Real Scary Stories about Evil Kids

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1:00Hello, I'm Wilkins. Stores all the time. The Ladeware here. Let's get into it. So I have a Halloween trick-or-treating story for you about a not only terrifying child nowhere is if you decide to run it outside of the Halloween season though because it ticks place actually in February. So that's what made it so area at first. The knock on the door, then the little kids standing there in some ghost costume saying trick-or-treat and holding out his battered pumpkin pail. A lone kid trick-or-treating in a classic ghost costume is kind of creepy on Halloween anyway but at least it's supposed to be. This was a Friday night in early February, nine of them exactly. Now in that moment I was just a bit speechless. I couldn't see what the kid looked like under his little sheet ghost costume but he was the height and build of a small six-year-old. He sounded like a boy and they just kind of dummy repeated trick-or-treat at him and he nodded enthusiastically and said yeah and shook his little bucket in such a very endearing way. And when he shook it I could see that he had some other candy in there I guess from my nearest neighbors. See I lived in a very rural suburb property when this all went down and the houses

2:03went super close together but far enough apart that it could feasibly walk around a small neighbor her trick-or-treating. At least that's how the kids did it on Halloween. I hadn't really dealt with one in February before nor one lone kid this little who wasn't actually accompanied by his parents. I told him to just wait on the porch and then close the screen door and went back inside and pulled up some Reese's pieces and put the bag inside of his bucket. And the little kid thanked me extremely politely actually and then said see you tomorrow mister. Oh you would, would you? I thought to myself. I know I spent the next day occasionally sort of laughing to myself at what a clever little scam this kid had cooked up. It was a friendly neighborhood. Who was going to say no to an adorable tiny sheet ghost trick-or-treating in February? And it was so silly and so obvious that it was almost surprising to me that more kids don't try this. And by telling me, see you tomorrow, he'd given me fair warning to make sure that I had a fresh stalk of candy in. And I made sure to grab extra while I was at the store, actually. I never vaguely occurred to me that as a guy who lived alone in his midmen's thirties, given candy to strange lone kids could probably end up being an issue. And I figured as long as

3:07the kids stuck to the porch and full view of the neighbors and since everyone in the area knew each other it would be fine to give the kid a little bit of candy for his little scam. And besides my girlfriend stayed over some nights and she was just the way for the next while. But I didn't expect the scam to even last until she got back. I figured that there couldn't be any harm and actually entertaining it. But boy was I wrong. But in ways that I couldn't ever predict. Now that night at 9 o'clock on the dot, the doorbell rang and the little sheet ghost kids stood there. Trick-or-treat, Mr. And then he held up that pale and shook it. He had a decent hole already it looked like, although nowhere close to what he'd have gotten on Halloween. I laughed, nodded my approval, and then dropped some candy into his bucket and he thanked me and left with another, see you tomorrow, Mr. Now this ritual repeated itself for the next week, and by the time the following Friday came around and the doorbell went to ring at 9 o'clock, I was starting to get a little frustrated actually. My girlfriend was set to come back into town the next day, and I had to actually get her from the airport, so I needed to be up at like forum. And I'd also somehow convince myself that this kid's candy scam, no matter how sweet

4:09and endearing it actually was, would last exactly seven days and be over by the time I gulped back. I hadn't mentioned the weird ghost kid to her in our calls, and now it felt kind of odd having to explain that a kid was trick-or-treating at our house almost every night in February. And yeah, it had been happening while you were away. And no, I didn't mention it because, reasons, I guess. Really, I could have just explained exactly this that I expected the kid to get bored before he did, but I was looking for reasons to be annoyed that night. Now, when I opened the door, the kid said his usual trick-or-treat and held up his bucket. And when he shook it, I saw that he had a whole bunch of candy this time. Now, I rolled my eyes and said something about how the scam was clearly paying off, buddy. And the kid made a sort of confused, huh? And against my better judgment, it caused me to snap a little. I told him that it had been cute and funny to start with, but that I'd give him a bunch of candy so he could at least respect my intelligence and acknowledge that it's a natural scam. And I told him that you don't trick-or-treat in February and asked him to confirm that he knew it wasn't actually Halloween, right? And when I asked this question, a kid then lowered his bucket and then lowered his head like he was sad. And through his little

5:13ghost costume, I just heard him mutter that I wasn't supposed to ask that. I spent years wishing we told someone. If only it had been some kind of supernatural curse story, then maybe I wouldn't be dealing with injuries that I have to this day instead, the kid looked back up at me through his little ghost costume and began laughing in a way that was clearly tormenting and cruel. And then I heard a creak from the porch on my right, and another much older kid stepped around the side of the house and said, you don't ask that because I said so. And then before I could react, this tall, wirey teenager started punching me with some kind of brass knuckle made out of a chain and the blow was wagony. I immediately fell to the ground and then took a flurry of these kicks, and the whole time that obnoxious ghost child I could hear laughing was some type of glee. I'd been so buy-insighted by the attack that I hadn't even 40 yellow screen. And now I finally did, and the teen attacking me responded by stomping on my spine, kicking me in the ribs, and leaping off of the porch. I vaguely saw the little ghost kid climb onto the teenagers back like some type of piggyback ride, and then they run off into the darkness. And as quick as I could, I started to drag myself to my feet and call the cops. They got this

6:14surprisingly fast for it where I was an eventually accompanied me to the local hospital so I could get checked out. I had a couple broken ribs, and my spines never been quite right since that attack, I think. The cops said that it was the third similar report of kids doing this in the county, and when we checked with my immediate neighbours, none of them had actually been visited by the ghost kid or his violent older brother. And so it seemed like the whole thing had been targeted at my place. At first I was completely baffled because the kids didn't steal anything. The older one just beat me violently and then they both left and the only thing they've really gotten out of it was just a little bit of free candy. Now I kept her ass in the cops saying maybe I was in danger. Maybe the kids would come back and eventually a detective did come to visit me and told me that he wasn't strictly supposed to let me notice but he would if it would set my mind at ease. Basically the working theory was that it was some kind of gang initiation. The teenager who beat on me would accompany the little kid and tell their target challenge them in the fact that it wasn't Halloween and then there'd be an attack, and the attacker would be initiated into Sikang. And from what the cops were working on, the attacker in each kiss had been a different guy,

7:16but the ghost kid, they thought that that was the same little kid each time. The detective told me on the download that they suspected that the ghost kid was the gang leader's own son and supposedly as much of a psycho as his old man. So this class out was getting his own little kid to lead gang initiations and I'd just been an unknowing slut who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now I never really heard any more about it or any more reports of this kind of gang initiation so maybe they realized that it drew too much attention. I guess I've got to be thankful that they settled on something a little childish and not actually fatal instead of the usual murder guy in your own kind of thing. On the other hand, it kind of sucks to think about the kids being initiated into these gangs in the first place, even older teenagers. But when I think about the ghost kid laughing as I got panned on unbeaten, there's no doubt in my mind that this kid's mind was already long gone into the darkness and I pity anyone who encounters him as he becomes an adult. So I've got a story for you about a time when I was a young kid myself and we encounter a strange child. I think this is genuinely the scariest thing this ever actually happened to me and if I get sick like a fever or anything this is always the thing I have nightmares about if I'm going to have them. So I figured that I try and exercise them by writing to you about it. So this was back

8:20in the 90s which was the best time to be a kid because it just was. This happened in like 97 and life was just simpler and more relaxed back then. Things really changed everywhere after the beginning of the 2000s. I think we all know why and it's not just the souls are talking. For me, things change before that this summer of 97 though. I'm where I think back on it, I picture it like a movie. Me and my four buddies, three other guys, one girl, we didn't have some cool nickname like the losers club and IT or the goonies and I don't even remember if the kids were called the goonies in that movie. But anyway, we didn't have a cool team name, we were just kind to the gang. It was me, James, Barry, Pat and Kendall. That summer we spent most of the time exploring our rural neighborhood playing various made up games and fields and forest and just having a good time. We built a fort, we made a dam, we rode our bikes, we had picnics. We were all aged 8 to 10 and wanted the summer to last forever. Or at least until our quarters ran out of the locator it got cold or one of us almost died. Unfortunately, it's the last one that brought an end to our summer fun. We met the strange kid on a Monday. We knew him for five days.

9:25He said his name was Russell. At the time, we were finishing up our fort and the forest, so we let Russell tag along because he asked. Now, he seemed younger than us and he said that he just moved into the area. He had a pretty cool new bike which at the time, I didn't find suspicious. And now when I look back on it though, I think Russell probably stole that bike. You see, Russell was a super-encompassing scruffy kid. Like his clothes were almost rags. I don't mean like some old Victorian kid, just typical normal nine-tuski clothes, but they were super-torn in dirty and hand me down. It made Russell look like he came from a family that my sister would have called Dipper. Russell came to hang out with us every day at week and disappeared at dinner time like clockwork. Now when Barry, and I mentioned Russell in front of my mom, she said that she thought that he must be part of the farming family who had moved into the farm down the way. He wasn't as it turns out, but it was a good guess. He was just some of the random neighborhood kid who'd recently started hanging around. On Friday, Russell baked and pleaded with us to come with him and see something called that he'd found. We had plans to carve our initials into the trees

10:25the day, but it could wait, so we let Russell lead us around the outskirts of some fields that we weren't really supposed to cut through. Eventually, after we crossed to a little area of trees, we'd never been in and had to balance our way over a small stream, we reached the destination Russell had in mind. It was a massive sinkhole. I'd heard about the sinkhole in the area, we'd all been vague who warned to stay away from it, but none of us actually knew where it was. Now Russell had let us write to it a more to the point he was sort of waxing poetic about how he lived down in the hole. No you don't, Candle said to him. Russell insisted that yes he did. He lived down in the sinkhole. According to him, you jumped into the sinkhole and a teleporter due to his harm, a magical place called Salt City where they had arcade machines on free play and it was super awesome. And then he said he'd show us, as long as one of us jumped down the sinkhole. Of course, we all knew this was insane. None of us wanted to go near the sinkhole, let alone jump down in it, and we were way too old to believe in magical teleporters to place his cold salt city. I guess Russell had heard the name Salt Lake City before and decided Salt City sounded like an appealing alternative. But when you think about it, it's hardly the magical kingdom of Turbithia,

11:29is it? Salt City, I mean come on. Now anyways, Russell was hooting and hollering about the Salt City this, and Salt City that and demanding that we jump down in that sinkhole to go there with him. At first, it didn't dawn on a star, ask where Russell wanted to throw out herself Dunhol, which would most certainly result in our deaths. So we started playing along, grueling him about the Salt City as we walked around the edges of the sinkhole. Not too close though, vaguely aware that there was a danger Russell might try and push one of us in. Why wouldn't he jump in, we asked. Because he was saving the teleports for us, he said, how did he leave each day to complete with us? Magic, etc. And it was all just complete nonsense. An eventually candle whispered to me that maybe it was a bit dangerous that Russell wanted us to do this and we should probably tell an adult. I agreed, so I tried to get the other three to come with us. James had gotten real argumentative with Russell though and was trying to get him to jump down if he was so insistent. I whispered to James that if Russell actually did, it would be in a lot of trouble and that's when I think James finally grasped the gravity of the situation. Russell was trying to persuade us to do something extremely dangerous to ourselves

12:33and any kid who would do that wasn't someone we wanted to be friends with obviously. We decided to leave Russell to his little hole. And unfortunately, Russell got really angry and belligerent about this and tried to grab James and actually drive him back towards that sinkhole. Like suddenly this little kid went all feral, deciding I guess that he was going to throw James down this sinkhole and be responsible for whatever came after. I have no idea. I do know that I realized James was in severe and immediate danger because despite being younger than us, Russell was stronger than he looked. He was managing to actually drag James towards the sinkhole and none of us wanted to rush in and get too close in case the hole started to widen. And so I did the only thing that I could think to do. I grabbed the nearest thing I could off the ground which happened to be a small log and threw it at Russell when I had an opening. And my aim was true. The log hit Russell square in the temple and sent him reeling and staggering back. So much so, in fact, that he'd staggered right towards the edge of the sinkhole itself. Thankfully, James managed to grab Russell's arm and pull him forward. Russell collapsed onto the ground and the edge of the sinkhole and we all crapped over to see the damage.

13:35Russell seemed to be unconscious. His temple was bloody where the log had hit him and a little bit of blood was also coming out of the corner of his mouth. And in that moment, we made a decision. This kid had been trying to persuade us to do something incredibly cruel and then tried to potentially murder James. We had no idea who he was or who his family was. On the other hand, we'd get in the whole mountain of trouble if we told anyone that we'd been to that sinkhole and it was our word against Russell's about what had happened. We decided to just leave him unconscious at the sinkhole and run away. We carried that secret for years and it ate it as the whole time. I spent five years with a secret weighing on us with no idea if we'd killed Russell or if we could have saved him or anything. Five years of nightmares, guilt and terror when Russell was simply not around the next day or the next or the next. And by then we were all too scared to say anything. It became our secret, something we all avoided mentioning to each other unless we absolutely had to. And by the time high school rolled around, we were absolutely certain that we'd killed a kid in the summer of 1997 and it would be our secret that we took to the grave.

14:36Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing, another checkered flag for the books. Time to celebrate with Chamba. Jump in at chambacasino.com. Let's Chamba. No purchase necessary. BTW Group, Voidware Prohibited by Ma, CCNC, 21 Plus, sponsored by Chamba Casino. One iced coffee. 99 cents please. For real? No way. One iced coffee. 99 cents please. For real? No way. What a deal. Your new morning groove. Ice coffee from McDonald's, any size for just 99 cents to 11 a.m. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer. After two years of high school, when most of us were in our junior year, the freshman class started and Russell was among them. We found out because this kid with a mullet and a scorpion's t-shirt came up to us during lunch and was like, hey aren't you the kids that I had a fight with that one summer and nearly threw into a sinkhole. So, sorry about that guys.

15:39Now, Russell's theory was that he had teased or something that day because he has no idea why he tried to persuade us to jump down the sinkhole. He just genuinely enjoyed hanging with us that weekend that day. He just says that he had this strong severe compulsion to lead us to the whole and tell us that nonsensical story. And we'd spent the previous five years believing that we killed him and being too scared of getting in trouble to try and find out who he was. He spent the previous five years feeling so guilty that he'd never tried to find out who we were. And we all just kind of laughed about it in the end and even hung out with Russell a bunch after that, although not often because he had his own group of friends and we were different ages. It was such a strange relief. How much worse things could have been for all of us if any of the events have played out differently. How stupid of us it was to just leave Russell there. But also, I think most of all, a get haunted by the story Russell told us how that day, maybe because of heavestruck, he just said this strong, pressing compulsion to tell us all to jump in that hole. It makes me wonder whether if we'd walked closer to that edge, we would have felt the pull of the abyss too. A man of many names and shift in identities, the figure later called the chameleon killer drifted across states and decades,

16:40quietly weaving himself into the lives of unspecting families. Each move left frame traces, odd disappearances, announced questions, and a puzzle that investigators were struggled to connect for years. Who he really was remained a mystery long after he was gone. Next is a story that happened to a little kid back in the 1990s. Let's take it from the child's view. This whole thing torsed a big rift in my family at the time for reasons that you'll soon see, and it involved my single aunt who was my dad's sister, and her daughter Serena, my cousin, my parents, went mad when they had met and felt long-time they said they didn't need some official piece of paper to show their commitment to one another. Well, eventually, I guess they did, in fact, need some official piece of paper for some reason, or another so they decided that if they were going to get mad, they'd do it properly. I was a little bridesmaid to my own mom, and it was a little bell's dream the whole day felt like some magic fairy tale. The only part of the memory that I have that feels more like a nightmare is remembering my cousin Serena licking in the outskirts of the wedding, just in black and sort of scouring at me. I remember her whispering to me that it physically hurt her to be inside the church for the service, and then later at the reception, telling me that she was never going to get married, and people who got married were lame, and she'd never commit to one person except for her

17:42one true lord, Satan. Serena was a 15-year-old and motine. I was a six-year-old princess wannabe, and so I believed every where my older, and therefore obviously smart her cousin told me. Also, mom and dad told me that I had to become friends with Serena because I was going to be staying with her in Antigun while they went on their honeymoon, so it was like Serena would be my sister for a while. Serena had been there when they said this, and she acted very excited and happy about it, and didn't mention Satan or how being in church hurt her soul, or any of the insanity that was to follow. Her dressing in black was a bit of an eccentricity. My dad said a word that I didn't know at the time, but I kind of liked. And he said that Antigun had been like that when she was a kid too, and now Antigun was the nicest, sweetest person we knew, wasn't she? I agreed. Antigun was lovely and nice and sweet, and I remembered Serena being nice and sweet too, and she hadn't worn black or even scaled to other times that had met her. And this was a recent thing. At the wedding, I asked her if it had always burned her soul to go inside a church, like she was claiming, and she said yes. But I knew that she had been at my baptism when I was a baby, and I never heard about her getting

18:46burned then. She told me that the only reason she didn't catch fire at the wedding is because she'd performed sacred rights to protect her soul from God. I didn't really understand any of this at the time, but I knew that I'd been taught that God was good and loving, so I was very confused why Serena would be scared of him. I think even at six, I knew she was lying to some degree and maybe just sort of play acting. I definitely didn't take it seriously or think it was scary or even think much of it at all, though. I thought she was cool, and I was excited to spend the next nearly three weeks with her on Antigun, and I had some milk or road where Antigun and Serena promised me that it made me an exciting bedroom that would be mine for the whole time that I was there. I'd previously been told that I was going to share it with Serena, so I was a little bit disappointed that I'd have my own room instead, but when I mentioned this to mom, and dad mom just said that Antigun had told them it would be for the best if I had the guest room. First couple of days of my aunt and cousin were just normal fun days. I ate a spend time being fussed over by Antigun or Serena when Antigun had to go out to work. It was summer vacation, but not for Antigun obviously. Antigun sometimes worked in the evenings, and then Serena would have

19:46to babysit me sort of. June said that she tried to switch to as many day shifts as possible, but there would be some nights when she wasn't there. It was on the third day staying there that I had my first of a night with Serena, and it's when she dimmed her living room lights and told me to scooch and close and listen real good because she had to tell me something important. I listened, excited to hear what she was going to say, and she told me their house was haunted. Now I assume this was some kind of game because mom and dad had told me many times the ghosts weren't real so I played along and acted shocked. Serena didn't seem to think that I was taking it very seriously though so she tried to stress how scary and dangerous it was. When I kept Ghiblin and talking about ghosts that I'd seen in curtains she switched it up telling me that ghosts were working for demons and of course demons came from house so I had to take these seriously otherwise Satan would claim my soul. I reminded her that she told me that she'd pledged her soul to Satan at the wedding and she called me a smartass. And then she got all very serious and told me that I had to really believe her now. She said that she'd pledged her soul to Satan in order to save me because someone she didn't know who was planning to sacrifice me to the demons. And eventually this

20:47started to upset me a little bit and I guess Serena got the reaction she wanted because the more upset I got the more she continued. I don't remember the exact details but she started telling me some very dark or movie things how the demons were going to take me down to hell and slowly peel my skin off, eat my soul and it would be because someone had sold my soul to Satan. Serena said that she pledged her own soul to Satan to protect me and that's where she avoided churches and why she dressed in black. And then she showed me a pentagram that she'd her arm in shop and told me it was the dark loads mark. It was all very silly but you know when you're a little kid and an older kid is trying to upset you so it does even though you don't really believe them or care. I think that's what happened at first anyway. And then Serena said it was really important that we work out who had sold my soul to Satan because the only way we could of both of our souls would be to break their pact. That night Serena let me stay up too late so I was overly tired anyway. I remember I had nightmares and kept waking up afraid of bumps in the night and ghosts in the house. I was a really rational grounded child but even I was starting to wonder if there was something to Serena's story. After all, why would she be lying about this? Over the next few days I spent a lot of time

21:51with Antigene. Serena wasn't around much and when she was her and Antigene kept having arguments that escalated into screaming. And whenever these would begin June would send me into the other room to watch TV or ask me to do some sure in a garden but I had enough to hear Serena accuse in June of being wicked evil and controlling on the next time Serena babysit from me doing one of June's night shift she told me that her mother was an evil woman who mistreated her and that she thought that it was her who'd sought my soul to say it. Now I found this very hard to believe because June was lovely and kind to me and she could be pretty scary when she was arguing with Serena that was true. I told Serena my skepticism while also trying not to offend her and she looked upset and said that she understood because Serena's minions are very convincing. It still confused me that Serena had claimed to be Serena's minion at the wedding but I guess I was too young to maybe start triple guessing theos about who was behind with demonic pat especially when I didn't really believe in any of it other than that people were mad at each other and wanted me to be scared about something. I'm just over a week past when Serena babysit me again and this time she told me that she had definitive proof that Antigene had been the one to sell my soul to Satan. In the last

22:52few days I'd spent a lot of time with June out of the house and she'd even taken me to the store the day before and bought me a new tie so I was pretty convinced that she hadn't sold my soul to Satan. I also hadn't seen any evidence of the go-so demons that apparently infested the house according to Serena but again she explained that this was because she'd signed her own pact with Satan to protect us. I had over her June and Serena arguing about me there. Serena had accused her of giving me a lot of attention and trying to get her claws into me which did sound scary admittedly. It was very hard to know who to believe when in my eyes they were both adults. Obviously now I know that I should have just told June what was going on right away but hey I was a kid. And so that night Serena took us into Antigene's bedroom which is where we weren't supposed to go. It was always locked but Serena knew a way to pick the lock using magic she said. Although when she told me to look away so my soul wouldn't be corrupted I saw her slip a key out of her pocket. Inside she showed me the evidence. June had horror novels on her bookshelf and on a board in her room there was an old Polaroid photo of Antigene dressed as a witch standing next to a devil who looks especially like my dad in a Halloween costume. Serena insisted this was real for

23:57the graphic evidence of her mother and an old cover meeting where she committed herself to Satan though and I was less impressed by the horror novels. Some of the covers were generally very scary to me and I didn't understand how someone like Antigene would want or allow things like that in a house. I'm really not quite sure why this was the deciding piece of evidence for me that began to sway me but it was. I've been serrational and sensible up till then but seeing all the terrifying imagery sitting on June's bookshelf, Sunhouse Serena was able to persuade me that it did in fact prove there was an evil side to Antigene. I still didn't believe any of the Satan nonsense or about the packs of selling my soul or anything like that. I think Serena knew that though because she changed the angle of her story a bit and now it was more about stopping Antigene from doing bad things to us in general and that she was secretly a wicked abusive woman and that we had to help her purify her soul. We left the bedroom and Serena locked it up behind her again making me look away to save my soul while she did the magic and then she took me into my bedroom. We never went into Serena's bedroom either. She said that it was because that's where the ghost congregated and it was scary to see all the things that she had to surround herself with due to

25:00herself as packed with Satan. Serena told me to sit in the bed and wait while she went to her room and got something. And while she was gone I heard some bangs and crashes in the hallway that I think was supposed to sound like ghosts but were clearly just Serena. And then eventually she returned and had a small baggy with three bears in it. She held them up and left me very seriously in the face and told me that these were holy berries blessed by God and that we needed to make sure Antigene ingested them. But because I always did the cooking with her lately I had to let them into her food somehow. Serena made me promise that I would. She made me swear on my life in the lives of my mother and father. I kept my toes crossed in swore. And now, like I said, I wasn't a stupid kid. I knew that whatever Serena was asking me to do here wasn't a great idea. I also knew that bears could be dangerous. The part that I couldn't really get my head around is why Serena would want me, her cousin, who she was supposed to love to harm her mother, who she was supposed to love. It didn't really compute to me that they could be really dangerous and that's why I didn't take things as seriously as I should have. Also, I was like six, remember.

26:01I wish I could say in Serena's defense here that I really can't be sure that she intended for me to go ahead with it. I want to remember there being some hesitance that she was unsure, maybe told me to just do it if I was able to, etc. But I can't. She was very strongly adamant that I'd do it. Like I said, she made me swear. She told me specifically to put them into the fruit salad that Auntie June made, which only she ate because there would be blueberries in there. But she also told me that if anything happened, she wouldn't tell me what. She just said that I'd know, then I had to say that it was me who gave Auntie June the berries, otherwise it wouldn't do the breaking of the pact. So Serena had very clearly set me up to get in trouble and then coached me into taking the blame. The problem was simply that I didn't know how serious it all was. What I did was wait until late that night when everyone had gone to bed and then I went to use the bathroom and took the baguette with me. And my plan was to simply flush them away and then tell Serena that I'd done what she asked and nobody would be any the wiser. And I even thought that I was really smart because I'd thought ahead and knew that if I just dropped the berries down the toilet, they might not flush away. So I crushed them in my hand and wiped them

27:03mulch off and flushed it away. And I even tasted a little, little taste of the juice on my tongue, just in case they had actually been blueberries all along. And they were not. And then I made sure I scrubbed my hands very clean of any evidence of the purple staining and went to bed. And the next thing I clearly remember is waking up in a hospital with these terrible, terrible stomach pains and barely being able to breathe. And then I remember drifting in and out of consciousness and doctors and nurses in a panic. And at one point, Auntie June pacing back and forth asking me if I'd eaten anything I shouldn't have. And at this point, I was just about coherent enough to tell her the story about Serena and the berries, even though I felt awful telling on my cousin. I told her I hadn't eaten them, though, and just crushed it and licked it a little bit, so I didn't think that's why I was so sick. Again, memories continue to be vague here, but I remember Auntie June and Serena screaming at each other in the hospital, and then another voice yelling at both of them. I remember having to drink some disgusting black liquid and everyone acting a little relieved, even though I didn't feel like I was getting any better at all. I spent a couple of days very sad and scared and struggling in that hospital until my parents came back early from their honeymoon, and I'd never

28:06been more relieved to see them. So yeah, my cousin Serena tried to get me to poison my aunt with deadly nightshade, and because that was too sensible and serious a kid to let her convince me to do it, but too naive to believe that it could be anything too dangerous, I ended up giving myself some very minor deadly nightj poisoning. It could have been a hell of a lot worse. I could have ended myself, or worse, I could have ended up killing my aunt, and I'm not sure that I would have ever forgiven myself for that. No matter how much people tell me that it wouldn't have been my fault, I'm not sure that I would have been able to accept that it's true. One thing that was true though was that Serena had tried to convince me to poison her mother and her actions had led me to getting mildly poisoned instead. So of course, everyone wanted to know why and what the hell had happened. I didn't really follow or understand what was going on at the time being so young. I just recovered in the hospital, and was told that I wouldn't be seeing Serena or Antigun again. Later this changed, but that's what Dad told me pretty angry at the time, and I think a part of me had become scared of Antigun after all the things Serena had told me in the horror novels on her bookshelf, because I just remember being glad that I wouldn't have to deal with any of that

29:06again while I was focused on just getting better. Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing. Another checkered flag for the books. Time to celebrate with Jamba. Jump in at JambaCasino.com. Let's Jamba. No purchase necessary. BTW Group. Boy, we're prohibited by law. CCNC, 21 Plus. Sponsored by JambaCasino. Hi, this is Alex Cantrowitz. I'm the host of Big Technology podcast. A long time reporter and an on-air contributor to CNBC. And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence is changing the business world and our lives. So each week on Big Technology, I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it. Asking where this is all going. They come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more. So if you want to be smart with your wallet, your career choices, and meetings with your colleagues and at dinner parties, listen to Big Technology podcast wherever you get your podcasts. And here's how everything eventually played out there. It turned out that Auntie June had been severely struggling with Serena for about a year. Out of the blue, she'd gone from a well-behaved

30:08and kind girl into a monster. She was barely coping with her, but didn't want to admit it to anyone in case they judged her. She knew that Serena had always genuinely cared about her little cousin, so she thought that me going to stay there during my parents hung him in my cave to riff between them and instead it made things worse. My dad was extremely angry at his sister for withholding how Serena's behavior had become. Apparently Serena had used physical violence against June shortly before my stay and all dad could focus on was the fact that I had been endangered. It didn't take long to realize he was being harsh on Auntie June. Serena wasn't just a troubled teen, it turned out. She was eventually diagnosed with a handful of serious mental illnesses and underwent prolonged psychiatric impassioned treatment. At one point early on, Dad was adamant that they pushed for an attempted murder charge against Serena, especially because she seemed extremely unrepentant at the time and when it was discovered how mentally sick and suffering she was, that was soon dropped. Eventually, the riffs mended. Life was very hard for Serena, but she eventually overcame her demons actually joke about this and leads a somewhat normal, if in conventional life.

31:09A lot of people have stories about that one kid from this school days who was just the freaking worst my story goes place as the kid in question was too was scary, he wanted to be scary, he wanted to be really intimidating and he wanted the rest of us to be scared of him, he was new to school and a proper short-ass little guy, alone on a new place in the middle of year seven, so I can see why he decided to run and he was such an oddball. So this kid was new at our school and had an attitude that stunk and he decided he wasn't going to fit in. He wasn't going to try and be anybody's friend. Instead, he wanted us to fear him, so he picked someone to emulate that he thought we'd find badass and scary. Unfortunately, that person was Fred Durst. Now let me set the scene. I was just an average year seven girl doing average things, watching all of this play out. Durst was this short, puny little year seven who were short for even our 11-minus 12-year-old ages. He had a baby face and blonde hair and his storm around the school doing the nuky walk from the lint biscuit video, literally acting like Fred Durst, just scowling at people and saying the f-word if you got too close. The teacher said that he had behavioral issues but as you can probably guess

32:09as little kids we found Durst hilarious. And yes, he didn't insist that everyone call him Durst. Lint Biscuit is kind of hard to explain to anyone who was a kid during that era. They were a really weird band and that they were pretty universally regarded as terrible. All their early albums received me to terrible reviews and they were voted worst band of 2000 by some magazine, I remember. Even among the metalheads, the new metalheads, the corn and slick nut fans, Lint Biscuit was not particularly considered cool or good. This also took place in 2004, so their fourth album had just come out, the one with behind blue eyes on it. But Durst only had this second album, significant other, and then later chocolate starfish in the hot dog flavored water, which is a key plot point in the story. Now basically if you were in between in 2004 let me try and explain. The kid was obsessed with the rebel band and tried to use them as a source of fear and coolness, three years after they'd stopped being particularly musically relevant. I many of us believe this would last forever and that they'd never have a revival. Well Fred Durst and Buddies have proven us all wrong in 2024 and 25 with the Lint Biscuit Renaissance.

33:12Does our friend Durst get a similar revival? Well you'll find out. So this little kid would strut through the corridors of our secondary school, snarling and scowling at people, wearing a red baseball cap that no teacher could get him to take off for love no money. He prided himself on singing along to Lint Biscuit's second album, significant other, which he played through a battery powered portable CD player with terrible tiny cook speakers attached in a headphone port. And no matter how many times the teachers tried to confiscate dust CD player or ban him from listening to Lint Biscuit, he somehow managed to steal it back within a day and would have returned to blasting significant other through the corridors, hallways and classrooms of our secondary school. I think the teachers would have taken him more seriously if the rest of us hadn't constantly mocked and made fun of him. And eventually Durst didn't care that we weren't afraid of him. He went from trying to be how to try and to be the class clown. Any attention was good attention to him and we would constantly go to him and bait him into making himself look like an idiot. And for his part, he was getting easy and free attention like he wanted. I know for a fact that Durst wasn't some mentally ill kid or anything. He didn't come from a trouble-tome and he was just a little asshole back then.

34:15I don't know if it's still the case in British secondary schools these days, but back in my day when I was in school during music class was compulsory for the first couple of years of secondary school. We didn't really learn much. It was kind of an instruction class. Sometimes we'd play around on instruments. Other times we'd all have to sing and then sometimes we'd be taught vague musical history lessons or vague attempts to teach us what musical scores. Music class is basically a free muck about session and we all loved it, not least because of our teacher and assess beaten. She was a proper sweet old granny type, clearly still working as a music teacher because she enjoyed it. And I went to a fairly rural school and I think that as she told in a bigger city school, assess beaten would have been forced into retirement many years before. But my school was kind of small, kind of underfunded, and didn't exactly have a wealth of music teachers queuing up at its store. Missess beaten never lost her temper ever and she was maybe the only teacher who really genuinely tried with Durst. I guess because it's bizarre Lempisket fascination was music related and she thought maybe she could reach him by trying to be nice to him and encourage him to

35:15listen to other music. This didn't work, of course. Durst would just turn up significant other, usually no key or break stuff, and I swear that thanks to Durst, I'd hear those two songs more than any other music during 2004. Let me just reiterate. This album came out in 1999. Lempisket had four albums up by 2004. There's just only on this one, at least for most of the story. So Missess beaten tried really hard to be nice to Durst and he was rude as hell to her and she never once got hungry at him or raised her voice or anything. Oh, there's one thing that I haven't mentioned about Durst copy of significant other yet. It was the censored version so all the swear words were just muted out hilariously and his parents wouldn't allow him to own the censored version back in the day in case it was about influence. And I first met them back at parent's evening of that year. They were at the table next to mine and I heard them describing a son as bearded and enthusiastic to a teacher who was explaining to them that no he was incredibly disruptive and badly behaved. They seemed actively shocked at this, which was the first time I discovered that his whole dust after mostly only at school. And this was before the Missess beat an incident.

36:18So back to that, every time he disrespects Missess beat and the rest of the class would get particularly mad at Durst. We started calling him Durst the worst, which I think is an nickname for it himself probably heard often. But despite us trying to use it as an insult, Durst loved being called Durst a worst. And because we were stupid kids, we didn't realize that we were only encouraging him and rewarding his attention seeking behavior. So a typical music lesson would kind of go something like this. Missess Beeson would say, hello class, something, something down some recover, something, something teacher voice away some blurb, something, something, and then she'd sigh and add something about Limp Biscuit. She tried her very best to incorporate Limp Biscuit into her music theory lessons, knowing that Durst would just bring them up anyway. Then Durst would hear Limp Biscuit and take it as a sign to yell, I did it all for the nookie come on the nookie orang can agrar by chainsaw something similar and then we'd all yell at him to shut up Durst the worst and then back it doesn't about approximation of Fred Durst and then eventually we were all disrupting the lesson, not just Durst, so Missess Beeson would clap her hands together politely and ask for gentle calm quiet. And that was her cat freeze.

37:19And of course, none of us wanted to upset Missess Beeson, our beloved teachers, so we'd all calm down then. Durst generally kept the swearing to corridor moments because it was the only thing the teachers couldn't just let fly, I guess. So in other classes, his disruptive behavior usually involved the lines I accorded above or he'd self censored to avoid getting into too much trouble. Not the case in Missess Beeson's class though. He knew lovely old Missess Beeson would never actually punish him so he used this opportunity to say a default range of F-bombs and B words that you would hear in their music and he could see that it genuinely bothered Missess Beeson every time he did so. Like whenever he said the F word, she twitch a little and tell him it was harmful to use language like that. As some example of how powerfully sweet Missess Beeson was, Durst even listened occasionally and he would usually start swearing once he saw that he offended her too much. The main event happened and the day we came back from half-term break. It was the final half-term of year seven, which means Durst had been at the school for around six months. He joined after the Christmas holidays hence why he was the insecure new kid acting like a weirder. It felt like he'd been the main character of our entire school forever though, even though this

38:21must have just been because he was in my class. Looking back, it was obvious that the situation couldn't go on forever and it's something we'd have to be done about Durst eventually to stop him disrupting our entire school lives. I know sometimes wonder what things would have been like if the Missess Beeson incident hadn't happened. Maybe Durst would have moved on to Lincoln Park or called himself Shinura and become a very different person. And that day back after the summer half-term though he was still Durst but there was something different about him. We all recognised it right away because he'd been spending significant other every single day for six months but I particularly recognised it because my older sister at other lmbiscuit albums so I'd heard it before when it came out in 2001 or whatever. It was something I'm talking about as lmbiscuit's third album, Chocolate Starfish in the hot dog-flavored water. Durst had the CD. He was listening to it jamming to Roland, every vehicle and in fact a smuggler and excited look on his face as if it was a brand new album and this was his first time hearing it. Turns out that it actually was the case. He'd literally been gifted for the first time on the way to school that day. In amongst his usual snarls and spinning his red cap on his

39:22finger, Durst would point to his CD player during form room and say things like new album and good ha to anyone who came close. Of course we all psyched him up asking him about it and asking him which his favourite tracks were in things. And it was clear he loved to Roland and take a look around which to be fair was a banger because those were the two songs he kept playing over and over and singing along to the latter in particular. When he was listening to- No purchase necessary. VGW Group Void were prohibited by law CTs and Cs. 21 Plus sponsored by Chamba Casino.

40:40Or someone you love to hate. If you don't, well then stay tuned. Because music was our last lesson of the day and for most of the day we saw bears strutting through corridors or in some of our classes, wrapping along to Roland, snalling at U11s and doing some kind of new dance to the day that I don't think Fred Durst ever did and I'm pretty sure it was from that one bloodhound gang song but for whatever reason, Durst did the dance along to Roland. I've been listening curious the all day wondering if Durst would dare to play the title track of the album in front of the teachers. I remember my sister playing it to me when I was in primary school and telling me that I had to promise not to tell mom and dad that should let me hear it. And we both found it hilariously stupidly funny sitting in her room listening to Fred Durst screaming those lyrics which if you don't know them, well again, stay tuned. And Kid Durst did not play hot dog in front of the teachers or at all. He just listened

41:45to the middle few tracks of the album over and over again creating his usual mini-tronado of musical chaos as he Durst walked through the holes. As usual, everyone laughed at the weird little lint biscuit kid doing his weird little lint biscuit routine and as usual Durst thought that he was intimidating as all frickin' the coolest kid on campus and when we all showed up for music class things were suspiciously quiet and calm and that because Durst was late to class. Mrs. Beaton took the register and asked if Durst was out today. One of us said no, he was in school but she just shrugged and began the lesson which today was going to involve listening to some classical music and talking about Ticacolsky. I don't remember if that really is what it was but something like that probably. I'm a says Beaton sat down at her desk and put her hand in the CD player. It was like Durst time to survival for that moment. In my memory looking back, I would swear that I could hear the faint sounds of the inter-track. Who's in the house? Lint Biscuit is in the house, drifting in from the corridor as Durst made his way to class. And then as track 1 became track 2, he slammed the door open, stepped in and slammed it shut behind him. Then with a bow and a flourish, Durst interrupted our music class with a memories

42:47where perfect sing along to Lint Biscuit's titular truck cut dog. I woke up the hole song obviously. I can't quote the hole song on YouTube but I remember once hearing that hot dog held the well record for the most number of f-bombs used in the song at least for a while. It is also direct parody of the 9-inch nail song closer and quotes the song as well as perfect dragon at a 9-inch nail's classics in the chorus. But here are some highlights of the 2-minute 10 seconds performance we got from Durst and music class that date and from the sweet beloved OIP music teacher and assess Beaton get the f-up, it's an f-top world in an f-top play, a civil bodies judge by the f-top phase and then about 10 similar lines and something about DJ Litha Lane did a shame that you can't say the f and the f of blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Obviously I don't remember the song from memory, I had to look up the lyrics but it's burned into my mind watching dose caver and leap about the class as crappy speakers hanging around his neck doing a dance that wasn't even from Lint Biscuit. It's burned into my mind how we all cheer him on and got raucous every time he said the f-word which is a lot in this song and it's burned into my mind how none of us dared to even look at the s-beaten the entire time because surely even she would be furious at Durst for this insanity. And Durst finished with a flourish of just

43:50note that nothing you do can bring you closer to me. Under class fell silent and that's when we all knew Durst included that this had gone too far this time that the whole class should probably be ashamed. I turned to look at msess beaten to see what the teacher's reaction to Durst's description and constant use of the f-bombers. She was sitting at her desk staring ahead, breathing heavily. Durst just sort of stood there looking defeated and pathetic. It was the most normal human behavior I'd ever seen from him. He even took his cap off and muttered sorry miss and went to sit down. Missess beaten was still staring ahead, breathing heavily. She didn't even look at Durst as he went and sat down and looking a bit cheapish. And that's when I realized that she wasn't looking at any of us. She was staring off into space like the top left corner of the classroom so staring at nothing basically. One of the other students quietly said miss. To try and get missess beaten to react. She slowly stood up and as she did so I could tell even then something was deeply wrong. She swayed on her feet, her breathing still heavily and we still thought that it was just anger and outrage at Durst. Missess beaten took a few and steady steps out from behind

44:54her desk and into the centre of the classroom. The desk had been arranged in a sort of u-shape around the teacher's desk so there was a central space where we'd congregate if we played the instruments. Right now it was empty and this is where Missess beaten walked. The whole time she was staring into space then she reached up with her right hand and gripped her chest suddenly and viscerally. Then she sort of shook a few times in the spa, led out a strangle cry and dropped to the ground a dead weight. Literally I'd discover later. Missess beaten had suffered a massive devastating heart attack and a brain aneurysm into those of us who saw it happen. We'd swear it occurred as a result of sudden trauma. It felt like Durst had shocked Durst we'd miss Burton into having a heart attack with his performance of that song. Of course we didn't know it was a heart attack at the time or even the shoes dead. First there was panic in some kids running to get another teacher and breathless explanations of how Durst had burst into class and performed the song resulting in Missess beaten dropping to the ground. And then there was more chaos and paramedics and teachers crying and guiding students out of the classroom carefully. And then finally all of us kids were saying one thing to each other under our breaths.

45:57Durst killed Missess beaten. The next few weeks must have been awfully difficult and complicated for the other teachers. Missess beaten was beloved among staff as well of course and it's really hard to argue the Durst didn't kill Missess beaten even though he obviously didn't mean to or even mean to harm her. But adult teachers can't go accusing a 12-year-old boy of killing their 76-year-old colleague because she had a heart attack in response to his bad behavior. They still had to treat that bad behavior in the same way they would have normally treated it. Unfortunately for them they all knew they'd been complacent with Durst and if they suddenly acted differently it would imply that they believed that he was at fault. Now I have a bit of insight here so I know that his parents had had plenty of meetings with the school and the teachers panicked and worrying about the psychological effect that it would have on their son if he fully blamed himself for Missess beaten dying. On the other hand they understood that he couldn't be allowed to believe that he held no responsibility either because his bad behavior had led to something terrible happening. So basically the teachers and his parents decided that he should be punished but not too much. Simply moving schools wasn't an option at first and

46:57they also had decided that it could make Durst internalise too much guilt. So basically it meant that Durst got a handful of detentions and our music teacher was dead. In the eyes of his angry classmates who all knew we bore a bit of guilt too this meant that Durst had gotten away with murder literally. We only had a few weeks left for some attempt and I think most of us were too shell-shocked at seeing Missess beaten die to litter or cringe to actually act on it then. We all received counselling, although surprisingly little, concerning that we'd seen a woman die in front of our eyes and our class also at the special assembly without Durst where the headmistress herself emphasized strongly that while Durst's behavior had been unacceptable it was very important that we all realised that Durst did not intentionally harm Missess beaten and as she was very old and we all had our part to play and blah blah blah. We were little kids and not very compassionate and also certainly didn't want to admit that we all act just on that day. And so instead we spent a summer seething and plotting with our friends and talking about how we were going to make Durst pay in the autumn term. Honestly I think we were surprised that he even actually showed up at school in September. I didn't know until later that moving schools would be a really awkward and difficult option so I genuinely just been expecting never to see Durst again. The kid who showed

48:01up at the start of year it was a very different boy to the Durst of year 7. Pointed is the best word to describe him. Clearly if there was one person who blamed Durst from Missess beaten's death it was Durst himself. On the first day of class he worked up to our form room teacher and handed over a note and then quietly sat in his seat. The teacher read the note and addressed the class to ask if we would call Durst by his real name Ben going forward and then moved on with taking register. Durst or Ben just kept himself after that and he barely spoke to anyone and when he did it was because he had to. He most certainly did not listen to limp biscuit or any music in accord doors and he did not attend music class and now that I think about it it's kind of ghoulish that the rest of our class still had the lesson in the same classroom we'd see Missess beaten dying but hey ho here we go. The new teacher was young and inexperienced and some of the boys in the class would make half-hearted jokes about how the role was cursed because of Missess beaten but nobody really got mad at them for it because we all knew that the respect that we had for Ho's good. And we were all still mad at Durst though and refused to call him Ben despite what we'd been asked.

49:02We called him Durst or Killer and made absolutely no secret of the fact that we blamed him for murdering Missess beaten. One of our favorite ways of tormenting him was to sing the abyssalm when I kissed the teacher but changed the lyrics to Killed which was deeply cruel and retrospect and I'm pretty sure some of the boys got in some more trouble for bullying Durst and Durst ever got into the year before any of his behavior and while I think the teacher should have been tougher with Durst in the first place I do think it's right that they cracked down on his bullying now. Durst or Ben had very obviously not intended to do anything more than scandalize Missess beaten. Certainly not kill her and even then as a kid I could tell that he was deep-hunted and guilty about it. It was like Missess beaten's good slote to round him. In fact some kids started saying that. There was a rumor that if you looked at Durst at just the right angle you could see Missess beaten's apparition in his shadow or in his reflection. We'd share this rumor just loud enough for Durst himself to hear and more than once I caught him staring at his reflection or his shadow in a very nervous way. And throughout year it eventually just became set in stone fact that Durst had killed Missess beaten and be Missess beaten's ghost was now haunting Durst.

50:02The bullying continued and no matter how severely the teacher tried to punish us we would not stop calling Durst a killer and telling him he was haunted. And that is the end. Thank you for listening and I will see you in the next one. Hey it's Cole Swindle and when I spend 200 days a year rolling down the highway the bus can start to feel smaller than a guitar case. Everyone wonders how I stay chill while the hours crawl by. Truth is one good luck spent on Chamba and suddenly the trip does a whole lot shorter. Found in your space even when there isn't much to spare. Need some chill? Let's Chamba. No purchase necessary VGW group void were prohibited by law 21 plus TNC supply sponsored by Chamba Casino. Every day the world gets a little weirder and a lot more awesome. Cool stuff daily takes a

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