Haint Holler Horsepen – Ep. 248

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00] Odd Trails is a true paranormal podcast. If you have a story to share, send it to stories at oddtrails.com. Enjoy the show. Forget facts. Forget logic. Forget everything that seems real. You just trust. Believe.

[00:00:56] [SPEAKER_01] The Dream I Couldn't Escape by Sunil I'm a 35-year-old man from southern India, and I've debated for a long time whether I should send this in. Even today I don't know how to explain what happened to me. To give a little background, I grew up in a deeply orthodox Hindu household. My family strongly believed in things like astrology, rituals, and pilgrimages.

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER_01] Whenever someone in the family faced a crisis, whether it was illness, financial trouble, or simply a streak of bad luck, the first response wasn't a doctor or a practical solution. It was to visit a priest to see if someone had cast black magic on us, or whether there was some spiritual cause behind it. That was the world I simply grew up in. Ironically, in my late 20s, I began questioning those beliefs,

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_01] and eventually became a non-believer. But these experiences happened years before that, when I was still a teenager. For several years, I had recurring episodes during my sleep. Calling them simple nightmares doesn't quite feel accurate. There was never a face or creature standing in front of me. There wasn't even a voice I could clearly hear. But there was something.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_01] An overwhelming presence that felt unimaginably powerful and deeply malicious. It wanted something from me. To this day, I can't remember what exactly it was demanding. I only remember the feeling that I had to do it. The closest comparison I can think of is this. Imagine someone ordering you to count every single leaf on a tree. The most large and dense tree you've ever seen.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_01] Or else. You know it's impossible, and that you'll never finish. But at the same time, you know you don't have a choice. That impossible task, and the feeling that something terrible would happen if I failed, is the closest I can come to describing it. In a lot of ways, it was more than just a feeling. My mind told me that this really was my fate. According to my family, while this was happening,

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_01] I would be thrashing violently in bed, hyperventilating, trying to jump up, and calling for help. My uncle was usually the one who restrained me, because he was afraid I'd hurt myself. My mother would be crying while the rest of the family gathered around my bed, convinced something terrible was happening, and eventually, I'd wake up. The first thing I'd see would be everyone surrounding me.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_01] Someone would be rubbing vibhuthi across my forehead, the sacred ash used in Hindu rituals. Others would place religious beads around my neck, or pray over me. My family believed these episodes had a spiritual cause. At the time, I wasn't old enough to really question it. These episodes continued throughout much of my teenage years, before eventually disappearing on their own. There was no treatment,

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_01] and no dramatic ending. One day, they simply stopped. I've never experienced that level of fear ever since. Writing this out has returned some of those feelings, but it's not nearly as bad. Looking back now as an adult, I still don't have any explanation for what happened. Maybe they were severe night terrors, or a type of sleep paralysis. Maybe I was having panic attacks in my sleep.

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_01] Or maybe it was something else that I still can't explain. Seeing some kind of monster or ghost would at least narrow things down, but no. Knowing I would face severe consequences by not completing something impossible was somehow worse. Thank you for reading.

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_00] Something Standing in the Tree Line by Obscure Orbit I live on a little patch of family land just outside of Kuntz, right where the houses thin out and the big thicket starts. Single wide, a couple of acres, woods starting maybe 30 yards from the back steps, nothing special. I've been out here most of my life. I work construction in the refineries,

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_00] like most around here. I come home, mess with the trucks, sit on the porch with a beer or similar, same as always. About a month ago, the nights changed. It was after that stretch of heavy rain that we got. Everything was still soaked and the air felt thick. I was outside late, smoking, and I realized I couldn't hear the frogs. Or the cicadas. Nothing.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_00] And summer around here, that's not normal. Those things never shut up. You get used to the constant noise so much that when it's gone, it feels like your ears are ringing. I figured it was just the weather. I told myself that for a few days. Then I started catching movement in the tree line. Not animals. Something taller and thinner.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_00] It was standing still between the pines. I would look and it would be there. I'd look away for a second, and then it was gone. Or sometimes it would be just a few feet over. Never close enough to really see. It's just a shape. I'd think maybe it was a tree, or I was overthinking it. I checked the property the next morning. I found some tracks in the soft dirt near the fence line.

[00:07:18] [SPEAKER_00] Long and narrow. Not a deer, not a dog, not a hog. I don't know tracks that well, but they just didn't look right. A couple of days later, there were two dead armadillos. They were laid out neat, side by side, like someone had just placed them there. They weren't scattered or torn up, the way that coyotes lead things. My dog quit going past the edge of the yard.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_00] It used to run the whole property, every evening. Now, he just stands there at the tree line, staring, and then turns around and comes back under the trailer. He won't even go out to use the bathroom anymore in the dark. I tried to write it off, maybe a trespasser, a homeless person, some kid messing around. I walked the line with the flashlight a couple of times. called out once,

[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_00] nothing answered. The neighbor down the road said that he hadn't seen anybody. The sheriff's deputy, I know him from high school, he told me that I should call if anything actually happened, but he didn't sound interested. The quiet kept coming and going. Some nights the insects would start back up like nothing was wrong. Other nights, it was dead silent from sundown on.

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_00] Those were the nights I'd see the shape again. One night last week, the motion light on the back of the trailer kicked on by itself. I looked out the kitchen window, and it was standing right at the edge of the light, closer than before, maybe 15 or 20 feet from the steps. I couldn't make out the face, just the outline. It was too tall. The arms were hanging wrong. I grabbed the shotgun,

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_00] and I stepped out on the porch. The second the beam hit it, it moved, but not like a person turns and runs. It just wasn't there anymore. I didn't hear the sound of feet in the leaves or branches breaking. It was just gone. I stood there a long time, wondering if I was losing my mind. I haven't stayed the night out there since. I've been crashing on a friend's couch,

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_00] or at a hotel. I told him the AC went out, so I went back once, in the daylight, to grab some clothes, and everything just seemed off. Even then, the woods felt wrong. Too silent. I kept telling myself it's stress, or lack of sleep, or my eyes playing tricks on me in the dark, but the dog knows that something is wrong, and I can't shake the feeling that whatever it is

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_00] doesn't need to come any closer. It's already where it wants to be. I'm writing this from the Whataburger parking lot off 69. I'm thinking of trying one more night at home, but not really wanting to. I don't know what to do with the place. It can't sell easy, and I can't keep paying for a motel every night. Also, I can't go back out there after dark and pretend that everything's just fine.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_00] If you're from around Hardin County, and the woods have gone quiet on you lately, maybe just stay inside.

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_01] The Thing That Crossed the Road by Sunil This second story happened when I was in my mid-twenties. At the time, I was working for a call center

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_01] handling UK customer support. Like many people on those shifts, I finished work late, usually around 11pm or midnight. I rode a motorcycle to work, and one of my friends lived about 45 minutes to an hour away. We had a routine. After I finished work, I'd ride to his place, pick him up, and the two of us would head to a small tea stall. We'd have a couple of cigarettes, some tea,

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_01] and talk about completely random things before heading home, which was less than 10 minutes away from his place. This happened on one such night. It was well past midnight. I picked up my friend, taking our usual route, to be clear, we were completely sober. No alcohol, no drugs, just tea and cigarettes. The road was familiar. A few hundred meters ahead, there was a tea junction,

[00:12:18] [SPEAKER_01] and we usually took a smooth, curving left turn. That night, as I took the left turn, my motorcycle's headlamp was on low beam. Despite being on low beam, it was extremely powerful and clearly illuminated anything directly in front of us. And then, something crossed the road. It came from my right and moved towards my left. At first, I thought it was a large black dog,

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_01] but the more I saw it, the stranger it looked. It was incredibly large and dense, almost like a black panther. But there was something unnatural about it. The best way I can describe it is as a shadow in the shape of an animal. I watched it move through the beam of my headlamp. It probably took two or three seconds to cross, because we were traveling at a fairly slow speed. And then,

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_01] nothing. My eyes naturally followed it from right to left, expecting to see it continue onto the pavement. But there was nothing there. The road had streetlights. They weren't necessarily bright, but they were bright enough to see the pavement and anything standing on it. There was no animal. I continued riding for another 100 or 200 meters. I was honestly confused, but strangely,

[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_01] I had this huge grin on my face. I'd never experienced anything like that before, and part of me wasn't even sure if I'd actually seen what I thought I'd seen. I was debating whether I should ask my friend if he'd seen it too. Before I could say anything, though, he suddenly asked me, Did you see that? I asked him, What did you see? He described exactly what I had seen.

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_01] A large, incredibly dark, animal-like shape, crossing the road from right to left. And just like me, he said that when it reached the end of our headlights' illumination, it simply wasn't there anymore. I started laughing, partly because I couldn't believe what had just happened, and partly because the whole thing felt surreal. My friend, however, was absolutely terrified.

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_01] He wanted me to immediately turn the motorcycle around, take him back home, and forget about the whole thing. I managed to calm him down, and eventually, we continued with our night. When I got home, though, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I come from a traditional Hindu family, where stories about spirits, black magic, and supernatural occurrences aren't exactly unfamiliar. My mother, in particular,

[00:15:16] [SPEAKER_01] has lived in Bangalore forever. She knows the city's old neighborhoods, roads, heritage areas, and all the stories that come with them far better than I do. So I didn't tell her what we saw. Instead, I casually asked her about that particular road. I asked if she knew whether there was anything unusual or spooky about the area. She immediately said yes. Then she specifically mentioned

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_01] the exact place where we'd taken that left turn. According to her, there was an old drainage tunnel of sorts around that area. It was mostly dark, and she'd heard various spooky stories associated with that particular stretch of road. She didn't have a specific explanation for what we'd experienced. But what stayed with me was how certain she was about that exact location. To this day, I have no idea

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_01] what crossed that road that night. Maybe there was a perfectly rational explanation. Maybe we saw an animal and somehow lost sight of it. Maybe our eyes simply played tricks on us. But I still can't explain one thing. Two completely sober people saw the exact same dark, animal-like figure cross the road. And when it disappeared into the darkness, there was simply nothing there.

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_00] It happened when I was six by David 17. I know exactly how this story sounds. If someone had told me this, I would probably be one of the first people to call them a liar. That's honestly why I've never really talked about it. It happened when I was six years old. I'm 20 now. I'm studying law at university. I'm obviously much older and rational now,

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_00] but I still can't explain what happened that night. I think about it at least once every couple of months. It's genuinely the first memory that comes to mind whenever someone talks about paranormal experiences. You can tell me that I was six and my memory was unreliable. That I was dreaming, hallucinating, or maybe that I've distorted the memory over the years.

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_00] Maybe that is the explanation. I just genuinely don't know, and I don't remember ever being more terrified in my life than I was that night. I was staying at my grandparents' house. I was their first and only grandchild at the time, so I slept in their bed between my grandma and grandpa because there wasn't really anywhere else for me to sleep. It was probably around 1 a.m.

[00:18:17] [SPEAKER_00] They were both completely asleep, but I suddenly woke up. I wasn't dreaming as far as I can tell, and I couldn't get back to sleep. So I was just lying there looking around the room. I then heard footsteps outside of the bedroom, very clear footsteps. They were coming toward the room. I remember immediately being scared, and then the bedroom door opening.

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_00] Someone walked in. I still remember how strange the person looked. I can't properly describe what was wrong with them, but they looked completely unfamiliar and unsettling. They were kind of smiling, almost laughing in this creepy way. I was absolutely terrified. I didn't move. I barely even breathed. I just kept my eyes

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_00] slightly closed, pretending to be asleep. I was just This person walked into the room and for some reason went directly toward the window. The window was open on the small ventilation setting. There were curtains hanging there. There was also a ladder underneath the window because the curtains were high enough that you needed one to reach them. The person then climbed

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_00] onto the ladder and started taking the curtains down. I have no idea why they were doing this. They weren't doing anything else, just removing the curtains. I remember watching them from the bed completely frozen, at one point they looked back at us. My grandparents were still sleeping and I was pretending to be asleep. I was sweating

[00:20:16] [SPEAKER_00] like crazy and genuinely thought something horrible was about to happen. Then they finished taking the curtains down, climbed off the ladder and walked out of the room. One moment later, because the window was open, I heard the little gate outside close as they left. the next morning, I immediately asked my grandparents about the curtains. I asked if they had taken them down during the night or something,

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_00] because I remembered very clearly that they had been hanging there the day before. They couldn't tell me for certain whether they had taken them down themselves, and that's basically where the whole thing ends. I eventually stopped talking about it because I knew people would think I was making it up, but I swear to God, why would a six-year-old randomly invent something this specific? I don't even remember every

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_00] single detail anymore, obviously, as it happened 14 years ago. There are probably parts that I had completely forgotten, but the core memory has never changed. Waking up between them, the footsteps, the door opening, the strange person entering, the creepy smile, the ladder, taking down the curtains, looking back at us, leaving, and then hearing the gate close outside.

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_00] Maybe there is a completely normal explanation. Maybe it was some kind of sleep-related hallucination, or a childhood dream that felt real. I don't know, but I genuinely cannot think of another moment in my life when I was as scared as I was that night, and even now, at 20, I still have absolutely no idea what I experienced.

[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_01] Did Something Follow Me Home? by Vani. After a college event, I left for home on my motorbike, just as I had done every day for the past three years. I was so habituated to the route back home that I could just zone out throughout the ride and still find myself home. At one point on this route, I pass an isolated stretch of road that runs along a graveyard, located at the rear entrance of the church

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_01] adjoining it. During the day it's like any other road, but at night that's a different story. My college is in this city, and the church I mentioned is on the stretch of road away from it. This road is also perhaps the only one that has absolutely no streetlights. The main road narrows into the area, and in the dark, all you can see is a giant neon cross of the church illuminated in the distance.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_01] In the absence of streetlights, the sign stands out significantly. It's actually kind of creepy. And there is always a hearse van parked there, backed in near the gate. Now, this whole setting is something I'm used to, so I don't really pay much attention to it. Everything sort of blends into the background. So I was properly dressed in riding gear, and I never put down my helmet visor when I ride at night,

[00:23:55] [SPEAKER_01] since it's tinted. But this time, just as I was about to make my turn onto that road, for some unknown reason, I unconsciously lowered my visor, covering my face, I now call it divine intervention. As I approached the hearse at great speed, something unusual caught my eye. Visibility wasn't really perfect with my visor, but I saw something. A glimpse of someone.

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_01] A couple of meters away, I saw the shape of an old woman slowly emerging from the darkness. Her frame was shrunken, and her face was pale as my headlights illuminated everything in front of me. It looked like she had this flowy, pale fabric just hanging from her body. I then felt something inside of me, like a shift of energy. It was a feeling I can't really explain.

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_01] My first thought was that she was just an elderly woman. Then I remembered where I was. There wasn't a single house nearby. What would anyone be doing there at one o'clock in the morning? For those few seconds, my brain searched for a logical explanation, trying to rationalize it. Then, she threw something at me. Instinct took over. I flinched and squeezed my eyes shut.

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_01] When I opened them again, I saw something flying straight toward me. For a split second, I thought it looked like a live bat, but I really don't know. Then I heard it. The impact against my visor. The impact was so hard that it cracked my visor. Then it struck my thigh as it fell away. The sound of it really made me realize it was all real. Plus the crack. I don't know what she threw at me.

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_01] I just remember the sound of the impact against my visor. I never stopped to look for it. The entire encounter lasted only a few seconds. I stopped several meters down the road and looked back. I didn't see anything. I couldn't even make out the hearse anymore. It was that dark. I felt like I forgot how to breathe as I dialed my mom. But it was late and she didn't answer. I was shaking,

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_01] in denial of what I just experienced, or what I thought I did. But the sound of the impact in the crack on my visor kept forcing me to believe it. Then I called my girlfriend and stayed on the phone with her for the rest of the drive home. As I tried to explain what had happened, I could hear how frantic I sounded. I could barely believe the words coming out of my own mouth. I don't really remember reaching home, because it felt like I was in a daze,

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_01] somewhere between denial and belief. I thought that was the end of it. I was physically okay after all. But mentally, it left me questioning my beliefs for good. Over the next few weeks, I seemed to have a series of unfortunate events. My bike got punctured repeatedly. Every time the mechanic pulled out another nail out of the tire. I would trip, arrive late, fumble over things.

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_01] The gear lever on my bike broke. I even started getting the feeling that there was someone standing outside my bedroom door lurking. I began to wonder if I had somehow brought something home with me. I've replayed that night in my head countless times. Maybe she was just an elderly woman having some kind of episode. But the way she moved didn't seem natural. How do I explain that to myself

[00:27:55] [SPEAKER_01] someone else? And I still can't completely justify lowering my visor at the exact moment I did. Every time I pass that road now, I still find myself looking at the back of the hearse, half hoping and half dreading that I'll see that woman, or anyone, standing behind it.

[00:28:38] [SPEAKER_00] Haint Hauler Horsepin by Jade Possum My grandfather grew up in the small coal mining town of Horsepin. In that town, there were a few haulers, little valleys where families could settle down. These people protected their land, but one hauler on coal company land seemed to be protected by something else. It was named Haint Hauler because of the odd

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_00] noises that echoed through the hills. Even during the day, the place seemed darker than it should have been. The trees were thick and close together. It was a groaning noise that could only be heard in the quiet hours of the night, when no work was being done and when you were all alone. Everyone in the valley would quicken their eyes they crossed by the mouth of that hauler. The

[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_00] horses seemed to take notice as well. Many stories were told of them throwing their riders while going past. away night my grandfather found himself in one of those stories. His aunt had been sick for some time. It took a turn for the worse and he was sent out to get the town's doctor. With only

[00:30:15] [SPEAKER_00] down, questioning if he should go around. His aunt needed care, though, so he continued. The thick trees took his only light, and between them he heard that mournful groan. The air seemed to stand still. When he was alongside the deepest part of Haint Hauler Horsepen,

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_00] the sound faded, and he stopped. A crunch rang out beside them, and through the pitch black he looked. He saw nothing there. The trees and the rocks just sat behind the veil of light. Slowly he went on, all too aware of how much noise he was making. Then, in between the sound of his own

[00:31:01] [SPEAKER_00] footsteps, two more footfalls came from the woods. There was still nothing, no evidence the noise had happened at all. He quickened his pace, running away from the holler. But once he was out, he looked back. The light of the moon gave him a new confidence. But there, in his path where he had been, was the eye shine of a tall figure, with nothing but darkness behind it. The footsteps

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_00] didn't stop. Now he ran, and any time he slowed, he heard the footsteps over his own, and the groan that belonged to the dark recesses of Haint Hauler Horsepen. My grandfather didn't look behind him. He was scared the doctor's house was too far away. Closer to him was the property of his kin, a familiar place to

[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_00] retreat to, but not a safe one. Resting in the flat part of another hauler was the shack of this man he called his uncle. My grandfather was used to working for him for some spare change, but he knew that his uncle's habit was to fire his gun blindly out of his window at any noise he heard in the night. But the noise was steady. The footsteps were bearing down on him, so he ran to what he knew.

[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_00] The moment he saw the house, a shock cracked through the air, shattering the quiet of the night. My grandfather ducked and called out that it was him. After the shot, he didn't hear the pursuer, but he knew it could have waited in the hills around the house. The door then opened just a crack, but fully when my grandfather jumped onto the porch. The man had some words for my grandfather

[00:32:54] [SPEAKER_00] until he heard his story. He was reluctant, but eventually accompanied him to the doctor's house. As they were leaving his uncle's hauler, my grandfather looked back just once, and there in the hills was the same eyeshine, just watching and waiting. After they got the doctor, they took

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_00] the long way around the hauler. Do you ever have this thing where you start paying attention to your breathing for some reason out of nowhere, and then you can't stop thinking about it, or is that just an OCD

[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_01] thing? No, I definitely do that, and I also have the thing where I'll hold my breath for no known reason if I'm focusing on something or if I'm stressed out. Not even taking a deep breath, I'll just hold my breath and lock into whatever is drawing my attention, and then I'll realize like, oh, whoa, I need to breathe. And then, yeah, I start consciously thinking about my breathing.

[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_00] It's so hard to forget about it or stop thinking about it. It's kind of like when you hear nails on chalkboard or something that really bothers you, a knife scraping across the plate the wrong way, and you can't get it out of your head, and it just keeps... Starts hurting your teeth.

[00:34:14] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, hurts your brain. Or if you really focus, you can see the tip of your nose. Maybe it's just me. Oh, don't say that. That's gonna happen though. Yeah. Yeah, I can see it. Yeah, sorry.

[00:34:26] [SPEAKER_00] That's okay. Anyway, that was just my opening thought. So let's get into the feedback. Katya says, and this is referencing an episode from way back. This is episode 150. I just liked this one note that they said, mirrors are not supposed to face the bed. I believe, I've heard,

[00:34:44] [SPEAKER_01] it opens a portal. Maybe. What if the mirrors are on the ceiling? That's a very common thing. That's a sex thing, right? It is a sex thing, yeah. Or maybe not. Maybe people just like to watch themselves sleep, but, you know, it could go either way. Imagine waking up in the middle of the

[00:35:00] [SPEAKER_00] night and just looking directly at yourself and not like knowing, like having to readjust. Yeah, that's weird. Yeah, and I think that we probably talked about having mirrors in the bedroom on that episode, but I want to revisit it. I don't remember the story. I don't remember the context. It was just a... I read it and I was like, oh yeah, that is scary, having a mirror in the bedroom. At least one where you can see. For some reason, I don't think I could ever sleep in a

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_00] room that had a mirror that I could see. I don't know why. It seems like it would be common,

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_01] you know, like check out your outfit and all that before you head out. But maybe that mirror would go somewhere else, like one of those tall mirrors. For some reason, everywhere I've lived,

[00:35:42] [SPEAKER_00] the mirrors have been in a different part of the bedroom from where the bed is or not facing anywhere I could see them. I don't know why. I just never had a mirror in my bedroom. And my wife hasn't had one in any of the places we've lived. But I would just imagine waking up and looking in the mirror and not being able to go back to sleep. Because I, yeah, I've always been kind of creeped out by mirrors. And I think this started because when I was little, I was scared to go to the bathroom

[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_00] by myself in the middle of the night. So I'd always wake up a parent to take me. And I remember my dad being angry and not wanting to do it and saying, I hope the, hope the man in the mirror doesn't get you. And it really, really scared me. He could have just told you to wipe your own ass and that

[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_01] would have been the end of it. Yeah. That's unfortunate. I'm sorry that happened to you.

[00:36:28] [SPEAKER_00] It's okay. Does he still do that? Yeah, he still does that. Yeah. Damn. Yeah. There's actually a lot of things I don't like in my bedroom when I'm sleeping. I don't like having windows exposed. I need them to be covered by a curtain or blinds because when it's dark outside, you can't really see what's going on

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_01] unless it's right up against the window. See, I'm a little bit different. I prefer to have the blinds wide open only so I can wake up with the sun. I have really dark curtains and I'll just sleep until like 11 on the weekends if I don't have the sun waking me up. And I hate that even more.

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_00] So there's no winning really. If I had a schedule like you, I would do the same thing, but because I'm up until 11 o'clock, sometimes midnight if I want to push it. Yeah, I'm getting old. Uh, I can't get out of bed before seven. Otherwise I don't get enough sleep. Yeah. Yeah. So I have to have some curtains up, but in any case it creeps me out to have that darkness behind the windows. I mean, can't really see what's going on. I also don't like open doors. I can't have my bedroom door

[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_00] open, open closet doors. I also don't like complete silence. I always have to have like a fan or something

[00:37:30] [SPEAKER_01] going on. Always, always need the noise. Yeah. So Lola says, I get a recommendation here. I just know y'all would really enjoy the video game near replicant. Hopefully I'm seeing that right. I think so. And by extension near automata. Automata. I don't know. Automata. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Who knows? Who knows? Somebody knows. It's a story where you replay to get endings.

[00:37:55] [SPEAKER_01] It fast forwards after the first ending and each ending reveals more about the enemies you kill along the way and to your end goal and makes you question who is really bad versus good. Also, it explores alternate realities and timelines. Highly recommended. This has been on my list for a while because I hear it's like post-apocalyptic on the surface, but it does have like some more philosophical angles and right versus wrong and all that. And it's very deep and heavy and

[00:38:23] [SPEAKER_01] you might be the third person who's recommended it to me, Lola. So I might have to take the plunge off topic, but I did end up watching the first episode of dark. So thank you all so much for recommending that. And now I'm hooked. So wonderful, wonderful three seasons and I'm hooked. This is going to be great.

[00:38:41] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. I still need to check that one out. I remember, I think I want, I remember talking about this. I don't want to repeat it all, but I watched it and it was like the English dub, the one that I ended up watching. I can't do this. I can't do this. Can't do that. Yeah. I can do that with anime, but when it's real people talking like, like live action, I can't, I can't do that. Um, that's weird. Yeah. New replicant sounds really cool. It has been on my list as well and it's square Enix. Oh yeah. You can't go wrong. So, you know, it's at least going to be quality. They're,

[00:39:08] [SPEAKER_00] they tell such good stories and have great voice acting and music and all of their games. So yeah, I can't go wrong. I'm still, still trying to finish the, uh, act three or, uh, I guess the bonus content of dragon quest 11. That game is so long and there's so many things to do.

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, I didn't realize there was like a bonus thing after you beat it.

[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Yeah. After the credits roll, you go back to the main menu and if you start it up, it's like a whole nother act. And, uh, I can't say anything without spoiling it, but it's really cool. Um, interesting. Cool. Speaking of TV shows that keep getting recommended to us, listeners have been telling me to watch widow's Bay for a while now. Have you heard of it? I have not. It's an Apple TV show. It came out a little bit ago, I believe back in April.

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_00] It did get picked up for a season two, which I'm glad I haven't finished it yet. I'm only on season or episode seven, but, uh, I, one that I highly recommend if you haven't watched it, it's reminiscent of twin peaks of some of the greatest like Stephen King stories. It's really, really, really interesting. It's cool to come across a fresh and original horror idea, especially a TV show that

[00:40:24] [SPEAKER_00] doesn't, you have no idea where it's going and it totally surprises you and that's just hard to find. So what does Bay check that out? It's a nice quick little 10 episode jaunt.

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_01] I think I might have to, I've been trying to watch more things. Um, right now my short list is when evil lurks, oddity, the dark and the wicked, the substance and the night house for some things that came out in the 2020s that I needed to catch up with. I missed all of those. Really? Wow.

[00:40:51] [SPEAKER_00] I haven't seen any of them. Yeah. I did see a coyote versus Acme. That was pretty good. That's funny. Cool. It was funny. Uh, okay. Let's get back to the topic here. Uh, this is from discord. This was a story that was posted a while back, but I just now got to it. Uh, PBR street gain is their, uh, username. They said, I do removals for mortuary, uh, transport company. And I saw

[00:41:15] [SPEAKER_00] something weird at a hospital two weeks ago when I was picking up a decedent decedent. I forget, I forget how to pronounce it. A dead person. Yeah. Yes. It is a dead person, but it's like a legal term that has to do with their estate. But, um, let's just say a corpse from the morgue. It was probably an escaped patient. Ooh. But I had to park my mortuary van in the shipping slash

[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_00] receiving docks and passed a few guys that were working. The receiving bay had a garage door and it was open about hip height. I saw a worker dressed like a worker transferring stuff onto a pallet. I'm rolling my cot with the corpse on it. And I see the bottom half of someone wearing a hospital gown and nothing else run past the same door. The worker didn't react at all, which I guess could

[00:42:06] [SPEAKER_00] mean it was a hallucination, a ghost, or they didn't pay him enough to deal with that kind of stuff. It took me a few minutes to load the corpse into the van, fill out the paperwork and plug in the funeral home address. I didn't see security or anyone else looking for someone or any type of commotion on the dock. I did a removal there last night and saw nothing, but I did snag a pic of

[00:42:33] [SPEAKER_00] where it happened. And, uh, if you want to see the picture, you can sign up for our, uh, not sign up for our, but our join or discord as a PBR straight game did post a picture of it and posted the picture in our shared documents. I wanted you to see it. When I looked at this picture, I immediately thought of area 51, like a bunch of bad guys were going to pop up behind pallets and stuff.

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, no, it looks like a half-life scene or something. Yeah, it totally does. Something straight out of half-life or counter-strike.

[00:43:00] [SPEAKER_00] That's so creepy. Somebody walking by in like a hospital gown and just disappearing. They tend to do that. Some of them. Yeah. All right. Let's get into some of this week's stories though.

[00:43:10] [SPEAKER_01] Let's do it without further ado. So I had the pleasure of featuring two stories by the same author, Sunil from India. Really cool getting these international stories. Yeah. I really wanted to talk about his dream nightmare type of story because I'm not convinced that it was just night terrors or just a dream. Even if we can explain what his body was doing, it's a lot harder to explain why his mind kept experiencing such a specific and intentional

[00:43:37] [SPEAKER_01] presence, you know, repeatedly feeling like something malevolent was right there with him and that it was threatening him with these, I guess, impossible tasks. That just sounds horrible.

[00:43:47] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. And reoccurring dreams and stuff like that experiences are so traumatizing because your brain learns that neural pathway and just keeps repeating it over and over again, subjecting you to the same horror again and again, every night, every day. So I can't imagine how like just traumatizing this had to be. And you probably carry it with you, you know, and you're subconscious for the rest of your life.

[00:44:10] [SPEAKER_01] Oh yeah. And like, why not just do the threatening thing? It's just a lingering threat rather than just getting it over with. Take me out of my misery. You know, it's like when movie villains explain their plans to the people trying to stop them instead of just killing them when they have the chance. I think there was no consequence beyond inflicting as much psychological trauma as possible. And that's not to minimize it because clearly it succeeded, but I'm just glad that it all stopped.

[00:44:36] [SPEAKER_01] Of course, it's interesting that it stopped suddenly though. And there wasn't some sort of spiritual or medical event that led to it.

[00:44:43] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, definitely. Let's go over to David's story real quick about the curtain man. Oh yeah. Yeah. This was a really, really weird one. And so yeah, this kid's staying with his grandparents, wakes up in the middle of the night, they're both asleep. And some figure walks into the room, climbs up a ladder, which they had in the bedroom and takes down the curtains and then leaves. So

[00:45:09] [SPEAKER_00] the author later went on to say that the figure didn't take the curtains. I noticed in some of the comments on their post, they said that they just left it on the ground and just walked out. So that this person broke into the house, climbs a ladder, takes down the curtains and just walks out of the house. And that's that. Weird. That's so bizarre. It's something that's so mundane and pointless somehow makes it scarier than

[00:45:36] [SPEAKER_00] something that would be purposeful and scary. You know?

[00:45:40] [SPEAKER_01] That's something I would do to one of my siblings as a kid, like not liking one of their posters, just mess with them, like take or hang it upside down while they're sleeping. Like something like that. That's weird for an unknown figure to take down the curtains though.

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. So yeah. And then they asked their grandparent about it the next day and the grandparent says, I don't know if we took it down or not. Like very vague about it. So I think there are two things that could be going on with that weird, odd, vague response from the grandparent. One, they knew about the occurrence. Like maybe it's a regular thing. Right. It could be.

[00:46:15] [SPEAKER_01] They didn't want to scare them. Yeah.

[00:46:16] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Some kind of haunt, some kind, maybe some kind of intruder that keeps coming back. I don't know. I can't imagine who, why, or how, but it did seem a bit like they knew something was going on and didn't want to scare the child. And that's my thought too. Yeah. And that tends to be a common theme with these kinds of stories on the show. My other option too, is maybe they either just forgot that they took the curtains down and the author had a weird dream about it happening. All of that. None of that actually happened.

[00:46:45] [SPEAKER_00] And it's just a way that they kind of connected the dots with the curtains being down. And I don't know. The grandparents seemed so unsure about taking them down themselves. I wonder if maybe they were trying to hide the fact that they were having memory issues. This is kind of, I'm kind of dissecting a little bit too much here, but I remember when my grandma would sometimes do that before her dementia got really bad. She was basically in denial of it and would pretend that

[00:47:14] [SPEAKER_00] she didn't forget things and she just didn't want it to be happening. So her best way to cope with it denial. But yeah, I think that's a bit of a stretch. I don't know what's going on here. It's really creepy. It reminds me of those creepy pasta or no sleep stories from like 15 years ago, you know, coming to life.

[00:47:32] [SPEAKER_01] Mm-hmm. No, no, it definitely does. The curtain crusader. That's a new one.

[00:47:37] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. There we go. That's our new cryptid.

[00:47:38] [SPEAKER_01] And then real quick, I wanted to bring up something interesting about Sunil's second story, the thing that crossed the road. I thought this was strange because Sunil didn't tell his friend what he thought he saw. His friend brought it up first. And then of course, when Sunil asked what he saw, he described the same dark animal shape in the same strange disappearance. Yep.

[00:47:59] [SPEAKER_00] Love that sort of corroboration. Yeah, definitely. And also like, I was thinking, where did the animal go? Right. You know, even if we assume this was just some large black dog or I don't know, some other kind of animal, both of them expected to see it continue onto the pavement after it crossed through the headlights. Anybody would. So I don't know, could the darkness and maybe the changing angles of the motorcycle have made it seemingly disappear?

[00:48:28] [SPEAKER_00] Mm-hmm. It's kind of like that weird moose story that we had recently where the moose just disappeared based on where they were standing. Moose. Should they have been able to see it under the streetlights? I don't know. It's a really, really weird story. They should have. Yeah. And it's similar to the thing in the treeline story that I had that weird, what I think is probably a Bigfoot encounter. Because if you look at Obscure's story,

[00:48:54] [SPEAKER_00] there are a few cases of Bigfoot encounters that I've read about in the past where the person describes finding animals or objects arranged in very specific ways. Mm-hmm. Like, almost like they're deliberate, just like with the armadillos in this story. Yeah. But that's something that gorillas and chimps do, apparently. I was reading about this where they mark their territory boundaries. Mm-hmm. But obviously, this wasn't a chimp or gorilla. It didn't behave like a chimp or a gorilla. It just

[00:49:23] [SPEAKER_00] had these long arms. Mm-hmm. I don't know. Weird stuff, man.

[00:49:28] [SPEAKER_01] Not only that, the dog's behavior, that's very telling, too.

[00:49:31] [SPEAKER_00] Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's always the dogs they know.

[00:49:34] [SPEAKER_01] Always the dogs.

[00:49:35] [SPEAKER_00] Trust your dogs, everyone. And if you have any stories you want to hear on the show, make sure you send them in to stories at oddtrails.com. And if you don't want ads and you want to support the show, go to patreon.com forward slash oddtrails to get all of the episodes at a higher bitrate with no ads at all. And check out the new episodes of my other podcast, Let's Not Meet, and the Old Time Radio Cast. We'll see you next week. Stay safe. Peace out.

[00:50:13] [SPEAKER_01] Ghosts and the ghouls disturb you, darling. Bye.