Episode 77

He lurks in shadow. He slips into dreams. He casts no reflection. Audible presents Bram Stoker's Dracula, a new full-cast audio thriller starring Ella Purnell of Fallout as Mina Harker, Jonathan Bailey of Wicked as Dracula, and an A-list cast including Maggie Gyllenhaal of The Dark Knight as Van Helsing, Amy Lou Wood of The White Lotus as Lucy, David Johnson of Industry as Dr. C-Word, and many more. The new full-cast thriller locks Mina Harker in a battle of minds with the Count. When Mina's fiancé, Jonathan Harker, Louis Partridge of Enola Holmes, vanishes in Transylvania, Mina pieces together letters, diary entries, and chilling testimony to hunt the predator stalking those she loves, only to discover Dracula's already hunting her. Joined by the enigmatic Van Helsing, Mina and a small fearless band race against time to stop this ancient terror. Using her intellect, her resolve, and a gift for drawing the unseen lines between clues, Mina just may hold the key to bring down the Count, if he hasn't already found his way inside of her mind. Featuring a haunting original score by Ilan Ishkari of Audible's 1984 and spatial Dolby Atmos sound design, Audible's Dracula invites you to welcome literature's most shadowy figure into your home. Feel the terror of being hunted and the thrill of the hunt. Don't miss the year's best new audio thriller, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Audible's new full-cast original adaptation, written by Robin Ahern and directed by Mary Lambert. Now on Audible. Listen to the darkness. Go to audible.com slash listen to Dracula. Hate waiting a week for the next episode of Radio Rental? Subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus to get early access to episodes, ad-free listening, and bonus scary stories. Visit tenderfootplus.com for details. The following podcast includes scary stories, with content that could be triggering to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Take a break from the same old boring blockbusters 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-a-kind videos so frightening, so mind-bending, you won't be able to sleep at night. You've gone Radio Rental. Hello? Hello? Lock the door behind you. Thank you. Down here. I'm down here. Under the counter. Hi. Hi. Just lean over. It's me. It's me, Terry. And you're at Radio Rental, a video rental shop with a collection of the most horrific stories you've ever heard, all told by real people. And speaking of horrific stories, something very, very bad is going on here at Radio Rental. Honestly, I don't think you should even be here. I. Don't pick it up. Don't pick it up. Don't pick it up. Don't touch it. Leave it unplugged. Dear customer, you see, I am being stalked. I'm sure of it. And this time, I'm not crying wolf. There's strange figures lurking around the store at all hours, and my phone rings, but then when I pick it up, no one is there. Or it sounds like a. It's like a man with long COVID. Just so much profuse, heavy breathing. Could really use some mouth tape, if you know what I mean. I mean, normally, I would find this all very flattering, if not even a little arousing. I mean, I'm used to adoring fans, as you know. I am Terry Carnation, for fuck's sake. I mean, I don't mean to be self-absorbed, but I'm a kind of a. Well, I'm kind of a sex symbol in my industry. I'm basically the Rock Hudson of the AM late-night radio set. Yeah, I'm a pretty big deal. More like Mr. Bean, you say? Oh, how dare you! I'm nothing like Mr. Bean. I mean, I adore that beloved English silent buffoon, but I look nothing like him. I hope the stalker gets you, Malachi. I really do. You deserve it. You could benefit from some healthy adversity in your life, frankly. Lack resilience. Grit, as the psychologists call it. You should listen to Angela Duckworth's seminal TED Talk on grit. But you won't. No. You'll just watch a moth in the screen all night. Idiot. Anyway, anyway, customer. How about you crouch down here with me? I know you're here to enjoy one of my scary stories from my exclusive collection of tapes. But I have the box right down here with me. And the VCR! And even some snacks. But come on back. Come on down. It's very cozy. I'm sure I could live like this forever. My legs might atrophy. But I will have as many milk duds as I please. Because I've got a stalker. And that's the unwritten rule. Okay, what are we going to play? What tape shall we play? Ooh, here's a gnarly one. Here we go. In the early 2000s, I was about 25 years old. I had a full-time job. I was doing pretty well. So I had some extra funds. I was always into motocross and dirt bikes. My best friend, Michael, he was just about in the same part of life as I was. And we both decided to go in and buy brand new bikes. I had been doing it my whole life. He wanted to get into it. He rode a little, but he wasn't really great. But I helped him become a much better rider. Every weekend, we'd be at a different track. The times that we weren't racing, we'd be finding spots to practice at. All over the place. They were illegal spots. There was a website, actually. It had hundreds of different places to ride. And most of them were illegal. They don't advertise that at all anymore. But back then, it was all good. So we would find these different places. And then we'd go, we'd travel, we'd seek them out. And most of them were really cool. They had a really, really good time. As the summer wore on, we found this one spot. It was about 45 minutes outside of Manhattan. It was like an overgrown. an old amusement park. There was like rides all broken up. Just pieces still left there. It was in business in the 70s and 80s, I think. But it was just shut down. And it was like a swamp back there, too. So it was like built on this shaky ground, kind of. So they just left it to rot. Most of it was still back there. We read that you could ride guard bikes back there. So we went one particular Saturday. And we went early in the morning. All serious, pulled gear and everything like that. We look at where the track is. There's a track there and it's defined. And we look through the whole thing before we start riding. I want to see how it goes, where it is. So we know how, you know, the layout of it. So we do that. We walk the whole thing. We come back. We get our gear on. And then we start ripping laps around the whole thing. And it's fun. We're having a good time. It's just the two of us. Nobody's there yet. As we're there, we're hearing this phone ringing. Entire time. It would stop. 20 minutes later, you'd hear it again. That old Nokia ring. That original ring that everybody knows. Where is that coming from? It sounded like it was right next to us. And we'd look for it and it would stop. We couldn't find it. And I pointed it out to him. Somebody's here with us. We're on somebody's property or something. It's kind of freaky. Maybe somebody lost a phone here. Or there's other people here that we're not seeing. Because the place is totally overgrown. It was when we would stop. Like, go take a break. Get some water. We would hear it again. I mean, it was continuous. We'd take a couple of laps. Come back in 20, 30 minutes. And it'd be ringing again. And then you'd get, like, right near it. Thinking, like, you're going to zero in on where it is. And it would stop. Just freaky. Really. You knew something was off. Like, what the fuck is this? What is that? Driving us crazy. And we couldn't find it. I just assumed, honestly, if it wasn't anybody coming to make themselves known, that somebody must have lost their phone in the bushes somewhere. People must hang out here and somebody must have dropped their phone. So the day wears on. And we're riding and the place starts to get crowded now. Other people start rolling in. Some bands roll up. These guys, like, know how to drive in. They must be the regulars there, you know? This is our first time there. I don't know how to drive. I don't know how it works or anything like that. We parked across the street in, like, a shopping center and walked the bikes across the street. These were, like, thuggish dudes that roll up and have no respect for the direction of things. And it's getting kind of dangerous. Guys going the wrong way. Nobody's wearing helmets. But we continued to ride. And everything was cool, honestly, with those guys, too. Until he had the head-on with the guy. There's a jump. Like, one good jump in the whole place. And we were hitting it. We were hitting it all morning. As you hit the jump, it's kind of like a skinny landing and it was a hard left turn right after. that. Michael hits the jump after me. I make it. I come back around. As he's going to land, the guy's coming the other way on a four-wheeler and hits him just as he lands, like right into the front of the guy. And then that breaks out into an all-out brawl. I roll up, I drop my bike, and I walk over there. I'm like, "Yo, chill. Be cool. Calm down." You know, all that. And then the fucking phone is ringing. As I'm waking this up, the phone is ringing continuously as these two guys are fighting. Stopping and starting again, like four times. Somebody wasn't giving up on the other end. Full series of rings, five rings, and then it would just stop. And then it would start again immediately right after. And they're yelling back and forth, and the phone is ringing, and I'm like, "Whoa. What the fuck happened here?" You know? Finally break it all down. Everybody calms down, and the phone stops ringing, too, about the same time. I'm talking to Michael. I sit him down. He's banged up, getting stitches. I'm like, "Dude, relax." I'm like, "I'm gonna take you to the hospital, but I'm gonna collect the rest of this shit here, and then we'll get out of here." I'm looking around. I hear that phone again, but now it's like really close. I'm collecting pieces of the bike, his pads that he was wearing, like visor from his helmet, all broken up, all over. I'm just tossing him back to where he's sitting, finding things because I want to get out of there quick before something else happens with these dudes. I go to grab the final piece of the bike that I see while the phone is ringing. As I reach my hand in the bushes and look down, and I go to grab this last piece, I brush against two shoes connected to legs in the bushes as if somebody was laying on their belly. I'm like, "What the fuck?" The phone is ringing, coming right from that. I'm like, "Michael, we got to get the fuck out of here now." He's like, "Why? What's the matter?" I'm like, "I'll tell you later." I'm like, "Get up. Get your bike." He's like, "Take your shit. We got to get out of here right fucking now. Let's go." And that's what we did. Wheeled this bike out of there. He had to push it. It was all fucked up. I pushed mine too, holding all of his stuff. And then we got out of there. I'm like, "Michael, there's a fucking dead guy in the bushes." That phone that we were hearing, that's a dead guy in the bushes laying on his stomach. I fucking saw him. He's wearing a black suit and black shoes. I was right next to him. I'm like, "There's a fucking dead guy in there." He's like, "You think we should call the cops?" I'm like, "No, I think we should call them now. I think we should get the fuck out of here first and then call them, you know, later." And that's what we did. Went back, and I waited a little while, thought of what to say, and we called them anonymously. I was nervous. I told them where it was, and they knew the area completely. So we were back there exploring, and we kept hearing the phone ringing. And eventually, we found out where it was ringing from. A dead guy in the bushes. We tried to get our names and all of that many times, and we just hung out. We wanted to go back days later and see if it was roped off with police tape and all that, but we didn't go. Felt like I did a good deed though, honestly, reporting it. I told my dad about it. I'm like, "Dad, we found a dead guy. There was a phone ringing, and we found a dead guy in the bushes, and we were riding." He's like, "What?" I'm like, "Yeah." We talked about it. I called the police, and I told them where it was, and that was the end of it. He's like, "Did you give him your name?" I'm like, "No." He's like, "I didn't know what to do." I said, "We made an anonymous call." And he's like, "You really should have given him your name." I'm like, "No, I didn't want to get mixed up in that." I guess he started reading the paper, and he knew, and he started following it more too, because I told him. He found an article about it. He found an article about the body that was found, the guy's identity, who he was, who he was related to, and how his family had been looking for him for the last three or four days prior to that. It said that he was found by kids or something that were exploring the property in there, or something like that, an anonymous phone call. He was a gangster that was missing for like three or four days, and he was out there in the weeds. Nobody knew he was there. We found him. That was like a spot where they would dump gangsters. The early 2000s, a lot of that's a lot of that stuff was probably still going on. All those guys weren't in jail yet or in other businesses. He was shot to death. I guess if we turned him over, we would have saw bullet wounds up his front. He was shot to death, and he was left for dead there. I think it's very New York, in my eyes. That's what it is, or how New York used to be. I'm sure there was others there too. It was big enough where nobody would ever find you. Fucking crazy Saturday. Wow. Unbelievable. Imagine going out for a serene day of dirt biking and having to deal with that. Wild. Also, why does anyone dirt bike? Why would you want to ride your bike on dirt when there's pavement? Certainly, surely nearby. Anyway, wild stuff. Wild stuff. You know, I get it. It's tempting to want to be involved in the mafia. A strong male friend group. Beautiful women. Spaghetti. But I mean, had they not seen Goodfellas, Scarface, Godfather, Godfather 2, my favorite Godfather Part 3. It never works out, people. Except Donnie Brasco. You locked the door, right? Okay, good, good, good, good. Oh, that story really set me on edge. Let's take a little break for ads. I could really use some wholesome capitalism right about now. A beautifully designed Squarespace website is the difference between thinking about photography school and selling your portraits online. It's the difference between giving away those cookies you made for free and running your cookie empire. A beautifully designed Squarespace website is the difference between having a movie reviewing hobby and a movie reviewing career. Squarespace. Because no matter what you're into, a website makes it real. Use offer code difference for 50% off select plans. Terms and conditions apply. Do you have a dark curiosity? Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings, and Mysteries is a weekly podcast hosted by me, Kaelin Moore. Each week, I'll take you on a dark journey through terrifying true urban legends, bizarre true crime cases, chilling tales of backwoods horror, and more. So, if you're looking to join a passionate community of the darkly curious, check out Heart Starts Pounding on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, stay curious. Looking for a horror podcast that isn't murder to get through? Then check out another effing horror podcast. Our show where paranormal and true crime stories collide with unfiltered commentary. I'm Monique Sanchez. And I'm Amy Trayden. Each week, Monique and I share one paranormal story and one true crime case, from unexplained phenomena to true tales of murder and mayhem. We find the stories you haven't heard before and research them obsessively to bring them to life. Follow or watch another effing horror podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we're back. Unfortunately, in a prison of my own making. It seems my charisma and natural pheromones have attracted a stalker. I probably should have seen this coming. I should have hired security. Look, if they break in, I'm going to offer you up as a sacrifice. Sorry, I just don't know you that well. So, thanks for being so cool about it. Oh, oh, oh, God. So unsettling. I can't call the police. You know full well I have some tax situations. You know what? Let's just plug in another tape, shall we? This one is fitting. Yes. I'll pop it in. Here, have a lemonade. Have a lemon head. Have a flaming hot milk dud. Everything is flaming hot these days. Flaming hot cottage cheese. Flaming hot orange juice. Have a flaming hot rice cake. You know what's flaming hot? My anus. After eating all those flaming hot snacks. I'm from a small town in Utah. In this small town, one of my family friends had opened up a survival store and needed an employee. Because we were family friends, my dad thought me, a 15-year-old needing a job, going into high school, would be a great fit. I was his first employee and being the first employee and the only employee, he slowly let me have responsibility there. Even at 15, I was there by myself quite a bit after being trained. It wasn't super popular. So a lot of the time I was just sitting on my phone or behind the register. One of the days I was sitting behind the counter, it was about half an hour until close. And at that point, most of the time, no one's coming in. I was geared up, ready to shut down shop until I heard the dingle of the doorbell. I kind of looked up. Most people would kind of peek their heads in or just kind of look inside as it was new on the main street and just give a wave or whatever. A man walked in, white hair, but not elderly, just a little bit older. And he came in and I kind of waved. And I kind of waved at him and said, hey, welcome to the store. Let me know if you need anything. He just kind of nodded and looked at me and came in and started browsing around. I kind of watched him and surveyed him as he went around, but still kind of occupied with my phone. Every once in a while, I would poke my head over to look and see where he was at or what he was doing. And every time I would do that, his eyes met mine. Every time I would look over the counter, he was looking right back at me. Customers would do that when they need my attention. But he was just looking at me from different spots in the store over and over. It felt off. It felt creepy. It gave me chills when I would look up and see him looking right at me. He was looking at me more than the average customer would. So after a few times of him staring at me and looking at me, I kind of called out to him and said, is there anything I can help you with? Is there anything you need? He just said, no, no, I've, I'm, you know, I found what I'm looking for. Walked over to the cash register. And he came up and had a fistful, handful of things that he had grabbed from the shelves. And this is a survival camping store. So there was an array of a ton of items. And the things that he laid down was a thing of paracord, a fire starter, and zip ties. It was a little strange to see all three of those things. Those things to me didn't really coincide. I tried to make some calculations. I started having a casual conversation with him as he's setting his stuff down. Like, oh man, you know, what brings you in today? And he said, well, I was just walking on main street when I saw your store and I saw you sitting behind the glass and you seemed friendly. So I thought I'd come in and there were a few things that I needed. And I said, wow, well, that's great. I'm glad that we could have the stuff you need. We're glad that you're in. While we were checking out, he started asking me some questions, some regular questions most people would ask. Asking me how old I was. And I told him. You know, I'm 15, about to be 16. He said, well, do you live around here? And I said, yeah, you know, I just live in the next town over. It got kind of weird when he told me, you're a good looking fit young man. Do you play any sports? Most people don't ask, you know, oh, you look really good. Do you do sports? Especially as like a 15 year old. I said, yeah, you know, I play basketball. I run track. But I really like to sing. That's like my thing. I've always been into the arts. And he said, really? And his expression lit up. Said, well, I'm a professor at a college in Nevada right next door. And we have a really good choir program. I know the director. You should come to the college and I can give you a tour. And that's when he gave me a card. He gave me a card with his name and had like his Instagram handle on the back. I didn't know what to say. I mean, I'm 15. College is not. Not even on my radar. I just barely kind of came out of junior high. So I'm about to go on like my first year of high school. I just kind of told him, you know, no, thank you. I appreciate it. Not really looking for that right now. His expression changed immediately. He went from like a super high to the lowest low. He was smiling and had a gleam in his eye and it's like he went dull. He didn't say another word. He grabbed his bag. And stormed out the door right to his truck that was parked on Main Street, right behind my truck that was also on Main Street, the white pickup truck and sped off. This was super weird. This was really awkward. Made me kind of uncomfortable with some of those questions and how he was watching me in the store. The interaction worried me enough that I called my boss. My boss just said, hey, don't worry. I'm too far away to come to you. I'm going to come check in on you, but you can close up early. I know there's only 15 minutes left. Just take your stuff down and you can go home. Flipped the sign shut, locked the door and got in my truck and drove home. I didn't really think much of it after that. I kind of told my parents about it when I got home. I think I told my dad, but that was it. Until later that night. I had a girlfriend at the time. I wasn't allowed to have my cell phone. But what we did have was landlines. No one used them, but I would sneak it into my room and call my girlfriend at night and we would just talk all night long. It was a night like any other. Snuck the phone in my room. At about midnight, I called her. We were on the phone. We were chatting. When you talk that much back and forth, your mouth can get kind of dry. You get that cotton mouth. And so at about three in the morning, I said, Cheyenne, I'm going to call you. I said, Cheyenne, I'm going to call you. Cheyenne, I got to run upstairs and get some water. At the same time, I'm going to check, make sure my parents are asleep. I crept up our wooden stairs, got up to the top. And to the left of the stairs is a living room where my siblings, they would often just sleep in the living room. They would love to have sleepovers in there. And my parents, when they were doing that, would keep their door open that was just left of the living room. I could see in there and I saw both my parents sleeping. I could hear my dad snoring. Okay. Okay, they're asleep. They're not listening to me. I'm going to get my water and get back downstairs. I get down to my room. I'm the only one in the basement. I shut my door. I get on my bed and pull my phone out from under the pillow. And I say, hey, I'm back. Cheyenne said, whatever you're doing, it's not funny. I'm not falling for this joke. I was confused. I didn't know what she was talking about. What do you mean I'm not funny? What's not funny? And she said, I know you've been down here the whole time. I know you never left your room. I was now even more confused. And said, no, I'm pretty sure I remember going upstairs and getting water. Why would I make that up? She said, you didn't get me. I'm not scared and it's not funny. And I said, I wasn't trying to scare you. What are you talking about? And she said, then who's laughing in the room? Who's on your phone laughing or breathing? Has to be you. I then thought that she was playing a prank on me. She's trying to freak me out. She kind of had that sense of humor. I said, no, you're messing with me. Like, it's not funny to me. I don't find this funny. And she said, you really weren't downstairs. You weren't in your room. And I said, no, I was not. And she said, well, if it's not you, there's someone in your room. Someone was on that phone. Someone was laughing. There's someone in your room. And then she started crying. At that point, I knew it was real. And so I flipped on my lights. I jumped out of bed and I have a closet that's open. There's no doors. So I kind of moved all my clothes around in there. They were hanging up and there was nothing. Checked under my bed as much as I could. There was nothing. Then I thought anyone could have left my room. And so I started searching the basement. Turning the lights on. There's no one in the laundry room. I checked our bathroom down here. There was nothing. And there's one other place that I hadn't checked and that's the kitchen that we didn't use. There was a kitchen downstairs and it had a back door and a window. And it was mostly filled with junk. Just kind of a storage space almost. And as I started going towards the kitchen, I got a chill. The hairs on my arms stood up. And I realized that the downstairs window was open. And that window's never open. I walk over to go shut the window. And that's when I see one of the three landline phones laying in the windowsill. I mean, I lost it. I didn't know what to. I was freaking out. I thought there's someone inside of our house. I was freaking out. I was freaking out. I was freaking out. I was freaking out. I was freaking out. This is not right. There's no one else up. This was not open earlier. I don't know where this phone even was. But now it's on the windowsill. No one would leave this here. I'm the only one that uses these landline phones. And it's to call my girlfriend in the middle of the night. I shut that window, grabbed the phone, and ran upstairs. Ran straight into my dad's room and woke him up. I didn't care about how it was going to sound if I was on the phone, which was my biggest worry when I was 15. I woke my dad up. I said, there's someone here. There's someone in the house. there's someone in our house. I don't know where this person is. So he got up out of bed, kind of just said, what are you talking about? I just was explaining myself over and over. And he said, okay, well, let's go check. And we walked downstairs through the house. He checked the basement. He double checked the basement with me. And I said, well, they've got to be in the backyard. They're not in the backyard. Then they're gone. We went into the backyard and we checked and there was nothing. We didn't find anybody. Not a single sound of anything back there. I was just scared shitless. My dad saw how worked up I was about this and decided to text our neighbor. We didn't have cameras at the time. We didn't have a security system, but our neighbor did. And he had one camera kind of put in front of him. And he was like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. He pointed towards our street and our driveway in the front yard. My dad that night texted him and just said, hey, can you pull the footage from about three o'clock in the morning last night? Something weird happened. It wasn't until the morning that my dad got a text back. He just sent the video and said, this is what I have. We fast forwarded it up until about 3.14 in the morning. And I'd walked upstairs at about 3.07. At about 3.14 in the morning, a pair of headlights turned on down the street. We have one streetlight on our road. And as we slowed the video down and the truck drove past that streetlight, we saw that it was a small white pickup truck. It all snapped into place. I do believe that the man from the store was the man in the vehicle that was the man in my house that night. I think that they were all intertwined. Just too many coincidences for me. It was too creepy. It wouldn't have been hard for him to round the block on that main street and see where my truck went and followed me home. Came in through that back door that was always unlocked. Foolish of us not to lock it, but it was always unlocked. And he'd been in my house. I know that's what it was. And I know that my life could have been in danger that night. My mind went back to the items he'd bought. But in that moment, it didn't seem so random to me. It was zip ties and paracord and a fire starter. My mind then jumped to a lot of places that I'd didn't want it to be. Definitely went to places that were not good. Oh, God. The call is coming from inside the house. Literally. I wonder if it was that odd guy from the store or if the storyteller's girlfriend just has an incredible sense of humor. Either way, I'm glad that family is safe. Hopefully. And hopefully I'll be able to say the same for myself in due time. Time for ads. Did you know that if your spouse goes missing, but you don't tell anyone, that's not necessarily a crime? That surprising fact is at the heart of the brand new season of Bear Brook. The award-winning true crime podcast from New Hampshire Public Radio. I'm your host, Jason Moon. In season three of Private Matter, we investigate another New Hampshire mystery. A beloved Christmas tree farmer with dementia vanishes from his small town. His wife never reports him missing. Can he still be found? If you knew Jay as well as I do, he's private. He doesn't want everybody to know his business. Beth, I don't believe you. I kind of revert back to like that Bear Brook thing. Like what if we were to just come across something? You know, and I wrote down, she said, you know, I, I found him. Follow Bear Brook on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. You know what? I'm tired of living in fear. I am getting up from my hiding place under the counter here. Oh, God, my legs are so stiff. You know what? It's time I face the world head on. There's a person standing at the door. I can see their outline in the moonlight. It's quite beautiful in a horrifying way. Who are you and what do you want? Leave me alone. They're crouching down. What are they doing? Gone. They've gone. They slipped a letter through the extra wide cat door. Oh, my God. Look at this. It's like a ransom note. It's like a proper ransom note. Little cut out magazine letters and everything. It's actually kind of aesthetically pleasing. Terry, what are you saying? This is most certainly a heinous threat. It's like a flaming hot heinous threat. Okay, I'm going to read it. It's a little choppy and discordant, but here goes. Terry, we know where your wife Zalon is. If you want to see her, meet outside the store tomorrow at 5.34 a.m. I hope that's actually p.m. No, it's a.m. That's a worse torture than having a stalker. I'll have to set my alarm for 4.30 a.m. 4.40. It says, you will be gone for a while. How long is a while? I don't know. A couple hours, a couple days, a couple longer. Make arrangements. And that's it. No signature, nothing. Oh, God, it can't be. Malachi, do you think this is real? Do you think they know where my, my missing, perhaps extinct wife Zalon is? No, I know, I know, I know this is probably not a true story. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not advisable. But I have waited and waited and searched so long and so hard for my missing wife Zalon for years. I don't know if I can be let down again, but I also don't know if I can pass up a lead such as this. No, I know, Malachi, this might be a trick. I'm not a freaking idiot. I've seen movies. I currently work in a video rental store. Hello. Okay, be courageous, Terry. Be courageous. Zalon, you hold a special place in my heart. I miss you so much, dear. My life has not been the same since. I haven't laundered this turtleneck not once. Dear customer, I have a pretty big decision to make, and I just want you to know that I wouldn't leave the radio rental store for anything less than earth-shattering news such as this. Malachi, I may need you to watch the store for a while. I know, I know. That wasn't part of the deal, but I'll only be gone a little while. I mean, that's what they said. You'll be gone for a while. It could be half an hour. Half an hour's a while. Just until I retrieve Zalon, the love of my life. If I even go. Oh, dear customer, I don't know what will happen now, but please, please come visit radio rental again next week. You never know what we'll have in store for you. Take care, and. and also. I love you. Was that too much? I feel like we've built to this kind of relationship by now, don't you? Good trust? I was about to offer you a sacrifice, however. I'm sorry about that. I take that back. I would never do that. No, please. All you love is pumpkin spice tuna and genital licking in front of company. Malachi, take a look at this. They spelled Terry wrong. You see this? But they spelled Zalon right? Hmm. These people are for real. The psychological warfare starts now. I know it's only 7pm, but I better start packing and hit the hay. I'm gonna get up at 4.40am. What do I need to bring? Only the essentials. Lip balm. Graham crackers. Flip flops. iPod shuffle. Potpourri. I always travel with my own potpourri. Shoulder girdle. Regular girdle. Waffle iron. Twelve pack of tab. Well, off to bed for me, and off I go. In the pre-dawn. unliked. Wish me luck, everyone. So long, Radio Rental, until we see each other again after a while. Au revoir. A tout à l'heure. Auf Wiedersehen. Later, skater. Our producers are Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright. Our main host is Rainn Wilson as his character, Terry Carnation. Written by Meredith Stedman. Additional writing by Mark Laughlin. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set, with additional score by Jay Ragsdale. Editing by Eric Quintana, Stephen Perez, Meredith Stedman, Tristan Bankston, and Sean Nerney. Sound design, mix and master by Stephen Perez and Cooper Skinner. Additional editing by April K. April Ruha and Dayton Cole. Our production manager is Jordan Foxworthy. Our social media manager is Caroline Orajema. Video editing by Dylan Harrington. Cover artwork by Trevor Eiler and Rob Sheridan. Radio Rental merchandise by Byron McCoy. To shop Radio Rental merch, visit shop.tenderfoot.tv. Special thanks to Oren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, as well as the Nord Group and the team at Odyssey. If you have a Radio Rental story that you'd like to hear, please email us at yourscarystory at gmail.com. Or contact us via the form on our website, RadioRentalUSA.com. Follow us on Instagram at Radio Rental. On behalf of the Radio Rental store, we'd love it if you'd subscribe, rate, and review. As always, thanks for listening.