October 6, 2025 • 76 mins
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, this is Dane and this is Scary Stories and Rain.
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(00:22):
And starting now, today, every Sunday, I'm going to release the
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And as a reminder, we are now four months away from my first
movie release in theaters, Gale Yellow Brick Road, a dark and
terrifying reimagining of The Wizard of Oz.
(00:45):
If you want to check out the first trailer, click the link in
the description to this episode.And if you're not following my
other two podcasts, please go check them out, Scary Stories
and Fire and Scary Stories AfterDark.
The links are in the description.
Thank you so much for being hereand I really hope you enjoy this
episode. When I was a kid, my family
(01:11):
moved from our home in upstate New York all the way down to
North Carolina, all because of something to do with my dad's
job. It was a pretty scary time in my
life. For someone so young to have to
leave behind their school friends and stuff and settle in
an entirely new place was deeplydisconcerting and saddening.
But none of that compared to what I would face one day during
(01:33):
elementary school. To me, it was a morning a lot
like any other. Nothing remarkable or ominous
about it. I mean, the weather seemed
pretty crappy, so there was no outside recess during the
morning, but that's not entirelyunusual during the fall on the
East Coast. But as the afternoon progressed,
I remember looking out of the windows of our classroom and
(01:56):
seeing the light drizzle of the morning progressed steadily into
some of the heaviest wind and rain I had ever seen.
Like it was pounding against thewindow so hard at one point that
our teacher had to actually raise their voice in order to
make themselves heard. Not long after, another teacher
walks in the classroom, quickly walks up to our teacher standing
(02:16):
at the front of the class, and whispers something in her ear.
Our teacher immediately goes allwide eyed, and although we
didn't know exactly what had been said or what was going on,
this super tense feeling just descended over the class like we
instinctively knew something waswrong.
Class continued for a little while, all while the weather
(02:37):
outside continued to get worse. Only this time, instead of just
ignoring it, our teacher kept looking out the windows.
I remember turning to see what she was looking at and seeing
just a bunch of stuff flying across the playing field
outside. Nothing major, just a lot of
paper and bits of plastic. But I'd never seen anything like
(02:58):
that before, and it made me really, really nervous.
Then the intercom in our classroom buzzed into life,
saying something about how all teaching staff and pupils needed
to take shelter in the hallways immediately.
So we did, and with our teacher trying to keep us all calm and
she struggled to keep a lid on her own fears, we filed out into
(03:21):
the hallway and we're told to sit down on the floor out there.
By that point we could all hear the sounds of the wind howling
outside of the building, even through some pretty thick
cladding and stuff, which was terrifying all on its own.
And the louder it got, the more and more afraid we all got as
our teachers explained that it was just some nasty weather and
(03:42):
it couldn't hurt us so long as we were in the hallways.
Things were fine for a little while, but our classroom was
right next to the library, and at one point, just as the mood
seems to be as tense as it couldget, we all heard this big
crashing sound coming from behind the closed double doors.
It was so loud and frightening that all the kids immediately
(04:03):
screamed when we heard it, and it was followed by these
horribly loud howling wind noises that seemed to echo down
the hallways. We were saddened.
It honestly sounded like a big monster had just come crashing
its way through the glass and was tearing around the library,
knocking things over as it went.Some of the other kids were
inconsolable at that point as the screams turned into sobs and
(04:26):
wails that the teachers tried and failed to calm.
It was like a rolling choir of fear and misery with almost
every second kid just either quietly sobbing or openly
wailing. I admit to crying myself, but it
was only upon hearing another kid saying to a teacher, I want
to go home, I want my mom and dad, I need my mom and dad.
(04:50):
That just made me think of my own parents and how this
horrible and bizarre event mightbe affecting them too.
That's when I couldn't find it in me to be brave anymore, and I
broke down crying as well. We ended up staying in that
corridor for hours, way past thetime we all should have been
filing out of the school for theend of the day.
(05:10):
It was actually dark out by the time the howling noises stopped
coming from the library, and youcan't even imagine the sense of
relief that came over us when wewere told that our parents would
be coming to collect us from school in the next hour or so.
I cried again when I saw them near the main entrance, running
up and giving them a huge hug. I was just so thankful that they
(05:31):
were safe and that whatever was going on outside hadn't gotten
them, as I was so terrified thatit might.
As it turns out, the school had been hit by a tornado.
It definitely wasn't the worst time that could have hit, but as
I mentioned, it was bad enough to blow out the windows in the
library. Or maybe it was a tree that was
(05:53):
felled that somehow managed to smash through the windows.
I didn't actually see what exactly caused the damage, but
at that age I wasn't even reallysure what a tornado even was.
Like. Sure I had heard the word
before, but I had never been caught in anything as crazy as
that, and neither had most of the other kids by the way they
(06:15):
reacted. It was without a doubt the
single most pant weddingly scarything that ever happened to me
during my entire childhood, let alone during my time in
elementary school, and since then I have had a profound
respect for how awesomely powerful the forces of nature
can be and how they are not to be taken lightly.
(06:36):
I know this isn't as gripping orterrifying a story as some of
the school lockdown ones I read from time to time, but for all
of us in school that day, it waslike a nightmare come to life.
Before you hear this story, I just want to say that it does
(06:57):
not have a particularly satisfying climax or ending.
It defies all logic and sense and will probably leave you
feeling quite bewildered as it did to me while it was
occurring. Having said that, it's still the
creepiest series of events that has ever happened to me.
When I was a young teenager, my friend Nathan and I would often
(07:20):
take my family's large sea kayakacross the nearby river to a
small Creek that was around halfa kilometer away and shot off
adjacent to an abandoned golf course.
This Creek was very slow moving compared to the large Hawkesbury
River and as a result of this, alot of garbage and debris would
collect at the mouth of the Creek before slowly being
(07:40):
distributed throughout its length.
Nathan and I spent a lot of timeat this Creek.
We even built a small jetty to tie the kayak to, using long
sticks and baling twine from thehay bales that we used to feed
the horses back at home. We used this jetty to more the
kayak while we navigated the mess of prickly pear cacti that
guarded the borders of the golf course.
(08:02):
The golf course itself was incredibly eerie.
No animals, birds, or even insects could be heard or seen
on it. Every noise you made was echoed
back at you from a nearby sandstone Cliff base.
The closest thing we saw to an animal with the skeleton of a
kangaroo, which we found around the second time we went there.
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It was strange as we had only been to the spot around a week
or so prior and there was no corpse at that time.
Yet there it was, in the middle of the clearing, a full kangaroo
skeleton, sun bleached and scattered about.
We picked up some of the bones and admired them closely,
remarking on what part of the skeleton we thought each bone
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was before tossing them aside. I took the skull back with me in
the kayak and placed it on the bookshelf in my room when I got
home that afternoon. I often took things back from
outings Nathan never did, but hewas always on the lookout for
things for me to collect. The next time we went out to
that Creek, we decided to try our luck at exploring the
(09:04):
waterway as far down as we could.
We armed ourselves with machetesand a small hatchet that we used
when we built the jetty and set off.
The journey was made extremely difficult by vines that spanned
the Creek from bank to bank, sunken logs and dense river weed
that made paddling nearly impossible.
(09:24):
The water was full of garbage too, broken tubes, life jackets,
boat propellers, you name it, ithad made its way here.
As we made it through to the relatively rubbish free area
that had dark ominous looking water, I looked down briefly and
saw what I thought was a doll's head just below the surface of
(09:46):
the water. I stopped paddling to crane my
neck to see it more clearly. It was definitely a doll's head
around a foot below the surface,as if it was tethered there from
the riverbed. It was looking up with a blank
expression and light blue eyes. I instantly got a panicked
feeling as I gazed at it. Before I could say anything,
(10:09):
Nathan exclaimed Ah, cool, and plunged his hand into the water.
I could tell that he was surprised at how deep he had to
reach to wrap his fingers aroundthe head, but Nathan was a
determined dude. He lifted the head out of the
water and looked at me, grinning, streams of water
running from his closed fist as he held it out toward me
(10:31):
triumphantly. I took it reluctantly from him.
It was a small doll's head, around 3 inches in diameter.
The head was clearly sun damagedand as a result it had lost a
lot of the paint features. There were no discernible pupils
on the eyes, just the blue colored irises.
This gave the thing a really disturbing look.
(10:54):
I shook my head at Nathan and placed the head on the front of
the kayak to look like the figurehead of an old wooden
ship. Nathan laughed.
Let's call him Bob. He said while still grinning.
I gave him a deadpan look, trying not to laugh.
You're so original. I scoffed at him before turning
(11:15):
around to resume paddling. I stopped immediately when I saw
Bob staring straight back at me.I had not placed him like that.
I had placed him facing outward.I knew that I had because his
face creeped me out and I did not want to look at it.
Nathan was paddling while I had stopped and so we were moving at
(11:37):
a good pace. As I was at the front of the
boat, I was meant to keep an eyeout for obstacles and call out
if I saw anything ahead. I was entirely focused on Bob.
However, as we struck A submerged tree and came to an
abrupt stop. Everything on the kayak jumped
forward as a result of this. Nathan, me, our packed lunches
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and water bottles, nothing too major happened.
Everything on the kayak had jumped forward, that is except
for the dolls head. I had kept my eye on it the
entire time and it did not move even half an inch.
It was like it was super glued to the boat.
Nathan began teasing me about being blind and I snapped at him
(12:22):
to be quiet. He asked what was wrong and I
leaned to the right for him to see the head.
I pointed and said. It didn't move, dude.
While half chuckling, Nathan moved forward to look at it
closer. What do you mean?
He asked slowly. I picked up my paddle and took a
(12:43):
slow stroke backward in the water to lightly hit the tree
again. Once again, everything on the
kayak jumped forward slightly aswe struck the tree.
Except for Bob. He stayed perfectly still.
Nathan laughed. That's weird, he said, his voice
trailing off. I reached out to turn Bob around
(13:06):
on his spot and he turned easily.
Let's go home. I said loudly, trying to wash
the area of the heavy feeling that was seeming to settle down
upon us. Nathan agreed, and we turned the
kayak around to head home. I watched the head like a hawk.
Bob never looked back at me on the trip home, though.
(13:29):
When we got home, we packed everything that we could into
our backpacks and lifted the kayak out of the water.
The head was stuffed into my pocket.
I had not told Nathan how creeped out I was out of the
fear that he would give me crap or give him possible ammunition
to play a dumb prank on me with it.
Nathan was and still is my best friend, and he would absolutely
(13:50):
have done that if I had told him, just as I would to him had
the roles been reversed. I decided to just keep my mouth
shut about the stupid doll head and hope that Nathan would
simply forget about it. We trudged over to my neighbor's
backyard with the kayak holding it by the handles at both ends.
My pocket started to feel very warm.
(14:12):
I stopped listening to Nathan's nonsense and began to focus more
on the ever increasing temperature of the head inside
my pocket. Each time I thought it can't get
any hotter, it somehow would. It was not burning, more like
the feeling of deep heat as it gets left on.
I tried my best to ignore it. It was getting dark now and I
(14:36):
really wanted to get home. We dropped the kayak in the
garage and put away the machetesand hatchet before making our
way upstairs for dinner. I took a detour to my room to
dump the head out of my pocket and onto my bed, leaving it
there while I left my room to join Nathan and my family for
dinner. When Nathan and I finished
dinner and entered my bedroom togo to sleep later on that night,
(14:59):
the head was absent from my bottom bunk bed.
Granted, my room was a mess, butit should still have been in the
cleared spot on my bare mattress.
I took a little time to look forit, tossing the blankets and
sheets aside and climbing on topto peer down through the gap
between the bed and the wall. I could not see it anywhere.
(15:21):
I was not concerned that I may not see it again.
In fact, I was somewhat relievedthat it was gone.
However, I had a gnawing feelingthat it was still around, not
watching me exactly, but just a presence.
Nathan seemed to have forgotten about it, though.
(15:41):
He never brought Bob back up again that night, and he climbed
up to the top bunk and promptly fell asleep.
I lay down on my bed and pulled the bundle of blankets
haphazardly over the top of me, falling asleep quickly as well.
The next day I was awoken by thesounds of thumping noises coming
from nearby outside. I got up out of bed to glance
(16:05):
out the window into the front paddock of our property to see
my stepfather using the hatchet to hack at a tree stump that was
much too large for the minusculeaxe.
My stepfather was a very smart man, but his grasp on common
sense sometimes bordered on the absurd.
I yawned, rubbing my eyes and turning around before opening
(16:26):
them. I froze in place.
There, on the shelf in front of the kangaroo's skull was Bob,
his eyes looking once again directly into mine.
I turned to look at Nathan, still sleeping on the top bunk,
and instantly jumped up on the railing to punch him hard in the
upper arm. He awoke with a pained cry and
(16:49):
looked at me with a scowl. What the heck, man?
He demanded, lifting his other arm to place his palms over the
spot that I had struck with the punch.
All like you don't know, mofo. I said with a slight laugh,
trying to mask the trembling tone in my voice.
Nathan looked incredulously backat me.
(17:10):
I stared at him to try to see ifhis stoic expression would
falter. It always would when he played
pranks. It did not, though.
I shook my head and strafed across the railing so that the
bookshelf was in his view. I pointed at the top shelf.
You didn't put it there? I asked.
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Nathan sat up to get a better look and shook his head.
Nah, man, I would have had him facing outward anyway.
You know I would have. I spun my head around so fast
that I'm surprised my neck did not break.
Sure enough, the head was now facing toward the kangaroo skull
and not outward like before. I began shaking, unable to hold
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myself up on the railing any longer.
I dropped to the floor and stormed over to the bookshelf to
pick Bob up and took him out into the kitchen.
I stepped on the pedal to open the Chrome bin in there and
threw him in the garbage a lot harder than I needed to.
I did not let the lid naturally close, instead choosing to slam
it down as a good measure. Nathan sleepily trudged out of
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my room once I'd finished doing this.
He stared wide eyed at the bin. He took a moment before looking
up at me and speaking. Yeah, that thing was creepy,
man. I was glad that Nathan agreed
with me and was not using this opportunity to make fun of me.
I nodded at him. Something about it was just
(18:39):
wrong. I uttered quietly.
Nathan playfully kicked the bin,making it rock a little.
Take that creepy doll head guy. He exclaimed while laughing.
I laughed too, feeling glad thatthe situation was over and dealt
with. I asked Nathan again if he had
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actually put the head on the shelf, stating that if he had,
it was OK. It was a good prank, I just
needed to know for my own sanity.
Nathan put his hand over his heart and sternly promised that
he had not done it. I believed him then and I still
do to this day, nearly 17 years later.
(19:21):
Months went past, Nathan and I never had an opportunity to make
our way back to the Creek. With school holidays
approaching, I was keen to get big chores out of the way on
weekends so that I could enjoy the full extent of the holiday
period. I did this by working on
weekends with my stepfather on various projects on our rural
property. We used the machetes and hatchet
(19:44):
that Nathan and I had taken on our last trip to the Creek in
order to complete many of these tasks.
Having no means to sharpen the tools, or even the knowledge for
that matter, meant that cutting and hacking got more difficult
and cumbersome as time went on. One day, as I was fighting my
way through a thicket of vines hanging from a large peppercorn
tree, I observed my mother leaned down to pick up an object
(20:07):
out of the dirt in the front paddock.
It was in a spot directly below the main household wheelie bins
that the council picked up weekly.
I thought nothing of it. A few hours later I went inside
to get a drink of water and to change my shirt as I had managed
to create a large tear in the one that I was wearing.
I entered my room and immediately felt strange,
(20:31):
feeling a need to look over at my bookshelf.
The feeling of Deja vu was intense.
Bob was back staring at me againfrom the spot on the bookshelf
that I had placed him on years earlier.
This time, though, a small smirkwas obvious on his features.
I felt nausea sweep over me and I turned around to walk back
(20:55):
into the kitchen. Mom.
I asked sheepishly. My mother didn't look up from
doing the dishes. Yes, honey, She replied.
Did you put something on my shelf?
Mom murmured in agreement with me.
Yes, I found that doll's head inthe front yard earlier.
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I saw it in your room a long time ago and figured you must
have lost it somehow. This made no sense to me.
Mom could not have seen it in myroom.
There was no time. Furthermore, what a bizarre
thing to do to find a doll's head underneath the retaining
wall there are bins sat atop of,and to think to wash it off and
(21:36):
put it on my bookshelf. I shook my head and turned to
walk back to my room, determinedto get rid of him for good this
time. I marched straight up to the
bookshelf and reached up to grabBob and paused.
He was not there. I let out an exasperated sigh
and began to violently push things aside on my bookshelf,
(21:59):
first on the top shelf, then thesecond shelf, all the way down
until starting to fling things around in my room.
He was nowhere to be found. I stopped and placed my hands on
either side of my face and took a minute to slow my breathing
down. I walked briskly out of my room
and grabbed the cordless phone off the wall.
I called Nathan to tell him whathad happened.
(22:22):
After I finished rattling off a summary of what had happened.
He was speechless about what I had told him.
We both had no idea what to makeof all this.
My stepfather, growing impatientwith how long I was taking to
come back, had returned to the house also and was standing over
me with his hands on his hips, looking very annoyed.
(22:43):
I told Nathan that I had to go and hung up.
My stepfather asked me where I had put the hatchet that I was
using earlier. I looked confused.
I had left it impaled into the impossibly large tree stump.
As always, he had watched me do it.
I told him as much and he said that he could not find it.
(23:03):
We both went back down to the paddock together and sure
enough, just like Bob, the hatchet had seemingly
disappeared. I never saw Bob again.
But the story does not end there.
Years later, when Nathan and I were in our 20s, we decided to
take the kayak and make our way back to the Creek for old time's
(23:26):
sake. We took the kayak out of the
garage and carried it up the road to a launch ramp as the
neighbor's property that we usedto get to the river had changed
owners some years back. It took us about an hour to get
to the Creek, as opposed to our usual 20 minutes back in the
day. When we arrived, we were very
surprised to see that our jetty was still there.
(23:49):
Having survived 2 floods and over a decade of river tides.
It honestly did not look like itwas damaged in any way, almost
like new. We stopped and moored the kayak
to it, as we always done, and stepped out onto the shore.
My foot kicked something up in the dirt and I looked down to
(24:09):
see the outline of a familiar shape.
It couldn't be. I knelt down and grasped at the
handle of the object, pulling itout of the crumbling earth to
reveal the hatchet that I had misplaced so many years ago, the
casing bearing my stepfather's monogram embossed into the dark
(24:29):
leather. I shook my head.
This was impossible. This hatchet was the only one we
had purchased, and it was one-of-a-kind.
Nathan and I were the only ones that visited this spot.
Out of my family and anyone elsethat we knew.
This made no sense whatsoever. Nathan looked at it quietly
(24:52):
along with me, a heavy feeling seeming to settle around us once
again. We both turned to look at the
wide berth of Stillwater at the mouth of the Creek.
In the center, the bloated and rotting corpse of a cow floated
innocuously, drifting lazily in a clockwise direction.
(25:15):
A storm was setting in rapidly. Nathan and I looked at each
other at the same time and knew that this was the last time.
We would ever be coming to KataiCreek.
OK, so here in the UK we don't really have elementary schools,
(25:37):
but the equivalents are called junior or primary schools.
We go here from about four to 11years old.
So while I suppose they're not strictly American elementary
schools, I suppose this story fits into the age bracket.
Anyway, this is the scariest thing that happened to me while
I was at Junior School. The school I went to had a tiny
(25:59):
playground. Like I think there were only
about 100 kids in the entire school, so the little concrete
play area was maybe only like 50meters across.
It was tiny, so if something happened on the playground,
every kid and supervising teacher could see it, which I
suppose suited them down to the ground.
(26:19):
But it didn't suit me the day something happened to Louis
because one day we are all just lagging it around the playground
as little kids do not a care in the world.
When I hear one of the teaching assistants scream really really
loudly. Louis.
Louis. I remember it was autumn because
(26:40):
I was playing with some fallen leaves when I heard the scream.
Don't ask me why I spin around like every single other kid in
the playground after hearing that blood curdling screech to
see the teaching assistant kneeling down by Lewis, who was
just lying on the concrete with blood pouring out of his mouth.
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Not a little drip, I mean a steady stream of blood that was
just cascading out of the cornerof his mouth and pooling on the
ground beneath him. I mean, that was horrific
enough, but the thing that really got to me was that he was
totally unconscious and that hiseyes had just rolled up into
their sockets so you could only see the whites of his eyes while
(27:23):
he bled uncontrollably from his mouth.
Loads of us just piled into the coat room.
Some kids were crying, others were pale and in shock.
And I obviously can't speak for any of the other kids, but I
100% thought that Lewis was dead.
I've never seen any kind of injury like that before.
(27:44):
At least when my friend Ewan broke his leg when he fell off a
swing set, he'd screamed bloody murder until the ambulance came.
I knew he was alive, even if it was really distressing.
But Lewis was out cold, bleedinglike a stuck pig.
And his eyes, I didn't know eyescould even do that back when I
was that age. Afternoon classes basically got
(28:07):
cancelled. The kids were just distraught,
so no one was in any fit state to be concentrating on lessons.
We were just kept in our classrooms until we were all
called into the main assembly hall to hear the news about
Louis. We didn't get all the gory
details, only that Louis had taken a fall in the playground
and that banged his head. We were told that he had been
(28:30):
taken to the hospital and that he was OK, but that he would be
out of school for a week or so while he healed up.
Lewis was back before we knew it.
We were all super relieved to see him.
I remember the first day he was back, we all gathered around him
as he showed off the big scar inside his lip where he had
fallen on his face. He had also lost a few baby
(28:51):
teeth, which I guess was lucky as he was about to lose them
anyway. I suppose that was definitely
the most terrifying thing I eversaw during my childhood.
I mean, I'm 32 now, it's been like 25 years or so since it
happened, but I remember the whole thing is clear as day.
It's just burned into my memory.Those eyes, the whites of his
(29:16):
eyes, they're something I'll never, ever forget.
To start this story, I should mention my occupation.
I'm in my 30s now and I am a journeyman electrician.
(29:36):
I often work alone and in people's homes, so Needless to
say I often find myself in rather interesting situations.
I'm a rather small woman as I'm only 5, two, and maybe 125 lbs.
I'm very aware of my limitationswhen it comes to physically
dangerous situations, especiallywhen it would apply as a target
(29:57):
of just about any male. I served in the military so I
have a rudimentary knowledge of hand to hand combat and I am
adept trained and a concealed weapons permit carrier.
I also had experience as a paramedic in a major city.
Needless to say, I feel as prepared as someone my size and
gender could possibly be for most situations.
(30:22):
However, this situation triggered A visceral response,
so I thought I would share my experience with who I refer to
as the man with the mannequin legs.
In the interest of privacy and simplicity, I will refer to him
simply as John Doe. It starts on a Friday almost two
(30:42):
years ago. The time was 730 PMI had already
worked an extremely long day andwas just ready to get home.
I received an emergency dispatchto an apartment complex several
towns over. I grumbled as it was a Friday
night. I just wanted to go home and
shower. The dispatch was for a loss of
(31:03):
power to a condo unit in one of the older lower income
buildings. There are certain home and
building as I go into which automatically trigger a certain
amount of caution. Upon seeing the building, I had
a gut feeling already that I would proceed with an air of
caution. I don't know what it was, but
for the first time in seven years of doing this job, I had
(31:25):
an extreme sense of anxiety and trepidation about walking into
the property. Thinking that I was over
exaggerating but wanted to trustmy gut feeling and be safe.
I immediately texted both my office manager, my boyfriend,
and my mother, my GPS location with a message saying this is
where I am. His name is John Doe, this is
(31:48):
his address and unit number. If you don't hear from me every
20 minutes until I tell you I have left, please call me first.
If I don't answer, please call the police.
My company uses a dispatch software that tells them my
location for every appointment, but my gut told me that I needed
to make sure they knew where I was, that they needed to hear my
(32:11):
gut feeling screaming as loudly as I could when I rang the bell,
A gruff voice of a man who smokes far too many cigarettes
forcefully inquires as to who isthere.
I answer, stating that I'm the electrician who is dispatched.
He hits the buzzer and lets me in.
I walk up the stairs and the first thing to hit me is the
(32:33):
smell of the building. A building full of unwashed
bodies, unemptied wet ashtrays and stale alcohol.
He opened his door and the smellintensified.
He wore grubby, unkempt I'll fitting clothing stained with
fluids bodily or food in origin.His face thin and gaunt,
(32:57):
unshaven with the dark heavy bags under his eyes.
Entering the door I noticed a small table that was stacked
with empty beer cans toting the champagne of beers.
A plastic whiskey bottle went funk off the toe of my steel toe
boots and skidded across the floor.
I look up at him, though on the skinny side, he was tall.
(33:20):
I asked him for details regarding the loss of power, and
he explains that some things work while others don't.
I won't bore you with the details, but in the end I had to
see the panel. I told him I had to go run out
to my truck to grab a different screwdriver, and I went back out
and got my concealed weapon, shoving it in my pants.
(33:42):
I went back into the home with adeep breath to settle my nerves.
He leads me to his bedroom as I pick my way across a sea of
discarded items. We passed the kitchen, the sink
stacked high with plates unwashed with rotting food,
precariously balanced, the top one enough like a perverse game
(34:02):
of Jenga stepping over clothing,garbage and discarded alcohol
containers, burn marks in the carpet from someone nodding out
and dropping a lit cigarette. I enter his bedroom.
A mattress with a tattered blanket and no sheets or pillows
sits in the center. If you ask any person who
(34:23):
regularly goes into the home of others, one of the signs that
something is off with the resident is a bare mattress.
I'll be honest with you, no person in their right mind
sleeps without at least a fittedsheet on their bed.
The furniture is all second handand distressed, broken in
places, water stain as if it were saved from some unknown
(34:46):
curb which was not sold during the estate sale.
The top half of a naked dirty mannequin appearing as if it
were stolen from an abandoned storefront of a long dead store
lays in the bed. I trip over something as I'm
making my way around the bed. Looking down, I see two things
that make me take pause. The more alarming of the two
(35:09):
happened to be a set of legs from a mannequin carelessly
hacked from the top half with what looks like to be a very
dull hacksaw, A hole crudely drilled between the legs, lines
drawn at the natural human joints like a surgeon marking
amputation lines on body. It's hard molded plastic, white
(35:30):
in color, posed on the floor like it was modeling the latest
fashionable footwear. While trying not to trip, I see
a dimly flashing red light coming from the ankle of my
creepy host. It's a Department of Corrections
GPS ankle monitor. My breath catches in my chest as
my anxiety increases. He leads me to the panel, which
(35:53):
of course had to be located in the bedroom closet.
I think to myself, of course, why wouldn't it be in the
bedroom closet? I have to turn my back on him to
make the repairs, which makes myhair stand on end.
He watches me, smoking a cigarette and sneaking to the
living room, often to take a swig from a brown paper bag,
(36:17):
occasionally standing over me toview my progress.
He stands behind me, his hot breath on the back of my neck.
Keep in mind I'm now in a closet, working in the back
corner on an electrical panel, keeping my body turned as much
as possible while still being able to complete my task.
(36:37):
Which unfortunately wasn't enough as I didn't see him come
out of the bathroom on the side obscured from my view.
The apartment had one of those bathrooms with a door to the
hallway and a door to the masterbedroom.
What's the problem? He rasped suddenly, making me
jump. Well Sir, your electrical panel
(36:58):
is failing. It appears that only half of the
panel is working. That is pretty common for this
model at the end of its life. I reply, keeping my tone even
and unwavering. I leave, telling him that I need
a different type of breaker in order to get him up and running
temporarily. I was not about to spend the
several hours required in his presence to replace the
(37:21):
electrical panel, but without getting too far into it, I could
shuffle the Breakers around in order to return power to about
80% of the circuits in the panel.
But he had a very old panel and I had to go get some supplies to
do it. I leave and head over to the
supply store, all the while texting those who received my
(37:42):
earlier texts regarding my apprehension of going into the
home. I tell them that my gut feeling
was perfectly correct and I did not feel comfortable.
My office manager told me that she would understand if I was
not comfortable finishing the repairs, but I told her that I
wouldn't dump that on another one of my Co workers.
Although they were male, I realized that I had more of an
(38:04):
ability to protect myself than they would have, although it
didn't cross my mind till later that they would have been less
of a target. I would go back in and finish my
job. I returned still with my
concealed weapon, taking comfortin its presence, but being
extremely aware that if he came up behind me and smashed me on
(38:26):
my head, I may not have time to react.
Taking solace in the idea that Iwould be safe, at least until I
had restored electricity to the home, why attack the electrician
until the job is done, right? I make a few temporary repairs
and tell him that I'll have to come back to finish the rest of
it, stressing that this repair would probably only hold him
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over until the following week, or until the panel has failed in
its entirety. The panel needs to be replaced,
and I would send him an estimateto replace it.
Realizing that this would be themost dangerous part of my
interaction with him, I ready myself to get payments and
leave. If there was a time for him to
decide to act on more nefarious predilections, this was the
(39:12):
time. I'd already prepared the
invoice. I think he notices me gripping
my folding knife, my hand insidemy pocket, ready with a backup
in case I cannot get to my concealed weapon in time.
As he had not done anything overtly threatening, I give him
the benefit of the doubt and he doesn't do anything threatening.
(39:33):
His hands shake and he fills outa check for the amount due, his
hands shaking while holding the pencil.
The kind of shakes you see in somebody who is an alcoholic or
a drug addict. Again, not overtly threatening.
He thanks me, all while eyeing me like a piece of meat.
He watches me walk to my truck, following me to the apartment
(39:55):
landing and to the main front door.
I am almost running now. And I jump into my work truck
and lock the doors. I finally breathe.
I finally feel safe. Until I see him in my mirror,
staring back at me from the rearsection of my truck.
Not threatening, just staring. I leave without finishing my
(40:19):
paperwork and go a few blocks down.
I stop and start shaking as the adrenaline slowly leaves my
system. I reassure my family that I'm
safe and tell my boss that I cannot go back to that address.
Within 10 minutes of leaving, the office manager contacts me
and tells me that he has alreadybooked an appointment for me to
do the panel the following week.I tell her that I have not even
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sent him an estimate yet and if he can't afford it, to be
prepared for a cancellation thatfollowing Monday.
I prepare the estimate and with the permission of my boss, I
overpriced it about three times what it should cost, hoping that
he will not ask me to come back.No such luck.
Within 10 minutes of sending theestimate, my boss called saying
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that he had accepted it and wishes to keep his appointment.
I told my boss I cannot go back to a guy who accepts an estimate
that cost three times over what it should, especially when he
obviously didn't have funds to spare.
I beg and plead not to make me go back, instead they offered to
send me back with another personand my heart drops.
(41:30):
I look for a reason not to. After seeing the ankle bracelet
I knew he would have some form of criminal record.
I quickly Google his name and the name of the city he lived
in. It was one of the 1st results
and I find out exactly why he was wearing an ankle monitor.
He had just gotten out of prison.
(41:51):
John Doe served two years in state prison for stalking a
woman, a perfect stranger, a waitress he met at a local
breakfast joint. When she threatened to report
him, he broke into her home. He held her hostage as she
begged him to allow her to leave.
When she refused, he told her hewould kill her and threatened to
(42:14):
dismember her. He threatened to make her
disappear in a way that her family would never know where
she went. The article didn't say how it
concluded, but the woman was safely able to get away and he
was arrested. He then spent two years in a
state penitentiary and received five years of monitored
probation. He had only been released in the
(42:36):
last year. It took less than a year for
that apartment to get in that state.
My heart leapt into my chest as I realized what this man may
have truly been capable of. Here I was, a small woman in the
service industry, just like thatwaitress.
Him setting up the appointment overpriced.
(42:58):
It was all so wrong. With the evidence of the
mannequin staring me in the face, it appears his fantasy is
alive and well. It appears that the last two
years have taught him exactly what he wanted to do.
I thought back over the last week and remember 2 occasions
where a beat up old tan Buick had been following me, but not
(43:20):
closely. Not even enough to set off alarm
bells. But again, I noticed these type
of things. I can't be 100% sure it was him,
but looking back it probably was.
It just seemed like the car would spontaneously appear and
follow me between appointments, never entering the neighborhood
(43:42):
I was going into, but would follow me onto the main streets.
Keep in mind my work van is essentially A9 foot tall
billboard for my company. I am impossible to miss, so you
do not have to be very close to see where my truck is going.
I do not have a rear view mirror, so if you're in the
right spot, I cannot see a good majority of a car that's behind
(44:05):
me. I can tell there is in fact a
car behind me, but I obviously cannot see the front portion of
it. The car would always be around
for a few of my morning appointments, but once I would
travel more than about 15 miles away from the town that John Doe
lived in, it would vanish. When I'm doing estimates all
day, I can easily drive about 200 miles in one work day.
(44:29):
I can drive between job sites that are maybe 10 minutes apart
or up to about an hour and a half from each other.
I crisscrossed the northeastern half of the state all day.
It makes it extremely difficult for somebody to follow me all
day long. I assume he tried to find me by
name, but without telling you myname, I can tell you that I have
(44:51):
an incredibly common name, to the point where when I was in
middle school, there was anothergirl attending the school with
the same exact name. First and last.
My name is so incredibly common that unless you knew me
personally, you could not find me on the Internet.
I keep all of my security settings on social media
incredibly strict and I never post anything that will reveal
(45:14):
my location. I even have this setting off in
my phone that saves the locationto a photo.
I wouldn't say that I'm paranoidper SE, but I learned very young
what the world is actually like that most people do not have
your best interest in mind. I can thank the US Army for
teaching me, but once something goes into the Internet it can
(45:35):
never be truly deleted. I think This is why he was never
able to find me, although I'm sure he tried.
He called my company almost daily for weeks to try to get me
to go back out to work on his electrical panel.
He even offered to pay me more money if I would come back.
Luckily I'd shared all the information I've found with all
(45:57):
of the office staff. I made sure a do not service was
placed on his name and address. My company stood behind me and
protected me, going as far as tomake sure my name and photo were
not on the website, that I was never tagged in any social
media, and that my schedule was randomized with me never
starting and finishing at the same town or anywhere near the
(46:20):
same location. I was never booked within 10
miles of his address. Needless to say, my company
never sent any technician back to the man with mannequin legs.
I ended up with nothing more than a story.
A story that shows no matter howprepared you might be for a
situation, you never know exactly who you're dealing with.
(46:43):
That you should be prepared for anything and everything that can
come your way. A story that stresses the
importance of trusting your instincts.
(49:41):
Yeah. Yeah.
(01:12:12):
Yeah. Yeah.
Hey, this is Dane and this is Scary Stories and Rain.
Please join my family and followthis podcast on Spotify or
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single giveaway automatically entered.
(00:22):
And starting now, today, every Sunday, I'm going to release the
ultimate episode 6 to 12 hours long Ultimate Scary Stories for
a rainy night. Subscriber exclusive.
And as a reminder, we are now four months away from my first
movie release in theaters, Gale Yellow Brick Road, a dark and
terrifying reimagining of The Wizard of Oz.
(00:45):
If you want to check out the first trailer, click the link in
the description to this episode.And if you're not following my
other two podcasts, please go check them out, Scary Stories
and Fire and Scary Stories AfterDark.
The links are in the description.
Thank you so much for being hereand I really hope you enjoy this
episode. When I was a kid, my family
(01:11):
moved from our home in upstate New York all the way down to
North Carolina, all because of something to do with my dad's
job. It was a pretty scary time in my
life. For someone so young to have to
leave behind their school friends and stuff and settle in
an entirely new place was deeplydisconcerting and saddening.
But none of that compared to what I would face one day during
(01:33):
elementary school. To me, it was a morning a lot
like any other. Nothing remarkable or ominous
about it. I mean, the weather seemed
pretty crappy, so there was no outside recess during the
morning, but that's not entirelyunusual during the fall on the
East Coast. But as the afternoon progressed,
I remember looking out of the windows of our classroom and
(01:56):
seeing the light drizzle of the morning progressed steadily into
some of the heaviest wind and rain I had ever seen.
Like it was pounding against thewindow so hard at one point that
our teacher had to actually raise their voice in order to
make themselves heard. Not long after, another teacher
walks in the classroom, quickly walks up to our teacher standing
(02:16):
at the front of the class, and whispers something in her ear.
Our teacher immediately goes allwide eyed, and although we
didn't know exactly what had been said or what was going on,
this super tense feeling just descended over the class like we
instinctively knew something waswrong.
Class continued for a little while, all while the weather
(02:37):
outside continued to get worse. Only this time, instead of just
ignoring it, our teacher kept looking out the windows.
I remember turning to see what she was looking at and seeing
just a bunch of stuff flying across the playing field
outside. Nothing major, just a lot of
paper and bits of plastic. But I'd never seen anything like
(02:58):
that before, and it made me really, really nervous.
Then the intercom in our classroom buzzed into life,
saying something about how all teaching staff and pupils needed
to take shelter in the hallways immediately.
So we did, and with our teacher trying to keep us all calm and
she struggled to keep a lid on her own fears, we filed out into
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the hallway and we're told to sit down on the floor out there.
By that point we could all hear the sounds of the wind howling
outside of the building, even through some pretty thick
cladding and stuff, which was terrifying all on its own.
And the louder it got, the more and more afraid we all got as
our teachers explained that it was just some nasty weather and
(03:42):
it couldn't hurt us so long as we were in the hallways.
Things were fine for a little while, but our classroom was
right next to the library, and at one point, just as the mood
seems to be as tense as it couldget, we all heard this big
crashing sound coming from behind the closed double doors.
It was so loud and frightening that all the kids immediately
(04:03):
screamed when we heard it, and it was followed by these
horribly loud howling wind noises that seemed to echo down
the hallways. We were saddened.
It honestly sounded like a big monster had just come crashing
its way through the glass and was tearing around the library,
knocking things over as it went.Some of the other kids were
inconsolable at that point as the screams turned into sobs and
(04:26):
wails that the teachers tried and failed to calm.
It was like a rolling choir of fear and misery with almost
every second kid just either quietly sobbing or openly
wailing. I admit to crying myself, but it
was only upon hearing another kid saying to a teacher, I want
to go home, I want my mom and dad, I need my mom and dad.
(04:50):
That just made me think of my own parents and how this
horrible and bizarre event mightbe affecting them too.
That's when I couldn't find it in me to be brave anymore, and I
broke down crying as well. We ended up staying in that
corridor for hours, way past thetime we all should have been
filing out of the school for theend of the day.
(05:10):
It was actually dark out by the time the howling noises stopped
coming from the library, and youcan't even imagine the sense of
relief that came over us when wewere told that our parents would
be coming to collect us from school in the next hour or so.
I cried again when I saw them near the main entrance, running
up and giving them a huge hug. I was just so thankful that they
(05:31):
were safe and that whatever was going on outside hadn't gotten
them, as I was so terrified thatit might.
As it turns out, the school had been hit by a tornado.
It definitely wasn't the worst time that could have hit, but as
I mentioned, it was bad enough to blow out the windows in the
library. Or maybe it was a tree that was
(05:53):
felled that somehow managed to smash through the windows.
I didn't actually see what exactly caused the damage, but
at that age I wasn't even reallysure what a tornado even was.
Like. Sure I had heard the word
before, but I had never been caught in anything as crazy as
that, and neither had most of the other kids by the way they
(06:15):
reacted. It was without a doubt the
single most pant weddingly scarything that ever happened to me
during my entire childhood, let alone during my time in
elementary school, and since then I have had a profound
respect for how awesomely powerful the forces of nature
can be and how they are not to be taken lightly.
(06:36):
I know this isn't as gripping orterrifying a story as some of
the school lockdown ones I read from time to time, but for all
of us in school that day, it waslike a nightmare come to life.
Before you hear this story, I just want to say that it does
(06:57):
not have a particularly satisfying climax or ending.
It defies all logic and sense and will probably leave you
feeling quite bewildered as it did to me while it was
occurring. Having said that, it's still the
creepiest series of events that has ever happened to me.
When I was a young teenager, my friend Nathan and I would often
(07:20):
take my family's large sea kayakacross the nearby river to a
small Creek that was around halfa kilometer away and shot off
adjacent to an abandoned golf course.
This Creek was very slow moving compared to the large Hawkesbury
River and as a result of this, alot of garbage and debris would
collect at the mouth of the Creek before slowly being
(07:40):
distributed throughout its length.
Nathan and I spent a lot of timeat this Creek.
We even built a small jetty to tie the kayak to, using long
sticks and baling twine from thehay bales that we used to feed
the horses back at home. We used this jetty to more the
kayak while we navigated the mess of prickly pear cacti that
guarded the borders of the golf course.
(08:02):
The golf course itself was incredibly eerie.
No animals, birds, or even insects could be heard or seen
on it. Every noise you made was echoed
back at you from a nearby sandstone Cliff base.
The closest thing we saw to an animal with the skeleton of a
kangaroo, which we found around the second time we went there.
(08:22):
It was strange as we had only been to the spot around a week
or so prior and there was no corpse at that time.
Yet there it was, in the middle of the clearing, a full kangaroo
skeleton, sun bleached and scattered about.
We picked up some of the bones and admired them closely,
remarking on what part of the skeleton we thought each bone
(08:43):
was before tossing them aside. I took the skull back with me in
the kayak and placed it on the bookshelf in my room when I got
home that afternoon. I often took things back from
outings Nathan never did, but hewas always on the lookout for
things for me to collect. The next time we went out to
that Creek, we decided to try our luck at exploring the
(09:04):
waterway as far down as we could.
We armed ourselves with machetesand a small hatchet that we used
when we built the jetty and set off.
The journey was made extremely difficult by vines that spanned
the Creek from bank to bank, sunken logs and dense river weed
that made paddling nearly impossible.
(09:24):
The water was full of garbage too, broken tubes, life jackets,
boat propellers, you name it, ithad made its way here.
As we made it through to the relatively rubbish free area
that had dark ominous looking water, I looked down briefly and
saw what I thought was a doll's head just below the surface of
(09:46):
the water. I stopped paddling to crane my
neck to see it more clearly. It was definitely a doll's head
around a foot below the surface,as if it was tethered there from
the riverbed. It was looking up with a blank
expression and light blue eyes. I instantly got a panicked
feeling as I gazed at it. Before I could say anything,
(10:09):
Nathan exclaimed Ah, cool, and plunged his hand into the water.
I could tell that he was surprised at how deep he had to
reach to wrap his fingers aroundthe head, but Nathan was a
determined dude. He lifted the head out of the
water and looked at me, grinning, streams of water
running from his closed fist as he held it out toward me
(10:31):
triumphantly. I took it reluctantly from him.
It was a small doll's head, around 3 inches in diameter.
The head was clearly sun damagedand as a result it had lost a
lot of the paint features. There were no discernible pupils
on the eyes, just the blue colored irises.
This gave the thing a really disturbing look.
(10:54):
I shook my head at Nathan and placed the head on the front of
the kayak to look like the figurehead of an old wooden
ship. Nathan laughed.
Let's call him Bob. He said while still grinning.
I gave him a deadpan look, trying not to laugh.
You're so original. I scoffed at him before turning
(11:15):
around to resume paddling. I stopped immediately when I saw
Bob staring straight back at me.I had not placed him like that.
I had placed him facing outward.I knew that I had because his
face creeped me out and I did not want to look at it.
Nathan was paddling while I had stopped and so we were moving at
(11:37):
a good pace. As I was at the front of the
boat, I was meant to keep an eyeout for obstacles and call out
if I saw anything ahead. I was entirely focused on Bob.
However, as we struck A submerged tree and came to an
abrupt stop. Everything on the kayak jumped
forward as a result of this. Nathan, me, our packed lunches
(12:00):
and water bottles, nothing too major happened.
Everything on the kayak had jumped forward, that is except
for the dolls head. I had kept my eye on it the
entire time and it did not move even half an inch.
It was like it was super glued to the boat.
Nathan began teasing me about being blind and I snapped at him
(12:22):
to be quiet. He asked what was wrong and I
leaned to the right for him to see the head.
I pointed and said. It didn't move, dude.
While half chuckling, Nathan moved forward to look at it
closer. What do you mean?
He asked slowly. I picked up my paddle and took a
(12:43):
slow stroke backward in the water to lightly hit the tree
again. Once again, everything on the
kayak jumped forward slightly aswe struck the tree.
Except for Bob. He stayed perfectly still.
Nathan laughed. That's weird, he said, his voice
trailing off. I reached out to turn Bob around
(13:06):
on his spot and he turned easily.
Let's go home. I said loudly, trying to wash
the area of the heavy feeling that was seeming to settle down
upon us. Nathan agreed, and we turned the
kayak around to head home. I watched the head like a hawk.
Bob never looked back at me on the trip home, though.
(13:29):
When we got home, we packed everything that we could into
our backpacks and lifted the kayak out of the water.
The head was stuffed into my pocket.
I had not told Nathan how creeped out I was out of the
fear that he would give me crap or give him possible ammunition
to play a dumb prank on me with it.
Nathan was and still is my best friend, and he would absolutely
(13:50):
have done that if I had told him, just as I would to him had
the roles been reversed. I decided to just keep my mouth
shut about the stupid doll head and hope that Nathan would
simply forget about it. We trudged over to my neighbor's
backyard with the kayak holding it by the handles at both ends.
My pocket started to feel very warm.
(14:12):
I stopped listening to Nathan's nonsense and began to focus more
on the ever increasing temperature of the head inside
my pocket. Each time I thought it can't get
any hotter, it somehow would. It was not burning, more like
the feeling of deep heat as it gets left on.
I tried my best to ignore it. It was getting dark now and I
(14:36):
really wanted to get home. We dropped the kayak in the
garage and put away the machetesand hatchet before making our
way upstairs for dinner. I took a detour to my room to
dump the head out of my pocket and onto my bed, leaving it
there while I left my room to join Nathan and my family for
dinner. When Nathan and I finished
dinner and entered my bedroom togo to sleep later on that night,
(14:59):
the head was absent from my bottom bunk bed.
Granted, my room was a mess, butit should still have been in the
cleared spot on my bare mattress.
I took a little time to look forit, tossing the blankets and
sheets aside and climbing on topto peer down through the gap
between the bed and the wall. I could not see it anywhere.
(15:21):
I was not concerned that I may not see it again.
In fact, I was somewhat relievedthat it was gone.
However, I had a gnawing feelingthat it was still around, not
watching me exactly, but just a presence.
Nathan seemed to have forgotten about it, though.
(15:41):
He never brought Bob back up again that night, and he climbed
up to the top bunk and promptly fell asleep.
I lay down on my bed and pulled the bundle of blankets
haphazardly over the top of me, falling asleep quickly as well.
The next day I was awoken by thesounds of thumping noises coming
from nearby outside. I got up out of bed to glance
(16:05):
out the window into the front paddock of our property to see
my stepfather using the hatchet to hack at a tree stump that was
much too large for the minusculeaxe.
My stepfather was a very smart man, but his grasp on common
sense sometimes bordered on the absurd.
I yawned, rubbing my eyes and turning around before opening
(16:26):
them. I froze in place.
There, on the shelf in front of the kangaroo's skull was Bob,
his eyes looking once again directly into mine.
I turned to look at Nathan, still sleeping on the top bunk,
and instantly jumped up on the railing to punch him hard in the
upper arm. He awoke with a pained cry and
(16:49):
looked at me with a scowl. What the heck, man?
He demanded, lifting his other arm to place his palms over the
spot that I had struck with the punch.
All like you don't know, mofo. I said with a slight laugh,
trying to mask the trembling tone in my voice.
Nathan looked incredulously backat me.
(17:10):
I stared at him to try to see ifhis stoic expression would
falter. It always would when he played
pranks. It did not, though.
I shook my head and strafed across the railing so that the
bookshelf was in his view. I pointed at the top shelf.
You didn't put it there? I asked.
(17:31):
Nathan sat up to get a better look and shook his head.
Nah, man, I would have had him facing outward anyway.
You know I would have. I spun my head around so fast
that I'm surprised my neck did not break.
Sure enough, the head was now facing toward the kangaroo skull
and not outward like before. I began shaking, unable to hold
(17:54):
myself up on the railing any longer.
I dropped to the floor and stormed over to the bookshelf to
pick Bob up and took him out into the kitchen.
I stepped on the pedal to open the Chrome bin in there and
threw him in the garbage a lot harder than I needed to.
I did not let the lid naturally close, instead choosing to slam
it down as a good measure. Nathan sleepily trudged out of
(18:18):
my room once I'd finished doing this.
He stared wide eyed at the bin. He took a moment before looking
up at me and speaking. Yeah, that thing was creepy,
man. I was glad that Nathan agreed
with me and was not using this opportunity to make fun of me.
I nodded at him. Something about it was just
(18:39):
wrong. I uttered quietly.
Nathan playfully kicked the bin,making it rock a little.
Take that creepy doll head guy. He exclaimed while laughing.
I laughed too, feeling glad thatthe situation was over and dealt
with. I asked Nathan again if he had
(18:59):
actually put the head on the shelf, stating that if he had,
it was OK. It was a good prank, I just
needed to know for my own sanity.
Nathan put his hand over his heart and sternly promised that
he had not done it. I believed him then and I still
do to this day, nearly 17 years later.
(19:21):
Months went past, Nathan and I never had an opportunity to make
our way back to the Creek. With school holidays
approaching, I was keen to get big chores out of the way on
weekends so that I could enjoy the full extent of the holiday
period. I did this by working on
weekends with my stepfather on various projects on our rural
property. We used the machetes and hatchet
(19:44):
that Nathan and I had taken on our last trip to the Creek in
order to complete many of these tasks.
Having no means to sharpen the tools, or even the knowledge for
that matter, meant that cutting and hacking got more difficult
and cumbersome as time went on. One day, as I was fighting my
way through a thicket of vines hanging from a large peppercorn
tree, I observed my mother leaned down to pick up an object
(20:07):
out of the dirt in the front paddock.
It was in a spot directly below the main household wheelie bins
that the council picked up weekly.
I thought nothing of it. A few hours later I went inside
to get a drink of water and to change my shirt as I had managed
to create a large tear in the one that I was wearing.
I entered my room and immediately felt strange,
(20:31):
feeling a need to look over at my bookshelf.
The feeling of Deja vu was intense.
Bob was back staring at me againfrom the spot on the bookshelf
that I had placed him on years earlier.
This time, though, a small smirkwas obvious on his features.
I felt nausea sweep over me and I turned around to walk back
(20:55):
into the kitchen. Mom.
I asked sheepishly. My mother didn't look up from
doing the dishes. Yes, honey, She replied.
Did you put something on my shelf?
Mom murmured in agreement with me.
Yes, I found that doll's head inthe front yard earlier.
(21:15):
I saw it in your room a long time ago and figured you must
have lost it somehow. This made no sense to me.
Mom could not have seen it in myroom.
There was no time. Furthermore, what a bizarre
thing to do to find a doll's head underneath the retaining
wall there are bins sat atop of,and to think to wash it off and
(21:36):
put it on my bookshelf. I shook my head and turned to
walk back to my room, determinedto get rid of him for good this
time. I marched straight up to the
bookshelf and reached up to grabBob and paused.
He was not there. I let out an exasperated sigh
and began to violently push things aside on my bookshelf,
(21:59):
first on the top shelf, then thesecond shelf, all the way down
until starting to fling things around in my room.
He was nowhere to be found. I stopped and placed my hands on
either side of my face and took a minute to slow my breathing
down. I walked briskly out of my room
and grabbed the cordless phone off the wall.
I called Nathan to tell him whathad happened.
(22:22):
After I finished rattling off a summary of what had happened.
He was speechless about what I had told him.
We both had no idea what to makeof all this.
My stepfather, growing impatientwith how long I was taking to
come back, had returned to the house also and was standing over
me with his hands on his hips, looking very annoyed.
(22:43):
I told Nathan that I had to go and hung up.
My stepfather asked me where I had put the hatchet that I was
using earlier. I looked confused.
I had left it impaled into the impossibly large tree stump.
As always, he had watched me do it.
I told him as much and he said that he could not find it.
(23:03):
We both went back down to the paddock together and sure
enough, just like Bob, the hatchet had seemingly
disappeared. I never saw Bob again.
But the story does not end there.
Years later, when Nathan and I were in our 20s, we decided to
take the kayak and make our way back to the Creek for old time's
(23:26):
sake. We took the kayak out of the
garage and carried it up the road to a launch ramp as the
neighbor's property that we usedto get to the river had changed
owners some years back. It took us about an hour to get
to the Creek, as opposed to our usual 20 minutes back in the
day. When we arrived, we were very
surprised to see that our jetty was still there.
(23:49):
Having survived 2 floods and over a decade of river tides.
It honestly did not look like itwas damaged in any way, almost
like new. We stopped and moored the kayak
to it, as we always done, and stepped out onto the shore.
My foot kicked something up in the dirt and I looked down to
(24:09):
see the outline of a familiar shape.
It couldn't be. I knelt down and grasped at the
handle of the object, pulling itout of the crumbling earth to
reveal the hatchet that I had misplaced so many years ago, the
casing bearing my stepfather's monogram embossed into the dark
(24:29):
leather. I shook my head.
This was impossible. This hatchet was the only one we
had purchased, and it was one-of-a-kind.
Nathan and I were the only ones that visited this spot.
Out of my family and anyone elsethat we knew.
This made no sense whatsoever. Nathan looked at it quietly
(24:52):
along with me, a heavy feeling seeming to settle around us once
again. We both turned to look at the
wide berth of Stillwater at the mouth of the Creek.
In the center, the bloated and rotting corpse of a cow floated
innocuously, drifting lazily in a clockwise direction.
(25:15):
A storm was setting in rapidly. Nathan and I looked at each
other at the same time and knew that this was the last time.
We would ever be coming to KataiCreek.
OK, so here in the UK we don't really have elementary schools,
(25:37):
but the equivalents are called junior or primary schools.
We go here from about four to 11years old.
So while I suppose they're not strictly American elementary
schools, I suppose this story fits into the age bracket.
Anyway, this is the scariest thing that happened to me while
I was at Junior School. The school I went to had a tiny
(25:59):
playground. Like I think there were only
about 100 kids in the entire school, so the little concrete
play area was maybe only like 50meters across.
It was tiny, so if something happened on the playground,
every kid and supervising teacher could see it, which I
suppose suited them down to the ground.
(26:19):
But it didn't suit me the day something happened to Louis
because one day we are all just lagging it around the playground
as little kids do not a care in the world.
When I hear one of the teaching assistants scream really really
loudly. Louis.
Louis. I remember it was autumn because
(26:40):
I was playing with some fallen leaves when I heard the scream.
Don't ask me why I spin around like every single other kid in
the playground after hearing that blood curdling screech to
see the teaching assistant kneeling down by Lewis, who was
just lying on the concrete with blood pouring out of his mouth.
(27:00):
Not a little drip, I mean a steady stream of blood that was
just cascading out of the cornerof his mouth and pooling on the
ground beneath him. I mean, that was horrific
enough, but the thing that really got to me was that he was
totally unconscious and that hiseyes had just rolled up into
their sockets so you could only see the whites of his eyes while
(27:23):
he bled uncontrollably from his mouth.
Loads of us just piled into the coat room.
Some kids were crying, others were pale and in shock.
And I obviously can't speak for any of the other kids, but I
100% thought that Lewis was dead.
I've never seen any kind of injury like that before.
(27:44):
At least when my friend Ewan broke his leg when he fell off a
swing set, he'd screamed bloody murder until the ambulance came.
I knew he was alive, even if it was really distressing.
But Lewis was out cold, bleedinglike a stuck pig.
And his eyes, I didn't know eyescould even do that back when I
was that age. Afternoon classes basically got
(28:07):
cancelled. The kids were just distraught,
so no one was in any fit state to be concentrating on lessons.
We were just kept in our classrooms until we were all
called into the main assembly hall to hear the news about
Louis. We didn't get all the gory
details, only that Louis had taken a fall in the playground
and that banged his head. We were told that he had been
(28:30):
taken to the hospital and that he was OK, but that he would be
out of school for a week or so while he healed up.
Lewis was back before we knew it.
We were all super relieved to see him.
I remember the first day he was back, we all gathered around him
as he showed off the big scar inside his lip where he had
fallen on his face. He had also lost a few baby
(28:51):
teeth, which I guess was lucky as he was about to lose them
anyway. I suppose that was definitely
the most terrifying thing I eversaw during my childhood.
I mean, I'm 32 now, it's been like 25 years or so since it
happened, but I remember the whole thing is clear as day.
It's just burned into my memory.Those eyes, the whites of his
(29:16):
eyes, they're something I'll never, ever forget.
To start this story, I should mention my occupation.
I'm in my 30s now and I am a journeyman electrician.
(29:36):
I often work alone and in people's homes, so Needless to
say I often find myself in rather interesting situations.
I'm a rather small woman as I'm only 5, two, and maybe 125 lbs.
I'm very aware of my limitationswhen it comes to physically
dangerous situations, especiallywhen it would apply as a target
(29:57):
of just about any male. I served in the military so I
have a rudimentary knowledge of hand to hand combat and I am
adept trained and a concealed weapons permit carrier.
I also had experience as a paramedic in a major city.
Needless to say, I feel as prepared as someone my size and
gender could possibly be for most situations.
(30:22):
However, this situation triggered A visceral response,
so I thought I would share my experience with who I refer to
as the man with the mannequin legs.
In the interest of privacy and simplicity, I will refer to him
simply as John Doe. It starts on a Friday almost two
(30:42):
years ago. The time was 730 PMI had already
worked an extremely long day andwas just ready to get home.
I received an emergency dispatchto an apartment complex several
towns over. I grumbled as it was a Friday
night. I just wanted to go home and
shower. The dispatch was for a loss of
(31:03):
power to a condo unit in one of the older lower income
buildings. There are certain home and
building as I go into which automatically trigger a certain
amount of caution. Upon seeing the building, I had
a gut feeling already that I would proceed with an air of
caution. I don't know what it was, but
for the first time in seven years of doing this job, I had
(31:25):
an extreme sense of anxiety and trepidation about walking into
the property. Thinking that I was over
exaggerating but wanted to trustmy gut feeling and be safe.
I immediately texted both my office manager, my boyfriend,
and my mother, my GPS location with a message saying this is
where I am. His name is John Doe, this is
(31:48):
his address and unit number. If you don't hear from me every
20 minutes until I tell you I have left, please call me first.
If I don't answer, please call the police.
My company uses a dispatch software that tells them my
location for every appointment, but my gut told me that I needed
to make sure they knew where I was, that they needed to hear my
(32:11):
gut feeling screaming as loudly as I could when I rang the bell,
A gruff voice of a man who smokes far too many cigarettes
forcefully inquires as to who isthere.
I answer, stating that I'm the electrician who is dispatched.
He hits the buzzer and lets me in.
I walk up the stairs and the first thing to hit me is the
(32:33):
smell of the building. A building full of unwashed
bodies, unemptied wet ashtrays and stale alcohol.
He opened his door and the smellintensified.
He wore grubby, unkempt I'll fitting clothing stained with
fluids bodily or food in origin.His face thin and gaunt,
(32:57):
unshaven with the dark heavy bags under his eyes.
Entering the door I noticed a small table that was stacked
with empty beer cans toting the champagne of beers.
A plastic whiskey bottle went funk off the toe of my steel toe
boots and skidded across the floor.
I look up at him, though on the skinny side, he was tall.
(33:20):
I asked him for details regarding the loss of power, and
he explains that some things work while others don't.
I won't bore you with the details, but in the end I had to
see the panel. I told him I had to go run out
to my truck to grab a different screwdriver, and I went back out
and got my concealed weapon, shoving it in my pants.
(33:42):
I went back into the home with adeep breath to settle my nerves.
He leads me to his bedroom as I pick my way across a sea of
discarded items. We passed the kitchen, the sink
stacked high with plates unwashed with rotting food,
precariously balanced, the top one enough like a perverse game
(34:02):
of Jenga stepping over clothing,garbage and discarded alcohol
containers, burn marks in the carpet from someone nodding out
and dropping a lit cigarette. I enter his bedroom.
A mattress with a tattered blanket and no sheets or pillows
sits in the center. If you ask any person who
(34:23):
regularly goes into the home of others, one of the signs that
something is off with the resident is a bare mattress.
I'll be honest with you, no person in their right mind
sleeps without at least a fittedsheet on their bed.
The furniture is all second handand distressed, broken in
places, water stain as if it were saved from some unknown
(34:46):
curb which was not sold during the estate sale.
The top half of a naked dirty mannequin appearing as if it
were stolen from an abandoned storefront of a long dead store
lays in the bed. I trip over something as I'm
making my way around the bed. Looking down, I see two things
that make me take pause. The more alarming of the two
(35:09):
happened to be a set of legs from a mannequin carelessly
hacked from the top half with what looks like to be a very
dull hacksaw, A hole crudely drilled between the legs, lines
drawn at the natural human joints like a surgeon marking
amputation lines on body. It's hard molded plastic, white
(35:30):
in color, posed on the floor like it was modeling the latest
fashionable footwear. While trying not to trip, I see
a dimly flashing red light coming from the ankle of my
creepy host. It's a Department of Corrections
GPS ankle monitor. My breath catches in my chest as
my anxiety increases. He leads me to the panel, which
(35:53):
of course had to be located in the bedroom closet.
I think to myself, of course, why wouldn't it be in the
bedroom closet? I have to turn my back on him to
make the repairs, which makes myhair stand on end.
He watches me, smoking a cigarette and sneaking to the
living room, often to take a swig from a brown paper bag,
(36:17):
occasionally standing over me toview my progress.
He stands behind me, his hot breath on the back of my neck.
Keep in mind I'm now in a closet, working in the back
corner on an electrical panel, keeping my body turned as much
as possible while still being able to complete my task.
(36:37):
Which unfortunately wasn't enough as I didn't see him come
out of the bathroom on the side obscured from my view.
The apartment had one of those bathrooms with a door to the
hallway and a door to the masterbedroom.
What's the problem? He rasped suddenly, making me
jump. Well Sir, your electrical panel
(36:58):
is failing. It appears that only half of the
panel is working. That is pretty common for this
model at the end of its life. I reply, keeping my tone even
and unwavering. I leave, telling him that I need
a different type of breaker in order to get him up and running
temporarily. I was not about to spend the
several hours required in his presence to replace the
(37:21):
electrical panel, but without getting too far into it, I could
shuffle the Breakers around in order to return power to about
80% of the circuits in the panel.
But he had a very old panel and I had to go get some supplies to
do it. I leave and head over to the
supply store, all the while texting those who received my
(37:42):
earlier texts regarding my apprehension of going into the
home. I tell them that my gut feeling
was perfectly correct and I did not feel comfortable.
My office manager told me that she would understand if I was
not comfortable finishing the repairs, but I told her that I
wouldn't dump that on another one of my Co workers.
Although they were male, I realized that I had more of an
(38:04):
ability to protect myself than they would have, although it
didn't cross my mind till later that they would have been less
of a target. I would go back in and finish my
job. I returned still with my
concealed weapon, taking comfortin its presence, but being
extremely aware that if he came up behind me and smashed me on
(38:26):
my head, I may not have time to react.
Taking solace in the idea that Iwould be safe, at least until I
had restored electricity to the home, why attack the electrician
until the job is done, right? I make a few temporary repairs
and tell him that I'll have to come back to finish the rest of
it, stressing that this repair would probably only hold him
(38:48):
over until the following week, or until the panel has failed in
its entirety. The panel needs to be replaced,
and I would send him an estimateto replace it.
Realizing that this would be themost dangerous part of my
interaction with him, I ready myself to get payments and
leave. If there was a time for him to
decide to act on more nefarious predilections, this was the
(39:12):
time. I'd already prepared the
invoice. I think he notices me gripping
my folding knife, my hand insidemy pocket, ready with a backup
in case I cannot get to my concealed weapon in time.
As he had not done anything overtly threatening, I give him
the benefit of the doubt and he doesn't do anything threatening.
(39:33):
His hands shake and he fills outa check for the amount due, his
hands shaking while holding the pencil.
The kind of shakes you see in somebody who is an alcoholic or
a drug addict. Again, not overtly threatening.
He thanks me, all while eyeing me like a piece of meat.
He watches me walk to my truck, following me to the apartment
(39:55):
landing and to the main front door.
I am almost running now. And I jump into my work truck
and lock the doors. I finally breathe.
I finally feel safe. Until I see him in my mirror,
staring back at me from the rearsection of my truck.
Not threatening, just staring. I leave without finishing my
(40:19):
paperwork and go a few blocks down.
I stop and start shaking as the adrenaline slowly leaves my
system. I reassure my family that I'm
safe and tell my boss that I cannot go back to that address.
Within 10 minutes of leaving, the office manager contacts me
and tells me that he has alreadybooked an appointment for me to
do the panel the following week.I tell her that I have not even
(40:43):
sent him an estimate yet and if he can't afford it, to be
prepared for a cancellation thatfollowing Monday.
I prepare the estimate and with the permission of my boss, I
overpriced it about three times what it should cost, hoping that
he will not ask me to come back.No such luck.
Within 10 minutes of sending theestimate, my boss called saying
(41:06):
that he had accepted it and wishes to keep his appointment.
I told my boss I cannot go back to a guy who accepts an estimate
that cost three times over what it should, especially when he
obviously didn't have funds to spare.
I beg and plead not to make me go back, instead they offered to
send me back with another personand my heart drops.
(41:30):
I look for a reason not to. After seeing the ankle bracelet
I knew he would have some form of criminal record.
I quickly Google his name and the name of the city he lived
in. It was one of the 1st results
and I find out exactly why he was wearing an ankle monitor.
He had just gotten out of prison.
(41:51):
John Doe served two years in state prison for stalking a
woman, a perfect stranger, a waitress he met at a local
breakfast joint. When she threatened to report
him, he broke into her home. He held her hostage as she
begged him to allow her to leave.
When she refused, he told her hewould kill her and threatened to
(42:14):
dismember her. He threatened to make her
disappear in a way that her family would never know where
she went. The article didn't say how it
concluded, but the woman was safely able to get away and he
was arrested. He then spent two years in a
state penitentiary and received five years of monitored
probation. He had only been released in the
(42:36):
last year. It took less than a year for
that apartment to get in that state.
My heart leapt into my chest as I realized what this man may
have truly been capable of. Here I was, a small woman in the
service industry, just like thatwaitress.
Him setting up the appointment overpriced.
(42:58):
It was all so wrong. With the evidence of the
mannequin staring me in the face, it appears his fantasy is
alive and well. It appears that the last two
years have taught him exactly what he wanted to do.
I thought back over the last week and remember 2 occasions
where a beat up old tan Buick had been following me, but not
(43:20):
closely. Not even enough to set off alarm
bells. But again, I noticed these type
of things. I can't be 100% sure it was him,
but looking back it probably was.
It just seemed like the car would spontaneously appear and
follow me between appointments, never entering the neighborhood
(43:42):
I was going into, but would follow me onto the main streets.
Keep in mind my work van is essentially A9 foot tall
billboard for my company. I am impossible to miss, so you
do not have to be very close to see where my truck is going.
I do not have a rear view mirror, so if you're in the
right spot, I cannot see a good majority of a car that's behind
(44:05):
me. I can tell there is in fact a
car behind me, but I obviously cannot see the front portion of
it. The car would always be around
for a few of my morning appointments, but once I would
travel more than about 15 miles away from the town that John Doe
lived in, it would vanish. When I'm doing estimates all
day, I can easily drive about 200 miles in one work day.
(44:29):
I can drive between job sites that are maybe 10 minutes apart
or up to about an hour and a half from each other.
I crisscrossed the northeastern half of the state all day.
It makes it extremely difficult for somebody to follow me all
day long. I assume he tried to find me by
name, but without telling you myname, I can tell you that I have
(44:51):
an incredibly common name, to the point where when I was in
middle school, there was anothergirl attending the school with
the same exact name. First and last.
My name is so incredibly common that unless you knew me
personally, you could not find me on the Internet.
I keep all of my security settings on social media
incredibly strict and I never post anything that will reveal
(45:14):
my location. I even have this setting off in
my phone that saves the locationto a photo.
I wouldn't say that I'm paranoidper SE, but I learned very young
what the world is actually like that most people do not have
your best interest in mind. I can thank the US Army for
teaching me, but once something goes into the Internet it can
(45:35):
never be truly deleted. I think This is why he was never
able to find me, although I'm sure he tried.
He called my company almost daily for weeks to try to get me
to go back out to work on his electrical panel.
He even offered to pay me more money if I would come back.
Luckily I'd shared all the information I've found with all
(45:57):
of the office staff. I made sure a do not service was
placed on his name and address. My company stood behind me and
protected me, going as far as tomake sure my name and photo were
not on the website, that I was never tagged in any social
media, and that my schedule was randomized with me never
starting and finishing at the same town or anywhere near the
(46:20):
same location. I was never booked within 10
miles of his address. Needless to say, my company
never sent any technician back to the man with mannequin legs.
I ended up with nothing more than a story.
A story that shows no matter howprepared you might be for a
situation, you never know exactly who you're dealing with.
(46:43):
That you should be prepared for anything and everything that can
come your way. A story that stresses the
importance of trusting your instincts.
(49:41):
Yeah. Yeah.
(01:12:12):
Yeah. Yeah.
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