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