225-How To Sell A Haunted House

it's really not that hard, just get rid of all the dolls and puppets (also wear safety glasses). Today we are talking about How to Sell A Haunted House by Grady Hendrix. If you like puppets, telling the kids about the atrocities of the war against terror, and limb amputation then this is the book for you!

WARNING: death of a child, death of parents, violence

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hey, I'm Sydney, and apparently I'm Delane because Sinny does
not expel my name.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Take him with one hand, and this is a book.
Could today I'm gonna tell de Laney how to that
had a cell haunted house by Grady Hendrix.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Wow, to help us have a little scary puppets. Can't
wait for that. Uh, I'm drinking about dew.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Oh my god, I have a doctor pepper.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Oh my god, I'm drinking some juice right now because
I'm sick.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
But I also have juice. It's crystal light. It's not juice,
strawberry crystal light. It's pig juice.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Juice.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
It's it's it's a powdered juice.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
But there's zero percent juice in there.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Probably what are you? Why are you judging me? Shut up?

Speaker 3 (00:59):
All right, yess.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Crystalite is more of a flavorings.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
A flavored juice beverage. How about that? A flavored beverage?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Okay, favor it's a flavor of flavored water.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
It's juice adjacent, I suppose, Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
So my fun facts are a Wikipedia page on Grady Hendrix,
So here we go his whole Wikipedia page. He was
born in South Carolina. His parents divorced when he was
thirteen years old. Last most People's parents. He spent much
of his time in public libraries. As an adult, he
worked in the library of the American Society for Physical

(01:37):
Research Don't Know What That Is before turning to professional writing.
Alongside his novels, he's written for numerous media outlets, including
Playboy and The New York Post. Prior to its Culture
in two thousand and eight, he was a film critic
for The New York Sun. In two thousand and nine,
he attended the Clarion Workshop at the University of California
at San Diego.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Don't Know What Though.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
He also contributed to Katie croucheres I Don't Know Who
That Is young adult series The Magnolia League, and his
fiction has appeared in Strange Risence and Studepot. In twenty twelve,
he co wrote Dirty Candy, a Cookbook which is a
graphic novel slash cookbook slash memoir with his wife, Amanda
Cohen and Ryan dun Dunlabby in twenty fourteen, which I'm

(02:21):
Curious about Love the name, Gotta know What's up with
this memoir?

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Cookbook, graphic novel.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
And twenty fourteen, Quirk Books publishes novel Horror Store, which
was subsequently optioned for a television series fad Fox. Grady
then wrote My Best Friend's Exorcism in twenty sixteen.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Okay, I was gonna say My Best Friend's Exorcism is
a movie.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
I wonder if it was made into a movie. They don't.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
I don't know if it's based on his but it's
called that. I've seen it on like Hulu or something.
It looks funny.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
I'd watch it. I want to read it.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
I mean, I like this, I like this book, I
like this author excited.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, so maybe it's movie. And then he wrote the
enclaimed nonfiction study Paperbacks from Hell, The Twisted History of
the seventies and eighties horror Fiction. That's roe pretty good.
He also covered the twenty seventeen motion picture Mohawk with
director Ted Gigaheim gig Sorry, Ted, and.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
The specs script That's one.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yes, the specscript for the horror comedy film Satanic Panic.
I'd watch that, which was acquired and produced by Fangoria
during the mid twenty eighteen, and My Best Friend Exorcism
and Horror Store. I have an option for film adaptations.
While The Southern Books Club got Silent book Club's Guide
to Slang Vampires and The Final Girl Support Group are
slated for television adaptations. Damn everything, this guy's wereritten.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
News on TV and he's good at naming shit. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Henderson created a one man show for The Final Girl
Support Group to promote the novel, as he found traditional
author events boring. From May twenty twenty, Doctor for twenty twenty,
Hendrick serviss a down podcast, Super Scary Haunted Homeschool, which
discussed the history of vampires promote his book, The Southern
Book Club's Guy displaying me of Paris.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
This guy's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
That sounds really cool. Good for him. I can't wait
about this book.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
It's pretty great, and also good for him for all
this stuff immediately being taken to be TV shows.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
It's pretty they took him serious immediately.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, so okay, we're gonna start. Louise, main character, she's pregnant,
has time to tell her parents because she's gonna be
a single mom. Doesn't think they will prove she's in
her thirties.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
This is in their teen mom situation.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
They are stoked, though, I'm fin out to see her
and I maybely buy her a bunch of baby stuff.
She's only ten weeks, hasn't yet told the father who
is her ex. They'd just broken up because he had
proposed to her and she said no, and she knew
he won't be a good father, but her parents think
she should reconsider and just marry him because they're more traditional.
And her parents stay for several days. Towards the end
of her visit, she's like looking forward to them leaving.

(04:52):
Her mom's a lot. She had a puppet ministry. Excuse me,
you know she has puppets to talk about God? Ugh?

Speaker 1 (05:00):
How fun?

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yes, And her mom isn't when I ever talked about
anything native, so she never brought up her daughter and
son's lack of relationship, even though Louise knows it bothers
her that her and her brother are not close like
her mom is not like that. Her brother Mark is
an alcoholic who hasn't done anything with his life, while
Louise has achieved a lot, but her parents act like
her brother is something special and downplay all of her
achievements so he doesn't feel.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Bad about it.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
One of those okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
The day before her parents leave, though she looks at
her mom take it an app and is like, maybe
me becoming a mom will like strengthened my relationship with
my mom, and like her, my mom go to make
an amazing grandma. So that's great and they have like
a lot of time to work things out. Turns out
they only have five years because her daughter, Poppy is
now five, and they are arguing about Poppy wanting to
read The Velveteen Rabbit, a book Louise hates because that.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
Book is amazing. I love that book.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Oh, this book seems troubling.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
I have never read it, but it's I'll just give
you a summary from what I remember. It's about a
lot velveteen rabbit toy who really wants to become a
real rabbit and then does.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
So. I'm pretty sure you're missing the bad parts. Say
isn't like or something? Maybe one of my favorite quotes says,
it's around.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
That you know. It's been a minute. But I told
my mom when I have kids, I want that fucking book.
So I don't know, man. I she hates this.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Her mom got it for Poppy and she doesn't want
her to read it and makes some excuses now for
her not to read it, saying like your other books
will be sad if you read this book. She then
gets a call and thinks it's her parents, but it's
her brother, which she's like, oh my god, something's wrong.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
Why Ismark calling?

Speaker 2 (06:36):
He tells her the parents are in a better place
and then gives her grewsome details of a car accident
that killed both her mom and her dad that happened
almost two days ago. But I couldn't handle calling her
until now.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Why is he the only one that tells her? Also,
he's the only family I guess that could be yeah, aad.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
But she also doesn't believe him because he's drunk, and
so she calls her aunt, who tells.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
Her to come home.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
So like, I'm assuming they just thought she already knew, because.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
You know, maybe Yeah, So she tells her.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Daughter that her grandparents are dead, and Poppy doesn't take
it well and so Louise holds her.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
How she cries herself assleep.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
That night, she tries to call her parents and gets
their voicemail because she's like, maybe.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
This is a fake.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, needs a message like asking if they're okay, begging
for them to call back, saying she loves them. I
cried a little bit at this part, it's really fucking sad.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yeah, that's sad. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
The next day she's off to Charleston where she grew up,
leaving Poppy with Poppy's dad, who's real judgy about how
Louise told Poppy about her parents' death because now Poppy's
afraid Louise is gonna die because she's like, parents die, My.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Mom's gonna die.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Valid. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
When she landed, she feels like she needs to do something,
so she starts to drive to her aunt's house. But
when she goes to the intersection that her parents died,
and she ends up churning and going to her parents'
house instead. The front door is locked, put the back
door to the garage's so and she like hear voices
from instead, so she's like, oh, maybe my brother's in
there with like a relator. Yeah. But when she goes inside,
she sees the TV on, and she sees that all
our mom's dolls, which is a lot of fucking dolls,

(08:09):
are there, and this is like not including her puppets.
She has dolls, and she has puppets. Louis also notices
that her mom's purses on the counter and her dad's
Kane is in the living room, which is all weird
to her because they were in the car when they died,
so these things should have been with them. She goes
to turn the TV off and sees a hammer on
the floor of the living room next to her dad's chair.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
She's like, that's weird.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
And in the hallway she knows this that attic is
boarded up and the cover to event on the ground
is off, also weird. She goes to her parents' bedroom,
but couldn't bring herself to open the door, so said,
she goes into her her old room and lays on
her bed, and while laying in there, she hears the
TV turn itself back on, so she goes to the
living room to turn off, and it just turns back

(08:51):
on again, and she's like, okay, I'm annoyed, not scared,
just annoyed and unpucks the TV. Then she goes to
the garage as a truck pulls up and guys has
matt suits come out and this guy in charge is like, hey,
I will wear a horder cleaning crew like your brother
heard us. He said, you're the one who talks about payment.
She's confused and try and tell the guy shows them

(09:11):
one of them there to just throw our parents stuff away,
and then her brother shows up and she's like, hey,
when you go through the house and see, like we
should keep before these guys just like clean shit out,
but her brother is not into it, and then's like, also,
I already decided clean made our parents and spread their
ashes on the beach. Louise hates this and she's like,
you can't do that, but it shows her stack at
death certificates he got and he's like, ha ha, anyone
who has these kid? You what everything with the bodies?

Speaker 3 (09:33):
They said?

Speaker 2 (09:34):
So, so she reminds them that their parents literally already
bought plots to be buried in and he's like, fine,
you could take half the ashes and put them in there,
and I'm gonna do my beach thing, and she again
hates this, so they end up fighting over the death
certificates and tell Louise spits in his face and grabs
them and runs to a car. The cleaning crew is like,
we don't deal with family drama. We'll be back next week.

(09:56):
We're not because Mark's like please stay and they're like no,
this is a lot. So Louise goes to her aunt
Honey's house and her cousin and other aunts are there,
and Honey is her great aunt.

Speaker 3 (10:07):
And the oldest living person.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
In her family is so that she has like Honey's daughter,
her mom's sister, and Yale there. Anyways, they tell her
that they're going to help her with everything, and that
her parents will have a funeral at the church and
will be buried in their family plot.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
They're not gonna let Mark do his whull shit.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
They make Mark come over and tell him Matt he's
not doing that weird stuff, and we're waiting for Mark
to get there. Louis tries to ask, like what happened
and that her parents died since her mom's first was
there and it was weird, and it's like, oh, I
don't know, I all knows. Your mom calls saying her
dad was having an attack and that they were.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
Leaving the house. They don't want to talk about it
anymore though.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
The market's there and they talk about food for the funeral,
and Louise is like realizing that Mark was super close
with their mom because he's talking about like all the
whack food her mom would make because her mom wasn't
a good cook, so she just like tried to make
weird exotic foods instead, and so they always had the
weirdest fucking food. So she goes to leave and her

(11:00):
cousin walks out with her and is like, hey, your
other cousto mercy is a big deal of reesty pagein
who could have praise the house and the earlier her
cousin's time about how that she should sell the house
because it's worth a while because the area, like all
the homes there are worth a lot of money now.
But her aunt's like, no, the house has been the
family for generations. You're not allowed to seal it. So
she stays to stop her parents' house again on the
way home, and the door is locked this time, so

(11:23):
she breaks the window to get in.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
She's not a key, No, apparently not. That's weird. I'm
I still I still think her brother somehow killed the parents.
That's my theory right now.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
That is pretty dark. No, the brother has his own
weird backstory. So the brother's story is my favorite part
of this.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
Book, by the way.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
It's so weird.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
So anyway, inside, the TV is on and she's like, fuck,
someone else is in here, So she grabs the hammer
from earlier that she put in the kitchen table and
goes to the chair like that's singing for the TV
to see what's up. But the watching the TV is
not an intruder. It's Pupkin, her mom's favorite puppet and
Louise's least favorite. Her mom has had this puppet since

(12:10):
she was six, and Louise is always jealous of it
and figure that her brother had like set all this
up just to piss her off.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
Because how much this puppet I've gone here?

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, she thinks about leaving it as is, but she
can't just FuG She fucking can't stay on that puppet,
so she puts them in a bag, ties the bag up,
and throws him away instead.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Oh my god. Okay.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
She turns the TV off and goes to her hotel
and in her room she calls her ex to talk
to her daughter, but the kid is not doing well
and she's like, I don't want a birthday party because
if I get older, then my parents are gonna die.
See Louise hates Sirah. Yet the funeral happens. It's puppet
themed pretty much. Everyone is in wild costumes and have
puppets and tell puppe related stories and Mark sings the

(12:50):
song and Louise is like, oh, this is actually what
my parents would have wanted. It seems very much only
towards her mom though, because her dad not a puppet guy.
He was like a scientist, wild are economist.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
I don't know. He did something with.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
Numbers, but it was wacky, and so she's like, oh,
I don't want to be like on bad Church with
my brother anymore. So she goes out to him and
it's like, hey, the service was great, and he's like, weird.
He didn't say anything during it though, and she yeah,
he just wanted stopping a dick, and she tries to
take the high road, but he's really making it hard.
They're at their aunt's house afterwards, and she gets pulled

(13:25):
aside because Mark wants to have.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
The will read right now, like or right of that moment.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
During not normally how things are done, but whatever. I
guess it's a choice.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
So her cousin's husband is her parents' attorney, and he's
like I wanted to wait, but Mark insisted. So she's like, Okay,
everything's gobody left to me. And because she's like, I'm
a responsible child, and she's like no matter what, I'm
going to split it with Mark, like I'll give him half,
and then he tells him that his dad's will hit
everything going to Louise is if he outlived with their mom,

(13:57):
but he died first, so his woke gus everything for
the mom, and her mom's will gives everything to Mark.
Mark instantly starts cheering and is like stuck at Louise,
he's a big picture. Her cousin's husband hands her an
envelope before she runs out of the room. She's in shock.
She's like freaking out Mark's being a piece of shit.
Everything she thought was gonna happen did not happen. So

(14:18):
she just wants to go home now because she has
no parents and her brother clearly hates her because he's
cheering that nothing was left her in the whill. Yeah,
So she goes to her hotel room and starts packing,
but decides to read the letter inside the envelope that.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
Was like obviously from her mom.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
May very much says that her mom gave everything to
Mark because his life is so difficult, and Louise says everything.
Louise's pissed because she's like, I worked hard for everything
I have my brother never tried hard at anything, and
her parents always said it with him. She graduated high
school a year early and went to Berkeley, and he
stayed in their hometown doing local theater but not putting
an effort to really succeed at it. So she's pissed

(14:53):
now and puts out the rest of these state docs
and that's where she sees her mom did leave.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
Her something, her mom's art collection, and.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
Louise thinks of all the crafts her mom made and realizes, like,
this is what she went by art collection and the
house is full of the stuff and she's like fuck it.
The next day she's at the house waiting and the
cleaning company shows up again and she's like, sorry, brot
not today. And these guy's like so dumb with these
people at this point he hates dealing with them. But
Mark shows up and tries to be like, no, bro,
you got today, and he's like, I hate family financial

(15:21):
drama once again, I'm leaving.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
So Louise tells.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
Mark that the art about the art that's hers, and
she says she has to go through it before he
could do anything with the house, and who knows, maybe
we'll take years.

Speaker 3 (15:31):
She doesn't how long to say it to day.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
So Mark is pissed and winds that she always had
everything and he's had nothing, and now she's pissed because
she didn't get something, and he's like, you're just mad
because you didn't get something for the first time in
your life. But she's like whatever and goes inside to
inventory the art. So she sees her mom's taxidermy squirrels
and terrified her as a kid. She throws them away,
but when she opened the trash can, she sees that pumpkin.

(15:55):
He's gone in the bag. He said, looks like it
was ripped open from the inside out.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
Reminds me of your when you covered when you did
that goosebumps puppet story. I know, it's completely different. I'm
just thinking about possessed puppet stories and that's the only
one I can think of.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
This puppet's more violent than that one.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
But yes, oh, I was hoping it was like possessed
by her mom's spirit.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
But a spirit, yes, her mom, no. But yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
She tries to ignore this and thinks it's just Mark
fucking with her. So she goes back inside the house
and sees her old stuffed animals and tries to take
them back with her to give her daughter, but Mark's like, no,
you can't have those near mine and the will so
he's like, did you buy those? And she's like no,
and he's like, oh mom and dad bought them, then
they're mine and you buy them off me for one
hundred dollars each, and she's like, seriously, do what the

(16:52):
fuck You won't even let me have my childhood stuffed animals,
So she puts them back and decides to see if
any art is in her parents' room. She goes aside
for the first time since they died, and she lays
in their bed and cries herself into like to sleep.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
She pretty much.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Passes out crying. She wakes up to clawing and sees
a squirrel on the bed. She's then attack bite squirrels,
and it's like, oh my god. They look like the
tax germy squirrels, and she's freaking out because they're trying
to crawl down her throat like she was afraid of
as a kid. You buy see squirrels. She's screaming, they're
like cutting her up. She runs out of the house
and it's like I'm fucking dead.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
She tells herself.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
They had to obviously be normal squirrels or maybe just
a dream.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
But she is out of there.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
She goes back to her hotel room ends up falling
asleep again. She wakes up, calls her daughter, who is
looking rough and talking like a baby. Oh, tries to
get her to feel better, and she's like, hey, I'm
gonna be on the first fight home, like I'll be
home tomorrow. She's done with this shit. Her brother has
been blowing up her phone, though, and now he's outside
her hotel room yelling, So she goes outside and he's like,
oh my god, finally and he's like, I decided to

(17:51):
give you twenty five percent in the house, and her
cousin Mercy is on the phone and it's like, no, bit,
you're giving her half or untime won't to sell the
house for you, And essentially is like what happened as
he talked to Brody.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
The husband of her cousin, slash the.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
Estate where and realized there was a lot of paperwork
and stuff he'd have to do sell the house. So
he wants Louise to take care of it all and
he will give her some of the money. But Marc
doesn't want to give her half, and Marcy tells him
she wants sell the house for her in Lesson's half,
and then no whether agent will sell it if she's
not the one selling. It's like they find out that
she's refusing to sell, but he's will be like, oh,
he's obviously difficult to deal with the girl. Why wouldn't

(18:25):
his own fucking family do.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
It for him?

Speaker 1 (18:27):
Yeah, And she tells.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
The wives that the house is probably worth like seventy
five seventy five, No, seven hundred and fifteenth K and
that money is like gonna be a great college found
her poppy, you can pay for like childcare money she needs.
So Louise eventually agrees and then goes and tells her
daughter like, JK, I'm not actually coming home tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
Did not go over well.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
No, Then the next day she goes to the house
early to clean up before the walk through the Mercy's
gonna come in and walk through and praise the place,
and Mark meets her there an hour late, and when
the walk through into the living room, Louise freezes because
the Mark and Louise dolls her mom had like dolls
made that look like them but creepy are on the
couch and not in the garage like she had previously
put them there, because when she first went to the house,

(19:12):
she was like, fuck these dolls. Put them in the garage.
And Mark's like, I fucking hate those dolls. I don't
even want to touch them. So they decided to just.

Speaker 3 (19:18):
Throw a blanket over them.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
Mark doesn't want to throw out any of their parents'
stuff because she's like, Okay, let's get rid of this.
He's like, no, but that's this like he's sentimental, yeah,
And he just talk about the bad vibes he feels
in the house though, until eventually he's like, I'm just
gonna go outside. Mercy shows up and all they have
accomplished was getting some of the dolls bagged up, and
they do walk through anyways, and in the hallway it
sounds like someone's walking above them, and then her parents'

(19:44):
bathroom there was a banging sound from underneath the sink,
and Mercy and Louise go outside to talk with Mark,
and Mercy's like, with some cleaning up and painting this house,
getself for a ton, but like, I can't sell it
for you, guys. I've dealt with talmented houses before, just
knock up for my reputation, and Louise is like, bitch,
what the fuck did you say haunted?

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Said, we can't sell the house without you and know
you won't fucking sell it because it's haunted. Oh was like, did.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
You say my house is fucking haunted?

Speaker 3 (20:09):
What?

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Girl? You heard the noises too? We were in the
same house, okay.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
Marcus like, do you think mom and dad are haunting it?
And mar She's like, I don't know, but my mom
could do a cleansing for you.

Speaker 3 (20:20):
Cool.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
Great, so yeah, versus like, my mom could do a
cleansing for you and it will take care of everything
and then we can have someone sell it. And I
was like, okay, this is stupid and insane. But Marcus
like I too felt the bad vibe, so obviously I agree.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
Mercy leaves and Mark.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
Tells Luis that he doesn't want to sell the house
anymore because their parents are haunting it. He doesn't want
to have to get rid of them to sell it.
He doesn't want to get rid of their parents. And
Louise is like, that's absolutely insane, and you promised me
part of the house money. I literally didn't fly home
because of it.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
So we can't do this to me.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
She can tell that they won't convince them those so
she's like, hey, why don't we have one last time
Chinese pizza tonight. Chinese pizza was his family tradition they
had on New Year's Eve. They would get Chinese food
and pizza and invite people over to be.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
A party classic.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
So she's like, let's have one of.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
Let's have a Chinese pizza and maybe they'll help like
mom and Dad's fears crossover, like it'll be like a whole.

Speaker 3 (21:16):
Little family thing, CuO.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
So Mark agrees, and that night they're eating their pizza
and then Chinese food, and Mark is mad that Louise
won't admit the house is haunted, and Louise is trying
to be like non confrontational, and then Mark's like, you
hated me ever since you tried to kill me? What
back when he was two?

Speaker 1 (21:34):
When she was.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Five, Louise was bff's with Pupkin.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
The puppet.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
Pupkin would try to talk to her and bully her,
and one day he told her that they had to
do something about Mark. She didn't love this, but Pupkin
threatened her and at first it was just silly pranks.
It seems to like make more happy and love his
big sister. He'd be like do this and Mark with
like giggle and she'd be fine. But then one winter,
the day before Person received, Louis and Marco are at

(22:00):
their neighbor's yard and they find a frozen pool, and
Pupkin tells Louise like, pretend to ice skate and get marked,
you out in the ice, and then he tells her
to tell Mark to go further and further and tell
Mark goes to the middle and falls in. When he's
no longer but water, Pupkin's like, let's go, and so
Louise just walks away.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
And when she gets back from.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
The house where her mom is and they're like, where's Mark,
She lies and says he went to the bathroom. Her
mom and neighbor go like looking for him. They find Mark,
rush him to the hospital, where he has to stay
four days. Pupkin is happy, but Louise's other step animals
are judging her for this, so not long after that,
she buries Pumpkin in the yard as you do. And

(22:43):
when Mark brings it up now, Louise tries to tell
him that he doesn't remember it and she wasn't even
there when he fell through the ice.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
She's like, you're remembering, you're wrong, and.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
They argue about that until Mark goes to the bathroom
and he screams and always runs to find the Mark
and Louise dolls by the toilet and there's slips to
running on the mirror that says Mark, come home, but
it's kom ah o m oh, and lifstick is in
the doll's hands, so it.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
Looks like the dolls brote this message.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Louise is pissed and blames Mark, who's like, what the fuck.
I obviously did not do this.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
I'm the one who figured how Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, So he tells that the house is super haunted
and because I gotta sell it anytime soon, and that
she should just go home.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Oh, and she's like, I get this story now, Sydney,
because you're obviously Louise in this situation, and that a
ghost is gonna punch her in the face and you're
gonna go, oh, it's not haunted, it's just like the wind.
This is so crazy.

Speaker 3 (23:37):
Well, because ghost start real.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
So yeah, the haunted puppets are doing haunted puppet things
and Sydney's just like, wow, gravity's crazy today. Oh what's
happened here?

Speaker 2 (23:48):
If this stuff happened, I maybe believe it, but probably not.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
So it's gonna get this point. You would also be like,
damn it, Mark, stop it.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah, because he's the only person there. Obviously he's doing
it okay, but yeah, she's like no, and he's like,
for real, girl, don't stay the night here. But she's like, no,
it's not haunted, and I'm gonna prem I'm.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
Staying the night.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
So Mark leaves and Louise cleans up a bit before
going to bed. She shoves a chair under the door
before she goes to sleep, and she's waking up by
noises and sees the bathroom door is open or the
bedroom door is open when she had a chair on
the naked scared chair, so she also sees something coming
towards her. It's Pupkin, the puppet. She gets up, runs

(24:33):
to the hallway, but trips over chairs that have been
placed there. Pupkin catches up to her. You're gonna love this,
stabs her in the eye with the needle. Don't worry,
I have the quote. She falls again and then runs
back to the bed bedroom, trying to close the door
behind her, but Pupkin gets in. She wents to the closet,
tries to close it before Puppkin gets there, but it's struggling.
And then there's a flash and a bang, and Mark's

(24:53):
there with a gun just unloading the clip on Pupkin.
He is shooting the shit out of this puppet.

Speaker 1 (24:59):
Question because because this is how I'm picturing this, and
I hope I'm wrong. When when you said she stabs,
she gets stabbed in the eye with a needle, is
it like, is the needle removed or is it just
like in her eye, because I'm imagining it's in her
eye this entire time.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
It's in there for most of the time.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
Yeah, ah, I hate this. Also, just a side note,
I don't know if I've told you, but Mike when
he was growing up, got a piece of metal like
a piece of metal wire in his eye, and you
know what they did, because he was the youngest child,
his parents didn't believe him at first, so they made
him sleep with because it was like just barely so
he could close his eye and it would just scrape

(25:35):
against his eyelid. And then in the morning they took
him to the hospital and they just ground it down
so it's even with his eyeball, so it's still in there.
I hate that.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
I you see around it, he can't, so it is
unfortunate that you.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
Had to hate that. Hate this for her. Don't worry.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
The come out of her eye. But she's fine. The
thing is fine, but don't worry. I have it in
detail for you.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
I read that.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
I was like, Delane is gonna want to know all
about this? So anyways, Yeah, he's shooting this pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin,
this puppet. The Wizard's out of the house and into
marks truck. In the truck, she's like, I need to
go to the hospital, but instead he takes you.

Speaker 3 (26:25):
To waffle house.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Okay, he said, yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
Well, he's like you're fine, She's okay, hysterical and it's
like I've been to Leo. I've gotten insane obviously, But
he's like, nah, girl, our problem is that fucking puppet
and it always has been. And they's like, you want
to know why I dropped out of bu the college
he was in he went to for like one semester
and dropped out, and he's like, I joined a radical
puppet collective. What here is the best part of this book.

(26:55):
So not a lot happened, yes, and he saw the
worst stuff as both.

Speaker 3 (27:00):
He said, that will not wrong.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
At the time, he was taking theater crosses at Boston
University and was like, had his theater friends and stuff
they didn't want to do, like the basic productions at
school's putting on. So some of his friends woul write
their own stuff and kind of start their own group,
and he enjoyed that for a little while, but it
was still just.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
Like college theater, like nothing significant.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, done as you do.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Then one day he's walking around Boston and sees the
street puppet show where they keep like it's his puppet
that they would keep like a marionette, and they keep
cutting the strings and like it would fall and then
they come back up, and then they cut down the
string and fall and come back up until finally, you know,
no more strings. They didn't come back up.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
Oh fun.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, Mark's fucking hooked. He loved this shit. He talks
to the group afterwards, ends up joining them. He would
make puppets with them and put on shows and street
performances and do like pretty much like acrobats, like playing guitar, well,
balancing stuff on your nose, that type of shit.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
Shit okay, But they would also use.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Puppets and masks for protests, So he at this point
stops going to classes at them, and it's pretty much
with this group all the time. They all kind of
had their own puppets that they made shows out of.
And he's like, I know what I'm gonna do. I'm
gonna get Pumpkin and use him. So he asked his
mom to send him, and the leader of this group
fucking loves Pumpkin. He's obsessed with this guy. He's like,

(28:22):
I love his puppet. Where's all the time. They then
get this gig to do a show at an elementary
school at the leader, Clark's hometown. So they all go like,
they go all out building puppets. They're making like ten
feet puppets for those fucking elementary school. They're making masks,
They're going crazy. Stilts were involved. They didn't think twice

(28:42):
about their anti war protests and not being appropriate for
a school. They just use their own They didn't think
about it. The teacher's so horrified. Yeah, they're putting on
this thing they make like these kids wear masks and
play victims, and they're doing like this whole war thing
where they like it's crazy. They're talking about the I
Ran Contra affair like.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
It's wild shit. Okay, well I guess yeah, this is
like early two thousands. I mean it makes sense, but yeah,
not appropriate for kids.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
No, they're making these kids pretend to be victims who
are murdered, like it's a whole thing.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
Safe.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
They did not once think about how this would not
be appropriate. They don't get paid obviously, and they're like
feeling kind of like shit about it and mad, but
insad of being like, oh are bad for not thinking
about the audience. Clark's like, we gotta go deeper. At
this point, Clark is ubsessed with Pumpkin wearing him not stop.
So Clark makes a bunch of pumpkin masks, yeah mass

(29:38):
of his puppet and it has the others wear them
for days straight and they lose themselves and if like
trashing Clark's parents' rental house. They go in one that
he's like, I have his memory of going to one
of the teacher's house because Mark's telling this and he's like,
I barely remember what happened when I was pupkin, and
it was like, I don't know, he lost himself in
the character, but he's like, I remember being at the
teacher who refused to pay themselves, and and like she's

(30:02):
terrified and has like a limp kid in her arms.
No explanation. Did they murder this child?

Speaker 1 (30:07):
Who knows?

Speaker 2 (30:08):
They broke into this lady's house and trashed it though,
and ikes a pract probably assaulted her, who knows. And
he's like, once we started murdering pets, I was like,
things are getting crazy. Oh yeah, but they like louse
themselves when they're in the masks, they like forget who
they are. So he's like, we're maybe eating pets. So

(30:31):
I gotta do something about this. So he goes down
into the basement and likes the masks on fire. They
have made a paper mache. They go up real fucking quick,
so was the entire house. He escapes, gets a ride
to the bus station, doesn't try to get anyone.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
Out side of the house.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
He loves big yikes.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
He also hasn't showered in weeks and it's broke. But
he does get help getting a ticket back to Boston,
and he goes back to his dorm where he calls
his mom. He actually drop out. His mom helps him
pack up his stuff to take him home. Before they
go to the airport, She's like, where's Pupkin?

Speaker 3 (31:05):
Well, I see's him.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
He was at this house he sat on fire. He
doesn't know if anyone's to bag. He's a no pumpkins bag.
He's trying to be like, oh, like my friend borrowed in,
Like I don't know, he's maybe not home wherever. She
makes him go to the house. She's like, oh, take
me to the friend's house. He'd made up this friend.
But he ends up going to the house that like
Clark wived out, like where they hung out Boston, and

(31:26):
he's like really hoping nobody answers Clark does, so we
know Clark lived. He doesn't know if anyone else fucking lived.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
Yes, CRG.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
Does he say anything about the fire? He just gets
pumpkin and gives it to Mark. So Pumpkin is back
and after hearing all this, Mark Lewis is like, oh
my god, crazy. She apologizes for things. He was just
some guy who parted and dropped out of school. It's
way more complicated than that.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
He may be harder people.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
She then admits to that him that his memory of
drowning as a kid was correct. She didn't make him,
She did force him to go out there. It was
her fault, but that Pupkin had told her to do it.
And he's like, damn, okay, that makes sense, and tells
her that he thinks Pupkin was mad at her their
mom for need to care for their dad and that
because her dad had like broke his ankle, so he

(32:12):
was needing her to like help out, and so she
had to neglect Pupkin obviously, And he's like, I think
Pupkin did something to them that night that made them
leave the house, which likes their car accident. So Louise
and Mark agreed that Pupkin needs to go and they
decided to go to the house, grab him, and burn
him in the girl. That's gonna be their plan.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
The only option, obviously.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
So when they get to the house, they see he
is not where they left him after he was like
shot and shredded. It looks like he crawled up into
the attic. So they go into the attic and find
him with like a little bedroom set up their mom
made like in the little bed and like a little
night stand in a little lamp. She tried to make
him comfortable. So Mark goes to grab him, but he stops.
It's like, Louise, you need to leave. Puppin is suing

(32:54):
him to hurt Louise, and she's like Mark, don't listen
to him, just grab him. But then Mark is like
spiders here, here's just Spider's imaginary dog from childhood to
a six legs and blue fur that everyone treated as
real for a long time because they weren't allowed to
get a real dog, so they just like would literally
put out food for Spider as if they bought dog
food for this dog.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
That's a bit much, but okay. He's real.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Loud though, and attacks Louise. Louis tries to run from him,
bites him off. She's knocked abb the attic. Mark is
still up there with Pupkin. Louise is losing her fight
with Spider Spider about to eat her face off, when
suddenly he has like her the fuck up, like she's
fucked up. He stops, whimpers, and then runs away. She
looks up to see Mark with Pupkin on his arm.

(33:36):
He's a hand puppet, so Pupkin is holding a hammer,
and Mark is just standing there with a blank stare fucking.
Then attacks Louise with a hammer. He's hitting her in
the head with his hammer and then he like flips
it to like, you know, the prong side, and he's about.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
The scary part. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
He tries to run from him. He traces her, hits
her more with a hammer. She's eventually able to get
out into the garage and out there, Mark is able
to break for your Pumpkin's influence for a second and
yells to Louise and he dressed hers towards an electric saw.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
Do you know where this is going?

Speaker 1 (34:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (34:10):
Uh? Louise knows what he wants her to do.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
She gets it, so she fights it over to it,
grabs it, drows herself on top of Mark, and cuts
his arm off with the staw.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
The only option.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
He's screaming. She's covered in blood. She calls an ambulance
to ties the wound up. She's a girl scout, so
obviously she knows how to make a turn a kit
A kit. Yeah. They go to the hospital. They can't
reattach the arm, so Mark is mad at her for.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
Cutting it off.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
Now he's pretty piste. Then she cut off his arm,
and she's like, you told me to me. He's like,
I thought they could reattach it. The reason they can't
reattach it is because the paramedics then put it on
ice creak enough so he like.

Speaker 3 (34:45):
Possibly has a lawsuit. But it's a whole thing.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Oh and she also tells them that she her story
about how it's on about cut off is that she
they were in the garage, she was cutting something. Shelves
fell on top of her. That distracted him, because that
explained her injuries distracted him cut off his arm.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Nobody questions him, Yeah, obviously, the shelves full of hammers
just fell. We've all been there. Okay, dog bites, but
that's fine. So he tells her to go the hammers.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, he's like, go back, burn pump pumpkin, get this
over with. So she does and watches him turn to ask.
She like goes there, grabs in the doors on the girl.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
He's done.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
So yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
Back at the hospital, she learns that she needs to
help Mark recover because he's a whole thing.

Speaker 3 (35:32):
His arm is amputated, it's like halfway up, like it's
a good amount of arm.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
That's what I was picturing. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, So he's pissed at her and depressed the whole
two weeks she's there and she's like, Okay, me and Mark,
I guess we'll.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
Not be friends. She found the rounded a corner.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
No, they decided to wait out to sell the house.
She's cool with it though, and is stoked when she
finally gets to go home. She arrested her apartment ian.
Her ex is there and he's like, what the fuck
happened to you? Because she is injured. She did not
tell anyone about the arm in hammer stuff. Yeah, didn't
mention it, so she doesn't mention it now and she's like, hey,
where's Poppy. Poppy comes out of her room and on

(36:07):
her arm is.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Pucking' oh no, AND's like.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
Oh, yeah, probably made that herself, like with her grandma,
his mom. She was inspired. She just like made it
out of nowhere. Louise pieces her pants literally when she
sees this, and then grabs her daughter's arm and starts
to yank on pupkin and she's like digging her hands
into her daughter's arm, trying to pull them off. He
won't come off. Oh, He's screaming at her. Stop because

(36:33):
she's like attacking her daughter and eventually drags her way,
and it's like, oh my god, you're gonna leave a bruise.
SU's response to child abuse don't.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
Be like no, I have a lot of questions besides that. Yeah, yeah,
don't be like, oh you can't leave a bruise. Oh,
don't bruise her. Stop ripping at her child's arm. You're
gonna bruise hurt.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
Yeah. You just saw the mother of his child peer
pants and attack their daughter.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
Something's going on.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Yeah, but yeah, he confronts, He comforts Poppy, who is sobbing, obviously,
and then tells Louise that they're going to keep her
home so nobody calls CPS on them.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
Yeah, irresponsible, whatever.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
What the fuck is up? And she can't tell him
the truth because it sounds crazy. So she's like that
it's a puppet my mom had, and he's like, okay, well,
she misses her grandma made a puppet. Never remind her
of him. But she's like and he's like, she likes it,
so we're gonna let her have it. When she's been
going through some ship, let her have the fucking puppet.

(37:35):
Louise is going to take the puppet from Poppy, and
she's planning in doing it that night, but when she
goes into the room, Poppy's asleep. Pupkin though not asleep.
He turns and looks at her. She chickens out.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
She's like, no, huh, she's asleep.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
She might get her thought. My first thought was remember
the gotta keep an eye out first s leader vibe.
That was my first thought. Fucking Pupkin says, gotta keep
an eye first time.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
Leader pretty much? Yeah, she so.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
Louise ends up falling asleep. She's awaken by the noise
of fire alarms.

Speaker 3 (38:10):
She runs to the.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
Kitchen finds Poppy like cooking and with Pumpkin, and there's
just a small fire. Louis does not know what to do.
She's like, this is so much. She tries to get
Poppy to take Pumpkin off, but Poppy bites her when
she goes to grab him off her hand. She fully
bites hehrm mout so wise lets Poppy bee again. She's like, okay,
do you hear a thing? Until she later finds Poppy

(38:31):
in the kitchen once again, but this time with the
kitchen knaves cutting herself.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
Oh that's good.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
Mm hmm. So now she's fully terrified because Pumpkin's like,
I can make your daughter hurt herself, and she's like,
I need help. So she calls Mark and is like, hey,
guess what Pumpkin back and he's like I hate to
hear it. Yeah, and he's like, I'm gonna think of something.
I'll call you back. He takes forever to call back, though,
and when she's finally able to talk to me and
he's like, Okay, you need to come back home bring Poppy,

(38:58):
so she does. He he has talked to Mercy and
his aunt and she's like his aunt Gil Mercy's mom
knows someone who handles haunted dolls and is like an
expert on demons who possessed dolls, so she can help.
Louise is skeptical about this doll expert, but doesn't have
much of a choice because Poppy is getting worse.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
She's either a terror or.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
A zombi at this point, like on the flight home,
she non stop kicked the person in front of her
and screamed not great. Yeah. So they go to the
house of the possessed doll expert, Barb. Barb has a
ton of dolls in her house and She's like, I cleaned.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
All of them, don't even worry about it. They make us.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Circle around Poppy and Pumpkin and start to pray over her,
asking Puppkin what his real name is, because you know
how you try to get deamons to tell him your
name because you have power over them. The whole demon
thing u he like makes a bunch of dolls come
flying off the shelves, a whole scene. Eventually, though he
says his name is Freddy. He doesn't such a barb
bribes him the candy in a weird way. She's rubbing

(39:55):
Eminem's on his lips, and maybe it's part the puppet
lips you can get people one of my fami of quotes.
It's fucking weird. Oh but he's like, my name is
Freddy Freddie I have not mentioned he's their mom's dead
brother who died when he was like three.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Okay, that's history. That makes sense then.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Yeah, so Barbara's like, sorry, I only do demon possessions,
not like hauntings. The dead people can't help no more.
What Okay, well, we need to know more about how
Freddy died, So we got to ask aunt Honey, who
is like currently in the hospital and Honey, the oldest
living member of the family, she would know because she
was there her grandma's sister. So she's like, she would
know how her nephew died. Yeah, and hen he's in

(40:37):
the hospital. They go to the hospital and she's like, hey,
how do you die? And she six the original story
that Freddy stepped on a nail, got locked jaw died
hours later. Louise is like, I did research. That's how
lockdown works. It takes longer. So what's the truth. So
Honey's like, fine, your mom's supposed to be watching him
while they were at the pool. Her mom was like six,
but she instead wanted to go get ice cream and

(40:59):
he drowned because she wasn't watching him. And they never
told the mom the truth because she was only six
and they didn't want her to feel like she killed
her brother. But she told Pupkin was Freddy's puppett and
the only thing left of him after he died because
the mom her her mom's mom like burned every picture
of the brother after he died, and I.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
Got rid of all this stuff, as you do in
terrible grief.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, So with the sympo, Louise is like, okay, well
where would he still be haunting the house and thinks
about how like the family was so hains the house
ever being sold, and it's like, oh my god, his
body's buried in the backyard. They didn't actually bury him
in a plot bruh.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
And then she buried him when she was a child.
Ooh yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
So they go to the house and they're like her
American Poppy and they're like, okay, where would the body
be because they gotta go find it, dig it up,
put him with the family, you know, make him go away,
and so like, okay, there's a tree mar yard that
was always part of puppkins like stories that her mom
would tell.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
So it's gotta be because maybe their mom subconsciously like
knew where her brother's body was.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
So inside the house, they noticed that all the dolls
that they had gotten rid of because they packed up
the dolls pumping back, they're back in the house. Louise,
she grabs his shovel, goes to the yard to start
to dig while Mark is trying to distract Pumpkin slash Poppy,
but all the dogs dolls attack them and form like
a big dog monster that like goes up to Louise
this frond it very much summarize. It's a dramatic fight scene,

(42:27):
but her Mark trying to fight it. They're not winning.
The spider the fake dogs shows back up and Mark
tells them to attack the monster, and we is able
to keep digging. She fades the trunk with a little
boy body inside, digs it up. She brings the body
to Pupkin is like, hey, dude, you're dead. You need
to like for really dead. Now you need to leave
the Popkin is scared, and Louise feels bad for him.
He's really only like a three year old ghost boy

(42:47):
and technically her uncle, and she's like, I can't let
a kid be alone.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
So she puts.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Pumpkin on her hand and she's like, hey, you can
be with your sister Nancy. The whole time company's like,
where's Nancy, where's Nancy? On me and Nancy, That's what
I'm saying, and his you could be with Nancy and
your parents, and like you need to move on. Finally
he agrees. Then it's over. They have to call the
cops and stuff because they did dig up of dead

(43:13):
body and they're like eventually able to bury him with
his family.

Speaker 3 (43:16):
Though Papa goes.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Back to normal doesn't really remember much of what happened.
Mark and Louis decided to sell the house. They went
meant to put it on the market, though Wais comes
back for the holidays, he said, market's renovated the house,
and then he's like, he's like, I might start working
with Mercy on my being homes that she selling, because
like I like this and I actually did a good job,
and it's like we have a prospective buyer, and they're like, okay, good.
Hopefully they don't have like a whole thing by the

(43:38):
bubb being in the backyard ha ha. And then happily,
ever after the end.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
I will say, they probably do have a thing about
the dead body because most states, I think, have a
law that you have to like state if someone well,
I don't know about most states, but definitely, well, if
this takes place in America, I guess there are a
lot of states where you have to disclose that because
I know my grandpa when after he passed and they
had to sell his house, it was a whole thing

(44:04):
because at one point he had someone that he knew
had committed suicide in the backyard, and so it was
like this whole fucking thing where they had to disclose
that when they sold the house. So you know that
a child dying and being buried in the backyard might
be like a little.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
Blue in the house. He was just buried in the yard.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Oh that's right, he got me there, loophole. Then yeah,
it should be fine.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
But it was like some rich Texas people who were buying.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
It, and they're like, who know, we don't care more
from Texas.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
This is Charleston, South Carolina and she lives in San Francisco.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
They're from Texas whatever. Same day.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
Yeah, so okay reviews, this got three point seven six stars.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
I feel like it to serve more, but yeah you.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
First, okay, what the hell? Sure? Two stars? I couldn't
find perfect.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
Most shots fired, screams at different occasions, and no police.
What kind of neighborhood is this? Did Louisa bike marks
from Spider? How about the shelves follow me? Excuse work
with that? Obviously, It's not my favorite Hendrick's books so far.
It has more consequences than the previous books, amain than
the previous books, but it seems the results were shelved
under for convenience, just to get the story rolling. Two stars.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
That is a very good point. I do think the
hospital would be questioning that a little bit, But also
I guess they can only question it so much if,
like the if everyone that's involved in whatever happened is
there and they have a story, like, there's really so
much they can question. But I do think the police
probably would have investigated that a little bit.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
Yeah, I don't know, South Carolina, shots fired. Who's gonna see?
It is a rich neighborhood though, because they lived there,
saw the.

Speaker 3 (45:49):
Properties were money.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
I feel like definitely they would have called the cops.
Someone would have, but like whatever, who knows. Yeah, Okay,
this was a good horror. It was well written. I
don't think I like the characters in the middle was
not my favorite, but that is because I insist on
reading horror when I don't like some aspects of horror.
Poor horror book. It was really good. Three stars. I

(46:11):
don't know how much this person actually liked this book.
But okay, they said, I don't like horror, I don't
like the characters, I don't like the middle, but I
guess it was fine. Okay.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
They liked in the beginning, right, which is funny.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
Because a lot of people said they didn't like the
beginning of TUSA. Okay, the only right way to eat
Eminem's four stars.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
That's it was Eminem.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
She's problem against your mouth real slow, like, yes, that's
one way to do it. Okay, surprising five star Emily,
you are, in fact my good luck charm. I'm only
buying Grady Henry Hendrick's books with you around from now on.
I mean, I just finished it, which is the second
of his books. I finished within an eight hour timespan,

(46:54):
so when for me? But oh my god, talking about this,
but it hurts, like I want to cry. The ending
was just so ah pipe start.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
I love that, lady, I love it.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
That's like a stream of consciousness type thought, like, oh,
there's more through you too, of course there is.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
Wait, okay, I got two fails real quick.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Hold on classic pill pop in Sydney.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
Yeap, keep all of this in.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
Just a lot of awkward pill popping sounds. The people
deserve to know what you're doing on this podcast. Sydney
taking off.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
Brand Nike will ooh.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Okay, and we're back for some quotes.

Speaker 3 (47:43):
Yay, I have a lot, well I do, mam. We'll
see this one you know what, fuck it, I'll do
it because I picked it for a reason. You'll see why, Okay,
page thirty four.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
Because we don't want everything our parents own pushed out
the front door like a broom and fush out the
friend door like a broom, and all our baby teeth
left in a pasty bag on the porch.

Speaker 1 (48:05):
I get it, the baby teeth. I gotta get a
better bag for that.

Speaker 3 (48:09):
I don't know, man, can't wait to start collecting like
this teeth.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
You know, I should have checked my mom's toothbag while
they were gone this week to see how many teeth
are in that. I should probably keep track of how
many tooth teeth are actually in that bag to see
if she actually like, I feel like there's less teeth
every time I go in there, and I'm like, what
are you doing with those teeth?

Speaker 2 (48:27):
Mah say if there's too many teeth, there's just more teeth,
more time, more than you and your brothers would have.

Speaker 3 (48:37):
Who see did you take?

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Why do you have a hundred teeth? Mom? Who knows?

Speaker 3 (48:47):
Hmm?

Speaker 2 (48:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (48:49):
Whatever? Oh some puppet names?

Speaker 1 (49:14):
Oh good, so here.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
Here's some great puppet names. Monti the Dog, Danny the Imagination, Dragon, Cosmics, Starshine, Miamia, Rogers,
The Inside Out Man, Judge Got Good Sense, Flossy, Bossy Pants, Mister, Don't,
Pizza Face, Sister Whimsical, and Deuteronomy the Donkey.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
I have questions about some of those. Like the Inside
Out Man, I have questions about him, for sure.

Speaker 3 (49:48):
He scares me, don't.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
I have questions about that as well.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
Pizza Face just seems mean.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
Yeah, that's just that's just mean. There was a couple
I liked, But there's more that I'm worried about.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
You know what, I'm just getting along one of this eye,
Oh all right, pitched tow or two. Instinctively, she blinked
her and her eyelid folded in two ways, in two
in a way it had never folded in her life,
like it had a pin sticking out of its middle,
and it couldn't close all the way. And Louise, oh
my god, there's eatle, my needle, my eye, pumpkin stuck

(50:24):
a needle.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
In my eye.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
Panicked and lashed out with one arm, and she felt
a soft body in her hand, and she squeezed and
yanked and felt her collar terra as he clung to it.
As she hurled him overhand, and she heard him hit
the wall between the dining room and living rooms, then
land on the carpet. She got to her feet. I
lift fluttering convulsively, putting the chairs between herself and where
she heard him land. She saw him through one eye,

(50:46):
the other eye blurry, swimming with tears. She went to
close it by her eyelight kept pained the needle, and
she could feel the thin silver splinter bouncing up and
down inside her eyeball. Liquid flowed down her face.

Speaker 1 (50:59):
I'm gonna throw I hate that, Sidney. I fluttered it away.
It never had before. Fuck that, Oh my god, my
eyes aren't wandering about that, because even hearing about shit
like that makes my eyes water. Oh my god, that.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
One I did.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
I saw that. I was like, Dyln needs to hear
about this.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
She need financial compensation for the emotional turmoil I've been
put through. I hate that. Also kind of terrifying to
think about fighting a puppet, because yeah, they're made of
like cotton and stuffing. How like you could throw it
against the wall. It doesn't care. It's a puppet.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
I mean, you've seen the movie Chucky. It's probably like that.

Speaker 1 (51:46):
You know. I have seen the movie Chucky one time
last year actually very recently interesting and yeah, terrifying. Chucky
was like bigger, though he's even scarier. I'm imagining this puppet,
since it's hand puppet, to be pretty small.

Speaker 3 (52:02):
Yeah, maybe twelve inches or so.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
But is that scarier because then he can like go anywhere.
I don't know, man, it's maybe like felt.

Speaker 3 (52:10):
Time, but you can bear them off.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
Anyways, Here is page two thirty three. This is the
play they put on for this kids. Clark marshed on
stage wearing his six foot stilts to operate the massive
marionette man, and a buzz went through the audience. I
opened the curtains of the tiny stage and the show began.
These those kids never stood a chance. But the time
we snipped the final set of strings and the man

(52:35):
clattered to the floor like a dead bag of bones,
those Third Greaters new we meant business. Then we got
into the meat at the pageant, A history of the
War on Terror as fabricated and engineered by the CIA
and the American military industrial complex. Those kids were fed
the daily dose of imperialist American propaganda and everything from
their Saturday morning cartoons to the sugar coated breakfast cereal.

(52:57):
So for forty minutes of counter programming, was the least
speak add to liberate their minds.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
I mean, no, but you're trying. I guess there are
points there, but I don't think you're doing the right
thing necessarily.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
I mean, yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
A tice.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
Here's a little bit more of it. In our defense.
The kids playing the victims, we're clearly having a blast.
When we got to the American invasion of Afghanistan and
they all got killed in a drone strike, maybe that
was too.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
Intense a little bit, but it's fine.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
I don't mention kills, pretending kids pretending to get murdered
and drone strike. I mean, they.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
Weren't wrong, though they're not wrong.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
Oh here's Barb, page three forty four.

Speaker 3 (53:50):
This would be my last one.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
I don't worry. Barb laughed, seeing Louise's expression. Dolls and
puppets come into the same department, as far as the
Lord is concerned.

Speaker 3 (53:59):
I do all I do puppets.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
I once if you did a blow up sex doll,
Now that one was wild.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
Let me tell you.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
Come on inside, let's pray together, Okay.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
I do kind of want to hear about that, but.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
Haunted sex doll.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
If any doll can be haunted, I guess that is
one that I could see why you would have a
vengeful spirit.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
Yeah, it's a good book.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
I was gonna say, I feel like you should let
me borrow this one because it does sound really interesting.
I don't know, maybe not. I don't know if I
want to read that eyeball seen myself. But you read
it to me, so.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
There's more of it. Don't worry.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
I just I believe it because obviously you said it's
in rye for a while, so I mean, well, yeah,
and just thinking about that, because it's like sums in
your eye, you're pretty fucked because it's like you can't
stop moving your eyes. And I read this thing the
other day about like how like if you have something
in one of your eyes and like you're going to
the hospital or whatever, it's recommended that you cover your

(54:57):
other eye too, because you're just gonna be like moving
it around the entire time and making it worse.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
It makes sense.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
Yeah, she doesn't know the hospital. She pulls it out
and Mark says, you're fine, so and she's fine.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
I guess I do think at that point out what
do they do spray your eye with antiseptic? Fuck you
know you're not. They probably numb it or something, but like, ugh, I.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
Just really like it. She was like, I hope it's
tears coming on my eye and not like I.

Speaker 3 (55:23):
Liquid or blood. You know.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
Listen, when my mom got her cataract surgery or whatever,
I had to stare at because they do it one
by one, you know, and then like her eyes look
like I couldn't look at her because her eyes would
make my eyes water because it looked so painful and bad.
And then she was like, yeah, I was awake and
they like did this shot in my eye and YadA, YadA, YadA,
And I was like, shut up, shut up.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
A numbing drops first, I don't care.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
I don't want to hear it. I wouldn't. They'd be
trying to do that and I'd just be blinking NonStop
and they'd be like, bitch, stop it. They would knock
me out. They wouldn't, it wouldn't work.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
It's a good thing you never really had glasses, because.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
It's very good thing because I went to the eye
doctor one time and I think they hated me.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
Yeah, did you ever have your eyes dilated? Because they
give you numbing drops first because the dilation hurts.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
They I don't know if I got I think I dilated.
I don't remember it hurting or anything. Though.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
They put like a die in there too to like.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
Look at it if you have any like.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
Dry damage or whatever, and so they stick that into
your eye to do it.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
I don't think they had to do all that for me, because,
like I said, I only went the one time. But
I do remember they did that thing where they blow
in your eye. Didn't like that and that, and they
put it like really close to your eye, just like
look at it. And I remember she did one and
then she did the other one and she's like, this
one will be easier because you know it's not going
to touch your eye. It wasn't easier. I think I
did worse on the second one. I think she hated me.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
I would like to tell you that that's nothing, and
as someone who needs you actually the eye doctor that
keep texting me, Really, you're a little baby for not
being able.

Speaker 3 (57:01):
To handle that.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
Hey, I got good eyes, and for the time being,
I'm going to use that to my advantage and not
have to go to the eye doctor. Okay, they will
deteriorate later, I am sure, but for now I prosper
and brag about it.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
It's just so crazy.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
He will not and cannot and do not touch my eye.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
Anyway, any other non I related thoughts about this book.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
I don't like puppets, and this solidified that. A lot
of this I relate with a lot of this book,
I guess, and like if you separate it from the
plot completely. You know, there's the crazy amount of dolls.

(57:53):
My grandma living room full of dolls. Wish I had
pictures of it, because Sydney hundreds of dolls. I'm talking
multiple china hutches full of dolls. That was my grandma's house.
And like the living room, I'm talking one corner, like
where the fireplace was. There's just like twenty fucking dolls
around the fireplace, like in little chairs and like with
tables and shit. Love her as a child, Well.

Speaker 3 (58:16):
They have chairs and tables.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Yeah, she was nice to Well, my grandma made all
the dolls, so it's like also it was like none
of these dolls are haunted. Grandma made them, you know,
So like all this shit well obviously with bad vibes,
not like my grandma. Okay, my grandma was cool and
her dolls did not become haunted when she passed away,
at least I hope not, because I have one and

(58:37):
it's in my room and it's yet to do anything creepy.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
So that you've seen you don't know in test when
you sleep?

Speaker 1 (58:46):
You got me there. I don't know what she does
when nice sleep, but she goes back to the same spot,
so I guess she can do whatever the fuck she wants.
She can wander around at night. I guess that's on her.
So yeah, my thoughts are this book reminded me of
my grandma in a nice way. She never suck a
needle in my eye, and I appreciate that about her.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
Yeah, my grandmas don't have dolls really, so don't have that.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
Yeah, okay, yeah, So if you guys like this one, congrats.
There's more, like so many more. You can find those
wherever you listen to podcasts, And while you're there, you
should give us a little five star review because, like,
why not, it's fun. Next week we're gonna go back
into the end of Cowboy summer. I know summer's ending.

(59:33):
I'm a little behind. It's fine, guys, So next week
we will be covering. I think it's called Blame It
on the Cowboy by Dolores Fawson. And I'll tell you what.
So far, we got a lot of cliches that we're
working with and it's gonna be something.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
Are there any dolls or yet?

Speaker 1 (59:57):
But it's still early. There could be one, can't wait.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
If you want to find us on Instagram. You can
do some apicle podcast on TikTok apicult pod and online
apolodtworpress dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
That's all that's them, So thanks for listening.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
You are now part of a puppet protest group. They
did go fully too. They made them for protests. It's
a whole thing, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
And I kind of forgot that you said it was
a puppet protest group because when you hear that, I
was like, Oh, they're protesting puppets. But it's like, no,
they protest, but they have puppets.

Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
Which is they make puppets for the protests.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
They niche audience.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
At one point they did make a bunch of giant
dicks for protests and they like roads on them.

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
Very fun.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
Okay, I do like that part, So I guess no
takes these backsies like that's cool.

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
It is fun.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
Yes, do your puppet protests with some penises, I guess.
And stilts, lots of stilts, so many stilts.