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Welcome listeners to this installment of fast
Food Horror with this tale entitled The Rest

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Stop by E. J. Miller. There are countless scary stories I could

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tell here, Tells of things that
go bump in the night, of things

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that lurk in the shadows, of
goblins and ghouls, and other frights stories

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the depraved or the unimaginable, worst
of the human experience only thought of in

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nightmares, or the recounting of true
actual events. This is one of those.

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I won't tell you which the latter
or the former. You'll have to

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decide on your own. I'll only
say that I have spoken to many people

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about this subject about what I'm about
to share with you, that if it's

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fiction, how it should be portrayed, there are very many that are very

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emotional about that, and if the
story is real, way too many questions

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to field from the same. Here
we go. I had taken my wife

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and three daughters down to Raleigh for
a soccer match. My youngest was a

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very very big Alex Morgan fan,
and she was scheduled to play that night.

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I don't have a lot of money, and this would be the closest

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she would ever get to us so, trying to be a good dad,

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I got us tickets. I had
to cut a lot of corners to make

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it work. We drove halfway the
day before, subsisting on two large coolers

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of sandwiches and other things we had
packed, stayed the night in a campground

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instead of a hotel or a motel, then drove right to the field that

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day, arriving minutes before kickoff.
We took in the game, and to

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save cash and time, when the
match was over, autograph signed, merch

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purchased. We loaded the kids back
into the mini van to head home that

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night. Like I said, I
have a lot of money. I couldn't

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rightly afford a hotel, stay or
campground, extend the mini van rental and

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a day of meals since the coolers
were low, so I intended to drive

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straight through to Buffalo ten hours.
That's right, sounds crazy, right,

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I figured, with coffee and some
red bull I could do it. We

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made good time getting out of North
Carolina and then on through Virginia. However,

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the problems didn't start until West Virginia
into the mountains, the mist and

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the fog of Appalachia. It made
seeing very tough through those twisty mountain roads,

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bending right and left, then up
for no reason. I knew with

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one wrong turn we'd be off,
falling into the abyss. I had to

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take things very slow, well slower
than I'd like, only driving as fast

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as my headlights. It was also
about then that the third or was it

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the fourth red Bull started to wear
off. I felt like I was going

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to crash, not the vehicle,
just I got really, really tired,

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so I let my wife drive for
a while while I tried to nap.

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But about thirty or forty minutes into
the drive, she really wasn't having the

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mountain driving either. It was scaring
her as well, the darkness and the

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fog, not knowing if the road
was going to turn or end, so

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she pulled over at an overlook and
woke me up. I was rather groggy,

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and we were in the middle of
nowhere, if you want to call

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high up on a mountain, surrounded
by forest and darkness nowhere. I urged

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her to drive a bit further,
hoping to find somewhere safer. After another

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fifteen minutes, she pulled off into
a rest stop parked in the rear of

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the lot, and we joined the
girls in a nap. I set my

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phone to wake me up in an
hour. I just needed to close my

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eyes a little bit longer and that
I could power through. Maybe the fog

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would lift. Maybe with a little
bit of sleep it would be easier,

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Maybe the sugar crash would wear off. I remember watching one of those documentaries

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in school when I was a kid. It was concerning the parts of the

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human brain. You probably remember watching
a high school too. The cerebellum,

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the temporal lobe, the brain stem, and the amygdala and limbic system.

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Those last two are the primal parts, the parts of your brain that automatically

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detect danger, the survival parts.
And mine woke me up from a dead

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sleep, like my body was shot
with a current of electricity. My eyes

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flew open, and I was immediately
looking around my surroundings, not knowing or

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questioning why, but quickly and efficiently
looking all about. Not in the minivan,

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not the interior where my family lay
asleep, but my eyes immediately began

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scanning what was in the woods or
surrounding us, looking, scanning with a

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feverish intent for the danger I knew
innately was there, and then my eyes

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locked on it. Forty yards up
the hill directly in front of us,

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Illuminated only by the moonlight and stars, it stood watching me, watch it,

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watching me with a predatory gaze,
with red eyes. It stood maybe

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seven feet tall, a large,
framed, hulking thing that easily tipped the

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scales at four hundred pounds, with
broad shoulders, long, well muscled arms

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extended well past its waist. It
was not a person. It was too

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large to be that, and what
little I could see of it appeared to

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be covered with some dark fur.
I could not see its face, aside

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from the eyes, whose stare had
not broken From my position, I watched

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as it slowly made its way down
the slope, long careful strides, arms

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swinging corresponding to each footstep, purposeful
and slow, like a lion creeping on

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its prey, getting ready to pounce. Ever decreasing the gap. Again,

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that part of my brain, that
primal, basic part of my brain,

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engaged, and it screamed survive.
I pulled my wife from the driver's side

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of the minivan and quickly leapt behind
the wheel. She woke with a start.

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Our eyes locked, and we both
heard a howl from outside the minivan,

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emanating from the mountain. I was
just watching and ang angry howell.

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She scurried into the back of the
minivan, demanding what it was in a

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panic voice, what had happened?
What was outside? I started the minivan

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and put it into a reverse and
gund it. The engines roar, not

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loud enough to mass the roar of
the thing now running towards us. As

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I exited the parking lot, I
looked in the rear view mirror and saw

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it standing there, eyes glowing,
chest heaving at the edge of the parking

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lot, enraged, a dark thing
with long, muscular arms and legs covered

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completely in dark, matted fur.
I looked back at my wife, who

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was holding our two youngest, our
third behind her, clutching her neck.

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My wife's primal brain had kicked in
as well, without hesitation, understanding protect

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the young. The rest of the
parts of my brain finally started to kick

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in as we put distance between us
and it, and as the questions started

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to flood from the rear of the
minivan of what it was, what was

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chasing us. The only thing that
came out of my mouth was the thing

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that didn't sound as crazy as the
truth. Because the truth, well,

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I said the only thing I could
think of, A bear,