The Living History Project | CreepCast

24:56He's written a bunch of other stuff too. Among, after we read Psychosis for Creepcast, a bunch of people recommended this one as a follow-up. Among Us. Amogus? You said Among. Among Amogus? Is that still popular? Nothing would make me happier. Could that get you pussy now, you think? Nothing would make me happier. It's like a retro meme. If something flew out of that fence at 100 miles an hour directly into you. I don't think so.

25:30Amogus. Cool. I bet you anything people are going to be like, I bet you there is. I don't think I can do the show anymore. If you're a good enough looking guy and you're going to like a 28-year-old girl, you probably could say Amogus and get you some pussy. All right. It's probably true. They probably think you're saying Amogus. It's ironic. What do you think? Amogus? You're horrible. You're actually... Amogus? Supernatural?

25:59I probably think you're saying Amogus. Oh, please fuck me. Okay. Please split me open. Amogus? Is that... Have you unironically said... to a girl before? No. No. I don't like the level of detail he had with that. No, me never. Me? This guy. I'm just a little guy. What are you looking up? I'm trying to find this one image. God, just can we read an empty prison? Is this freaking you out? No. None of those are freaking me out. Just gay porn. He's on the ass Jeeves. What do you think about that? Pretty cool, huh? Yeah, bing, safe sheriff. All right. An empty prison. But what's the actual name of...

26:54Matt Demerski. Matt Demerski. Matt Demerski's an empty prison. Matt Demerski. Sounds like a hockey player. A single day added on to my sentence met the difference between a normal jail and an unending nightmare. Hold on a second. Nick, what are you doing? He little goblin. He's fucking getting her up. Why are you going near the gate? I was checking on the camera. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead. Just stands up randomly. Walks up to the fence. No, he's sitting up. Hold this right there. He literally sat there. I sit there and I look at it. He's just like.

27:34He like crawls off. It's the fucking scariest thing. And he's in the creakiest, oldest, Polish chair they could find. On. On. something that's been well established as a demonic summoning sigil

27:53hello georgie all right empty prison come on let's get it no more messing around seriously a single day added on to my sentence meant the difference between a normal jail and the unending nightmare of him being a prison i was supposed to get 364 days that was the deal the judge didn't like my attitude whatever the hell that meant so he made it 365 boom one year was the minimum for prison my lawyer made a stink and a half but didn't do any good it's not his fault in fact he's the one who's going to release this statement to the press or leak it online if the guardian corrections group the gcg tries to get an injunction on us people have to know what happened at Pembina prison.

28:38I'm going to put it right out there and tell you that it was haunted. You think I'm joking, nods, or lying, but you have no idea. Haunted prisons aren't anything like you imagine. Those places that advertise themselves and give people tours or sick jokes compared to the real thing. It got so bad that you can actually look up GCG's official filings for Chapter 11. that shit put them out of business on their very first prison and right there on the briefs using an early statute of north dakota law from 1857 to file an insurance claim it says site of pembina prison confirmed by governor's office and two notary publics witnessing in person to be afflicted by the supernatural such that continued business is impossible i'm not telling you i okay what i I don't want to say I'm not gonna say it say it no I this is a show and you have to I don't give a fuck if it's a show fuck them fuck all you I'm not saying it is a horror podcast give me something I'm afraid why why are you doing that why the fuck did you do that you know it actually made me mad just then I got Nick Nick got scared but the way he got scared the way he got scared and I'm not kidding.

29:58I saw him. He went.

30:07It was like Freddie Mercury. Demon. Get back, demon. I thought it was the possum getting in the vent or something.

30:22I'm sorry. Did the ghost of my grandfather just show up in the room with us. Oh my god. The skeleton. The skeleton.

30:38The setting, it's fucked up because it's just like, I'd say it's a haunting and I just like, you kind of like settle it in but then I just keep like, I'm like, we're in a very scary area right now. I keep getting in my head about it. What did you see over there that freaked you out? Okay, so this was too bright. I looked over and then I like, you know when the image little dots. Yeah, so I go over like that and it looked like a white bald head in there. That's what I keep seeing out of that right corner. Yeah. That's the demon. Shut the fuck up. Maybe the possum's getting into the vans.

31:19You think so? Is that serious? Nah.

31:28oh my god are you serious let's just fucking keep reading i'm gonna keep reading any more comments from the peanut gallery before we continue site of pembina prison confirmed by governor's office and two notary publics witnessing in person to be afflicted by the supernatural such that continued business is impossible. It wasn't the first time the prison was closed for that reason either. The leeches kept buying it and reopening it, hoping to make a buck off the common man. And I was shoved into that hellhole without knowing the history even a single bit. Don't get me wrong, the building itself wasn't so bad, especially for something straight out of 1853.

32:10It was a big stone cube that was squat, heavy, and cramped, but way less sealed off than modern prisons. We could see a lot of the cells around us. There was only one main hallway per floor, and we were close enough to pass things between the bars and have some real human interaction. Could have been worse. There were five floors in capacity for 500 prisoners. When I first got there, I had a bunch of cellmates, and I heard there were 2 ,000 guys locked up, and I believed it, but that soon changed. I didn't talk to anyone for the first three weeks. never been a real prison before and i was messed up over it i didn't want to accept that i would be in that place and stuck with three other guys and myself for an entire year the whole prison seemed full of feral men bottom floor would start screaming and hollering and panicking in the middle of the night all at once we were on the top floor but we could hear their screams echoing through the open old layout like they were right there with us just thought the prisoners on the bottom floor were all nuts until the guards weren't there to wake us up the first day of my fourth week.

33:19When I woke up in my corner without some asshole guard banging on the bars of our cell, I finally had to talk. I asked one of my cellmates, Dante, what was going on, and I'll never forget the fear in his voice as he said something that should have made us all incredibly happy. The guards are all gone, man. Prisoners were talking quietly between the cells and loudly between the floors through various whispers and shouts. But the most we could figure out was that something on the first floor had made them all quit in protest. Sure, must have been the crazy screaming like that during the night, right?

33:54Except none of us could get any word from the bottom floor. It was dead silent down there. The guys on the second called out for hours. Someone was down there, they said, because they could hear shuffling footsteps walking around at random every so often, but whoever it was never said a single word. That was the first time Dante mentioned the crazy stories from the first floor. He muttered that he hoped none of that was true, but when I asked about it, he just shook his head. Nothing, man. None of it ever made sense. We were a little worried as the day wore on and nobody came to let us out for breakfast, and then nobody came to let us out for lunch.

34:34The time we usually got to spend outside in the yard came and went and people began getting restless in the cell to our left dante's friend will began telling guys to pass the word that we should all calm down and start sharing any food we had to hold away i remember asking dante is it really that bad they've denied meals in yard time for a day or two before but the other two guys in our cell didn't look convinced one of them said but not like this they made damn sure we knew what they did they never just up and left someone handed us pieces of crusty old bread through the bars. It was much appreciated.

35:10The new guards didn't show up for work for another full day. We got plenty of yard time that day from these new guys, but they seemed more confused than us. We all watched from a distance as Will asked a guard about what happened. The guard shrugged. I don't know. GCG was paying a premium for fast tires, so I signed up. What about the prisoners on the first floor? We could still hear them shuffling around down there. We looked on the way out of the yard and we couldn't see anyone. Huh. Nobody in there. They all got transferred. Transferred? The hell that mean? It means DOCR took him back. Returned to state custody since the company couldn't handle him.

35:50That made sense. If the floor had been full of nut jobs, then North Dakota's first local private prison company hardly had the experience to handle them. But these news guys didn't even have the skills to handle us. There were half as many guards as before and they didn't know the routines or who the dangerous ones were among us. As a result, they were distant, scared, forceful. All except one guy. Kellen. Kellen wasn't the first guard to treat us like human beings, but by then he was the only one around. He traded jokes while in the yard, never hit us, and looked us in the eyes when he talked.

36:25He went and found some paperwork to confirm the crazies had actually been transferred, but it took three months to get that info out of GCG. By the time he told us he'd heard back, we sort of forgotten the whole thing. Two nights later, maybe two hours passed lights out. Guys on the second floor began screaming. Dante leapt up and fell on one of our cellmates by accident before shouting, Shit! Shit! Must be a fire! Other guys in our row began banging on the bars and shouting for guards but the uniforms charged past and headed downstairs without talking to us we could hear them shouting orders down below and then yelling in confusion prisoner screams were clear coming from the second it sounded like they were terrified of something in particular and wanted help sounds of gates being slammed and people running reached us after about 10 minutes of shouting then it was silent sat in the dark waiting listening until morning when the new shift came in they were surprised and confused.

37:22Kellan came by to ask what had happened. We told him what we knew, but he'd shown up and found open gates and an empty second floor. There was no indication what had happened, but he promised to check with corporate and figure out if the absent prisoners had all been rapidly transferred again. Dante gripped the bars and made sure Kellan was looking at him. Please find out who the hell is walking around down there at night. Kellan blinked at him. I mean, I'm day shift, so I don't know what I can do, but what do you mean? The prisoners are gone. Dante told him fiercely, but quietly. But the guys on the third floor said they still hear someone.

37:56Maybe two or three of someone's shuffling their feet every hour or so until morning. I guess I could go look right now. Dante reached through the bars and grabbed his uniform, something which usually got us a beating. Hear me. Do not go in there by yourself. Stay in the stairwell unless someone's with you. Kellen nodded fearfully. It looked like he finally understood how spooked we were. He waved another guard off, Dante let go. Nothing more came of it for a whole season. The night shift had quit, and more guards got hired at an even higher pay. Callan in another uniform scoped out the first two floors, but found nothing.

38:33Dante thought it was because they were looking during the day, but he wasn't about to ask our only friend to risk himself. It was maybe three months later. Yeah, I was halfway through my sentence, and I had taken up drawings, so I had a pen and paper. when we woke up in the middle of the night everyone on the third floor screaming in absolute panic. I do like this recurring thing. It's almost like water rising up through the other floors. And there's no... I mean, it sounds like there's a cover-up with them saying everyone was transferred. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's like there's this evil approaching getting closer.

39:06This time we were less scared during the event itself. Will offered a guard racing past 500 bucks from his commissary account if the man would come back and tell them what was going on. Dante listened intently, trying to hear individual screams from the third floor over everyone else's shouting in confusion, down any words he thought he had heard. But I wrote down, Jesus Christ, killing him, God, let us out, coming this way. We weren't as scared when it was happening because we'd lived through it twice before, but this time, long-term fear was much deeper. Now we knew for sure that it was going to happen again, and any prisoners that had the means began lawyering up and doing everything they could to transfer to other prisons, even if it meant worse conditions.

39:55The problem was, the North Dakota prison system was already overflowing, which was the whole reason GCG got started in the first place. So every guy that got out meant it was that much harder for the rest of us. Both of our cellmates transferred, giving us more space, so that was nice, but it was small consolation. Apparently word had started to spread on the outside and GCG solution instead of paying the guards even more was to stop having a night shift at all except for just one poor guy. Helen was a bit miffed he hadn't gotten a raise out of the whole thing but we started to believe us something was going on.

40:33By then he'd been around a while and he knew we weren't bullshitters. Too many of the other prisoners had told him they'd heard something walking around the first second and third floors at random during the night it was just a few steps sometimes as many as 20 but it only happened every so often and only once it had been long enough that you thought it had stopped for good one guy on the fourth floor said he'd heard a full run from one end of the third floor hallway to the other clear enough that he expected a guard to come charging up the stairwell nobody had appeared slid his wrist and got transferred out on medical leave the next day, so we took him serious.

41:11All that was enough to get Kellen to start doing some research on the outside. He came to us in the seventh month of my sentence with a pale face. Beside us at the bars, Will asked, What's the word? Kellen seemed grim. A lot of bullshit out there. But this place is mentioned a lot. It's been closed before, but I keep getting stonewalled when I ask for historical documents. The thing is, I don't think the prison itself is the problem. Get this. Pulled out a notepad for reference. Two Canadian priests, Father Norbert Proventure and Sevier Dumlin, visited Pembina in 1818, before it was an even official township.

41:49That was back then, when the Hudson's Bay Company was big around these parts. That's how long ago it was. Pembina was the biggest town in North Dakota then, so the trading post was full. So the priest chose to sleep outside by where the Pembina River meets the Red River. The folktale has it that The vision of a rotting woman came in the night and stole Provencher's life. The two men bartered with her to split the remaining life between them. Good sounding, both to live only 35 more years instead of the 70 Sevier had left. Sevier got an extra month and 20 days as a gift from his friend for his sacrifice.

42:23He paused as if we might guess the obvious outcome. They both died 35 years later. A new Pembina prison had a horrible problem, but that didn't mean I had to believe everything. Let me guess. A month and 20 days apart. Kellen nodded. Conte snorted. It's true, dude. Kellen insisted. The dates of death are right there on Wikipedia. But get this. 35 years later, after 1818 made their death year 1853, the year this prison was built. At the place they camped that night? By the meetings of the rivers? I didn't know what it meant, but I was beginning to feel very uneasy. It's right here, isn't it? He was dead serious.

43:01I think there's some shit here. Ancient shit. I asked a guy I know He's got Chippewa relatives over at Turtle Mountain They know the history of the Red River better than anyone else He said his uncle told him never to sleep at the meeting of the Red River And the Pembina River He said something lives here Under the ground It awakens with the changing of the seasons That's cool That's pretty sick I know we bring it up constantly But final prayer Some great thing underground But it's like it's physically rising through the levels of the prison getting people, yeah. That's pretty cool. We were silent for a beat after that.

43:37It was folktale nonsense, but it was as good a theory as any. Whatever it was, it was going to come back. It wasn't friendly. Will talked to Kellen for another few minutes. Dante was silent. After he was gone, I asked him, What's wrong? He sat on one of the now unused bunks and told me, I got another five years in here. I got no money for a lawyer. Your sentence will be up before it reaches us and I'll be here alone. Will it? There's no way to be sure. It'll be back in two months for the fourth floor and then three months after that for us. I can get out a week before or a day too late. Doesn't seem to be exact.

44:16Just looked at the floor. What I mean is I do hope you get out of here before it comes. Oh. I wasn't sure what else to say after that so I just sat in my corner like I always did. It wasn't too much after that that we heard GCG was going under. A mad rush of transfers had pissed off the state and lost the company a vital contract for a second location, and investors had pulled out or something. The number of guards was cut, then slashed, and Kellan took a pay hit to stay on as the only guy left on the day shift. There's only two prisoners left on the fourth floor. He told the twenty of us remaining as the general week we expected it to happen approached.

44:52I feel like I should stay late just to see what the hell is going to go on down here. but the former guards I asked about it all terrified as hell and refused to talk. Some got violent just because I asked. It's cool. You got a kid at home. Don't be here for it. Twenty of us left on the fifth floor, sat in our cells once night fell, strained and listening. Monday night, nothing happened. Two guys down below occasionally shouted up to us that everything was clear. Tuesday night, nothing happened. The strain was growing though, and we could sometimes hear them breathing rapidly down there. We could only imagine the adrenaline rushing through them every minute until dawn.

45:32On Wednesday night, nothing happened. Yet, something had changed in the air. The prism was much quieter now that 2 ,000 men had become 22, and I thought I could feel a subtle sort of heartbeat in the air, pounding against reality like it was a thin sheet of paper. It's just your imagination. None of us were willing to speak louder than that. Thursday night, that heartbeat became a feeling of footsteps approaching from a great distance. Guys? Will shouted from a cell. You good down there? Still here. One responded from down below. But I can feel it. It's at the door. It's knocking. What the hell is that supposed to mean?

46:15The man below did not respond. Friday night, that was the night it would happen. All day, the two guys on fourth pulled and clanged on their bars, begging to be let out. Kellen was torn. After two hours of listening to that pleading, he came up with an idea. He transferred both of them up to our floor. If nobody's on four, then we'll be safe, right? Out loud, we agreed, but we were kidding ourselves. When the night guard showed up, he freaked and took the two men back down. He said out loud what we were all thinking. If nobody's on four, then just come right to five. They'll just come right to five and get us all.

46:52What the hell was Killin thinking? I like how they're so like assured this thing's gonna happen. The guard's like, we gotta feed him to it. These two gotta go down there. We had to listen to hours of sobbing that evening. It was the hardest trial of my life. I wanted to call out to the night guard. I wanted to ask him to get those men out of there. But if I did, I knew whatever was coming. and would find all of us instead. The moment it happened was like a cold hand on my shoulder. What's going on down there? Dante shouted. The man was not sobbing, called back. It's changing. Will demanded. What's happening?

47:32Tell us. It's red. Red? It's red. What's red? Will yelled insistently. God damn it, what's red? He stared down the hallway at the night guard, who stood listening with fear. The screaming began a few seconds later. This time, only one floor above, we could clearly hear their every word. The sobbing prisoner shrieked. It's there! It's there! The man who'd been communicating with us began incoherently raging with fear against his bars. Then, strangely, he stopped. The twenty of us clung to our bars, unable to help, unable to flee. Many of us cried, but we were otherwise silent. or to yell would be to drown out the last words of the men below but they were eerily quiet for nearly two hours we waited in strained silence as random footsteps traversed the fourth floor every so often what was happening for the first time victims of whatever was going on down below had chosen to be quiet instead of yelling for help how would that make things different long last the sobbing man broke the silence oh my god it's coming your way shut up it'll see you You strapped it.

48:39Hit your bars. The sound of clinging echoed up the stairwell. The sobbing man said with terror, It knows. It knows. Jesus Christ, do something. We were no longer silent. We echoed that sentiment loudly and repeatedly to the guard. Do something. Just stood there, literally quaking in his boots. Will screamed at him. Snap out of it. The other guards and prisoners got away. You can too. Whatever it is, it won't follow you if you let them out and leave. I shouted, They're going to die down there. Dante threw his shoe and the impact finally snapped the man out of his tear. The guard ran to the stairwell and descended.

49:14The first thing we heard him say was a taken back. Mary, the Father of Christ. Sopping man again. Over here, for God's sakes, let us out! The other prisoner wasn't talking for some reason. He'd hear his gasping terror, but that too went quiet. Then we heard a buzzer, and all the gates on four slammed loudly open. Sounds of panting, running, and someone dragging something followed. The prison went silent. Just like that, we were alone again. The formerly crowded prison now felt terrifyingly large and empty, with only 20 of us and no guards. That night, the unmistakable sound of footsteps echoed from down below.

49:51I counted time as best I could. Forty minutes. Someone took three steps out of his cell and into the hallway. An hour and six minutes. Someone ran ten steps along the hallway and stopped abruptly. Twenty-eight minutes. footsteps approached the stairwell but then turned into a cell and went silent thing was whoever it was sounded barefoot starting and stopping locations did not match where they ended was often nowhere near where they began again later that's pretty all the little like clues we get of this thing's terrifying that we don't see it but we hear people talking about it but i also love that like whatever happens to these people they're moving somewhere down there but it's almost like they're floating in between locations or somewhere they're very quiet then they get loud and stuff by the time dawn came we were scared into motionless terrified silence and it took kellen's arrival for us to begin stirring again with gcg and bankruptcy court we no longer had a night guard at all if it came for us there would be nobody to let us out of ourselves like everyone else we hardly talked hardly ate each passing day was a grain of sand falling through an hourglass marking our executions.

51:00Our fellows began confessing to crimes they hadn't even committed just to get transferred to Supermax out of state. The only option left. Well, that, suicide attempts. One by one, Kellen escorted our drag guys out of our floor. 20 became 15, then 10. Then it was just me and Dante, with Will still in the cell to our left. Three of us and Kellen, four men waiting for doom. We sat playing card games in the weeks leading up to it. It would be one full year for me in that place, but I could swear I'd spent a lifetime in that cell. I couldn't think, couldn't remember life before. Couldn't imagine surviving after.

51:39Every day, I prayed for a transfer to come in, but North Dakota had gotten sick of our shit. The judges had stopped hearing cases from him being a prison. They didn't know there were only three of us left. Nobody knew. contacted the media we phoned the governor's office we made a ruckus that was worse than nobody knowing turned out nobody cared two there was nobody higher up at the gcg following the situation and kelling couldn't get anybody on the phone payroll meaning just his paycheck was being handled by a third party disbursement company that couldn't answer questions about ongoing proceedings.

52:18The week approached. On Monday night, nothing happened. We were like statues in our cells, alone, waiting for a sign of the executioner's approach. When dawn came, we sighed and began moving again. Dante asked, Can you get out on Friday? I nodded. If things went like before, I'd be released the day of. As long as I left before sundown, I'd be alright. Tuesday night, nothing happened. Two for two. Just one more. One more day. Sat through the darkness until... No. The feeling of the prison had changed around us. A subtle heartbeat seemed to pulse against our faces and ears and eyes. It had come a day earlier in the week than the last time.

53:02That morning, Will patted my arm as we both leaned out the bars. Sorry, man. Dante shook his head angrily. I wasn't going to get out in time. On Wednesday night, the heartbeat became the sound of footsteps approaching from some unfathomable distance. I think I stood at the bars of our cells that entire day. Fingers wrapped around metal with force to match the tension in the air and in our minds. This couldn't happen. This wouldn't happen. My lawyer would walk in and tell me he'd gotten the judge's unfair addition of an extra day removed. One day. One damn day. Even if I'd spent the whole year in this prison, one day still meant life or death.

53:42Let me out. Let me the hell out for God's sake. But nobody cared. Nobody would listen. I'd like to tell you that Kellan stayed late that night. I'd like to tell you that when the entire floor began to glow red, hallways, the cells, the stone itself, as whatever ungodly abomination in the earth began to wake upon the changing of the season as distant footsteps became a traveler at the door of our minds i'd like to tell you that kellen was there hit the button open the gates and let us all out i'd like to tell you that i didn't see anything that i'm not permanently a broken man i didn't claw at the walls of my cell as it approached slowly moving a few steps every 20 to 70 minutes i'd like to tell you that all three of us were able to run away and escape that horror upon reality with its rotting hands and blind eyes radiating crimson light as it searched for us at random but i can't give you a satisfying end to this story the disbursement company fired kellen and changed the locks on the property according to their paperwork all the prisoners had been moved and they thought he'd been getting paid for guarding an empty prison they left us in there for 11 days before the heir was found We spent 11 nights with that thing.

55:02For 11 days, we starved. For 11 nights, we sat absolutely still, not daring to move or breathe or even look left or right. We knew where we were, generally. We stood right outside ourselves for hours, and sometimes walked right through the bars and grasped at the beds around us, daring us to make even the slightest motion. when you've spent six hours staring into the blind crimson eyes of a rotting demon unable to blink your eyes for fear that it will hear the air your lashes move when you've seen what i've seen the worlds it's walked reflected in hellish red you'll understand no one cares i'd like to tell you that kellen actually existed i'd like to tell you we had a friend among the guards that wasn't all bad i'd like to tell you i wasn't traumatized by the hell I went through being left to rot and left to die is nothing more than a number on some corporation's books but no one cares end of story that was fun I like that that was a good one that's a really cool idea that there's a there's like a cursed prison that this thing rises up through I also like to mention the end that Kelton's not real that's kind of just like oh this is how we found out our information but that's not no one actually cared about us there was no one there to help us out in the midst of this yeah it was uh really i mean like the build-up was really really nice really fucking creepy and it's like it's like prowling around this thing slowly moving looking for people like it's come to collect its due of anyone who camps by the river and the prisoners count as people that are camping but it's slow and it takes its time to move and it can float around and stuff like that i think that's really cool yeah i think that like a really great payoff Great build up to the same that I felt whenever we read a psychosis and stuff.

56:50Kind of like a weird conspiracy thing. Has there ever been like the GDC in this? You know, like in government documents, people say there's like, oh, there's aliens and stuff. Has there ever been anything with like paranormal stuff in official documents? I think so. Has there? No. Oh, I didn't know that. Well, you mean, what do you mean by paranormal stuff? Like investigation into the paranormal? Yes. Confirmed like ghost exists? No. Right, right, right. But there's stuff like, like if you look at a bunch of the old CIA files, there was a ton of stuff back around like the 60s and 70s where they did experiments to try to understand if there was something to like telepathy.

57:27So they got like a bunch of professional telepathics and like had them conduct a bunch of experiments. They did a bunch of experiments with hallucinogenics to see if people were able to like astrally project and stuff like that. so there was one called Operation Sunbeam I believe it was where they gave people like LSD and stuff like that and they called it controlling where they would try to pilot where they were projecting themselves to is that what that movie The Men Who Stare at Goats was based about? Not actually projecting like that but it's a similar thing that was during World War II so that was OSS that was like pre-experiments oh okay but same idea but there are some crazy stories from Operation Sunbeam where like people reported that they found the Ark of the Covenant in a cave in the Middle East and people who reported...

58:16What about the fucking Middle East Giants or whatever? What the fuck was that about? Remember that one? The Afghanistan Giants. Yep. Giants of Kandar, I think it was. Do people say, is that a meme or is that like a... It comes from... So there's the stories of Biblical Giants and stuff like that, which is my... You know, if you watch. I've made a bunch of videos and references to Biblical Giants and stuff like that. I think they're really interesting topic. But the rumor is that graves and like sites of them exist in the Middle East that have been covered up by like governments. And there's been a bunch of political interests to try to keep information of them secret.

58:51And that there's passageways in the mountains in like Iraq and Afghanistan leads down to places where they could still exist. So the story is, in 2012, I believe there was a group of rangers who got into combat with something and a bunch of them were killed. And it's supposedly a cover up that they were searching in caves for insurgents and ran into a giant that killed several of them uh until eventually the area was like blown to bits and then the whole thing kept hush hush but the story is that a group of army rangers ran into a giant in afghanistan um interesting there's a there's a i mean that's not an official document that's more of like a fun conspiracy theory thing but there are official documents with the cia and like mk ultra for example most of mk ultra was if you could like change someone's mind and like make them into the perfect soldier through psychotropics and like breaking them down with drugs and stuff like that.

59:39There was a bunch of stuff done there to see if you could basically make people be telepathic. Part of MKUltra was giving LSD to dolphins to see if they could learn to communicate with humans off of that. That must have been fun for the dolphins. Yeah, they actually started speaking in a new cadence that no other dolphins would amongst themselves. So it seems they did create their own communication with each other. What are you doing?

1:00:07yeah we gotta believe that all right so one final story tonight yeah uh we're reading my students submitted the most disturbing living history project i've ever seen and this is posted by gretel cat uh we haven't read anything from gretel cat before it looks like they only have two stories ever posted to no sleep and it was like eight or nine years ago okay but this story has 24 000 upvotes wow okay yeah a bunch of people were super into this so it seems they had a couple of bangers and then just dropped off and then dipped i love when people do that so we'll leave the link in the description gretel cat if you somehow watch this and you want to make more stories here's your audience keep writing keep writing but for now into their story one of my least favorite parts about being obviously everyone will be linked in the description if you want to support the artist please do they deserve it right one of my least favorite parts about being a middle school history teacher is the bullshit living history assignments we give at the end of every school year.

1:01:01Kids are supposed to sit with their grandparents, videotape, voice record, or transcribe their oldest memories for posterity and for an easy way to bring up their GPA. I've been doing this for 17 years, and when I collected the projects this time around, I assumed they would be as dull, if not duller, than usual. This had not been a particularly bright class. So I went home, poured myself a glass of wine, and prepared for a long night of, I only owned two pairs of pants when I was your age, and my brother got beat with a newspaper for hitting a baseball into a neighbor's yard. And of course, these projects were peppered with innocent, old-person comments that were so horribly sexist and racist, you just had to laugh.

1:01:43Now, I had a girl in my class whom I will call Olivia. She was pudgy, quiet, and proved herself a consistent B student. I expected a man just dogging this kid. You're not honest. I expected her project to be as unremarkable as her. Would you consider that honest? We're getting a little below the belt now. A little below the belt. Is that... How does... Why did both of you turn and look at the same time? Oh, he looked... Look at what? You looked up there and then Nick spun around in his chair really quick. Oh, I didn't look up there. I was just looking at that light off the... It's from the deal.

1:02:25I was just looking up there. Okay. Also, how does that look? Did you turn your screen brightness up? You can't even tell. You can't really? On those? Not on this one. On some of them, it keeps lowering, so I have to keep tapping it up. I just look over for a second. It looks like the sun was on your face. My bad. I expected her project to be as unremarkable as her, and perhaps that's why I was so profoundly disturbed by what I witnessed that night. Olivia had submitted two discs for some reason, so I began with the one marked interview. My screen hiccuped twice before a grainy image of a living room came into view.

1:03:00The place was a hoarder's hell. Olivia was curled up in an armchair, clutching a notebook and looking like a scared animal. Across from her sat a man with a somber countenance, smoking a cigarette and staring at her expectantly. Go ahead. The woman's voice whispered from behind the camera. Olivia's owlish eyes flashed towards the screen, back to the man. I am here with my great-uncle Stephen. She began almost inaudibly. He's going to tell us about his oldest memories from being in the army. Great Uncle Stephen looked like he'd rather be in the damn trench at the moment, but he waited patiently for the questions to begin.

1:03:37Not surprisingly, Olivia read verbatim from the suggested question sheet I had handed out to the students. He answered her curtly. Once or twice, I heard her mother whisper, Speak up, Olivia. From behind the camera. Typical boring shit. So I was intrigued when Olivia sat down the notebook and asked, Did you like being in the army? That was totally off script. Great Uncle Stephen admitted a chain smoker's wheeze. Nope. Glad to get out of my town, though. Where did you go? Balkans. Uh-huh. I doubt she knew what the Balkans were, and my suspicion was confirmed when she asked, Was Balkans very different from here?

1:04:19Yes. Mom cleared her throat from behind the camera, perhaps encouraging Great Uncle Stephen to be a little more forthcoming. But Olivia seemed genuinely interested. Uncle Stephen, what is your very worst memory from the army? I'm starting to see why she's a beast. Just chowing down double stuffed Oreos while she's asking these questions. She's taking off tops and putting them together. Quadruple stuffed Uncle Stephen.

1:04:48Dipping them in water. You're like, God. water's favorite cookie like it's a hot dog eating contest exactly that's not the saying the old man crushed his cigarette in the ashtray and then slowly lifted himself out of his chair i'll be back camera cut off then the screen flashed back on everything was the same except great uncle steven had several pieces of paper and plastic sleeves laid atop all the crap sitting on his coffee table. One he held in his hand. I was a kid when I was enlisted, he said, looking at Olivia. Your brother's age. Olivia nodded. I never saw combat. Both of my deployments were to cities in Eastern Europe that had been destroyed by civil wars.

1:05:31Everything was a mess. I felt like a janitor's for Fox City. Great Uncle Stephen sighed and looked at his paper. My unit was assigned to a school that had been obliterated by all the violence. Broken windows, caved in rooms, and for some reason, the part that got me was the most was the school had been like this for years before we got there. No one had lifted a finger to fix it. I saw kids walk by it on the way to go beg for money for whatever shit they did. Cameron dipped towards the floor. I heard Mom whisper harshly to Great Uncle Steven. I couldn't make out what she was saying. that it wasn't hard to imagine.

1:06:11You want me to hear the goddamn story, I'm not. Heard him barking response. Then you better let me tell her how I want it. Mom? Please stop interrupting. Are you presenting this in front of the class? No, Mom, we're just handing it to the teacher. I'm sure he's heard worse shit before. Great Uncle Steven contributed helpfully. It wasn't a he, as a matter of fact, but other than that, the statement was accurate. The camera was lifted, and after a couple of blurry focus adjustments, the shot was the same as before. I'm talking too much anyway. I lifted the piece of paper in his hand close to his face.

1:06:45In the basement, I found this letter. I didn't know what it said, but I had a buddy of mine translated. So, I'm gonna read it now, and I'll tell you what I saw in the basement. Chill ran down my spine. Mom zoomed in to Great Uncle Stephen in his letter. His palsied hands trembled as he held up the paper. this is what he read here sir i never loved my country so many of these skirmishes are born from patriotism a power struggle for the shards of a once great empire and i do not care what name my home has on a map it's finding a senseless i stay as far away from it as i can it was not these attacks and disorganized violence that took the lives of my wife and child it was illness mercifully and having quickly for the baby not just suffered for longer i watched in horror knowing i could do nothing for them my only solace is that i was there for them every step of the way stopped going to work one day and no one came after me i doubt they noticed i was gone since the school was simply across the field visible from my window it would have been easy to go for a few hours each day and come home quickly to care for them.

1:08:01What was the point? All I did was clean floors. I was as useless to the world as I was to my family. I tried to take Nadja to the hospital, but the journey was too long and taxing. I brought her home and she died that night. After Nadja and the baby were gone, well, I don't remember much. I didn't leave my hovel, barely ate and slept, thought many times of taking my own life. Emptying though it was, I felt paralyzed by my own helplessness. The one thing that kept me sane was my radio. I never turned it off once. Even though I didn't listen to the words being said, in fact the channel I got the clearest was in English, I think, which I don't speak a lick of, but the voices, the music, the true knowledge that life existed beyond this violent city sustained me.

1:08:50I have no idea how long passed before I saw the light of day again. I was dizzy from hunger, so finding food was my priority. My radio came with me, of course, since I first hold myself up. It has gone everywhere with me. It talks to me as I sleep and as I wake. I don't know what it's saying, but now I would die without it. Once I had some water and food, it occurred to me that the only thing left to do was to go back to work, so I did. The following morning, I simply returned to the school where I was a janitor and got back to work. Nobody made a big deal out of it. Like I said, Nadja had been sick a long time, and those who worked at the school knew it.

1:09:31I appreciate that no one had pestered me to come back to work during the hardest days of my life. The teachers never said much to me, but we smiled at each other in the halls, and that mutual respect was perhaps the reason I decided to come back in all. The place had gone to the dogs without me, so I simply grab my broom and rags from my closet and set to cleaning. Everyone is grateful to have me back, I know, and the best part is that nobody minds my radio. I bring it with me everywhere to keep the volume low enough not to disrupt the students. No one has ever complained. In fact, I suspect they like it.

1:10:07The schoolhouse is not very big, but does require a lot of maintenance. Floors are always sticky and stained, so I spend most of my time mopping. Kids make messes. I guess that's why I'm still in business. Sometimes I have to move things around to make sure I get every spot on the floor beautiful and clean, but I take pride in that. And the repairs. School always needs tune-ups here and there, and I'm happy to help. Some days I'm reconstructing a desk that broke as I whistle along with the radio. Other times I handle more serious, structural issues. Days when I have work like this, I feel truly instrumental, like a cog in a larger machine.

1:10:46how could this school survive without me took me a long time but i once again know that i have purpose there is a larder behind the school that is full of preserved food only with payment i'm allowed to take as much food as i need that arrangement's fine what would i do with money anyway i used to bring the food back to my home just one field away from the school but when i started sleeping in the basement no one seemed to notice the school is special to me and I cannot leave it unguarded. When I am besieged with memories of my wife and baby, turn up the volume on the radio to drown out such thoughts.

1:11:23It works for me every time, except this morning. Because this morning, I woke up in dead silence. I frantically examined the radio to see what had happened. I honestly cannot tell how many days in a row I've been using it. did it simply live out its life and die naturally i spent the entire day trying to fix it most of this time i've been crying i'm losing my mind without it i've given myself until sundown if i cannot fix it by then i'm going to take my life i'm writing this because the sunlight's starting to die and i know what my fate shall be thought about taking one last walk through the halls of my school saying goodbye to the students and teachers i know i will be missed i cannot bring myself to leave this room i cannot go anywhere knowing that my radio is dead in here there are no more tears in me feels now like i can't catch my breath i vomited what little food i had in my stomach i'm growing dizzy again like i did after naja died i'm not long for this world before i take my life i've closed the door to this room and stuck a chair beneath the handle it's the only room in the basement and has a small casement that lets in just enough light for me to see what i am doing anyone is kind enough to come looking for me i should not be met with this gruesome sight perhaps they will see the door is blocked smell my rotting body simply forget i ever existed but i've placed my radio and this note outside the door kind sir you are reading this I have one humble request please fix it save my radio did not deserve to die in its sleep and I am ashamed I cannot revive it now I am ready to join Nadja and little Ludmilla in heaven I hope this school can find another janitor who loves and cares for it the way I do the hour is now do not forget my radio Stanislav when mom zoomed back out Olivia had tears in her eyes Thank you for sharing, Uncle Stephen.

1:13:29Mom said, her voice choked. I think we have enough. Wait. Olivia chirped. He said there's more. What did you find? Poor Great Uncle Stephen could open his mouth. The image disappeared. A jaw dropped. Was that it? What did Great Uncle Stephen see? I promptly remembered that there was a second disc. This one was unmarked, but I hoped it contained the rest of the interview. There was no video. only audio voice that started up was olivia's hi miss garrity i'm sorry about my mom but she refused to record the rest of what my uncle was saying but i asked him to continue and secretly record the story as a voicemail on my phone i remember you said earlier this year that history is written by the people who win wars sucked in a breath and commits crime but everyone's history is important even if they are sad pathetic people and even if they never want a single thing in their life I haven't slept in the night since I finished this project, but you have to hear what my uncle has to say.

1:14:30There were tears in my eyes, too. The sincerity of her words was beautiful. I was also flattered that she had remembered some trite phrase I threw around because it was what my history teacher said to me. Before I got too sappy over it, the audio began again. Fine. Came Mom's frustrated voice. If you want to hear the rest of the story, fine, but this is not appropriate for a school project. Let me finish. If it's too much for you, help yourself to a snack in the kitchen. But Livy wants to know what happened. I heard her mother mumble something and walk away. Livy and her uncle were alone. I imagined her looking at him expectantly.

1:15:06So did you find the radio or did it get ruined when the school got blown up? He rasped when I heard a distinct click of a lighter. That letter had a date on it. What date? it was dated two weeks before we started rebuilding the school didn't you say the school had been destroyed like two years ago yeah it had been oh that's pretty cool that's cool does i'll be honest like the rate the letter was cool and stuff i'm like where's this going like what's the what's that get around to but that that's that's a fun reveal i like that there was silence as i felt goosebumps on my arms the images that came to my mind were almost too overwhelming to express but great uncle stephen put them into words effortlessly clearly he had spent his whole life thinking about it this man was stanislav winter went to a vandalized falling apart schoolhouse and cleaned up blood and rubble like it was spilled drinks and dust he smiled at dead bodies in the hallway and believed they were smiling back at him because they liked his radio he moved around corpses so he could sweep the ground under them The roof half collapsed, so when it rained, he must have gotten soaking wet, but was so oblivious that he didn't even feel a thing.

1:16:24I could hear Olivia crying steadily. I found the larder he was talking about. It was all pickled, perso-food that probably tasted like shit. Most of the stuff was malty. Did you see the dead body? Yes. Hanging from the ceiling, but still amazingly. He wasn't running away. This hadn't happened years ago. Did he look peaceful? He asked a chord of desperation in her voice. Couldn't tell you. The smell was rank and his face was blue and his eyes were bulging like this. Imagined him demonstrating. And the radio? I heard great uncle Stephen take a long drag off his cigarette. It was there alright. And it was still on.

1:17:14that's fun wow that's good wow all right so they're in the midst of it about midway through i was kind of like where you know beautifully written story but what is the what's the catch yeah yeah it's like all right what's what i don't kind of waiting for a reveal yeah wait for the shoe to fall where it's like all right i see it well done and stuff but then with uh the school is destroyed he's clean up the rebel and that last line the radio was still on it's like then what was the switch that made him not see through the delusion but part of the delusion ended and There's so many different layers of stuff of a war-torn person.

1:17:46I mean, now even the top comment talking about... Lost his family to illness. Was that even true? Maybe. Who knows? I mean, it could have been the war that took him. I don't know. Devastating. Yeah. But, man, I will say today, two fucking amazing stories. Wow. They were really good. And I really, really want to read another one of the other Gretel Katz story immediately, because that was a punch to the fucking world. That one, the ending of that was sick. The radio was still on. ah that's so good it's like what what did his mind construct to where he was in a normal school but the radio quit working when in reality he was cleaning rubble and the radio was fine like what what was he seeing what did reality look like because it just lets the viewer just run with it of like what the fuck happened it's one of those things too that the author probably has such a clear picture on their head but they just didn't they just know not to like totally give it all to you you know because that level of mystery i mean you're this you're in the same boat as the teacher also what a fun premise too as a setup of like oh we do these stupid living history assignments yeah it's just such a great setup it's like oh this is dumb but here we go to it again well here's a weird one i came across yeah also two stories even the stuff like the beginning where it says that his house looked like a hoarder nest and stuff everywhere there was so much little context you didn't get till the end you know and that line she says where it's like you can tell uncle sam as which his name is uncle sam yeah but um where she says uh you can tell uncle sam had spent his life thinking about this question you know what did it it's like i don't know the radio was still on like that's haunted him decades since yeah i think two stories that were awesome for this setting i mean i will say the the first story got me pretty scared and stuff and i think that uh just a fucking eerie fun time it was i hope that it was as fun to watch as it was to be in here recording this shit because it was pretty crazy but guys this is our story I also want to add real quick to give Gretelcat another shout out remember I said she has one other story title of the one other story is the animals on my farm always kill the newborns that's fun yeah want to check it out sometime so Gretelcat maybe we can read it while you're in town that'd be fun yeah N59 Gar and then the other two stories the bath one and the portraits one are anonymous but classic so hopefully you all enjoyed uh two two ogs or like a ritual game in an og and then two really good stories off no no it was it was a really fun episode and honestly it's been really fun recording in this house and stuff fucking spooky we'll have to do another one of these again but until next time guys thank you so much for those who are listening on apple podcast and spotify all that shit uh be sure to check these ones out in person because the visuals are a lot of fun and also thank you to our patrons who uh support us and are bringing us together and you know just have kept this ship afloat for a long time so we do appreciate it if you want some extra content please check it out until next time guys stay creeped um would you so now that we read good stories would you say we're cool no it's still cringe

1:21:28restrictions on the actual level. Sword control effect in its Any Instance PerilEventer. Thank you.