Transcribe your podcast
[00:00:06]

Oh, hello. Hello. Didn't see you there. Welcome, come in. Welcome to Radio Rental, the world's finest video store, the Alcazar of VHS Transactions. I'm Terry Carnation. I am the shopkeeper of Radio Rentoul. I guess I should explain our name a little bit more. Radio rental is a British Cockney slang for going mad.

[00:00:34]

If you'd lost your mind, they'd say you've gone radio rental with your craziness. Look at him down the street. They are getting in that lorry. He's gone. Radio rental, positively loco in La Cabeza. This is your first time here, isn't it? I know it may not look like much, but where widely acclaimed for our eclectic array of underground films, we have an amazing selection of horror classics, sci fi, B movies, C level Slasher's, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:01:10]

But I see in your eyes that you're after what we're truly known for my special collection of videotapes. I've got a whole box of stories right here. Extraordinary stories. And fasten your seatbelts. They're all true. This, my friend, is Radio Rentoul. Now let's see here, tape number one. Oh, this one's good. It makes me particularly anxious. There's a reason I prefer to travel by train or horse and buggy or electric scooter. Rewind it a little bit and we go play and action.

[00:02:13]

Fight or flight, the physiological reaction to a perceived threat, your heart's pumping, you're breathing rapidly, adrenaline's flowing. This instinctual response is ingrained in us. If you're in danger and you're pushed into the corner in an instant, you have to choose from these two options, fight or flee. That is, unless you're 10000 feet in the sky on an airplane.

[00:02:37]

I moved a lot growing up. My family's from Central America, from Nicaragua, and we would go back at least once or twice a year. So I had quite a bit of experience flying and we were flying back home to Nicaragua, flying through Paris.

[00:02:53]

I was travelling with my brother a year older than me and with my dad, my brother and I were pretty comfortable flying. We had actually flown along a lot. Eventually, we start boarding.

[00:03:05]

My dad was in business class, so he got off at the front of the plane. My brother and I went to the back and we were in the middle two rows of the middle aisle. Pretty much the worst possible place to be for a nine hour flight, like my brother and I just kind of sat there and settled in. We had two French people, I think they were members of the same family on either side of us. I spoke a little bit of French, but I didn't understand like everything that they were saying and they kept talking, like, over us towards each other.

[00:03:40]

And it was just a little bit uncomfortable. Kind of a standard, uncomfortable, typical flight.

[00:03:47]

I was just like half dozing off, looking down, reading my book, and then I remember the smell of matches in the air.

[00:03:57]

For me, the sonic memories are the most vivid. I remember somebody saying the word now over and over, so it started really quietly and then gradually it got like a little bit louder until the point where it becomes really pressing.

[00:04:16]

Screaming, No. Immediately, I panic, I tensed up, essentially crushed the book. It was a paperback, and I remember grabbing on to it like really tight. And look up to my right and there's a flight attendant sort of hunched over a row of seats, probably five rows ahead of us. When I heard the urgency in the flight attendant's voice, I remember having this moment of extreme panic and then I just felt a surge of adrenaline. Everything actually seemed to occur in slow motion.

[00:04:48]

I think young teenage boys think of themselves as rather brave. But at the moment, my first instinct was to try to run away. Maybe if I run to the lavatories in the back of the plane, I can get away from whatever this is, but then you have this realization that you're on a plane and there's actually nowhere, nowhere to go. My brother, who is sitting to my left, she leaped over me and he jumped into the aisle, ran up to see what was going on.

[00:05:19]

This whole time I was frozen, I didn't react at all. All I could see from that middle row were just like the backs of people's heads and shoulders and scuffling and struggling like a bar fight or something. It just felt like chaos. I heard the No. That crescendo just got louder and louder, and I remember seeing just a really tall person sitting on the window seat about six rows in front of me, I could almost see his shoulders sticking up above the back of the seat on the plane was very tall.

[00:05:59]

All I saw was the back of his head, long hair, long curly black hair. And he's struggling with this flight attendant who's kind of hunched over the seat. They were struggling for some kind of struggle. What struck me as really unusual was that he wasn't it almost seemed like he wasn't reacting to what the flight attendant was doing in any normal circumstance of somebody yells at you on a flight, you would obviously react and you would respond. There seemed to be a strange passiveness.

[00:06:30]

He was way too calm. Way to come for comfort, really. The flight attendant screams, got more and more urgent, people started screaming along with her. People were speaking very urgently in multiple different languages and it just became absolute chaos. In the tiny, claustrophobic cabin on a on an airplane, it's not the kind of place that you want to hear that kind of screaming, many things pass through my head. I thought it could be like a cardiac arrest or someone having a health issue.

[00:07:04]

And then eventually we began to realize that this was more likely than not some kind of violent situation or a security breach of some sort. And I remember somebody grabbing like a handful of his hair and just jerked his head back, his neck just snapped back, and then he let out this really powerful scream. One of the passengers began to ask around for things that they could use to tie him up. They wrapped headphones around him and my brother took off his belt and he gave it to one of the passengers and they used it to help restrain this person.

[00:07:42]

Nobody was really listening to any of the flight attendants. The aisles were completely overcrowded. One of the male flight attendants is standing next to him. He's still struggling. And then I see from behind the back of the plane, they start to pass a fire extinguisher up hand by hand. At that point, I didn't know if there was a fire. I didn't know what was going on. They passed us up. They pass it forward to the flight attendant and then he just takes a fire extinguisher and hits the person basically on the nose.

[00:08:12]

The visual of seeing somebody swing a bit of a fire extinguisher under someone's face was just shocking. At one point, I remember seeing a pair of shoes, big tennis shoes, the flight attendant was holding them and he was running the back of the plane with this pair of shoes.

[00:08:32]

The pilot announced that there had been a security breach on the flight and that the flight was being diverted from Miami to Boston. The pilot also said that they don't know if the person was working alone. So he suggested that everyone get to know their neighbors. Which was really chilling, really terrifying. We were right in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Hard to believe this is a real story, isn't it? Oh, but it is they are all true.

[00:09:07]

These are true horror stories told by the individuals who lived them over the years. I've built up this collection of videotapes, have had to go to the four corners of the world to assemble this collection. Oh, yes, I've cheated death. I have braved the most treacherous areas imaginable, including Philadelphia. Oh, no, no, no, no. Oh, no, no, no, no. You can't live with these. Put the box back.

[00:09:35]

This is my personal collection. These are extremely rare. You can't find these anywhere else. All original copies. You can only watch them in the store. These tapes are a living, breathing case study on the dark side of humanity, the unexplained stuff we're too afraid to talk about at any rate. Let's take a quick break. So many of us moved through our lives and days unaware of the path that has guided us, and sometimes you need somebody to help you see beyond the obvious.

[00:10:15]

That's why I'm making the connection with California psychics. I've been telling you guys about my great experiences with California psychics. And honestly, I cannot thank them enough for making me feel so comfortable. I've been able to talk to them about stuff like my work, finances, career and even relationships. They make it so easy and their psychic advisers are awesome. It's a good feeling knowing there is someone I can now talk to without a worry. California psychics has over 400 psychics available 24/7 anytime of the day.

[00:10:44]

Maybe you're up late and need somebody to talk to. California psychic advisors are the People's Trusted Network, delivering over eight million plus readings and counting, whether it's relationships, a job decision, finance, or you just need somebody to help you through these tough times. California psychics can act as a GPS for life, helping you navigate the journey. Sometimes the answers and signs are right in front of you and you just need to make the connection. There are two easy ways to get your new account set up.

[00:11:10]

Your new account, a California psychics dotcom or search the App Store and download the Free California Psychics app, which is incredibly user friendly. First time customers will receive a reading for only one dollar per minute, and with your new account set up, they will give you a five dollar bonus to get started if you enter the promo code. Listen, five. If you're a skeptic like I was, I challenge you to sign up and create an account as it completely changed my perspective.

[00:11:32]

And if your experience is not the best psychic reading you ever had, it's free.

[00:11:41]

There now that wasn't so bad, was it? Make sure to buy all of those things.

[00:11:50]

After he was restrained, they asked for a doctor if there was a doctor on board so that they could sedate him. A doctor came forward and they did inject him with something.

[00:12:05]

The flight attendant had this system where people oh, dammit, NBC are always jamming us out of here. There we go. The flight attendants had this system where people would like rotate keeping an eye on him. There was always somebody sitting behind him. The people that sat behind him actually held his his hair eventually, actually, the flight attendants put the movie Legally Blonde on. I think they thought it would help calm people down a little bit. But there was this really, really nervous energy, people didn't really know how seriously to take this.

[00:12:56]

The pilot at one point asked if there was a U.S. marshal on board. The pilot asked a couple of times and nobody ever came forward. If they're asking for the marshal, must be something really serious as we're approaching the US, the pilot announced that we would be escorted by fighter jets. The little kids on the plane got really excited. They, like, ran to the windows to look at the jets. Those fighter jets were there essentially to shoot down your plane if it's hijacked.

[00:13:33]

It was amazing to watch them, you just see this fighter jet that's going the same speed as a plane, you know, you kind of knew those more sinister reason that they were there. Eventually, we do land and it's a pretty normal standard landing, we're part way out in the middle of nowhere on the tarmac, really far from from the airport. Then a SWAT team, heavily armored storms on board, massive guns. It looked like a Hollywood movie.

[00:14:08]

They knew exactly what they were doing. They cut the passenger loose. He was really groggy still from the drugs that they had given him earlier. And essentially they did drag him off the plane. They also took the shoes that they had taken to the back of the plane earlier. They took those off the plane, took them off the plane as quickly as they could. We waited around for a little while longer, and then we basically disembarked just like normal, and I remember walking past the seat where this guy had been sitting, there's just like a mass of plastic and headphones.

[00:14:41]

And like the belt that my brother had given to tie him up was cut into a couple little pieces. We were in the middle of the tarmac, so we got off through like steps. We didn't get off at a gate. They shuttled us to I believe it was a baggage claim terminal in Boston Airport. They had these metal fences lined up to separate us from the rest of the baggage claim area.

[00:15:05]

We waited there for what seemed like hours. Families were getting really uncomfortable. People are getting hungry. Little kids were crying. Some of the passengers began like shaking the metal grate. I remember an FBI agent interviewing my brother, myself and my dad. What had happened on the flight? Where were we going? Where we'd be coming from? Felt like an interrogation actually made me really angry. It pissed me off a lot. We have been treated like cattle sitting in the baggage claim.

[00:15:38]

And now the FBI agent was talking to me and my brother as if we were somehow in on this. They moved us from the baggage claim area to just a normal terminal. And we finally got a chance to to make a phone call and talk to my mom. We went to a payphone and I made the phone call hearing my mom over the phone line, just hysterical. Then she told us that it was all over the news. On December 22nd, 2001, American Airlines Flight 63 enroute from Paris to Miami, made an emergency landing in Boston.

[00:16:15]

A tall man aboard the plane that caused the scene, the man, six foot four long black hair, appeared to have posed a threat. Most of the passengers had no idea what was going on. After being escorted to the ground by fighter jets, a SWAT team burst onto the plane to apprehend the man in question. But by the time the plane had landed, it was already a national news story.

[00:16:37]

Flight 63 from Paris de Gaulle Airport to Miami was diverted to Boston and safely escorted by two fifteen fighter jet one person. Well, this happened behind the stewardess. On top of them, people just around him just swarmed around the seat and jumped on top of it. His name was Richard Reid, and hidden in the hollowed soles of his black shoes was 280 grams of explosives.

[00:17:02]

Once passengers were safely at the terminal. The bomb squad boarded the American Airlines plane to retrieve the shoe in Boston. Heightened security now includes asking about matches and inspecting shoes.

[00:17:16]

The person where they took off the plane had tried to smuggle a bomb on the plane and we had been completely oblivious.

[00:17:28]

He had been attempting to light a bomb that he had smuggled in a shoe with a book of matches that he. That was the smell of matches that my brother and I had smelled he had been repeatedly trying to light this week in a shoe.

[00:17:43]

The flight attendant actually passed by once notice that he was trying to light a match and told him to stop. She assumed he was trying to light a cigarette or something.

[00:17:52]

And then when she came back and saw he was trying to light the match again, she tried to stop him when she realized that he was trying to light this match and he actually had his shoe on his left. She tried to reach out to grab the shoe and then he actually bitter on the hand. That's when she started screaming and struggling with him. I remember seeing his shoes being passed to the back of the plane and not really thinking much of it, I didn't realize that there was essentially C4 in those shoes.

[00:18:25]

He had actually tried to get on the same flight the day before, but he was stopped by security because he raised a lot of red flags. He had a one way ticket. He had no luggage. He had paid for the ticket in cash. So they actually stopped interrogated him. Because of that, he had missed his flight. All the hotels around the airport were all booked. He had to take a hotel room kind of far from the airport.

[00:18:46]

Following day, arraigned, his shoes, got wet. It turned out that the wiki he was trying to light had gone to moist and he was unable to light it. If it hadn't rained that day or if he had been a little more relaxed, he may have been successful. We actually didn't realize how close we were until afterwards. Was shocking. We had spent the rest of that flight. I don't know how long, four or five hours with the bomb, essentially.

[00:19:14]

But instead, we were just kind of bored and annoyed watching Legally Blonde. I haven't seen it since, actually, that was the last time. Poor kid, what a horrifying experience for someone so very young. That is not an easy recovery, to be sure. Such an impressionable age. I don't know why the flight attendants thought Legally Blonde would be relaxing. Such a great movie. So insufferably pink. Also, Luke Wilson goes. Don't ask me if we carry that one, because the answer is no, no legally blonde, legally dead, legally bloated, maybe.

[00:20:04]

Anyway, you've got to trust your paranoia. It's so important. I've always thought about it like a sixth sense. Dread is a powerful, intuitive tool. I remember as a child, I didn't trust my babysitter, Marjorie. I didn't trust her one bit. And as it turned out, she was a serial killer. And now this was never proven. But I am certain of it. I'm certain Marjorie is in jail right now. I really should Google her.

[00:20:37]

And not many people renting VHS tapes these days. We've got to keep the bills paid. We've got to keep the lights on. We've got to keep enough electricity to be able to rewind the VHS tapes in the VHS. Rewind or please be kind. Rewind and please be kind. Listen to this word from our sponsors.

[00:21:07]

When you finish bingeing, the latest riveting podcast on your list, there's always one lingering question staring you in the face. Now what? Sure, you could dive down the Wikipedia wormhole researching everything related to the show. Honestly, has anyone not done this? But when your brain or your browser tabs are full to the brim, it might be time to take a load off. That's when I like to clear a few levels on best means. I love playing best finds the challenging poles are fun and keep my brain fresh.

[00:21:35]

I've been playing best pins for some time now and I just beat level 650. My friends play best friends too and it's always a great friendly competition. Best Friends is the infamously impossible to put down puzzle game with over 100 million downloads and counting. It's free to download and has literally millions of five star reviews on the Apple App Store and Google Play. Seriously, once you download Best Fiends, boredom won't stand a chance. We all love a good challenge.

[00:22:02]

Best Fiend gives you over 5000 of ten more levels. Events and challenges are added all the time, which means you don't have to choose between bingeing or boredom. In fact, you might find yourself wondering how you ever found the time for a dull moment before Delo Best Finsbury today on the Apple App Store or Google Play. That's friends without your best fiends.

[00:22:30]

I recently helped out a friend that was in need, and that's what we do, support our friends and loved ones, things may have changed around us, but our inner drive to be there for people we care about runs deeper than ever. I like to support my community by buying from local businesses. When we come together as a community, we empower ourselves to make meaningful change. Our normal has changed in role, finding new ways to connect and continue supporting one another.

[00:22:55]

We started social distancing when we spend time with friends and explore local cuisine and we're doing more to support and advocate for underrepresented communities. So what we need now more than ever is an easy way to support each other from afar. With the PayPal app, sending and receiving money is faster or easier. Stay connected with the people you love quickly and securely. Send money to friends and family just about anywhere in the world. Start a money pool to split the bill.

[00:23:22]

Going on a gift or fundraise for a good cause. Support the places and causes you care about most. Make touch free QR code payments at your favorite local restaurants or farmer's market. Donate to a local nonprofit or support a cause from across the country. PayPal is making it easy to pay safely, quickly and easily. Download the PayPal app today. Terms and conditions apply.

[00:23:48]

All right, here we go. Are you in need of emotional reinforcement or are you desperate for loving support? Well, I can't provide those, but foot maestro insoles are your one stop shop for relief for your tootsies. Oh, my God. Who wrote this? They offer firm yet pliable support for your arches. I for one, love my foot. Maestro insoles. They fit in all my shoes and create instant relief. Of course my job keeps me on my feet.

[00:24:22]

So foot maestro is a must for my everyday wardrobe. Actually my job keeps me seated. This doesn't make any sense at all. Shop with foot maestro insults.

[00:24:30]

Today you can find a kiosk, you can find a kiosk at your local mall. That's foot maestro insoles handcrafted buttresses for your feet.

[00:24:39]

OK, can we continue now back to our stories. OK, this next one. Oh this is creepy to say the least. Have you ever felt an unexplained camaraderie with a stranger? It can be a beautiful thing sometimes.

[00:24:58]

Don't talk to strangers as a kid. That's certainly sound advice. But as an adult, in a normal member of society, we inevitably come in contact with strangers all the time. At the grocery store, at the gas station, these are all just normal interactions, and in this day and age, there are more ways than ever to come in contact with a stranger. There's Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter. You hear people say this all the time.

[00:25:25]

And it's true that now with cell phones, we are more connected than we've ever been before. And sometimes we're connected to people will never really know or meet in person. Most of the time it's harmless as long as people are who they say they are. But with a stranger, where exactly do you draw the line? In this next story, a man decides to engage with a stranger, but things don't exactly go as planned. I lived out in Goodyear, still about in Goodyear, but I traveled a lot through the Phoenix area, Goodyear is on the west side of Phoenix.

[00:26:08]

There's a small airport out there and a number of businesses. In fact, it's grown up a lot in the last few years. I'll be honest and say that I'm not a great fan of living in Arizona. It's it's sometimes blistering, but it's home. I was at the time an itinerant white guy, so I was servicing a lot of small businesses and municipalities. They like to have me go all over the place. So it was it was kind of a fun job.

[00:26:35]

I got to know a lot about Phoenix that way. It was a strange situation.

[00:26:38]

I was actually between jobs, between, I should say, between clients.

[00:26:43]

And I'd parked myself at the Phoenix Public Library while I was there. I had this odd thing happen, which I got a text randomly. It was from the floor over area code, I happen to know that that's the symbol for not found on the Internet, but it's also Atlanta, Georgia, I believe. I don't know how they got my number. I don't know what was going on. But I got a photo of of all things. It was a rabbit with a flapjack on its head.

[00:27:14]

Which was just random enough that it completely appealed to me, if you look up Flapjack Bunny, there are dozens of examples on the Internet. I'm sure there's some other cultural significance. I don't know what it is, but it's a thing a lop eared rabbit with a pancake balanced on its head. Immediately, I was hooked. I was on board, so I texted something back. I like the random moments of the universe. You've got to appreciate them.

[00:27:45]

A day later, I was in Scottsdale and I saw the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile and thought, this is the proper return. I'm going to volley back with this. I don't know. I kind of like to be an interesting part of somebody's day in a positive way. I think there ought to be more of that. We ought to be the person who walks by and says, hey, nice hat, sort of silly. Sometimes I've been walking through places and pointed a spot on the floor and say, hey, they got the blood out and just keep walking.

[00:28:14]

That's an interesting moment in somebody's day. It gives them something to latch on to and have fun with or be terrified about. But it's, you know, something it did at least makes the world a more interesting place. I fear that whoever sent me that has sent it by mistake, they were probably going to give up right then and there, especially when they got back a Wienermobile like, OK, whoever I sent this to is nuts. And that would be that and didn't really think anything of it.

[00:28:40]

I genuinely expected to never get a reply back or something like who the heck is this? Did not expect a reply. I was very surprised when I got another photo back. Oddly enough, I was at a fire department, a fire department in town used to have me come out and work on their systems once a week. While I was there, I got a text and it was a firecracker.

[00:29:12]

Which kind of creeped me out for just a moment, because fire department firecracker, what are the odds? It was just somebody holding a lit firecracker, which is a bad practice for one thing, you know, that's a good way to lose fingers. It didn't look like a professionally taken photo. Someone may have snapped it with their phone. I'm hoping they had thrown it away pretty quickly after that feminin fingers holding a lit firecracker. That really didn't tell me much more than, OK, this person is on board with the random other than the slight creep factor of me being at a fire department and being a firecracker, which made me think, does this person know where I am?

[00:29:48]

Is this is this somebody I know punching me? Other than that, I thought this person is really diving in to the Random Moment of the universe. And I was on board and wanted to encourage that, especially if it was a friend punching me. Then I was really on board. It was the idea of a stranger knowing where I was and what I was doing. That alarmed me a little bit. I didn't feel rushed to respond and I actually wanted to make sure it was something of a creative effort.

[00:30:17]

I'm a bit of an amateur photographer, and I sent back a photo of someone who was waving a sparkler, I'd taken a long exposure so the person was somewhat fuzzy, but it had a nice, beautiful spiral of the sparkler, one of my favorite shots that I've ever taken.

[00:30:35]

I thought it was just fun. Again, I was still a little concerned, but it was probably five percent concerned. Ninety five percent. This is cool.

[00:30:47]

More photos were exchanged, it wasn't hurried either by me or by this person over a period of several months, we would exchange photos, never any words, and I'd try to somewhat respond to their photos.

[00:31:03]

Like I say, there was the lit firecrackers. So I responded with the long exposure image of the sparkler being whipped around.

[00:31:11]

At one point they sent me a flower and I sent a vaisse.

[00:31:17]

I sent a bag of pretty dynamite's just an image of a bag of Fruity Dynamite's, which is like Fruity Pebbles, but generic because I'm cheap. They sent back a photo of a gallon of two percent milk. So it was kind of this weird exchange. There was a a call and response aspect to it. It was something I was kind of keeping to myself. It was kind of my my private entertainment. It was just a conversation of photos. I was into it.

[00:31:45]

I was always kind of giddy when I would get one. Sometimes I'd have to stare at it for a bit to try to figure out, OK, what's the meaning behind this? OK, there's a mint leaf in this photo among whatever else is on there. Do I riff off of that or hey, this photo has an interesting use of negative space. Do I want to replicate that somehow in the positive space? And so it was definitely mentally engaging the fact someone was undertaking this.

[00:32:16]

Presumably just for me, that was kind of cool.

[00:32:20]

It was a rollicking good time. For a while, until it wasn't. A harmless back and forth with a stranger. It was lighthearted, funny and sometimes borderline flirtatious, but who exactly was he talking to? Up until that point, he hadn't really cared. He assumed they were both in the same boat, just two anonymous strangers texting who both didn't know a thing about each other. Or at least that's what he thought. One day, their friendly conversation of pictures would take a jarring turn.

[00:33:01]

And from that moment forward, their communication would never be the same. There was a day, probably five months in when I got a photo that was of now leaving Georgia, a sign as if taken just off the side of the interstate, had never been really in a hurry to respond. I always wanted to respond somewhat in kind and somewhat creatively. So I was thinking of trying to actually head to the border, which is about one hundred and fifty miles away from my house, and get a now leaving Arizona sign as a response.

[00:33:38]

But I got a note back or if I should say, an image back from this person a lot more quickly that was entering Alabama.

[00:33:47]

OK, persons on the road call taking a road trip. I respect that. I do that myself as often as I can. Because they had sent leaving Georgia and entering Alabama pretty quickly together. This was probably not my brother. This is probably not someone I know, someone not anyone local anyway. This is genuinely a stranger. And that that changed the perspective just a little bit.

[00:34:13]

But again, they're in Alabama at this point. Still not a big deal. I got now leaving Alabama. That one was a little bit blurry, as though they were actively driving.

[00:34:26]

Now Mississippi, it was it was hard to ignore the fact that they were heading my direction.

[00:34:32]

At that point, it seemed like this person could actually be sending me these images in real time as they're traveling in Louisiana. Was was pretty quick after that. Then Texas. Texas takes a while to get through. And it seems like the photo took a long time between the now entering Texas and now leaving Texas. It made me nervous.

[00:34:55]

It's the photos that were blurry, especially while traveling. I don't know, maybe maybe I read it wrong. But I would think that if it was someone who was just trying to spook me, that they would get clear images all the way. It actually seemed like this was somebody traveling, taking photos opportunistically as they could as they passed by these signs. New Mexico, the land of enchantment, that was the one that man there there are really heading this way.

[00:35:23]

Really seemed like they were on their way towards me at that point. It was distressing. Mexico is my back door at that point. I don't know if you're familiar with the author, Orson Scott Card, he wrote, among other things, Ender's Game and probably his most famous for, but he's actually written some short stories and novels that he puts under the genre of Dredd.

[00:35:47]

He talks about how horror is actually a relief when you get to the moment, when you get to the jump scare, when you get to that, then you know what's there. Then you know what's coming. It's done.

[00:35:59]

But dread building dread is a much more powerful effect. And that was what was going through my brain.

[00:36:10]

This is a slow, inexorable movement that I can't do anything about. Something is coming and I can't do anything about it. I just have no idea how to respond, what to do. It was so foreign that it was a profoundly distressing moment. There was that shift from sending photos back and forth once a week, once every few weeks, there was never any urgency to it, and then it shifted to this person's actively traveling. They're actively heading my way.

[00:36:44]

New Mexico. Then Arizona, my home state, and then I was really curious what was going to happen next, about seven, eight hours later, there was my city limit sign.

[00:37:00]

They were they were there. Presumably in my neighborhood, it was the same sign, I didn't reply anymore, I was done, I was out. That journey across the states and then into my hometown with no words at all that finally got me, I was good.

[00:37:22]

I was done. Stick a fork in me.

[00:37:28]

I did sort of put my wife on a little bit of alert to watch out for strangers, I don't think I actually ever told her what the reasoning was. The person never, never sent another message, which I counted as a blessing, where they drew the line. I'm OK with that. If they'd taken a photo of my house and sent it to me, then I would have burn the place down and moved to anywhere else or stayed in the ashes because they would never look for me there, something like that.

[00:38:00]

As for what it could have been, a lot of us have taken jokes too far, and that's probably what I want to believe. Someone made the trip either they went through a lot of effort to try and time out the photos. Well, find shots that looked like they were actually actively in motion. I think someone made the trip. I'm going to let it remain a mystery. No regrets in the end, it's just a good story.

[00:38:38]

Who such an unsavory experience, their patron. Have you ever had the feeling that someone was watching, you know? Oh, well, you're lucky. My babysitter, Marjorie, used to watch me unceasingly, incessantly. I would be at the playground and she would be staring, staring daggers at me. And I would say, no, leave me alone.

[00:39:02]

Let me play in peace.

[00:39:03]

Horrible, horrible woman. Well, I've enjoyed your company today, and I relish the chance to share my stories, my collection of tapes with open minded viewers like you. I hope you found this stuff enlightening. It didn't shake you too much, did it? Good, good. Well, come back and see me again soon. We're just getting started. This has been Terry Carnation for Radio Rentoul.

[00:39:32]

Radio rental is created by Payen Lindsay and brought to you by tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, executive producers Pam Lindsay and Donald Allbright, hosted by Rainn Wilson as his character Terri Carnation, produced by Pam Lindsay, Mike Rooney and me Meredith Steadman, written by Meredith Steadman with additional writing by McGlaughlin Sound Design by Cooper Skinner Original Score by Makeup and Vanity Set. Additional Production by Christina, Dana and Mason Leszczyc Cover Art by Trevor Ilar and Rob Shervon. Voice Acting by Ryan Jones, Casey Willis and the tenderfoot Tveit.

[00:40:07]

Shout out to tiny doors atto for the creation of our real life miniature radio rental store. You can check that out and more on their Instagram at Tiny Doors a.T.M special thanks to Grace Roya and Oren Rosenbaum at Etai, as well as support from the Naude Group Station 16 backed media and marketing and the team at kadence 13. If you have a radio rental story that you'd like to share, please email us at your scary story at Gmail dot com or contact us via the forum on our Web site.

[00:40:37]

Radio Rental USA Dotcom. Follow us on Instagram at Radio Rental and on Twitter at Radio Rental USA. You can also follow the beloved Terry Carnation on social media. Just search at Taricani on behalf of the radio rental store. We'd love it if you'd subscribe rate and review. And don't forget to share our show with a friend of the genre. Thanks for listening.