What's The Darkest Secret You Found Out About A Family Member Or A Relative

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual, even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

Oh, no, we help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married.

Ah!

Need a human, him to a bird.

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.

Only pay for what you need at Liberty Mutual.com

Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty.

The average cost of a D-Wine Virginia is $11,352.47.

Drinking and driving costs more than your drinks. Learn more at what's the damage.org.

Brought to you by Virginia DMV.

What's up and welcome.

Crazy stories to come.

Glad you're here.

But first, before we dive in just a reminder.

I'm sharing these cases straight from Reddit write-ups and public info.

I'm the messenger, not the detective, so don't treat this as gospel or verdict.

Just a deep dive into some very strange and entertaining stories.

Okay.

Enjoy.

I'm a police officer in the southern U.S. and a suburban department at about 100 sworn officers.

I work in a college town.

I've been on about 10 years now, made such and four years ago, but at the time of the story,

I was just two years on working night shift patrol.

I've been lucky that not a lot has affected me mentally anyway.

During my career, I don't have kids.

That's how it gets you.

Usually you can build all the mental walls you want, only you have an emotional connection with your kids and see something happen to kids.

The walls mean nothing.

Anyway, this one stuck with me.

Still makes my hair stand on end, especially wet rains.

It was September.

Just off to midnight, I get put in a cold short fight.

Now, normally these calls turn out to be either fireworks or perhaps a car backfiring, but mostly fireworks.

So unless we get multiple calls on it or a confirmed gunman or someone confirmed wounded, we just send one unit.

That night it was me.

The shots fired was reported around a college football stadium.

This was during football season, so there were a bunch of really big white tents set up all around the parking lots for tailgators.

I notified dispatch that I was unseen and started rolling through the parking lots, casting my spotlight here and there.

It was raining pretty heavily and hard to see.

About halfway through the lots, my spotlight illuminated the silhouette of a man sitting in a folding chair under one of those big tents.

I pulled closer and let him up, notified dispatch that I was out with one in the parking lot.

His back was to me.

He appeared to be hunched forward as if his elbows were on his knees in his head.

Leaning forward, I walked towards him and started calling at him.

I can't remember exactly what I said, but something like, hey man, you okay?

You heard anything strange.

Can you come talk to me?

I didn't move or answer as I drew closer.

I lit him up with my flashlight.

I then noticed the outline of a shotgun on the pavement next to him, combined with him nod answering in a nature of a call.

It was enough for me to break leather and have dispatch hold the channel.

I kept calling to him as I approached, asking him to show me his hands, et cetera, 30th, 20th, 10 feet.

My handgun.

The lot model 22 is a stream ITLR, one light on it, so I had him lit up 6 feet under the tent with him 5 feet, 4 feet.

I closed on him, come around to the front of him.

Shotgun S words are difficult.

Often if they put the barrel under their chin, the blast from the barrel will blow the gun out from under the chin before the shot ever hits them.

There was a guy in my hometown that succeeded in a shotgun S word only because he did it in front of a pond.

Put the barrel under his chin, pull the trigger, only managed to blow his face off.

Coroner said he probably ran around screaming through the hole that used to be his mouth before he drowned in the pond.

This guy succeeded.

Blue his head clean off.

You do this job long enough.

You notice funny little details.

His elbows were indeed resting on his knees.

It was as though he blew his head off, set the shotgun on the ground next to him, and then leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees to think about what did he done about that time.

I noticed that even though I was under the tent with him, it felt like it was still rainy.

And then I looked up.

I'm the sole survivor of a roller coaster that couldn't be stopped for 12 hours.

Last year I learned a lesson I will never forget.

Trust your gut.

I had the day off from work.

I wanted to do something fun, but everyone I knew was busy.

Makes sense.

I mean it was a Tuesday.

I decided I'd just go to the amusement park by myself.

I've done it before and had a great time.

I'm a bit of a thrill seeker.

Well, not too much anymore.

Growing 5 miles over the speed limit is about all the excitement I want out of life anymore.

I got to the park at around 2pm.

It was slow even for a Tuesday.

It gave me a sense of excitement because I knew I'd be able to ride a lot of rides without having to be there all day at the same time.

It gave me a weird and county feeling.

All this space and not enough people to fill it up.

I gored the feeling and moved on.

I don't know about you, but whenever I go to an amusement park, I like to work my way up to really crazy rides.

I'll just stop small and finish off the day with my favourite.

My favourite just happened to be called the Grim Reaper.

It feels a little too on the nose, doesn't it?

It was 7.30pm in the park close at 830.

I knew it was time to get in line for my final ride.

I also made a new friend.

While there we met stand in line at one of my first rides the day.

We decided after chatting the whole time in line that we'd hang out for the rest of the day.

His name was Charlie.

They agreed on every ride that day except for the last.

He wanted to end the night on the mind-bender, but after some convincing aka the mind-bender's line was way shorter.

While passing by, we decided to do the Grim Reaper.

Last, we got in line for the Grim Reaper and there was hardly anyone in line.

It made sense given that it was almost closing time.

Do you think they will let us ride multiple times that the line stays down?

Charlie said with his hands clasped excitedly in front of them.

I just smiled at him and chuckled.

Normally, I would have been excited to, but something in my gut felt so off for some reason

I didn't want to go out on one of my favourite rides.

Maybe it was the 5 Conducts I ate a couple of hours earlier.

I figured I'm a very rational person.

I wasn't the kind of person to let anxiety or worry rule over me.

I always thought life was just what you made of it.

When we got in line, there were about 60 people, give or take.

The people in front of us did their ride and 30 of us were left in line.

People started looking at the time and saying they were tired and just getting out of line.

By the time it was our turn, only 19 people were in line.

I knew the ride well enough to remember that it held 20 people, so if no one else got in line,

they really might let us go multiple times.

I really didn't want that though.

Honestly, I felt even more compelled to get out of line after all those others did to.

I didn't want to seem lend to my new friend if I wanted to get off the coaster after one ride.

The time came for us to get in the ride.

My heart was pounding faster than it ever had.

I wondered if I was all worked up because I watched Final Destination for you with a friend a couple weeks back,

but I wasn't having visions of the terrible fate we would all face.

I was just feeling off.

I did everything in my power to get it to all make sense and not to worry.

But nothing worked.

I seriously considered just telling Charlie I didn't feel great after the last ride,

but I finally found someone with my taste in roller coasters.

I didn't want to let him down.

We were towards the back of the line, so we didn't have much to say and where we sat.

We ended up in the third car from the front.

I was just happy we weren't in the front car.

As you get on the Grim Reaper, it plays a cheesy little jingle.

No where to run, no where to hide.

The Grim Reaper will find you dead or alive, with music in the background that always sounded so dumb in the past.

I couldn't believe it was getting to me.

Charlie even hummed along to it while grabbing my arm with happiness.

We got in our seats and an employee came by and pulled down the metal bar restraint.

Does it keep us in our seats?

It was the kind that strapped you individually over your shoulders.

I'm on the chubbier side, but I can always fit into coaster seats.

I never been told I couldn't go on a ride.

I'm just sometimes a little snuck.

It's actually kind of mess because I kind of feel secure.

As we got strapped in, I felt the plastic coated metal hit my shoulders and chest.

It should have given me a sense of comfort and safety, but I just felt trapped.

The employee walked to the station as the infamous big button that starts to ride.

He flost all the thumbs up and yelled, ready for the Reaper?

Everyone rides the hands and let out an excited screen.

Except for me, I let out a large sigh counting in a seconds trying to imagine Charlie and I,

once we're off the ride now, happy would be the employee hit the button and we were off.

The coaster shot out of the loading station like we were bullet being shot out of a gun.

After that, it started on a relatively slow, sent up to a point to a drop off of 60 degrees,

the couple of twists and turns, a big loop, and some more twists and turns.

About halfway through the ride, I was enjoying myself.

I was just thinking about how the hard part was done and I was safe.

Just a little anxiety was all.

We ran our last bend.

When I sense of relief came over me, I could see the end of the ride.

I was almost done, but the ride didn't start to slow down.

Normally, the coaster starts to slowly come to a full stop, several hundred feet from the end,

but it was still going.

As we passed by the loading area, I saw the operators look confused as we raced by.

I noticed no one else was waiting in line.

Someone screamed one more time and everyone on board gave an excited response.

Everyone except for me.

Charlie looked over at me and grabbed my wrist.

Yes, I knew they would let us keep going.

This is awesome.

He let out an excited yelp.

As we reached the climb to the drop, he was beaming with joy,

the whole rest of the lap.

We passed by a loading area once again,

but this time the coaster operator had a couple of other people standing with him.

The operator, who stopped as looked red and worried as we were whipped by the employees.

For our third run of the day, the other riders were divided.

Some were still excited, screaming let's go one more time or best day ever.

Yes, some people started to sound scared.

Not everyone noticed the employees looking frazzled.

I can promise you one thing I noticed we started going up the incline again.

This was the slowest part of the ride at around 10 miles,

an iron slowing down a little as it reached its peak.

This gave us the opportunity to take a breath or try to talk,

although it was only for a total of about 20's hour we suck.

I said nervously to Charlie.

I'm sure we're fine.

There's just a malfunction with the electrical system not activating the brakes or something.

There's always a manual shut off.

He was cut off and we were went down this deep hill.

We passed by yet again, this time with more people looking worried

and someone standing close to where the coaster would go by.

He tried to yell at us as we went by, but we couldn't really understand them.

Maybe something about them working on getting us off this time

as a resume by everyone was scared and starting to panic.

I guess it didn't sink in for some people what was happening until right now.

We weren't around a fifth time and everything remained the same.

On the sixth time we were at the peak and saw a fire truck coming into the parking lot.

From the top of the incline, we had a perfect few of the parking lot

along with the side of a highway a little further out, the two more loops in the track.

By the time the fire department got to us, not just them,

but police officers and ambulances, they started to scare me.

Why did they get ambulances?

It is just protocol.

Or is there more to this?

Someone came in a few minutes later with a big whiteboard.

They used to write messages to us.

The ride was too loud when passing by them to hear anything.

So this was their only way to talk to us.

It must have been the 12th or 13th time around

when the whiteboard re-trying to free you at peak.

I knew they couldn't write a novel for us because you can only read so much while going by so fast.

But come on people, what is that supposed to mean?

I think they just wanted to tell us that they were working on a way to get us down,

but it didn't matter.

We've been on this ride for nearly 30 minutes and we felt sick and our bodice hurt like crazy.

A couple of loops after that, we saw a fire truck trying to get underneath where the top of the sand was.

Luckily, there was a large space where the truck could pull right beside it.

Unfortunately, at its peak, it's about 200ft in the air.

It also doesn't have any emergency exits at the top like most coasters.

Do you think that would be a requirement?

But what do I know?

We saw the fire trucks start to expand the ladder that comes out of the top, but it wasn't even close.

We waited for the firefighters to try and figure out a solution to save us,

as the audience below us was watching us like we are some kind of show.

It was closed for a few minutes when the first death occurred, then one more soon after.

It was a skinnier guy in the car behind me.

I heard him talking about trying to slip out of the sea restrained which secured him to his seat.

The other guy he was with told him is a bad idea, so to die the next time we went up the ascent,

he began violently wiggling and thrashing back and forth to the point where people thought he was going to draw off the ride.

He managed to wiggle about halfway out right at the top.

Well, didn't end very well.

His leg got caught on a part of the track and yanked the rest of his body out of the bar.

It was strained.

It sent his body crushing down towards the earth.

However, I think he was dead soon after he was ripped out of his seat.

I didn't see too much of it.

The guy who was beside him let out an insane screech.

Hearing that kind of agony as you're feeling the harsh effects of gravity hitting on your chest while going down a steep hill was truly mortifying.

The screech out of nowhere stopped and more people screamed.

The man beside him had a hard attack and could hear the symphony of moans and crying coming from the crowd watching us.

I couldn't hear them before because of how loud the ride was, but they were terrified of what they saw.

Police tried to score at the mud of the park, but it then stopped people from parking on the side of the road.

To watch and record on their phones made me feel disgusted.

At about an eye on the ride, everyone stopped screaming or trying to talk to each other.

It seemed like everyone accepted their fate.

My nails were deeply embedded into Charlie's wrist.

I couldn't scream anymore.

Did my throat feeling rough in the yelling?

Even if I wanted to, I probably couldn't do to my voice.

Given that.

I saw that I drew a little blood on Charlie, but he was too out of it to notice.

He, along with a few other people, were incredibly sick.

He threw up high five times by this point and looked cross-eye.

Around that time, the electricity in the whole park shut down all the lights.

Everything.

I think they were hoping a hard reboot of the whole park would stop the ride.

The coaster didn't just rely on gravity, but also on a lot of help from motors and other electronic elements.

It all turned off when we were on a straightaway.

Of course it started.

Stop.

I could hear someone yelling with frustration, not understanding how it could still be moving

if it didn't have an electrical source.

After two hours, they let some family members come in the loading area, which is a terrible idea.

We're doing our best to keep cold and stay calm.

Our family is watching us assuming by them every two minutes and absolutely screaming

I just made it so much worse.

My mom was my first family member to show up.

Don't get me wrong, I love my mom, but she was very stubborn and wanted something

done even though they had already tried everything.

Of course it was just because she wanted me safe, but it was stressing me out.

The firefighters put down a safety net underneath the assent.

It was still quite a jump.

If we could even get out and successfully to land on it, it might be okay.

But we're all a little scared from what happened before.

It seemed like they put it out just in case someone tried to get out again.

It didn't seem like it was the plant to have us all just jump out of that moving death machine.

They weren't desperate enough at that point.

We saw a large group of people passionately arguing and yelling at each other.

From what I could tell it was made up by family members, firefighters and some employees of the park.

I'm sure with lots of varying opinions.

The ride.

And Doug.

There's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual.

Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird.

What is this your first date?

Oh, no.

We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together.

We're married.

Ah!

Need a human, him to a bird.

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.

Only pay for what you need at Liberty Mutual.com.

Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty.

The average cost of a D-Wine Virginia is $11,352.47.

Drinking and driving costs more than your drinks.

Learn more at what's the damage not org.

Brought to you by Virginia DMV.

It was on our three-winded coaster into the loading area.

Once again, I saw a woman run over to the control panel.

A couple people ran over to her and told her to stop and not press the buttons.

She was screaming her head off and wailing.

It had been hard to understand people in the past while going by them.

But this was as clear as day as we passed by.

I could tell she was starting to break free from the grip of people holding her back.

I wasn't too worried.

Whatever button she was wanting to press, I'm sure it wouldn't work since none of the others worked so far.

We're about five seconds away from going down the descent.

When we heard a click come from all our seats, the woman hit the button that unlocked all our overhead seatbelts.

Of course, the seatbelt button worked, but not the buttons always stopped the ride.

A few people reacted fast enough to either jump out or snap it back over themselves.

But the ride went down.

Others weren't so lucky.

Three people managed to jump out but didn't survive the fall,

despite there now being a giant net to catch anyone who's dumb enough to try and get out that high.

One person had a support beam on the way down and the other two landed wrong.

When they hit the net, their body was folded in an unnatural manner as they hit.

All three died instantly.

I would say around half of us that were left managed to get the seatbelt secured before going down the hill.

Everyone else had to hold on for dear life and unfortunately I was one of them.

I felt my stomach start to drop and I reached up to grab the only thing that kept me from becoming a part of the pavement below.

The restraint wasn't completely useless at that point.

I just hit a good 12-in in between my chest and the restraint.

As I dealt my fingers into the plastic, I hoped I would be fined.

Then the ride dropped.

I felt my butt lift off the seat I'd become so familiar with.

I tried to grab my ankles around the floor of the coaster to keep the rest of my body from flying out.

Charlie.

Luckily got the restraint down, so he was trying to get his leg over mine and hold me down with his arm.

After the long as five seconds of my life, I managed to pull it back down over my chest.

I wasn't sure who else got there as down, but I assumed from how scared a few of them sounded, it wasn't good.

All I could think about and look at was the big look coming up.

As you got closer, I could hear a swearing from multiple passengers, including someone in front of me.

He was violently pulling at the restraint, but it wasn't budging.

I was hoping and praying that the centrifugal force would keep her in her seat.

As we went down the big loop, I closed my eyes.

I know you don't want to see what's about to happen.

I heard multiple people screaming and making horrendous cracking sounds.

I don't have an exact number, but I would say only seven people were left.

I could see the two people in the very front row and Charlie beside me.

I recall only hearing three other voices behind me at this point, and I'll five three more people died while on the ride,

two of them from a heart attack or something.

The third person, while he watched the person beside him suddenly died while going around one of the bends.

He yelled out an anger and he well, I'd actually rather not go into detail, but he died soon after I saw the whole thing.

There were two people left in front of me and Charlie and I was six rows high,

a group of people bringing in what looked like another large net except that it was in the loading area.

The next time we loop around, they wrote something new on the big whiteboard.

We're going to try and stop it manually.

I had no clue what this meant, but by the look of the net, I was terrified.

The next pass there were people on both sides of the loading area.

On one side, the net was wrapped around a large pole that had been somehow fastened to the concrete slub.

I saw a large similar pole on the other side, but the net wasn't yet attached.

As we zoomed by, I could hear people trying to rush and hurry behind us,

who run around one of the turns, and I cranked my neck, looking to see what plan they had in mind.

Therefore, I ended up trying to tie the other side of the net to the support beam that was freshly drilled into the ground.

I couldn't believe how stupid these people were.

How on earth did they think this was a good idea?

Was this a last-ditch attempt?

I was yelling at them and telling them to stop, but of course they couldn't hear me.

Even if they could, they wouldn't listen.

They're desperate to get at least someone out of this alive.

Maybe the owner of the park wandered all of us to die so that no one could publicly talk about the horrific things we went through.

As we went past last bent, the hundreds of people watching the spectacle cheered, clapped, and celebrated.

Somehow not seeing any of the flaws with this terrible plan.

We were on the strut away, and my heart started to pound again.

The few seconds before we hit the net felt like slow motion.

I swore I could see everyone's face. They looked happy.

I couldn't believe it made me upset because I knew they were all about to be very disappointed.

Finally, we hit the net.

Of course, it was no match for a giant metal contraption hitting it.

The metal pole was ripped out of the concrete slab and smashed down right in between our car and the one behind us.

As we headed for the incline, we tried to get the net that was attached itself to us off the coaster.

Luckily, we were able to get it off of us with no luck with the metal beam that was now awkwardly lodged into the coaster.

As we started going down, the whole ride started to shake violently.

It felt like we were going to fly off the track.

We made it to the first tome, and I heard a loud snap and two screens.

The seven coaster cars behind us broke off and the metal beam found its way underneath.

As we turned, I watched in disbelief as the cars behind us all went flying off the tracks.

At this point in the ride, it was about 50ft off the ground.

Still enough to kill them.

I wasn't fast enough to close my eyes and saw the whole thing and went off the track, looked at wings and suddenly plummeted down into the earth.

The screaming stopped and the ride landed upside down.

My imagination filled in the blanks and shuttered the thought of the carnage below me.

And then there were two.

We're hoping that somehow the ride would stop us low down because we lost the back seven cars.

I was not sure what the logic was, but we were desperate at this point.

After another eye, it was not showing any signs of slowing down.

Once we made it to our aid, we accepted our fate.

I was hoping that this would all be over soon and we could just be done.

I don't think either one of us thought we'd get off.

We just hoped at this point that our deaths would be quick.

Over the next couple of hours, we noticed a piece of metal in the car ahead of us start to wobble and loosen.

I'm not sure if it was just a wear and tear of the ride going for so long or the whole net fiasco.

It kept looking like it was about to come loose and we dug out of the way.

We were imagining the worst possible outcome, thinking you'd fly off and decapitate one of us.

Eventually it did come off, but it wasn't a dramatic moment like we thought it would be.

It was so much worse.

Instead of coming all the way off, it only partially came off and started grinding loudly against the track.

We heard an audible, cringing sound from everybody watching below.

The sound was horrendous.

The thin strip of metal started to find its way underneath the car.

Charlie was worried it would dislodge the coaster from its track like we saw just days before.

He told me he was going to try and grab it.

I begged him not to.

After a few laps of me time, just leave it.

He made up his mind and contorted his body to try and grab the sharp metal.

I couldn't see his hands, he reached down for it, but I could see his face.

Somehow that made it worse.

His expression quickly changed from focus to shocked in a matter of seconds, his face went blank.

I heard screaming, but I had no clue what was going on.

He lifted up his arm and I don't think I'll ever be able to get the image of what used to be his arm out of my head when he gripped the metal, slipped and went deep into his forearm.

I tried to grab shoulder to calm him down, but to my shock he was calm.

He was more silent at that moment than he had been the whole day.

He wouldn't even look at me.

He was almost mesmerized by the sight of his bloody disfigured arm.

I felt light-headed and had a ringing in my ears, watching the blood start to make its way down.

His entire body.

Then to me, in the floor of the coaster, it was making me feel sick watching the blood move around the cars we ran out in the trists and turns of the ride.

Within minutes Charlie looked like a ghost.

I did my best to try and wrap his arm up with shares of my shirt, but it was completely pointless.

I don't think an old t-shirt can help when you can see the bone.

I tried to talk to him.

I tried to make him feel as comfortable as I could, but it was no use.

He was fading in and out of consciousness.

We began going up the assent, and he finally looked over at me.

I couldn't begin to explain all that I saw in his eyes.

I could see the pain and sadness, but also the relief.

He knew he was going to die, but I don't think he cared.

He gave me a weak knot of the head and looked the head.

When we went down the hill, I tried to keep a close eye on his lap, but it was honestly hard to look at him.

I heard him take a deep breath right before the loop.

When we finished the loop, I looked over at him and while he was gone, I was now left alone in this death trap.

I never imagined it could have gotten any worse, but having a dead body sitting next to you on a roller coaster is not something I would recommend.

I was sitting in shock next to my dead friend for a couple of hours.

I was frozen in fear, not wanting to even think of a way out.

After gaining some courage, I contemplated my next move.

I came back into reality and realized the coaster was going just slightly slower.

It wasn't significant, but if the loops were taking just slightly longer than before,

that dumb piece of metal that killed Charlie must have made his way underneath and not derailed it, but slowed it down.

I ended up taking off my shoes and Charlie shoes.

I had a plan that was probably dumb, but if I died, at least it would be in my hands.

As I went by the loading area, the coaster started to slow down.

Just before the ascent, I threw all four shoes right in front of the ride.

A part of a shoe caught the truck in just the right spot.

The ride was still.

I could feel the coaster almost pulsing and trying to move with all its might.

I was so my shoulders were badly bruised by the shoulder restraints,

repeatedly hitting me over and over again.

My whole low half aching from sitting in a hard seat for eyes on eyes.

I took a deep breath and squeezed in my gut like I never had before.

I let out a horrific yell as it forced my body out of the restraint

that had been holding me down for at least 12 hours, around 360 times around the track.

My heart was racing as I felt the coaster start to win.

The battles moved in.

I managed to squeeze out just seconds before it took off.

I was freed and jumped.

Luckily, I just barely hit the net below.

I also managed to hit the net so I didn't hurt myself too badly.

Nothing is worse than what the ride already did to me.

I laid on the net looking up into the sky and disbelief.

I was still, I was moving.

It was almost making me feel motion sick, not moving around.

Like when you're reading a book in the car and you look up after an eye or everything was blurry.

I could barely hear the faint sound of people trying to get to me.

It is mostly just my ears ringing in my heart beating.

After just a few minutes, I was down.

They immediately rushed me to the E-R where I stayed for three weeks.

I sustained a broken rib, a broken collarbone, severe bruising, and a concussion, just to name a few.

Not to mention the mental trauma.

I'm writing this as I'm feeling ready to finally tell my story.

This is the first time I'm digging back into my memories and collecting the whole experience.

I've started to work through all of this with a therapist and it's made me realize I need to get it all out of my system.

Don't bother trying to find anything about the story.

The owners of the park have done a suspiciously good job hiding it.

It's another reason I want to get my story out there.

They have completely scrubbed the internet of it somehow.

Although talking with a professional has helped, there are still some sounds and images that I can just never completely get out of my head.

If you take one thing from my story and say you should trust yourself,

even if you don't believe in a higher power or gut instincts, if you have a feeling, trust it.

Please.

Home alone of my old hub.

Although it doesn't seem like it, this happened quite a while back, probably over 10 years ago.

I was in the later years of high school and was home alone.

My parents were at a wedding that required them to stay at a hotel.

My brother worked a night shift.

At the time, my family lived in a very well-known East Coast city in a blue collar neighborhood that was starting to take a nose dove.

As a teenager, I was a bit of a loner.

I wasn't a nerd or anything.

I was a big dude, had friends and went on dates.

But I'm a natural introvert, so I cherished a real-own time that I got this weekend.

I was looking forward to engaging in my normal-am-to-house routine plays and playstation on the big-screen TV,

then order a late-ticket dinner, pizza or Chinese, and pick out while watching some Dragon Ball Z, then around to A&M,

fall asleep on a couch with my old dog, Cecil.

Cecil was a beagle who was as old as the hills and had been in our family about eight years.

He was quiet and peaceful, and spent his time baking for food and sleeping.

Unlike most beagles, Cecil never held or barked.

He was more content to rest his head on your lap and spend the night there.

Anyway, back to the story.

As approximately one A&M, I just finished the last slice of pizza and was dozing off on the catch-when I hear a band coming from the back alleyway.

I didn't think much of it.

Anyone who has lived in a city knows noises happen at all.

Moments of the night sizzles had popped up out of my lap and the hair on his back stood up.

He was always a bit skittish, so I calmed him down and started dozing off again.

Not more than two minutes later, I hear another bang, and Cecil did something I never seen him do before.

He left off the couch and ran like the winter woods the door leading to the basement, barking, and growling like a dog twice the size.

The look on his face reminded me of a German shepherd kin I knew in it.

I'd never seen him like that before, which got my adrenaline pumping through the dog's barking.

I could now make a persistent banning.

There was a seldom used door in the basement that led to our back alleyway.

It was old and rusted and was hard to open even with the key, and it made a lot of noise.

I sat in the realize that someone was trying to break into my house through my basement door.

Wicked little bit of context for anyone who hasn't lived in a bad neighborhood.

If someone tries to get into your house and moves on after they realize the door's lock, they want you stuff.

If someone is persistently trying to get into your house despite the door being locked, well, they want you.

Knowing this, I rush upstairs to grab the heavy wood baseball bat that I keep under my bed for situations like this.

Then I head down to my basement.

I probably should have ran, but I was a mature teenager with a tough guy complex and plus I had nowhere to go.

Well, I'm heading down the stairs to my basement.

Cessah blows past me with the speed and aggression of a dog half his age.

Suddenly I hear a man's voice say, oh fucking, the bang stopped.

I didn't call the cops or anything else, which is probably the dumbest thing I'd ever done.

I just sat up for the rest of the night with a bat in my hand.

My brother came home that morning and I told him what had happened.

We went to the basement door to take a look.

Then we gave it a tug to open.

The whole door fell off the cycle was one good shove away from getting in my house, but old Cessah scared him off.

I'm pretty sure that lazy fat dog saved my life.

When I tell this story to people, they dismiss his actions as a dog doing what a dog was supposed to do.

When I tell you that Cessah never bucks or move that fast in his life, you can take that to the bank.

It was almost like he knew the urgency, like he knew that door was going to give.

A few years back.

We had to have him put down because he just had nobles alive anymore.

Before the injection, I got a moment alone with him.

I thanked him one last time for his friendship and for what he did that night.

At this point, I was a grown man with a wife and kids.

I'm convinced none of that would have happened without Old Cessah.

Thanks, pal. I miss you.

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And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual.

Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird.

What is this, your first date?

Well, no, we help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married.

Ah!

Meet a human, him to a bird.

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.

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Being left alone at a house in the middle of the Mojave desit back around 1992.

I was in high school at the time.

I was a sophomore and unlike most of my friends in school, I didn't work the typical high school jobs like McDonald's, talk about some retail job in the middle of the mall or work at the local grocery store.

I was very good with my hands and worked jobs like construction, demolition, flooring, and auto mechanics.

All of my contacts I worked on at the table.

And I started working on some of these jobs at 14 is beneficial for both of us as I was only called and when needed and I was the guy willing to only work evenings and weekends.

One of my contracts worked during remodeling projects like at restaurants, bars, retail shops, and typical commercial projects that we could only work after ires.

Like I said, that worked out for both of us because I went to school and would sometimes work after school weekends for this one contact.

It wasn't uncommon for him to leave me alone out of sight and have a list of things for me to do alone, mostly demolition work.

I did this while the other crew was doing the insulation or remodeling work.

I was the kid but had their respect because I did what I was supposed to do and did the work of a man without complaints.

I got paid good and in one night I could make more than my friends did.

Working all week at McDonald's.

This one instance, I got a call from a guy I worked for and he said he had a project for me and if I could work the following Saturday I said, yeah sure.

He said, be sure to bring food and lots to drink as there was nothing nearby.

I used to have a small cooler and fill it up with drinks like coax, gatorade or whatever, plus chips and a couple sandwiches.

Back then I could eat a whole pizza by myself and burn it all off.

He picked me up at Saturday morning as I didn't have a car or a license yet so he would pick me up and drive me to the sites for work and leave me alone there.

I rarely worked with these other crews as they were. The more skilled labor guys. I was just the tear-out kid.

Here's the part that was my major downfall of the story. I didn't pay attention to where we were going.

I was too busy to talk to him and think we were talking about cars. He'd see at the time my goal was to save up enough money to buy an old muscle car and rebuild it.

It took a long time to arrive to the site as he drove up. It was in the middle of nowhere.

Now, you may not think California has places like this but back in the early 1990s out in a Mojave desert. Yes, it was big plots of land and homes more than a few city blocks apart.

I knew we left the highway and went down a few other two lane highways for a long distance.

I remember he asked me about my drinks and he pulled out a brand new jug of water that he had in his truck that looked like it had been there while and told me to take it with me.

Just in case he said that the water, the house I would be working now, was off as he pulled off to the property. He is a hurry.

They drop off tools and get to the other work site. So I hurry up and help them with things like break a bars, shovels, pry bar, hammer, broom, several big trash bins and a small tool bag that I often heard with me.

He tells me that he will be back to pick me up at about 5 to 6 pm as there is no electricity to the site either.

Plus it should only take me till then to do what I need to do.

That was always his way of saying I'm only paying you till this time so you better get everything done. By then it was never too outrageous.

Indeed we will always have a good understanding on time and tasks. He drove away and I'm on this property all alone. I walk into the house. It's mostly empty.

My job was to remove all remaining furniture, contents and appliances, remove all the foreign, got the kitchen and bathrooms and remove all the word paneling.

This project was going to be like what we now call it flip. They are going to fix it up and sell it almost immediately. I get kind of spooked by the place. It was very odd.

Now, mind you, I am used to being on site alone working all night. This was the daytime morning Saturday and bright outside.

However, the house was old, dark, musty and kind of cool inside. The kind of cool that gives you goosebumps.

To add to this brook vector. The house. That me describe what I remember about the house.

Imagine walking back in time to the 1960s or earlier dark green carpet that I looked magmated down, broccoli pine would ever withered a darker stain to it.

The word paneling wasn't the kind used in a 1980s sheet paneling, but actual board paneling, tongue and groove, old winter cutters that all look like someone's grandma made of a cardo, green sink, stove top, oven and stuff that was left behind like old furniture and a closet full of old stuffed animals that looked to be about 30 years old.

The style of this house was like an old western ranch, as there were wagon wheels inside and outside the house, an old battery power of radio, but only could get a few stations.

But I was just happy for the noise. I started removing all the junk from the house center as I normally did on a project if there wasn't a dumpster on site and made a trash pile.

I tore up all the flooring next. To my delight, everything seemed to come up with ease and it was a rip cut and toss.

I took a big demo hammer to the kitchen and tore apart in less than an iron.

I ended up using that big jug of water that my boss had given me to wash my hands and face periodically.

But by late noon, as most of you know, the desert, the dryness also starts to take moisture from you, especially if you're working in it.

So by late afternoon, I am down to my last drink and I had already ate everything I bought. No worries.

I thought the guys should be here in a couple of hours to pick me up. As the time gets closer for them to arrive, I'm all done with my tasks.

I even sweep the entire place and is now ready for the rehab crew to get to work making this place look modern.

The time of year I was out here, it wasn't a typical hot desert day, but you know the desert.

As soon as the sun goes down, it starts to cool rapidly. I had a flannel shirt, but that was enough and it was starting to get dark.

This was the time before cell phones were common, and while there was no electricity, water, and fun service to the house,

I climbed up to get in the roof of the house to get a better look to see if I can see something in the distance and works like miles down.

I saw a small road that was a dirt road letter and a few homes, but those homes are all in the dark.

My first thought was hike down to the neighbor's house and ask them to use the phone.

The nearest house, no one was home and this home also looked abandoned.

If you remember, in the early nineties was the start of a decline of the economy and recession.

So it was uncommon for a lot of foreclosed homes and a track of homes, and a lot of those I worked on at the time.

I started to think about my options as darkness fast approached.

One was to stay at the house until morning to hike with a little water. I had a few miles in the dark Mojave Night 3.

Wait until early morning and hike out of there to some sort of civilization.

It also suddenly occurred to me that no one knew where I was except my boss.

I don't know if he told anyone else where I was, and certainly my family would have missed me until maybe Sunday night, but I didn't even tell them I was going to work there.

They knew me and how much I would work to save up for my car, and they never worried about me not coming home as full darkness was all around me.

It was amazing looking out at the night sky and lucky for me, the moon was bright and never a flashlight or any way to make a fire.

Even though I tried, I was going to make a small bonfire out of broken up construction debris as the temperature started to fall, probably down to the low fort is.

My only option was go back inside the empty, creepy house that somehow seemed even more creepy sitting alone in the dark at about 8 p.m.

The batteries on my radio, which is my only source of little light and no way started to die.

I grabbed my old water chair and sit in the living room of this house, facing the door.

I'm started to hear wind odd noises, which I assume are animals in a distance, and what sounds like leaves cracking under feet.

I'm starting to shiver from the cold, so I set off on trying to start fire in the fireplace.

Imagine, like Tom Hanks and Castaway trying to make a fire.

At least this is keeping my mind of my situation.

Sitting in this living room next to the fireplace, the house seemed even more darker than it should have.

Mind you, in the daytime the inside seemed dark, so with only the moonlight, I was pretty much sitting in complete darkness.

My mind starts to plane tricks on me, I'm seeing shadows moving outside and inside the house.

I'm also starting to hear someone talking like whisperers or something.

I get up from my chair and yell out hello and just as I do, I hear something fall from the other side of the house.

I run over the door and go outside again, at least in the moonlight I can see better, but often the distance I hear noises and see movement, but I can't make it out.

I have my pile of tools by the edge of the house, ready for when my boss picks me up.

So I run over there and grab big daddy.

It was my big heavy pry bar that I used in demo.

I was ready to defend myself for who or what was out there.

I have to keep moving because my undershirt and flannel shirt wasn't enough to keep me warm.

The wind was also starting to pick up and for as far as I could say, no lights around me.

I don't want to try and make it up in the house again out of fear falling in the dark, but I get up on top of the gate just to try and gain a little bit of altitude to see if I see some has lights or new by your car lights.

My mind went to these stories that circled around at the time about how people would come up to them a hobby desert and bury bodies, had there were Satanist groups out here.

Now people go missing for no reason.

Out here, every noise had me on edge and every shadow had my heart pounding.

Now I knew no one was inside the house, but I swear I would hear noises from inside.

I held it all up on the front porch, looking in the living room window, expecting to see someone out at any moment.

By around 11 p.m.

I look at my watch thinking this is going to be a long night as all this stuff only happens and it got dark.

I don't know how I'm going to make another six iris till daybreak.

I start thinking the moment it gets to be daybreak, like the moment light starts to appear on the horizon, I'm going to take the letter water I had left in walk east.

I knew going east I would eventually make it somewhere.

The dirt road I was off of, I knew the direction led to a pay of road closer to midnight.

I'm wide wake.

My eyes are fixed in the dirt road, thinking that anytime now a call would come down and maybe they can call for help for me, I remember casually turning to look back into the house as all this time I keep hearing noises, but telling myself maybe a rat or some animal.

I see a shadow of a person move from the kitchen to done the whole.

I jump up from sitting down and was like, that is not an animal, that's a human.

I start back on my way out of a front porch towards the pile and trip over debris and fold down on the ground.

I get up and fall again.

It was like something pushed me down or my imagination.

But all of a sudden these bright lights are coming closer to me.

As I'm laying on the ground, I jump up and into my boss.

He's looking at me like, what the heck are you doing?

I'm just so glad to see him.

I wasn't mad or anything.

I just asked him what happened.

He said that he's sorry, but he thought the other crew was coming to get me and he thought he was coming, so no one actually came.

He said it wasn't until later in the evening.

He asked the other crew later about how far along I got, and he said it didn't go get them.

Well, it took him almost two hours from where they were working to come get me.

He felt really bad and told me he was going to pay me for the entire time I was out there.

He also grabbed a can of coke from his cooler and asked me if I was thirsty and drank that all in one gulp.

Once we got back towards civilization, he went to a fast food drive through a night like I had never ate before.

As he was driving me home, I asked him about the house.

I told him about creepy.

It was, he said, didn't have any information in the house, only just what we were supposed to do.

After that, I made sure to always keep extra batteries flashlight in, double the amount of liquid.

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual,

even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird.

What is this, your first date?

Oh, no, we help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together.

We're married.

Ah!

Me too, a human, him to a bird.

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.

Only pay for what you need at Liberty Mutual.com.

Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty.

Hey, it's Cole Swindle.

And when I spend 200 days a year rolling down the highway, the bus can start to feel smaller than a guitar case.

Everyone wonders how I stay chill while the hours crawl by.

Truth is, one good luck spent on Chamba, and suddenly the trip does a whole lot shorter.

Finding your space, even when there isn't much to spare.

Need some chill?

Let's Chamba.

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What's The Darkest Secret You Found Out About A Family Member Or A Relative

About this Episode

Hosts & Guests

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