he tried
10:02
Speaker 1: to stop him. Well, that was it. Stacks pulled the
10:06
Speaker 1: mask off and then pulls a gun from somewhere and
10:10
Speaker 1: all the girls just started screaming. The music was so
10:13
Speaker 1: loud that people downstairs didn't even realize what was going on.
10:17
Speaker 1: Not until Stacks dragged his sister downstairs, made the DJ
10:21
Speaker 1: turn the volume all the way down, and demanded to
10:23
Speaker 1: know who invited his sister to this party. Noah was
10:28
Speaker 1: watching from the upstairs balcony thinking, oh my god, Stacks
10:32
Speaker 1: is about to shoot somebody here. Because he threatened to.
10:35
Speaker 1: He started pointing the gun at people too scared to
10:37
Speaker 1: run and saying somebody was going to die immediately. unless
10:40
Speaker 1: they told him who brought his sister along with them.
10:45
Speaker 1: I'm watching in complete horror, but I'm also thinking, where's Kyle?
10:49
Speaker 1: I mean, he must have got my text or something,
10:51
Speaker 1: but where the hell was he? I remember having these
10:55
Speaker 1: sort of horrible visions of him appearing and being like,
10:58
Speaker 1: it was me. It was just the kind of stupid
11:01
Speaker 1: romantic gesture that Kyle would have done in just about
11:03
Speaker 1: any other situation. But as Stacks pointed his gun around
11:07
Speaker 1: the crowd of scared people, Kyle... state of ghost. I
11:12
Speaker 1: think he was right on the verge of actually shooting
11:14
Speaker 1: somebody too, because he was going crazy, yelling at people
11:17
Speaker 1: with these big, insane eyes. He was every bit as
11:21
Speaker 1: scary as people made him out to be, and there
11:23
Speaker 1: was Trina, tears streaming down her face as she's begging
11:27
Speaker 1: for her brother, using his real name like, Luis, don't, please, Luis,
11:31
Speaker 1: don't do it. I figured if she was scared that
11:35
Speaker 1: he was going to do it, then he might be
11:37
Speaker 1: well about it. but then by some sheer freaking miracle,
11:42
Speaker 1: we all started to hear sirens. And everyone reacted, but
11:46
Speaker 1: Stacks reacted more than most. And then when he realized
11:49
Speaker 1: that they were getting louder and louder, so closer and
11:52
Speaker 1: closer basically, he yelled something to Trina about seeing her
11:56
Speaker 1: at home and then ran out of the party to
11:57
Speaker 1: what I'm guessing was his car. I thought that someone
12:01
Speaker 1: had maybe discreetly called the police or something as soon
12:03
Speaker 1: as the gun was pulled, but it actually turns out
12:06
Speaker 1: that a neighbor... had made a noise complaint about 30
12:09
Speaker 1: minutes before. The cops showed up ready to tell everyone
12:12
Speaker 1: to turn the music down, but they walked into a
12:15
Speaker 1: house full of terrified people. With no music, just a
12:19
Speaker 1: whole lot of drunk crying girls and some equally drunk
12:22
Speaker 1: guys trying to comfort them. Now, they went around taking statements,
12:26
Speaker 1: but all I was interested in was where the hell
12:29
Speaker 1: Kyle was. But then, when I looked at my phone,
12:33
Speaker 1: I saw it light up with a text from one
12:35
Speaker 1: that just said, on the roof now with the closet
12:40
Speaker 1: too packed and the bed too small to hide under
12:42
Speaker 1: kyle had opened up the top floor bedroom skylight window
12:46
Speaker 1: and climbed onto the roof now he knew the cops
12:50
Speaker 1: had shown up but that stupid idiot had forgotten how
12:53
Speaker 1: scared of heights he was and so me and a
12:55
Speaker 1: few others had to climb up too and help him
12:57
Speaker 1: get back down through that skylight which i'm telling you
13:00
Speaker 1: was only slightly less scary than having a psychotic drug
13:04
Speaker 1: dealer threatened to shoot someone Now we helped him down,
13:07
Speaker 1: the party got broken up, and then we all went
13:09
Speaker 1: our separate ways. Trina ended up breaking things off with Kyle,
13:13
Speaker 1: probably the next day, saying that she couldn't face putting
13:16
Speaker 1: him in danger like that again. He was sad about
13:19
Speaker 1: it for a while, but he moved on, and I
13:22
Speaker 1: think it was only about a month before he brought
13:24
Speaker 1: the next girl around. Either way, crazy story, right? Back
13:53
Speaker 1: when I was 13, me and a few friends went
13:55
Speaker 1: trick-or-treating for Halloween. And so there was me in my
13:58
Speaker 1: Batman costume, two of my other friends dressed as Minion
14:02
Speaker 1: and Han Solo, and then my friend Tommy, who was
14:06
Speaker 1: a skeleton. Now, we'd been walking around and working different
14:09
Speaker 1: neighborhoods for nearly two hours at this point, and so
14:12
Speaker 1: with our pillowcases, heavy with chocolates and hard candies, we
14:16
Speaker 1: were feeling pretty victorious when we decided to call it
14:19
Speaker 1: a night and take a shortcut home. We cut through
14:22
Speaker 1: this old industrial lot and then along this underdeveloped stretch
14:25
Speaker 1: of land where we sometimes hung out. But then after
14:29
Speaker 1: passing this old grimy looking house that we probably passed
14:32
Speaker 1: a thousand times already, we noticed something different. The place
14:37
Speaker 1: looked like it was about ready to fall down and
14:39
Speaker 1: always had done, with a cracked paving, sagging chain link
14:42
Speaker 1: fence and windows that looked like they never got cleaned.
14:47
Speaker 1: Now it didn't look all that much better that Halloween
14:49
Speaker 1: night either. but it looked way different because someone had
14:53
Speaker 1: decorated the place. Strings of orange lights hung from the
14:56
Speaker 1: porch roof, a cardboard witch leaned against the railing, and
15:00
Speaker 1: plastic skeletons dangled from the bare tree in the front yard.
15:05
Speaker 1: There were signs, too, painted ones by the looks of it.
15:09
Speaker 1: One on the fence in black and orange, and it said,
15:11
Speaker 1: Trick-or-treaters welcome. Another propped up near the steps of the
15:15
Speaker 1: porch that said, Free candy. And then a third staked
15:19
Speaker 1: into the lawn that said, push the bell for the
15:21
Speaker 1: best candy in town. We stood on the sidewalk for
15:25
Speaker 1: a full minute, debating on what to do. The place
15:28
Speaker 1: had looked abandoned for as long as we'd known, but
15:31
Speaker 1: by the looks of things here, someone had moved in
15:34
Speaker 1: and was in the process of touching the place up,
15:36
Speaker 1: we thought. I guess a bunch of things were different,
15:39
Speaker 1: but what I really noticed was how the grass was cut,
15:42
Speaker 1: the light on the porch was working, and the front
15:44
Speaker 1: door seemed to have been given a layer of paint, too.
15:48
Speaker 1: It didn't look exactly inviting or anything, but it looked
15:51
Speaker 1: better than it used to, and we figured whoever had
15:54
Speaker 1: bought it probably knew it looked spooky, which is why
15:57
Speaker 1: they put all the signs up along with their decorations.
16:00
Speaker 1: But still, we weren't 100% sold on it. Now, if
16:04
Speaker 1: you're imagining a scene from a bad horror movie where
16:06
Speaker 1: some creep is trying to lure kids into his murder
16:09
Speaker 1: den on Halloween, you're not quite picturing it right. Like
16:13
Speaker 1: even today, looking back on it, I'd have figured some
16:16
Speaker 1: young couple had just moved in after buying their first
16:19
Speaker 1: fixer-upper starter home and were excited about their first Halloween there.
16:24
Speaker 1: But like I said, we were 13, so we weren't
16:27
Speaker 1: brave enough to be knocking on the door of the
16:29
Speaker 1: house that we'd always thought was haunted or something. Now,
16:34
Speaker 1: we stood there for maybe a minute more, all daring
16:36
Speaker 1: each other to be the ones to do it. But
16:39
Speaker 1: in the end, it was Tommy... who decided that he'd
16:42
Speaker 1: be the one to do it. Now, he was almost
16:45
Speaker 1: a whole year older than all of us, which obviously
16:47
Speaker 1: didn't mean much in reality, but we thought it did
16:50
Speaker 1: at the time. Tommy was bigger and stronger than us,
16:53
Speaker 1: purely from genetics, of course, but he took being older
16:57
Speaker 1: very seriously, and to the point where he regularly did
16:59
Speaker 1: things like that, as in acting like we were these
17:02
Speaker 1: defenseless little children to be protected by him, the big grown-up.
17:07
Speaker 1: And so it was him that said, I'll push it.
17:10
Speaker 1: but you guys better have my back. Now, he said
17:13
Speaker 1: if someone went to that much trouble, that they must
17:16
Speaker 1: have some real candy and not cheap stuff. Now, the
17:19
Speaker 1: rest of us followed him up the walk, not right
17:22
Speaker 1: behind him, but obviously very close. The porch boards groaned
17:26
Speaker 1: under our weight, and up close, the house smelled of
17:29
Speaker 1: this damp wood and something faintly metallic. Me and the
17:34
Speaker 1: others stopped right there, but Tommy kept on going towards
17:37
Speaker 1: the door, and a sign that had been nailed next
17:39
Speaker 1: to the doorbell which said, Push me for candy. When
17:43
Speaker 1: we got close, Tommy hesitated. He looked at that doorbell,
17:48
Speaker 1: then back at us, then back at that doorbell again.
17:51
Speaker 1: One of us whispered something like, Do it, dude. And
17:55
Speaker 1: he looked back again to tell us to shut up.
17:58
Speaker 1: And then after collecting himself, he reached for that buzzer
18:02
Speaker 1: and pushed it. I still remember the way his finger
18:05
Speaker 1: looked against the cracked plastic button. And then how the
18:10
Speaker 1: rest of us leaned in a little, waiting for the
18:12
Speaker 1: chime and hoping for the door to open and some
18:15
Speaker 1: adult in a cheap costume to just hand over the goods.
18:18
Speaker 1: But there was no chime. Instead, we heard something I
18:22
Speaker 1: now know was a transformer blowing and then a sharp,
18:26
Speaker 1: wet-sounding crack. But it didn't come from the bell. It
18:31
Speaker 1: came from Tommy. His arm locked straight and his back
18:35
Speaker 1: arched and for half a second or so he just
18:37
Speaker 1: stayed perfectly upright with his mouth this perfect circle of surprise.
18:43
Speaker 1: And then he dropped. His knees hit the porch first
18:47
Speaker 1: and then his body and head sort of went to dunk.
18:51
Speaker 1: And then I literally couldn't believe what I saw next
18:53
Speaker 1: because there was smoke. Like actual thin grey smoke arising
18:59
Speaker 1: from underneath his little mask. And then the smell... There
19:04
Speaker 1: was this sort of thick chemical burning smell coming off
19:07
Speaker 1: of him as if the doorbell had somehow burned him.
19:12
Speaker 1: Now he started screaming stuff and yelling Tommy's name, but
19:15
Speaker 1: then I remember grabbing him by the back of the
19:17
Speaker 1: black jumpsuit that he was wearing and trying to drag
19:19
Speaker 1: him away from the door. He seemed to be out
19:23
Speaker 1: cold and he was making these high-pitched wheezing sounds that
19:26
Speaker 1: sounded like they were coming from the back of his throat.
19:30
Speaker 1: I saw his hand not long after too. how the
19:33
Speaker 1: skin of his palm looked all bloody and blistered, and
19:36
Speaker 1: it was only then that I started to realize that
19:38
Speaker 1: he'd been electrocuted. We were too scared to touch him
19:42
Speaker 1: at first, I guess because my friend realized too, but
19:46
Speaker 1: was mistakenly saying, don't touch him, he's electrified. No, looking back,
19:51
Speaker 1: he wasn't, of course. The force of him falling had
19:54
Speaker 1: ripped his finger away from the buzzer and broken the circuit.
19:58
Speaker 1: But we were dumb, these scared kids, so it literally
20:01
Speaker 1: took one of us tapping him to make sure that
20:04
Speaker 1: they wouldn't get shocked either. And only then did we
20:07
Speaker 1: drag him off that porch. One of my friends ran
20:11
Speaker 1: for the nearest house, but then by the time the
20:13
Speaker 1: ambulance arrived, Tommy was awake. But he was not in
20:17
Speaker 1: a good way. He was in so much pain that
20:20
Speaker 1: he kept groaning. Like in so much pain that he
20:22
Speaker 1: couldn't even speak. And then sometimes his eyes would go
20:26
Speaker 1: wide and he'd start spasming in the driveway, but he
20:29
Speaker 1: was just gone. Like his eyes weren't tracking a single thing.
20:34
Speaker 1: The paramedics worked on him right there on the ground
20:36
Speaker 1: while the rest of us just stood by. One of
20:39
Speaker 1: them yelled at the house, saying whoever was inside should
20:41
Speaker 1: not touch anything. But no sound, light, or movement came
20:45
Speaker 1: from inside, and we later found out that the place
20:49
Speaker 1: was still completely deserted. Tommy spent four days in the ICU,
20:56
Speaker 1: and then once he was out, we got the full story,
20:58
Speaker 1: or at least what they called the full story. And
21:01
Speaker 1: by that, I mean the official explanation was that the
21:04
Speaker 1: doorbell circuit had been improperly wired. meaning that when Tommy
21:09
Speaker 1: pushed it, a high-voltage shock went from the button, through
21:13
Speaker 1: his hand, and into his chest. There was damage to
21:17
Speaker 1: his heart, burns where the electricity had literally surged through
21:20
Speaker 1: his body, and temporary paralysis on his right side when
21:23
Speaker 1: they first brought him in, which was obviously really scary
21:27
Speaker 1: for us and his parents. He made a full recovery,
21:31
Speaker 1: of course, which everyone thanks God for, but even today
21:35
Speaker 1: he doesn't use doorbells. He always knocks. But then once
21:39
Speaker 1: the recovery was all done with, we were all left
21:41
Speaker 1: asking the same question. Who the hell would do something
21:45
Speaker 1: like that? And that's because we found out it wasn't
21:48
Speaker 1: just negligence. It was deliberate. Someone had deliberately wired the
21:53
Speaker 1: doorbell to deliver what was intended to be a fatal
21:56
Speaker 1: electric shock. The police questioned an electrician who'd done some
22:00
Speaker 1: work in the neighborhood earlier that fall, but that guy
22:03
Speaker 1: said that he was hired by someone claiming to be
22:05
Speaker 1: the property owner. But when the cops got in touch
22:08
Speaker 1: with him, He lived out of state and said no
22:11
Speaker 1: such electrician had been hired to do anything. The cops
22:15
Speaker 1: looked for signs or really anything on that doorbell plate
22:18
Speaker 1: but found nothing useful. And then by the time the
22:21
Speaker 1: investigators returned the following week, the decorations seemed to be
22:24
Speaker 1: gone too. The lights, the skeletons, the plywood signs, all
22:29
Speaker 1: of it had vanished and no one was ever charged. Hey,
22:58
Speaker 1: big fan, and sorry to be a pain in the butt,
23:00
Speaker 1: but I had to change a lot of details here,
23:02
Speaker 1: and the story still makes sense and all, but I
23:04
Speaker 1: just don't want anyone to be able to trace it
23:06
Speaker 1: back to me. And I mean, I swear it's all true,
23:09
Speaker 1: but you'll see what I mean in a second. So
23:12
Speaker 1: I was 17 when it happened, still living that godforsaken
23:16
Speaker 1: garbage heap by the river. Now picture the place where
23:20
Speaker 1: the mills never fully shut down, and the streets smell
23:23
Speaker 1: like these wet leaves and diesel in the fall. Me
23:27
Speaker 1: and my friends were the goth kids. Black clothes, leather jackets,
23:31
Speaker 1: nail polish, the works. But we weren't into it to
23:34
Speaker 1: scare anybody, despite what some people around town might have said.
23:38
Speaker 1: We just liked the music, the look, and the sense
23:40
Speaker 1: of belonging, which was especially needed when the rest of
23:43
Speaker 1: town treated us like something they scraped off their shoe.
23:47
Speaker 1: And Halloween that year was weirdly warm, considering the winter
23:51
Speaker 1: was on its way, and so we'd been hanging out
23:54
Speaker 1: by the abandoned packing plant on the edge of town,
23:57
Speaker 1: It was all broken windows, and we got in by
23:59
Speaker 1: this fence that somebody had cut open years ago. And
24:02
Speaker 1: so while it wasn't anything fancy, it sure made for
24:05
Speaker 1: a great place to get some privacy away from everything.
24:08
Speaker 1: So there were five of us that night. Me, my
24:11
Speaker 1: buddy Lee, his girl Danny, and then Louie, and little
24:14
Speaker 1: Stevie who was only 14 but followed us around like
24:17
Speaker 1: a lost puppy. Now we'd managed to get our hands
24:20
Speaker 1: on some six-packs, a bottle of whiskey, and some smokes.
24:23
Speaker 1: and so we were holding our own little celebration out
24:26
Speaker 1: there with a campfire to roast some dogs on. Outside,
24:30
Speaker 1: it was pitch dark. The streetlights didn't reach very far
24:33
Speaker 1: into the old compound, which we liked, but there was
24:36
Speaker 1: a lot of cloud cover, so we couldn't see the
24:38
Speaker 1: moon or anything, which we didn't like. We always had
24:42
Speaker 1: a great time when it was just us, laughing and
24:44
Speaker 1: joking and playing music if everyone brought a speaker along.
24:48
Speaker 1: We had a speaker that night, too, which is why
24:50
Speaker 1: none of us heard the footsteps creeping up until it
24:53
Speaker 1: was too late. None of us saw his face. It
24:56
Speaker 1: was too dark, and he came out of the shadows
24:58
Speaker 1: by the loading dock so fast that none of us
25:01
Speaker 1: stood a chance of getting away. All I remember is
25:04
Speaker 1: the shape of him, this big dude with broad shoulders,
25:09
Speaker 1: and then the sledgehammer he was carrying and the way
25:12
Speaker 1: the head of it caught the light as he swung it.
25:15
Speaker 1: He didn't say a word, just raised that hammer and
25:17
Speaker 1: brought it down Over and over and over again. It
25:22
Speaker 1: was the sound of it which stuck in my nightmares
25:25
Speaker 1: for a whole year afterwards. Not the screams. Those came later.
25:30
Speaker 1: And it was that heavy, wet crack. Like when Danny
25:33
Speaker 1: got hit in the shoulder. She went down hard and
25:37
Speaker 1: then everything was chaos. Lee tried to run and the
25:41
Speaker 1: hammer caught him across the back. I heard his bones
25:44
Speaker 1: make a noise like a branch snapping. Louis got into
25:48
Speaker 1: the leg, leaving a bone stuck out through his jeans
25:51
Speaker 1: where the shattered end had ripped through the skin and
25:54
Speaker 1: the denim. I remember seeing little Stevie crying and crawling
25:58
Speaker 1: and how the man just walked over and brought their
26:01
Speaker 1: hammer down on his arm like he was just breaking firewood.
26:05
Speaker 1: I'd never seen a person's arm move like that before
26:08
Speaker 1: and it made me sick to my stomach even today.
26:11
Speaker 1: I don't know why he saved me for last. Maybe
26:14
Speaker 1: it was because I was frozen. Maybe it was because
26:16
Speaker 1: I was trying to help Danny, and being stationary meant
26:19
Speaker 1: that he didn't have to rush. But it wasn't long
26:22
Speaker 1: before that hammer smashed into my side, and I felt
26:25
Speaker 1: my own ribs break inside my chest. And the pain
26:29
Speaker 1: was nothing like I'd ever felt before or since. Somehow,
26:33
Speaker 1: it felt white and hot and then cold at the
26:37
Speaker 1: same time. I hit the ground, took a kick to
26:40
Speaker 1: the head, I think, and then I tasted blood as
26:43
Speaker 1: he stood over me for a second. I could hear
26:46
Speaker 1: him breathing heavily, but he didn't sound excited or anything.
26:51
Speaker 1: I remember getting this horrible feeling that whoever was hurting
26:54
Speaker 1: us seemed to be enjoying it, but when I listened,
26:58
Speaker 1: he just seemed to be panting and breathing. Not laughing
27:01
Speaker 1: or cursing at us, just breathing heavily from all the exertion,
27:06
Speaker 1: like what he was doing was just sort of work.
27:10
Speaker 1: It's kind of hard to describe, I guess, like how
27:13
Speaker 1: hyper-aware I felt in the moment, And how even though
27:16
Speaker 1: I was in so much pain I thought I was
27:18
Speaker 1: going to pass out, all I could hear was that breathing.
27:22
Speaker 1: And even somehow over the sounds of my friend's screams
27:24
Speaker 1: and groans. I thought he was going to finish me off.
27:28
Speaker 1: I thought he was going to finish everyone off. But
27:31
Speaker 1: he didn't. Instead he just turned and without a word,
27:35
Speaker 1: walked silently into the darkness. Now we laid there for
27:40
Speaker 1: what felt like an hour before Danny was able to
27:42
Speaker 1: get up and go get help. It turns out that
27:46
Speaker 1: she was the least injured, even though her shoulder was
27:48
Speaker 1: basically smashed inward. The cops and the ambulances came with
27:53
Speaker 1: their lights cutting through the night, and hearing their sirens
27:56
Speaker 1: was like hearing the cavalry show up. They asked us
28:00
Speaker 1: over and over who did it, but we had no idea.
28:04
Speaker 1: The guy was alone. We didn't see any faces or
28:07
Speaker 1: hear any voices. He just appeared, almost killed us, and
28:11
Speaker 1: then slipped back into the shadows without saying so much
28:13
Speaker 1: as a single word. At the hospital, we found out
28:17
Speaker 1: that Danny's shoulder was completely shattered. She did make a
28:20
Speaker 1: full recovery after surgeries and all that, but Lee's back
28:24
Speaker 1: was broken, and even after his recovery, he never completely
28:27
Speaker 1: walked right again. Louie's leg healed okay, too, and Stevie's
28:32
Speaker 1: arm was just this terrible mess of pins and plates
28:35
Speaker 1: for a while, but in the end, he was okay, too.
28:39
Speaker 1: And it was only Lee who ended with anything permanent,
28:42
Speaker 1: and to say that he was angry or even bitter
28:44
Speaker 1: about it would have had to have been the understatement
28:47
Speaker 1: of the century. My ribs thankfully eventually healed, but they
28:51
Speaker 1: still ache sometimes when the weather changes. But besides the
28:55
Speaker 1: physical stuff, we had all way more wrong with us
28:58
Speaker 1: than just the bruises and broken bones. The doctors talked
29:02
Speaker 1: to us about trauma and PTSD and all of that stuff,
29:05
Speaker 1: and certain people were really nice to us after they
29:08
Speaker 1: heard what happened, but not everyone. Some people acted like
29:12
Speaker 1: we deserved it, or not quite deserved it, but brought
29:15
Speaker 1: it upon ourselves. Almost like it was our fault for
29:18
Speaker 1: hanging out in a place that left us so vulnerable
29:21
Speaker 1: and isolated. Lee was so angry and unhappy afterwards that
29:25
Speaker 1: his family moved him out to his aunt's place a
29:28
Speaker 1: couple of counties over. We swapped phone calls for a
29:31
Speaker 1: while but then the calls just stopped one day. Years
29:34
Speaker 1: went by and I got a job at a body
29:36
Speaker 1: shop fixing cars and I tried to put it all
29:38
Speaker 1: behind me. But whenever Halloween came around, I'd find myself
29:43
Speaker 1: getting tense and distracted and reliving what happened back there
29:46
Speaker 1: all those years before. No, I was 26 when I
29:49
Speaker 1: saw him. October 30th of 2018. The town hadn't changed
29:55
Speaker 1: much and I was on my way to see my
29:56
Speaker 1: old man when I had to pick something up from
29:58
Speaker 1: one of the stores. I was headed back to my car,
30:00
Speaker 1: and then before I got my keys out, I took
30:03
Speaker 1: a look around for safety purposes and, you know, to
30:06
Speaker 1: make sure that no one's about to carjack me, but
30:09
Speaker 1: then I see him. It was Lee, standing across the
30:13
Speaker 1: street near the old hardware store maybe about 50 to
30:16
Speaker 1: 60 yards away. And he looked different, way thinner and
30:20
Speaker 1: paler than he used to be, if that was even possible,
30:23
Speaker 1: but he still walked with that same limp from the
30:25
Speaker 1: night the hammer got him. I almost didn't recognize him
30:28
Speaker 1: for a minute. He was dressed like a normie, no
30:32
Speaker 1: black clothing on him, but it was him, and when
30:35
Speaker 1: I looked at his face, I was very sure that
30:37
Speaker 1: it was him, and I raised a hand to wave
30:40
Speaker 1: and then called his name out, loud enough that people
30:42
Speaker 1: all over turned and looked, and I know that he
30:45
Speaker 1: must have heard me, but he didn't turn around. I
30:48
Speaker 1: called Lee's name again, even louder that time, but he
30:51
Speaker 1: just kept walking like he hadn't heard me, like I
30:53
Speaker 1: was just some total stranger. I just stood by my
30:57
Speaker 1: car feeling stupid and pretty hurt too if I'm being honest.
31:01
Speaker 1: I was certain that it was him. There was absolutely
31:03
Speaker 1: no denying it and unless he'd done a real good
31:06
Speaker 1: job of forgetting there was no way that he didn't
31:08
Speaker 1: recognize me or my voice either. Now in fact I
31:12
Speaker 1: was almost certain that was why he didn't turn around
31:15
Speaker 1: because he knew it was me and he didn't want
31:17
Speaker 1: to be forced to revisit the worst years of his life.
31:20
Speaker 1: And I understood. I mean it sucked that that's how
31:23
Speaker 1: things worked out and with one of my best friends
31:26
Speaker 1: pretending not to know me. But I guess that's the
31:29
Speaker 1: cruel aspect of life, right? It's a bitch, and then
31:33
Speaker 1: you die. I was helping my dad out with some
31:36
Speaker 1: stuff around the old homestead, so the next thing I'm
31:40
Speaker 1: drinking coffee with him at the table and pouring my
31:42
Speaker 1: heart out about Lee and how he just ignored me. Now,
31:46
Speaker 1: dad said he probably had a lot on his mind,
31:48
Speaker 1: especially if it was his first time back in town
31:50
Speaker 1: in God knows how many years. Now, that helped me
31:53
Speaker 1: settle a little bit, but Then that night, while I
31:56
Speaker 1: was laying in bed back at my own place, I
31:57
Speaker 1: could hear sirens, and a lot of them, all going
32:01
Speaker 1: somewhere fast. I looked out the window, but couldn't see anything.
32:05
Speaker 1: Just the usual dark streets as the sound of sirens faded,
32:08
Speaker 1: and then I just went back to bed. The next morning,
32:13
Speaker 1: the whole town was abuzz with some kind of news.
32:16
Speaker 1: And then when I heard what it was, I was
32:18
Speaker 1: shocked to my core. A man named Ronnie Parker died.
32:23
Speaker 1: had been found behind that packing plant, and he was alive.
32:27
Speaker 1: But someone had shot him through the legs and then
32:29
Speaker 1: broken his back. The cops said it looked like the
32:32
Speaker 1: shooter had stood over him and used something heavy, either
32:35
Speaker 1: a pipe or a hammer or something blunt. And while
32:39
Speaker 1: he was still alive when they found him, he only
32:42
Speaker 1: made a partial recovery and the doctors said that he'd
32:44
Speaker 1: be in a chair for the rest of his life.
32:46
Speaker 1: And I knew that name. Ronnie Parker, I mean. He
32:50
Speaker 1: was a big guy who worked construction sometimes and lived
32:52
Speaker 1: alone out past the river. People said he drank too
32:56
Speaker 1: much and got mean, but nobody had ever connected him
32:58
Speaker 1: to what happened to us. And there was never any evidence.
33:01
Speaker 1: No witnesses or prints or DNA or really anything like that.
33:06
Speaker 1: Just five busted up kids who didn't see or hear
33:09
Speaker 1: enough to get justice for themselves. At least, that's what
33:12
Speaker 1: I thought. But then the cops showed up at my
33:16
Speaker 1: place one afternoon. Two of them, and they had some
33:19
Speaker 1: questions for me. They sat at the kitchen table and
33:22
Speaker 1: asked if I knew anything about Parker. And I was
33:25
Speaker 1: being honest and told them that I didn't know a thing.
33:28
Speaker 1: But then one of them asked if I'd seen Lee
33:30
Speaker 1: around town since someone mentioned seeing him the day before.
33:33
Speaker 1: And I almost said yes. The words were right there,
33:36
Speaker 1: but something stopped me. I looked right into their faces.
33:40
Speaker 1: A vision of Lee standing across the street flashed into
33:43
Speaker 1: my head and how he didn't even turn his head
33:46
Speaker 1: when I called his name. I thought about the way
33:48
Speaker 1: Parker had been found too. Shot in the leg so
33:51
Speaker 1: he couldn't run, so whoever did it could take their
33:54
Speaker 1: time in breaking his back. I thought about all that,
33:57
Speaker 1: and then looked both cops straight in the eyes, one
34:00
Speaker 1: after the other, obviously, and then told them, No, I
34:05
Speaker 1: didn't see him. I haven't seen him in years, actually.
34:08
Speaker 1: He moved away after the attack, and I haven't seen
34:11
Speaker 1: him since. They wrote it down, asked a few more questions,
34:16
Speaker 1: then after that, they left. Once the door was closed,
34:20
Speaker 1: I sat down on my couch in silence and just
34:22
Speaker 1: sat there thinking for a while. It was the day
34:25
Speaker 1: before Halloween when I saw him, the day before that
34:28
Speaker 1: terrible anniversary came around, and so it didn't take too
34:31
Speaker 1: much pondering to work out what had happened and who
34:34
Speaker 1: it was that had put Ronnie Parker in a wheelchair
34:37
Speaker 1: for the rest of his days. Lee had figured it
34:40
Speaker 1: out somehow. I don't know how, but he must have.
34:44
Speaker 1: Maybe he'd come back and ask the right people the
34:47
Speaker 1: right questions. after watching and waiting for years and years.
34:51
Speaker 1: Who knows how he managed it too, because I sure
34:54
Speaker 1: as hell don't think that I could have figured it out,
34:57
Speaker 1: but he did. He found the man who walked out
35:00
Speaker 1: of the dark that night with a sledgehammer, and he
35:02
Speaker 1: paid him back the only way that made sense. I
35:05
Speaker 1: never saw Lee again, and I eventually looked him up
35:08
Speaker 1: on Instagram one time and sent him a request, but
35:11
Speaker 1: I think he just ignored me. Sometimes I think about
35:14
Speaker 1: Parker lying in the dark with his legs shot out,
35:17
Speaker 1: begging for mercy. And I don't feel sorry for him.
35:22
Speaker 1: Not one bit. I'm a 34-year-old woman, and I work
35:50
Speaker 1: from home for a mid-sized firm that handles payroll for
35:53
Speaker 1: small businesses. I used to live in this little two-bedroom
35:56
Speaker 1: for years, and when I moved in, I thought it
35:58
Speaker 1: was a nice, quiet neighborhood. The kind of place where
36:01
Speaker 1: people wave when they walk their dogs, and where they
36:04
Speaker 1: leave pumpkins on the porch in October. You know, someplace safe.
36:09
Speaker 1: But I was wrong about that. Horribly wrong, and realizing
36:13
Speaker 1: that started with a cat. And it wasn't my cat,
36:17
Speaker 1: thank God. It was the old skinny gray one they
36:20
Speaker 1: used to hang out around the alley behind the houses.
36:23
Speaker 1: I'd seen it before, and sometimes I'd put out a
36:25
Speaker 1: little water if it looked thirsty. And then one afternoon
36:29
Speaker 1: in late September, I was taking out the trash when
36:32
Speaker 1: I heard this sharp, high sound. It sounded like a
36:36
Speaker 1: cat hissing, but it almost sounded like it was cut short.
36:40
Speaker 1: And then when I went to check it out and
36:42
Speaker 1: walked around the side of the house, I saw three boys,
36:45
Speaker 1: maybe 10 or 11 years old, all standing by the fence.
36:49
Speaker 1: One of them had the cat by the scruff of
36:51
Speaker 1: its neck in one hand and one was holding a
36:53
Speaker 1: stick in the other. He poked it hard in the side,
36:56
Speaker 1: making the cat twist and yowl while the others laughed.
37:00
Speaker 1: It was trying to claw at him, but like I said,
37:02
Speaker 1: the poor thing was old, so I guess it didn't
37:04
Speaker 1: have the strength or mobility to really claw him like
37:07
Speaker 1: a younger one would. I yelled at them to stop,
37:11
Speaker 1: but to my amazement, they looked at me like I
37:13
Speaker 1: was the one doing something wrong here. And when I
37:16
Speaker 1: yelled a second time, saying I was going to call
37:18
Speaker 1: the cops... The boys with the stick dropped the cat
37:21
Speaker 1: and they ran while the cat limped off under a bush.
37:26
Speaker 1: I did call too, right away actually, and the cop
37:29
Speaker 1: I spoke to took my statement and said that he'd
37:31
Speaker 1: be in touch with the kid's parents. The next day
37:35
Speaker 1: one of the mothers knocked on my door and I
37:36
Speaker 1: figured that it was to apologize on her son's behalf
37:39
Speaker 1: and straighten everything out. But that is not what she
37:43
Speaker 1: showed up to do. She was mad, really mad. and
37:47
Speaker 1: called me a liar no sooner than I'd opened the door.
37:51
Speaker 1: She said that her son would never hurt an animal,
37:53
Speaker 1: and that I must have misunderstood what he was doing.
37:56
Speaker 1: I told her what I saw, but her son had
37:59
Speaker 1: obviously told her something way different, and that's what she
38:02
Speaker 1: was choosing to believe. She called me a liar a
38:05
Speaker 1: second time, and then she marched off in a huff
38:08
Speaker 1: after telling me not to talk to her son ever again. Now,
38:12
Speaker 1: I had a feeling that it wouldn't be the end
38:14
Speaker 1: of things, and it wasn't. because not long after, that
38:17
Speaker 1: same group of kids started watching my house. It wasn't
38:21
Speaker 1: every day at first, maybe twice a week at most,
38:24
Speaker 1: and they'd slow down on their bikes as they passed
38:26
Speaker 1: my house, and I could see them trying to figure
38:28
Speaker 1: out if I was home or not. They didn't do
38:31
Speaker 1: more than that for a while, but then things started
38:34
Speaker 1: to escalate. By the first week of October, there were
38:37
Speaker 1: five or six of them, all hanging out outside my
38:40
Speaker 1: place after school. They'd stand across the street and just
38:43
Speaker 1: sort of stare, and then if I ever asked them
38:46
Speaker 1: what they wanted, they'd laugh and ride off on their bikes.
38:50
Speaker 1: I kept telling myself it was nothing, kids being kids,
38:53
Speaker 1: but at the same time, it didn't feel like nothing,
38:56
Speaker 1: not after a while, anyway. Halloween was on a Friday
39:01
Speaker 1: that year, and so I put up decorations three days
39:03
Speaker 1: before and was carving a pumpkin in my kitchen at
39:06
Speaker 1: around 6.30 when I suddenly heard voices outside. But it
39:11
Speaker 1: was people talking regularly. It was, like, low, and the
39:15
Speaker 1: fact that I could hear it meant that it was close.
39:18
Speaker 1: It immediately gave me the creeps, so I looked through
39:20
Speaker 1: the blinds to see a group of those kids, now
39:23
Speaker 1: on my lawn. They saw me see them, but they
39:27
Speaker 1: didn't run. Instead, one of them threw something. that hit
39:30
Speaker 1: the front window with a crack. Not hard enough to
39:33
Speaker 1: break it, but hard enough to scare the crap out
39:35
Speaker 1: of me. I stepped back as another rock hit the door.
39:39
Speaker 1: Then another, and another. The window smashed on that fourth one,
39:43
Speaker 1: and only then did they run off laughing to themselves.
39:47
Speaker 1: I called the police again. And the dispatcher said that
39:50
Speaker 1: they'd send someone when they could, but it was a
39:52
Speaker 1: busy night. And then when the officer finally showed up,
39:56
Speaker 1: the kids were gone. I told him it was the
39:59
Speaker 1: same kids from the cat incident and explained that I'd
40:01
Speaker 1: filed a report over the initial confrontation. Now, he wrote
40:05
Speaker 1: down what I said, but explained that there wasn't much
40:07
Speaker 1: that they could do without catching them in the act.
40:10
Speaker 1: But I had caught them in the act. I had
40:13
Speaker 1: a cheap doorbell camera that I'd installed the year before,
40:16
Speaker 1: but the footage was still pretty grainy. and so while
40:19
Speaker 1: you could see the shapes and movement, you couldn't see
40:21
Speaker 1: faces clearly, and I can't put into words how disappointing
40:24
Speaker 1: that was. Now, the cop took a copy down anyway,
40:29
Speaker 1: saying every little thing helps, and then just left. The
40:33
Speaker 1: next morning, my car had four flat tires. Someone had
40:38
Speaker 1: stabbed them and then scratched the word bitch into the
40:41
Speaker 1: driver's side door with something sharp. There was also some
40:45
Speaker 1: dried slime and little bits of shell over my siding
40:48
Speaker 1: where they must have thrown at least a dozen eggs
40:50
Speaker 1: at the thing. The officer who came that time was
40:55
Speaker 1: a younger guy who asked if I had any arguments
40:57
Speaker 1: with my neighbors lately, and I said yes, and explained
41:01
Speaker 1: the situation appearing to be escalating. But instead of actually
41:04
Speaker 1: listening to me, he nodded like he'd heard it all before,
41:07
Speaker 1: and kids sometimes get carried away. Now he didn't seem
41:11
Speaker 1: to understand, and I was practically begging him to talk
41:14
Speaker 1: to the other guys at the precinct or wherever because...
41:17
Speaker 1: I didn't feel safe in my own home anymore. He
41:20
Speaker 1: told me he'd go talk to them before he left
41:22
Speaker 1: the neighborhood and then called saying that he thought everything
41:25
Speaker 1: had been smoothed over. But they came back that night
41:30
Speaker 1: and I heard a scraping on my porch outside and
41:33
Speaker 1: then a soft thud and so I turned on every
41:35
Speaker 1: light in the house and sat in the living room
41:37
Speaker 1: with my phone in my hand waiting to call 911
41:39
Speaker 1: if I heard anything else. It stayed silent for a
41:43
Speaker 1: while and I opened my door to look outside and
41:46
Speaker 1: that's when I saw the dead raccoon that had been
41:49
Speaker 1: left there, one that was so rotten it had maggots
41:52
Speaker 1: in its eyes. I stopped being able to sleep well
41:56
Speaker 1: after that, and every sound had me jumping, and from
41:59
Speaker 1: the furnace kicking on to the branch of a tree
42:02
Speaker 1: hitting the siding when it was windy, everything would startle me.
42:06
Speaker 1: I started leaving the television on at night just to
42:08
Speaker 1: trick people into thinking that I was still awake, and
42:11
Speaker 1: then at work I made all kinds of mistakes that
42:13
Speaker 1: I never normally would make. My supervisor asked if everything
42:16
Speaker 1: was okay, and I just lied and said yes, but
42:19
Speaker 1: I could tell they didn't believe me. That Friday, where
42:23
Speaker 1: my boss asked if I was okay, was Halloween, and
42:26
Speaker 1: I couldn't face doing any trick-or-treating stuff, so I just
42:30
Speaker 1: took the pumpkin inside, took the decorations down, and then
42:33
Speaker 1: just kind of waited, expecting something to happen. I stayed
42:38
Speaker 1: up pretty late, too, until just before 11pm, but nothing happened.
42:44
Speaker 1: And then as I went to bed, I allowed myself
42:46
Speaker 1: the tiniest bit of hope that the whole thing was
42:48
Speaker 1: now over. It was Halloween after all. They were probably
42:52
Speaker 1: out trick-or-treating, so either there was like a 24-hour ceasefire
42:56
Speaker 1: where I could finally get a little sleep, or it
42:58
Speaker 1: was in the clear. But then, not even two hours
43:02
Speaker 1: after I went to bed, I woke up to the
43:05
Speaker 1: smell of smoke. I sat up in bed as the
43:09
Speaker 1: smoke detector in the hallway started screaming, and then ran
43:12
Speaker 1: out my socks. The living room was filling fast with
43:16
Speaker 1: smoke from flames that were climbing the curtains by the
43:19
Speaker 1: front door. And the carpet near the door was burning
43:23
Speaker 1: in a line like someone had poured something onto it
43:26
Speaker 1: and then lit it. I grabbed my phone and my
43:28
Speaker 1: keys and got out of the back door then stood
43:31
Speaker 1: in the yard in my shirt and called 911. The
43:35
Speaker 1: fire department came quickly. They put it out before it
43:38
Speaker 1: took the whole house but the front rooms were completely ruined.
43:41
Speaker 1: There was water everywhere, blackened walls and The smell stayed
43:45
Speaker 1: in my hair for days. The fire investigator asked a
43:49
Speaker 1: lot of questions, like where I was when it started.
43:51
Speaker 1: Do I smoke? Did I leave candles burning? Even stuff like,
43:55
Speaker 1: had I been having money problems? I told him about
43:59
Speaker 1: the kids, and the whole saga, actually, and he listened
44:02
Speaker 1: and wrote things down, then said that the point of
44:05
Speaker 1: origin looked like the front door area and that accelerant
44:08
Speaker 1: had been used. Again... I was dumb enough to start
44:12
Speaker 1: feeling hopeful, like finally someone was going to acknowledge how
44:16
Speaker 1: I'd been victimized. But then, the guy started asking if
44:20
Speaker 1: anyone else had a key or if I'd been under
44:22
Speaker 1: a lot of stress, which I know what he was implying,
44:25
Speaker 1: and it really was starting to piss me off. Talking
44:29
Speaker 1: to the cops came later. Two different officers sat me
44:32
Speaker 1: down at the station and went over the story again,
44:34
Speaker 1: and one of them said that they'd spoken to some
44:36
Speaker 1: of the parents. They said their children had been home
44:40
Speaker 1: all night and that in reality, it was me who'd
44:42
Speaker 1: been harassing their kids. None of that was true, but
44:47
Speaker 1: the officers looked at me like they weren't sure. One
44:51
Speaker 1: of them said sometimes people in difficult situations do things
44:54
Speaker 1: for attention or out of anger. I said no, but
44:58
Speaker 1: while they let me go, I could tell that they
45:00
Speaker 1: didn't believe me. People in the neighborhood stopped waving or
45:04
Speaker 1: saying hi, and then one morning I found the word
45:06
Speaker 1: liar everywhere. written in marker across the new front door.
45:11
Speaker 1: My sister said I should just move and not look back,
45:14
Speaker 1: so I put the house in the market in November.
45:18
Speaker 1: I packed what was left in my car and moved
45:19
Speaker 1: into a small apartment on the third floor of a
45:21
Speaker 1: building with a locked entrance. No yards, no kids hanging
45:25
Speaker 1: around that I could see, just right back to the depressing,
45:29
Speaker 1: urban living that I'd grown so accustomed to in the
45:31
Speaker 1: years before. I still check the locks twice every night,
45:35
Speaker 1: and a few times I'd woken up smelling smoke that
45:38
Speaker 1: isn't there, but it beats that horrible feeling that they
45:41
Speaker 1: know where I am, that they're watching, and sometimes I
45:46
Speaker 1: even count myself lucky if it was just a fire.
46:13
Speaker 1: So I was eight years old when this happened, and
46:16
Speaker 1: even now, more than 30 years later, I still think
46:19
Speaker 1: about that Halloween morning every time October rolls around. And
46:23
Speaker 1: so maybe you can use this in a video. I
46:26
Speaker 1: grew up in a pretty regular neighborhood. A lot of
46:28
Speaker 1: small houses, cracked sidewalks, and kids playing in the street together.
46:33
Speaker 1: The adults worked regular jobs. They came home tired and
46:36
Speaker 1: liked things to be quiet. But there was this one
46:39
Speaker 1: guy who made things way less quiet. And his name
46:43
Speaker 1: was Ray. Ray was in his late teens and maybe
46:46
Speaker 1: early twenties, but he still lived with his mom in
46:49
Speaker 1: this beat-up ranch house at the end of our street.
46:52
Speaker 1: He was basically the neighborhood prankster, or troublemaker, depending on
46:55
Speaker 1: who you asked. But he wasn't the kind who robbed
46:58
Speaker 1: houses or anything serious like that. Rather, the kind who
47:02
Speaker 1: always seemed to be looking for ways to mess with people.
47:06
Speaker 1: He sometimes liked to smash mailboxes with a baseball bat.
47:09
Speaker 1: Other times he'd set off fireworks in people's yards when
47:12
Speaker 1: they were trying to sleep. One time he blasted the
47:15
Speaker 1: Star Spangled Banner from his mom's car stereo outside the
47:18
Speaker 1: high school principal's house at four in the morning while shouting, Revelli, Revelli,
47:23
Speaker 1: up and at him, Mr. Springfield. And then every Halloween,
47:27
Speaker 1: without fail, he went around smashing people's pumpkins. Folks put
47:32
Speaker 1: a lot of work into those pumpkins. Families carved them
47:35
Speaker 1: together and then set them out on porches with candles
47:38
Speaker 1: inside of them so the faces glowed. Some kids spent
47:41
Speaker 1: hours getting the teeth just right and making the eyes
47:44
Speaker 1: look evil or mean. But Ray didn't give a good
47:48
Speaker 1: goddamn about that. He'd wait until late at night when
47:51
Speaker 1: most of the neighborhood lights were out and then he'd
47:54
Speaker 1: walk the streets with some big stick or some years
47:57
Speaker 1: just in his boots and he'd either stomp them flat
48:00
Speaker 1: or bash them to pieces with whatever he was carrying.
48:03
Speaker 1: Now you'd see everything in the morning, and I still
48:06
Speaker 1: remember that sort of half-rotten vegetable stink as I walked
48:09
Speaker 1: past them, all while parents cursed under their breath while
48:12
Speaker 1: sweeping up smashed rind and seeds. Ray just laughed about
48:17
Speaker 1: it when anybody else said anything. He thought it was funny,
48:21
Speaker 1: and whether the cops got involved or not, Ray would
48:23
Speaker 1: always find a way to weasel out of any trouble
48:25
Speaker 1: he was in. And that year was the same as always.
48:29
Speaker 1: Kids were super excited about trick-or-treating, and Me and my
48:32
Speaker 1: little brother had our outfits picked out already. He was
48:36
Speaker 1: going as a ghost with an old sheet and I
48:38
Speaker 1: was some kind of zombie with face paint that my
48:40
Speaker 1: mom helped with. I remember waking up early that Halloween morning,
48:45
Speaker 1: but while I was excited I remember the house feeling
48:47
Speaker 1: too quiet. Usually my mom was already in the kitchen
48:51
Speaker 1: making coffee and the radio was on loud, but that
48:54
Speaker 1: day the whole street seemed still. I got up and
48:58
Speaker 1: looked out the window and then saw police cars parked
49:00
Speaker 1: near Ray's house. Not just one either, three of them,
49:04
Speaker 1: along with an ambulance and people in uniforms moving around.
49:08
Speaker 1: I went downstairs and found my parents in the living
49:11
Speaker 1: room talking in some low voices, and they wouldn't tell
49:14
Speaker 1: me what they were talking about, and then when I
49:16
Speaker 1: tried to go out into the street, they told me
49:18
Speaker 1: to stay inside. My dad looked weirdly pale as my
49:22
Speaker 1: mom kept looking out the front window, then after a while,
49:26
Speaker 1: the neighbors started gathering in small groups on the sidewalks,
49:30
Speaker 1: talking and pointing towards Ray's house. It took a few
49:33
Speaker 1: days before someone finally told us what had happened, or
49:36
Speaker 1: at least what the police were saying. But then we
49:39
Speaker 1: found out, and I think it honestly kind of traumatized
49:42
Speaker 1: me a little bit. Ray had been found outside his
49:45
Speaker 1: own house near the driveway early that Halloween morning. And
49:49
Speaker 1: to put it the way people did when they thought
49:51
Speaker 1: kids weren't listening, his head was just about smashed in.
49:56
Speaker 1: Somebody had hit him more than once with something hard
49:59
Speaker 1: and heavy, so hard that there was blood on the
50:02
Speaker 1: concrete and on the grass, like a spray of it.
50:07
Speaker 1: I heard he was still alive when the ambulance got there,
50:09
Speaker 1: but barely. And we later heard that he survived, but
50:12
Speaker 1: he was in the hospital for a long time, and
50:15
Speaker 1: he was never the same after. Nobody ever figured out
50:19
Speaker 1: who did it, even after the police asked a ton
50:21
Speaker 1: of questions around the neighborhood. They talked to the parents
50:24
Speaker 1: whose pumpkins had been smashed in past years, and they
50:27
Speaker 1: even talked to kids like me and my brother, but
50:30
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, we didn't know anything. Ray's mom
50:33
Speaker 1: said she thought that she heard something outside at around
50:36
Speaker 1: 2 or 3 in the morning, but figured it was
50:37
Speaker 1: just him coming home late like usual. And then she
50:41
Speaker 1: found him early in the morning when she let their
50:44
Speaker 1: dog out to use the bathroom in the front yard,
50:46
Speaker 1: and there were rumors that it walked up and started
50:49
Speaker 1: lapping up his blood, but I don't know how true
50:52
Speaker 1: that is. The really scary part wasn't the blood or
50:55
Speaker 1: the ambulance, though those images did stay with me. It
50:59
Speaker 1: was the idea that whoever did it was living among us.
51:04
Speaker 1: Ray had pissed a lot of people off over the years.
51:07
Speaker 1: He smashed more than pumpkins and had made enemies without
51:10
Speaker 1: even trying hard. But the way it happened, the way
51:13
Speaker 1: someone had waited for him, stalked him, or caught him outside,
51:18
Speaker 1: was chilling. Everyone waited for the cops to find out
51:22
Speaker 1: who did it, but nothing happened. There were no confessions,
51:25
Speaker 1: no arrests, and Ray was just gone, and all we
51:29
Speaker 1: were left with were questions and wandering. I don't tell
51:33
Speaker 1: this story much anymore. I don't even really like to
51:35
Speaker 1: think about it, honestly. But when I do, I remember
51:38
Speaker 1: being eight years old, looking out the window at the
51:41
Speaker 1: police cars and understanding for the first time how someone
51:44
Speaker 1: had decided that Ray's time was up. hey friends thanks
52:13
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Speaker 1: check out the Let's Read podcast where you can hear
52:51
Speaker 1: all of these stories in big compilations located anywhere you
52:54
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts. I also have a true crime channel
52:57
Speaker 1: called Saturn Soul. Go check it out. All links in
53:01
Speaker 1: the description. Thanks so much, friends. And remember to meet me.
53:06
Speaker 1: at the haunted Glory Hall.