Speaker 1: Now I have a dog man's story here, you guys
may think is pretty interesting. It happens in California. Here's
what the man writes. I live in a remote part
of Antelope Valley in southern California, nestled against the foothills
of the San Gabriel Mountains, next to Devil's Punch Bowl Park.
My property stretches across two and a half acres, fenced
in and secluded enough that isolation has become its own
kind of companion. My nearest neighbor lives half a mile away.
In their porch. Light is like a distant star on
the horizon. The nights are thick with silence and mystery.
For the past ten years, this land has been home,
but it's never been entirely mine. Something else claims it too.
From the moment I moved in, I felt it a
strange energy that seeped into my bones, both inside the
house and out. The quality of the energy wasn't hostile,
but it wasn't exactly friendly either. Now this land is
harsh and unforgiving, a high desert sitting directly on the
San Andreas Fault. At times, deep underground subtle rumbles reached
the surface, vibrating through my body as though it wants
to remind me that it is alive. The previous owners
were an elderly couple. They had lived there together for
almost twenty five years and operated a horse rescue business. Sadly,
the lady of the house had recently passed away, and
the husband decided to sell the property and move on.
I remember one time, while I was having a conversation
with the man, I felt the strange energy come over me.
I took a chance and casually mentioned it to him,
then watched his eyes well with tears. I saw a
hint of longing in his face, as if he knew
exactly what I meant, and I was already missing it.
I think all the horses that lived on the property
left a con presence there which still remains. Despite the
negative experiences that I had in the first few months
after I moved in, sleep was not a refuge but
a battleground. Night after night, I found myself trapped in
the clutches of vivid sleep paralysis. My body was heavy
and unyielding, and it felt like it belonged to someone else. Dark,
shadowy shapes gathered above me, their forms amorphous and shifting
like smoke. Their presence was unmistakably oppressive. They whispered in
voices just barely audible, their hissing tones brushing against my
ears like an invasive wind. But the worst part was
the hand. It was cold and unseen and impossibly strong,
and it would wrap around my own locking it in
a crushing grip. No matter how much I strained, I
couldn't break free. My hand was immobilized, and I could
feel a taunting pressure in its grasp, as if the
entity was mocking my helplessness. So every night the terror
grew worse, and I felt violated, like a prisoner in
my own bed, unable to defend myself against an enemy
that I could not see. For weeks, I endured this, too,
afraid to fight back, unsure if I even could. But
one night the fear gave way to anger, pure unfiltered anger,
and I had had enough. Lying there, unable to move,
I summoned every ounce of courage I had. My voice
didn't reach my lips, but it echoed in my mind,
loud and defiant. Now you've had your fun, and you
wanted to terrorize me, and you succeeded, But no more
enough of this nonsense. Leave me, kill me if you must,
but you will never win. The room fell deathly silent,
the kind of silence that feels alive, pressing against your ears.
And then, as quickly as they had come, the shadows receded,
the whispers stopped, the crushing grip on my hand released,
leaving me trembling but free. That was the last night
they visited. I don't know if it was my defiance
or something else that drove them away, but they left.
The house felt quieter after that. It was less heavy,
though the memory of those nights still lingered like a scar.
I won that battle, but I've never been certain of
the war. Although the house became quieter after that, outside,
the feeling of being watched grew stronger, especially at night.
Still today, every evening, even when I arrived home and
step out of my car to open the gate, I
feel the eyes on me. Not human eyes. There's something else,
something heavy and deliberate. I walked my property at night
with my three fearless massive wolfhounds, and on some nights
they stopped dead in their tracks, refusing to move, their
hackles rise and their gazes fixed on the darkness. The
first few times panic gripped me. It was as if
an invisible line had been drawn one I dared not cross.
My fear was a tangible thing, gripping me tighter with
every step. And then I heard it, a voice in
my mind, calm but commanding. As long as you don't
actively look for me, you'll be fine, it said. The
voice was not a threat, but a warning, and the
words lingered, and while they didn't erase the fear, they
dulled its edge. Since that night, I stayed on my
side of the line, keeping my walks brief and my
gaze low, but the presence never left. The nights when
the codes hauled were almost comforting, their halls familiar and alive.
But then there were the silent nights when my dogs,
usually very bold, stood frozen, ears flat, refusing to bark.
Those were the nights I knew that it was near.
Since then, I never sought it out, never tried to
pierce the veil of darkness around me. But sometimes I
can't help but wonder, as I stand under the vast,
starless sky, what watches from the shadows, and why does
it let me stay. I've seen it only in glimpses,
the blackest of black shadows and low to the ground,
with the unmistakable shape of a massive K nine. It
never crosses the boundary, but it doesn't have to because
I don't challenge it. Somehow, I know that would be
my undoing. For ten years, I've called this place home.
Yet every night reminds me that I'm not alone. The
truth that I've struck with whatever claims this land has
held steady, but the uneasy balance is not without its moments.
Living here means accepting the inexplicable as part of life,
like the black shadows of glimpsed in the corner of
my eye, or the faint vibrations underfoot when the earth
seems to breathe. One night, about two years ago, I
experienced something I still struggled to make sense of. It
was a quiet, moonless evening, the kind of night where
the darkness felt heavier than usual. The air was colder
than it should have been for the season. It was
almost damp, and my dogs were restless. I stepped out
to take them for a walk around the perimeter, but
they wouldn't budge from the porch. Their bodies were stiff,
their tails were low, and eyes were locked on the
tree line at the edge of the property, and that's
when I saw it, something massive, moving just beyond the fence.
Its shape was indistinct, cloaked in the shadow, but its
sheer size ruled out any ordinary predator. It wasn't a
coyote or a mountain lion. It was something bigger, heavier,
and utterly alien in the way it moved. At first,
it seemed to glide without effort, but then its motion
fragmented and shuddered, like an image caught in a flickering light.
It was as if it existed in flashes, each appearance,
momentarily bending the darkness around it like ripples in black water.
The effect was hypnotic and deeply unsettling, as though the
creature was not entirely bound to the same reality that
I inhabited. I froze there and stood, my heart pounding
in my chest like a drum. A low, rumbling growl
rose from my dogs, and the sound reverberated through the
still night air. But even then they did not move closer.
The creature stopped abruptly, and the shifting light seemed to
dissolve into stillness. That's when I saw them, two glowing
orbs unmistakably eyes shining with a faint, other worldly luminescence.
They reflected a light that wasn't there, as if pulling
brightness from some unseen source. Those eyes locked on to me, unblinking, steady,
and impossibly knowing. I couldn't move the weight of its
gaze to pin me in place, and for a moment,
the world seemed to hold its breath. Whatever it was,
it wasn't just watching, It was evaluating. It didn't run,
and I couldn't. Instead, I slowly backed into the house
and my dogs followed close behind. The thing didn't follow,
but its presence lingered like a weight on my chest.
Another time, I came home late from work, and as usual,
I stepped out of my car to open the gate.
The air was still, but the feeling of being watched
was so intense that it felt like a hand pressing
on my shoulder. I hurried to the gate and fumbled
with a lock, and then I heard it, a low growl,
not far behind me. Spinning around, I saw nothing but
the dark expanse of my yard. My dogs were inside
the house, barking furiously, their voices muffled by the thick walls.
The most unsettling experience happened last winter. I was in bed,
drifting to sleep when I heard scratching at my bedroom window.
My bedroom is on the second floor. I lay there, paralyzed,
listening to the steady, deliberate sound. It wasn't the wind
or a tree branch. The scratches were too purposeful, too rhythmic,
gathering my courage. I peeped through the curtain and there
was nothing there, just the faint outline of the tree
swaying in the wind. But as I turned away, I
saw a faint outline and the frost on the glass,
and the shape of a massive pall. Despite everything, I've
come to respect this land deeply. I never puts the
boundaries and tread with humility. I think that's why it
lets me stay. We share this land, me and whatever
watches from the shadows. And for now, that uneasy truce
is enough. But even now, as I write this, I
can feel it. It's outside in the dark, Something is
waiting and watching. It's always watching. Oh oh, I read
this story cold. I had not read it before I
pulled it up. Rebecca, my editor just actually sent it
to me today, and I thought, I'm just gonna knock
out one story today in a podcast and get it
out and then I'm gonna get to work. I'm so
blown away by the way this guy can write, Holy smokes,
and I think it's a guy. I'm almost sure it is.
Doesn't give his name, so I don't know if it's
a man or woman. It's written kind of in a
masculine sense, and it has a masculine feel to it,
but who knows what. More than the story, it's the writing.
It really stood out to me on this. Did you
guys like that? Hey, I am pretty busy these days,
So what I may do is just do one story
per podcast, or maybe two short stories. Just get some
shorter podcasts out to keep things rolling. Man, if I
go too many days without doing this podcast, I start
jonesing for it. Know what I may? I start getting
I don't know, antsy, and it feels like I kind
of lose my It's like I open up a file
to read and I can't read anymore. So I got
to keep doing it to be able to keep doing this.
So that's what I don't know what I'm talking about.
I'm just blibering. I'm just blibering. That's what I do. Hey,
thank y'all for listening. Hey, I wanted to say one
more thing before I get off this podcast. I don't
know if you guys watch TikTok, but there's a guy
and I don't watch it much, only follow maybe I
don't know, two or three dozen channels. I'm normally just
it's usually while I'm in the bathroom, I'm just flipping
through videos. But there's a guy from Kentucky. He's a
truck driver. The name of his TikTok handle is Peterbilt
seventy one. He does all kind of stuff. He first,
he drives a big peter Bilt. It's an older model
peter Bilt. But he pulled the camera out of his
truck the other day and there's that big old peter
Bilt with that big snout sticking out on the front
and a sleeper behind it, and he's pulling a low
boy with a big excavator on the back. I don't know,
I just admire those guys. I wish I knew how
to drive one of those trucks. I'd love to do
that for a living. But he also does these little
short one minute videos sitting in his truck eating lunch,
and he Whenever I watch him eat, it reminds me
of me and my grandfather and the stuff my grandfather
would feed me. I can't tell you how many times
my grandfather and I would sit on the back porch
in the summer and he'd get a pack of hot dogs,
cut him out and hand me just raw cold hot dog.
We'd have a pack of crackers in a block of cheese,
you know, sharp cheddar cheese, and we just sit there
and eat hot dogs and crackers and cheese and any
sausages and other kind of sausages you can get in
a can. But he eats a lot of these canned
meats and canned anyway. I can't do the sardines and
some of the things he does. This guy will eat anything.
But I know where he gets it from because he
came up eating that way, and when you come up
eating that way, you always eat that way. But I
just love him, I love his personality. I don't know
his name, Peter Bilt seventy one. Y'all look him up
on TikTok. He may be on YouTube too, I don't know,
but if you watch TikTok, I just love the guy,
and I just wanted to give him a shout out.
I doubt he's a truck driver. He may hear this,
he may not. I don't know. But Peter Bilt seventy one,
you the man. You make me hungry every time I
watch your videos. Brother, all right, thank youall for watching
the podcast or listening to the podcast, and we'll sing
on the next one. Thanks,