Episode 462: Listener Tales 74 with Jon Lee Brody

Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Hey Weirdos, I'm Ash and I'm Alayna.

Thanks for being here, John.

Look at that baby, who is that? Hi, Shelby, Shelby. Is she feeling so much better?

Are they here? What's going on?

I know well, this is special because it's the five-year anniversary month and you're our special guest of the month.

It's crazy because I feel like I've known you two well. I have known you two for five years, but now we actually know each other. We're working together and it's a very special dynamic and it's just it's all. To have it all kind of culminate here is very, very special.

There will be more of those coming, I think one won't be coming this week, so there should be more good stuff. I'm glad people like it. We certainly love doing it and we love working with y'all, and we love all our listeners too.

Honestly, I'm the person that's always looking at those little details and I like to just shine a light on those things. So that people go, Oh, wait, yeah, it's not just a happy accident that's happening. There may be a calculated move in terms of why that's there.

We have no insight whatsoever. That's fun, but like, it's really fun to hear it from, like professionals on either side of the situation. So I think it's like a brilliant idea for a show.

She's all that. I was in junior high, same, yeah, I mean, and everybody wanted, every guy wanted to be Zack Siler in high school, and none of us succeeded.

I didn't make it, maybe a couple did.

And it was just such a good idea. We were like, how do we not jump on this exactly?

It's amazing, it's funny how life works good.

He keeps telling a different origin story of how he got his scars, so we don't exactly know when this originated. But there's a road called Cuba Road, which leads to this cemetery, called the White Cemetery. So this does go back to the 1800s, and whether white cemetery means whites only or not, I don't know.

There's a rumor that there was a house on Cuba Road that burned down years ago. And the ghost of the woman who lived there is still there. And looking over the land and apparently gets angry if you try to get out and see where the house was.

Like, let alone at the age of 16, 17, 18.

What am I doing? But whatever they do it on TV, how hard can it be?

So we're driving down Cuba Road and right away, and this is something we always heard about. There's these little white and green orbs of light that this isn't just reflecting from our headlights or anything. These things are like, following us. They're like, kind of surrounding the car and like this is. And there's no street lights on Cuba Road.

And she's all that like. I wasn't going to be Prom king anyway, but there was at least a chance if I was alive, it's going to happen. And so now I'm like, I'm driving in my mom's Volvo 850, which she still has to this day. Because we're Korean, we don't get rid of anything, so just in our garage.

Nick C.D. Ash is like, I'm there with you.

I'm like, that's weird, people are here at night and we go down there, there's no car now. Like, I swear to you, this is what happened.

I'm like, Okay, you all saw that, right? Like, Yeah, there was a car. I'm like, Yeah, we saw, like, some car. Point to the cemetery, which one? That's, I think, a red flag? When we're there at eight o'clock, it's pitch black on this, you know? I think, maybe I don't think it's an unincorporated road, but it certainly felt that way and so we get to the cemetery.

We don't see anything, but we still see the orbs of light. And this is before you could just get on your smartphone and Google stuff. We couldn't film anything because we didn't have that capability. Unless I took my dad's like JVC video camera and made a mini movie out of it, which I did, just not on camera.

She struck him with her motor vehicle, she had been under the influence, and then she left him there.

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And um, and then Pat being Pat was like, I'm going to go into the cemetery and just look at myself, like, what, what are you talking about? I'm going to the cemetery? Like, we agreed we'd stay in the car.

Like, come on, it was like a bad action movie of the 80s, like no, like, don't you know what? like in Last Action Hero. Don't you know what happens when the partner goes with? He just gets killed.

Like, you got to stay in the car.

Whatever you need to tell us, I love you, I love you.

But then we remember there's Rainbow Road and we said, OK, but if we're here, we got to check out Rainbow Road. And which is crazy to me, because at this point I'm, I'm not going to lie, I'm a little creeped out.

That's always how my brains work. Yeah, so that's my thinking. I'm like, look, first of all, my curfew is like 1130, so I can't stay out too late.

I'm looking at my watch, I'm like, OK, it's 1030, I got another hour before I got to get everybody home and meet my curfew. Because I legitimately was the kid who would get grounded and wouldn't be able to go out the next weekend if I was there, like, a minute later than my curfew, oh yeah, so like, Oh, I heard there's an insane asylum on Rainbow Road.

OK, all right, so we drive down there. I swear. I heard police lights. I'm like, OK. Like, maybe the police are shutting it down because too many people go there and they just want to usher people out. Or maybe people who actually live there on Cuber Road were like, Man, fuck these guys that are trying to look around all the time.

It's like, I'm just trying to live our life here, like, maybe there's nothing wrong. So like, we're like, looking around, looking around. I swear. We heard, I swear. We saw police lights and sirens, we get down further.

There's nothing there, what the hell? So I'm like, OK, this is, this is strange again. So like, Well, which way, which way do we go to this same asylum? And it's like, I don't know.

I'm like, What do you mean? You don't know what's your idea like? I just want to do Cuber Road, you want to do Rainbow Road now.

We don't see it. We're in like, pitch black. And now I'm going from scared to kind of being like, pissed. I'm like, Well, what the fuck I like?

It like it was enough to do Cuba, you had, you had to just take it too far. Now we got to go here.

We look down the other side and we do see just this iron gate and like, OK, I think we. Oh no, I think we found it. And it's this really ominous and dark, long driveway. Right out of a Tim Burton movie, except not not as welcoming. It's like, not as Burton movies, as creepy as they are.

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

I'm like, Where are you?

So we get pretty close to this, like iron gate. And then I swear, like I saw, we saw like headlights coming towards us, like, Oh, no, no, no, like.

This could be a ghost car, this could be this. So we never got too far into exploring what the house could be or what it isn't. There are legends that say some people have hopped the gate. And they actually get into the abandoned ruins of the house. And they make it down to the basement. Where apparently, I have no way to confirm this or deny it, so I'm just going to state that this is what I've heard.

So I'm not saying this is a fact to anybody listening. But apparently, if you make it to the basement of this supposed abandoned, insane asylum, there's like bloody pentagrams painted on the floor and stuff like that. And then I remember the mob backstory of Chicago, because John Dillinger and Al Capone used to always come up to the north suburbs to escape Chicago. A little bit for a little R&r or whatever. But it's also very possible that they could have used this abandoned place to hide some of the dead bodies.

I'd be more afraid of my mom than the police. Let's just do that, so I was like I would have been safer in jail.

You don't know what to expect. Yeah, you've heard people tell you stories, but I swear those orbs, everyone I've talked to that's been there. They say the same thing.

The orbs, like, surround your car and they follow you. They're not just light refractions, and I'm not an expert in physics or anything. But again, there's no streetlights. Where were these?

Where are they coming from? So there's a belief that these are the spirits of Cuba Road, kind of being guardians. And I would hope that they're just nice ghosts, and they're hoping that you're not going to kill anybody else.

I mean, it's really in recent years, I figured that out. But trying to look cool in front of these girls with your friends, also trying not to be the worst of the group sort of thing. Not that I think I am, but look, when you're dealing with the supernatural, anything goes.

You don't know what's going to happen.

So yeah, and I did put a thing out on my Facebook last night to any of my hometown friends. If they had any stories they wanted to tell me. That may have been intense and I would love to share a couple with you. Yes, please do this.

First one is from Kristen Koenig, so shout out to you Kristen Koenig, who actually helped. She actually planned our our 20 year reunion last year.

OK, and then? She also mentioned that there is also an urban legend that if you stop on the train tracks and honk your horns three times, a ghost train will come.

And Kristen B. Shamal said. A bunch of my friends and I drove there way back in our day late in the fall. And we saw a faint green light, not orbs, more like Aurora borealis style green light emanating from that graveyard. A couple of the guys got out and went in with a flashlight to see what was going on because they thought someone was pranking or left glow sticks out there. But came back after a few minutes with no answers.

But both were freaked out because one of them was sure someone tapped them lightly on the shoulder. He went around and no one was there. And our other friend, parentheses Flashlight Guy, wasn't close enough to have done it to this day. They still get quiet and uncomfortable when we talk about it.

That it's a wild, wild thing, and I think that sort of stuff is fun and you know. But also I'm glad I'm in the comfort of my own home, and it's just it's a big enigma.

And I kind of hope that they make a movie out of it, maybe I got to make that movie.

So I figured, because there's so many different stories and different interpretations, I think that's how you structure the movie. It's just maybe these different tales, almost analogous, juxtaposed, almost pulp fiction style, culminating into, like, Cuba Road. And what the singular thing happening there, and what everybody thinks they saw or didn't see?

That's ours.

I know.

You'll hear from me Laura Beale, reporter and host of the Dr. Death podcast, along with our panel of experts and whistleblowers. It's hosted by suspects Matthew Scherr. It's an important evening with one of the most iconic true crime podcasts of all time.

Don't miss your chance to be part of the conversation. Exhibit C Live presents Dr. Death A Closer look. Tickets go on sale August 9th, so get your truest true crime fans together and get tickets before they sell out.

Well, should we go on to some random listener tales? Hell yeah, brother, we'll tell you some tales.

It says, What's up you wonderful weirdos? My name is Sarah, spelled the correct way, with no extra C strenuous consonants. Little winky face. I love the pod and have been skipping around the episodes for the last several months.

I've never been much into true crimes, into the true crime genre, but decided to give it a go when your podcast was recommended to me by a coworker. I love spooky shit, but tend to gravitate more towards ghost stories and paranormal type things rather than true crime. Because, honestly, the real life shit is way more terrifying, because real life or real death accurate, and it freaks me out. I don't always have nightmares, but when I do, it's the kind where you can't distinguish between dreaming and being awake.

Yes, I said that, like the world's most interesting man from the Dos Equis commercials, stay spooky. My friends will do anyway. I've been listening for a while. But the heebie-jeebies got the better of me and I had to take a break after having a nightmare involving Richard Ramirez. That's right.

The night stalker decided to stalk his way into my dreams one night recently and proceeded to chase me through the halls and classrooms of the high school where I currently teach. I don't love that for you, being a teacher in these times is scary enough. I don't need some psycho killer thrown into the mix, sheesh.

And you are right, being a teacher is scary enough now, and we appreciate you. They don't pay me enough to deal with that level of bullshittery. And you would think that the terror would stop there. But plot twist My mother decides to make an appearance in the scholastic Hellscape.

My subconscious has elegantly designed and is waiting in my classroom to convince me to sit down with Mr. Ramirez for a nice chat. Because he is, and I quote, a lovely young man. Excuse me while I schedule an emergency session with my therapist because I feel like there's a lot to unpack here. So, needless to say, I stepped away from the pod for all of about, uh, 24 hours, eh?

What can I say? Y'all are just too good at what you do. No need to fully hold onto your butts, but maybe make sure they are secure in case we encounter any turbulence. I'm quite proud of the fact that I've lived most of my life free from supernatural, natural encounters.

It's somewhat of an achievement, considering I grew up in uber-rural Georgia and spent a few years of my young life involved in a Pentecostal church. Where belief in the supernatural is very real. Think, speaking in tongues, spirit, possession, all that sort of carrying on anywho after graduating high school in Way Back Times 2006, that's vintage.

I'm 2004 so.

Stabbed right in the chest. I attended Carson Newman College in another rural town in the foothills of the Appalachian, or Appalachian mountains. Which one is it? I think we've been told more often that it's Appalachian. I'm going to go with that, because I think that is, yeah, Appalachian.

I had a softball scholarship. Not super relevant except to denote my tough girl status into late-blooming lesbianhood and subsequent detachment from my ultra-conservative religious upbringing. Shrug, shrug. All female athletes were housed in Butler Hall, named for the late Bertie Maples Butler. It's a grandiose three-story brick dormitory, complete with classical Grecian facade. Oh, that sounds beautiful.

That does. I was just thinking that. And in the lobby of the dorm hung Bertie's portrait see the first attached image, and they put an image of him.

Note the creep factor of the eyes. Bertie is a woman, or I meant her, Sorry, so old Bert, there she is.

There's Bertie, very regal, Bertie, gorgeous, gorgeous, girly, so old. Bert, a former graduate and faculty member of the college, had made a sizable contribution towards the construction of the dormitory in the early 50s. Apparently, bestowing a ludicrous amount of cash to an institute of higher learning is enough to get your name on a building, but not enough to have a say in the location of said building. Because the brilliant minds behind the construction decided it was a fine idea to plop a girl's dormitory in the front yard of an old-as-fuck cemetery.

Uh-oh. Sidebar It is not a fine idea. side sidebar. I'm still convinced there are graves under the foundation of the dorm.

Side side, sidebar. The threat of dead bodies didn't deter my friends and me from sledding down the cemetery hill behind the dorm on cafeteria trays. Oh my god. Also, the dorm shares a property line with an abandoned hospital. Insert heebie-jeebies.

So when I moved into Butler Hall, my freshman year, I managed to snag a sweet suite on the first floor of the East wing of the building, room 118.

Most residents lived on the east wing floors because the west halls were always vacant. And we were told a myriad of reasons why mold, electrical issues, plumbing problems, hauntings, etc. I love that it goes from mold, electrical, plumbing hauntings, you know?

What have you throw that in there? Well, naturally, the little asterisk about hauntings caught my attention. And after some light reading through the annals of the college's history, I discovered that many of these stories that cropped up over the decades featured the ghost of the one and only Bertie Maples Butler.

Gasp. But it really wasn't too big a deal because no one lived in those halls, right? Well, sort of. A few years before I arrived. A fraternity on campus had managed to obtain permission to host an annual haunted house in those abandoned halls of Butler Dorm. That was actually quite surprising, because Carson Newman is a conservative Baptist school. And this particular haunted house, dubbed Frightmare Manor, was not some light-hearted, cheap-ass carnival funhouse.

I'm talking scenes of demonic, conjuring, dismemberment, gore in abundance, chicken gizzards and livers, sign-a-waiver type haunted house. Damn, that's wild. Complete with gallons of rather tasty, albeit realistic, fake blood concocted from Hershey's syrup, peanut butter for texture, corn syrup and red food dye. That's interesting.

Sounds like a good combo. We smelled like Reese's cups for weeks. I say, we. Because as soon as I heard about the open cast call, I decided to participate as an actor in The Haunt. And it was totally rad, or whatever the youths are saying these days, I think they still say rad.

I still say, rad.

Aside from the general creepiness of the scenes in The Haunt, there always seemed to be a presence that most of the actors, myself included, were aware of. Like something was watching us from just beyond the next shadow. And occasionally, we would catch drafts of icy wind blowing down the corridors. Despite the fact that the AC units on that side of the building had not worked in years. Yep, you bet I noped my Reese's cup ass right out of there as soon as the haunt closed for the night.

Heebies and geebies galore. I thought, for sure, I'd be rid of those heebie-jeebies once the haunting season ended. And I went back to my comfy heebie-jeebie-free zone on the East Hall. Nice wish you, naive childs. I didn't say that she did that. Christmas, in keeping with the spirit of the season, I decided to help decorate the lobby of the dorm.

Remember the creepy portrait of Dear Sweet Birdie? Yeah, I hadn't forgotten her either. And after a night of good, wholesome Baptist College beer pong, my jolly, inebriated self thought, Hmm, this old lady looks a little too scroogey. Let's deck her halls.

Uh-oh, so I promptly cut out a quick Santa Claus hat and beard and taped that shit to the glass with the confidence of Pablo, Motherfuckin Picasso. Had iPhones existed at the time, you best believe I would've plastered my handiwork all over the gram. I stumbled my way back to my room, pleased as could be, and filled with dare I say, Christmas spirit, and promptly passed the fuck out.

We only had a few weeks left before Christmas break. And every time I walked past Birdie's portrait, I got a good laugh at the ridiculous decorations, but that was the wrong thing to do. I had a feeling I don't think Birdie's gonna like this, you don't lol at Birdie, okay?

Birdie just has that vibe that you don't lol at Birdie, No. About three weeks after my little craftcapade, the Spooky started, this portrait looked something like the second image after I added my festive decor. I can't talk.

Here's the second one.

Birdie Santa Claus Edition. Mind you, I didn't have a roommate at the time because the girl who had been my roomie got a promotion to RA on the second floor and moved out. Which fist pump the air? Heck, yeah, I'll take the solo room, that's gonna be sweet. Bwahaha. Oh my sweet innocent summer, self shaking my head.

That night, upon the stroke of you guessed it, 3am, I was rudely awakened by distorted, muffled screams coming from the massive 20-inch box TV on my dresser. The same massive 20-inch TV that I had turned off prior to going to bed, and whose remote control rested peacefully on my desk, five or six feet away from the bed where I sat. Now, rigid and heart racing, confused as fuck. The white static illuminated the room just enough for me to see my way over to the desk and retrieve the remote to turn the TV back off. It took a few minutes, but I managed to fall back asleep, still too disoriented to think clearly about the incident.

So she just woke up to, like blood-curdling screams and static on her TV, and she was like, Eh, okay, see you later. A good night's rest is important, I guess. So, all right.

I played softball, but I was so good.

I don't like that. Only this time, the closet light was on. No, no. Now I'm someone who requires complete darkness to go to sleep because ADHD be fucking around when there's any kind of illumination.

Dumb. So I don't sleep with any kind of light on. And the closet was on the opposite side of the room from my bed, and again, the TV remote was on the desk. This time, I managed to gain some modicum of mental coherence to weakly vocalize what the actual fuck is happening. And as the last syllable passed by my lips, the closet light clicked off. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, as though whatever or whoever was saying, Oh my bad bro, I forgot you were asleep.

Let me get the lights for you, let me get the lights for you. That would have freaked me out so bad. I feel like that was just like fucking around with her. I would have loved if she actually heard from the closet.

Oh my bad, bro, like I forgot you were asleep. Let me get the lights. I would have changed this story.

Of course, salt and burn the bones. Brilliant. Or would have been if I fancied desecrating Bertrude's final resting place, which I did not good, good and actually had no idea where it was actually located.

Even better, I love how that was just like, Yes, I will just burn the bones and salt them, it'll be fine. So I spent the next few nights anticipating her return to my room and, sure enough, 3am on the nose TV, static closet light and oh, lovely. The mini fridge is now opening on its own, like Birdie is rooting around for a snack. Something about that is really funny.

A mini fridge, just like opening and closing by itself. I like that visual, I like that that one doesn't feel as threatening. No, it's that just feels silly.

It's because it's small, yeah, it's small.

I love snacks, looking for a snack? We got hummus, we got carrots. Help yourself.

Let me know what you want me to stock in there, I'll do it. Just leave a post-it, exactly.

I don't know if that was quite the way you wanted to go about that. Yeah, that was mean and swear to dog. In the midst of the static buzzing from the TV, I hear Santa Claus is coming to town, she said. Get that hat off of my GD portrait right now. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I had just shat the portrait. Birdie apparently was not a fan of her jolly old saint Nick get-up and decided to seek retribution by freaking me the fuck out until I removed it. So I scooted my flannel-clad ass out the door, down the hall and skidded to halt in front of the damn portrait. Ripping off the construction paper, hat and beard in one sweeping yoink. I love that they did it that night.

They're like, You know what I got you girl? I'm not waiting, I'll take care of this. I trashed the offending paper and tape and slumped away to my room, the eyes of Birdie Maples Butler burning into my retreating backside.

Bertrude I peered cautiously around the doorframe, into my room, into my utter amazement and relief. The TV was off, the closet light was out and no sound nor sign of any disturbance could be detected. Birdie had left the building, well, not really the building, but at least she had returned to the West wing, seemingly appeased.

But there was a little post-it on the fridge that said, Get more oreos.

I never heard anything else out of Birdie in my remaining time at Carson Newman. But I also never looked that portrait in the eye again, though, I could still feel her chilly gaze follow me anytime I passed through the lobby. So that's it. I apologize for the lengthiness, but what can I say? We English teachers are a loquacious bunch.

Oh, I like that word, I love that word.

Bye, that was a good one, that was impressive, that was really impressive.

But um.

A Bertrude portrait. I love it.

I like how Southern you got there. I know whatever, man. Those were both fantastic and I loved them. It felt right.

Well, our next one is ListenerTale's Haunted Roads. The time I let my teenagers talk me into dumb shit. And I noped the fuck out of Hatchet Man Road, Michigan, why did you yes the fuck into Hatchet Man Road in the first place? Yeah, that's absolutely terrifying. I would have always noped out of there.

Me, too, it says, Hello ladies, here is my listenertale of the time I let my teenage daughters talk me into doing something I knew better than to do. And saw a demon ghost girl and had to nope the fuck out of there. Please excuse the bad grammar and punctuation.

When I started this, I had a cold and my eardrum ruptured as well. Oh, that's fucking awful, that's horror. That's my biggest fear. I think I get a new, biggest fear anytime somebody tells us something awful.

There it is. I kept myself busy for a small time doing this. Still not tech-savvy? Yeah, no, still not tech-savvy. So I did make you a putt-a-fuh, but I didn't know how to double-space it.

I did make it a size 14 font for your viewing pleasure, though, so just know I tried and we appreciate you and this is perfect. I think it is double-spaced. Hello ladies.

My name is Amber, and yes, you can say my name, you can also use my teenagers names. Because if you read this on the pod, we will all just shit ourselves, just poop everywhere.

I'm so sorry, not a good visual, Amber.

Thanks, we started listening to your pod during the pandemic. I had never listened to podcasts before and you were the second one I'd found and I was hooked. Then they'd listen to it with me in the car, and soon me listening without them would hurt feelings because they loved you just as much as I did.

I love that, thank you guys. Listener tales are their favorite, and they've been begging me to send this in for a couple months. So I'm finally taking the time to do it. Hell yeah. So when I was a teenager, I grew up living about a mile from the creek.

This was the road, or this was a road that the pavement ended on, and about a mile up was a one-lane bridge that was over. A small cold creek, the creek, the creek. It was definitely not the most perfect area to smoke pot and underage drink the couple of beers that we'd hidden from our parents during the week.

Nope, as far as my kids are concerned, their mother was a perfect angel who would have never done things like that. And that's definitely not why they never would get away with anything. Because I had never been there, nor have I ever done that. Of course, you have not, no me either.

I believe that, no way, Jose never. Now. Fast forward to last summer, when I was talking to an old friend from that time period. And she said something about Hatchet Man Road and I'm like, where?

And she says The Creek Amber, that place we used to hang out at, is one of the most haunted roads in Michigan. Looking back, we'd never been there at night, except one time when my brother's car broke down. It just wouldn't start, so we ended up walking home. And as it got dark, I had been terrified.

I chalked it up to just being scared of the dark and my brother trying to scare me. So I, of course, tell my kids about it. During one of their sleepovers, where they're all trying to scare each other, I tell them about how the man was scared of the apocalypse, built a bomb shelter where he made them all live. Until he slowly went mad. Then, trying to spare his family of what he believed was coming, he murdered all of them with a hatchet and then killed himself.

Damn, that's dark, and I love that you told that story at a sleepover. I know I love it. Nighty night kids.

Bye. This turned into all four of them begging me to take them on a drive down Hatchet Man Road. Those are some cool kids, I love those kids and you're a cool mom.

At first I said, no, but let's face it, I'm kind of a pushover and I love all the spooky things. And I've definitely created these monsters of mine, so I cave and I tell them all to load up. I feel that Hatchet Man Road is still only a hop, skip and a jump away from where I live now. So it didn't take long for all of us to pull onto the dirt side of the road and come to a stop.

Just a pause so I could roll down the windows and turn off the radio to set the mood. While Alexis started recording on my phone and placed it back in the mount. It was fun, creeping at all of about six miles an hour and hearing all the cracks and breaks of the twigs and the chirping of the crickets. I'm there. I planned on trying to scare my kids like a good parent would, of course.

Asking if they saw that while actually seeing nothing, and if they heard that while knowing it was just their own heavy breathing. You know, just character building. I love you, Amber, I do too. My oldest daughter, Alexis, who's 16, was sitting in the front with me, while my middle daughter Ashlyn, 15, was in the back with two friends.

I can't wait for this with my kids. Oh my God, I can't wait until they're like 15 and 16 and I can do this stuff. If you don't pick me up on the way, you're fake. Of course I will.

Let's go. So Lex started doing the normal talk to the ghosties, asking if anyone was there. If they were, and if they wanted to talk to us, they could, but there was nothing much. So we come up to the creek and I pull over so they can get out for a minute and goof off.

I get out with them and friend number one starts telling us that she's had some medium experiences and that she's sensitive. The other girls, mainly Lex, started rolling their eyes at her. So, of course, I, being the sensitive that I am, tried to validate her. When we all just got a terrible feeling and heard the loudest woman scream from the woods, No.

I'm unsure of the kids at this point, but me being the whole ass adult that I'm supposed to be at 35, stomach dropped. And I had zero issue at that point leaving a child. If they did not get into the car fast enough, I will leave your ass, you better get in this car, we are leaving.

So as we all fumbled over each other, tripping and getting into the car. We rolled up the windows and locked the doors. Because, you know, ghosts can't get in if the doors are locked. Of course, not, that's the rules, I know, right? As we flipped around and started to head out, friend number two and Ash were giggling in the backseat about how she almost lost a shoe.

And what on earth was that scream when friend number one grabbed my seat and said, There's a little girl and she's crying? No, I'd be out of there, out of the car, out of the car, tuck and roll, baby.

Yeah, no, I just got all quiet because, uh, fuck that. indeed, fuck that. oh my god, that's absolutely terrifying.

Sorry, I lost my place. I would have literally if she said that, I would have just turned around and been like, Fuck that, absolutely fuck that. But then Alexis turned and looked at her all mean and says, You're full of it, you're the only one saying those things.

To make yourself feel cool, I hit the brakes and was just like, What's wrong with you? And why would you say that? Lex says. If there's really a ghost, make yourself known right now. I bet you won't, though, cause you're just a giant pussy.

Oh damn, my jaw hit the floor, friend number one said, with a shaking voice. Says, Lexi, stop, you don't say things like that. She went full.

Send she's good, I even chime in and tell her to stop. We were just trying to have fun and now she was turning into a real jerk. She then started to throw her 16 year old teenage attitude around.

And I just looked at her and said, That's it, we're going home, we're done. You're being mean to the ghost, No.

I tell the kids to make sure that they're buckled and apologize again. To friend number one, who's visibly shaken and pale. Alexis isn't a jerk like that. She loves all her friends, she's a really sweet, caring and compassionate kid. It was at this exact moment I went to turn the phone recording off.

When I looked at my phone that was pointed in front of the car, my blood ran cold or hot. I don't actually recall if I knew the exact temperature, but I know that I couldn't feel my legs. I couldn't even talk. I had just hand nudged Alexis and she started freaking out, and soon all the girls in the car were shrieking.

It was all I could do to reach up and push in the two buttons that screenshot. In the trees. You could see the perfect little image of a little girl with long hair hanging around her face. Just past her shoulders and in one of her hands was a teddy bear. I would pedal to the metal out of there.

Goodbye see you never straight up little girl with a with a teddy bear, teddy bear makes it real, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, no, I don't like that. No, no, no, no, no. And then, like part of me would want to make sure that it was like, not a real little girl.

It's just like, hung up in the trees. Yeah, oh, I hate it, I don't like it, I don't like it.

So I look from the phone to the actual trees and there's nothing. Okay, well, I guess you checked. Now it's time to leave, but I look back at the camera and she's still fucking there.

No, it's one of those things where you can't believe your own eyes open, close them, rub them, it doesn't go away, so it almost paralyzes you.

But there she was, standing in the trees, you could feel her, or no, no, no, sorry. You could see her from head, from her head to her feet. Black hair and a white knee length gown with the teddy hanging from her hand. Her eyes were all you could make of her facial features.

And it was the darkest, blackest holes I've ever seen. It's Samara. I literally hate this, David, I don't like it. Oh, once I came back to the realization of what was going on and gathered my bearings, with teenagers screaming on all sides of me. I hit the gas and very, very vocally said, fucking no, fuck that.

No fucking way. We were no longer doing six miles an hour to get the actual fuck out of there. We were actually levitating, we took flight. It was weird.

All of a sudden, we were just flying. In this moment, I no longer wanted to be the adult, I wanted my bed, my safe and my warm bed. The one that has my big, 230 pound burly husband in it. The same husband who probably would have said no and stuck with no. Because even though he's not the responsible one in the relationship, he is not going to go ghost hunting with teenagers at midnight.

Nope, that was my dumb ass choice. So we finally get to the pavement. The whole mile we had to drive out, feeling like an absolute eternity, and I head towards our house. It was a quiet ride until about halfway there.

Lex turns to friend number one and says, I'm really sorry I acted like that back there. I honestly don't know why I did. I just felt so angry and frustrated. And she says back to her, That's okay, it wasn't you?

It was him making you feel that way.

And I just can't wait to get home and change my underwear that I'm pretty sure I've shat myself in. We pull into the driveway, where we get out once again, tripping over each other to get into the house. Ash immediately grabbed the sage. Yeah, I did, and lit it.

Lex started mirroring the phone to the TV so we could all watch the video that we'd just taken. I went into my husband, still shaky and not exactly sure if I could feel my legs yet. Walking up to him, telling him he needed to come out and watch this. So as we all sit there and watch the recording, there is nothing. The screenshot I took where the girl was, you can only see the blackness of where her eyes were, but that's it.

So we all went to bed with four teenage girls sleeping on our bedroom floor because they were too scared to sleep alone. Now I don't scare easily, I never really have. When I started, I was sensitive earlier. I just always know if a house is haunted or not, just from walking into it.

I've cleaned houses since I was a kid with my mom because she owned her own cleaning business. And doing what we would call the empties, I'd walk into a good handful and know I was not alone. There's a couple of great stories from the ghost, who would slam doors and turn the lights off while I was in the room. But would stop if I sang along to my MP3 player. Or the one where I went to walk into the basement and was so overcome with dread, I refused to go all the way down the stairs, so while I was vacuuming, the hose came undone three times.

The third time I was watching it, and at eight months pregnant, noped the fuck out of there. But this is a road of, this is a road tales, so I'll save those for a later date. Hopefully by then I'll have another ghost story. Because I just moved into a house that was built in 1900 on a hill with a giant front porch overlooking the city, where I can drink tea and glare. With a cemetery as its backyard, it really is just a witchy kind of perfect.

Hell yeah, it sounds like it anyways, keep it weird, but not so weird that you think it'll be fun to go on a midnight haunted adventure with a bunch of teenage girls and realize that you see a little demon, ghost girl. And you no longer want to be the adult anymore, and you nope yourself all the way home.

Amber That was so freaky.

Damn Amber.

Yeah, I'd take the orbs over the little Teddy Bear girl any day. oh, the Teddy bear girl I don't like, and the deep black eyes out. I hate it.

It's a scary thing, I am not into it, I don't like it.

It was him, and it's like, we never got further explanation on that. Was it the hatchet man? Maybe it was the hatchet man?

I think it could have been.

So good, I think that's probably all we have time for today. Yeah, I got to go pick up my kids and take them to a haunted road. Yeah, we're going haunted shopping. Bitches get in.

Let's go well, John, thank you so much for coming on and thank you for bringing stories with you too.

And also, Ash and Alayna are always very gracious about sharing it on their Instagram stories as well. So if you don't see it on mine, you'll see it on theirs, but at some point you'll see it because we love you guys.

But not so weird that you go ghost. No, I think you should keep it so weird. go ghost hunting and experience terrible things. Keep it this weird. Hell yeah.

Yeah, bye guys bye.

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