2x20: Tales from the Bottom Part 2

[00:00:00] Andrew Tate, Season 2 Episode 20, Lets Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast

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[00:02:21] Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast, Cryptic County, Season 2 Episode 20, Lets Not Meet,

[00:03:51] A True Horror Podcast, Cryptic County, Season 2 Episode 20, Lets Not Meet, A True Horror that were maybe 12 or 15 feet above us. It was already undercut to an extent and we had to clean out the trash and beer cans from the previous visitors before we could start working.

[00:04:34] We spent the following week digging into the side of the bank. We dug a hole about 10 feet deep and then began making our cavern. It was more work than we had anticipated, so it went a lot slower than we actually wanted.

[00:04:50] We usually worked in 10 or 15 minute bursts and then we'd work on a squared off berm with the dirt that we'd evacuated to hide off the entrance. Before we finally got bored with the whole idea of multiple tunnels and caverns,

[00:05:05] we dug a tunnel about 3 feet in diameter and 10 feet deep into the bank of the river. At the end of the tunnel, we dug out an area that was more a small room than it was a cave.

[00:05:17] We made the floor as level as we could in an area that was about 10 feet on each side. The top or ceiling was probably 8 feet from the floor.

[00:05:27] We finally stopped at that height because we ran into the roots of some trees on the top of the bank and we were tired from trying to expand it because we kept getting dirt and grit into our eyes and our mouths.

[00:05:39] We thought the end result was awesome though. We dug little alcoves into the walls and put candles into them to provide lighting. It went from our own version of the Temple of Set to a little clubhouse. It was really cool inside when the weather was hot outside.

[00:05:55] It was even better when all the candles lit up the area in a horror movie type light. If you looked up, you could see the roots hanging down. We were all pretty proud of our accomplishment.

[00:06:06] We built the berm at the tunnel entrance up to about 6 feet high and made the outside look like it followed the natural slope of the sandbar. The end result was that if you were to walk along the shoreline and weren't actually looking for it,

[00:06:22] you would more than likely have walked past it without even noticing it. This became our home away from home and provided us with hour upon hour of fun and entertainment. We even camped out there a few times during the summer.

[00:06:34] One weekend we found that our little hidey hole had been used by someone else. When we crawled into our cave, we found several beer cans and a blanket and a pair of socks. Eventually some of the older teens in the area were using it too.

[00:06:49] We spent that day discussing booby traps and other means to discourage the invaders from using our cave, but we finally decided that if we did anything to protect our cave, it would probably result in someone destroying it.

[00:07:02] Over the next few weeks, we found more beer cans, cigarette butts, and a crushed pack of camels that was empty. Also a styrofoam cooler without the lid, a frisbee, and a keychain with three or four keys on it.

[00:07:15] We put the styrofoam cooler upside down in the middle of the cave and left the keys sitting on it. The next time we returned, the keys had been replaced with a Budweiser that we all took turns sampling and a new box of candles.

[00:07:30] We had a lot of adventures in the cave that summer. We were Conan in the temple, we were Rambo in the mines, and it was the castle of the crystal from the Dark Crystal.

[00:07:42] Then one day we all met at the cave to find that part of the ceiling had collapsed. An area about the size of a big tractor tire had fallen, leaving even more roots showing.

[00:07:52] We got an old galvanized tub that was about the size of a turkey pan and tied a piece of clothesline we'd liberated to each handle. Jerry and I would pull the tub out and empty it after Terry and Bobby filled it inside the cave.

[00:08:09] After it was empty, they would pull it back inside and fill it again. We were about halfway finished when we heard the laughter. At first we thought it was whoever was using our cave when we weren't.

[00:08:20] We were a little excited to see who it was, but then we heard the voices that went with the laughter. It was Bubba Hane and his brother Henry. Also a couple of their friends. They were the bullies of our area. They were notorious for being the local toughs.

[00:08:39] They even walked around with their elbows cocked back and their chests puffed out. They all smoked and talked with language that would have caused me to get beaten half to death and

[00:08:49] my mouth washed out with dish detergent if I'd ever been caught using it myself. Bubba was 19 or 20 and had been in jail several times. He was mean and quick to fight and it didn't matter if you were half his size.

[00:09:05] He terrified all of us younger kids. We debated crawling into the cave and keeping quiet until they passed by, but if they knew about the cave then we'd only be caught without anywhere to run. So we took off running in the opposite direction of the voices.

[00:09:20] We climbed up the bank and around the bend and circled back to watch from the top of the bank where we were safe and able to run if necessary. As we watched from our elevated vantage point, they came around the bend.

[00:09:35] Bubba and Henry were pulling a small aluminum boat through the water with a rope tied to the loop in the front. The boat had an ice chest in it and several flathead catfish laying in it among the beer cans and they were talking about finding even more fish.

[00:09:50] Evidently, they were planning to have a big fish fry. Walking along in front of them were Gerald and Ricky also known for being less than friendly. They were both walking in the water about chest deep along the far side of the riverbank.

[00:10:05] They were all wearing cutoff shorts and drinking beer. Ricky would stop occasionally and feel the wall of the bank under the water. As we watched, he disappeared under the sandy water for several seconds and then surfaced again and said, nothing, and they continued walking.

[00:10:22] They were talking about which girls would be at the event and who they hoped would come and who they'd like to hook up with. They were noodling for fish. Now, noodling is one of those activities that can be both exciting and dangerous.

[00:10:36] The way it works is you would look for where a catfish or natural erosion has made a hole in the bottom of the riverbed. The person doing the noodling will stick his hand in the hole and feel around for a fish.

[00:10:49] If a catfish is there, it will think the hand is a smaller fish and therefore food and try to eat it. When the catfish has your hand in its mouth, you grab it by the lower jaw or through the gills and pull it out.

[00:11:02] Obviously any catfish with a mouth big enough to engulf your hand is a good-sized catfish, ranging in size from 20 to 60 pounds on average. The problem with doing this is occasionally you can get a fish that is actually too big to easily extract and

[00:11:18] doesn't want to let his lunch get away. It is then a fight to retrieve your hand and get your head back above the water before you drown. While they don't actually have teeth,

[00:11:28] catfish have millions of tiny little spikes on their lips and they can scratch you up pretty good. Another danger is that you encounter something other than a catfish like a snapping turtle. If this happens, it is entirely possible to lose a finger.

[00:11:44] I'm not proud to admit that I'm too chicken to go noodling. As we watched, Ricky went under the water again. After what seemed like two or three minutes, his hand suddenly shot up from the water and waved back and forth.

[00:11:59] Gerald immediately went under to help him and they came back up a minute later sputtering and gasping for air. They had caught a big one about four feet long.

[00:12:08] Henry and Bubba pulled the boat over to them and they all wrestled the fish up to the boat with the others. They congratulated each other and toasted to their fortune with fresh beer. After a few swigs, they continued on their way.

[00:12:21] Eventually, they were out of sight heading toward the more populated areas of the bottom where they lived. We didn't think they'd be coming back so we jumped back down and continued our work. Bobby realized that they had walked right by our cave and didn't even notice it.

[00:12:35] And that was fine with the rest of us. About five minutes after we started working on the fallen dirt again, we heard screams and shouts from the direction of where Bubba and his friends had gone. They weren't sounds of pain though. They were sounds of fright.

[00:12:51] We forgot about getting pounded on and ran to the sandbar toward the direction of the screams. When we saw Bubba and his friends, they were on the opposite side of the river than before when the boat was floating downstream towards us.

[00:13:06] Terry caught the line as it passed, but he wasn't strong enough to stop it. So Jerry and I grabbed on to while Bobby waited in the water and pushed from behind us.

[00:13:16] We all figured that our helping gesture would make us immune from any bullying for at least a little while. As we walked back to them, Gerald was actually getting sick in the sand and Ricky was retching.

[00:13:29] Bubba and Henry were both white as a bedsheet and were walking back and forth hugging their arms tight against their chests as if they were freezing. They saw us coming up to them and immediately went into tough guy mode with their chests puffed out and elbows cocked.

[00:13:45] For a minute, I thought we'd have made a mistake in thinking they'd appreciate our assistance. Bubba was the first to realize what we were doing and shouted an enthusiastic thanks and jogged in our direction. He helped us drag the boat up to Bubba and the others.

[00:13:59] We were all apprehensive and ready to take off running, but no one seemed interested in being a bully. I looked to see who got hurt, but everyone seemed to have all their fingers and toes and there wasn't any blood anywhere so I asked what had happened.

[00:14:14] Bubba glanced out across the river to the other side, about 60 feet away, but didn't say anything. Henry finally said that they thought they saw a dead body. Gerald turned around wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and spit. They ain't no thinking about it.

[00:14:35] I had my hand around his damn ankle, he said. I reached into that hole and felt what I thought was a tail and pulled on it and came up with a damn sock and a shoe.

[00:14:47] We all looked at the opposite bank of the river, searching intently for any sign of blood and gore, but we couldn't see anything. When we asked where it was, Ricky told us that it was about 5 feet down at the bottom of a big catfish hole.

[00:15:04] We gotta call the police, Gerald stammered. He kept wiping his hand on his pants. He stooped and gathered a handful of sand and washed his hands with it. Bubba told him to call the police if he wanted, but he didn't want any part of it.

[00:15:16] Then looked at us and told us to forget he was ever here. He told us not to mention his name at all. Then he and Henry turned around and began walking upstream toward where everyone lived. Gerald and Ricky looked back and forth at each other.

[00:15:30] Nobody knew what to do. Finally, Ricky told Gerald to wait and he'd go call the sheriff and he ran off. We all stood there for a minute, half afraid to talk. We knew about Bubba and acted accordingly, but Gerald wasn't as well known to us.

[00:15:44] We all knew who he was and had heard of him before. Finally, Terry asked him how it happened and who'd screamed. Gerald looked at us with some big bulging eyes, still wiping his hands up and down his pants. I don't think he realized what he was doing.

[00:16:04] He stared for a minute like he was waiting to see if we were going to make fun of him. But we were all half scared of him and wouldn't have dared to poke fun at him again. We all ran back to the house and started talking.

[00:16:16] We all ran back to the house and started talking. After a minute, he told us they were going to have a big fish fry later. They had been out noodling to get more fish, so they'd be sure to have enough.

[00:16:28] They were planning to get just one more before they stopped. He looked at us and held his hands at shoulder level, palms facing inward, and shook them vigorously. Just one more, he said, shaking his hands so hard

[00:16:44] that water was sprinkled on all of us from his wet hair. He told us that he'd been walking along, filling for holes at the riverbed with his feet when he found the hole.

[00:16:56] He had gone under and felt around with his hand when he felt what he thought was the tail. He said he grabbed it really hard, ready for the fish to try and swim away when he felt something oozing between his fingers.

[00:17:08] He told us that he braced his feet and pulled, and it just came up. As he told the story, he mimed all of his actions. He told us that just as it was getting close enough to the surface

[00:17:20] of the water for him to see how big it was, that he noticed it was white instead of dark gray. Then he saw the sock and the shoe. That was when Ricky saw it and yelled. Ricky's sudden yell startled Gerald, who thought that

[00:17:36] the lake was alive. They both ran to the boat and told Bubba and Henry what they had seen. Bubba didn't believe him, so he and Henry waited over the hole and found the body. In their rush to get away from it,

[00:17:48] they lost the boat. After a minute, we came around the bend, bringing the boat with us. Ricky came running back in a few minutes and announced that the sheriff was on his way. They hurriedly removed the ice chest

[00:18:00] and emptied out the cans from the boat, and Ricky took everything away. After another few minutes, he came walking back with two uniformed men. The sheriff listened as the story was told again. He took everyone's name and address and phone numbers. He went back to his

[00:18:16] car while the deputy asked Gerald and Ricky more questions. Was the body a male or female? Was the body white or black? Was it an adult or a child? Are you sure it was human and not an animal? After what seemed like ten

[00:18:32] hours to us kids, but was probably less than an hour, the sheriff appeared again. He was walking with four other men who were all wearing wetsuits and had scuba gear. Two of the men started taking a bunch of photos and plotted the area on a map,

[00:18:49] then took more photos from the bank above the hole, and from where we were standing, then from the opposite bank on our side of the river. As the two men took the photos, the other two went

[00:19:01] underwater and confirmed that it was indeed a human body. Two of the men went back to wherever they'd parked and returned to the table with another camera. As they returned, the sheriff told us that we should probably leave the area

[00:19:13] and stared at us until we took the hint and left. We ran back toward the cave and climbed the bank again, this time circling the opposite direction and sneaking to the edge of the bank overlooking the scene

[00:19:25] of the excitement. The scuba divers used the second camera to take more photos underwater. They couldn't have been very good photos because the water was only neck deep and they completely disappeared in the murkiness.

[00:19:37] After they finished taking photos, they brought a table out to the edge of the water. The table was actually a large float that two of the men held in place while the other two went underwater again. I don't know exactly what I was

[00:19:49] expecting to see, but this thing that they brought up out of the river actually gave me bad dreams for a few weeks afterwards. It was evidently a man. His face was swollen and his eyes and ears were completely gone. His belly was huge. He was wearing blue shorts

[00:20:09] and only had one sock and one shoe. The thing that got me the most was his color. Gerald said he was white, but he was actually a dull gray color with darker gray and green spots and he looked slimy. Two of his

[00:20:25] fingers were just bone. His mouth was open and as they pulled him over onto the float, a bunch of nasty water flowed out. As I watched them walk the float back over to the side of the river, I noticed

[00:20:37] more and more details. The skin covering his elbows and knees was completely gone. The part that I thought was his sock was actually skin. Evidently when Gerald grabbed the leg and pulled on it, he'd separated the skin and it just slid

[00:20:53] down the ankle. And finally, the part that I remember the most and the part that made me have all these bad dreams was his head. No eyes, no ears. His mouth opened and full of who knows what. His facial skin was swollen and almost comical in size,

[00:21:13] but the skin around the tip of his chin was gone just showing bone. From watching television and reading books, I'd expected the body to be locked stiff with rigor mortis, but it wasn't. His arms and his legs actually flopped around

[00:21:29] as though the bones had just turned to rubber. The last thing I remember about the man's body was the sight I saw as they carried him off toward the houses. The bottom of the foot, without a shoe, wasn't wrinkled and it was snowy white.

[00:21:45] This was the first time I'd ever actually seen a dead person. Of course, I'd seen countless dead people on television and in the movies, but I'd never seen one in real life.

[00:21:57] I don't know if it was the reason for the bad dreams or if it was because of the condition of the body. It was probably a combination of the two. I never knew who he was or how he died. I asked my mother a few days later

[00:22:09] and after yelling at me for being down at the river, she said she'd only heard about the police finding the body. We went to the cave a week or two later to see if there was anything new left in it,

[00:22:21] but it had completely collapsed, leaving a huge divot at the top. One of the trees on top was still standing, but had a drunken angle. It had rained and that was evidently enough to collapse the cave in on itself. None of us cared enough though.

[00:22:37] The gruesome discovery had killed the magic of that place for us. The following summer, that whole side of the bank was gone, including the tree. Growing up in the bottom was sometimes difficult. When the flood came every year, it severely limited my roaming area.

[00:23:15] Unless the flood was actually in our yard, which was a rare occurrence, most of the kids from the bottom would normally wind up playing football or baseball in our yard. There were probably 8 or 10 kids that would get together,

[00:23:31] the kids from the bottom and some of the other neighbors. We'd choose teams and play whatever game was popular at the moment. In 1984, it was a sad time for me as I was leaving behind the only friends I'd ever known, some of whom I'd known since kindergarten.

[00:23:47] I was 15 when we moved away from Kennefick and the bottom. We moved for several reasons. My father got a better job offer in another state, my mother had attended college for cake decorating and wanted to start her own business

[00:24:01] in a bigger town, and our trailer was starting to show its age. I think the most important reason my parents decided to move was the population of Kennefick and the bottom had grown. It attracted less than perfect quality of residents.

[00:24:17] In the last few years that we lived there, the police were coming out more and more often. The bottom seemed to become a refuge for those who weren't on the best terms with the law enforcement community.

[00:24:29] There were more and more cars and trucks driving faster than it was safe at all hours of the night. It was a rare weekend that we didn't see blue and red lights go whizzing past our house and hear screaming sirens.

[00:24:41] One night, a helicopter landed in the field across from our house and was met by an ambulance a few minutes later. We heard later that someone had broken into a house at the bottom and had been shot. It wasn't that tight-knit little community anymore.

[00:24:57] There were more and more strange cars and strange paces. The summer of 1984 was eventful for me on several levels. I turned 15 in July and got my first razor, amongst many other gifts. My voice had finally stopped squeaking. I grew to 5'10", and I am now 6'1".

[00:25:17] I was a cornerback on the high school football team. Dad was teaching me to work on cars by fixing up an old 73 Cougar for me to have when I got my license, and I was in love with a girl

[00:25:29] who lived down the street from us. Her name was Heather, and she consumed my every thought, wish, and desire. We'd known each other since her family moved here about a year after us, and we'd ridden the bus together to school for almost nine years.

[00:25:45] She was my first crush, my first kiss, my first love, my first heartbreak, and my first everything. Heather is a year younger than I am, and we went from hating each other in elementary school to tolerating each other in junior high.

[00:26:01] When I started high school, she was still in junior high, so we went to different schools. I can remember the first day I noticed her as something other than a skinny little black-haired girl from down the street. It was when school started

[00:26:13] after the Christmas vacation, and she got on the bus and was wearing new glasses. Weird, I know, but those glasses seemed to magnify the prettiest green eyes I'd ever seen. She caught me staring at her as she walked by to sit with her friend

[00:26:29] and smiled at me. Braces, wow. By the time she started high school the next year, we were a serious item. Her mother and my mother were good friends, and her mother would always say something that would embarrass the crap out of me.

[00:26:45] You two will have the cutest kids, or oh, I think I hear wedding bells. Of course she was teasing, but still. Every time we left her house to go for a walk or to do homework or whatever, her dad would give me the sternest

[00:26:58] look and would say, be nice. I knew exactly what he meant, and I was always nice for the most part. Heather had diabetes, and it always amazed me that she got shots every single day. I mean, every single solitary day.

[00:27:14] I was in awe of her bravery and how she just shrugged it off as part of life. She broke her ankle one summer jumping from a horse that got spooked. So every afternoon I would ride the bus past my house to hers

[00:27:30] and carry her books for her, and then I'd walk her home. Her mother would always invite me in to stay for dinner, but I never did. About a week after she broke her ankle we came home from school one day, and there was a new trailer house

[00:27:42] in the lot next to hers. Her mom told us that she had met the family, and that they had a boy my age and another son who was 8 or 9. I met him a few days later, and they started riding the school bus.

[00:27:54] Robert was actually a year younger than Heather. He was a tall, gangly, and clumsy type of kid who wore thick glasses and was deep into Dungeons and Dragons. He was quiet and kept to himself. We invited him to play football and do other stuff

[00:28:10] with us, but he was never interested. He read a lot and stayed indoors. Heather had already told me that he watched her whenever she was outside, but whenever she waved he acted like he didn't see her.

[00:28:22] He was an okay guy. We got along and he taught me to play Dungeons and Dragons and another game that I can't remember now. His younger brother was named Jason. Jason was an odd duck.

[00:28:34] His head was too big for his body, and his teeth and ears were too big for his head. He was mouthy too. Anything anyone had ever seen or done, he or someone he knew had seen it or done it better. It got so bad that we would

[00:28:50] actually make up words about things to see if he would take the bait. And he never let us down. For example, he knew all about the Chevrolet Z56 12-cylinder 6-wheeled car that was coming out the following year. He knew all about the new

[00:29:06] bullets that the army was developing that could shoot someone from around corners and go through tanks. He was also a klepto. Pens, rulers, hot wheels, baseball cards, ball caps and anything else that wasn't guarded was fair game. The bad thing

[00:29:22] was that whenever anyone called him on it, he'd insist that his aunt or teacher gave it to him. Robert and even his mother would always validate his story. Jason was always the instigator. He would tell one kid that the other kid was talking about him just to see

[00:29:38] the reaction. Whenever we played a game he would always want a duo or if things didn't go his way and if we refused he'd say we were cheaters and liars. It didn't take very long for Jason to become unwelcomed around us.

[00:29:50] One day, Heather caught him behind their well house bent over something. She asked what he was doing but he didn't hear so she walked over to see. He found a dead bird and was pulling the feathers and skin off of it.

[00:30:06] Heather said that she screamed and asked what he was doing. She said that he never moved, he just looked over his shoulder at her with a spooky grin and said, I wanted the skull. About a month later, Heather's father caught him inside the well house

[00:30:24] putting wrenches into his pockets. He grabbed Jason by the arm and took him to his house to make him admit to his mother that he was stealing. When Jason's mother opened the door and saw her baby being

[00:30:36] held by the arm, she went crazy and started yelling at Heather's father telling him that he was going to get sued. As Heather was telling me all of this at her kitchen table, her dad walked by and said that Jason was a damned creepy little kid. One day,

[00:30:52] a week or so later, Robert showed up at my house and asked if I'd seen Jason. He was supposed to come home for dinner and it was almost dark. I hadn't seen Jason and I relayed this to Robert.

[00:31:04] My mother heard Robert asking me about this and told him that she'd seen Jason over in the field across the road. She said that he was playing with a dog in the door of the abandoned barn about an hour

[00:31:16] earlier. Robert and Jason missed school the next two or three days and the next time I saw Robert on the bus, he told me that he'd found Jason in the barn with the dog. Jason had killed the dog and was skinning it.

[00:31:32] He told me that he had blood all over him like he'd played in it. Robert said he ran home leaving Jason there and told his dad about it. He and his father went back into the barn and Jason was still inside with the dead dog.

[00:31:48] Robert said his father grabbed Jason and was dragging him out of the barn when he saw all of the skulls. He told me that there were skulls of all different kinds up on a shelf. He didn't recognize a lot of them, but he did see the little bird

[00:32:08] and also mouse skulls. He said there were a lot bigger skulls there too, probably 15 or 20. He said that they were black and brown and still had some skin left on them. Flies were everywhere and it smelled so bad. Of course, I went straight to that barn after

[00:32:28] school that afternoon, but someone had taken it all away. It did, however, smell horrible in there and someone had spread sawdust all over the dirt floor. Robert told me that his father and mother had a huge fight the night they found Jason in the barn. Robert's father

[00:32:44] was planning to take Jason to a doctor and his mother kept insisting that it was just a little boy doing normal little boy things. Jason wasn't on the bus for about 3 or 4 weeks after that. When he did go back to school, he wasn't the same person.

[00:33:00] He didn't speak to anyone or respond when spoken to. Obviously everyone had a million and one questions, but he just ignored them all. He just stared out the window with his mouth opened and never said a word. I realize now that he must have been medicated.

[00:33:16] Eventually, the attempts to get his attention turned to ear flicks and swats on the back of his head, but there was never any response. Robert made everyone leave him alone. Then one afternoon, it was raining and we were almost home when Jason started hitting himself. At first

[00:33:36] no one noticed, but then Bobby Burrows turned around in his seat and told Robert that Jason was hitting himself in the face and that he was getting blood all over his clothes. Robert ran up and sat with Jason holding his wrist so he would stop.

[00:33:52] That was the last time I saw Jason before I moved 2 months later. When we moved, I called Heather as soon as I knew our new phone number. We'd already said our goodbyes, but promised to keep in touch. Heather and I kept in touch through letters and cards mostly.

[00:34:08] This was before cell phones and the long-distant charges cost way too much. So I was limited to an hour on the weekends. Heather told me most of the important news through letters whenever she didn't want to be

[00:34:20] overheard telling me any of the gossip that was too good or juicy. This was also how I found out that she had gone on a date with someone else. Through a letter. Heather told me about how Jason was back in school and how he'd

[00:34:36] get into a fight at least once a week. She said that he was talking now, but only when someone talked to him and that it was only a one-word response. He always had a scowl on his face and walked around with his hands

[00:34:48] clenched into fists. She said that someone visited his house on Tuesdays and Thursdays and stayed for about three hours then left. Sometimes she could hear Jason screaming at whoever it was. She told me that it was getting weirder and weirder every day.

[00:35:04] That he was up all hours of the night standing at his window and looking outside for hours. Heather told me that she thought Jason's mom was on drugs. Eventually, she'd spoken to Heather and called her Stephanie one time and Sandra the next.

[00:35:24] Over the next few years, Heather and I continued to keep in touch. She told me about her prom and even sent pictures. By this time, I'd met my next love and wasn't too bothered by someone else kissing on Heather. Actually, I was jealous but I never said so.

[00:35:44] I graduated high school in 1986 and sent Heather an invitation. She graduated in 1987 and sent me one to hers in return. I still have it somewhere. She also sent a wedding announcement the following year. That one hit me pretty hard but

[00:36:00] by then I was able to genuinely be happy for her. They didn't get married though and I cried with Heather over the phone when she told me about their breakup. I got engaged myself about six months later and joined the army two months after that.

[00:36:16] We still sent letters and cards several times a year. Occasionally, there would be a tidbit about Jason. He stole a bunch of stuff from other cars that were parked by our old house when the flood came one summer. Someone saw

[00:36:32] him going from car to car and called the police. He broke all of the windows out of another neighbor's house while they were gone for the weekend. He got caught shooting a pellet gun at someone's horses once. He was also accused of

[00:36:44] molesting a little girl from the bottom but nothing ever came of that. In December of 1990, my unit went to Saudi Arabia for Desert Storm and Desert Shield. I sent Heather my APO address and told her how my fiancé had

[00:37:00] dumped me the previous month. She sent back a box of homemade chocolate chip cookies with a note that said not to worry that they weren't sugar free. She made me promise to be careful and told me

[00:37:12] that she was afraid for me and to promise to write as often as I could, which I did. I got a letter from her in the last part of May in 1991 that she had sent about three weeks earlier. We were still overseas and had no clue when we'd

[00:37:28] get to come home again. When I opened the letter, there was also a newspaper clipping. The clipping was from a local newspaper and was a story about a 15-year-old youth who shot another neighbor in an attempted robbery and was being charged with

[00:37:44] murder. The name of the youth was withheld because of his age but it listed the name of the woman, Valerie. At first I thought Heather sent the clipping because we both knew Valerie. She lived two houses down from me, between the house where I

[00:38:00] lived and Heather's. She was a nice bubbly and happy woman. She had a huge great Dane named Ron too and she painted. She was one of those people who was never in a bad mood and never had a bad thing to say about anyone. She was one of

[00:38:16] those few genuinely nice people that I had ever known. She was one of those people who made the world better just by being in it. My heart stopped for a minute when I realized that it was

[00:38:28] her who had been shot. I harbored a secret crush on Valerie when I lived there. After I read the clipping, I read Heather's letter. After she told me that she hoped I was okay and would be coming home soon, she relayed what had happened. Evidently, Jason had met

[00:38:44] some of the rougher elements who lived in the bottom and started using drugs. He'd been in some more trouble here and there and it got worse after his mother left earlier that year. Robert got married and moved to another town. He visited one night

[00:39:00] and he and Jason got into a huge fight. Heather was able to hear everything because it was a cool night and she'd opened the windows for some fresh air. Her parents were gone somewhere and the air conditioner, which was a window

[00:39:12] unit, was too loud. She told me that one of them got pushed into the window and broke it. She said that Jason was screaming so loud that his voice would crack and after about 15 minutes it got quiet. Then Robert left.

[00:39:28] Heather said that she could hear Jason crying and ranting and screaming to himself. Then she saw him walking in the front yard of her house toward Valerie's place. Valerie's husband worked at a grocery store called Brookshire Brothers in Dayton during the day and went to college at night.

[00:39:44] He was also in the National Guard and was gone one weekend a month and two weeks during the summer. Instead of getting up early on Saturday morning and driving to wherever he went for his National Guard weekends, he would leave on Friday night. Whenever he was gone, Valerie's

[00:40:00] niece would stay with her. Jason was in love with her niece. I can't remember her name and I never knew her when I lived there. Heather told me that she didn't give it much thought because she was trying to concentrate on her books, but then she heard

[00:40:16] shouting and saw Jason storming back to his house. She just assumed that Valerie didn't want him at her house, especially if he was high on something. Heather, who was a junior in college at this time, was studying and forgot all about it until she heard somebody

[00:40:32] shouting again from Valerie's place about half an hour later. She said that she could hear crying too. She could also hear Jason shouting. She turned off her desk lamp so that she could see outside the window better when she looked.

[00:40:48] The front door of Valerie's house was standing open. Heather said that she was just getting ready to call the police when she heard the shot and saw Jason run out the door and head back to his own house.

[00:41:00] Heather said it scared her so bad that she couldn't move. She sat in the dark watching and listening, but afraid to draw attention to herself by moving or making any noise. Heather said that he was home for about 15 minutes and then got into

[00:41:16] his car and left. When he was out of sight, she ran over to Valerie's house. Mr. Vita, who lived between Heather and Valerie, was also there and was calling the police. Valerie's niece

[00:41:28] was sitting out on the sofa with her legs pulled up to her chest, hugging her knees. She was crying hysterically. Mr. Vita wouldn't let Heather go into the bedroom. Heather said that he told her in a voice that was much

[00:41:40] older than it should have been to keep the door closed. That she didn't want to see anything in there. Then he told her to take care of the little girl. They waited until the authorities arrived. Heather went on to tell me that according to the niece's

[00:41:57] statement, Jason asked if he could sit and talk for a few minutes but Valerie didn't think it was a good idea. The niece said that his nose and lip were bleeding and that he had cuts or scratches on one arm and that they were bleeding. Valerie asked

[00:42:13] him to leave and when he didn't, she got up to call the police and that's when he started shouting and left. The girl said that it was about 20 minutes later, something hit the side of the house and Rantu

[00:42:25] started barking. When Valerie opened the door to see what had happened, a man in a black ski mask forced her back inside with a pistol in the face. He made her lock Rantu in the bathroom and threatened to shoot him if she didn't do as he asked.

[00:42:41] When he talked, the niece recognized his voice and recognized the cuts on his arm. After the dog was in the bathroom, he made them go into the bedroom and lay face down on the bed. He wanted to know

[00:42:53] if they had any money and they told him that there was money in their purses. The niece said he was silent for a minute and then she heard the gunshot and felt the bed jerk. Then she heard Jason run out of the house.

[00:43:09] The police found Jason a few hours later at a friend's house where he was arrested. Jason was later tried as an adult and sent to prison. I don't remember the length of this sentence. As far as I know, he's still incarcerated. I remember him being a

[00:43:25] little weird kid. I can remember talking about him to some of my new friends after I'd moved and telling them that he was the type of kid that would grow up to be a terrorist or lead a cult. I guess I had him pegged from the start.

[00:43:41] If you're wondering about Heather and I, we eventually got married but not to each other. She married a man that she had met her senior year of college and they moved to Texas with two girls now. I married a woman from Argentina

[00:43:53] and have been happy ever since. It's funny how sometimes life works out for the best in spite of some very bad times. Patreon.com forward slash Let's Not Meet podcast to support it and gain access to all of the bonus episodes. I do bi-weekly bonus

[00:44:27] episodes as well as single shot stories in between. And don't forget, this weekend is the season finale of Let's Not Meet and the brand new stories from Tales From the Bottom as well as some listener submitted stories.

[00:44:39] It's going to be a big one and I'm really looking forward to it. I'll see you guys then.