Terror in El Paso – Ep. 103

[00:00:00] Odd Trails contains adult language and content. If you have a story to share, send it to stories

[00:00:05] at oddtrails.com. Enjoy the show.

[00:00:08] Forget facts. Forget logic. Forget everything that seems real. Trust. Believe.

[00:00:57] I have an intense fear every time I think or talk about this story as if the thing is

[00:01:04] listening and waiting for me to remember it again.

[00:01:09] When I was 14, my cousin and sister accompanied me to watch Paranormal Activity for the first

[00:01:15] time. Being at a stupidly angsty age, I was inspired by the movie and convinced my family

[00:01:22] shortly after to do a seance at my cousin's house while calling on as many demons as we

[00:01:28] could. I know it was very stupid. We sat in her living room, chanting like idiots and

[00:01:37] waited for something to happen.

[00:01:41] We heard a crack and ran to the dining room where we saw a trio of marble candles that

[00:01:48] had been cut in half. They weren't cracked or shattered. They hadn't been moved or

[00:01:54] dropped. It looked as if someone with a very large sword simply swiped right through the

[00:02:01] marble.

[00:02:03] My cousin and I stood quietly, the realization of what we may have brought on slowly dawning

[00:02:10] on us. We returned to the living room to talk about something else as if not acknowledging

[00:02:18] what happened would negate the existence.

[00:02:21] My cousin was sitting on the sofa across from me when all of a sudden she said,

[00:02:26] You need to get up. Come over here now.

[00:02:30] Her voice was stern and laced with fear so naturally I vaulted over to where she was.

[00:02:36] Once I was basically on top of her, she said that as I was speaking, she saw my hair beginning

[00:02:42] to stick up. Then as if something were pulling my hair, a few single strands stood completely

[00:02:50] upright. Something had been standing right behind me.

[00:02:55] I laughed this off because honestly what else could I do? When my mom came to pick me up,

[00:03:01] I ran out of my cousin's house. I thought that since the seance occurred in her house,

[00:03:06] the thing would be bound there, right?

[00:03:10] Wrong.

[00:03:12] The moment I came home, I knew that something was off. Not wrong, but just off. My room

[00:03:18] was situated at the end of the hallway on the second floor. My day ends with my dad's

[00:03:24] routine, the same one hasn't changed for years. He would come home, the alarm for the

[00:03:29] garage would chirp, and my dad would fling his keys onto the counter, then trudge up the

[00:03:34] eleven stairs. He would then turn to go towards his room down the hall from mine and finally

[00:03:39] slam his door shut.

[00:03:42] That night at around 1am, I was in my bed when I heard the garage door open, alarm chirp,

[00:03:49] keys flinging onto the counter, eleven steps up and then pause. My dad never ever goes

[00:03:59] into my room, so imagine my surprise when I hear footsteps moving towards my room and

[00:04:05] finally pausing right outside my door. I knew that it wasn't my dad, I don't know

[00:04:12] why, but I got out of bed and I opened the door. There was a giant shape in my doorframe.

[00:04:20] This thing, its head rose taller than the doorframe. The top hat that it was wearing

[00:04:26] was towering over me. The figure was large and seemed to have these giant wings, but

[00:04:33] I couldn't make out a single detail. The thing, this owl man as I call it, simply stood

[00:04:40] there. I took one good look at it, shut the door and crawled back into bed. This wasn't

[00:04:48] me being courageous or anything, I was completely terrified. I just thought that if I acted

[00:04:54] normal then maybe this thing would go away.

[00:04:59] The next night I woke up at 3am and I knew for a fact that the owl man was in the room

[00:05:05] with me. My back was at the edge of the bed and I could feel its presence, it was brushing

[00:05:12] against my back. I convinced myself to turn over. The large figure loomed over me, its

[00:05:21] hat nearly reaching the other side of the bed. Just as the night before, I turned back

[00:05:27] around and feigned sleep. When I woke up at 3am the next night, the owl man was posed

[00:05:35] by the bed again, but this time its arms were outstretched and its wings brushed the sides

[00:05:41] of my room, hanging at about 20 feet total. Another time I was getting ready for bed when

[00:05:48] I found my body moving on its own accord. I leaned into my bed, got onto my back and

[00:05:56] went into the fetal position. My legs and arms cramped up around my knees as if I were

[00:06:02] fending off some invisible attack. I must have blacked out or fallen asleep because

[00:06:07] I woke up to my grandpa yelling at me for falling asleep in such a strange manner. Another

[00:06:14] time I fell asleep in my bed, I woke up when I heard my grandpa calling me. I woke up in

[00:06:22] his bed, in the bedroom next to mine. I was shocked because I never even stepped foot into

[00:06:29] his room before and here I was tangled in his sheets. I went outside to the second floor balcony

[00:06:36] which overlooked the first floor. My grandpa was down there and he asked me why I was jumping on

[00:06:41] his bed. I was stunned. How in the world could I have been jumping on his bed when I had been

[00:06:49] asleep? How was I even in his bed when I fell asleep in my own bed? I had never sleepwalked

[00:06:55] before. Ever since then, I have gone to sleep knowing that the Owlman was in my room. No matter

[00:07:02] where we moved to or how many houses we went through, the Owlman was constant. In the night,

[00:07:10] I can feel and see him standing in the corner of my room watching me. I've never been able to get

[00:07:17] rid of Owlman. I've only ever told my sisters and cousin about it but each time, it has led to an

[00:07:24] intensified event. I'm not sure if telling you this story is the smartest move in the world but

[00:07:31] I heard another person talking about seeing a similar owl figure with a top hat and I felt

[00:07:37] I needed to reach out and say, me too. It's still here with me.

[00:07:43] Growing up, strange things followed me around. For as long as I can remember,

[00:08:09] weird things would happen to me and even to this day. I've always heard stories from my father's

[00:08:16] side of the family about my grandmother's house being haunted but I will leave that for later.

[00:08:21] In 1992, I was 5 years old, living in a small 3 bedroom house. The house was located in a small

[00:08:30] border town less than a mile away from Mexico. It was owned by my aunt and she rented it to

[00:08:35] my father. It's hard to believe but I still remember running around that house. I remember

[00:08:42] my neighbors and my friends but what I remember the most was my best friend, Ruben. He and I were

[00:08:49] the same age and both had an older brother. Our older brothers were both 4 years older than we

[00:08:55] were. We got along and quickly became best friends. Ruben always wore a striped short sleeved shirt.

[00:09:02] The stripes repeated olive green, rusted orange and mustard yellow, tucked into blue denim cuffed

[00:09:09] jeans and a pair of dirty Converse. My brother and I spent our days running in and out of that house,

[00:09:16] with forts and sleepovers being a regular thing with Ruben, my brother and me. The following year

[00:09:24] we moved out of that house and we went to different schools, slowly falling out of each

[00:09:29] other's lives. Now a sophomore in high school, my aunt is renovating the house for a new tenant

[00:09:36] and asks for our help with some projects. One day I was painting in the room my brother and

[00:09:42] I shared when we lived there. As the room grew darker, I rushed to finish cleaning out my paint

[00:09:48] brushes and rollers. I could hear my parents and aunt talking in other rooms as they painted and

[00:09:54] joked about how we needed to hurry up and finish before the ghosts came out. At the time my aunt

[00:10:01] did not have the electricity on so all we had were a few camping lanterns. We then sat down in the

[00:10:08] empty room to rest as my parents started telling stories about when we used to live there. We

[00:10:14] laughed about how I still somehow remembered living there as a five-year-old kid. As I sat

[00:10:20] there and listened to my parents, I quickly remembered Ruben, whom I hadn't thought about

[00:10:26] in years. Hell, I had almost completely forgotten about him. I quickly interrupted my mother as she

[00:10:33] was reminiscing about a barbecue she hosted. Whatever happened to my friend Ruben? My parents

[00:10:40] both looked at me with a small grin as my dad chuckled, Ruben, you stopped talking to him when

[00:10:47] we moved. Confused I replied, well I know that but why didn't we keep in touch? It's not like

[00:10:55] we moved to a different city, we moved a couple of miles away. My parents then looked at each

[00:11:02] other with a very confused look on their faces. They went on to say, when we lived here you had

[00:11:09] an imaginary friend you called Ruben. We played along but there was no Ruben. My aunt then froze

[00:11:17] and turned white. She then told us that after the last tenant moved out she looked into the history

[00:11:24] of the house. She told us that just earlier that day she learned that in the 70s a couple lived there

[00:11:32] who had two boys, one five and the other nine. The father was a police officer and left his gun on

[00:11:40] the nightstand. The older boy, Ryan, got a hold of the gun and accidentally shot and killed his

[00:11:47] younger brother, Ruben. My stomach fell to the ground as I watched my parents turn into ghosts.

[00:11:55] I then asked where did this happen? To which my aunt replied, it happened in this room. My parents

[00:12:05] froze as my mother said, this used to be your room. We then felt a drastic shift in the room

[00:12:12] as we all shot straight up and rushed to the door. We called it a night and hurried to our

[00:12:19] cars to leave. As I sat in the backseat watching the shadows from passing streetlights, I realized

[00:12:26] I was relieved to get away from the house. Away from some place I've always felt unwelcome. Of

[00:12:33] course I was dreading having to go back the next day to finish. As I crawled into bed I tried to

[00:12:41] forget what had happened as I drifted away, hoping I didn't have to go back to that house again.

[00:12:46] I'm a massage therapist and I've been working at the same place for over seven years. I work

[00:13:16] for a place that has many massage rooms and quite a few employees. Myself and other employees have

[00:13:24] seen and felt strange things here. I've seen a woman in white in the hall for a long time,

[00:13:29] the digital clock in my room would always be an hour ahead or an hour behind at the start of every

[00:13:35] shift, things like that. There was actually one day when I felt like my massage table was slowly

[00:13:43] being moved closer to the wall. See, I use a stool to sit on during certain parts of sessions so I

[00:13:51] always make sure it can easily move around the table. By the end of the day I couldn't get the

[00:13:58] stool around the head of the table because there was no room. This seems like it would be obvious

[00:14:05] right away but our rooms are small so the tables are often at an angle so that the head of the

[00:14:12] table is in a corner. I thought maybe the manager had decided to play a prank on me but he insisted

[00:14:19] that he hadn't. I asked several others who I'm closer with at work but none of them had done it.

[00:14:24] Another thing that happens is since we have dimming lights I will oftentimes have one

[00:14:32] light that will start strobing. Changing the light bulb makes no difference, the electrical

[00:14:39] has been checked and it was deemed fine. I noticed that usually if I asked it to stop it would. All

[00:14:49] this to say that I've never felt afraid, until recently that is. It was a Saturday morning and

[00:14:56] the only people at work besides myself were the manager and the front desk employee. Both of them

[00:15:03] were in the front part of the clinic. A door separates the front from the spa area where all

[00:15:09] of the massage and facial rooms are. Since it's before we open for the day the hall lights are on

[00:15:15] but all of the other massage rooms are dark. I went to grab sheets for my room, the cabinet is

[00:15:23] in front of a bigger room that we use for a couple's massages which has the door open but

[00:15:28] is completely black inside. While there I get this feeling that something is staring at me. Then in

[00:15:37] the most cliche horror movie voice, a woman's voice, it whispers my name. It's directly behind

[00:15:45] me. I turn around briefly to look into the room knowing that there shouldn't be anybody there and

[00:15:51] I see that there isn't. At that moment my lizard brain took over and I literally ran towards the

[00:15:58] front and through the door separating the spa side from the front. My manager said that he could hear

[00:16:03] me running and he was about to start running as well because he knew if I was running scared

[00:16:08] something wasn't right. I won't lie, I almost left the clinic completely. At that moment I felt

[00:16:15] nauseated and I couldn't get rid of the tingling feeling in my spine from the events before. I

[00:16:21] explained to both my manager and the girl working at the front desk what happened. Before I mentioned

[00:16:28] hearing or feeling anything the girl asked, did you feel something too? She had gone back there

[00:16:35] alone and she had a similar feeling of unease. The feeling of being watched but kept looking

[00:16:42] forward and felt that as long as she didn't look around she was going to be okay. My manager came

[00:16:49] back with me and we both felt this heaviness. I had him do some Reiki on me because I couldn't

[00:16:57] shake the queasy feeling like it was somehow attached to me. After that I felt a cooling

[00:17:03] sensation wash down my spine and the nausea went away. I've had a lot of paranormal experiences

[00:17:10] throughout my life but I've never felt such an intense fear before from anything. I didn't even

[00:17:16] think when I ran, it was just complete instinct. I do believe that with so many different people

[00:17:24] coming and going, both clients and employees, some of whom are very negative, that negative

[00:17:30] energy attracts something that feeds off of those feelings and fears. I do think that it tried to

[00:17:37] attach itself to me but I took precautions before leaving work and before even pulling into my own

[00:17:43] home's driveway. It's been about a month since this happened. For a while I was still feeling a dark

[00:17:50] presence there but I haven't for a bit now. I don't know if it's just some of my own precautions

[00:17:56] that I've taken since then or if it's finally left but I won't be letting my guard down anytime soon.

[00:18:03] While listening to one of your episodes, I got super excited when you mentioned Shades

[00:18:32] of Death Road. This is a local destination for my friends and me and we've even done a few podcasts

[00:18:40] about it and went ghost hunting there. Shades is located in Jenny Jump Forest, which has its own

[00:18:48] legend that we, oddly enough, learned while on a school field trip to Land of Make-Believe,

[00:18:53] a small amusement park nearby. The story goes that a young girl was being chased by someone

[00:19:00] and her father at the bottom of the cliff yelled, Jenny, jump! Now, legends say you can still hear

[00:19:10] him calling for her to jump. Most of the trips I've ever made there were uneventful except for

[00:19:17] us scaring ourselves. A friend in high school once told me the legend about a ghost girl that

[00:19:24] would appear to you if you parked under this bridge, turned off your car and honked three

[00:19:29] times. We did this and freaked out, even jumping out of the car thinking we saw something in the

[00:19:38] backseat. The car wouldn't start so we panicked even more. The whole time you're on the road,

[00:19:45] there's an uncomfortable unease. It's creepy and dark, pretty much no matter what time of the day

[00:19:53] you go. But the last time we went, I did have a few strange things happen that none of us could

[00:19:59] explain. First, we decided the best time to do it was on Mischief Night, the day before Halloween.

[00:20:08] Second, we chose the middle of Ghost Lake to set up. We brought an EMF detector that died as soon

[00:20:15] as we got onto the lake, which is divided in half by a narrow strip of grass and a small trail.

[00:20:21] We were also using a phone app that none of us thought would work as a spirit box. There was

[00:20:29] also a blue heron that just kept circling us the entire time we were there and that was creepy

[00:20:36] enough. In the group, I'm the biggest skeptic and everyone expected me to be the most disrespectful

[00:20:44] but I had a really heavy feeling the whole time we were there. So I stayed quiet and close to my

[00:20:52] buddy who is more on the sensitive side of the spiritual realm. We were talking about how I was

[00:20:59] experiencing a lot of weird things. At one point, we were in a circle asking for something to make

[00:21:06] contact with us and my legs randomly got weak and almost gave out on me. It felt like I was being

[00:21:14] pulled to the ground. Most of the audio stuff we picked up seemed targeted towards me. We split up

[00:21:22] for a little and two of our friends went deeper into the woods up the trail. We heard them laughing

[00:21:29] and being loud all the way up to a bend in the trail when it went silent. When they came back,

[00:21:36] they told us that all the bug, bird, and other animal sounds just stopped. Everything suddenly

[00:21:44] went dead silent as soon as they reached the bend. Meanwhile, I was freaking out that maybe,

[00:21:52] just maybe, I was starting to believe in the supernatural. Before we climbed through the brush

[00:21:59] to find the fairy cave, I got the nerve to ask my friend who is somewhat of a medium,

[00:22:06] do you feel or see any spirits? He said, yeah, over there and I flipped off the general area.

[00:22:16] My eyes did something I've never experienced before. It was like a strobe light or a glitch

[00:22:22] or something, I have no idea. But then I almost hit the ground face first, so I apologized.

[00:22:31] He left and we climbed up to the fairy cave, which is not on a trail. When we got to the cave,

[00:22:38] we started asking the spirit box app questions again. First it said, dig, then it said,

[00:22:46] decapitated. So we were like, what? Is this the lady who cut off her husband's head

[00:22:55] and buried it on the opposite side of the road? And it gave us a woman's name,

[00:23:01] but we could not confirm it to be the right name or not.

[00:23:05] On our way out, one of us decided to make fox sounds to see if we could get any to call back

[00:23:11] to us. And out of nowhere, we heard a loud plop in the lake. Assuming it was a fish,

[00:23:18] we started to look for them hopping out. And then we saw another giant splash,

[00:23:24] like something was throwing huge rocks into the lake off the small cliff above it. But nobody

[00:23:31] was up there. That happened probably four or five times as we made it back to our car to leave.

[00:23:59] When I was young, my mother, my two brothers and I moved in with my grandmother.

[00:24:04] It was a house that she had lived in for decades. This was around the same time that my father left

[00:24:09] my mother. The house was old and not particularly updated. Even if you walked into the place now,

[00:24:16] it looks like something out of the 70s or 80s and could definitely use a new coat of paint.

[00:24:22] In 2011, my grandmother passed inside the home. And around that same time, I moved into the

[00:24:29] basement room in order to have some privacy since my older brother had moved out of it.

[00:24:36] About a year later, I went through a very traumatic event. Shortly after that event,

[00:24:41] I started seeing a dark shadow figure in the back corner of my room. It was always in the

[00:24:47] direct opposite corner of the room to my bed and never seemed to get closer, like it was trapped

[00:24:55] leaning against the wall. I used to tell myself that it was my grandmother keeping an eye on me

[00:25:01] since my little brother had had an experience himself of seeing our grandmother before.

[00:25:07] But this figure didn't have any features that would make it my grandmother, nor did it speak

[00:25:12] to me. But it didn't feel angry or spiteful or anything. It was just there and terrifying for

[00:25:20] the first few times that I saw it. I eventually got used to seeing it at night when I would wake

[00:25:25] up and it stopped bothering me after a while. A few years later, I was dating my now husband

[00:25:33] and I slept over a lot while he was living with his mother since we were both still in college.

[00:25:39] I had been seeing the shadow figure consistently and I told him about it. But he had never seen

[00:25:46] the figure himself whenever he came over. The apartment that he lived in had this very strong

[00:25:52] paranormal presence and was also ironically in a basement. We often saw shadows moving around

[00:26:00] the furniture about the size of a cat, heard voices or had horrible nightmares, severely vivid ones.

[00:26:09] One such nightmare I felt myself wake up, sit up and look at the floor near me and my husband's bed.

[00:26:16] On the floor, there were two small demon-like creatures, one blue and one red. I could tell

[00:26:25] that the red one was malevolent and the blue one was good to an extent. The red one suddenly got

[00:26:32] the upper hand and killed the blue one. It then turned to me with wide eyes and grinned, its mouth

[00:26:39] full of teeth like a shark. It then sprinted at me, jumped up, held me down and crawled into my

[00:26:47] mouth. I shot up awake a few seconds later and decided that I should not sleep in the apartment

[00:26:54] for a few nights. The next night when I slept at home, I saw the shadow person in the corner

[00:27:00] of my room but it felt different somehow. Over the next few nights, I kept waking up and feeling

[00:27:08] off. The shadow figure kept getting closer and closer to my bed until one night I woke up and it

[00:27:14] was directly over me. I couldn't tell how but I knew that it was looking at me and it was not happy.

[00:27:22] I was terrified and immediately covered my head and tried to go back to sleep.

[00:27:27] The next thing I remember, I woke up to my alarm like nothing had happened.

[00:27:31] I kept seeing the shadow figure until my husband moved out of the apartment that he was in

[00:27:37] and then it suddenly just stopped showing up. I have no idea what caused it to show up or

[00:27:43] if it was my grandmother or not but maybe it knew something had attached itself to me in that home

[00:27:50] and it was not pleased with that fact. Maybe it was trying to help. All I can say for sure

[00:27:56] is that whatever was in my apartment was not friendly or safe and there was more than one

[00:28:03] entity that really enjoyed tormenting anybody who stayed there.

[00:28:31] This happened to me last week and is straight out of a horror flick.

[00:28:35] I have been living at this apartment complex for about 2 years with my boyfriend.

[00:28:40] I was pretty familiar with all my neighbors that lived in the same building as me.

[00:28:45] I said hello to basically everybody I passed. So anyways, I was walking to the group of mailboxes

[00:28:52] for my building and noticed the lawyer guy that lives above me out of the corner of my eye.

[00:28:58] I knew this man by the name of Mr. Moody. He was always wearing a suit and carried himself

[00:29:04] like somebody who had his life together. He also greeted me almost daily, only this time

[00:29:11] as I turned towards him to wave, I noticed something off. His clothes were tattered and dirty,

[00:29:19] he just looked disheveled in general. I stopped mid-wave when I noticed he had turned towards me

[00:29:26] and was just staring at me blankly. He began walking my way,

[00:29:32] he seemed off balance as he was staggering towards me.

[00:29:36] Mr. Moody, are you alright? Should I call somebody? I called out.

[00:29:42] I made sure to back away to keep a safe distance. He looked at me with blank eyes

[00:29:48] and a grin creeped across his face. His face looked literally lifeless.

[00:29:55] At that moment I thought, screw this and started running towards my apartment.

[00:30:02] He began to walk faster in my direction, I tripped over my own feet as I came closer to the stairwell.

[00:30:09] I looked behind me for just a moment as I picked myself up. He had picked up the pace but was still

[00:30:16] off balance and slow compared to me. I ran up the three flights of stairs and jingled for my apartment

[00:30:23] key. I bursted inside and locked the door and locked the deadbolt in place behind me.

[00:30:30] I was bracing myself against the door and I think I was hyperventilating because my boyfriend came

[00:30:36] running up to me. He kept asking what was wrong as I sat on the couch where he placed me.

[00:30:42] I didn't have the words at the moment to explain exactly what I had just seen. Hell, I didn't even

[00:30:49] know. I eventually relayed the event and told my boyfriend that he was acting crazy outside.

[00:30:57] We thought about calling the police but decided against it. I mean maybe he was sick or something.

[00:31:04] Let's just stay inside tonight and we'll check on him in the morning. We both agreed on the plan.

[00:31:11] I mean I was still in shock and weirded out. I was not about to drag out the situation further.

[00:31:20] The next morning there was a knock on the front door.

[00:31:24] I immediately checked the peephole and it was the nice middle-aged lady that lived beside me.

[00:31:30] I opened the door and greeted her a little confused. She never directly knocked on my door,

[00:31:37] she just occasionally left gift baskets on my doorstep during the holidays.

[00:31:43] She had a troubled look on her face and I began to feel concerned. She started with,

[00:31:50] Good morning hun, I came over here to see if you knew about what happened with Mr. Moody.

[00:31:55] You know, the man who lives upstairs, always wears a suit.

[00:32:00] I was taken aback by the question. I saw him briefly yesterday, that was all I said.

[00:32:09] Well, I got up early this morning before dawn and saw flashing red and blue lights on the street

[00:32:15] over my usual running route. I decided to investigate and asked one of the people in

[00:32:20] the neighborhood, standing outside watching, what was going on. He told me that Mr. Moody

[00:32:26] had come out of a house diagonal from his, covered in blood. He said that he saw he

[00:32:32] had a knife in his hand and his mouth seemed to be coated with blood. The neighbor was the one

[00:32:39] who called the cops I presume. When she finished talking, I slowly sunk down the wall outside of

[00:32:47] my apartment and sat there. I couldn't believe it. Mr. Moody had snapped? What caused his insanity?

[00:32:59] I had so many questions. And worst of all, I blamed myself for not calling the cops after the

[00:33:05] encounter. A few days later, the event came out in the newspapers. The title read,

[00:33:13] A well-respected lawyer kills two women inside their home.

[00:33:19] It went on to say that he gained entry through one of the main floor windows

[00:33:23] by throwing himself into it over and over until the glass gave away.

[00:33:29] When the detectives asked him why he did it, he was lucid. He said that aliens had controlled his

[00:33:36] body and made him do it. I'm serious about all of this. Experiencing a horrifying event like that

[00:33:44] has stuck with me. Sometimes I swear that I see Mr. Moody's blank and lifeless body

[00:33:51] out of the corner of my eye when I walk across a parking lot.

[00:33:54] So I've been seeing owls in my dreams a lot lately, though I can't say any of them have worn top hats.

[00:34:21] Hmm. Well, owls can mean a lot in dreams, a messenger of wisdom or something.

[00:34:27] Yeah.

[00:34:27] And as I know you know, the owls are not what they seem.

[00:34:31] You know, I did actually log a very Twin Peaks inspired dream in my dream journal a while back

[00:34:39] where I was in an elevator with a little man, but there were no owls.

[00:34:43] Love the little man. Honestly, this owl entity sounded a lot like Mothman to me.

[00:34:49] I wonder if the events in the story took place in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.

[00:34:54] Yeah, I thought the same thing. I agree with you. You know, even the artwork of Mothman

[00:34:59] looks a lot more like an owl than a moth to me.

[00:35:04] I think that's what our friend Michelle might have encountered, to be honest.

[00:35:08] And what about the top hat?

[00:35:10] Maybe Mothman just upped his fashion sense a bit.

[00:35:17] You know, as somewhat of a fashionista, I approve of that.

[00:35:20] Or maybe he was just taking over shadow person duties from the hat man.

[00:35:25] That's actually a funny idea.

[00:35:27] Like there's a paranormal office where they all clock in like a regular job,

[00:35:31] but hat man called out sick.

[00:35:33] Well, if it's a salary job, I wouldn't have shown up if I were Mothman.

[00:35:37] Also, why do so many of these things sound like a team of superheroes?

[00:35:41] Hat man, Mothman, Slenderman.

[00:35:45] Slenderman, yeah. Well, boys will be boys, as they say.

[00:35:48] Apparently.

[00:35:50] So we've talked about imaginary friends before,

[00:35:52] but the one about Reuben has me asking a lot of questions.

[00:35:56] Well, yeah, leaving a loaded gun on a nightstand with children around is pretty stupid.

[00:36:02] Yeah, one could say that.

[00:36:04] I think an easy solution for answers would be for the author to ask his brother

[00:36:09] if he remembers Reuben's brother since they were friends too.

[00:36:13] But the weird thing is that there's no mention of Reuben's brother dying as well.

[00:36:17] Yeah.

[00:36:17] Since like the tragedy took place in the 70s,

[00:36:20] he was more than likely still alive when all of this happened.

[00:36:23] Yeah, that's a good point.

[00:36:25] Christopher, we're going to need some answers from you, dude.

[00:36:28] Please and thank you.

[00:36:30] I actually lived in a small border town like for a couple of years when I was around eight.

[00:36:35] I could basically kick a football into Mexico from my backyard.

[00:36:38] It was pretty cool. I liked living down there.

[00:36:40] I'm learning so many things about you. I never knew.

[00:36:42] Yeah, it was awesome.

[00:36:44] But since we're talking about guns, that reminds me during that same period,

[00:36:49] I was over at my friend's house and he randomly took out one of his dad's rifles from the closet.

[00:36:55] Wait, what? Like when you were eight?

[00:36:58] Yeah, it's a core memory. I completely froze.

[00:37:01] I couldn't even tell him to put it away. I was so scared.

[00:37:05] And luckily his mom walked in like 20 seconds later and started screaming at him in Spanish.

[00:37:11] Thank God for that.

[00:37:12] Yeah. Shout out to all the feisty mamas who have saved my life.

[00:37:16] I don't have a whole lot to say about the shades of death road story, but Kyle, if you're listening,

[00:37:22] I got a level with you.

[00:37:24] You said everybody expected you to be disrespectful,

[00:37:27] but then you went ahead and confirmed their fears by flipping off the spirits.

[00:37:32] Yeah. Come on, Kyle.

[00:37:33] We can't take you anywhere.

[00:37:36] Let's see here. Okay. Yeah. So have you ever spent the night in a basement?

[00:37:42] Well, my little recording studio slash office is in the basement

[00:37:46] and for better or worse, I sleep down here most nights.

[00:37:50] You do? Why?

[00:37:51] I think you know why.

[00:37:53] Okay. I get you. The furnace in the basement from home alone is what always scared me off

[00:38:02] from ever wanting to be in a basement though. We don't actually have a lot of basements in

[00:38:07] California, which is something I learned from the movie Zodiac.

[00:38:11] Great movie.

[00:38:12] So I never really have to worry about that. Honestly, the first and maybe only time I ever

[00:38:18] set foot in a basement was to play a show when I was in one of my former bands. It was at a house

[00:38:23] show and I couldn't stay in there for very long because the stupid people that lived there kept

[00:38:29] cats in their basement.

[00:38:31] Oh yeah. Cats are your kryptonite.

[00:38:32] Yeah.

[00:38:33] And probably the reason you'll never be able to come to my house for as long as we live.

[00:38:38] Although I tell myself I got to go petless for at least a couple of years after the ones I have

[00:38:43] kicked the bucket.

[00:38:44] Yeah. You got to get it together. I just have a bad association with basements all around for me,

[00:38:51] I guess.

[00:38:52] Sounds like a typical case of basement phobia to me.

[00:38:56] Yeah, exactly that. So I don't want to make light of the story in any capacity,

[00:39:02] but I couldn't help but envision the little red and blue devil's pain and panic from the

[00:39:06] Disney movie Hercules when they described their nightmare.

[00:39:09] Yeah, I actually thought about that too.

[00:39:13] I only wanted to bring that up because I found it kind of interesting that they were the red and

[00:39:18] blue demons because pain and panic from the film were based on the Greek gods Deimos and Phobos

[00:39:27] who represented fear.

[00:39:28] Yeah. It said that most of our emotions stem from feelings of pleasure or pain. So I guess

[00:39:34] pain took the wheel in this case.

[00:39:36] Yeah, yeah. And not only that, but they were apparently sons of Aphrodite,

[00:39:42] the goddess of love and therefore represented the fear of loss.

[00:39:47] Oh, as in the loss of the author's grandmother.

[00:39:50] Yeah.

[00:39:50] Interesting. I gathered a lot of manifestation of trauma from that story too.

[00:39:55] Yeah, definitely. Now, I'm no scholar. This was just a rabbit hole that I slid down on

[00:40:01] the internet after reading their story, but it all kind of connects in an interesting and tragic way.

[00:40:06] Yeah, for sure. And I'm not a psychologist. I think we're good.

[00:40:10] Okay. So we have to talk about that Mr. Moody story?

[00:40:14] Yeah, that was more of a let's not meet story. And one of the few stories we've had where I

[00:40:19] think it's safe to speculate that mental illness is probably at play here.

[00:40:24] Definitely. And if aliens literally took control of this guy's mind,

[00:40:29] I sincerely hope they stop visiting us.

[00:40:32] Yeah. It also gave me American psycho vibes. A successful and well put together guy who

[00:40:39] snaps and starts murdering people.

[00:40:41] Yeah.

[00:40:41] Goes to show you, you can't judge a book by its cover, not even Christian Bale.

[00:40:45] Yeah. Ted Bundy, for example.

[00:40:47] Don't forget John Wayne Gacy. What a hunk.

[00:40:50] Speaking of Gacy, I totally understand morbid curiosity when it comes to true crime, but

[00:40:57] I think it's really poor taste to pay cash for something like his paintings

[00:41:03] and have it hanging up in your dining room.

[00:41:05] Yeah, or like the people that get Ted Bundy's bite marks tattooed on their bodies. I don't get it.

[00:41:12] But since you mentioned cash, I was actually thinking about something the other day that

[00:41:16] kind of jogged my memory. I know it's probably something that's easily researched, but it just

[00:41:20] popped into my mind. Whatever happened to the old designs of like the $100 bill before they

[00:41:26] made Ben Franklin's face really big and added that blue strip? You know what I mean?

[00:41:30] Like everything besides the dollar bill

[00:41:33] changed, and I haven't seen any of the original designs in well over a decade.

[00:41:38] You're right. They pretty much don't exist anymore.

[00:41:41] Yeah. I wonder if society just collectively swapped them out of the bank or something

[00:41:45] when we were kids and didn't know our parents had to go exchange their cash. I'm not sure.

[00:41:50] You would think we'd at least see a couple of them floating around still.

[00:41:54] My far-fetched theory that probably isn't true is that the Federal Reserve has printed so much

[00:42:01] money over the years, there's now like a one in a thousand chance to come across one of the old

[00:42:06] designs.

[00:42:07] Yeah, because with inflation, we're just printing so much money. It seems plausible. Let's go with

[00:42:13] that.

[00:42:14] All right. Case closed.

[00:42:15] Okay. Anyways, thanks everybody so much for listening. This week you have heard

[00:42:19] Owlman by Michelle, Terror in El Paso by Christopher, Haunted Job by Casey,

[00:42:25] Zombie Neighbor from Outer Space by Leia, Basements Can Be Terrifying by Anonymous,

[00:42:31] and finally Shades of Death Road by Kyle. All of the stories you've heard this week

[00:42:36] were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors.

[00:42:39] If you have a story to share, send it to stories at oddtrails.com and we'll take a look.

[00:42:43] Don't forget to sign up for our Patreon if you want to get access to

[00:42:46] ad-free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bit rate. For the best listening experience,

[00:42:51] just head over to patreon.com forward slash oddtrails to sign up and support the show today.

[00:42:56] And finally, don't forget to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts,

[00:42:59] Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast, Welcome to Paradise It Sucks,

[00:43:02] and the old time radio cast all at crypticcountypodcasts.com or wherever you get your

[00:43:06] podcasts. We'll see you guys next week. Everyone stay safe. Peace out.