September 28, 2025 • 50 mins
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Welcome to another episode of the Nighttime Scary Tales Podcast, where we explore the dark side of storytelling. Tonight, prepare for spine-chilling tales featuring original horror stories, eerie supernatural encounters, and real-life crime that reveals the darker aspects of human nature. Each story is designed to keep you on the edge of your seat long after it ends. We’d love to hear your thoughts! Share your most chilling moments by leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. More haunting stories are coming, so keep your lights on and your doors locked. Sweet dreams… if you can find them!
Welcome to another episode of the Nighttime Scary Tales Podcast, where we explore the dark side of storytelling. Tonight, prepare for spine-chilling tales featuring original horror stories, eerie supernatural encounters, and real-life crime that reveals the darker aspects of human nature. Each story is designed to keep you on the edge of your seat long after it ends. We’d love to hear your thoughts! Share your most chilling moments by leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. More haunting stories are coming, so keep your lights on and your doors locked. Sweet dreams… if you can find them!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey guys, we got some new merch in the merch store.
That's all linked down below, or you might see some
of the shop pop up down below the video. Be
sure to go check it out if you want to
get some new merch. We got some new designs are
pretty sweet. When other kids were asking for video games
(00:36):
or football boots for their birthdays, I wanted a disposable camera,
and the process of getting the pictures developed seemed like
nothing short of wizardry to me. My passion for photography
stayed with me right through secondary school, which, to my
parents' infinite frustration, I showed very little interest in I
understand why they were so stressed about my poor academic performance.
(00:59):
I didn't enjoy getting bothered by teachers every day. I
just knew what I wanted to do with my life,
and then after I left school at sixteen, I went
off and did it. I interned with a professional photographer
for a year, got a feel for the job, and
then started freelancing for just about anyone who'd pay. It.
Took a few years of building up a serious portfolio,
(01:20):
but once I had one, along with the necessary experience,
I was ready to apply for some serious jobs. The
job market for photography can be interesting, to say the least,
and without going into too much very lurid or tedious detail,
there wasn't much out there that wasn't excessively seedy or
excessively boring. But there was one job that caught my
(01:43):
eye so much so that I positively jumped at the
chance to apply for it overseas photographer for The Times,
one of the most prestigious newspapers in British history. I
applied then had an interview so shaken that I was
convinced that it had slipped through my fingers. But somehow
(02:04):
someone saw some potential in me and got the call
back with good news just a few days after that.
Job took me all over the world and it was incredible.
But then every so often I get a chance to
go somewhere a bit dicey. I went to Afghanistan in
twenty eleven, Iraq in twenty twelve. Then in January of
twenty fourteen, I was asked if I wanted to go
(02:26):
to Syria. And for those that need a brief primer,
the Syrian Civil War kicked off in mid twenty twelve,
following a year of fiery protests and violent government crackdowns.
Twenty thirteen was a year of escalation, with various armed
rebel groups getting all kinds of foreign backing before taking
the fight to government forces. But then twenty fourteen marked
(02:50):
a distinct shift in the landscape of that resistance, and
before the end of twenty thirteen it was mostly secular
groups of pro democracy rebels fighting under the banner of
the Free Syrian Army. But just after the new year,
he started hearing all about these Islamist and Jihati groups
springing up, some of which were supposedly connected Al Qaeda.
(03:11):
Our team's job was to drive into Aleppo, hook up
with our contact in the Free Syrian Army, and then
establish what relationship, if any, the FSA had with the Jihads.
We flew over to Turkey at the end of February,
spent a few days in a city near the Syrian border,
and then crossed over in early March. It was a
(03:31):
whole different feeling to Iraq in Afghanistan, because when I
visited those countries, the fighting in both places had started
to die down. Syria, on the other hand, was a
live conflict, a war in progress. We didn't fly in
on a military aircraft or cross the border. After having
our passports checked, we crossed in Assyria without permission, with
(03:53):
no safety net, and without any idea of what would happen,
and let me tell you that felt very different. After
driving into eastern Aleppo, we hooked up with our rebel
contact in a place called Jabal Badro. The journalist I
was with Ben had worked with Omar on a previous
trip to Aleppo back in twenty twelve, so for them
(04:15):
it marked quite an emotional reunion. Ben had won over
Omar in his unit of rebels by bringing them cartons
of cigarettes and boxes of basic medicines, and he did
the same thing when I was with them in twenty fourteen. Apparently,
handing out paracetamol and packets of sigis makes you very
popular in a war zone. And so the week we
(04:36):
spent with Omar's unit was as positive as it was productive.
I picked up a bit of Arabic, partied with the rebels,
and got at least half a dozen shots that I
considered some of the best I'd ever taken. But the
first week was little more than acclimatization, both physically and
christ was a hot and mentally because we planned on
(04:58):
spending our second week with another group of rebels, who,
unlike Omar's group, were much more connected with the Jihati
group known as Nusra Front. The NF, as i'll call
them from now on for the sake of ease, were
actually connected to al Qaeda at one point, and their
mad man in chief was based in Iraq for a
number of years. He was actually sent into Syria in
(05:19):
twenty eleven with the goal of exploiting the chaos of
the civil war to gain a foothold among the populace.
But once he was there and he got a taste
of power, oh he didn't quite fancy letting it go.
The NF's madman in chief was just that mental, but
he wasn't stupid. He knew that snatching journalists and cutting
(05:39):
their heads off was a really bad look, and that
if they wanted to keep getting their hands on the
weapons that the US and EU were feeding to the larger,
less scary looking rebel groups, they better stay on their
best behavior. Knowing we weren't going to be actively hunted
was probably the only reason we felt even remotely safe
traveling anywhere near NF con trolled areas. But even so
(06:02):
we had no desire to connect with the group, its leaders,
or its fighters, and the only trouble was fate had
other plans. Finding your way around the city, especially if
you don't know it all that well, can be difficult
to the best of times. But then imagine almost everything
you use for reference, be it street signs, landmarks, or
(06:24):
places of business, are suddenly destroyed all of a sudden.
Even people who knew Aleppo were having trouble finding their
way around. I'm not just talking a few bullet holes
or craters either. Entire streets have been leveled by air strikes,
and aside from all the debris, our drivers said it
was the thin layer of dust on everything that really
(06:45):
threw them off and made all the winding streets of
eastern Aleppa look the same. I'm sure you can see
this coming a mile off already, but I'm a photographer,
not a writer, so I'll just leave all that structuring
to the professionals and just get on with my stock. So,
on our way to meet up with this other, less
frightening group of rebels, we took a wrong turn, and
(07:08):
we didn't even realize that we'd taken a wrong turn
until the people we thought had been sent to meet us,
suddenly aimed their guns at us and ordered us to kneel.
We literally had no idea what was happening or who
they were, so initially we thought it was this other
group of pro democracy rebels just being a bit overcautious
when it came to their security. They were all terrified
(07:31):
of spies. Everyone was. But later we found out that
we hadn't been rather rudely welcomed by some paranoids soon
to be friends. We'd been taken prisoner by a different group,
one with strong ties to both NF and another Jihati
group that hadn't quite made a name for itself yet.
(07:52):
Once it was clear that we've been taken prisoner, our driver,
who had been captured along with us, began immediately trying
to negotiate our relief. We figured all they wanted was money,
and they were promised a ton, But according to the
group's leader, a guy called Abou Khalid, they'd get a
shed load more money by selling us to another much
(08:13):
wealthier group of militants who operated out of a place
called Rakka. We asked what would happen to us there,
but Abou Khalid said that he neither knew nor cared.
All he cared about were the vast acts of cash
the Rocca group was offering for any British or American prisoners.
It was a grim moment, excepting we were probably going
(08:35):
to be held hostage for a very long time. Both
me and Ben trusted both our governments and our employers
to work towards securing our release, as well as that
of our driver Offman, and to us it was just
a matter of time before we were released, because at
that stage of the war it was all about getting
backing or funding from outside the country. It made very
(08:56):
little sense for any armed group to just kill us,
and in fact that we thought that we were more
in danger of being caught and executed by government loyalists
than any group of rebels Jihatis included. There was just
too much money to be made ransoming off to British journalists.
So even though this mysterious group were willing to pay
our captors forty thousand USD for the both of us,
(09:19):
it was an investment they could make millions from. It
must sound a bit mental to some people. I mean
it sounds mental to me just writing it all these
years later, But being a prisoner wasn't all that bad.
The group that took us prisoner just wanted to make
some money, and they hated the government loyalists far more
than they could ever hate us. So after a few
(09:40):
days our guards started to warm up to us a bit.
They had to feed us and keep us safe because
this other Jihati group said that they wanted us alive
and unharmed. But after a few days of being regular
fixtures around the compound they occupied, they took our restraints off,
invited us upstairs from the basement they were holding us in,
and then basically just let us hang out. They told Othman,
(10:05):
if your lot try and run, will kill you. But
other than that, just behave yourselves. We could roughly converse
with the Jihati blokes in our crappy Arabic, but if
we wanted any serious dialogue, we'd use our driver Othman
as a translator. The group holding us weren't frontline fighters.
(10:25):
Their only job was to guard us, and seeing as
they were actually pretty all right fellas who had just
been sucked into the malstrom of the country's civil war,
we got talking about this and that they were very,
very curious about our lives back in London, and I
am deadly serious when I say they must have asked
us a thousand questions over the course of those nine
(10:46):
days in captivity. They wanted to know what London was like,
what kinds of things we ate back home, and what
kinds of places we lived in. But Abou was clearly
the most senior guard among them, seemed particularly interested in
what football teams we supported. Ben wasn't into football much.
He went to a private school and was more into
(11:07):
his rugby. But for me, my passions were photography first,
then football second, and I had still have a particular
love of my local side, Queen's Park Rangers. I know
I'm going to get stick from my fellow fans for this,
but q PR aren't a big team, and assuming Aboo
only follows the top league, I didn't expect him to
(11:28):
know them. But then when I told him I was
a QPR fan, his face lit up and he launched
into a massive speech to Othman, who was acting as
our translator. I could recognize the odd word here and there,
and he kept saying q PR in his accent over
and over, so I knew he was talking about the
football club. But then Othman turns to me and in
(11:52):
so many words, this is what he said. Abu says,
he's a great admirer of your Moroccan attacking midfielder thrapped
and my jaw dropped. But Othman continued. Abdu says, Thrap's
contribution of nineteen goals sixteen assists to qprs twenty eleven
(12:14):
season was a huge achievement for the player of his age,
but he thoroughly deserved to win the Championship's Player of
the Season award. And you know what, a boom was
exactly right. As a die hard QPR fan, I loved
Adele and I still do. He was absolutely phenomenal during
(12:35):
that twenty ten season, and I cheered for every single
one of those nineteen goals. Through Othman, I asked a
Boo if he remembered the goal Thoropt scored on Boxing
Day of twenty ten about jumped up off the floor
with this big smile on his face and started mimicking
the exact movements of what came to be known as
the Christmas Cracker. He intimidated Toterap's cheeky back heel to
(13:00):
trick one player, then mimed tapping the ball through another
player's legs before acting out the absolute rocket of a
kick that even the goalkeeper's gloves couldn't put a stop to.
I was in raptures or ruptures, you might say, and
I asked if Abu remembered Topt running over and literally
hugging some random QPR fans in celebration of his goal
(13:24):
and stuff like that was why he was so popular.
He loved us and we loved him, and neither of
us was afraid to show it. Abu did remember the hug,
and then that was it. We launched into what must
have been a two hour conversation about football with almost
everyone gathered around for the entertainment, and the whole thing
was just crazy. There I was having an in depth
(13:46):
football talk with a man that had taken me hostage.
It marked a sort of high point in our time
and captivity, because for a brief moment, it was like
we weren't prisoners anymore. It was like we were among friends.
And although I wasn't to know it at the time,
I think it was that chat about Karap that saved
our lives. We spent another two days in Ambou's compound,
(14:10):
and those were probably the best two days we spent there.
We were given generous portions when invited to sit and
eat with the rest of the rebels, after which they
shared cigarettes and sweets with us. Then after dinner they
had a hundred more questions for us about our lives
back in London. However, after about an hour of chatting,
(14:30):
Abou asked if we could have a word in private,
and by private he meant me him and of course Othman.
We walked over to a quiet corner and through our
driver turned translator, I asked him if there was any
news on the hostage transfer. I made it clear that
I wasn't making any demands on him. I was just
anxious about being in the dark regarding when and where
(14:53):
we'd be transported. Abou looked at Othman, then at me, Then,
after a sigh and a moment of thought, he started
feeding his reply to Othman for translation. And as I
watched him talk, I watched the color slowly drain from
Othman's face. He turned to me and more or less
this is what he said. Abu says he hesn't sell
(15:16):
us to the group in Rakka, Othman said, and initially
I thought it was because Abu thought that he was
being stiffed and the idea of selling us to the
other group for pittance so that in turn could make
millions had probably left a pretty bad taste in his mouth.
And that's not what was bothering him. He said he
(15:37):
could live with the prospect of selling us to someone
who'd eventually released us, but that's not what this other
group intended to do. This other group went by a
few different names at the time, the mujah Hadeen, Sure
of a Council, the Army of the Victorious, the Congregation
of Monotheism in Jihad. But the name they'd been given
(15:57):
in the months that followed is one that will live
in infamy. Isis The group that wanted to buy us
were just months away from officially renaming themselves the Islamic State,
and the reason they wanted us alive is because they
wanted to decapitate us, film it, and then turn our
executions into sleek propaganda videos that had end up online.
(16:22):
And by the time Athman finished telling me that that
as everything except their ensuing change of name, I must
have looked as pale as he was. I then begged
Abu not to sell us to those people that we
could guarantee them tens of thousands of pounds if they
ransomed us instead of selling us on. He told us
(16:42):
it was too late, and that Isis were already on
their way to collect us. They'd be at the swap
location a few miles outside of Aleppo in less than
forty eight hours, and if we weren't there to collect
there'd be trouble. And by then Othman had taken over
in terms of leading the discussion, and after a few
more minutes of talking he gave me the gist of
(17:03):
what had been said. A Boom was going to escort
us back to our contact Omar and then tell his
bosses and the ISIS guys that we'd managed to escape
during attack by the government soldiers. And he only had
two conditions. The first was that we got the hell
out of Aleppo immediately. If his boss has got wind
(17:24):
of the fact that he just let us go, he
was a dead man, so that was non negotiable. The
second thing, however, was that I gave him the little
QPR supporter's club card that I kept in my wallet
and so he could have something to remember me by.
I gave it to him in a heartbeat, then just
A few hours later, we were on the move again,
(17:44):
back towards Omar's group, who we'd spent our first couple
of days with. Forty eight hours later, around the same
time we should have been handed over to our Isis executioners,
we were waiting in Jtai Airport for our Istanbul transfer,
and then after that we were headed home. Ben ended
(18:04):
up writing the story he'd been asked to write, and
he used plenty of my pictures too, but he made
no mention of the kidnapping in his story, and the
pictures I took of us and our hostage takers have
never seen the light of day. I wanted Ben to
be able to thank Abu and his story, but we
knew that wouldn't be possible without putting his safety at risk.
(18:26):
Following a prolonged and intense battle, the Syrian Army retook
full control of Aleppo in December two thousand sixteen. Syrian
state media then announced that they had fully secured the
city after an evacuation deal for the remaining rebel fighters
and civilians was reached, meaning there was a slim chance
that Abu managed to get out alive. I know he
(18:47):
technically wasn't on the right side of that conflict, as
they say, But if you knew it, I don't think
you could call any group from that conflict the good
guys and not choke on those words. I dunno what
else he did during the war, but Abou saved our lives,
and for that I'll be forever grateful. I sometimes wonder
if he's still alive and if he ever made it
(19:09):
out of Syria. So if you just so happened to
hear this, Abou, and you're anywhere near Loftus Road, then
reach out so we can go to a game together
and talk about football and peace instead of war. In
(19:34):
April twenty sixteen, my friend Tony and I were on
our way to a birthday party in our hometown of
Baton Rouge. It was the twenty third birthday of a
mutual friend, and to celebrate the occasion, her parents allowed
her to throw a party at their house in Santa Maria.
I remember being incredibly excited for the party, and part
of the reason we were so excited was that Santa
(19:56):
Maria is home to some truly beautiful homes and therefore
some incredible places to throw a party. The only trouble
was neither of us knew the neighborhood very well. I
was at the wheel while Tony was there in the
passenger seat. He had his phone in his hand trying
to figure out exactly where we needed to go, whilst
being the in car DJ for our pre party tunes
(20:19):
and so while he was adept at picking bangers to
get us all turned up, he wasn't the best navigator
I could have asked for. Santa Maria is divided up
into four distinct sections, and between them is the Santa
Maria golf Course. We ended up finding the right one,
but the real trouble came when we had to find
the correct street. A text from a friends said that
(20:40):
we wanted some number on Mancheck, so we were looking
for something like Manchak Road or a Manchack Avenue. But
then after turning on the Manshaq Lake Drive, which we
figured was the one we wanted, we were suddenly faced
with Manshaq Way Avenue, Manschaq Trace Avenue and Manshaq crossing
at four different streets all named Manshaq, meaning we had
(21:04):
no idea which street the party was on. I asked
Tony to give one of our friends a call just
to confirm the address, but when we finally managed to
get a hold of someone, the music was too loud
for us to get any coherent answer out of her.
She said that she'd double check with our friend to
get the right address and would call us back, but
(21:24):
she didn't, and we ended up driving up and down
Manshak's trying to work out if it was the number
they gave us at Manshaq Way or the same number
on another Manshaq and we tried looking for clues things
like cars lined up outside the house, groups of people
chatting on the porch, or maybe this sort of faint
thumping of bass in the distance. Things would have been
(21:45):
easier if the party was actually inside, but part of
the agreement to use her parents' place was that the
party be centered in the backyard and pool area. That way,
the house wouldn't get trashed. But that also meant that
both those numbered houses looked almost identical. They were all
dark on the outside, neither had any obvious signs of activity,
(22:06):
and both houses had a bunch of cars lined up outside,
and so in the end we decided to turn down
the driveway on one of the man shack other places,
and because we figured the worst thing that had happened
is that we'd have a very confused home owner tell
us that it was the other one, and so I
drove us up the driveway, stopped the car. Then Tony
(22:26):
and I sat there in silence for a moment. I
remember the silence, the total complete silence of being in
that driveway, and how I got a really strong feeling
that we were not at the right address. The house
was dark and the curtains seemed like they were drawn,
but then suddenly a flicker of movement near the curtains
started to catch our eye. We knew someone was home,
(22:49):
but if this was where the party was out, I
doubted that they had been hiding in a front room
taking peaks out at cars in the driveway. I told
Tony that I didn't think it was the place, but
he insisted on knocking on the door just to make sure.
I told him I wasn't sure there was a good idea.
Then the last thing he said to me was, what's
the worst that could happen? Before my windshield he suddenly shattered.
(23:14):
Shards of glass rained down on us as gunshots rang out,
and I remember seeing flashes coming from the darkness of
an upstairs window. I remember my heart thumping in my
chest as my mind caught up to what was happening.
Then the next thing, I was ducking down, hunching over
and gasping for breath as the stark reality hit me
(23:35):
that we were being shot. At time seemed like it
was slowing down. I could feel each bullet smashing into
the car, and I felt frozen with terror. Then suddenly
it was like I heard this voice in my head yelling,
put the car in reverse, where you're both dead. As
raw panic distilled into the need for action, I remember
(23:57):
fumbling with that gearstick before quickly throwing the car into reverse.
The tires spun slightly as I slammed my foot down
on the pedal, causing the tires to squeal before a
sudden jolt backwards. I heard Tony yell something, but I
couldn't make out what. I was too busy looking into
the rear view to see if any one was behind us.
Then we put the car in a drive and we
(24:18):
sped off into the night, air rushing into the car
from where the windshield was gone. I remember this mix
of relief but fear washing over me as we drove
away from that danger, but I was still wired from
all the adrenaline, and I was half way to shouting
something like, oh my god, we made it. When I
noticed he'd been shot. I pushed the car's engine to
(24:42):
its absolute limits, speeding like a crazy person as the
world outside became a blue of street lights and shadows,
and I remember looking over to Tony and seeing how
pale he looked and how much pain he seemed to begin,
and then the fear of losing him came crashing down
on me like a wave. I kept yelling at him
to hold on and we were headed to a hospital,
(25:04):
and that we'd be there and no more than a
few minutes, cause all I had to do was keep
my foot down, stay on the interstate, and take the
exit ramp as soon as we saw that Baton Rouge General.
I had no idea how many times Tony had been shot,
and I figured that I might have been shot too,
but I just couldn't do anything about it, cause I
had to keep my eyes on the road while I
was weaving in and out of traffic. And that was
(25:26):
probably the worst part about the whole thing for me personally,
the thought of how if I passed out at the wheel.
At those speeds, both of us would probably be dead.
I thought I could feel blood in my stomach and
legs because it was very warm and wet down there,
but like I said, I couldn't look or to be
game over for the both of us. I remember nearly
(25:47):
crashing into another car as I swerved on to the
exit ramp, and then nearly crashing a second time as
I skidded into the parking lot of the hospital. I
stopped almost right outside the doors, jumped out of the
driver's side, and then ran around to Tony's side while
calling up for help. I opened up his door, kind
of hopeful because of how quick we made it, but
(26:08):
when I saw Tony's face, I panicked. He was white
as a sheet. He was struggling to breathe, and there
was blood everywhere, and his eyes looked almost glazed over,
like he was just minutes away from death. I kept
yelling at him to stay with me, shaking his shoulder
while telling him help was on the way. The next
thing I know, there's a bunch of paramedics rushing over
(26:30):
to get Tony out of the car and into the hospital.
As they wheeled Tony away on a gurney. I mentioned
how I thought I'd been shot. Remember I told you
about feeling very warm and wet in my pants. Well
it wasn't blood, it was piss And while we were
getting shot at, I shrad uppeeded my pants and struggled
(26:51):
with the shame of that for some time before I
just came to terms with it. I had a marine
who served in Afghanistan tell me that some of his
squad mates used to always need to be real bad
any time they got into a shootout. They'd be lying
down someplace, like on their stomachs, shooting at the bad guys,
and this one marine would roll on to his side,
pull his wiener out, and then just start pissing right
(27:12):
there where he laid. The pisser said he'd rather show
off his two inch wander to the rest of the
squad than Soaka's underwear, And the marine told me how
not a single one of them considered them a coward.
I met the guy in a group therapy session maybe
six or seven months after that night, and when I
mentioned the pissing myself thing, he just laughed. I was
kind of offended at first, and he said he was
(27:34):
just laughing at the idea that I considered myself a coward.
He'd heard my story already and he considered me one
of the baalsiest m efforts he'd ever met. He told
me I'd done the exact right thing to the letter
in terms of going into action mode and zooming to
that hospital. Just being able to back out of a
driveway while under fire was impressive to him, but not
(27:56):
crashing on the way to the hospital was what made
him think that I'd make a fire and marine if
I ever wanted to take that path in life. And
I managed to keep it together all the same and
just told him, thanks dude, it means a lot. But
when I got back to my car, I cried like
a baby, and I mean ugly cried too, not some
cool single tear rolling down my cheek like in an
(28:19):
action movie hero situation. It didn't just mean a lot.
That meant the entire world to me. And for the
first time since sitting in that hospital waiting room, I
didn't feel like a total piece of trash. Oh and
speaking of the waiting room, I guess I kind of
got diverted there for a minute or two and let
me get back on track. Sitting in that waiting room
(28:40):
felt like I was in another dimension. Time was slowing down,
the place was full, and I never felt so alone,
and I felt like I was trapped between wanting to
hear some news about Tony and then dreading whatever the
news might be. It was hellish, and I mean them
in the truest sense of the world. If there is
a hell, it probably feels a little like that waiting
(29:01):
room in Baton Rouge, at least before the fiery parts. Anyway,
my mind kept replaying what had happened in that driveway,
and checking my phone became almost like a ritual, something
to break up my thoughts while letting our friends know
what had happened. I looked up every time the nurse
walked in, thinking this is it, only for it not
to be the call some one else or just walk
(29:23):
right through. Sometimes I felt like I was watching myself
in a bad dream, a nightmare where everything smelled like
antiseptic and the lights were so bright I felt like
they were stinging my eyes. After what felt like forever,
a doctor stepped into the waiting room and finally called
my name. He then sort of ushered me into a
(29:44):
quiet section and gave me the news and when he
told me Tony was alive and that they were optimistic
about his recovery. I never felt relief like it before.
I had to put my head in my hands because
I thought I was going to burst into tears, and then,
after pulling myself together, I listened as the doctor continued.
He explained that although a bullet had entered Tony's chest,
(30:07):
it had missed his heart along with all of his
major arteries. However, the bullet did collapse alung, which is
why he was struggling to breathe by the time we
pulled into the hospital's parking lot, and to fix it,
the doctor performed a procedure that involved inserting a tube
into Tony's chest, which reinflated his lung and allowed it
to expand properly. The bullet also broke a rib, but
(30:30):
while that would be very painful, it did. Heal over time,
and the most important news, though, was that Tony was
stabilized and had been moved into the intensive care unit,
where his pain would be managed and he could be monitored.
He wasn't completely out of the woods yet, though, but
seeing how young, fit and healthy he was, the prognosis
was good. I could either go home and rest or
(30:50):
stick around the hospital and I'd be able to see
him in a couple of hours. I still had glass
and blood all over me, so I told the doctor
i'd return a few hours after a shower and a
change of clothes, and at home, I talked to a
bunch of people who had been at the party, like
mine and Tony's mutual friends, and I agreed to pick
a few of them up. On the way back to
(31:11):
the hospital, we had to wait for almost an hour
before we were allowed in, but when we were two
groups of us went in to see him, one group
of two and one group of three. I went in
with our friend Cherry, and walking down the corridor to
his ICU room was like the longest walk of our lives.
I remember coming to the door embracing myself for what
(31:33):
I was about to see. I knew he was probably
going to be okay, but it was still daunting his
hell walking towards that door. And then when I walked
into Tony's room, it was a very huge mix of emotions.
I was more relieved than I'd ever been in my
whole life to see Tony alive, but he barely looked
any better than he did when I first got him
to the hospital. It was really shocking to see him
(31:55):
in such a vulnerable position. But the thing that really
sticks with me is just how happy Tony was to
see us. He was still weak and couldn't move it all,
but he had just enough energy after waking up from
surgery to talk to us a little before the nurses
shoot us out of the room, saying Tony needed his rest.
But before we left, Tony and I had something of
(32:16):
a moment together. He told me I saved his life,
but I told him he was wrong about that dead wrong.
It was he that had saved my life, because if
I had driven to that party on my own, I
have no doubt my mind that whoever shot at us
would have aimed for me and not him. He hadn't
opened up his door yet, so the lights in my
(32:38):
car didn't switch on. But what Tony did have was
his phone on full brightness, held a chest height, which,
from the shooter's point of view, probably lit him up
like a Christmas tree. The guy was a terrible shot
and only landed one direct head on us, but I
have no doubt that he used the light of Tony's
phone as sort of a reference point on where to aim,
(33:00):
and if he hadn't been there, then it would have
been me that took the shooter's one lucky shot, and
then I definitely would have passed out on the way
to the hospital if I wasn't killed instantly by that shot.
And in so many words, he took the bullet that
was meant for me and TONI was in the hospital
for just over a week, and strangely enough, that was
the same day the man who shot him pleaded no
(33:22):
contest to charges of attempted manslaughter. I got downgraded after
that and instead of murder because apparently, in the last
year alone, this dude's house had been targeted in two
home invasions by two different groups. One group ended up
going to prison, and apparently one of the guys told
our shooter that his homies were going to get him,
(33:43):
so when we rolled up to his driveway in a
car that he didn't recognize, he opened up on us
before giving us a chance to identify ourselves. His attorneys
said that he was so scared that he didn't want
to take any chances. But even with it being his
first conviction, the judge called him a Dangerdock others and
gave him three years in prison. I would have liked
(34:04):
to have seen him given more time, but there was
a period where we thought that he might get no
jail time, so having him get at least some time
was a pretty huge relief. Tony has since made a
full recovery and has somehow managed to find it in
his heart to forgive the guy who shot him. I
guess that's the kind of grace that I should have
expected from him, But for me, it's a hell of
(34:26):
a lot harder to simply forgive and forget, not when
both of us came so close to death. For our
second anniversary, my boyfriend and I arranged a weekend stay
at a luxury log cabin. We've been going to the
(34:47):
same coffee shop for a few months when I actually
knocked his ice latte all over him like a total klutz.
Rob was so so nice about it. Then the next
time I bumped into him off to pay his dry
cleaning bill, he said he'd rather i'd paid him back
by taking him out to dinner, and since we totally
had some chemistry between us, I accepted. And now cut
(35:10):
to about two and a half years later, and were
flying down to Nashville to spend a few days with
Rob's parents before heading off into the hills of Monroe County,
way out near the North Carolina state line. When he
first suggested the idea over dinner, I was dead against it.
Rob and his family loved all things outdoors related, and
(35:30):
they were hardcore about it too, and so at first
I was scared his cabin would be some one room
hunting shack and it'd be dinners of raw deer meat
for all three nights. Now Rob assured me that that
wasn't the case. Then, when I was still skeptical, he
showed me the website. The cabin he picked out looked incredible.
(35:51):
It was set onto a hillside with a large deck
overlooking what looked like a stunning view. There was a
fire pit a hot tub for soaking under the star,
and that was just outside. The inside had an open
floor plan with high vaulted ceilings and exposed wooden beams.
There were also leather sofas, state of the art appliances,
(36:12):
and a whole kitchen complete with a farmhouse sink and
breakfast nook. But I think the thing that really caught
my eye was the old stone fireplace because I could
constantly picture me and Rob curling up together in front
of it after a long hike through the woods. And
that's all after a couple's shower in the bathroom that
I kid you not had heated floors. I've never stayed
(36:33):
in the hotel room that fancy, let alone a shack
in the middle of butt Love and Nowhere. So after
seeing the cabin's website, I went from super skeptical to
super excited. And we stayed four days with Rob's mom
and dad, who are just the sweetest people ever. And
then on Friday morning, we loaded up the rental car
with our stuff and then got on the road towards
(36:54):
a place called Coker Creek. Everything was going fine, and
we even stopped and at Nuga to grab some food
because we were head of schedule. But then once we
passed Coker Creek and turned onto the back roads to
locate our cabin, our progress slowed down dramatically. This was
back in the late two thousands, so while we did
(37:15):
have an early model of GPS in the rental, it
was about as useful as a glass hammer. Up in
those forested hills. We had a sheet of printed directions
in the paper map, but we first realized that the
directions were no good when we hit our first dead end,
with no luxury cabin in sight, and long story short,
we retraced our path about four times, but each time
(37:38):
we got deep into the woods, we got so disoriented
that we ended up going around in circles before we
finally found our way back to a highway, and from
there we try again, getting more and more frustrated each time,
until finally we drove down a road that had a
house at the end of it instead of just another
dead end. It was Rob's idea to stop and ask
(37:59):
for directions. The house looked old, really old, so we
figured any one inside had been living in the area
for quite a while, in which case they probably knew
of the cabin we were looking for. It was a small,
single story home with faded, pealing paint that might once
have been white but had since become worn away to
reveal spots of rotting wood. Missing sections of shingle caused
(38:23):
the roof to sag in places, while patches of moss
covered up whole sections of it. As we got out
of the car and walked towards the porch, we could
see it was barely holding together. There were gaps in
the floorboards, the banisters were splintering, and I remember as
Rob put his boot up on to the first step,
the whole thing creaked so loudly that it could have
(38:44):
doubled as a door bell. The second the porch steps
started creaking, we heard movement from inside the house. All
the windows were either shuttered or covered with cloth or newspaper,
so while we couldn't see inside the house, we knew
some one was home. Rob knocked on the door, expecting
some one to answer right away, because we were ninety
(39:04):
nine percent sure that there was some one right on
the other side of the door, But it took them
until Rob politely asked if they could give us directions
for them to acknowledge our presence. Only then did the
door open just a crack, and a woman of a
round fifty appeared in the gap. She was short, had
a very thick accent, and didn't look remotely pleased to
(39:27):
see us. When she opened up and asked us what
we wanted. Rob repeated that we were hoping to get
some directions, but the woman told us that she couldn't help.
Her husband was off running errands, and he knew the
area infinitely better than she did, so we could either
get back into the rental car and try our luck
with a maze of back roads again, or we could
(39:47):
take a seat on the porch and wait patiently and
hope her husband planned on getting back before dark. The
lady said that she didn't mind us waiting and that
she was sorry that she couldn't be of more help,
so we thanked her and then took a seat on
an old porch swing. After thoroughly dusting it off, we
waited close to an hour, killing as much time as
(40:08):
we could by reminiscing about the two years we've been together.
It was our way of staying positive. There didn't seem
to be any point in worrying or complaining, as we
were sure to find the cabin at some point. But then,
at one point I made a very rough comment about
how we'd been sitting on this lady's porch for like
half an hour and she didn't invite us inside. So
(40:31):
much for Southern hospitality, I said, And honestly it was
mostly intended as sort of a joke. But then Rob
stepped off the porch, took a look at the house,
and then said something like I guess they must really
value their privacy, and then motioned for me to come
look at something. All four downstairs windows and all five
(40:53):
upstairs windows were covered by either these gruppy looking curtains,
canvas sheets, or plain old newspaper, and as I looked
at it, the house started to really give me the creeps.
But I also knew exactly what Rob would say if
I aired my thoughts. He'd say that these were just
some poor, simple folks who valued their privacy and their solitude.
(41:15):
Sure it was a world away from Manhattan, but these
were good salt of the earth people who'd probably be
more than happy to help us, especially if it meant
giving them back their privacy. And so I just kept
my mouth shut. I knew he was thinking a little
of what I was thinking. I mean, he had to be.
But it was either wait for some directions from that
lady's husband or potentially get lost in these backwoods for
(41:38):
a fifth time and not be able to find a
way back to that house to ask those directions. So
we stayed put. After just less than an hour of
pacing back and forth and grabbing snacks from our car,
we heard the sound of a vehicle coming up the
road behind us. We were sitting on the old couple's
porch swing when we heard it, and the sound lifted
(41:59):
our spirits immensely. If anyone knew where our luxury cabin
was located, it was this pick up driving Appalachian old
timer who'd probably been living here long before our cabin
had ever even been built. And we stayed put until
we saw the guy's truck coming up the trail, and
then Rob got up and said something like I better
(42:20):
go make myself known. He's going to wonder whose car
that is, referring to our rental. We stepped off the
porch and then started waving at the oncoming truck as
he jogged towards the rental, pointing and sort of gesticulating
as if to say, that's ours and we come in peace.
The truck stopped just shy of the rental as Rob
(42:40):
kept walking towards it. Then, as an older man opened
the door and stepped out of his cab, Rob began
talking to him. He was wearing a denim shirt in
a canvas jacket with jeans, boots, and a cap with
some kind of logo on it, and appeared to be
listening intently to Rob as he spoke. I remember being
(43:00):
startled by the sudden sound of the lady's voice coming
from my right, and she said, my husband's home, with
his wide, unsettling smile stretched across her face, it seemed.
I remember looking at her for a moment, thinking what
are you up to? And then as I turned to
look at Rob, I saw him suddenly back away from
the lady's husband. He raised his arms and started shouting no, no, no,
(43:26):
and then the man aimed a pistol and shot him.
I had no time to react because right as Rob
fell I heard a screech coming from my right. The
lady had burst from her front door with a hatchet
in her hand and was rushing down the porch toward me.
(43:47):
I ran the opposite way, jumping off the porch and
then darting around the corner of the house. The whole
time I was thinking about the guy with the gun
and how I needed to put solid objects between us
to keep from being shot, and that's what I did.
His wife was really no threat to me at all,
and these days it gets a kind of wry smile
(44:07):
out of me whenever I think about that dumb bitch
tripping as she followed me off our porch and crashing
into the dirt with a very pathetic sounding grunt. But
it took me a long long time to be able
to think of it that way. I knew the guy
would be coming for me. He just shot my boyfriend
of two years in front of me, so there's no
way he intended to let me get away. But the
(44:30):
thing that made me feel like I could have sprinted
for days was the thought of what he'd have in
store for me if he caught me. My sister was
something of a true crime officionado, completely hooked on A
and E and investigation discovery, so whenever I stopped by
her place for a few glasses of wine after work,
she'd inevitably regale me with the tails from the latest
(44:52):
true crime show that she'd been watching. I won't go
into too many gory details, but one of the things
that really creeped me out was when my sister told
me something to the effect of they killed the guy
you're with right away, so they can take their time
with you. And that's all that was running through my
mind as I sprinted through the trees, away from the house,
(45:14):
away from the rental car and away from Rob. I ran,
and I ran, and I ran some more. I ran
until my lungs hurt, until I could feel my pulse
thumping in my head, until my thighs ached from the mindless,
terrifying exertion of running from my very life. I ran
further than I needed to, way further, having visions of
(45:38):
some ex marine sniper being able to pick me off
through the trees and at distances I assumed were safe.
I ran until I felt like I was about to
pass out, and then when I stopped, I puked up
all the water and snacks Me and Rob had eaten
our final meal together, and I hadn't even known it.
(45:59):
I think I must run for about a mile before
I came to a road, and then after I followed
that for a while I saw a fire lookout, which
turned out to be empty. And after that I must
have wandered through the hills and woods for at least
four or five hours before I came across any signs
of civilization. It's strange to think about it now. I
(46:20):
was so exhausted and the situation was so surreal that
I must have seemed unusually calm to the people whose
door step I ended up on. I remember asking them
politely too if I could please use their phone because
my husband had just been shot. They thought I was
talking about some kind of hunting accident or something, but
when I told them it had been murder, they naturally
(46:42):
were very alarmed. They asked where it happened, if the
shooter was headed this way, but I told them that
I'd been walking for miles and had no idea how
to get back to the house by road. I think
if I had known Rob might still be alive, I'd
have been much more frantic in my pursuit. I'd have
wanted to go back, holding out hope that he could
(47:02):
still be saved. But I had no hope. I saw
where he had been shot, I saw the way he fell.
That man wanted him dead. Rob most probably flat lined
by the time I stopped a puke, and so instead
I called the copse and then waited in those nice
folks home until they arrived. They asked me to show
(47:24):
them where the house was on a map, and I
said that I only knew the rough area, but I
showed them as best I could. They searched for days,
but the house was nothing but a smoldering ruin when
they finally located it and Rob's body was nowhere to
be found. His parents kept him on the missing person's
register for a few years and the hopes that if
(47:45):
some one found his remains, it'd make the identification process easier.
But about eighteen months ago Rob's mom and dad completed
the process of having him declared legally dead. We held
out some degree of hope for a while, but at
some point we had to face the facts. Rob was
a never coming home. He was gone, and he was
(48:07):
gone forever. We held an official funeral for him the
following month, and since I can't think of any other
way to finish this, I'll just end with the eulogy
that I read out at his funeral. Rob was more
than just a partner. He was my best friend, the
person I could turn to for light when days seemed dark.
He lived with a spirit that embraced every moment, that
(48:29):
found beauty and meaning and small things. His kindness and
generosity touched every one he met, and his love made
my life richer than I ever thought possible. Though our
time together was cut far too short, I am grateful
beyond words to have loved him and been loved by him.
He's not just with us in memory, He's in every
(48:50):
laugh and every act of kindness and every adventure that
we take in his honor. So thank you, Rob for
every precious moment. I will carry you with me always. Hey, friends,
thanks for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted
(49:11):
of all future narrations. I release new videos every Monday
and Thursday at nine p m eu s T, and
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If you got a story, be sure to submit them
over at my email Let's Read Submissions at gmail dot
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(49:33):
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(49:57):
you are all wrong. No
Hey guys, we got some new merch in the merch store.
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get some new merch. We got some new designs are
pretty sweet. When other kids were asking for video games
(00:36):
or football boots for their birthdays, I wanted a disposable camera,
and the process of getting the pictures developed seemed like
nothing short of wizardry to me. My passion for photography
stayed with me right through secondary school, which, to my
parents' infinite frustration, I showed very little interest in I
understand why they were so stressed about my poor academic performance.
(00:59):
I didn't enjoy getting bothered by teachers every day. I
just knew what I wanted to do with my life,
and then after I left school at sixteen, I went
off and did it. I interned with a professional photographer
for a year, got a feel for the job, and
then started freelancing for just about anyone who'd pay. It.
Took a few years of building up a serious portfolio,
(01:20):
but once I had one, along with the necessary experience,
I was ready to apply for some serious jobs. The
job market for photography can be interesting, to say the least,
and without going into too much very lurid or tedious detail,
there wasn't much out there that wasn't excessively seedy or
excessively boring. But there was one job that caught my
(01:43):
eye so much so that I positively jumped at the
chance to apply for it overseas photographer for The Times,
one of the most prestigious newspapers in British history. I
applied then had an interview so shaken that I was
convinced that it had slipped through my fingers. But somehow
(02:04):
someone saw some potential in me and got the call
back with good news just a few days after that.
Job took me all over the world and it was incredible.
But then every so often I get a chance to
go somewhere a bit dicey. I went to Afghanistan in
twenty eleven, Iraq in twenty twelve. Then in January of
twenty fourteen, I was asked if I wanted to go
(02:26):
to Syria. And for those that need a brief primer,
the Syrian Civil War kicked off in mid twenty twelve,
following a year of fiery protests and violent government crackdowns.
Twenty thirteen was a year of escalation, with various armed
rebel groups getting all kinds of foreign backing before taking
the fight to government forces. But then twenty fourteen marked
(02:50):
a distinct shift in the landscape of that resistance, and
before the end of twenty thirteen it was mostly secular
groups of pro democracy rebels fighting under the banner of
the Free Syrian Army. But just after the new year,
he started hearing all about these Islamist and Jihati groups
springing up, some of which were supposedly connected Al Qaeda.
(03:11):
Our team's job was to drive into Aleppo, hook up
with our contact in the Free Syrian Army, and then
establish what relationship, if any, the FSA had with the Jihads.
We flew over to Turkey at the end of February,
spent a few days in a city near the Syrian border,
and then crossed over in early March. It was a
(03:31):
whole different feeling to Iraq in Afghanistan, because when I
visited those countries, the fighting in both places had started
to die down. Syria, on the other hand, was a
live conflict, a war in progress. We didn't fly in
on a military aircraft or cross the border. After having
our passports checked, we crossed in Assyria without permission, with
(03:53):
no safety net, and without any idea of what would happen,
and let me tell you that felt very different. After
driving into eastern Aleppo, we hooked up with our rebel
contact in a place called Jabal Badro. The journalist I
was with Ben had worked with Omar on a previous
trip to Aleppo back in twenty twelve, so for them
(04:15):
it marked quite an emotional reunion. Ben had won over
Omar in his unit of rebels by bringing them cartons
of cigarettes and boxes of basic medicines, and he did
the same thing when I was with them in twenty fourteen. Apparently,
handing out paracetamol and packets of sigis makes you very
popular in a war zone. And so the week we
(04:36):
spent with Omar's unit was as positive as it was productive.
I picked up a bit of Arabic, partied with the rebels,
and got at least half a dozen shots that I
considered some of the best I'd ever taken. But the
first week was little more than acclimatization, both physically and
christ was a hot and mentally because we planned on
(04:58):
spending our second week with another group of rebels, who,
unlike Omar's group, were much more connected with the Jihati
group known as Nusra Front. The NF, as i'll call
them from now on for the sake of ease, were
actually connected to al Qaeda at one point, and their
mad man in chief was based in Iraq for a
number of years. He was actually sent into Syria in
(05:19):
twenty eleven with the goal of exploiting the chaos of
the civil war to gain a foothold among the populace.
But once he was there and he got a taste
of power, oh he didn't quite fancy letting it go.
The NF's madman in chief was just that mental, but
he wasn't stupid. He knew that snatching journalists and cutting
(05:39):
their heads off was a really bad look, and that
if they wanted to keep getting their hands on the
weapons that the US and EU were feeding to the larger,
less scary looking rebel groups, they better stay on their
best behavior. Knowing we weren't going to be actively hunted
was probably the only reason we felt even remotely safe
traveling anywhere near NF con trolled areas. But even so
(06:02):
we had no desire to connect with the group, its leaders,
or its fighters, and the only trouble was fate had
other plans. Finding your way around the city, especially if
you don't know it all that well, can be difficult
to the best of times. But then imagine almost everything
you use for reference, be it street signs, landmarks, or
(06:24):
places of business, are suddenly destroyed all of a sudden.
Even people who knew Aleppo were having trouble finding their
way around. I'm not just talking a few bullet holes
or craters either. Entire streets have been leveled by air strikes,
and aside from all the debris, our drivers said it
was the thin layer of dust on everything that really
(06:45):
threw them off and made all the winding streets of
eastern Aleppa look the same. I'm sure you can see
this coming a mile off already, but I'm a photographer,
not a writer, so I'll just leave all that structuring
to the professionals and just get on with my stock. So,
on our way to meet up with this other, less
frightening group of rebels, we took a wrong turn, and
(07:08):
we didn't even realize that we'd taken a wrong turn
until the people we thought had been sent to meet us,
suddenly aimed their guns at us and ordered us to kneel.
We literally had no idea what was happening or who
they were, so initially we thought it was this other
group of pro democracy rebels just being a bit overcautious
when it came to their security. They were all terrified
(07:31):
of spies. Everyone was. But later we found out that
we hadn't been rather rudely welcomed by some paranoids soon
to be friends. We'd been taken prisoner by a different group,
one with strong ties to both NF and another Jihati
group that hadn't quite made a name for itself yet.
(07:52):
Once it was clear that we've been taken prisoner, our driver,
who had been captured along with us, began immediately trying
to negotiate our relief. We figured all they wanted was money,
and they were promised a ton, But according to the
group's leader, a guy called Abou Khalid, they'd get a
shed load more money by selling us to another much
(08:13):
wealthier group of militants who operated out of a place
called Rakka. We asked what would happen to us there,
but Abou Khalid said that he neither knew nor cared.
All he cared about were the vast acts of cash
the Rocca group was offering for any British or American prisoners.
It was a grim moment, excepting we were probably going
(08:35):
to be held hostage for a very long time. Both
me and Ben trusted both our governments and our employers
to work towards securing our release, as well as that
of our driver Offman, and to us it was just
a matter of time before we were released, because at
that stage of the war it was all about getting
backing or funding from outside the country. It made very
(08:56):
little sense for any armed group to just kill us,
and in fact that we thought that we were more
in danger of being caught and executed by government loyalists
than any group of rebels Jihatis included. There was just
too much money to be made ransoming off to British journalists.
So even though this mysterious group were willing to pay
our captors forty thousand USD for the both of us,
(09:19):
it was an investment they could make millions from. It
must sound a bit mental to some people. I mean
it sounds mental to me just writing it all these
years later, But being a prisoner wasn't all that bad.
The group that took us prisoner just wanted to make
some money, and they hated the government loyalists far more
than they could ever hate us. So after a few
(09:40):
days our guards started to warm up to us a bit.
They had to feed us and keep us safe because
this other Jihati group said that they wanted us alive
and unharmed. But after a few days of being regular
fixtures around the compound they occupied, they took our restraints off,
invited us upstairs from the basement they were holding us in,
and then basically just let us hang out. They told Othman,
(10:05):
if your lot try and run, will kill you. But
other than that, just behave yourselves. We could roughly converse
with the Jihati blokes in our crappy Arabic, but if
we wanted any serious dialogue, we'd use our driver Othman
as a translator. The group holding us weren't frontline fighters.
(10:25):
Their only job was to guard us, and seeing as
they were actually pretty all right fellas who had just
been sucked into the malstrom of the country's civil war,
we got talking about this and that they were very,
very curious about our lives back in London, and I
am deadly serious when I say they must have asked
us a thousand questions over the course of those nine
(10:46):
days in captivity. They wanted to know what London was like,
what kinds of things we ate back home, and what
kinds of places we lived in. But Abou was clearly
the most senior guard among them, seemed particularly interested in
what football teams we supported. Ben wasn't into football much.
He went to a private school and was more into
(11:07):
his rugby. But for me, my passions were photography first,
then football second, and I had still have a particular
love of my local side, Queen's Park Rangers. I know
I'm going to get stick from my fellow fans for this,
but q PR aren't a big team, and assuming Aboo
only follows the top league, I didn't expect him to
(11:28):
know them. But then when I told him I was
a QPR fan, his face lit up and he launched
into a massive speech to Othman, who was acting as
our translator. I could recognize the odd word here and there,
and he kept saying q PR in his accent over
and over, so I knew he was talking about the
football club. But then Othman turns to me and in
(11:52):
so many words, this is what he said. Abu says,
he's a great admirer of your Moroccan attacking midfielder thrapped
and my jaw dropped. But Othman continued. Abdu says, Thrap's
contribution of nineteen goals sixteen assists to qprs twenty eleven
(12:14):
season was a huge achievement for the player of his age,
but he thoroughly deserved to win the Championship's Player of
the Season award. And you know what, a boom was
exactly right. As a die hard QPR fan, I loved
Adele and I still do. He was absolutely phenomenal during
(12:35):
that twenty ten season, and I cheered for every single
one of those nineteen goals. Through Othman, I asked a
Boo if he remembered the goal Thoropt scored on Boxing
Day of twenty ten about jumped up off the floor
with this big smile on his face and started mimicking
the exact movements of what came to be known as
the Christmas Cracker. He intimidated Toterap's cheeky back heel to
(13:00):
trick one player, then mimed tapping the ball through another
player's legs before acting out the absolute rocket of a
kick that even the goalkeeper's gloves couldn't put a stop to.
I was in raptures or ruptures, you might say, and
I asked if Abu remembered Topt running over and literally
hugging some random QPR fans in celebration of his goal
(13:24):
and stuff like that was why he was so popular.
He loved us and we loved him, and neither of
us was afraid to show it. Abu did remember the hug,
and then that was it. We launched into what must
have been a two hour conversation about football with almost
everyone gathered around for the entertainment, and the whole thing
was just crazy. There I was having an in depth
(13:46):
football talk with a man that had taken me hostage.
It marked a sort of high point in our time
and captivity, because for a brief moment, it was like
we weren't prisoners anymore. It was like we were among friends.
And although I wasn't to know it at the time,
I think it was that chat about Karap that saved
our lives. We spent another two days in Ambou's compound,
(14:10):
and those were probably the best two days we spent there.
We were given generous portions when invited to sit and
eat with the rest of the rebels, after which they
shared cigarettes and sweets with us. Then after dinner they
had a hundred more questions for us about our lives
back in London. However, after about an hour of chatting,
(14:30):
Abou asked if we could have a word in private,
and by private he meant me him and of course Othman.
We walked over to a quiet corner and through our
driver turned translator, I asked him if there was any
news on the hostage transfer. I made it clear that
I wasn't making any demands on him. I was just
anxious about being in the dark regarding when and where
(14:53):
we'd be transported. Abou looked at Othman, then at me, Then,
after a sigh and a moment of thought, he started
feeding his reply to Othman for translation. And as I
watched him talk, I watched the color slowly drain from
Othman's face. He turned to me and more or less
this is what he said. Abu says he hesn't sell
(15:16):
us to the group in Rakka, Othman said, and initially
I thought it was because Abu thought that he was
being stiffed and the idea of selling us to the
other group for pittance so that in turn could make
millions had probably left a pretty bad taste in his mouth.
And that's not what was bothering him. He said he
(15:37):
could live with the prospect of selling us to someone
who'd eventually released us, but that's not what this other
group intended to do. This other group went by a
few different names at the time, the mujah Hadeen, Sure
of a Council, the Army of the Victorious, the Congregation
of Monotheism in Jihad. But the name they'd been given
(15:57):
in the months that followed is one that will live
in infamy. Isis The group that wanted to buy us
were just months away from officially renaming themselves the Islamic State,
and the reason they wanted us alive is because they
wanted to decapitate us, film it, and then turn our
executions into sleek propaganda videos that had end up online.
(16:22):
And by the time Athman finished telling me that that
as everything except their ensuing change of name, I must
have looked as pale as he was. I then begged
Abu not to sell us to those people that we
could guarantee them tens of thousands of pounds if they
ransomed us instead of selling us on. He told us
(16:42):
it was too late, and that Isis were already on
their way to collect us. They'd be at the swap
location a few miles outside of Aleppo in less than
forty eight hours, and if we weren't there to collect
there'd be trouble. And by then Othman had taken over
in terms of leading the discussion, and after a few
more minutes of talking he gave me the gist of
(17:03):
what had been said. A Boom was going to escort
us back to our contact Omar and then tell his
bosses and the ISIS guys that we'd managed to escape
during attack by the government soldiers. And he only had
two conditions. The first was that we got the hell
out of Aleppo immediately. If his boss has got wind
(17:24):
of the fact that he just let us go, he
was a dead man, so that was non negotiable. The
second thing, however, was that I gave him the little
QPR supporter's club card that I kept in my wallet
and so he could have something to remember me by.
I gave it to him in a heartbeat, then just
A few hours later, we were on the move again,
(17:44):
back towards Omar's group, who we'd spent our first couple
of days with. Forty eight hours later, around the same
time we should have been handed over to our Isis executioners,
we were waiting in Jtai Airport for our Istanbul transfer,
and then after that we were headed home. Ben ended
(18:04):
up writing the story he'd been asked to write, and
he used plenty of my pictures too, but he made
no mention of the kidnapping in his story, and the
pictures I took of us and our hostage takers have
never seen the light of day. I wanted Ben to
be able to thank Abu and his story, but we
knew that wouldn't be possible without putting his safety at risk.
(18:26):
Following a prolonged and intense battle, the Syrian Army retook
full control of Aleppo in December two thousand sixteen. Syrian
state media then announced that they had fully secured the
city after an evacuation deal for the remaining rebel fighters
and civilians was reached, meaning there was a slim chance
that Abu managed to get out alive. I know he
(18:47):
technically wasn't on the right side of that conflict, as
they say, But if you knew it, I don't think
you could call any group from that conflict the good
guys and not choke on those words. I dunno what
else he did during the war, but Abou saved our lives,
and for that I'll be forever grateful. I sometimes wonder
if he's still alive and if he ever made it
(19:09):
out of Syria. So if you just so happened to
hear this, Abou, and you're anywhere near Loftus Road, then
reach out so we can go to a game together
and talk about football and peace instead of war. In
(19:34):
April twenty sixteen, my friend Tony and I were on
our way to a birthday party in our hometown of
Baton Rouge. It was the twenty third birthday of a
mutual friend, and to celebrate the occasion, her parents allowed
her to throw a party at their house in Santa Maria.
I remember being incredibly excited for the party, and part
of the reason we were so excited was that Santa
(19:56):
Maria is home to some truly beautiful homes and therefore
some incredible places to throw a party. The only trouble
was neither of us knew the neighborhood very well. I
was at the wheel while Tony was there in the
passenger seat. He had his phone in his hand trying
to figure out exactly where we needed to go, whilst
being the in car DJ for our pre party tunes
(20:19):
and so while he was adept at picking bangers to
get us all turned up, he wasn't the best navigator
I could have asked for. Santa Maria is divided up
into four distinct sections, and between them is the Santa
Maria golf Course. We ended up finding the right one,
but the real trouble came when we had to find
the correct street. A text from a friends said that
(20:40):
we wanted some number on Mancheck, so we were looking
for something like Manchak Road or a Manchack Avenue. But
then after turning on the Manshaq Lake Drive, which we
figured was the one we wanted, we were suddenly faced
with Manshaq Way Avenue, Manschaq Trace Avenue and Manshaq crossing
at four different streets all named Manshaq, meaning we had
(21:04):
no idea which street the party was on. I asked
Tony to give one of our friends a call just
to confirm the address, but when we finally managed to
get a hold of someone, the music was too loud
for us to get any coherent answer out of her.
She said that she'd double check with our friend to
get the right address and would call us back, but
(21:24):
she didn't, and we ended up driving up and down
Manshak's trying to work out if it was the number
they gave us at Manshaq Way or the same number
on another Manshaq and we tried looking for clues things
like cars lined up outside the house, groups of people
chatting on the porch, or maybe this sort of faint
thumping of bass in the distance. Things would have been
(21:45):
easier if the party was actually inside, but part of
the agreement to use her parents' place was that the
party be centered in the backyard and pool area. That way,
the house wouldn't get trashed. But that also meant that
both those numbered houses looked almost identical. They were all
dark on the outside, neither had any obvious signs of activity,
(22:06):
and both houses had a bunch of cars lined up outside,
and so in the end we decided to turn down
the driveway on one of the man shack other places,
and because we figured the worst thing that had happened
is that we'd have a very confused home owner tell
us that it was the other one, and so I
drove us up the driveway, stopped the car. Then Tony
(22:26):
and I sat there in silence for a moment. I
remember the silence, the total complete silence of being in
that driveway, and how I got a really strong feeling
that we were not at the right address. The house
was dark and the curtains seemed like they were drawn,
but then suddenly a flicker of movement near the curtains
started to catch our eye. We knew someone was home,
(22:49):
but if this was where the party was out, I
doubted that they had been hiding in a front room
taking peaks out at cars in the driveway. I told
Tony that I didn't think it was the place, but
he insisted on knocking on the door just to make sure.
I told him I wasn't sure there was a good idea.
Then the last thing he said to me was, what's
the worst that could happen? Before my windshield he suddenly shattered.
(23:14):
Shards of glass rained down on us as gunshots rang out,
and I remember seeing flashes coming from the darkness of
an upstairs window. I remember my heart thumping in my
chest as my mind caught up to what was happening.
Then the next thing, I was ducking down, hunching over
and gasping for breath as the stark reality hit me
(23:35):
that we were being shot. At time seemed like it
was slowing down. I could feel each bullet smashing into
the car, and I felt frozen with terror. Then suddenly
it was like I heard this voice in my head yelling,
put the car in reverse, where you're both dead. As
raw panic distilled into the need for action, I remember
(23:57):
fumbling with that gearstick before quickly throwing the car into reverse.
The tires spun slightly as I slammed my foot down
on the pedal, causing the tires to squeal before a
sudden jolt backwards. I heard Tony yell something, but I
couldn't make out what. I was too busy looking into
the rear view to see if any one was behind us.
Then we put the car in a drive and we
(24:18):
sped off into the night, air rushing into the car
from where the windshield was gone. I remember this mix
of relief but fear washing over me as we drove
away from that danger, but I was still wired from
all the adrenaline, and I was half way to shouting
something like, oh my god, we made it. When I
noticed he'd been shot. I pushed the car's engine to
(24:42):
its absolute limits, speeding like a crazy person as the
world outside became a blue of street lights and shadows,
and I remember looking over to Tony and seeing how
pale he looked and how much pain he seemed to begin,
and then the fear of losing him came crashing down
on me like a wave. I kept yelling at him
to hold on and we were headed to a hospital,
(25:04):
and that we'd be there and no more than a
few minutes, cause all I had to do was keep
my foot down, stay on the interstate, and take the
exit ramp as soon as we saw that Baton Rouge General.
I had no idea how many times Tony had been shot,
and I figured that I might have been shot too,
but I just couldn't do anything about it, cause I
had to keep my eyes on the road while I
was weaving in and out of traffic. And that was
(25:26):
probably the worst part about the whole thing for me personally,
the thought of how if I passed out at the wheel.
At those speeds, both of us would probably be dead.
I thought I could feel blood in my stomach and
legs because it was very warm and wet down there,
but like I said, I couldn't look or to be
game over for the both of us. I remember nearly
(25:47):
crashing into another car as I swerved on to the
exit ramp, and then nearly crashing a second time as
I skidded into the parking lot of the hospital. I
stopped almost right outside the doors, jumped out of the
driver's side, and then ran around to Tony's side while
calling up for help. I opened up his door, kind
of hopeful because of how quick we made it, but
(26:08):
when I saw Tony's face, I panicked. He was white
as a sheet. He was struggling to breathe, and there
was blood everywhere, and his eyes looked almost glazed over,
like he was just minutes away from death. I kept
yelling at him to stay with me, shaking his shoulder
while telling him help was on the way. The next
thing I know, there's a bunch of paramedics rushing over
(26:30):
to get Tony out of the car and into the hospital.
As they wheeled Tony away on a gurney. I mentioned
how I thought I'd been shot. Remember I told you
about feeling very warm and wet in my pants. Well
it wasn't blood, it was piss And while we were
getting shot at, I shrad uppeeded my pants and struggled
(26:51):
with the shame of that for some time before I
just came to terms with it. I had a marine
who served in Afghanistan tell me that some of his
squad mates used to always need to be real bad
any time they got into a shootout. They'd be lying
down someplace, like on their stomachs, shooting at the bad guys,
and this one marine would roll on to his side,
pull his wiener out, and then just start pissing right
(27:12):
there where he laid. The pisser said he'd rather show
off his two inch wander to the rest of the
squad than Soaka's underwear, And the marine told me how
not a single one of them considered them a coward.
I met the guy in a group therapy session maybe
six or seven months after that night, and when I
mentioned the pissing myself thing, he just laughed. I was
kind of offended at first, and he said he was
(27:34):
just laughing at the idea that I considered myself a coward.
He'd heard my story already and he considered me one
of the baalsiest m efforts he'd ever met. He told
me I'd done the exact right thing to the letter
in terms of going into action mode and zooming to
that hospital. Just being able to back out of a
driveway while under fire was impressive to him, but not
(27:56):
crashing on the way to the hospital was what made
him think that I'd make a fire and marine if
I ever wanted to take that path in life. And
I managed to keep it together all the same and
just told him, thanks dude, it means a lot. But
when I got back to my car, I cried like
a baby, and I mean ugly cried too, not some
cool single tear rolling down my cheek like in an
(28:19):
action movie hero situation. It didn't just mean a lot.
That meant the entire world to me. And for the
first time since sitting in that hospital waiting room, I
didn't feel like a total piece of trash. Oh and
speaking of the waiting room, I guess I kind of
got diverted there for a minute or two and let
me get back on track. Sitting in that waiting room
(28:40):
felt like I was in another dimension. Time was slowing down,
the place was full, and I never felt so alone,
and I felt like I was trapped between wanting to
hear some news about Tony and then dreading whatever the
news might be. It was hellish, and I mean them
in the truest sense of the world. If there is
a hell, it probably feels a little like that waiting
(29:01):
room in Baton Rouge, at least before the fiery parts. Anyway,
my mind kept replaying what had happened in that driveway,
and checking my phone became almost like a ritual, something
to break up my thoughts while letting our friends know
what had happened. I looked up every time the nurse
walked in, thinking this is it, only for it not
to be the call some one else or just walk
(29:23):
right through. Sometimes I felt like I was watching myself
in a bad dream, a nightmare where everything smelled like
antiseptic and the lights were so bright I felt like
they were stinging my eyes. After what felt like forever,
a doctor stepped into the waiting room and finally called
my name. He then sort of ushered me into a
(29:44):
quiet section and gave me the news and when he
told me Tony was alive and that they were optimistic
about his recovery. I never felt relief like it before.
I had to put my head in my hands because
I thought I was going to burst into tears, and then,
after pulling myself together, I listened as the doctor continued.
He explained that although a bullet had entered Tony's chest,
(30:07):
it had missed his heart along with all of his
major arteries. However, the bullet did collapse alung, which is
why he was struggling to breathe by the time we
pulled into the hospital's parking lot, and to fix it,
the doctor performed a procedure that involved inserting a tube
into Tony's chest, which reinflated his lung and allowed it
to expand properly. The bullet also broke a rib, but
(30:30):
while that would be very painful, it did. Heal over time,
and the most important news, though, was that Tony was
stabilized and had been moved into the intensive care unit,
where his pain would be managed and he could be monitored.
He wasn't completely out of the woods yet, though, but
seeing how young, fit and healthy he was, the prognosis
was good. I could either go home and rest or
(30:50):
stick around the hospital and I'd be able to see
him in a couple of hours. I still had glass
and blood all over me, so I told the doctor
i'd return a few hours after a shower and a
change of clothes, and at home, I talked to a
bunch of people who had been at the party, like
mine and Tony's mutual friends, and I agreed to pick
a few of them up. On the way back to
(31:11):
the hospital, we had to wait for almost an hour
before we were allowed in, but when we were two
groups of us went in to see him, one group
of two and one group of three. I went in
with our friend Cherry, and walking down the corridor to
his ICU room was like the longest walk of our lives.
I remember coming to the door embracing myself for what
(31:33):
I was about to see. I knew he was probably
going to be okay, but it was still daunting his
hell walking towards that door. And then when I walked
into Tony's room, it was a very huge mix of emotions.
I was more relieved than I'd ever been in my
whole life to see Tony alive, but he barely looked
any better than he did when I first got him
to the hospital. It was really shocking to see him
(31:55):
in such a vulnerable position. But the thing that really
sticks with me is just how happy Tony was to
see us. He was still weak and couldn't move it all,
but he had just enough energy after waking up from
surgery to talk to us a little before the nurses
shoot us out of the room, saying Tony needed his rest.
But before we left, Tony and I had something of
(32:16):
a moment together. He told me I saved his life,
but I told him he was wrong about that dead wrong.
It was he that had saved my life, because if
I had driven to that party on my own, I
have no doubt my mind that whoever shot at us
would have aimed for me and not him. He hadn't
opened up his door yet, so the lights in my
(32:38):
car didn't switch on. But what Tony did have was
his phone on full brightness, held a chest height, which,
from the shooter's point of view, probably lit him up
like a Christmas tree. The guy was a terrible shot
and only landed one direct head on us, but I
have no doubt that he used the light of Tony's
phone as sort of a reference point on where to aim,
(33:00):
and if he hadn't been there, then it would have
been me that took the shooter's one lucky shot, and
then I definitely would have passed out on the way
to the hospital if I wasn't killed instantly by that shot.
And in so many words, he took the bullet that
was meant for me and TONI was in the hospital
for just over a week, and strangely enough, that was
the same day the man who shot him pleaded no
(33:22):
contest to charges of attempted manslaughter. I got downgraded after
that and instead of murder because apparently, in the last
year alone, this dude's house had been targeted in two
home invasions by two different groups. One group ended up
going to prison, and apparently one of the guys told
our shooter that his homies were going to get him,
(33:43):
so when we rolled up to his driveway in a
car that he didn't recognize, he opened up on us
before giving us a chance to identify ourselves. His attorneys
said that he was so scared that he didn't want
to take any chances. But even with it being his
first conviction, the judge called him a Dangerdock others and
gave him three years in prison. I would have liked
(34:04):
to have seen him given more time, but there was
a period where we thought that he might get no
jail time, so having him get at least some time
was a pretty huge relief. Tony has since made a
full recovery and has somehow managed to find it in
his heart to forgive the guy who shot him. I
guess that's the kind of grace that I should have
expected from him, But for me, it's a hell of
(34:26):
a lot harder to simply forgive and forget, not when
both of us came so close to death. For our
second anniversary, my boyfriend and I arranged a weekend stay
at a luxury log cabin. We've been going to the
(34:47):
same coffee shop for a few months when I actually
knocked his ice latte all over him like a total klutz.
Rob was so so nice about it. Then the next
time I bumped into him off to pay his dry
cleaning bill, he said he'd rather i'd paid him back
by taking him out to dinner, and since we totally
had some chemistry between us, I accepted. And now cut
(35:10):
to about two and a half years later, and were
flying down to Nashville to spend a few days with
Rob's parents before heading off into the hills of Monroe County,
way out near the North Carolina state line. When he
first suggested the idea over dinner, I was dead against it.
Rob and his family loved all things outdoors related, and
(35:30):
they were hardcore about it too, and so at first
I was scared his cabin would be some one room
hunting shack and it'd be dinners of raw deer meat
for all three nights. Now Rob assured me that that
wasn't the case. Then, when I was still skeptical, he
showed me the website. The cabin he picked out looked incredible.
(35:51):
It was set onto a hillside with a large deck
overlooking what looked like a stunning view. There was a
fire pit a hot tub for soaking under the star,
and that was just outside. The inside had an open
floor plan with high vaulted ceilings and exposed wooden beams.
There were also leather sofas, state of the art appliances,
(36:12):
and a whole kitchen complete with a farmhouse sink and
breakfast nook. But I think the thing that really caught
my eye was the old stone fireplace because I could
constantly picture me and Rob curling up together in front
of it after a long hike through the woods. And
that's all after a couple's shower in the bathroom that
I kid you not had heated floors. I've never stayed
(36:33):
in the hotel room that fancy, let alone a shack
in the middle of butt Love and Nowhere. So after
seeing the cabin's website, I went from super skeptical to
super excited. And we stayed four days with Rob's mom
and dad, who are just the sweetest people ever. And
then on Friday morning, we loaded up the rental car
with our stuff and then got on the road towards
(36:54):
a place called Coker Creek. Everything was going fine, and
we even stopped and at Nuga to grab some food
because we were head of schedule. But then once we
passed Coker Creek and turned onto the back roads to
locate our cabin, our progress slowed down dramatically. This was
back in the late two thousands, so while we did
(37:15):
have an early model of GPS in the rental, it
was about as useful as a glass hammer. Up in
those forested hills. We had a sheet of printed directions
in the paper map, but we first realized that the
directions were no good when we hit our first dead end,
with no luxury cabin in sight, and long story short,
we retraced our path about four times, but each time
(37:38):
we got deep into the woods, we got so disoriented
that we ended up going around in circles before we
finally found our way back to a highway, and from
there we try again, getting more and more frustrated each time,
until finally we drove down a road that had a
house at the end of it instead of just another
dead end. It was Rob's idea to stop and ask
(37:59):
for directions. The house looked old, really old, so we
figured any one inside had been living in the area
for quite a while, in which case they probably knew
of the cabin we were looking for. It was a small,
single story home with faded, pealing paint that might once
have been white but had since become worn away to
reveal spots of rotting wood. Missing sections of shingle caused
(38:23):
the roof to sag in places, while patches of moss
covered up whole sections of it. As we got out
of the car and walked towards the porch, we could
see it was barely holding together. There were gaps in
the floorboards, the banisters were splintering, and I remember as
Rob put his boot up on to the first step,
the whole thing creaked so loudly that it could have
(38:44):
doubled as a door bell. The second the porch steps
started creaking, we heard movement from inside the house. All
the windows were either shuttered or covered with cloth or newspaper,
so while we couldn't see inside the house, we knew
some one was home. Rob knocked on the door, expecting
some one to answer right away, because we were ninety
(39:04):
nine percent sure that there was some one right on
the other side of the door, But it took them
until Rob politely asked if they could give us directions
for them to acknowledge our presence. Only then did the
door open just a crack, and a woman of a
round fifty appeared in the gap. She was short, had
a very thick accent, and didn't look remotely pleased to
(39:27):
see us. When she opened up and asked us what
we wanted. Rob repeated that we were hoping to get
some directions, but the woman told us that she couldn't help.
Her husband was off running errands, and he knew the
area infinitely better than she did, so we could either
get back into the rental car and try our luck
with a maze of back roads again, or we could
(39:47):
take a seat on the porch and wait patiently and
hope her husband planned on getting back before dark. The
lady said that she didn't mind us waiting and that
she was sorry that she couldn't be of more help,
so we thanked her and then took a seat on
an old porch swing. After thoroughly dusting it off, we
waited close to an hour, killing as much time as
(40:08):
we could by reminiscing about the two years we've been together.
It was our way of staying positive. There didn't seem
to be any point in worrying or complaining, as we
were sure to find the cabin at some point. But then,
at one point I made a very rough comment about
how we'd been sitting on this lady's porch for like
half an hour and she didn't invite us inside. So
(40:31):
much for Southern hospitality, I said, And honestly it was
mostly intended as sort of a joke. But then Rob
stepped off the porch, took a look at the house,
and then said something like I guess they must really
value their privacy, and then motioned for me to come
look at something. All four downstairs windows and all five
(40:53):
upstairs windows were covered by either these gruppy looking curtains,
canvas sheets, or plain old newspaper, and as I looked
at it, the house started to really give me the creeps.
But I also knew exactly what Rob would say if
I aired my thoughts. He'd say that these were just
some poor, simple folks who valued their privacy and their solitude.
(41:15):
Sure it was a world away from Manhattan, but these
were good salt of the earth people who'd probably be
more than happy to help us, especially if it meant
giving them back their privacy. And so I just kept
my mouth shut. I knew he was thinking a little
of what I was thinking. I mean, he had to be.
But it was either wait for some directions from that
lady's husband or potentially get lost in these backwoods for
(41:38):
a fifth time and not be able to find a
way back to that house to ask those directions. So
we stayed put. After just less than an hour of
pacing back and forth and grabbing snacks from our car,
we heard the sound of a vehicle coming up the
road behind us. We were sitting on the old couple's
porch swing when we heard it, and the sound lifted
(41:59):
our spirits immensely. If anyone knew where our luxury cabin
was located, it was this pick up driving Appalachian old
timer who'd probably been living here long before our cabin
had ever even been built. And we stayed put until
we saw the guy's truck coming up the trail, and
then Rob got up and said something like I better
(42:20):
go make myself known. He's going to wonder whose car
that is, referring to our rental. We stepped off the
porch and then started waving at the oncoming truck as
he jogged towards the rental, pointing and sort of gesticulating
as if to say, that's ours and we come in peace.
The truck stopped just shy of the rental as Rob
(42:40):
kept walking towards it. Then, as an older man opened
the door and stepped out of his cab, Rob began
talking to him. He was wearing a denim shirt in
a canvas jacket with jeans, boots, and a cap with
some kind of logo on it, and appeared to be
listening intently to Rob as he spoke. I remember being
(43:00):
startled by the sudden sound of the lady's voice coming
from my right, and she said, my husband's home, with
his wide, unsettling smile stretched across her face, it seemed.
I remember looking at her for a moment, thinking what
are you up to? And then as I turned to
look at Rob, I saw him suddenly back away from
the lady's husband. He raised his arms and started shouting no, no, no,
(43:26):
and then the man aimed a pistol and shot him.
I had no time to react because right as Rob
fell I heard a screech coming from my right. The
lady had burst from her front door with a hatchet
in her hand and was rushing down the porch toward me.
(43:47):
I ran the opposite way, jumping off the porch and
then darting around the corner of the house. The whole
time I was thinking about the guy with the gun
and how I needed to put solid objects between us
to keep from being shot, and that's what I did.
His wife was really no threat to me at all,
and these days it gets a kind of wry smile
(44:07):
out of me whenever I think about that dumb bitch
tripping as she followed me off our porch and crashing
into the dirt with a very pathetic sounding grunt. But
it took me a long long time to be able
to think of it that way. I knew the guy
would be coming for me. He just shot my boyfriend
of two years in front of me, so there's no
way he intended to let me get away. But the
(44:30):
thing that made me feel like I could have sprinted
for days was the thought of what he'd have in
store for me if he caught me. My sister was
something of a true crime officionado, completely hooked on A
and E and investigation discovery, so whenever I stopped by
her place for a few glasses of wine after work,
she'd inevitably regale me with the tails from the latest
(44:52):
true crime show that she'd been watching. I won't go
into too many gory details, but one of the things
that really creeped me out was when my sister told
me something to the effect of they killed the guy
you're with right away, so they can take their time
with you. And that's all that was running through my
mind as I sprinted through the trees, away from the house,
(45:14):
away from the rental car and away from Rob. I ran,
and I ran, and I ran some more. I ran
until my lungs hurt, until I could feel my pulse
thumping in my head, until my thighs ached from the mindless,
terrifying exertion of running from my very life. I ran
further than I needed to, way further, having visions of
(45:38):
some ex marine sniper being able to pick me off
through the trees and at distances I assumed were safe.
I ran until I felt like I was about to
pass out, and then when I stopped, I puked up
all the water and snacks Me and Rob had eaten
our final meal together, and I hadn't even known it.
(45:59):
I think I must run for about a mile before
I came to a road, and then after I followed
that for a while I saw a fire lookout, which
turned out to be empty. And after that I must
have wandered through the hills and woods for at least
four or five hours before I came across any signs
of civilization. It's strange to think about it now. I
(46:20):
was so exhausted and the situation was so surreal that
I must have seemed unusually calm to the people whose
door step I ended up on. I remember asking them
politely too if I could please use their phone because
my husband had just been shot. They thought I was
talking about some kind of hunting accident or something, but
when I told them it had been murder, they naturally
(46:42):
were very alarmed. They asked where it happened, if the
shooter was headed this way, but I told them that
I'd been walking for miles and had no idea how
to get back to the house by road. I think
if I had known Rob might still be alive, I'd
have been much more frantic in my pursuit. I'd have
wanted to go back, holding out hope that he could
(47:02):
still be saved. But I had no hope. I saw
where he had been shot, I saw the way he fell.
That man wanted him dead. Rob most probably flat lined
by the time I stopped a puke, and so instead
I called the copse and then waited in those nice
folks home until they arrived. They asked me to show
(47:24):
them where the house was on a map, and I
said that I only knew the rough area, but I
showed them as best I could. They searched for days,
but the house was nothing but a smoldering ruin when
they finally located it and Rob's body was nowhere to
be found. His parents kept him on the missing person's
register for a few years and the hopes that if
(47:45):
some one found his remains, it'd make the identification process easier.
But about eighteen months ago Rob's mom and dad completed
the process of having him declared legally dead. We held
out some degree of hope for a while, but at
some point we had to face the facts. Rob was
a never coming home. He was gone, and he was
(48:07):
gone forever. We held an official funeral for him the
following month, and since I can't think of any other
way to finish this, I'll just end with the eulogy
that I read out at his funeral. Rob was more
than just a partner. He was my best friend, the
person I could turn to for light when days seemed dark.
He lived with a spirit that embraced every moment, that
(48:29):
found beauty and meaning and small things. His kindness and
generosity touched every one he met, and his love made
my life richer than I ever thought possible. Though our
time together was cut far too short, I am grateful
beyond words to have loved him and been loved by him.
He's not just with us in memory, He's in every
(48:50):
laugh and every act of kindness and every adventure that
we take in his honor. So thank you, Rob for
every precious moment. I will carry you with me always. Hey, friends,
thanks for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted
(49:11):
of all future narrations. I release new videos every Monday
and Thursday at nine p m eu s T, and
there are super fun live streams on Sundays and Wednesday nights.
If you got a story, be sure to submit them
over at my email Let's Read Submissions at gmail dot
com and you might even hear your story featured on
the next video. And if you want to support me
(49:33):
even more, grab her early access to all future narrations
and bonus content over on Patreon, or click that big
join button to hear about the extra perks offered from
members of the channel, and check out the Let's Read
podcast or we can hear all of these stories and
big compilations located anywhere you listen to podcasts. All links
in the description below. Thanks so much, friends, and remember
(49:57):
you are all wrong. No
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