Episode 71

Hate waiting a week for the next episode of Radio Rental? Subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus to get early access to episodes, add free listening and bonus scary stories. Visit TenderfootPlus.com for details. Take a break from the same old boring blockmasters and experience a new kind of movie night with Radio Rental. At Radio Rental, our videos come to life in your living room. Defy all logic and reasoning and make you question your own reality. This is not your ordinary video rental store. At Radio Rental, we carry one of our kind videos so frightening, so mind-bending, you won't be able to sleep at night. You've gone. Radio Rental. Oh, oh, oh, oh, hello. Hello, is someone there? Announce yourself, please. Hello. Oh, it's probably just you, my dear customer. I mean, hopefully it's you, I can't really see right now. How do I change the settings on this headset? They all figured out later. Welcome back to Radio Rental, the video rental store with a collection of tapes with the scariest true stories. You've ever heard, I'm Terry Carnation, the shopkeeper here and today, as you can probably tell, I'm experimenting with a little virtual reality. How admit I've been pretty skeptical about the whole thing, like, oh, oh, I'm sorry, is life not interesting enough for you? Is cinema not gripping enough? You have to actually climb through the fourth wall to be entertained these days? Give me a break. Back when I was a kid, we had these things called "imaginations" to play with. I would play with a stick sometimes. A literal stick. And pretend a stick could be anything, it could be a sword, it could be a. an even larger stick. Anyway, I just wanted to play around with this gadget to see what all the hubbub was about, and I'm well, I'm loathed to admit it. It's actually pretty freaking cool. I've been slicing these little blocks coming toward me for like an hour now. I don't know, it's so much darn fun. But I also, I don't know how to make it stop. Quite a workout. Anyway, having the time of my life over here, and so I'm just gonna pop in a tape for you, something to keep you entertained. Hold on a second, let me just take this. VR headset off. Here we go. Little tight or something. Just can't. I can't get the darn thing off. Okay, you know what? I just. I'm sorry it's stuck. So could you just pop one in the VCR yourself? You've done it enough times. You know the drill. Put it in the slot and hit play. I would say that's what she said, joke. But I think those jokes are overplayed and far too obvious. Anyway, put it in the slot and press play. That's what she said. It was a regular routine night, just like any other night. I had put both of my toddlers to bed. They fell asleep pretty quickly. They were sound asleep within like 10 minutes. I went into the bathroom that was right next to their room to take a bath, just like I do every single night. Closed the door, locked it, got in the tub, started soaking, scrolling on Pinterest, scrolling through Facebook, just like I always do. The bathtub water, I always kept it running. I just like the sound of it. It was comforting. I was trying to relax. I start hearing loud stomping upstairs. It kind of sounded like someone was running around almost. My husband stomps very loudly, so I figured it was just him. I didn't really think much of it. After a few minutes, it started getting louder, sounding like people were running around really fast upstairs, almost vibrating the floor. I thought, oh, that's kind of weird. Maybe he has somebody over. One of my friends maybe. All of a sudden I heard loud banging on my bathroom door, and the door handles started shaking really fast. My husband likes to mess with me and kind of try to be annoying when he knows I'm relaxing. I thought it was just him. And I yelled, what do you want? Then it stopped. I didn't hear any more stomping, I didn't hear anything at the door. So I went back to scrolling on my Pinterest boards. Then all of a sudden the stomping started to get louder and faster. I pulled out my phone to check my husband's location. It is showing that he's still at work, which was over an hour away. I'm confused. I'm thinking, what is going on? Am I being pranked? I really thought maybe one of my friends was coming over and messing with me. I stand up quickly to go run out there and see what's going on. And as soon as I stood up, the bathroom door swings open. My heart starts pounding out of my chest. Two men are standing in front of me. They're dressed in all black. They are covered completely from head to toe. They're wearing gloves. The only thing I can see is their eyes. I was frozen, completely hopeless. The guy closest to me just stares at me for what seems like forever. Kind of looked me up and down. I didn't scream. I didn't say anything. We just stared at each other. His eyes for a second almost looked like he was smiling. It seemed like he was happy that he had busted in on me while I was naked and standing there vulnerable. He had one of his hands in his back pocket. I really thought my life and my kids' lives could potentially be over. I freeze, I have my phone in my hand, and I look at him and say, "Take my phone, take whatever you want in the house. Just don't touch my babies, do not hurt my babies." He looks at me and goes, "If you move from this spot, I'm going to shoot you." Again, I'm just saying, "Just don't hurt my babies, don't hurt my babies." They snatch my phone out of my hands. Both of them in, run off. I can hear their footsteps running out the door. I can hear their voices trailing off down the stairs. It sounds like they're arguing with each other. They're yelling at each other in a different language. And I'm standing there frozen thinking, "If I stand here and do nothing, then they could hurt me and my boys." If the men are here to hurt us, they're going to hurt us. We are just sitting ducks if I just stand here. I have to do something. I quickly run out of the bathtub, run into both of my boys' bedrooms to make sure that they're okay. I check on them, they are still sound asleep. I walk over to the Alexa that's near my youngest boys crib. And I whisper, "Alexa, call the police." Alexa loudly states, "If you're having an emergency, make sure you use your smartphone." Shit! What the fuck am I going to do now? They just heard me, they know that I'm trying to get help, they're going to come up here, they're going to shoot us. That was the only thing I was betting on, that was the only thing I could think of to get us out of this mess. I've got to move quick because if they're coming up here to hurt us, and that was the time, I am trying to think about what to do, I have to do. to do something so I just took off running to my bedroom to the alarm system. We have an alarm system on the wall next to our bed. I can still hear the men downstairs arguing so I can kind of ping where they're at. I frantically search the system panel looking for a button that I can press that will call the police or set the alarm off to hopefully scare them away. There is nothing. It's just numbers and a green button. Oh my god, what do I do? What do I do? I just feel stuck in that moment. They're going to hurt me and my boys. Okay, if I type in my code, then hopefully the motion sensors, outer downstairs will pick them up. It'll set the alarm off and scare them away. That was the only thing that I could think of to maybe do something or at least get them out of the house. I punch in my code as soon as I punch that last button, the alarm goes off. I kind of stood there for a minute, trying to gauge what was going to happen or what my next steps were going to be. They're either going to leave or they're going to come upstairs and shoot me. I couldn't hear them talking or arguing anymore and I'm thinking to myself, I have to make a run for it. I have to get my boys help. I cannot carry both of them downstairs and risk them getting shot. If the men are down there and they see me and they're going to keep their word, then they're going to shoot me. So I run to their bedrooms, I lock their doors from the inside, run downstairs. As soon as I hit the last step, I close my eyes just bracing for impact. I fully thought that they were going to shoot me. If they see me, I'm dead. I sprint out the front door. When I cross that threshold between the inside of my house and our porch, I just breathe by the breath of pressure. I'm still alive. I'm still kicking. I'm still going. I have to save my kids. I run to my neighbor's house. I start banging on the door, ringing the doorbell over and over again. After about five seconds had passed, I was like, screw this. I can't stand here and wait. How am I going to get ahold of the police? What can I use? We have smart devices all throughout our house. Our ring doorbell calls my husband. If I can get ahold of my husband, then I can tell him to call the police. Quickly run back to my house. I punch the ring doorbell. I am just praying the whole time. God please let him answer. Jake! Jake! After about the third ring, I hear his voice. What's going on? I'm shaking. I'm crying. I feel like I can barely get the words out. I feel like I'm choking on what I'm trying to say. You can't walk all the way. Call the police. The police. What happened? I was in the broth. I thought you were all. Someone brought her back to where the instructions were. I think I was locked in. I begged him not to hurt the kids. He just says, "I'll call the police." And then I just run back inside, sprint upstairs to my boys bedrooms. They were still sound asleep. The alarm didn't wake him up. The mended wake him up. They were just sleeping so peacefully. Five minutes later, I run out the front door because I see the policeman pulling up. They're immediately telling me to stand back. They've got their guns out. They're saying that they need to clear the house. I'm screaming at them. My boys are in there. I don't know. My kids are in there. They run inside the house. They're kicking, open, every single door, making sure that nobody is in there. Nobody was. The men were gone. Soon after that, the police dog showed up. They're sniffing and searching everything. There were two detectives, and they had a helicopter flying over our neighborhood, searching for the men. I wasn't able to be extremely helpful with the police. I didn't have very many details for them since the men were covered and head to toe in all black. They had gloves on, and they couldn't get their fingerprints, even though they did dust for fingerprints everywhere that I told them that the men were. It was so strange because they didn't take anything at all in the house. Our house was filled with smart devices. We had some very expensive items laying around, and they did not touch or take one thing. The only thing that they had done was they unplugged every smart device downstairs, as if they were attempting to stop me from getting help or making any calls. The phone that they took that was in my hand ended up being found under a pillow on the couch. They had gone through one thing, which was in my room upstairs. They had rummaged through my lingerie drawer, but they again did not take anything. It was very strange, and it made me question what their motives were. The police, they were there for hours questioning me and questioning my husband, just trying to figure out the whole story and what happened. After they left me and my husband and my kids went to stay at my in-laws house, for weeks after that I was calling to follow up with the Allen Police Department, trying to figure out if they had found anybody. I would check the arrest records of our local police department to see if I could see anybody who was arrested with eyes that were similar to the men that I saw, just so that I could feel a little bit more safe. There were a couple of times that I looked at someone's eyes and I thought that could be him, that could be one of them. There was just no way to know for sure. I never ended up finding anything and neither did the police. The men were never caught. The case is closed now. I never really got any closure. I'm just grateful even though a lot of people will probably think, "Why didn't you grab your kids? Why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that?" I obviously did all the right things because we're still here and we're perfectly safe. I am so thankful for that. Damn. I cannot believe that woman did all that and naked too. I mean, did I hear that right? I mean, did she ever have a chance to put clothes on or a robe, even a towel? I mean, I know fight or flight and all that, but I couldn't stand to leave the house without a shirt on. I could probably leave without pants on that before. I could probably do that, but I'm very self-conscious of my upper body. Oh, yeah, Malachi, really? Well, I don't see you doing any pull-ups either. Chicken legs. That's right. I said it. I went there. You look like crap. You look up maingee in the dictionary. There's a picture of you there. And now we'll kick to some ads to sell you beautiful things that you should buy. Listen. Hmm, another great round of ads. Thank you, sponsors. Thank you all for what? Ow. Fuck. Shitballs. Ow. God. I can't see it. Okay. This is getting ridiculous. I need to get this thing off. This is getting a little bit inconvenient. Geez, Louise. I'm going to have a bruise in the morning. And honestly, I can't afford to be ow. Ow. Malachi. I'm sorry. Sorry. Malachi. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to answer this. God forsaken. Headset. I can. Get it off. I want to see an actual three dimensions, not fabricated ones. Oh. Oh. Did you see that? What was that? Oh. Are there bats in here? In my bell-free? Where's that in my headset? Oh my God. This is terrifying. Are you seeing this? I can. I can't even hear them. Oh my God. I feel like I'm hallucinating. I don't even know what's real anymore! And what's a bell-free anyway? Ah, ha, ha! Get out of here, you little flying demon rats! Here, uh, can you just, uh, find yourself and play yourself another tape while I fight for my life out here? Hmm, please? Ah, ha, ha! Fucking bats! Get out! Okay, what was that? What did I just break? Actually, never mind, don't tell me. Don't tell me. I was 16 years old. We lived in a pretty small town, East Texas. I was asleep one night and this flickering light at my bedroom window woke me up. I went to the window to the blinds and just kind of peeked out. I saw this car sitting in the cul-de-sac. I was like, "Oh, Sarah's got a new boyfriend." Sarah was my neighbor. We were in the same class at the high school. And I'm like, "She's got a new dude she's sneaking out with." Especially because it was around 132 in the morning. I sat there for a minute peeking out the blinds. The person in the car was flashing their high beams. And the way they were situated in the cul-de-sac, the high beams were actually facing my bedroom window. So I kind of thought whoever was in the car was trying to get my neighbor's attention where she was either sneaking in or sneaking back out and they had the wrong house. It was one of those huge like a town car kind of thing. I sat there for a while watching and then the person in the car just drove off. Couple nights later, same thing. Lights flickering directly aimed at my bedroom window. And that's when I said, "Okay, let's see what's going on." That next day I went next door and talked to Sarah and said, "Pitch, what are you up to?" And then she said, "What are you talking about? Who has been picking you up? Nobody's been picking me up." I kind of looked at her and I said, "Why are you lying?" I said, "I saw the car. I saw the car twice this week." She just says, "What car? What are you even talking about?" Kind of went through it with her. I described the car. She just looked at me and said, "Like I would ever be seen in that car." And I said, "Well, who was parked in front of the house last night?" And she said, "It wasn't for me." She said, "It's going to ask for brother." So she asked, "You know him?" And he says, "No idea." So that's when I got kind of freaked out a little bit and I really got freaked out when her mom comes in there and she overheard our conversation and she said, "Girls, let's talk for a minute." I saw the car you were talking about last night and she got up because she thought her daughter was sneaking out and went and checked in Sarah's room to make sure she was still there or that she didn't have company. She was asleep and she told me, "You really need to tell your parents and we can keep an eye out and see who this is to see if whoever it is is looking to cause trouble." I went back to my house, told my mom and dad what I had seen and my dad said, "If it happens again, you wake me up immediately and I will handle it." Sure enough, the next day, it happened again. I woke up, lights are flashing high beams at my window. I go directly to my parents' room, wake up my dad. I told my dad, I said, "The car is back in front of the house." He gets up and he tells me to stay inside and he tells my mom, call the police and tell them that there's someone in front of our house that's not supposed to be there. She called the police and they said they were going to send a car by and my dad went out of the back of the house and snuck around and came up behind the car from the neighbor's house. Opened up the driver's side door and pointed a shotgun at the driver. My dad had opened the door and there was no light inside the car. I could see my dad holding the shotgun and he was talking but no one ever got out of the vehicle. Three minutes later, two cop cars rolled up. One of the cops got out and drew his weapon and stood behind the door of his cruiser. I saw my dad take two steps back and kind of put his hands up with his weapon. The cop and the other car got out, came over and started talking to my dad. My mom opened our front door and we went out on the porch. They took the person in the car out. I still couldn't see who this was. I couldn't get a really good look at him. I'll remember seeing blonde hair and they put him in the back of one of the squad cars and closed the door and then they both came up to the porch and started asking me questions. When did it start? When did I first see the car? How many times did I see it? Why didn't I say anything sooner? And I kind of had to go through the whole story with them and then they just told my parents that they would be in touch. Someone would come by detective or whoever would come by the next day and then they left. This detective comes over to my house the next day. After he speaks to my neighbors to verify my story, he comes over and he asks me he said, "Hey, do you know John Smith?" Well, yeah, he goes to my school. How long have you been dating him? How long has he been your boyfriend? I said, "John's not my boyfriend. We've never dated." He said, "Well, he has pictures of you." And I said, "What do you mean he has pictures of me?" That's when my dad said, "What are you talking about? What kind of pictures?" And the cop told him he said, "Well, we found pictures in his bedroom and in a foot locker." Pictures of me at Dairy Queen sit in a booth with my friends eat an ice cream. He had pictures of me in a crowd at football games. I was a gymnast. He had a picture of me doing high bar at a gymnastics meet. He had pictures of me on floor. When I was talking to teammates, they were not posed. They were all random like candid photos. My daddy freaked out and said, "What are you going to do about it?" The cop says, "Well, it's kind of taking care of itself. If you agree not to pursue this, he's going to go live with his mother in another state." My mom, who is a retired corporate attorney, steps up and she says, "Is he moving now?" The cop said he will be gone within a week. His mom lives several thousand miles away. He will be moving in with her. He won't be an issue anymore. My parents agreed. They said, "Okay." I remember the cop telling my mom that he thought that this was a kid who made a mistake. That he didn't have any ill will towards me or anything. The cop made it out like it was a crush that just kind of got out of hand. That it was a kid who didn't know how to express himself, I guess, would be the way to say it. And that was kind of the end of it. I graduated from high school, went to college, got engaged to a guy from New England. And we had moved to Rhode Island and I worked in Massachusetts at a mall. One night, I was driving home. It was probably about 10 o'clock when I was leaving there to go back. And this car, it was this Grand Prix, got right on my bumper and stayed on my bumper. I exited off the highway and went to a gas station, went inside because I did not have a cell phone and told the guy that was working behind the counter, "Hey, I think I'm being followed." He asked me, said, "Did the car pull in? What does it look like?" And I told him, said it's a Grand Prix, has tinted windows. He looked outside and he saw the car. We called the police. I called my fiance. But when the guy went outside to go try to get the tag number off the car, he left. The police show up. It's almost like they thought I was just being paranoid. I had never had anybody doubt me quite like that. And it was very clear that they thought I was frightened, female, and flipping out over nothing. When my fiance got there, I was freaking out still. Said I just want to go. So we got in the car. I got in my car and he followed me and struck back to our house. Well, it happened again. After it happened the second time for the next couple of weeks, either he or his brother would either meet me at the store or they would bring me and drop me off and then pick me up in the evenings when I worked closing shifts. Because I was freaked out about this car. After two weeks of my husband and my brother-in-law escorting me back and forth to work, I was like, okay, enough's enough. I'm fine. Nothing's happened. I was thinking, maybe I am crazy. Like, maybe it was a one-off, maybe it wasn't anything. The very first night I drove home with no one without my husband or my brother-in-law. Here comes that grand prix. Same car, ten of windows. Driving down to 95. I was terrified. And then I got really pissed off. He was right on my bumper and I slammed on my brakes. And he ran right into my rear end. My airbag deploys in my face. Kick at the door with my feet to get it open. And I'm walking towards the back of my car. When he had hit the back of my car, it popped my trunk and I saw a tire tool in the trunk. And I reached in and I grabbed it. And I went directly to that grand prix and started swinging the tire tool at the windshield. And then I went to the driver's side door and started swinging at that driver's side window. I was so incredibly angry that that window was not breaking. Just kind of spider webbed and was kind of gooey and stuck together. And about this time, a guy and his wife driving this Mercedes station wagon pull up. The gentleman gets out of the car and he's got his hands up. And he's walking towards me and he said, are you okay? No sir, I'm not okay. This person has been following me and rearing to my car. He walked back to his car and told his wife to call the police. And he came up to me and he said, what are you doing with that tire tool? And I just dropped it on the ground. I got really upset, like got really emotional, started to cry. The driver of the car of that grand prix never tried to get out of the vehicle. Never tried to engage with me in any way. And then the Massachusetts state police pull up. When the cop got the driver out of the grand prix and I saw him, I said oh my god, I know that guy. That's John Smith. The cop asked me how I knew him and I said there was an incident with John when I was in high school years ago. And I haven't seen him since. The cop decides, okay, we're taking everybody. And they took both of us to the state police substation nearby. I'm telling the police what happened in the whole time in the back of my mind, I'm thinking this is unfreak and believable. This is unbelievable. Turns out his mom lived in Massachusetts. He literally was walking by in the mall and he saw me in the store and it just clicked. And it took him a week to figure out which car was mine. We ended up going to court because I was absolutely pressing charges at this point. He never testified, he never said a word. His mom got up and explained that he had some mental health issues and that he could be a bit obsessive. John was actually sentenced to an inpatient mental health facility in New England. I know he was transferred to different facilities and every time he would get moved to a different facility. I would get this robo call on our house phone. And then six years after we had actually already left New England and moved again. I get a robo call telling me that he was released. I haven't heard anything from him. I haven't gotten any strange social media requests. And I figure if he finds me at this point again, he gets what's coming to him. Wow, that's wild. A stalker that spans states and years. Now that's commitment. Not the kind of commitment you want but commitment nonetheless. I think Jen Zieg had learned something from this guy. Get off your phones already. Start stalking. Now it's time for all of us to stalk some consumer products because it's add time. See what I did there? These stories are terrifying. Well, so terrifying. But it's not as terrifying as these bats flying at my face. Begon you wretched rodent monsters. Yeah, suck it. Gotcha. Oh no, not another one. Malachi, please. You have to help me get this headset off. I know, I know. I stepped in your tail. It was an accident. Malachi, no. Wait, wait, no. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please don't leave me here like this. Please, Malachi, please. Oh, dear customer. No, no, no, don't leave. Please. Yeah, you wouldn't. Would you? Wait. Wait. There's some lubricant around here somewhere. Malachi, there's some lubricant next to my bed. Put it on my scalp. Please. Fine, I'll get it myself. Oh, mother fuck. Radio rental is created by Payne Lindsay and brought to you by Tenorfoot TV. Lead producer is Eric Kintana. Executive producers are Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright. Hosted by Rain Lelson as his character, Terry Carnation. Written and produced by Meredith Stedman. Additional writing by Mark Locklin. Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Associate producer is Joja Muhammad. Editing by Eric Kintana, Mike Rooney, Stephen Perez, and Meredith Stedman. Sound design by Cooper Skinner. With additional sound design by Stephen Perez and April Ruha. Mixed in Master by Cooper Skinner. With additional mixing by Stephen Perez and Devin Johnson. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set. With additional score by J. Ragsdale. Video editing by Dylan Harrington. Cover artwork by Trevor Eiler and Rob Sheridan. Special thanks to Orrin Rosenbaum and the team at UTI. The Nord Group, station 16, back media and marketing and the team at Odyssey. If you have a radio rental story that you'd like to share, please email us at your scary story at gmail.com. Or contact us via the form on our website, radiorentalusa.com. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @radiorental. You can also follow the illustrious Terry Carnation on social media. Just search @ Terry Carnation. On behalf of the radio rental store, we'd love it if you'd subscribe, rate, and review. Thanks for listening. [MUSIC PLAYING]