Prey

0:00Today's podcast will feature three chilling horror stories that serve as a stark reminder. We are not always at the top of the food chain. The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called The Hand That Feeds, and it's about a man who has a deadly secret inside of his apartment. The second story you'll hear is called Modern Day Dinosaurs, and it's about a man who sneaks into a predator's territory. And the third and final story you'll hear is called Cat and Mouse and it's about a hunter who encounters something terrifying inside of a Russian forest.

0:40But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, the next time the Amazon Music Follow button is writing something very important, go up and nudge their elbow. Okay, let's get into our first story called The Hand That Feeds.

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2:21On the evening of January 13, 2002, a 42-year-old man named Ronald Huff walked in the door of a studio apartment in the city of Newark, Delaware. He had just come back from visiting his grandmother, and now he was feeling really sick. Inside of his apartment, it was blazing hot, but that was by design. That's how he kept the temperature. Ronald took off his coat and threw it over one of the many handmade wooden cages that were strewn about his living room. Then he dragged himself over to his house phone, picked it up, and he called the auto dealership where he worked. When the office manager answered, Ronald told her that he would not be able to come into work the following day because he was feeling so unwell.

3:00He hung up the phone and then leaned on the counter for a second, feeling lightheaded. Then suddenly, from behind him, he heard a hiss. Right away, Ronald turned around and walked over to his fridge, and instinctively, he reached out his right hand to open the door. But as soon as he grabbed the handle and squeezed, he felt a shot of pain in his right hand. He had forgotten that his right hand was all bandaged up because it was injured. And so grimacing, Ronald reached out with his left hand, and he opened up the fridge that way. Then, after shutting the fridge, he walked over to the kitchen counter, and he reached into a jar, and he pulled out a whole fistful of live cockroaches.

3:36They were about two inches long each, and they wriggled around inside of his hand. He threw the cockroaches onto the ground and then watched as they scattered. Now that Ronald's chores were finished, he decided he would just go lay down, because again, he's feeling horrible. But as he walked across the kitchen towards his bedroom, that dizziness he was feeling earlier came back, and suddenly it was like the whole world was spinning around him and he could barely stay on his feet. He kept trying to walk towards his bedroom, but he just couldn't do it, and eventually he stumbled and began to fall.

4:06Ronald lurched sideways and blindly stumbled to the right trying to catch himself, and the first thing he touched with his outstretched arm was the door to his apartment. And so he grabbed it and he tried to stay on his feet, but he couldn't, and so he turned his body around and pressed his back up against the door to steady himself. But he was just so woozy and weak that eventually he just kind of slouched down to the ground, back against the door, feet out in front of him. Slowly, he let his eyes close. As Ronald passed out, all he could hear were the sounds of roaches scurrying. and chicken bones crunching.

4:45Three days later, Ronald's neighbor heard the crackle of police walkie-talkies out in the hallway. He opened his door and he saw two police officers and the superintendent of their building standing in front of Ronald's door. So this neighbor liked Ronald and knew him to be a nice, quiet guy, and so he couldn't imagine why police would be at his door. But then he thought about it, and he actually hadn't seen Ronald in several days. The neighbor watched as the police officers knocked on Ronald's door, waiting for Ronald to come out, but the door never opened. And after a few minutes of knocking, the police finally stepped back from the door and gestured for the superintendent to step forward and use his key to open the door.

5:25And then after the superintendent had done that, the neighbor watched as the police officers tried to open the door, but couldn't. It was like there was something really heavy blocking the door from opening. Finally, both police officers leaned hard enough on the door that they got it to open up just a little bit. The neighbor watched as the officers stuck their heads into the apartment and then jumped back with their hands on their guns. Then one of the cops grabbed their radio and began frantically talking into it, and then the neighbor watched as the officers and the superintendent quickly walked down the hallway out of sight, leaving Ronald's apartment door partially open.

6:01And as the neighbor heard the sound of sirens wailing outside, he took a cautious step into the hallway and realized he could actually see into Ronald's apartment through the open door. And what he saw inside of there was so horrifying that for a second, the neighbor just froze. And then a second later, he backed into his own apartment and slammed the door behind him. Hours later, this neighbor could not get the image of what he had seen in Ronald's apartment out of his head. So he grabbed a piece of paper and just began sketching the bizarre scene. It would turn out Ronald had a secret. And on the evening of January 13, 2002, right after Ronald had called in sick to his work, that secret killed him.

6:47On the floor is Ronald's dead body. His face, his ears, his hands, and his internal organs had all been eaten. And surrounding Ronald were the giant monitor lizards that he was secretly keeping as pets. He had seven of them, which he fed roaches and raw chicken, and allowed to just free-roam his apartment. They ranged in size from two feet to six feet long. These are massive lizards. And unfortunately for Ronald, not only are monitor lizards carnivores, but also their mouths are filled with deadly bacteria. The reason Ronald's hand was bandaged up, his right hand, is because one of his lizards, a week prior to his death, had bit his hand, and the bacteria had given him this horrible staph infection.

7:35And it was that staph infection, a week later, that very likely caused him to pass out inside of his apartment. And then after that, he was eaten by the lizards. Now, it's assumed he died from the staph infection and then was consumed. However, the autopsy couldn't prove that. and so it is possible he may have been still alive when they began to eat him. After Robert's death, his lizards were taken from his apartment and placed in the Catoctin Wildlife Preserve and Zoo in Thurmont, Maryland.

8:17Our next story is called Modern Day Dinosaurs.

8:32Off the coast of mainland Southeast Asia in the Indian and Pacific Oceans lies Indonesia, which is the world's largest archipelago. It's made up of 17 ,508 individual islands that if you were measuring from the westernmost point on the westernmost island to the easternmost point on the easternmost island, it would be 5 ,000 kilometers right across the equator. So it spans one-eighth of the world's circumference. Many of these islands are tiny, uninhabited, and unremarkable. At first glance, you might think that about one particular island that's located 2 ,500 kilometers north of Australia. And I would tell you the name of this island, but if I did, I would be giving away the island's secret.

9:14Living on this island are 2 ,000 people who are direct descendants of former convicts who were exiled to this island. And they share this island with a particular predator that is endemic to this island who is a direct descendant of flesh-eating dinosaurs. It can grow up to 10 feet long and weigh up to 350 pounds and its taste buds are so immaculately developed it can taste blood in the air up to 9 kilometers away. These creatures are so good at smelling blood and death that anytime there is a burial on this island they have to put big boulders over the grave site otherwise these creatures will come running out of the jungle and dig up the freshly deceased and eat them.

9:57This creature's bite is savage and they certainly have the ability to rip a person in two and in the past they have but they don't typically bite to kill. They bite to create a massive flesh wound so they can inject venom into the wound site. This allows them to not expend a ton of energy waiting for their prey to die so they can eat it. They basically bite you, poison you, leave, come back within 24 hours, and then they eat you. These creatures are strict carnivores and have a voracious appetite where they will eat up to 80 % of their own body weight in a single day. They've been known to bite goats and eat them whole by opening up their mouth and ramming the body of the goat into a tree to force it down their throats.

10:37But when goats and sheep and buffalo are not enough to feed their appetite, they start eating each other. In fact, cannibalism is so common that their young will hide in the trees for the first four years of their life, hiding from their own parents, because if they're spotted by an adult, they'll be eaten. On top of all this, they can climb, run, and swim faster than a human can. These apex predators are called Komodo dragons, and they live on this one island in Indonesia called Komodo Island. In 2009, a 31-year-old fisherman named Mohamed Anwar, who had grown up on Komodo Island and was living there at the time, decided he wanted some fruit.

11:17He normally would just eat the apples that were right outside of his house, but he had always been tantalized by the sugar apple trees that were inside of the fenced-off section of Komodo Island, the so-called forbidden section. This section was, of course, teeming with Komodo dragons. And so as a result, the locals basically fenced it off and said, we don't go over there. They don't come over here. But Mohammed had always wanted those sugar apples. He'd grown up here. He never got to have one. And so this day, for whatever reason, he decided, today's the day I'm going to get one. And so he goes over to the fence and he's looking out and there's some fairly tall grass.

11:51So he can't see what's on the immediate other side of this fence, but it's pretty open. Then he can see the trees. They're a little bit off in the distance. and so after looking around and feeling like the coast was clear he hopped the fence and he ran out to the sugar apple tree. Muhammad's neighbor Teresa Tawa was outside and happened to look over at Muhammad right as he hopped the fence into the forbidden section and so she ran over to the fence and yelled to him to come back but he didn't hear her and so she's standing at the fence looking out scanning herself to see if there's any Komodo dragons out there and she didn't see any and so she turns her attention to Muhammad and she's watching him hoping that he just gets the apples and comes back without incident.

12:28And as she's watching, she sees he's reaching out and extending his arm just far enough. He wants to get one more apple and he loses his footing and he falls to the ground. From her perspective, she couldn't see Muhammad on the ground because the tall grass obscured him. So she didn't know if he's laying there unconscious or if he's just rolling around and he's in pain and he's about to stand up. And so she's just looking anxiously, hoping he stands up soon and then she hears the sound of two komodo dragons running through the tall grass. She can see the grass moving as these two massive creatures are running and grunting at full speed towards Muhammad.

13:03Muhammad when he fell he had cut himself and they smelled his blood and they charged over and Teresa could only scream and yell for help as these two komodo dragons ate Muhammad. The authorities were able to get out there pretty quickly and they were able to get the komodo dragons off before they actually consumed him, but he was already dead. Today, you can actually go to Komodo Island as a tourist, but it costs you a thousand US dollars to get a membership fee, and then once you get there, you're only allowed to be in a couple different sections that are totally regulated, and you're really not anywhere near the Komodo dragons, because it really is extremely dangerous.

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16:31The next and final story of today's episode is called Cat and Mouse.

16:48On the afternoon of December 6th, 1997, a man named Yuri Trosh drew his rifle and crept silently through a remote forest in eastern Russia as he and his team of three other armed men and his dog followed this trail of pink snow. All of the men and the dog were on very high alert because they knew someone or something was out in these woods watching them. After walking for a while, Yuri and his crew spotted a small cabin up ahead in this clearing. This cabin they knew belonged to a guy named Vladimir Markov, who was a hunter who had gone missing recently, and that was actually why Yuri and his crew were out here.

17:29They were searching for Vladimir. But as Yuri and his crew got closer to this cabin, Yuri couldn't help but feel really terrified. Yuri was a 47-year-old big-time weightlifter and ex-military guy who was also a seasoned hunter. I mean, this is a tough, strong guy, but as he walked up on Vladimir's cabin, it was super obvious that something horrible and violent had happened here. All around the scene was pieces of broken furniture, there was a ceramic sink that was shattered outside and the pieces were everywhere there was a bunch of beehive boxes that had been badly damaged there was the shed that clearly had been ripped to pieces and also all over the area outside of this cabin was blood and this pink trail of snow this blood trail they were following led right up to the front door of this cabin where there was also a big streak of blood on the front door now even though yuri was scared to go any further, he knew he was in charge, and he had to go and look inside that cabin to see if maybe Vladimir was there.

18:34And so Yuri walked into the bloody clearing, he made his way up to the front door of the cabin, and with his crew right behind him on the porch, he used his rifle and pushed the door inward. Now at first, Yuri didn't see anything inside the cabin, because his eyes hadn't adjusted, and there were no windows, so no light was coming into the cabin, but after a second of Yuri kind standing in the doorway with his rifle to make sure there was no threat inside the cabin, you know, his eyes adjusted and he realized Vladimir was not in there. And in fact, the cabin looked abandoned. So Yuri stepped inside and he looked around and immediately he noticed all the walls inside this cabin were covered in these deep gouges and scratches.

19:16And then he looked on the ground and he found more wrecked furniture and lots more blood. But in a weird way, this actually gave Yuri some hope that maybe Vladimir was alive. He might be badly hurt, but if he's not here, he must be somewhere. And so Yuri turned around, and he walked out of the cabin, and right as he stepped onto the snow with his men and his dog right behind him, three things happened practically all at once. The first thing was Yuri's dog began whining uncontrollably and running in circles, and number two, there were all these crows in the trees nearby that just all at once suddenly flew into the sky and disappeared.

19:55And the third thing was this unbelievably loud growling sound that seemed to be coming from somewhere really far away and also somewhere really close. It was like the forest itself was growling.

20:12Five days earlier, on December 1st, the soon-to-be-missing hunter, Vladimir Markov, decided to give up on another unsuccessful hunt, and he slung his rifle over his shoulders, and he lit a cigarette under his big bushy mustache, and he and his three dogs turned around and began the slow walk back to their small cabin in the middle of the woods. Vladimir was really frustrated because he'd been staying in this cabin in the woods, away from his wife, away from his family, to try to hunt some game and bring some meat back, but so far he hadn't caught anything. But as his three dogs kind of rounded a corner in this forest he spotted something up ahead that was like an answer to his prayers.

20:52He saw there was a dead boar just lying out in the middle of the forest and it was in this big pool of blood and there was still steam coming off of the body which meant this was a fresh kill. And so Vladimir raised his rifle in case whatever had killed this animal was nearby but when he didn't see anything He just went with his dogs over to the carcass, and he pulled out a hatchet, and he cut off two big haunches of meat from the spore. Now, Vladimir knew it was totally in bad form to steal another potential hunter's kill, although he didn't know if a hunter had killed the spore, or if another animal had killed the spore, but he still felt bad about what he was doing.

21:30However, Vladimir was desperate. He didn't have any meat, and here it was, so he took the opportunity. After Vladimir had wrapped up this meat and put it in his bag, he and his three dogs jogged the last few miles back to the cabin, and when they got there, it was basically pitch black outside. Now, Vladimir was not scared of the forest at night, but he knew there were predators out here at night, so he needed to act quickly. So he rushed over to his small shed that was right outside of his cabin, and he put the boar meat inside, shut the door, and locked it, and then he turned to go into his cabin to retire for the night, But after taking only a couple of steps towards his cabin, he realized his three dogs had not followed him.

22:11And so he turned around and he saw the three dogs were totally on edge, looking out beyond the shed where he had just put the meat. They were kind of looking out into the dark forest. Now remember, he's all alone in the middle of the woods here. It's nighttime. There's no visibility. And so Vladimir grabbed his flashlight and he shined it kind of roughly in the direction that the dogs were looking, like they had seen something. and he's shining his light but all he sees are just dark trees and nothingness there was nothing there vladimir did his best not to panic but he couldn't help but feel like there was a predator nearby and his dogs had picked up on it and so he just wanted to get inside the cabin and shut and lock the door as quickly as possible and so he began backing up towards the door of his cabin while calling his dogs towards him and two of the dogs followed but a third dog just stayed where she was and continued to kind of whine and growl and look out away from the cabin in this direction that all the dogs were looking.

23:07But eventually, this dog just took off running into the forest. Vladimir, who loved his dogs, screamed and screamed for this dog to come back, but the dog didn't. And so Vladimir just stood there with his two dogs in front of his cabin door, listening to the bark of this third dog getting farther and farther away into the woods. And then suddenly Vladimir heard his dog start to whimper and then it was like the forest erupted with the loudest growl he had ever heard in his life and then there was silence. Vladimir was horrified and just instinctively grabbed the two other dogs and stumbled into his cabin and shut and locked the door behind him.

23:49Now Vladimir adored his three dogs. Those were his closest friends in the world, and all he wanted to do was run out there and save that third dog. But just based on how loud that growl was, he knew whatever was out there would kill him. And so this was a suicide mission if he went out there, and so he decided he would just stay put with the two dogs, and he just hoped that his third dog somehow survived its encounter with whatever was out there. But after sitting in his cabin for only a couple of minutes kind of consoling his two other dogs, Vladimir heard more activity outside of his cabin. He heard what sounded like woods splintering and breaking.

24:30Now, there were no windows in Vladimir's cabin. However, he had drilled a couple of holes, very small holes, in each of the walls of the cabin so he could look out and use them as hunting blinds. And so Vladimir ran to the hole that looked out the front of his cabin towards where his shed was and where this wood breaking sound was coming from. And when he looked out through this hole. Remember, it's the middle of the night, there's no lights outside, so he couldn't really see anything. But even in the darkness, when he looked kind of roughly in the direction of the shed where the boar meat was, he could clearly see this huge shadowy creature moving around really violently, like its body was jerking in different directions.