DARKER THINGS THAN MAN: The Possession of Reuben Grundy

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Weirdos. I'm Darren Marler and this is Weird Darkness.
Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore,
the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained.
Coming up in this episode, I have a creepypasta for

(00:30):
you from Julian j Alexander called Things Darker than Man.
Now Bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights,
and come with me into the weird Darkness. It was

(00:58):
three am July seventeenth, two thousand and four, when I
found myself outside the site of the seventh murder in
four weeks. My partner, Jim McAllister and I had been
the first responders to this particular incident, the first two
to survey the carnage before the forensics team and clean
up crew made it to the scene. We'd followed a

(01:19):
twisted breadcrumb trail of broken glass, debris and blood up
to the master bedroom, where we found the mutilated body
of the occupant, torn in half and adorned with tattered
linen and ruby tinged goose feathers. Her name was Sally McMahon.
She was a seventy four year old woman who according

(01:40):
to her neighbors lived alone and seldom had any visitors.
There was no reason for anyone to have so much
as let their dog run amok through her garden, let
alone kill her. It's here we were. We'd ruled out
the idea of it being an animal attack after the
first victim's post mortem, local farmer who we found torn

(02:01):
to pieces in his ransacked kitchen. Initially we'd put it
down to being a bear or even a particularly aggressive wolf,
but that was before us spooked sounding forensic pathologist from
the local hospital called in to Sheriff Alverson's office to
gravely relate to us that the bite marks found on
the farmer's body thoroughly baffling. Allegedly, the corpse was covered

(02:27):
with human teeth marks, and more alarmingly, teeth marks that
were deemed unrecognizable. We had all hoped that the following incidents,
when they happened, wouldn't turn out the same way that
they were animal attacks, or that the post mortem would
yield different results. Of course, even by this seventh murder,

(02:51):
some officers who were on the scene were still throwing
around the idea that these were all just the work
of one very aggravated bear. I've been standing outside the house,
taking long, frequent drags on a cigarette and listening to
the chatter of the other officers as the faulty street
light above me played a fierce tug of war with

(03:13):
the night. The detective assigned to the case, Donald Evans,
emerged in the doorway and began to walk toward me,
his face ashen even in the model to orange and glow.
Officer Lemansky auh call me, Mikhail, I said, extending my
hand out to shake his Your Detective Evans, Right, yeah,

(03:36):
that's me my understanding that you were one of the
first responders. That's right, I said, my words muffled by
the smoke that exited my mouth in a ghostly wisp.
I get these incidents are uncommon around these parts, to
say the least, But I need you to tell me
if you were Officer mc callister noticed any details that

(03:57):
stood out from the other crime scenes. I forced my
mind to delve back into the last hour and a half.
Jim and I had entered the house at around three
ten am, firstly noticing an upturned cabinet and broken glass
strown at the bottom of the staircase. Upon reaching the landing,

(04:17):
we found yet more ravaged furniture and broken glass, and
more than that, a thick crimson trail of blood that
led into the master bedroom. My mind drew a blank.
It was gruesome, but nothing that really stands out from
the handprints. There were handprints on the ceiling, I said,

(04:40):
but Evans nearly choked. There were bloody handprints on the
walls and on the floor, but there were some of
the ceiling too. You sure they were handprints? Evans stammered,
sure as I am. That we're having this conversation right now.
Bloody handprints pronounced too. Wasn't like the purp we're with
a victim up there or anything like that. You can

(05:02):
go and check for yourself. I how did Evans jogged
back to the house and disappeared up the stairs. I
looked over at Jim, who had been sitting on the
hood of the car and staring into space ever since
the forensics team had got there. The case was weighing
on him. I could tell with each passing incident he

(05:22):
grew quieter. His mind was on something, though. The handprints
on the ceiling had thoroughly frightened and confused the hell
out of me. All the murders up until this point
had been grizzly, but none had really possessed any anomalous details,
aside from the lack of fingerprints and the bizarre teeth marks,

(05:43):
both of which we were all used to by now.
I was about to attempt to make conversation with Jim
when Evans rushed back out of the house. He looked
even more somber than he had before, almost sickly. You
were right about the handprints. We're going to take samples
and see if we can identify the purpeture from that.
He almost sounded choked up right. I didn't have much

(06:06):
hope for that. No attempts at DNA fingerprinting or blood
sampling had progressed the case at all in the last
three weeks. The forensics team are saying, are saying that
the corpses covered in BikeE marks human. Probably we'll have
to wait for the post mortem. Could still turn out different.
We don't know yet. We knew, We knew all too well.

(06:30):
Evan spoke with the same vain expectation that the other
local officers did. It was becoming apparent that there was
no way to downplay this as something less serious than
it was there was a person out there doing this,
someone who was savagely butchering people seemingly without reason. These
were serial killings, yet the words serial killer had yet

(06:52):
to be used by our sheriff or even Detective Evans.
Ian McAllister can head home, Evans said, defeat, lurking beneath
his authoritative tone. Spent a long night, and the forensics
team will be here for a while. I wished Evan's
good luck in the hunt for any further evidence. In
motion to Jim to get in the car, I looked

(07:14):
back at the house as I turned the vehicle at
the end of the street, knowing that soon the dawn
would pull the obsidian shroud from the street and the
townspeople would awaken to yet more unanswered questions. A week later,

(07:39):
my exhausted brain was jump started one slow morning by
a phone call whilst I was at my desk. I
didn't recognize the number. Mikhail Lemanski. Who must speak into him.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Missus Elle Torman from each over, Harold. I was wondering
if you had any additional information on the ongoing in
thea into the string of murders and torto.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Her words were a shot of adrenaline then went straight
to my head.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
I or perhaps any clarifying comments on today's story that
could make into a later publication.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
How the hell did you know about this? How did
you get this number? I barked sternly.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Three days ago received detailed information about a series of healings.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
At I hear read the newspapers and author as if
on c The most recent copy of that Jefferson Herald
was slammed down in front of me by the exasperated
Sheriff Alberson. The bold headline perched arrogantly atop to cheap,
fragile paper, terror and torton the Sawny Bean murderers. I

(08:42):
looked up at Alverson's scowl and then spoke into the phone. Ah,
excuse me for one minute. I ended the call immediately
and set the phone down. I perused the article with
growing disgust, already put off by the tasteless reference to
the Scottish cannibal in the headline it read. In the
early hours of July seventeenth, Jefferson County police were called

(09:05):
to the scene of a suspected home invasion, only to
be met with a grisly discovery. The mutilated cannibalized body
of Sally McMahon seventy four. This is said to be
the seventh and a string of similar horrific incidents that
the authorities have been keeping quiet as not to frighten
the citizens of Torquden. Looking further down the page, I

(09:26):
saw my last name appear as well as Jim's. I
looked up at Sheriff Alverson in shock. What the hell
is this? I exclaimed. Alverson's steely gaze persisted. I was helping,
you'd know, he said dryly. My mind raced. I never
told the press anything. I know. This is the kind

(09:46):
of stuff that they loved to sink their teeth into,
especially round here when nothing happens. And the thought popped
into my head. Jim he left his gun and badge
on Alverson's desk the day after the seventh killing, and
no one had been able to contact him since then.
I couldn't think of anyone else would have tipped off
the press about this whole ordeal. There's no one else

(10:09):
the scene, no matter how harold, have been quite as
out of their minds as Jim was. Seemed like the
ever irate sheriff had read my mind. You think it
was mc allister looks that way. The only other person
who would have been liable to let any information escape
the scene was the lady who called it in. We

(10:29):
made a point not to give her all the details
after finding out about the bite marks. We spared those
details from past witnesses too well. No one in this
precinct has heard from him since last week's incident, and
no one's been able to contact him. Is he married, Lemansky?
The sheriff asked, now kids girlfriend? He lives alone? Sheriff,

(10:49):
I said, my voice, descending into an unimpressed monotone. Yeah,
Jim had just up and left. His personality been melting
away ever since the case was opened. It wasn't like
him at all. But Alverson was, and it always had been,
an uptight, neglectful son of a bitch. In the eighty

(11:09):
years that I'd worked here, he'd never once bet a
real effort to get to know me, or any of
the officers for that matter, despite the fact that he
had very little else to do. Perhaps he had a
chip on his shoulder because he was laid off from
a big shot position in Seattle or something, But it's
not like his dismissive, cold self whatever tell me that story.

(11:31):
I knew what I was about to come out of
his mouth. By Lamanski, you know the duf better than
anybody else here. So if I was on you to
pull him out of wherever he's holed up and talk
to him with all due respect Sheriff, I said, almost
gagging on my words. What would I even say to him?
The papers have already printed, Alferson, cut me off. You

(11:52):
tell me whatever you gotta tell him. Have him head
down to the Jefferson Herald and tell them that forensics
screwed up and that it was an animal attack. I
can't add of these jerks making us look like we
ain't hadling this. So they're gonna pull that stupid headline
right now. This is a quiet town and I don't
want those Hoover boys down here cannibalism. Alverson was perhaps

(12:13):
the only human being in the world who still used
the term Hoover Boys to describe the FBI after nineteen
sixty nine. There was a joke about his ever so
confidently spoken, out dated lingo amidst the officers. Unbeknownst to him,
A shot up from my desk, unwilling to tolerate the unanswered,
what ifs of the situation, Sheriff, what if they don't

(12:36):
pull the headline? What happens then? What if they don't
retract their statements. Alverson, ever angry, stared at me with
an expression that suggested that he was about to blow
his top again. He shook his head as his mind
at tempted to come up with some kind of solution. Right,
we interview every single man, no, every single person above

(12:56):
the age of sixteen at Tortdin. We get officers out there,
go on door to door, demanded mandatory questioning for every
man or a woman, boy and girl about sixteen years.
They can tell anyone who refuses that they'll be immediately
put down as a suspect. I can't. I cannot have
the local people think that we ain't handling this. It
was all to do with how we appeared, not what

(13:18):
we were actually doing. Bastard. Sure, it mattered that the
people are torked and felt like we were confident and
assured in the way that we were dealing with things.
But the fact of the matter was we weren't handling it,
not at all. We were taking blind swings at an
invisible assailant, and he had us all scared sheriff, I

(13:41):
began go find McCallister. He grumbled. I pondered arguing for
a second, then decided that there's no way I was
gonna win this fight, all right. I tried contacting Jim
earlier in the week, to no avail, so I knew
my only real option was to to his place, that is,
if he hadn't packed all his belongings together and jumped

(14:05):
on the next plain to the east coast. As Alverson
saught evacuous office, I hurriedly tidied the small mess of
papers on my desk and headed out to the blot
opting to take my own car instead of one of
the precincts vehicles. I felt a weight upon my shoulders,
as though the thick, humid air was pressing down on me.

(14:28):
Jim's sudden absence was simply another rung on this ladder
of stress. I was already thinking NonStop about what I
had seen and when I'd once again find myself staring
at another grisly picture just like it. The rain clouds
began to spit as I drove through the downtown area,

(14:48):
The dark gray forms harbingers of an oncoming thunderstorm. Jim
lived in an apartment complex about four miles away from
the station, fairly close to the edge of town and
far enough away from the center for very few cares
to be given about any renovations that it may have needed.
I'd only ever been there once to drop Jim off

(15:08):
when his car was in for repairs, but it wasn't
hard to find. The rain hammered down aggressively on the
exterior of my car, the relentless metallic banging making me
feel as though I was trapped inside a tin can
at a shooting range. I pulled into the parking lot
and grabbed an anorak that had slipped from the seat
to the foothold in the back of the car, thinking

(15:30):
of what exactly I'd say to Jim. That was, of course,
if he hadn't locked himself in his bathroom, and well,
you know, that was not an idea that I was
particularly fond of entertaining. I exited my car and walked
briskly to the door of the apartment, dialing his room
number into the panel by the door, and hitting call

(15:51):
as the rain lapped hungrily at my shoes. Jim, it's
pekale if you're in there, open up. I'm not here
to drag you back down for son, just here to talk.
Nothing came through the receiver. Looking across the lone, I
saw Jim's car parked in the looming shadow of a
pine tree. I tried calling again, this time trying to

(16:14):
sound noticeably irritated. And you know you're in there. Man.
It's been a crap week for everybody who's on that case.
But I got to talk to you. Besides, it's coming
down out here and I'm cold as all hell. Open
the door. The receiver crackled suddenly, and her voice spilled
from the speaker.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
I come man, Yeah, come on up.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
I pulled the door open and wasted no time in
bothering myself with the elevator. I dashed up the stairs
to the second floor and marched down the corridor to
his room. The door was opened slightly, the dead bolt
resting on the frame. I barely even rapped on the
door twice before Jim pulled it open, his eyes wide
and a revolver in his right hand. Whoh hey. I

(17:00):
flinched and almost fell backwards at the side of the
weapon's moss, daring me in the face. Jim lowered it
and spoke through deep breaths and an apparent lump in
his throat. I had to make sure, as you, Mike,
you heard me on the whatever, I said, perplexed by
Jim's evidently rampant paranoia, but unwilling to make him feel
even more uncomfortable than he already was. It's me, man,

(17:23):
It's me. What the hell is this all about? I asked,
gesturing at the weapon. You better come in, he said.
I funneled Jim into his dimly lit apartment. I'd expected
it to be far messier than it actually was. There
was no takeout boxes littering the floor or sloppily stacked
up on top of one another, and no offensive smells

(17:45):
emanated from the kitchen. Jim had clearly been drinking, however.
On his coffee table sat a quarter full bottle of
cognac next to a cheap looking whiskey glass. How long
you been working on that, asked with a spiritless chuckle.
A couple of days, I guess strong stuff. You want
any This word swayed like a tree in the breeze.

(18:09):
I'm good. I'm gonna be frank with you, Jim. I
came here from the station. That's all the newspaper, and
Alverson needs you to get in touch with the Jefferson
Harold and tell them to pull that headline. Screw Alverson.
Those were not words spoken by the liquid voice in
his blood. They were assured, steady, and serious. Screw Alverson

(18:31):
and all of his callous crap. He's handled this about
as well as a blind shrew and a knife fight.
I wouldn't even dream of bringing what I found out
to him because I beg in jail before i'd even
get the whole story out. And believe you me, Mike,
I found some stuff out. I found some stuff out.
What'd you find out? I asked, bewildered. You gotta think

(18:52):
I'm just a drunk ass who snapped at the side
of too many spilled the internal organs. But you're my
closest friend here and I trust you gonna to me.
I'm listening, I said. Firstly, yeah, I did give the
Herald that information, and there's no way in hell I'm
having them pull the story. No, what's safe here, and
they need to know what's going on so that they

(19:13):
can take as many precautions as they can. The killer
has no connections to any of the victims. Anyone could
be the next casualty. Hold on, you think you know
who the killer is? He gave me a steally sincere look.
My blood ran cold, as disbelief flooded my veins. Jim
was completely serious. Somewhere inside my head, logic and fantasy

(19:37):
were locked in a fierce duel, and fantasy was winning. Jim,
I said, through nervous breaths, do you know who the
killer is? If you do, how the hell did you
find out. I'm not a detective, Mike, I'm barely a
police officer, but I think I might actually have some idea.

(19:58):
Go on, Jim pored himself another shallow glass at Cognac.
I used to frequent a bar downtown, the Foxhole. You know,
there was a retired old park ranger who'd always be
there on Friday nights, and he had a catalog of
stories from his time. We'd all sit around and listen
to him. One night, I want to say, about six

(20:20):
months ago, he told a story that he said was
his last call before he retired. It happened last year
went like this. The hiking party of about six people
got stranded in the deep woods in Mount Pilchuck State Park,
wandered off the trail by accident. I guess two of
the six people came back. Two a woman named a

(20:42):
Stelle Palmer and a man named Reuben Grundy. Grundy was
in a hell of a state when the rangers found them,
allegedly said that he had no idea where the other
four people had gone, that they'd wandered off into the night.
Now here's where it gets even weirder. Palmer said that
the night before they'd been found, there were still three

(21:02):
of them another man. I think Palmer had been in
and out of sleep and swore that she saw Grundy
follow the other guy into the woods when he is
gonna piss or something. The man never came back, but
Grundy did ten minutes later. She said he looked different, thinner, taller,
and insisted that he'd had blood all around his mouth.

(21:26):
She felt his overwhelming fear and just pretended like she
was asleep. Of course, the story was written off as
delirious rambling. Jim cleared his throat and took another swig.
Something about the story just kind of gave me a
genuine feeling, a dread that none of this guy's other
stories had quite done, then the old bastard puts the
cherry on top. A week later, the US Fourst Service

(21:49):
finds remains in the woods with what were presumed to
be human teeth marks on them, but they're so pulverized
that they can't place exactly who they were. Grundy and
Palmer both interviewed again, but nothing comes of it. Palmer
even tells the same story and says that she knows
what she saw, but they write it off again. I
told the man before closing time that night that he'd

(22:11):
scared the crap out of me, but well, I didn't
believe him. He just looked at me with this dead
pan expression and said, look it up, son. So I did,
and what do you know, it happened. Multiple different news
sources covered the story too. It happened. It's barely covered
on TV. Right I started, But Pilchuck State Park is huge.

(22:35):
Surrounding area is Reuben Grundy lives in Torton, Mike. He
owns a ranch. He fumbled around with a mess of
documents on the coffee table. Stell Palmer used to live
in Torkton too, literally a quarter mile down the road
from Crundy. She lived here her whole life by the
look at things. Are those police records? I asked. Jim

(22:57):
gave me an irritated side eye and continued. Point is,
after she came back from that expedition, she moved four
towns away, packed up and left it about a week,
sold the farmhouse she lived in to somebody who'd been
on her ass about buying it for years. Her childhood
honed from what I read. Whether or not Reuben Grundy
was responsible for those people disappearing, she saw something happen

(23:19):
in those woods that made it so she couldn't even
stand to be near him. Logic struggled onward in its
ongoing battle inside my brain. It's strained and strained, But
Superstition's blade was far too sharp. Maybe she was a
whack job, I said, you know what towny folk are like,
living the same place all their lives and clean bill

(23:41):
of mental health, Jim exclaimed, waving a crumpled medical record
in my face, clearly taken from a local clinic. No
history of schizophrenia, depression BPD, or even so much as
a panic attack, no prescribed to medications. It's entirely possible
that we could put what she saw down to hunger, deydration,
or on the off chance, maybe even the delayed effects

(24:03):
of a hallucinogenic trip. But the fact of the matter
is this woman up and left in the matter of
days after that incident. It's not like Torton's right next
door to Mount Pilchuck either. Jim dropped the medical records
to the floor and shakily pulled up another document. He
was excited or terrified or both. So look here, our

(24:26):
new address is in May Creek, Jim, Jim, you're chasing
a roller coaster of a story here. If we take
this to Alverson, he is gonna give us a whole
spiel about how we're idiots and then take it upon
himself to rehire me just so we can fire me.
We take it to Evans, and he's gonna think we're
on a wild goose chase because he's a guy who

(24:47):
deals with career criminals in Seattle and the odd home invasion.
He's probably been with the force for what two three years?
Face it, Mike, our higher ups are stuck scratching their
heads and we might actually have a lead. You know,
it sounds crazy. I know it's a long shot, and
it's dumb. Luck that I heard the story, but we
may have an actual suspect. In the moment, Jim's obsessive

(25:10):
joining of the dots had rendered me dumbfounded, unable to
think straight. So you're saying the killer is Reuben Grundy,
Jim blurted out. Maybe I'm just another drunk asshole who
wishes he was a big shot detective. And maybe I'm
completely wrong. But if there's even a chance that I'm right,
we have to do something, Jim out of point. Even

(25:34):
in the midst of his fanatical behavior, Alverson didn't care,
and Evans, despite leading the charge, was being eaten up
by his own fear. I saw it, screaming behind his eyes,
the Knight of Sally McMahon's murder. All right, what's the plan?
We visited Stelle Palmer in May Creek. We ask her

(25:54):
about Grundy. Jim said, through shaking breaths, what he was
like if he it seemed different during or after the
hiking trip. All that, Jazz, If we can convince her
to help us beyond just talking to us, then maybe
we actually have a chance of communicating at to de Evons.
Either that or she chases us out of the house.
With a double barrel for even asking, ever, the pessimist,

(26:20):
get some fresh clothes on, sober up, and we'll get
our asses to may Creek. Jim and I arrived at
a Stelle Palmer's residence in may Creek an hour later,
having backtracked along numerous roads due to the exhausted GPS

(26:43):
in my car. We parked across from Palmer's house, number
five Fairbank Street. The place was not at all what
I'd anticipated. I'd expected us to pull up next to
an overgrown lawn brimming with tall weeds and a crudely
arranged patio that led up to a dingy porch with
a grimy screen door. Perhaps there would have been a

(27:05):
sign hammered on the wall, made of plywood and scrawled
on it in red paint. Would have been the words
trespassers will be shot. There was nothing like that. If anything,
it was not unlike any of the other idellic looking
houses in may Creek. The lawn was a healthy, burst green,
each blade of grass seemingly trimmed down to exactly the

(27:26):
same size, and just by the curb lay a toy
truck that must have belonged to a child. Jim swept
his hair out of his eyes and opened the door
of the car. Well, here goes. Either get our answers
or we get a door slammed in our faces. We
approached the door, peering through the living room window and

(27:47):
catching sight of a woman sitting in a reclining chair
watching a young boy of no more than three years
of age playing on the floor. She looked up as
Jim rang the door bell and stood up to eggsit
the living room, motioning to the toddler to stay where
he was. Stelle Palmer swung the door open, a sense
of immediate irritation glinting in her eyes. She is about

(28:10):
thirty eight years of age, with long, dirty blonde hair
that fell to her shoulders. Noticing her annoyance, I began
to speak, missus Palmer, Miss I'm not married, Stelle said, right,
Miss Palmer. Jim took over. My name is Jim McAllister,
and and this is Mikhail Lemansky. We don't mean to
upset you, but we're cops, she snapped. Jim was visibly surprised.

(28:36):
I figured, where are you from, Sultan. Don't tell me
you're from Seattle, Torton, I said, Her glare narrowed even further,
it's our understanding that he used to live there. Yes,
what's it to you? She seemed even more defensive. Now
we came to inquire about Jim struggled over unnecessary alleloquence,

(29:00):
even though he fully expected to receive the cold shoulder.
Miss Palmer's irritation reached its peak, and she began to
shut the door. It's about Reuben Grundy, Jim finally managed.
She stopped and peered through the crack between the frame
and the door. Her annoyance had dissipated and worry flooded
her eyes. You can come in, she finally said, ushering

(29:25):
us inside. The interior of the house was as picturesque
as the exterior, the staircase adorned with paintings of famous
North American mountains, the kitchen clean and well organized. The
Stelle led us into the living room, where the boy,
whom I presumed to be her son, looked up at
us with that wide eyed, curious expression that's so common

(29:47):
in young children. Baby, go pleay in your room, Okaystelle
said to the boy. He looked down at the plastic
dinosaur he was playing with, then back at his mother,
before picking up the toy and sauntering at the end
of the hallway. Before Jim or I could get a
word out about our sweet kid, her worrisome expression returned.

(30:08):
I haven't seen Uben in over a year, she said.
When I moved here, he used to call myself five
times a week before I changed numbers. Didn't tell him
I was moving here, of course I didn't. But what
the hell has he done? It's not what he's done,
it's what we think he might have done, Miss Palmer,

(30:28):
Jim started. Please, it's just Estelle, she said softly, seeming
far less vexed by our presence than she'd been minutes before. Still,
Jim said, Situation's this, my friend, and I have reason
to believe that Ruben Grundy may be linked to a
series violent serial killings and torton. However, it's little more

(30:50):
than a hunch, and the police investigation's been a complete
mess from the outset, So we need your help. It's
my understanding that you knew Ruben for most of your life.
Still sat down in the reclining chair, motioning for us
to sit down on the couch. My whole life. Yeah,
this old man Scott owned this ranch down the road

(31:10):
from my old house, and he inherited the whole place
when Scott passed. We were in the same grade at school.
He was always a smart, worldly guy, knew a whole
lot about nature and cared a lot for the animals
he reared on the ranch. Condemn every plant in the woods.
She chuckled as she reminisced, they're out your childhood. Did

(31:31):
he ever seem off to you at any point? No? Never,
not once did I have him pinned as the outcast
or the weirdo kid. Everyone at high school loved Reuben.
I ask you about the hiking trip, Jim said, Four
people disappeared, and you and Reuben were the only ones
that came back. You moved away a week after. What

(31:52):
the hell happened? The Still's voice quaked as she spoke,
fear mingling with the worry in her eyes. Ruben, she
trailed off, straining against the painful memories to force the
words out. Reuben changed on that trip. We were a
week into it, and there was clearly something strange going

(32:12):
on with him. Usually he'd be musing about conifer trees
and mountain lions, but he barely spoke, and when he
did the way he talked was fragmented and hoarse, like
he'd forgotten his own native language. He seemed irritated when
we tried to talk to him. He didn't talk about much,
but what he did when he did, he said her

(32:36):
words crumpled to the floor again. I leaned forward. What
did he say, Stelle? He said he was hungry. An
electric current surged down my spine. The silence rang in
my ears like the whining aftermath of an explosion. I'd

(32:56):
hear him at night. He'd sit out by the fire
longer than anyone and muttered to himself, saying things like God,
I'm so hungry, in this voice that I'd never heard
come out of him before. When it became obvious that
we were lost, that's when. That's when people started disappearing,
first Becca, then Miguel, then Ruth, and then Nick. The

(33:21):
night before we were found. When Nick disappeared, I saw
Ruben follow him into the forest. I didn't hear anything,
but Ruben came back later without him. He looked different, sickly, pale, skinny,
taller somehow, and I swear to God he was covered
in blood. I looked over at Gym, who was staring

(33:45):
intently at her crap, you drunk bastard, You brilliant, drunk bastard.
You might actually be onto something. Maybe I was delirious.
Maybe he looked the same as ever. The next when
the park rangers found us, I just couldn't shake this
feeling that I was still in danger. Though he talked

(34:08):
in that cracked, hoarse way. Still, the police paid it
no mind, wrote it off as the effects of dehydration,
and wrote my story off as a mirage. I moved
as soon as I could when I got home, stayed
with my mom in Olympia for a short while before
I found a place here in May Creek. Like I said,
maybe I was crazy. I'm not saying Gruben Grundy definitely

(34:31):
killed those people, but I'm certain that something in those
woods got inside of him and made itself a home,
and I don't think it ever left. Jim's intense concentration
turned a slight confusion. What do you mean something? Stell
gave a half smile, as though she were embarrassed. I'm

(34:53):
not one to believe in folk tales, mister McAllister, never
have been, even when my old band tried to scare
me today with him, when I wasn't much older than
my son. But Reuben was always the same up until
that trip, and he changed. So suddenly, call it what
you want, a spirit, a sickness, the call of nature, whatever.

(35:15):
Something took a hold of Reuben, took him away. I'm
not saying that if you investigate him you'll definitely find
the answers you're looking for, but you might want to try.
Noticing that a Stell was on the verge of tears,
I grabbed Jim's arm and said, thank you so much
for your help. We should probably get going and leave
you in peace, Stelle, Jim said tentatively. I don't suppose

(35:40):
we could convince you to come with us. No, Siana rejected.
I can't see Reuben ever again, not after what I
saw in those woods. He doesn't know where I live,
but I still lock every door and window at night,
still watch the footage from the security camera every morning.
Sometimes I think if I met him, it would lay
some ghost to rest. But something tells me the ghosts

(36:01):
are real. Stubborn, I can't put myself in danger. I'm
the only thing that Robert has. She motioned down the
hall towards her son's bedroom. Jim looked as though he
were about to persist in his argument, but he simmered
down quickly. Thank you for your time, Misstelle, sincerely, Jim said,
as we stood up and walked to the door. We're

(36:22):
gonna go give Reuben a visit and we'll find out
who's doing this, I promise. Thank you. Mistelle replied, good luck.
She silently watched us walk down the driveway to the car,
a solemn look in her eyes. Perhaps she was reliving
all those memories, or perhaps she thought she had just
sent us further into something we'd regret being a part of.

(36:46):
I looked over at the house one last time as
I started the car. Through the living room window, I
could make out a blurred picture of a Stell cradling
her son in a tender embrace. We drove. I pulled

(37:10):
the car up to the Torton Police station at six
fifteen pm, having convinced it particularly irate Jim to stop
off there first. I told him to wait in the
car while I briefly went to talk to Alverson. Apparently
he had at the very least done a good job
of rounding up the local populace for questioning. As I
had to sift through a chattering crowd of townsfolk were

(37:31):
gathered outside and inside the station. Ran to Alverson's office,
rapping sharply on the door. Hell is it came? A gritty,
aggravated yell. Opened the door. My gaze met Sheriff Alverson's
cock eyed stare. Really are you, Ben Lamansky? Had he
interviewed a man named Ruben Grundy? I asked, ignoring him

(37:55):
who Alverson said? Ruben Grundy, rancher from the North End.
Torted her, how's an eye know? Alverson said, taking an
aggressive swigy of his coffee. Officer Barnett is a checklist.
Go ask her? Now, where are in God's name of you? Ben?
You get mccowister to pull that article. I slammed his door,

(38:15):
ran to the front desk, where I found Officer Barnett
busying herself with an Excel spreadsheet. I nearly collided with
the desk, startling her eve, I said, letting out a
long held breath. Had he interviewed a man named Reuben Grundy?
Yet visibly confused by my urgency, she pulled up the
records and perused them for about ten seconds. Ah, looks

(38:37):
like we had him. A couple hours ago. We cleared him.
He's not down as a suspect. Crap, where's Detective Evans Monroe,
she said, absent mindedly. Something came up from another case
and he left a few hours. How long did you
have Grundy in the interviewing room? Four? My words were
ablaze with insistence. Five minutes in and out, Arnette replied,

(39:01):
you gotta be kidding me. They didn't even ask him
about the hiking trip. Thanks. I dashed out of the station,
feeling the mystified eyes of the townspeople boring into me.
Jim was waiting in anticipation, craning his neck around as
I ran toward the car. I threw the door open
and clambered inside. They cleared the bastard two hours ago.

(39:24):
Evans' z in Monroe. We're heading to Grundy's place. Let's go,
Jim said. His tone was crawling with nerves. He clearly
expected it to come to this now, but now the
reality of it was sinking in fear brew it underneath
my adrenaline rush. The sun began to exhaustedly sink below

(39:44):
the distant mountainous We sped through Torteton, painting a crimson
outline on the remaining clouds. The stench of dread began
to creep in through the cracked passenger side window. With
every inch that the sun receded, began to we should
take longer to get to Grundy's Ranch, anything to stave
off the terrible gut feeling. So Evans went to Monroe,

(40:07):
but for Jim asked, obviously desperate to break the silence.
Barnett said, it was another case whether or not that's
a lie. I don't know, but I don't care. He's
scared and he's not here, which makes him useless. What
about Alberson? He wasn't even doing so much as ushering
the interviewees in just asked me about whether or not

(40:29):
the Herald had been convinced to pull the front page.
We're on our own, Jim, as I said that the
road buildings on North Avenue disappeared and Grundy's Ranch came
into view. Sitting less than a quarter of a mile
down the road from where we were, I could see
a modest looking, well kept, blown story house that sat

(40:50):
at the head of sprawling two perhaps three acres of
land that I assumed all belonged to Grundy as all
throughout the grassland were raising cattle. Now behind the house
stood a barn towering proudly over the tiny abode in
all of its rustic glory. Doing our utmost to compose ourselves,
Jim and I parked the car at the end of

(41:11):
the gravel driveway, prepairing for what would hopefully be our
final visit of the day. We walked up to the
front of the house trepidation hanging like a meat hook
on the otherwise calming summer breeze, and knocked on the
screen door and squinted through the glass. From the end
of the hallway emerged a man standing about six foot four.
He made a slow jog toward the screen door and

(41:33):
pulled it open enthusiastically. He was as tan as one
might expect a rancher to be, Dressed in tattered jeans
and a polo shirt. It looked to be in his
late thirties. He had thinning brown hair that stuck out
in tufts from underneath an ill fitting baseball cap, and
a suddenly auburned colored beard. He had a smile, his

(41:54):
eyes glinting. A little gotta help you, boys, he asked,
his voice a chipper gravelly song. I was thrown off
for a second. I'd expected a weathered, malnourished looking man
covering his face with a wide brimmed hat. I'd expected
it an inhuman rasp I expected him to tell us
to leave him alone. Jim jumped in. My name's off

(42:18):
Detective Calvamrihano, and this is Detective Dave Crowley. Well, we're
here regarding the town lide questioning of the residence of Torton.
Rundy chuckled nervously, his brow wrinkling. All right, there must
have been some mistake. The police already interviewed me a
few hours ago. We understand, sir, and we're very sorry

(42:41):
to trouble you, I said, joining Jim and playing the
role of Detective Crowley. See. Jim said, it's a big
operation and the Torton Police Department are swamped, as you
might imagine. Fortunately, they missed a couple of vital questions
when interviewing a few people, and they've sent us around
to get extra details. Oh ride, of course, Brundy said,

(43:02):
his expression softening a little. By all means, come on inside.
Jim and I stepped into the hallway as Grundy closed

(43:24):
the door. Inside, the temperature was cool, yet an unpleasant
smell sat in the air. I heard the door locked
behind us. Had the door been locked before? I couldn't remember.
Hope you boys will forgive me for that smell, he laughed.
Got a rat infestation at the moment. When the bastards
keep dying in the walls and underneath the floorboards, I

(43:47):
tried to keep the stitch away as best a can
till I can dig them out right on man, I said,
humoring his conversation. Had a problem with rats myself. About
a month ago, Grundy led us to his kit, which
seemed to be the biggest and most impressive room in
the otherwise small house, with a large granite counter spanning
its entire length, in a state of the art cooker.

(44:09):
Sitting in the middle. One of the calendar was a
hefty pile of raw meat crap. That's all for your cattle, Yes, sir,
Grundy exclaimed, with pride. All local is sourced to this
very ranch. The butcher shops downtown loved this stuff. I'll bet,
I said, now, mister Grundy, Yeah you mind. If Detective

(44:33):
Mariano and I asked you some questions shouldn't take long. Sure,
have a seat, Grundy said, gesture into the kitchen table.
He leaned against the calendar, turning his attention to the
pile of meat. He still hadn't asked to see our badges.
I'm listen. BoA's fire away Torkton station clouts your interview

(44:54):
at about five minutes, correct, I asked, Eh, you quicken
in and out? Think th wrote me off because well,
I don't have a record, you know. I mean, look
at this place. I'm busy all the time. They got
kids to help me round the ranch. Grundy replied, Of course,
as far as criminal charges go, your records completely clean,

(45:15):
mister Grundy. Grundy picked up a meat cleaver began hacking
at the stake. The instrument came down with a resounding whack,
separating a piece of the animal's flesh from the rest
of the flank. I suppose we're here to ask about
the hiking trip you took in April of two thousand
and three with a party of five other people. Grundy

(45:37):
excelled loudly, as though he were sighing. However, he didn't
turn around or stop what he was doing. The cleaver
came down again, louder this time. Oh, of course, I
was a little surprised myself that they didn't ask, Well,
let's start with a general question. I began, what happened?
What's your story? Got law on the sixth day of

(46:01):
the trip. We'd intended it to be a long trip anyhow,
but we ended up having a hell of a time
finding the foot of Mount Pilchunk and fout ourselves lost
in the woods, with no idea which direction we were
supposed to go. Becka disappeared on the first night we
got lost. He paused, falling into a reminiscent chasm for
just a moment, And did you know Becca, Well, Jim asked,

(46:26):
not ever since high school. We were gonna get married
this year. There was a pain in his voice. This
isn't our guy. Damn, this is not our guy. I'm sorry,
I said, that must have been difficult. I was cut
off by a startling sound of the cleaver making contact

(46:47):
with the cutting board, slicing cleanly through another piece of meat,
much louder than before. Yeah, try not to think about it.
It got hay easy after that. Real there was this
pain so sounded like he was struggling through his sentences. Now, pain,
I asked, Start it in my head, clouded, clouded my vision?

(47:12):
How long did the pain go on for? Jim asked.
The electric current I'd felt in the Stell's living room
sprung to life again. It was like a blade, this
time grazing my spine with serrated teeth. I thought I'd
become accustomed to the stink of the dead rodents, but
I knew what that smelled like. This was something different,

(47:32):
something that carried a far more bitter scent. Hope you
boys will forgive me for the smell two days spread
to my hands and feet felt numb after that, and
then I guess I felt good, Grundy said, his voice
assuming a strange grating quality. He brought the cleaver down again,

(47:53):
the abrace of thud accompanied by the wet sound of
tearing meat. Grundy turned around to look at us. He
seemed peeler than he had before, his posture slightly crooked.
The glint in his eyes was gone. What do you
remember about the disappearance of nick Lee the night before
you were rescued, I inquired. He paused, setting the cleaver down,

(48:16):
and I blacked out his cheekbones. Now seemed sunken. His
eyes were even darker. His fingers were frequiously long and thin,
and eerie. Silence waltzed with the tension that had clouded
the kitchen. It was just animals At first, his voice
was a sickly grasp. What when I came back from

(48:38):
the trip, It was just animals, kites, mountain lions, prairie dogs,
none of my own cattle. What the hell are you
talking about? My mouth was dry, The stinging scent of
decomposition couldn't be ignored. It was just animals. Until the
feeling came back. Something in those woods boys, something that

(49:03):
cold to me, something that wouldn't let me die, Something
told me. Rundy's voice was no longer a rasp, sounded
like a ghostly moan, as though his voice were wrapped
up in a violent gale. His eyes were cold, black pits.
His teeth were unnaturally long, forming yellow daggers in his

(49:26):
mouth and forcing his face into a mocking grin. Jim
stood up, backing away. Yeah told you what, mister Grundy.
Something that told me to eat, Grundy finally said. Despite
his unnatural tone, his voice was somehow cold. Matter of fact,

(49:46):
I killed the people on that hiking trip. I knew
all of them, and I killed them and eat their flesh.
Grundy said, oh my god, oh my goddess. Stella was right.
There was no logical resolution to what it seemed like
a crazy hunch. We were two idiots in over our heads.

(50:12):
Why why Jim could hardly speak. I tried eating animals
in raw meat until that feeling came back. He began
circling the table. That's when I began breaking into houses.
People I didn't know, people I didn't know, some I liked,

(50:34):
some I didn't care for. I tore them all apart.
I stood up and stumbled away next to Jim as
Reuben Grande stalked towards us, the sharp canines protruding. Why
are you telling us this? Because his icy tone slowly
began to thaw. They can do what they like with me. Now,

(50:58):
they can fry me, they can commit me as another
criminally insane nut, because they think they can control me,
like every other guy that went out and killed young
girls because Mummy was too rough fun them. He helps
them sleep at night to know that those sick bastards

(51:21):
are olious human beings that they can control one way
or another. But this rage inside me, this power. The
rope of drool fell from his mouth and pulled on
the floor. There are darker things than men in this world, boys,
in the soil, in the mountains, in the trees, in

(51:45):
some dark corners of a big city. It might make
you feel better to believe that other people are the
cruelest thing this life has to offer. But I'm afraid
that just isn't true. Grundy's mouth was unnaturally wide, the
bettest spikes inside, no longer resembling anything remotely human. A

(52:07):
small glimmer sat in the center of his black eyes,
like a tiny brilliant star inside a black hole. Hunger.
Jim and I dived in opposite directions, and Grundy lunged
at both of us, an animalistic howl erupting from his throat.
I heard a chair collide with the counter as I
scrambled to my feet, coming face to face with the

(52:28):
creature that had been, or still was, Reuben Grundy. Any
disbelief I had could not be justified. This nightmarish picture
was here in front of me, and it was very,
very real. Justice's maw opened again in another monstrous groan,
emitted from within him. A gunshot rang out, and Grundy
doubled over in pain, screeching with the ferocity of a

(52:51):
thousand banshees. Jim stood beside him, his pistol drawn. Grundy
twitched violently, the motion producing a sickening cruw un as
though one of his bones had broken. Without a moment's hesitation,
Grundy jumped from the floor to the ceiling and took
off down the hallway to what I had assumed to
be the staircase to the basement, skittering like an insect.

(53:12):
His harrowing howl echoed through the house like another angry
gust of wind. Drawing my own weapon, Jim and I
gave chase. The door to the basement hung wide open,
and any vaguely pleasant smells in the house were now
being eaten alive by the very clear aura of death.
This wasn't the smell of a rat problem, that was
for sure. For about ten seconds, the house resounded with

(53:36):
clattering and screaming coming up from the basement, and as
soon as it had begun, it suddenly ceased dead silence.
I exchanged a terrified glance with Jim. I wish I
was still drunk. Jim rumbled shakily. We cautiously crept down
the stairs to the basement, the light dwindling more and

(53:58):
more with each step. My hands were gripping the pistols
so hard that my knuckles had turned white, and an
oasis of sweat had sprung from my palms. Jim fumbled
in his coat pocket and pulled out a flashlight, turning
it on and allowing the beam to illuminate the pitch blackness.
The beam pierced the void that sat in the doorway,

(54:19):
creating a tunnel of light that led our eyes to
a sight that confirmed what I had feared the moment
that smell that hit me. The floor of the basement
was piled with remains of all kinds animal, human, arms, legs, insides.
Some had clearly been dragged down here no more than
a few days ago. Some were weeks, maybe even months old,

(54:44):
left on the ground to decay and denied a real burial.
A shuffling sound from off to the left grabbed our attention,
and Grundy stepped back into view, his metamorphosis having advanced
even further. He stood well over seven feet tall, his
rib cage protrude footing as though his skin were vacuum
packed around it. His face was now ghoulishly inhuman, his

(55:06):
eyes like hollow pits, and his teeth like battle scarred tusks.
Reuben Grundy perched like a gargoyle atop his morbid spoils,
a king of the dead in his hall of treasures.
He spoke a baritone growl, sitting underneath his straggled voice. Sorry,
the refrigerator down here is broken. The six smiles spread

(55:29):
across his face, and it was enough to tip Gemini
over the edge. We just started shooting, and we kept
on shooting until both of our weapons had completely run
out of bullets. When our eyes were no longer obscured
by the noxious muzzle flashes, the flashlight fell on what
was seemingly the lifeless corpse of the beast that Reuben
Grundy had turned into. We were both shocked, having expected

(55:52):
him to attempt to flee the basement, or at least
jump out of the way. The twisted monster now lay
still among his quarry. The entire Torque and police department
arrived half an hour later, and the deeply panicked, white
faced Detective Evans arrived another half hour after that. The

(56:17):
whole clean up operation took the best part of an
entire week, but that first night was a harrowing ordeal,
even for those who didn't have to scrape up the
remains or lay eyes on the creature that was responsible.
If it had been any other case, that would have
relished the look of horror on Sheriff Alverson's face when

(56:37):
he knew quite how badly he had handled everything, and
the realization that he'd have to deal with those Hoover
boys when a black suv pulled up outside the crime scene.
The expression on his face was one shared by everyone
who had to wrap their heads around the fact that
the near eight foot tall monster that was dragged out

(56:57):
of that basement had been at one point Ruben Grundy.
I was glad that the case had been closed, but
I felt very little in the way of Catharsis. Jim
and I had come face to face with the unknown,
and the unknown had filled our heads with something unforgettable.

(57:19):
There are things darker than man out there, things we
can't control the way we can control the Dahmers and
John Wayne Gacy's of the world. We may have put
an end to Reuben Grundy's otherwise never ending hunger. But
whatever was inside him is still tearing its way through
the forests and the mountains, searching for another viable host

(57:43):
to infect with the burning rage it carries with it.
I'm not so sure that we can always fight. Well,
we don't understand. Thanks for listening. If you like the show,

(58:10):
please share it with someone you know who loves the
paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries
like you do Things Darker than Man was written by
Julian J. Alexander. Weird Darkness is a production and trademark
of Marler House Productions. And now that we're coming out
of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light first,

(58:32):
John four, Verses eighteen and nineteen. There is no fear
in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear
has to do with punishment. The one who fears is
not made perfect in love. We love because he first
loved us. And a final thought, but it's better this way.
It's better to be weird and happy than normal and sad.

(58:56):
Claudio Bilotti, I'm Darren Marler. Thanks for joining me in
the Weird Darkness.

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DARKER THINGS THAN MAN: The Possession of Reuben Grundy

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