WEBVTT

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<v Speaker 1>Now one of your pudding. I got a string going

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<v Speaker 1>on here, something just because my dog. Something killed your dog,

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<v Speaker 1>my dog. We're flying through the air over the tree.

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<v Speaker 1>I don't know how it did it, Okay, Damn, I'm

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<v Speaker 1>really confused. All I saw was my dog coming over

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<v Speaker 1>the fence and he was dead. And once you hit

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<v Speaker 1>the ground, like, I didn't see any cars. All I

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<v Speaker 1>saw was my dog coming over the fence. Sat, what

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<v Speaker 1>are you putting? We got some wonder or something crawling

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<v Speaker 1>around out here? Did you see what it was or

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<v Speaker 1>was it was? Standing enough? I'm out here looking through

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<v Speaker 1>the window now and I don't see anything. I don't

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<v Speaker 1>want to go outside. Jesus Quice, you better hello, get

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<v Speaker 1>somebody out here. Quin. I'm out there. I thought of

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<v Speaker 1>a bit about Tech forty nine. I don't know easy

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<v Speaker 1>out there. Yeah, I'm walking right head.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I know. I already dropped an episode today, But

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<v Speaker 2>it's Friday, and the woods don't sleep on Fridays, so

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<v Speaker 2>this one's a bonus. No daylight, no distractions, just shadows,

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<v Speaker 2>questions and the things that don't like being talked about.

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<v Speaker 2>If you're listening alone, good, Let's get into it over

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<v Speaker 2>the next few weeks, I'm going to be sharing my

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<v Speaker 2>new book with you start to finish the whole thing.

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<v Speaker 2>It's called Bigfoot Country. All told, it's around eight hours

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<v Speaker 2>of narration. So I'll be putting it out in multiple episodes,

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<v Speaker 2>and honestly, I've been sitting on this for a long time.

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<v Speaker 2>I'm excited and a little nervous to finally put it

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<v Speaker 2>out there. But before we jump in, I want to

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<v Speaker 2>take a minute just you and me. What you're about

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<v Speaker 2>to hear is loosely based on my life. Some of

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<v Speaker 2>it happened exactly the way I tell it, no embellishment,

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<v Speaker 2>no polish. Other parts are rooted in real experiences, real people,

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<v Speaker 2>real moments, real emotions, but maybe stretched a bit or

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<v Speaker 2>reimagine to help the story breathe. And then there are

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<v Speaker 2>parts where, well you get to decide what you believe.

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<v Speaker 2>I also want to be upfront about something early on

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<v Speaker 2>you might find yourself wondering where this is all headed.

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<v Speaker 2>There's a lot of groundwork, family, childhood, personal history. Just

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<v Speaker 2>know this, it's going somewhere. This book is about Bigfoot.

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<v Speaker 2>That's the destination, I promise. Just trust me long enough

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<v Speaker 2>to get there. At its heart, this is a story

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<v Speaker 2>about my earliest experiences with the strange and unexplained. It

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<v Speaker 2>starts with something that happened to me when I was

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<v Speaker 2>twelve years old, and encounter with what I believe was

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<v Speaker 2>a sasquatch. That moment stayed with me. It shaped a

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<v Speaker 2>lot of who I became, and for years I struggled

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<v Speaker 2>with how or even if I should ever tell that story,

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<v Speaker 2>because how do you talk about something the world insists

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<v Speaker 2>isn't real? How do you open yourself up like that

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<v Speaker 2>knowing people are going to judge you, doubt you, or

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<v Speaker 2>dismiss you entirely. But these stories have always mattered to me.

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<v Speaker 2>This book has always mattered, and at some point I

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<v Speaker 2>realized I was done keeping it all tucked away. Here's

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<v Speaker 2>the thing, though, I didn't just write about Bigfoot. I

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<v Speaker 2>wrote about me, all of me, my childhood, my parents,

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<v Speaker 2>my failures, my struggles, and yeah, Danny, I know that

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<v Speaker 2>part isn't going to sit well with everyone. I get

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<v Speaker 2>that some folks are going to have opinions, and that's

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<v Speaker 2>their right, But for me, leaving any of that out

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<v Speaker 2>would have been dishonest. I can't ask you to trust

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<v Speaker 2>me with these experiences and then hide pieces of who

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<v Speaker 2>I am. I can't tell my story with that, including

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<v Speaker 2>the person who stood beside me through the hardest parts

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<v Speaker 2>of it. That's just not how I live, and it's

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<v Speaker 2>not how this book was written. Believe me. I thought

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<v Speaker 2>about sanding down the rough edges, making it cleaner, safer,

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<v Speaker 2>easier to swallow, cutting out the parts that might make

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<v Speaker 2>people uncomfortable. But I couldn't do it. I've spent too

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<v Speaker 2>much of my life holding back, and I'm done with that.

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<v Speaker 2>So this is me. This is my story, all of it.

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<v Speaker 2>Some of what you'll hear happened exactly as I describe it.

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<v Speaker 2>Some of it is how I imagine things might have gone

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<v Speaker 2>if the timing had been different, if I'd pushed harder,

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<v Speaker 2>if the world worked the way I think it sometimes should.

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<v Speaker 2>And one last thing before we start. This is book one.

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<v Speaker 2>There's more coming, a lot more. This is just the beginning.

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<v Speaker 2>I hope you enjoy Bigfoot Country as much as I

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<v Speaker 2>did writing it. Bigfoot Country based on a true story,

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<v Speaker 2>well sorta. Part one, the hollow Chapter one, the Road

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<v Speaker 2>to Nowhere. The truck rattled down the dirt road like

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<v Speaker 2>it was trying to shake itself apart, and I pressed

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<v Speaker 2>my face against the window, watching the trees close in

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<v Speaker 2>around us, Georgia pines, mostly tall and straight as telephone poles,

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<v Speaker 2>their branches starting way up high, like they couldn't be

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<v Speaker 2>bothered with the ground between them. The hardwoods were just

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<v Speaker 2>starting to turn, splashes of orange and red mixed in

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<v Speaker 2>with all that green. It was September of nineteen eighty four,

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<v Speaker 2>just a few months before my twelfth birthday, and everything

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<v Speaker 2>I'd ever known was disappearing in the side mirror. Daddy's

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<v Speaker 2>hands gripped the steering wheel like he was strangling it.

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<v Speaker 2>He hadn't said more than ten words since we'd left

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<v Speaker 2>the old place in Somerville, and that suited me fine.

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<v Speaker 2>When Jerry Patterson got quiet, it usually meant the storm

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<v Speaker 2>was building. Better to let it build than to be

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<v Speaker 2>the one who set it off. Mama sat between us,

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<v Speaker 2>her hip pressed against mine every time Daddy took a

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<v Speaker 2>curve to fast. She smelled like the Jurgen's lotion she

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<v Speaker 2>rubbed on her hands every night, and the faint sweetness

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<v Speaker 2>of the doctor pepper she'd been nursing since we stopped

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<v Speaker 2>for gas an hour back. Jean Patterson was a small woman,

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<v Speaker 2>barely five foot two, but She had a way of

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<v Speaker 2>taking up space when she wanted to. Right now, she

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<v Speaker 2>was trying to make herself invisible, same as me. How

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<v Speaker 2>much further, I asked, not really expecting an answer. When

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<v Speaker 2>we get there, We get there. Daddy's voice sounded like

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<v Speaker 2>gravel mixed with cigarette smoke. He reached for the pack

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<v Speaker 2>of Winston's on the dashboard without taking his eyes off

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<v Speaker 2>the road. Mama put her hand on my knee and squeezed.

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<v Speaker 2>That was her way. She couldn't fix things, couldn't make

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<v Speaker 2>Daddy any different than he was, but she could let

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<v Speaker 2>me know I wasn't alone. In the silence, the road narrowed.

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<v Speaker 2>What had been two lanes of cracked asphalt became one

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<v Speaker 2>lane of packed red clay, and the trees pressed in

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<v Speaker 2>even closer. Spanish moss hung from the branches of the oaks,

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<v Speaker 2>like old gray ghosts, reaching down to touch the truck

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<v Speaker 2>as we passed. I'd seen plenty of woods in my

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<v Speaker 2>twelve years, but nothing like this. This felt old, This

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<v Speaker 2>felt like the kind of place that had been here

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<v Speaker 2>long before people came, and would be here long after

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<v Speaker 2>we were gone. Then the trees opened up, and there

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<v Speaker 2>it was. The house sat at the end of the road,

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<v Speaker 2>like something that had crawled there to die. It was

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<v Speaker 2>white once, I think, but years of Georgia weather had

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<v Speaker 2>turned it the color of old bones. The porch sagged

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<v Speaker 2>in the middle, and one of the upstairs windows was

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<v Speaker 2>covered with a piece of plywood that had started to warp.

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<v Speaker 2>A rusted propane tank squatted in the sideyard like a

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<v Speaker 2>beached submarine. Home, Sweet Home, Daddy said, and laughed. It

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<v Speaker 2>wasn't a nice laugh. I climbed out of the truck

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<v Speaker 2>and stood there in the dirt driveway, trying to make

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<v Speaker 2>sense of what I was seeing. Behind the house, the

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<v Speaker 2>land rose up in a gentle slope before disappearing into

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<v Speaker 2>woods so thick and dark they looked like a wall.

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<v Speaker 2>Eighty acres, the landlord had said, eighty acres of woods

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<v Speaker 2>and howlers and creek bottoms, and all of it was

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<v Speaker 2>ours to use, as long as we paid the rent

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<v Speaker 2>on time. Daddy was already carrying boxes inside, his boots

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<v Speaker 2>heavy on the porch steps. Mama stood beside me, her

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<v Speaker 2>arms crossed over her chest like she was cold, even

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<v Speaker 2>though the September heat was thick enough to chew. It'll

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<v Speaker 2>be all right, she said, I couldn't tell if she

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<v Speaker 2>was talking to me or to herself. Yes, ma'am, she

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<v Speaker 2>turned and looked at me, really looked the way she

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<v Speaker 2>did when she wanted me to hear something important. Brian,

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<v Speaker 2>I know this isn't what you wanted. I know you

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<v Speaker 2>had friends back in Somerville at your school, had your life,

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<v Speaker 2>but sometimes we got to play the hand. Where dealt

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<v Speaker 2>you understand? I nodded, even though I didn't understand, not really.

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<v Speaker 2>I didn't understand why Daddy couldn't hold down a job

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<v Speaker 2>for more than a few months at a time. Didn't

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<v Speaker 2>understand why we had to keep moving, keep running from

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<v Speaker 2>landlords and creditors and all the messes he made. Didn't

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<v Speaker 2>understand why Mama stayed with him, why she kept believing

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<v Speaker 2>things would get better when everything I'd seen in my

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<v Speaker 2>twelve years told me they never would. But I was twelve.

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<v Speaker 2>Understanding wasn't my job yet. My job was to keep

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<v Speaker 2>my head down, stay out of Daddy's way, and wait

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<v Speaker 2>for the next storm to pass. Go on and pick

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<v Speaker 2>out your room, Mama said, top of the stairs. Take

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<v Speaker 2>your pick, Just leave the big one at the end

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<v Speaker 2>of the hall for me and your daddy. I grabbed

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<v Speaker 2>my duffel bag from the truck bed and headed inside.

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<v Speaker 2>The house smelled like dust and old newspapers and something

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<v Speaker 2>else underneath, something sour and wrong. I tried not to

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<v Speaker 2>think about what might have happened here before we came,

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<v Speaker 2>what kind of people might have lived and died within

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<v Speaker 2>these walls. The floorboards creaked under my feet as I

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<v Speaker 2>climbed the stairs, and I swear I could feel the

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<v Speaker 2>house shifting around me, settling into its bones, like an

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<v Speaker 2>old man easing into a chair. There were three bedrooms upstairs.

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<v Speaker 2>The big one at the end of the hall had

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<v Speaker 2>two windows that looked out over the backyard and the

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<v Speaker 2>woods beyond. The one next to it was barely bigger

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<v Speaker 2>than a closet with a single window that faced the driveway.

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<v Speaker 2>But the third room, the one at the front of

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<v Speaker 2>the house that one called to me. It wasn't much

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<v Speaker 2>to look at water stains on the ceiling, wallpaper peeling

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<v Speaker 2>at the corners, a closet door that hung crooked on

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<v Speaker 2>its hinges, But the window, the window was something special.

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<v Speaker 2>It looked out over the front porch roof, and beyond

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<v Speaker 2>that I could see the dirt road stretching back through

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<v Speaker 2>the trees, toward the highway, toward civilization, toward the world

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<v Speaker 2>I'd left behind. I dropped my duffel bag on the

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<v Speaker 2>floor and sat down on the bare mattress that someone

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<v Speaker 2>had left behind. Springs poked through the fabric in places,

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<v Speaker 2>and it smelled like mildew, but I didn't care. This

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<v Speaker 2>was mine now, this little room at the top of

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<v Speaker 2>this dying house, at the end of this dirt road,

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<v Speaker 2>in the middle of nowhere mine. From downstairs, I could

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<v Speaker 2>hear Daddy cursing at something, a box he'd dropped, probably,

191
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<v Speaker 2>or maybe he'd found the bottle he'd hidden in the

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<v Speaker 2>truck and was just getting started on his evening. Either way,

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<v Speaker 2>I knew better than to go back down, better to

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<v Speaker 2>stay up here where it was quiet, better to wait

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<v Speaker 2>until Mamma called me for dinner. I laid back on

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<v Speaker 2>the mattress and stared at the water stains on the ceiling.

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<v Speaker 2>If I squinted just right, they almost looked like a map,

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<v Speaker 2>rivers and mountains in vast empty spaces where anything could

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<v Speaker 2>be hiding anything at all. Outside, the sun was going

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<v Speaker 2>down behind the trees, and the shadows were getting long.

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<v Speaker 2>Somewhere in the distance, a whipper wheel started calling over

202
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<v Speaker 2>and over, like it was trying to tell me something.

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<v Speaker 2>I closed my eyes and listened. This was home now,

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<v Speaker 2>for better or worse. This sagging house, these endless woods,

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<v Speaker 2>this family that was coming apart at the seams. This

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<v Speaker 2>was all I had. I just didn't know yet how

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<v Speaker 2>much it would cost me. Chapter two, The Woods Have Eyes.

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<v Speaker 2>The first few weeks lyrely passed in a blur of

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<v Speaker 2>unpacking boxes and learning the rhythms of a new place.

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<v Speaker 2>School started, and I found myself sitting in the back

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<v Speaker 2>of classrooms, surrounded by kids who'd known each other since birth,

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<v Speaker 2>kids whose families went back generations. In this little town

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<v Speaker 2>that didn't even have a stoplight. I was the outsider,

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<v Speaker 2>the new kid, the boy from somewhere else, who didn't

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<v Speaker 2>know the history, didn't know the stories, didn't know which

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<v Speaker 2>families had been feuding since before the Civil War. I

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<v Speaker 2>kept my head down and my mouth shut, answered questions

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<v Speaker 2>when teachers called on me, ate my lunch alone at

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<v Speaker 2>a table in the corner of the cafeteria, and every

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<v Speaker 2>day when the bus dropped me off at the end

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<v Speaker 2>of that long dirt road, I walked home through the

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<v Speaker 2>trees and felt something in my chest, loosen something that

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00:12:55.279 --> 00:12:58.840
<v Speaker 2>had been wound tight all day, finally letting go. The

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<v Speaker 2>woods were my salvation. I started exploring them that first weekend,

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<v Speaker 2>when Daddy was off somewhere doing god knows what and

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<v Speaker 2>Mama was too tired from unpacking to notice I was gone.

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<v Speaker 2>I took my bb gun, a daisy that Daddy had

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<v Speaker 2>given me for my tenth birthday, back when he still

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00:13:14.960 --> 00:13:17.600
<v Speaker 2>did things like that, and I headed into the trees

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<v Speaker 2>behind the house. It didn't take long to realize that

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<v Speaker 2>eighty acres was more land than I'd ever imagined. The

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<v Speaker 2>woods went on forever, or at least it seemed that

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<v Speaker 2>way to a twelve year old boy. Hardwoods gave way

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00:13:30.159 --> 00:13:33.600
<v Speaker 2>to pine thickets. Pine thickets gave way to swampy bottoms,

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<v Speaker 2>where the creek ran slow and dark, and everywhere everywhere

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<v Speaker 2>there was life. Squirrels chattered at me from the branches.

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<v Speaker 2>Birds I'd never seen before flashed through the underbrush. Once

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<v Speaker 2>I came around to bend in a deer trail and

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00:13:48.679 --> 00:13:51.360
<v Speaker 2>found myself face to face with a dough and her fawn,

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00:13:51.919 --> 00:13:54.519
<v Speaker 2>all of us frozen in surprise before they bounded off

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00:13:54.519 --> 00:13:59.279
<v Speaker 2>into the trees. I started making maps, crude things drawn

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<v Speaker 2>on notebook page with a pencil that I kept sharpening

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00:14:01.799 --> 00:14:05.840
<v Speaker 2>with my pocket knife. I marked the big landmarks, the

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00:14:05.919 --> 00:14:08.279
<v Speaker 2>lightning struck oak that had split down the middle but

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00:14:08.360 --> 00:14:11.639
<v Speaker 2>kept on living, The boulder field where granite pushed up

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00:14:11.639 --> 00:14:15.200
<v Speaker 2>through the red clay, like bones breaking through skin. The

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00:14:15.200 --> 00:14:17.840
<v Speaker 2>swimming hole where the creek widened out into a pool

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00:14:17.879 --> 00:14:22.159
<v Speaker 2>deep enough to dive into. I gave them names, the Sentinel,

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00:14:22.639 --> 00:14:28.320
<v Speaker 2>the graveyard, the baptism. And I built forts. Lord, did

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00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:31.960
<v Speaker 2>I build forts. The first one was simple, just some

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00:14:32.039 --> 00:14:34.600
<v Speaker 2>fallen branches leaned against a big oak to make a

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00:14:34.679 --> 00:14:37.720
<v Speaker 2>lean to, But it got more complicated as the weeks

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00:14:37.759 --> 00:14:40.960
<v Speaker 2>went on. I found an old tart behind the house,

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00:14:41.320 --> 00:14:44.840
<v Speaker 2>half rotted but still mostly waterproof, and I stretched it

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00:14:44.840 --> 00:14:47.080
<v Speaker 2>over a frame I built from saplings I cut with

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00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:51.000
<v Speaker 2>my pocket knife. I dragged logs over for seats. I

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00:14:51.080 --> 00:14:53.399
<v Speaker 2>dug a fire pit, even though I never lit a

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00:14:53.440 --> 00:14:56.559
<v Speaker 2>fire in it, because Mama would have killed me. I

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00:14:56.600 --> 00:15:00.639
<v Speaker 2>stashed supplies out there, a rusty coffee can full of matches,

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00:15:01.120 --> 00:15:04.039
<v Speaker 2>a canteen i'd found it, a yard sale, some beef

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00:15:04.120 --> 00:15:07.840
<v Speaker 2>jerky i'd stolen from the kitchen. That fort became my home,

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00:15:08.440 --> 00:15:12.559
<v Speaker 2>my real home, and stay tuned for more sasquatch out

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00:15:12.559 --> 00:15:18.840
<v Speaker 2>to see. We'll be right back after these messages. The

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00:15:18.919 --> 00:15:21.240
<v Speaker 2>place I went when Daddy was drinking and the tension

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00:15:21.279 --> 00:15:23.159
<v Speaker 2>in the house got so thick you could cut it

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00:15:23.200 --> 00:15:26.120
<v Speaker 2>with a knife. The place I went when I needed

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00:15:26.159 --> 00:15:29.360
<v Speaker 2>to think, or when I didn't want to think at all.

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<v Speaker 2>The place I went to be Brian, just Brian, not

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00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:35.559
<v Speaker 2>the quiet kid in the back of the classroom, or

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00:15:35.600 --> 00:15:38.879
<v Speaker 2>the boy who flinched when his father raised his voice.

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00:15:39.080 --> 00:15:41.559
<v Speaker 2>Mama knew I was spending time in the woods. She

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00:15:41.600 --> 00:15:43.840
<v Speaker 2>didn't say much about it, just made sure I was

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00:15:43.919 --> 00:15:46.240
<v Speaker 2>home before dark and that I had something in my

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00:15:46.279 --> 00:15:49.879
<v Speaker 2>belly before I went out. I think she understood in

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<v Speaker 2>her way. She knew what it was like to need

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00:15:52.360 --> 00:15:55.120
<v Speaker 2>a place to escape to. She just didn't have one

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00:15:55.120 --> 00:15:57.960
<v Speaker 2>of her own. By October, I thought I knew those

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00:15:57.960 --> 00:16:01.639
<v Speaker 2>woods pretty well. I'd mapped maybe forty or fifty acres,

279
00:16:01.960 --> 00:16:04.600
<v Speaker 2>criss crossing back and forth until the trails were worn

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00:16:04.639 --> 00:16:07.919
<v Speaker 2>into the dirt from my footsteps alone. I knew where

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00:16:07.960 --> 00:16:11.120
<v Speaker 2>the deer bedded down, I knew where the squirrels nested.

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00:16:11.679 --> 00:16:14.039
<v Speaker 2>I knew which trees were good for climbing and which

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00:16:14.039 --> 00:16:17.159
<v Speaker 2>ones would snap under your weight. But there was one

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00:16:17.200 --> 00:16:21.159
<v Speaker 2>section I hadn't explored, one corner of the property, way

285
00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:23.440
<v Speaker 2>back at the far edge, where our land butted up

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00:16:23.440 --> 00:16:26.840
<v Speaker 2>against the National forest, that I'd been avoiding without really

287
00:16:26.879 --> 00:16:31.120
<v Speaker 2>knowing why. It started with a feeling. The first time

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00:16:31.159 --> 00:16:33.919
<v Speaker 2>I got close to that area, maybe two hundred yards

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00:16:33.919 --> 00:16:37.360
<v Speaker 2>from the property line, I felt this wrongness wash over me,

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00:16:38.120 --> 00:16:41.399
<v Speaker 2>like walking into a cold spot in a warm room,

291
00:16:41.759 --> 00:16:44.840
<v Speaker 2>like the moment before a thunderstorm breaks, when the air

292
00:16:44.879 --> 00:16:47.759
<v Speaker 2>gets thick and electric and every hair on your body

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00:16:47.799 --> 00:16:51.559
<v Speaker 2>stands up. I stopped dead in my tracks, my heart

294
00:16:51.600 --> 00:16:54.480
<v Speaker 2>pounding for no reason I could name, and I turned

295
00:16:54.480 --> 00:16:57.440
<v Speaker 2>around and walked back the way i'd come. I told

296
00:16:57.440 --> 00:17:00.600
<v Speaker 2>myself it was nothing, told myself, I was being stupid,

297
00:17:01.080 --> 00:17:04.000
<v Speaker 2>being a baby. There was nothing in those woods that

298
00:17:04.039 --> 00:17:07.720
<v Speaker 2>could hurt me. Bears maybe, but I'd never seen sign

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00:17:07.759 --> 00:17:11.240
<v Speaker 2>of any snake. Sure, but I knew to watch where

300
00:17:11.240 --> 00:17:14.400
<v Speaker 2>I stepped. There was nothing to be afraid of. But

301
00:17:14.480 --> 00:17:18.799
<v Speaker 2>I stayed away. Weeks passed, the leaves changed and fell.

302
00:17:19.559 --> 00:17:22.720
<v Speaker 2>Daddy came and went, sometimes gone for days at a time,

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00:17:23.240 --> 00:17:25.119
<v Speaker 2>and when he was home, he was either drunk or

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00:17:25.160 --> 00:17:28.759
<v Speaker 2>getting there. I learned the signs, the way his eyes

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00:17:28.839 --> 00:17:31.519
<v Speaker 2>went flat when he was two drinks in, the way

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00:17:31.559 --> 00:17:34.720
<v Speaker 2>his hands shook when he needed another one. I learned

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00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:39.119
<v Speaker 2>to make myself scarce. I learned to be invisible. Mama tried,

308
00:17:39.480 --> 00:17:42.880
<v Speaker 2>she really did. She cooked dinner every night, even when

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00:17:42.920 --> 00:17:45.559
<v Speaker 2>Daddy didn't come home to eat it. She helped me

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00:17:45.599 --> 00:17:48.640
<v Speaker 2>with my homework, asked about my day, did all the

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00:17:48.680 --> 00:17:51.440
<v Speaker 2>things a mother is supposed to do. But there was

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00:17:51.440 --> 00:17:54.880
<v Speaker 2>something fading in her, something going dim behind her eyes,

313
00:17:55.640 --> 00:17:58.200
<v Speaker 2>the light that had always been there, the spark that

314
00:17:58.240 --> 00:18:01.039
<v Speaker 2>made her gene instead of just daddy's work. It was

315
00:18:01.079 --> 00:18:04.359
<v Speaker 2>getting harder to see. I escaped to the woods whenever

316
00:18:04.400 --> 00:18:08.279
<v Speaker 2>I could, and that section i'd been avoiding it started

317
00:18:08.279 --> 00:18:11.920
<v Speaker 2>calling to me. I don't know how else to describe it.

318
00:18:11.920 --> 00:18:14.519
<v Speaker 2>It was like an itch. I couldn't scratch a song

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00:18:14.559 --> 00:18:17.160
<v Speaker 2>I couldn't get out of my head. Every time I

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00:18:17.240 --> 00:18:19.319
<v Speaker 2>was out in the woods, I'd find myself drifting in

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00:18:19.359 --> 00:18:22.799
<v Speaker 2>that direction, getting a little closer, before that wrongness pushed

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00:18:22.839 --> 00:18:26.279
<v Speaker 2>me back. It was like the world's worst game of Chicken,

323
00:18:26.759 --> 00:18:30.440
<v Speaker 2>me against whatever was back there in the dark. Finally,

324
00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:33.359
<v Speaker 2>on a Saturday in late October, I decided I'd had enough.

325
00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:37.680
<v Speaker 2>I was twelve years old, almost thirteen, too old to

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<v Speaker 2>be scared of the dark, too old to let my

327
00:18:39.839 --> 00:18:43.079
<v Speaker 2>imagination run wild. I was going to go back there

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00:18:43.119 --> 00:18:44.920
<v Speaker 2>and prove to myself that there was nothing to be

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00:18:44.960 --> 00:18:49.720
<v Speaker 2>afraid of. Just trees, just woods, just another part of

330
00:18:49.720 --> 00:18:52.960
<v Speaker 2>the property that I hadn't mapped yet. I grabbed my

331
00:18:53.039 --> 00:18:56.359
<v Speaker 2>bb gun and headed out after breakfast, telling Mama i'd

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<v Speaker 2>be back before lunch. She barely looked up from the dishes.

333
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<v Speaker 2>Daddy was still asleep, sleeping off whatever he'd been doing

334
00:19:03.480 --> 00:19:06.680
<v Speaker 2>the night before. The house was quiet in that heavy

335
00:19:06.680 --> 00:19:09.640
<v Speaker 2>way it always was on weekend mornings, and I was

336
00:19:09.640 --> 00:19:13.079
<v Speaker 2>glad to get out. The walk took about half an hour.

337
00:19:13.400 --> 00:19:16.559
<v Speaker 2>I followed my usual trails past the sentinel and around

338
00:19:16.599 --> 00:19:18.799
<v Speaker 2>the edge of the graveyard until I hit the deer

339
00:19:18.839 --> 00:19:22.200
<v Speaker 2>path that led back toward that forbidden corner. My heart

340
00:19:22.240 --> 00:19:25.319
<v Speaker 2>was already beating faster, and I made myself slow down,

341
00:19:26.079 --> 00:19:30.559
<v Speaker 2>take a breath. There's nothing out here, just trees. The

342
00:19:30.599 --> 00:19:32.720
<v Speaker 2>wrongness hit me when I was about one hundred yards

343
00:19:32.720 --> 00:19:37.960
<v Speaker 2>out that cold spot, feeling that electric tingle. Every instinct

344
00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:40.599
<v Speaker 2>I had was screaming at me to turn around, to

345
00:19:40.680 --> 00:19:43.960
<v Speaker 2>go home, to stay away from this place. But I

346
00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:48.359
<v Speaker 2>gritted my teeth and kept walking fifty yards. The trees

347
00:19:48.359 --> 00:19:54.039
<v Speaker 2>were thicker here, older, less underbrush, but more shadows. The

348
00:19:54.079 --> 00:19:57.440
<v Speaker 2>ground sloped upward toward a ridge I couldn't quite see

349
00:19:57.480 --> 00:20:00.519
<v Speaker 2>twenty five yards. The hair on the back my neck

350
00:20:00.559 --> 00:20:03.400
<v Speaker 2>was standing straight up. My hands were sweating on the

351
00:20:03.400 --> 00:20:06.799
<v Speaker 2>stock of my bb gun. I could hear my own breathing,

352
00:20:07.160 --> 00:20:11.079
<v Speaker 2>ragged and fast, and underneath it the woods had gone quiet.

353
00:20:11.720 --> 00:20:16.400
<v Speaker 2>No birds, no squirrels, nothing moving, nothing making a sound.

354
00:20:17.240 --> 00:20:20.279
<v Speaker 2>That should have been my warning. That silence should have

355
00:20:20.319 --> 00:20:23.319
<v Speaker 2>sent me running, But I was twelve and stubborn, and

356
00:20:23.359 --> 00:20:26.960
<v Speaker 2>I had something to prove, so I kept going. I

357
00:20:27.000 --> 00:20:29.400
<v Speaker 2>pushed through a thick patch of briers that tore at

358
00:20:29.400 --> 00:20:32.799
<v Speaker 2>my jeans and scratched my arms. On the other side

359
00:20:32.920 --> 00:20:36.720
<v Speaker 2>was a small clearing, maybe thirty feet across, carpeted with

360
00:20:36.759 --> 00:20:39.519
<v Speaker 2>dead leaves and ringed by trees so tall I couldn't

361
00:20:39.519 --> 00:20:42.400
<v Speaker 2>see their tops. In the center of the clearing, there

362
00:20:42.440 --> 00:20:45.200
<v Speaker 2>was a depression in the ground, like something big had

363
00:20:45.200 --> 00:20:49.559
<v Speaker 2>been bedding down there. And the smell, God, the smell

364
00:20:50.400 --> 00:20:53.160
<v Speaker 2>like a wet dog mixed with a dumpster behind a

365
00:20:53.160 --> 00:20:57.759
<v Speaker 2>butcher shop, thick and organic and wrong. I stood at

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<v Speaker 2>the edge of the clearing, frozen in place, trying to

367
00:21:00.759 --> 00:21:03.640
<v Speaker 2>make sense of what I was seeing, what I was smelling,

368
00:21:04.160 --> 00:21:08.160
<v Speaker 2>what I was feeling. And then I heard it. Footsteps,

369
00:21:08.799 --> 00:21:12.079
<v Speaker 2>heavy footsteps, not the delicate step of a deer or

370
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<v Speaker 2>the scrabble of a squirrel. These were big, These were bipedal.

371
00:21:16.839 --> 00:21:19.920
<v Speaker 2>These were something walking on two legs, something that weighed

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00:21:19.920 --> 00:21:22.880
<v Speaker 2>as much as a man. And then some They were

373
00:21:22.920 --> 00:21:26.160
<v Speaker 2>coming from somewhere behind me, from the thick stand of

374
00:21:26.200 --> 00:21:29.920
<v Speaker 2>trees and briars i'd just pushed through. I spun around,

375
00:21:30.440 --> 00:21:33.079
<v Speaker 2>my bb gun raised like it could do anything against

376
00:21:33.079 --> 00:21:36.480
<v Speaker 2>whatever was making that sound. But I couldn't see anything.

377
00:21:37.160 --> 00:21:40.960
<v Speaker 2>The underbrush was too thick, the shadows too deep. I

378
00:21:40.960 --> 00:21:45.000
<v Speaker 2>could only hear it, hear it getting closer, Hear those footsteps,

379
00:21:45.480 --> 00:21:50.039
<v Speaker 2>those impossibly heavy footsteps, crunching through the dead leaves. Then

380
00:21:50.079 --> 00:21:54.920
<v Speaker 2>it stopped. For a long moment. There was nothing, no sound,

381
00:21:55.200 --> 00:21:59.480
<v Speaker 2>no movement, just me and the silence and the pounding

382
00:21:59.519 --> 00:22:03.039
<v Speaker 2>of my own heart. And then it huffed. I don't

383
00:22:03.079 --> 00:22:05.039
<v Speaker 2>know how to describe that sound, except to say it

384
00:22:05.079 --> 00:22:07.880
<v Speaker 2>was the most primal thing i'd ever heard, Like a

385
00:22:07.920 --> 00:22:13.160
<v Speaker 2>horse snorting but deeper, like a bear, growling but not quite.

386
00:22:13.279 --> 00:22:16.519
<v Speaker 2>It was a challenge, a warning, a get out of

387
00:22:16.519 --> 00:22:21.480
<v Speaker 2>my territory that needed no translation. Another huff closer now,

388
00:22:22.079 --> 00:22:25.160
<v Speaker 2>maybe forty feet away, hidden somewhere in that wall of

389
00:22:25.200 --> 00:22:28.519
<v Speaker 2>green and shadow. And then a growl that started low

390
00:22:28.599 --> 00:22:31.279
<v Speaker 2>and built until I could feel it vibrating in my chest,

391
00:22:31.960 --> 00:22:36.440
<v Speaker 2>vibrating in my teeth, vibrating in my bones. I wanted

392
00:22:36.440 --> 00:22:39.640
<v Speaker 2>to run. Every cell in my body was screaming at

393
00:22:39.640 --> 00:22:43.079
<v Speaker 2>me to run, but my legs wouldn't move. They felt

394
00:22:43.119 --> 00:22:45.559
<v Speaker 2>like they'd been planted in the ground, like four by

395
00:22:45.640 --> 00:22:48.720
<v Speaker 2>four fence posts, driven deep into the red Georgia clay.

396
00:22:49.400 --> 00:22:55.759
<v Speaker 2>I couldn't run. I couldn't even breathe. More sounds now, snorting, heavy, breathing,

397
00:22:56.480 --> 00:23:00.400
<v Speaker 2>something that sounded almost like words but wasn't Runts and

398
00:23:00.440 --> 00:23:03.119
<v Speaker 2>clicks that rose and fell in patterns that seemed to

399
00:23:03.160 --> 00:23:07.359
<v Speaker 2>mean something, even if I couldn't understand what. And underneath it,

400
00:23:07.400 --> 00:23:11.960
<v Speaker 2>all those footsteps again, circling, moving around the edge of

401
00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:16.039
<v Speaker 2>the clearing, getting closer. I couldn't see it. That was

402
00:23:16.079 --> 00:23:19.319
<v Speaker 2>almost worse than if I could. I strained my eyes

403
00:23:19.359 --> 00:23:22.200
<v Speaker 2>against the shadows, tried to catch a glimpse of whatever

404
00:23:22.279 --> 00:23:25.880
<v Speaker 2>was out there, but the underbrush was too thick. All

405
00:23:25.920 --> 00:23:30.000
<v Speaker 2>I had were sounds, sounds, and that god awful smell,

406
00:23:30.039 --> 00:23:33.960
<v Speaker 2>and the absolute certainty that something was watching me, something big,

407
00:23:34.599 --> 00:23:37.759
<v Speaker 2>something that could end me if it wanted to. Then

408
00:23:37.799 --> 00:23:44.440
<v Speaker 2>it charged. I heard the explosion of movement through the underbrush, branches, snapping, leaves, scattering,

409
00:23:44.920 --> 00:23:48.400
<v Speaker 2>something massive coming straight at me through the trees. The

410
00:23:48.440 --> 00:23:51.599
<v Speaker 2>sound was like nothing I'd ever heard, like a freight train,

411
00:23:52.279 --> 00:23:56.160
<v Speaker 2>like a landslide, like the end of the world. It stopped,

412
00:23:56.160 --> 00:24:00.200
<v Speaker 2>maybe twenty feet away. I still couldn't see it, and

413
00:24:00.240 --> 00:24:02.920
<v Speaker 2>the shadows hid it from view, but I could hear

414
00:24:02.960 --> 00:24:07.319
<v Speaker 2>it breathing heavy, ragged breaths. I could smell it stronger

415
00:24:07.359 --> 00:24:10.839
<v Speaker 2>than ever now, that rank animal stink, filling my nostrils

416
00:24:10.920 --> 00:24:13.920
<v Speaker 2>until I thought I might gag. We stood there like

417
00:24:13.960 --> 00:24:17.319
<v Speaker 2>that for what felt like forever, me frozen in the clearing,

418
00:24:17.720 --> 00:24:21.480
<v Speaker 2>clutching my useless BB gun, It hidden in the trees,

419
00:24:21.960 --> 00:24:24.880
<v Speaker 2>breathing and watching and waiting. I don't know what it

420
00:24:24.920 --> 00:24:27.400
<v Speaker 2>was deciding. I don't know why it didn't finish what

421
00:24:27.480 --> 00:24:30.359
<v Speaker 2>it started. All I know is that. After a long,

422
00:24:30.519 --> 00:24:34.480
<v Speaker 2>terrible moment, I heard those footsteps again, but this time

423
00:24:34.519 --> 00:24:38.839
<v Speaker 2>they were moving away, fading into the distance, getting quieter

424
00:24:38.920 --> 00:24:42.400
<v Speaker 2>and quieter, until they were gone. For another long moment,

425
00:24:42.440 --> 00:24:45.880
<v Speaker 2>I couldn't move. My legs were still fence posts, my

426
00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:48.559
<v Speaker 2>lungs were still locked, my heart was still trying to

427
00:24:48.559 --> 00:24:51.680
<v Speaker 2>beat its way out of my chest. And then all

428
00:24:51.720 --> 00:24:54.279
<v Speaker 2>at once, something broke loose inside me.

429
00:24:54.960 --> 00:24:55.400
<v Speaker 1>I ran.

430
00:24:56.279 --> 00:24:58.960
<v Speaker 2>I don't remember much about that run. It's all a

431
00:24:58.960 --> 00:25:02.039
<v Speaker 2>blur of trees and briers and my own panicked breathing.

432
00:25:02.720 --> 00:25:07.759
<v Speaker 2>I fell once, twice, maybe more. My jeans ripped, my

433
00:25:07.920 --> 00:25:12.359
<v Speaker 2>arms bled from the thorns. But I didn't stop, couldn't stop.

434
00:25:13.119 --> 00:25:15.839
<v Speaker 2>I ran like something was chasing me, even though I

435
00:25:15.920 --> 00:25:18.559
<v Speaker 2>knew in some deep part of my brain that it wasn't.

436
00:25:19.359 --> 00:25:22.279
<v Speaker 2>It had let me go. Whatever was out there had

437
00:25:22.319 --> 00:25:26.000
<v Speaker 2>looked at me, or smelled me, or sensed me somehow

438
00:25:26.680 --> 00:25:29.440
<v Speaker 2>and decided I wasn't worth the trouble, and it had

439
00:25:29.519 --> 00:25:32.599
<v Speaker 2>let me go. I ran until I saw the house

440
00:25:32.640 --> 00:25:35.480
<v Speaker 2>through the trees, ran until I hit the barbed wire

441
00:25:35.519 --> 00:25:38.440
<v Speaker 2>fence at the edge of the backyard. I didn't stop

442
00:25:38.440 --> 00:25:40.440
<v Speaker 2>to find the place where the wires were loose enough

443
00:25:40.440 --> 00:25:43.920
<v Speaker 2>to slip through. I just jumped, catching my leg on

444
00:25:43.920 --> 00:25:45.599
<v Speaker 2>one of the barbs and leaving a piece of my

445
00:25:45.680 --> 00:25:48.079
<v Speaker 2>jeans and a streak of blood on the rusty wire.

446
00:25:48.799 --> 00:25:50.880
<v Speaker 2>And then I was in the yard, falling to my

447
00:25:50.960 --> 00:25:54.359
<v Speaker 2>knees on the patchy grass, gasping for breath and shaking

448
00:25:54.400 --> 00:25:58.680
<v Speaker 2>so hard I thought I might fly apart. Mama was inside.

449
00:25:58.759 --> 00:26:01.160
<v Speaker 2>I could see her through the kitchen win standing at

450
00:26:01.160 --> 00:26:04.680
<v Speaker 2>the sink, washing dishes or peeling potatoes, or doing one

451
00:26:04.720 --> 00:26:06.839
<v Speaker 2>of the thousand things she did every day to keep

452
00:26:06.880 --> 00:26:09.960
<v Speaker 2>our broken little family running. I could have gone to her,

453
00:26:10.440 --> 00:26:13.000
<v Speaker 2>could have told her what I'd heard, what had happened,

454
00:26:13.480 --> 00:26:16.400
<v Speaker 2>what was out there in those woods. But I didn't.

455
00:26:16.880 --> 00:26:19.720
<v Speaker 2>I couldn't. How do you tell someone that you've heard

456
00:26:19.720 --> 00:26:22.640
<v Speaker 2>a monster? How do you explain that everything you thought

457
00:26:22.680 --> 00:26:25.279
<v Speaker 2>you knew about the world is wrong, that there are

458
00:26:25.319 --> 00:26:28.160
<v Speaker 2>things out there that aren't supposed to exist? But do

459
00:26:29.160 --> 00:26:31.079
<v Speaker 2>how do you put that into words that won't make

460
00:26:31.119 --> 00:26:35.079
<v Speaker 2>you sound crazy? So I didn't say anything. I sat

461
00:26:35.119 --> 00:26:38.039
<v Speaker 2>there in the grass until my breathing slowed, until my

462
00:26:38.119 --> 00:26:42.480
<v Speaker 2>heart stopped racing, until my hand stopped shaking. Then I

463
00:26:42.519 --> 00:26:47.000
<v Speaker 2>got up, brushed myself off and went inside. Mama looked

464
00:26:47.039 --> 00:26:51.480
<v Speaker 2>up from the sink. You're back early. Everything okay, yes, ma'am,

465
00:26:51.519 --> 00:26:56.599
<v Speaker 2>I said, just got tired. She nodded, accepting this. Why

466
00:26:56.640 --> 00:27:01.519
<v Speaker 2>wouldn't she It was just another Saturday, other day. She

467
00:27:01.559 --> 00:27:04.279
<v Speaker 2>didn't know that everything had changed. She didn't know that

468
00:27:04.319 --> 00:27:07.400
<v Speaker 2>her son had heard something impossible, something that would live

469
00:27:07.400 --> 00:27:10.880
<v Speaker 2>in his nightmares for years to come. I went upstairs

470
00:27:10.920 --> 00:27:13.400
<v Speaker 2>to my room and closed the door, sat on my

471
00:27:13.480 --> 00:27:16.599
<v Speaker 2>bed and stared at the wall. Tried to make sense

472
00:27:16.640 --> 00:27:19.799
<v Speaker 2>of what had happened. I couldn't, so I did what

473
00:27:19.839 --> 00:27:21.720
<v Speaker 2>I'd learned to do with all the things I couldn't

474
00:27:21.759 --> 00:27:25.359
<v Speaker 2>make sense of. I buried it, pushed it down deep,

475
00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:27.920
<v Speaker 2>locked it away in a box in my mind, and

476
00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:31.319
<v Speaker 2>told myself it didn't happen, told myself it was just

477
00:27:31.359 --> 00:27:35.759
<v Speaker 2>a bear, just my imagination, just the wind playing tricks

478
00:27:35.759 --> 00:27:39.599
<v Speaker 2>on me. But I knew, deep down, in the place

479
00:27:39.640 --> 00:27:41.720
<v Speaker 2>where the truth lives, even when you don't want to

480
00:27:41.720 --> 00:27:44.519
<v Speaker 2>look at it, I knew what i'd heard, and I

481
00:27:44.599 --> 00:27:50.519
<v Speaker 2>knew I'd never forget it. Chapter three, What Darkness Knows.

482
00:27:51.279 --> 00:27:54.400
<v Speaker 2>After that day in the woods, something shifted, not just

483
00:27:54.480 --> 00:27:57.319
<v Speaker 2>in me, though that was part of it, the whole

484
00:27:57.319 --> 00:27:59.920
<v Speaker 2>world seemed different, like I was looking at it through

485
00:27:59.880 --> 00:28:02.079
<v Speaker 2>a lens that had been slightly out of focus my

486
00:28:02.119 --> 00:28:06.079
<v Speaker 2>whole life and had suddenly snapped into clarity. Everything I

487
00:28:06.119 --> 00:28:09.240
<v Speaker 2>thought I knew was wrong, everything I'd been taught about

488
00:28:09.240 --> 00:28:12.640
<v Speaker 2>what was real and what wasn't wrong, And I couldn't

489
00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:15.519
<v Speaker 2>tell anyone about it. So I did what kids do

490
00:28:15.559 --> 00:28:18.319
<v Speaker 2>when they can't talk about something. I read about it.

491
00:28:19.039 --> 00:28:22.240
<v Speaker 2>The Chattooga County Library was a small brick building in

492
00:28:22.279 --> 00:28:26.799
<v Speaker 2>the middle of Somerville, about fifteen miles from Lyarly. Mama

493
00:28:26.839 --> 00:28:28.640
<v Speaker 2>took me there on Saturdays when she went to do

494
00:28:28.720 --> 00:28:31.400
<v Speaker 2>her shopping, and while she was at the Pigly Wiggly

495
00:28:31.440 --> 00:28:34.400
<v Speaker 2>loading up on groceries we could barely afford, I was

496
00:28:34.440 --> 00:28:38.079
<v Speaker 2>in the stacks hunting for answers. At first, I didn't

497
00:28:38.079 --> 00:28:41.119
<v Speaker 2>even know what to look for. I wandered through the sections,

498
00:28:41.279 --> 00:28:44.119
<v Speaker 2>running my fingers along the spines, waiting for something to

499
00:28:44.200 --> 00:28:47.279
<v Speaker 2>jump out at me, And then I found it. A

500
00:28:47.319 --> 00:28:50.359
<v Speaker 2>book with a dark cover and yellow letters. The title

501
00:28:50.400 --> 00:28:53.880
<v Speaker 2>was simple Bigfoot. I pulled it off the shelf with

502
00:28:53.960 --> 00:28:57.599
<v Speaker 2>shaking hands. The first chapter talked about sightings going back

503
00:28:57.680 --> 00:29:02.079
<v Speaker 2>hundreds of years. Native America tribes had stories about these creatures.

504
00:29:02.640 --> 00:29:07.319
<v Speaker 2>They called them different names, Sasquatch, Ti, Zamech, west oh Ma,

505
00:29:08.200 --> 00:29:13.319
<v Speaker 2>but the descriptions were always the same. Tall Harry walking

506
00:29:13.400 --> 00:29:19.240
<v Speaker 2>on two legs, incredibly strong, incredibly fast, and incredibly good

507
00:29:19.240 --> 00:29:22.519
<v Speaker 2>at staying hidden. I read until Mama came to pick

508
00:29:22.559 --> 00:29:24.559
<v Speaker 2>me up, and then I checked out the book and

509
00:29:24.599 --> 00:29:27.240
<v Speaker 2>read it again at home. Then I went back for

510
00:29:27.319 --> 00:29:31.559
<v Speaker 2>more books about the lock Ness Monster, books about the Yetti,

511
00:29:32.319 --> 00:29:35.519
<v Speaker 2>books about creatures that science said didn't exist, but that

512
00:29:35.599 --> 00:29:40.160
<v Speaker 2>people kept seeing, kept reporting, kept swearing were real. I

513
00:29:40.240 --> 00:29:44.319
<v Speaker 2>devoured them all. The librarian, a gray haired woman named

514
00:29:44.319 --> 00:29:48.480
<v Speaker 2>missus Hendricks, started to notice my interests. She'd save books

515
00:29:48.519 --> 00:29:50.920
<v Speaker 2>for me, set them aside behind the counter with a

516
00:29:50.960 --> 00:29:54.519
<v Speaker 2>little sticky note that said Brian on it. She never

517
00:29:54.599 --> 00:29:57.400
<v Speaker 2>asked why I was so interested in monsters. Maybe she

518
00:29:57.519 --> 00:30:00.279
<v Speaker 2>thought it was just a phase. Maybe she underst stood

519
00:30:00.359 --> 00:30:03.920
<v Speaker 2>more than she let on. And stay tuned for more

520
00:30:03.960 --> 00:30:07.039
<v Speaker 2>sasquatch ot to see. We'll be right back after these messages.

521
00:30:10.920 --> 00:30:13.720
<v Speaker 2>But here's the thing about reading those books. They didn't

522
00:30:13.720 --> 00:30:17.319
<v Speaker 2>make me feel better. If anything, they made me feel worse,

523
00:30:18.119 --> 00:30:21.079
<v Speaker 2>because now I knew I wasn't the only one. Now

524
00:30:21.160 --> 00:30:23.920
<v Speaker 2>I knew that people had been encountering these things for centuries,

525
00:30:24.400 --> 00:30:27.599
<v Speaker 2>had been reporting them, had been laughed at and dismissed

526
00:30:27.640 --> 00:30:31.559
<v Speaker 2>and called crazy, and nothing had changed. The creatures were

527
00:30:31.599 --> 00:30:36.160
<v Speaker 2>still out there, and the world still refused to believe. Meanwhile,

528
00:30:36.200 --> 00:30:39.599
<v Speaker 2>life at home was getting worse. Daddy's drinking had always

529
00:30:39.640 --> 00:30:43.279
<v Speaker 2>been bad, but that fall it got dangerous. He'd switched

530
00:30:43.279 --> 00:30:46.880
<v Speaker 2>from beer to the hard stuff, bourbon, mostly though he'd

531
00:30:46.920 --> 00:30:50.079
<v Speaker 2>drink anything with alcohol in it if bourbon wasn't available,

532
00:30:50.519 --> 00:30:55.359
<v Speaker 2>and he'd started taking pills downers, I learned later quaeludes,

533
00:30:55.880 --> 00:30:59.400
<v Speaker 2>pain pills, anything that would slow down the world, make

534
00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:02.359
<v Speaker 2>it soft and fuzzy around the edges. When he was

535
00:31:02.400 --> 00:31:06.400
<v Speaker 2>on that stuff, he was unpredictable. Sometimes he'd go quiet,

536
00:31:06.640 --> 00:31:09.279
<v Speaker 2>sitting in his recliner for hours, staring at the TV

537
00:31:09.359 --> 00:31:13.400
<v Speaker 2>with glassy eyes. Those were the good times. Other times

538
00:31:13.440 --> 00:31:16.720
<v Speaker 2>he'd get mean. He'd pick fights with Mama over nothing,

539
00:31:17.240 --> 00:31:19.799
<v Speaker 2>the way she'd cook the potatoes, the fact that I'd

540
00:31:19.880 --> 00:31:22.680
<v Speaker 2>left a light on, the noise the floorboards made when

541
00:31:22.680 --> 00:31:26.119
<v Speaker 2>we walked across them. He never hit her, not while

542
00:31:26.119 --> 00:31:29.640
<v Speaker 2>I was around, anyway, but he came close. I saw

543
00:31:29.720 --> 00:31:32.480
<v Speaker 2>him get right up in her face, screaming so loud

544
00:31:32.480 --> 00:31:35.400
<v Speaker 2>that spit flew from his lips. I saw him punch

545
00:31:35.440 --> 00:31:37.920
<v Speaker 2>holes in walls. I saw him throw a plate of

546
00:31:37.920 --> 00:31:41.160
<v Speaker 2>food across the kitchen because it wasn't hot enough. Mama

547
00:31:41.160 --> 00:31:44.359
<v Speaker 2>took it. That's what kills me looking back. She just

548
00:31:44.359 --> 00:31:47.480
<v Speaker 2>took it. She'd clean up the broken dishes, patch the

549
00:31:47.519 --> 00:31:49.720
<v Speaker 2>holes in the walls with spackles she bought from the

550
00:31:49.759 --> 00:31:53.119
<v Speaker 2>hardware store, and go on like nothing had happened, like

551
00:31:53.200 --> 00:31:55.599
<v Speaker 2>this was just the price you paid for having a family.

552
00:31:56.279 --> 00:31:58.799
<v Speaker 2>I hated him for it. I hated him so much

553
00:31:58.880 --> 00:32:02.079
<v Speaker 2>it scared me. Sometime I'd lie in bed at night

554
00:32:02.119 --> 00:32:04.279
<v Speaker 2>and imagine all the ways I could make him pay,

555
00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:07.799
<v Speaker 2>make him hurt the way he hurt us. But I

556
00:32:07.839 --> 00:32:10.240
<v Speaker 2>was twelve years old and he was a grown man,

557
00:32:10.759 --> 00:32:14.319
<v Speaker 2>and there wasn't anything I could do. Not yet, so

558
00:32:14.359 --> 00:32:16.920
<v Speaker 2>I escaped to the woods, not to that corner of

559
00:32:16.960 --> 00:32:20.480
<v Speaker 2>the property. I never went back there, but to my forts,

560
00:32:20.960 --> 00:32:25.319
<v Speaker 2>my trails, my secret places. I'd spend hours out there

561
00:32:25.680 --> 00:32:28.200
<v Speaker 2>alone with my thoughts and my bb gun and the

562
00:32:28.240 --> 00:32:31.480
<v Speaker 2>animals that didn't judge me, didn't expect anything from me.

563
00:32:32.279 --> 00:32:35.279
<v Speaker 2>It was the only place I could breathe, and sometimes

564
00:32:35.599 --> 00:32:38.160
<v Speaker 2>late at night when I couldn't sleep, I'd sit by

565
00:32:38.160 --> 00:32:40.240
<v Speaker 2>my window and look out at the tree line and

566
00:32:40.319 --> 00:32:44.759
<v Speaker 2>wonder if that thing was out there, listening, waiting, if

567
00:32:44.799 --> 00:32:48.359
<v Speaker 2>it knew I'd stumbled into its territory, if it remembered

568
00:32:48.400 --> 00:32:51.240
<v Speaker 2>me the way I remembered it. I never heard it again,

569
00:32:51.920 --> 00:32:55.480
<v Speaker 2>but I never stopped believing. November came, and with it

570
00:32:55.799 --> 00:32:59.279
<v Speaker 2>the cold. Not cold like up north, where the snow

571
00:32:59.279 --> 00:33:03.920
<v Speaker 2>piles up the temperature drops below zero. Georgia cold is different.

572
00:33:04.480 --> 00:33:07.240
<v Speaker 2>It's wet and raw, the kind of cold that gets

573
00:33:07.240 --> 00:33:10.400
<v Speaker 2>into your bones and stays there. The old house had

574
00:33:10.440 --> 00:33:13.319
<v Speaker 2>no insulation to speak of, and the heating system was

575
00:33:13.359 --> 00:33:16.359
<v Speaker 2>an ancient oil furnace that rattled and coughed and barely

576
00:33:16.359 --> 00:33:18.960
<v Speaker 2>put out enough heat to keep the pipes from freezing.

577
00:33:19.839 --> 00:33:23.359
<v Speaker 2>We wore layers inside. Mama knitted me a sweater from yarn.

578
00:33:23.480 --> 00:33:25.640
<v Speaker 2>She'd bought it a yard sail, and I wore it

579
00:33:25.680 --> 00:33:29.319
<v Speaker 2>over my regular clothes every day after school. At night,

580
00:33:29.599 --> 00:33:31.960
<v Speaker 2>I piled every blanket I could find on my bed

581
00:33:32.240 --> 00:33:35.319
<v Speaker 2>and still woke up shivering. But the cold wasn't the

582
00:33:35.359 --> 00:33:38.720
<v Speaker 2>worst thing about that November. One night I woke up

583
00:33:38.759 --> 00:33:43.440
<v Speaker 2>to voices, not Daddy's voice, not mama's. These were different,

584
00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:48.400
<v Speaker 2>whispery and indistinct, like someone talking in another room. But

585
00:33:48.480 --> 00:33:50.279
<v Speaker 2>my room was at the end of the hall, and

586
00:33:50.319 --> 00:33:53.279
<v Speaker 2>there was no one else up here. I lay in bed,

587
00:33:53.440 --> 00:33:57.400
<v Speaker 2>perfectly still and listened. The voices seemed to be coming

588
00:33:57.400 --> 00:34:01.240
<v Speaker 2>from the walls. From inside the walls, I could hear

589
00:34:01.279 --> 00:34:05.599
<v Speaker 2>them murmuring, chattering, having conversations in a language I couldn't understand.

590
00:34:06.440 --> 00:34:11.280
<v Speaker 2>Sometimes they laughed, sometimes they cried, sometimes they screamed. I

591
00:34:11.320 --> 00:34:13.519
<v Speaker 2>pulled the covers up over my head and told myself

592
00:34:13.559 --> 00:34:17.239
<v Speaker 2>it was just the house settling. Old houses made noises,

593
00:34:17.719 --> 00:34:21.400
<v Speaker 2>That's what Mama always said. Old houses had stories to tell,

594
00:34:21.719 --> 00:34:24.440
<v Speaker 2>and sometimes they told them at night. But this didn't

595
00:34:24.440 --> 00:34:27.480
<v Speaker 2>feel like a house settling. This felt like something else,

596
00:34:28.239 --> 00:34:32.239
<v Speaker 2>something alive, something that was aware of me, that knew

597
00:34:32.280 --> 00:34:36.239
<v Speaker 2>I was listening, that wanted me to hear. The voices

598
00:34:36.280 --> 00:34:39.000
<v Speaker 2>stopped around dawn. I got out of bed, with dark

599
00:34:39.039 --> 00:34:41.719
<v Speaker 2>circles under my eyes, and went downstairs to find Mama

600
00:34:41.800 --> 00:34:45.599
<v Speaker 2>already up making coffee in the kitchen. You look tired,

601
00:34:45.679 --> 00:34:51.159
<v Speaker 2>she said, couldn't sleep. She nodded, understanding she'd been having

602
00:34:51.159 --> 00:34:54.079
<v Speaker 2>trouble sleeping too. I could see it in her face,

603
00:34:54.599 --> 00:34:57.800
<v Speaker 2>in the way she moved. The house was wearing her down,

604
00:34:58.199 --> 00:35:01.039
<v Speaker 2>same as it was wearing me. I didn't tell her

605
00:35:01.079 --> 00:35:04.559
<v Speaker 2>about the voices. What was the point. She had enough

606
00:35:04.559 --> 00:35:07.480
<v Speaker 2>to worry about without adding her son's nightmares to the list.

607
00:35:08.320 --> 00:35:10.920
<v Speaker 2>The voices came back the next night, and the night

608
00:35:10.960 --> 00:35:14.400
<v Speaker 2>after that, and the night after that. But that wasn't

609
00:35:14.440 --> 00:35:17.679
<v Speaker 2>the worst of it. No, the worst was what started

610
00:35:17.679 --> 00:35:20.519
<v Speaker 2>happening around the end of November. I woke up one

611
00:35:20.599 --> 00:35:23.360
<v Speaker 2>night to the feeling that I wasn't alone. You know

612
00:35:23.480 --> 00:35:27.159
<v Speaker 2>that feeling everyone does, that prickle on the back of

613
00:35:27.199 --> 00:35:30.960
<v Speaker 2>your neck, that certainty that someone is watching you. I

614
00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:34.239
<v Speaker 2>felt it, and my eyes snapped open, and there it

615
00:35:34.400 --> 00:35:38.000
<v Speaker 2>was a figure standing at the foot of my bed.

616
00:35:38.719 --> 00:35:41.960
<v Speaker 2>It was tall and dark, darker than the darkness around it.

617
00:35:42.639 --> 00:35:45.559
<v Speaker 2>I couldn't see its face, couldn't see any features at all.

618
00:35:46.239 --> 00:35:49.559
<v Speaker 2>It was just a shape, avoid a place where the

619
00:35:49.599 --> 00:35:52.519
<v Speaker 2>light refused to go, and it was staring at me.

620
00:35:53.280 --> 00:35:54.840
<v Speaker 2>I knew it was staring at me, even though I

621
00:35:54.840 --> 00:35:58.880
<v Speaker 2>couldn't see its eyes. I tried to scream, nothing came out.

622
00:35:59.440 --> 00:36:03.239
<v Speaker 2>I tried to move. I couldn't. My body was locked

623
00:36:03.239 --> 00:36:05.719
<v Speaker 2>in place, frozen like it had been in the woods

624
00:36:05.719 --> 00:36:08.679
<v Speaker 2>that day, like those fence posts I'd become when I

625
00:36:08.719 --> 00:36:12.639
<v Speaker 2>heard the thing charging me. I couldn't move, couldn't speak,

626
00:36:13.159 --> 00:36:15.519
<v Speaker 2>couldn't do anything but lie there and stare at this

627
00:36:15.599 --> 00:36:18.920
<v Speaker 2>impossible figure at the foot of my bed. It stood

628
00:36:18.960 --> 00:36:23.039
<v Speaker 2>there for what felt like hours, just watching, just waiting,

629
00:36:23.840 --> 00:36:28.119
<v Speaker 2>and then without any sound or movement, it was gone.

630
00:36:28.159 --> 00:36:30.599
<v Speaker 2>One moment it was there, and the next moment I

631
00:36:30.639 --> 00:36:34.119
<v Speaker 2>was alone in my room, gasping for breath, my heart

632
00:36:34.119 --> 00:36:37.159
<v Speaker 2>hammering so hard I thought it might crack my ribs.

633
00:36:37.480 --> 00:36:40.239
<v Speaker 2>I didn't sleep the rest of that night or the next.

634
00:36:41.119 --> 00:36:44.760
<v Speaker 2>The figure came back, not every night, but often enough.

635
00:36:45.519 --> 00:36:48.360
<v Speaker 2>Sometimes it stood at the foot of my bed. Sometimes

636
00:36:48.360 --> 00:36:51.400
<v Speaker 2>it stood in the corner. Once I woke up to

637
00:36:51.400 --> 00:36:54.280
<v Speaker 2>find it looming over me, so close I should have

638
00:36:54.320 --> 00:36:56.840
<v Speaker 2>been able to feel its breath on my face. But

639
00:36:56.920 --> 00:37:01.239
<v Speaker 2>there was no breath, no heat, nothing but that impossible darkness,

640
00:37:01.719 --> 00:37:04.480
<v Speaker 2>that void where a person should have been. And I

641
00:37:04.519 --> 00:37:08.639
<v Speaker 2>could never move, never speak, never do anything but lie

642
00:37:08.679 --> 00:37:11.320
<v Speaker 2>there and wait for it to go away. I know

643
00:37:11.400 --> 00:37:13.679
<v Speaker 2>now that there's a name for what I was experiencing.

644
00:37:14.239 --> 00:37:19.440
<v Speaker 2>Sleep paralysis, night terrors. The medical explanations are very tidy,

645
00:37:19.920 --> 00:37:23.559
<v Speaker 2>very scientific. Your brain wakes up before your body, and

646
00:37:23.599 --> 00:37:27.599
<v Speaker 2>you hallucinate, and it's all perfectly normal. But here's the thing.

647
00:37:28.239 --> 00:37:32.199
<v Speaker 2>Those explanations assume that what you're seeing isn't real. They

648
00:37:32.239 --> 00:37:34.119
<v Speaker 2>assume that the figure at the foot of your bed

649
00:37:34.239 --> 00:37:36.920
<v Speaker 2>is just a trick of your mind, a remnant of

650
00:37:36.960 --> 00:37:41.039
<v Speaker 2>a dream, a misfire in your neurons. They don't account

651
00:37:41.079 --> 00:37:44.239
<v Speaker 2>for what happened next. It was a week before Christmas

652
00:37:44.280 --> 00:37:47.119
<v Speaker 2>when I heard the scratching. I was lying in bed,

653
00:37:47.519 --> 00:37:50.280
<v Speaker 2>trying to fall asleep, despite the cold and the fear

654
00:37:50.320 --> 00:37:52.679
<v Speaker 2>and the weight of everything that was happening in that house.

655
00:37:53.559 --> 00:37:57.440
<v Speaker 2>Mama had been tired lately, more tired than usual. She'd

656
00:37:57.480 --> 00:38:02.000
<v Speaker 2>been having headaches, been feeling weak. Daddy was gone off

657
00:38:02.039 --> 00:38:04.719
<v Speaker 2>somewhere for three days now, and part of me hoped

658
00:38:04.760 --> 00:38:08.159
<v Speaker 2>he'd never come back. The scratching started in the wall

659
00:38:08.159 --> 00:38:10.920
<v Speaker 2>next to my bed. At first I thought it was mice.

660
00:38:11.599 --> 00:38:14.920
<v Speaker 2>We had mice. Every old house in Georgia had mice.

661
00:38:15.679 --> 00:38:18.719
<v Speaker 2>I'd heard them scurrying in the walls before, their tiny

662
00:38:18.719 --> 00:38:22.079
<v Speaker 2>claws clicking against the wood. But this wasn't the sound

663
00:38:22.119 --> 00:38:26.840
<v Speaker 2>of tiny claws. This was bigger, heavier. Something was in

664
00:38:26.840 --> 00:38:29.800
<v Speaker 2>that wall, something that was scratching at the plaster like

665
00:38:29.840 --> 00:38:33.760
<v Speaker 2>it wanted to get out. I lay perfectly still, holding

666
00:38:33.800 --> 00:38:38.719
<v Speaker 2>my breath, listening. The scratching moved from beside my bed

667
00:38:38.719 --> 00:38:41.039
<v Speaker 2>to the corner of the room, from the corner of

668
00:38:41.079 --> 00:38:43.639
<v Speaker 2>the room to the closet, from the closet to the

669
00:38:43.679 --> 00:38:47.079
<v Speaker 2>other wall. It was circling me, moving through the house

670
00:38:47.159 --> 00:38:49.719
<v Speaker 2>like it owned the place, like I was the intruder

671
00:38:49.719 --> 00:38:52.000
<v Speaker 2>and it was just trying to scare me off. And

672
00:38:52.039 --> 00:38:58.400
<v Speaker 2>then it stopped. I waited one minute, two five, nothing.

673
00:38:59.320 --> 00:39:02.039
<v Speaker 2>I just started to relax when three loud knocks shook

674
00:39:02.039 --> 00:39:05.239
<v Speaker 2>my bedroom door. I shot up in bed, my heart

675
00:39:05.239 --> 00:39:09.000
<v Speaker 2>in my throat. Mama wouldn't knock like that. Mama barely

676
00:39:09.039 --> 00:39:12.119
<v Speaker 2>knocked at all. She'd just tap lightly and call my name.

677
00:39:12.800 --> 00:39:18.800
<v Speaker 2>These knocks were heavy, deliberate, demanding Mama. My voice came

678
00:39:18.840 --> 00:39:22.159
<v Speaker 2>out as a whisper. No answer. I got out of

679
00:39:22.159 --> 00:39:24.239
<v Speaker 2>bed and crossed to the door on legs that didn't

680
00:39:24.239 --> 00:39:27.440
<v Speaker 2>want to cooperate. My hand was shaking as I reached

681
00:39:27.440 --> 00:39:30.840
<v Speaker 2>for the doorknob. I turned it, pulled the door open.

682
00:39:31.639 --> 00:39:34.960
<v Speaker 2>The hallway was empty, but not dark. There was a

683
00:39:35.039 --> 00:39:38.760
<v Speaker 2>light coming from downstairs, a flickering orange glow that threw

684
00:39:38.800 --> 00:39:43.400
<v Speaker 2>shadows on the walls. I could smell smoke. Something was burning.

685
00:39:44.280 --> 00:39:46.320
<v Speaker 2>I ran down the stairs to find Mama standing in

686
00:39:46.360 --> 00:39:50.039
<v Speaker 2>the living room, staring at the fireplace. We never used

687
00:39:50.039 --> 00:39:53.480
<v Speaker 2>the fireplace. Daddy had said the chimney was blocked, that

688
00:39:53.559 --> 00:39:56.280
<v Speaker 2>it wasn't safe. But there was a fire burning in

689
00:39:56.320 --> 00:39:59.960
<v Speaker 2>it now, a big fire, flames licking up toward the flue,

690
00:40:00.639 --> 00:40:05.320
<v Speaker 2>casting dancing shadows across the ceiling. Mama, she turned to

691
00:40:05.320 --> 00:40:08.440
<v Speaker 2>look at me, and her face was pale, paler than

692
00:40:08.480 --> 00:40:12.440
<v Speaker 2>I'd ever seen it. I didn't light it, she said, Brian,

693
00:40:12.960 --> 00:40:16.920
<v Speaker 2>I didn't light it. We stood there together, mother and son,

694
00:40:17.559 --> 00:40:21.320
<v Speaker 2>watching that impossible fire burn in our block chimney. And

695
00:40:21.360 --> 00:40:24.280
<v Speaker 2>I knew then, with a certainty that went beyond reason,

696
00:40:24.679 --> 00:40:27.519
<v Speaker 2>that there was something in this house, something that had

697
00:40:27.559 --> 00:40:30.880
<v Speaker 2>been here before us, something that didn't want us here,

698
00:40:31.559 --> 00:40:37.599
<v Speaker 2>something that was just getting started. Chapter four, The slow Fade.

699
00:40:37.719 --> 00:40:41.480
<v Speaker 2>Christmas came and went without much fanfare. Mama did her best,

700
00:40:41.920 --> 00:40:44.760
<v Speaker 2>she always did her best, putting up a small tree

701
00:40:44.800 --> 00:40:47.519
<v Speaker 2>in the corner of the living room, wrapping a few presents,

702
00:40:47.559 --> 00:40:51.360
<v Speaker 2>in newspaper because we couldn't afford real wrapping paper. I

703
00:40:51.400 --> 00:40:53.400
<v Speaker 2>got a new pocket knife and a pair of jeens

704
00:40:53.440 --> 00:40:57.559
<v Speaker 2>that actually fit. Daddy showed up on Christmas Eve sober

705
00:40:57.599 --> 00:41:00.320
<v Speaker 2>for once, and for a few hours it almost felt

706
00:41:00.320 --> 00:41:04.480
<v Speaker 2>like we were a normal family. Almost. But January brought

707
00:41:04.480 --> 00:41:07.639
<v Speaker 2>something we weren't prepared for. Mama had been scratching at

708
00:41:07.639 --> 00:41:11.039
<v Speaker 2>her arms for weeks. I'd noticed it, the way she'd

709
00:41:11.079 --> 00:41:13.239
<v Speaker 2>dig at her skin when she thought no one was looking,

710
00:41:13.840 --> 00:41:16.639
<v Speaker 2>the red marks that appeared on her forearms and stayed there.

711
00:41:17.400 --> 00:41:20.519
<v Speaker 2>She said it was dry skin, the winter air, nothing

712
00:41:20.519 --> 00:41:24.119
<v Speaker 2>to worry about. But it kept getting worse. The scratching

713
00:41:24.119 --> 00:41:28.079
<v Speaker 2>became constant, the red marks became welts, and then the

714
00:41:28.079 --> 00:41:32.280
<v Speaker 2>welts became something else entirely. I came home from school

715
00:41:32.320 --> 00:41:34.639
<v Speaker 2>one afternoon to find her sitting at the kitchen table,

716
00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:38.599
<v Speaker 2>staring at her arms. The skin was raised in patches,

717
00:41:38.960 --> 00:41:41.840
<v Speaker 2>red and angry, like something was trying to push its

718
00:41:41.880 --> 00:41:45.800
<v Speaker 2>way out from underneath Mama. She looked up at me,

719
00:41:46.400 --> 00:41:50.039
<v Speaker 2>and I saw fear in her eyes, real fear, the

720
00:41:50.119 --> 00:41:52.400
<v Speaker 2>kind of fear I'd only seen in my own reflection.

721
00:41:52.519 --> 00:41:56.039
<v Speaker 2>After nights, when the dark figure visited. I need to

722
00:41:56.039 --> 00:41:59.360
<v Speaker 2>see a doctor, she said. The doctor and lyrely, took

723
00:41:59.400 --> 00:42:01.119
<v Speaker 2>one look at her arms and sent us to a

724
00:42:01.159 --> 00:42:04.559
<v Speaker 2>specialist in Rome. The specialist took one look and sent

725
00:42:04.679 --> 00:42:07.960
<v Speaker 2>us to Atlanta. And the doctors in Atlanta a whole

726
00:42:07.960 --> 00:42:11.000
<v Speaker 2>team of them. It seemed like ran test after test

727
00:42:11.079 --> 00:42:14.119
<v Speaker 2>after test. I remember sitting in the waiting room of

728
00:42:14.159 --> 00:42:18.400
<v Speaker 2>Emory University Hospital, watching Mama disappear through door after door,

729
00:42:18.880 --> 00:42:21.639
<v Speaker 2>coming back looking more tired and more scared each time.

730
00:42:22.519 --> 00:42:24.880
<v Speaker 2>Daddy was there for the first visit, but after that

731
00:42:24.960 --> 00:42:28.639
<v Speaker 2>he started finding excuses not to come work. He said,

732
00:42:29.119 --> 00:42:33.000
<v Speaker 2>bills to pay, couldn't take time off. We both knew

733
00:42:33.000 --> 00:42:36.480
<v Speaker 2>it was lies. Finally, after two weeks of tests, a

734
00:42:36.559 --> 00:42:38.719
<v Speaker 2>doctor sat us down in a small room with no

735
00:42:38.840 --> 00:42:43.880
<v Speaker 2>windows and told us what they'd found, myacosis fungoids. I

736
00:42:43.920 --> 00:42:47.880
<v Speaker 2>didn't know what that meant. The words sounded foreign, clinical,

737
00:42:48.440 --> 00:42:50.679
<v Speaker 2>like something out of one of those medical shows Mama

738
00:42:50.800 --> 00:42:53.679
<v Speaker 2>liked to watch. The doctor explained it in terms I

739
00:42:53.679 --> 00:42:56.840
<v Speaker 2>could understand, but even then it took a while to

740
00:42:56.880 --> 00:43:01.920
<v Speaker 2>sink in skin cancer. Mama had skin cancer, a rare

741
00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:04.519
<v Speaker 2>kind that started in the white blood cells and showed

742
00:43:04.599 --> 00:43:07.559
<v Speaker 2>up in the skin it had been growing for a while,

743
00:43:07.639 --> 00:43:11.440
<v Speaker 2>he said, maybe years. By the time it showed itself

744
00:43:11.519 --> 00:43:15.840
<v Speaker 2>on the surface, it was already everywhere underneath. How long

745
00:43:15.960 --> 00:43:19.320
<v Speaker 2>Mama asked? Her voice was steady, but I could see

746
00:43:19.320 --> 00:43:22.599
<v Speaker 2>her hands shaking in her lap. The doctor didn't want

747
00:43:22.599 --> 00:43:25.400
<v Speaker 2>to answer. I could see it in his face, the

748
00:43:25.400 --> 00:43:28.639
<v Speaker 2>way he looked away, the way he shuffled his papers.

749
00:43:29.119 --> 00:43:33.199
<v Speaker 2>How long, Mama asked again? Six months? He said, maybe

750
00:43:33.280 --> 00:43:37.760
<v Speaker 2>a year. With treatment, the world stopped. I know that

751
00:43:37.800 --> 00:43:42.039
<v Speaker 2>sounds dramatic, but it's true. In that moment, everything I

752
00:43:42.079 --> 00:43:45.159
<v Speaker 2>thought I knew about my life, about my future, about

753
00:43:45.199 --> 00:43:48.840
<v Speaker 2>what would happen next, all of it just stopped, like

754
00:43:48.880 --> 00:43:51.239
<v Speaker 2>someone had hit pause on a tape player and forgotten

755
00:43:51.239 --> 00:43:54.840
<v Speaker 2>to hit play again. Six months. My mama had six

756
00:43:54.880 --> 00:43:58.000
<v Speaker 2>months to live. They admitted her to the hospital that day,

757
00:43:58.599 --> 00:44:03.119
<v Speaker 2>started treatment immediately, chemotherapy. They called it poisoned to kill

758
00:44:03.119 --> 00:44:07.199
<v Speaker 2>the cancer, but the poison killed everything else too, her hair,

759
00:44:07.639 --> 00:44:11.679
<v Speaker 2>her appetite, her strength. Day by day, I watched my

760
00:44:11.719 --> 00:44:15.480
<v Speaker 2>mama fade away, watched her become someone I barely recognized.

761
00:44:16.199 --> 00:44:18.920
<v Speaker 2>I was fourteen years old. My birthday had come and

762
00:44:18.960 --> 00:44:23.079
<v Speaker 2>gone in December without much celebration, fourteen years old, and

763
00:44:23.119 --> 00:44:25.679
<v Speaker 2>I was losing the only person in the world who'd

764
00:44:25.679 --> 00:44:28.480
<v Speaker 2>ever really loved me. Daddy disappeared.

765
00:44:29.199 --> 00:44:29.400
<v Speaker 1>Oh.

766
00:44:29.400 --> 00:44:31.679
<v Speaker 2>He came by the hospital a few times in the beginning,

767
00:44:32.199 --> 00:44:34.320
<v Speaker 2>stood in the corner of Mama's room with his hands

768
00:44:34.360 --> 00:44:36.719
<v Speaker 2>in his pockets, not knowing what to say or do.

769
00:44:37.519 --> 00:44:40.280
<v Speaker 2>But as the weeks went on, his visits got shorter

770
00:44:40.559 --> 00:44:44.440
<v Speaker 2>and less frequent, and then they stopped altogether. I found

771
00:44:44.480 --> 00:44:46.679
<v Speaker 2>out later that he checked up with some woman over

772
00:44:46.719 --> 00:44:49.719
<v Speaker 2>in trying. Found out he was spending his days drinking

773
00:44:49.760 --> 00:44:52.679
<v Speaker 2>and popping pills and doing whatever else people do when

774
00:44:52.679 --> 00:44:55.559
<v Speaker 2>they're too much of a coward to face reality. But

775
00:44:55.639 --> 00:44:58.239
<v Speaker 2>at the time, all I knew was that he was gone,

776
00:44:58.960 --> 00:45:02.559
<v Speaker 2>just gone, like I didn't matter, like Mama didn't matter.

777
00:45:03.960 --> 00:45:06.320
<v Speaker 2>And stay tuned for more sasquatch ot to see We'll

778
00:45:06.360 --> 00:45:12.679
<v Speaker 2>be right back after these messages, like we were just

779
00:45:12.760 --> 00:45:16.199
<v Speaker 2>problems he could walk away from. I hated him for it.

780
00:45:16.719 --> 00:45:19.079
<v Speaker 2>I hated him more than I'd ever hated anything in

781
00:45:19.119 --> 00:45:22.199
<v Speaker 2>my life. But I didn't have time for hate. I

782
00:45:22.239 --> 00:45:26.719
<v Speaker 2>had to survive. The Henderson saved my life. Brad Henderson

783
00:45:26.800 --> 00:45:30.559
<v Speaker 2>was my best friend, my only friend really. We'd met

784
00:45:30.599 --> 00:45:32.960
<v Speaker 2>at school a few months after we moved to Liary,

785
00:45:33.480 --> 00:45:36.159
<v Speaker 2>bonding over a shared love of comic books and a

786
00:45:36.199 --> 00:45:39.079
<v Speaker 2>shared hatred of the bullies who made our lives miserable.

787
00:45:39.719 --> 00:45:42.199
<v Speaker 2>He was a skinny kid with red hair and freckles,

788
00:45:42.719 --> 00:45:45.559
<v Speaker 2>quiet like me, the kind of kid who faded into

789
00:45:45.599 --> 00:45:48.840
<v Speaker 2>the background and liked it that way. His parents, Bill

790
00:45:48.880 --> 00:45:51.480
<v Speaker 2>and Angie, were good people, the kind of people who

791
00:45:51.519 --> 00:45:54.800
<v Speaker 2>went to church on Sundays and actually meant it, the

792
00:45:54.880 --> 00:45:56.679
<v Speaker 2>kind of people who saw a kid in trouble and

793
00:45:56.719 --> 00:46:00.559
<v Speaker 2>stepped up without being asked. When they found out about mama.

794
00:46:00.880 --> 00:46:03.000
<v Speaker 2>When they found out that Daddy had vanished and I

795
00:46:03.079 --> 00:46:04.960
<v Speaker 2>was living alone in that house at the end of

796
00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.000
<v Speaker 2>the dirt road, they didn't hesitate. Angie showed up at

797
00:46:09.000 --> 00:46:10.960
<v Speaker 2>our door one evening with a casse role in her

798
00:46:11.000 --> 00:46:13.119
<v Speaker 2>hands and a look on her face that said she

799
00:46:13.239 --> 00:46:16.559
<v Speaker 2>wasn't taking no for an answer. You're coming to stay

800
00:46:16.599 --> 00:46:19.559
<v Speaker 2>with us, she said, just until your mama gets better.

801
00:46:20.519 --> 00:46:23.000
<v Speaker 2>I wanted to argue, wanted to say I could take

802
00:46:23.039 --> 00:46:26.079
<v Speaker 2>care of myself, that I didn't need charity, that I'd

803
00:46:26.119 --> 00:46:30.280
<v Speaker 2>be fine. But the truth was I wasn't fine. I

804
00:46:30.360 --> 00:46:33.480
<v Speaker 2>was fourteen years old and terrified and alone, and the

805
00:46:33.519 --> 00:46:35.760
<v Speaker 2>house I was living in had something wrong with it,

806
00:46:36.280 --> 00:46:38.639
<v Speaker 2>something that came alive at night and whispered in the

807
00:46:38.679 --> 00:46:40.880
<v Speaker 2>walls and stood at the foot of my bed with

808
00:46:40.960 --> 00:46:45.639
<v Speaker 2>no face and no mercy. So I went. The Henderson

809
00:46:45.679 --> 00:46:50.119
<v Speaker 2>house was small but warm, two bedrooms, one bathroom, a

810
00:46:50.199 --> 00:46:53.679
<v Speaker 2>kitchen that always smelled like something baking. Brad gave up

811
00:46:53.679 --> 00:46:56.079
<v Speaker 2>his room for me and slept on the couch, even

812
00:46:56.119 --> 00:46:58.639
<v Speaker 2>though I told him he didn't have to. You need

813
00:46:58.679 --> 00:47:01.079
<v Speaker 2>it more than me, he said, And that was that.

814
00:47:02.280 --> 00:47:05.360
<v Speaker 2>I went to school, I did my homework, I ate

815
00:47:05.400 --> 00:47:08.119
<v Speaker 2>dinner with the Hendersons every night and pretended that everything

816
00:47:08.199 --> 00:47:11.760
<v Speaker 2>was normal. And on weekends Bill drove me to Atlanta

817
00:47:11.800 --> 00:47:16.440
<v Speaker 2>to visit Mama. Those visits were hard. The chemotherapy was brutal.

818
00:47:17.159 --> 00:47:19.599
<v Speaker 2>Mama lost all her hair within the first month, and

819
00:47:19.679 --> 00:47:21.679
<v Speaker 2>she was so weak she could barely lift her head

820
00:47:21.719 --> 00:47:25.599
<v Speaker 2>off the pillow. The cancer was everywhere now. The doctors

821
00:47:25.599 --> 00:47:31.280
<v Speaker 2>talked about it in hushed voices, using words I didn't understand, spreading, aggressive,

822
00:47:31.840 --> 00:47:36.079
<v Speaker 2>resistant to treatment. But Mama fought, God did she fight.

823
00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:39.639
<v Speaker 2>I'm not going anywhere, she told me one Sunday afternoon,

824
00:47:40.119 --> 00:47:43.480
<v Speaker 2>her voice barely more than a whisper you hear me, Brian,

825
00:47:43.960 --> 00:47:48.000
<v Speaker 2>I'm not leaving you. I held her hand so thin now,

826
00:47:48.400 --> 00:47:51.400
<v Speaker 2>the bones standing out like sticks under paper, and I

827
00:47:51.440 --> 00:47:55.039
<v Speaker 2>believed her. I had to believe her, because if I didn't,

828
00:47:55.320 --> 00:47:57.519
<v Speaker 2>if I let myself think for even one second that

829
00:47:57.559 --> 00:48:02.039
<v Speaker 2>she might really die, I would fall apart completely. Yes, ma'am,

830
00:48:02.079 --> 00:48:06.440
<v Speaker 2>I said, She squeezed my hand. That's my boy. The

831
00:48:06.480 --> 00:48:10.480
<v Speaker 2>months crawled by. Spring came, and with it the first

832
00:48:10.519 --> 00:48:14.000
<v Speaker 2>signs that maybe the doctors had been wrong. Mama's numbers

833
00:48:14.000 --> 00:48:18.519
<v Speaker 2>started improving. The cancer wasn't growing anymore. It wasn't shrinking either,

834
00:48:19.039 --> 00:48:22.360
<v Speaker 2>but it wasn't growing. The doctors called it a plateau,

835
00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:25.880
<v Speaker 2>a holding pattern. They said it was rare, but not

836
00:48:25.960 --> 00:48:28.920
<v Speaker 2>unheard of. They said we shouldn't get our hopes up.

837
00:48:29.400 --> 00:48:33.159
<v Speaker 2>We got our hopes up anyway. Summer came. I turned

838
00:48:33.159 --> 00:48:36.679
<v Speaker 2>fifteen in a hospital room, eating cake that Angie had baked,

839
00:48:36.679 --> 00:48:39.320
<v Speaker 2>and watching Mama smile for the first time in months.

840
00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:43.239
<v Speaker 2>She was still weak, still bald, still a shadow of

841
00:48:43.239 --> 00:48:47.159
<v Speaker 2>the woman she'd been, but she was alive. She was fighting,

842
00:48:47.679 --> 00:48:52.119
<v Speaker 2>and she was winning. Fall came. The leaves changed outside

843
00:48:52.119 --> 00:48:55.159
<v Speaker 2>Mama's hospital window, and she watched them with something like

844
00:48:55.280 --> 00:48:58.800
<v Speaker 2>wonder in her eyes. I didn't think i'd see another fall.

845
00:48:58.880 --> 00:49:01.599
<v Speaker 2>She said, you'll see a lot more. I told her.

846
00:49:02.079 --> 00:49:07.239
<v Speaker 2>She smiled. Promise. I couldn't promise. I couldn't promise anything,

847
00:49:07.840 --> 00:49:11.239
<v Speaker 2>but I nodded anyway, because that's what she needed, That's

848
00:49:11.239 --> 00:49:15.400
<v Speaker 2>what we both needed. December came, My birthday came and went,

849
00:49:15.960 --> 00:49:19.320
<v Speaker 2>and then three days before Christmas, almost a year to

850
00:49:19.360 --> 00:49:22.599
<v Speaker 2>the day after she was diagnosed, the doctors called a meeting.

851
00:49:23.480 --> 00:49:26.119
<v Speaker 2>I sat in that same windowless room where they'd first

852
00:49:26.159 --> 00:49:29.400
<v Speaker 2>told us about the cancer. Bill and Angie sat on

853
00:49:29.440 --> 00:49:32.599
<v Speaker 2>either side of me, their hands on my shoulders like anchors,

854
00:49:32.679 --> 00:49:36.000
<v Speaker 2>keeping me from floating away. The doctor who came in

855
00:49:36.159 --> 00:49:38.199
<v Speaker 2>wasn't the same one who'd given us six months a

856
00:49:38.280 --> 00:49:42.800
<v Speaker 2>year ago. This was someone new, someone younger, someone with

857
00:49:42.880 --> 00:49:45.440
<v Speaker 2>a smile on her face that I didn't dare interpret.

858
00:49:46.400 --> 00:49:50.000
<v Speaker 2>Jeane's cancer is in remission, she said. I didn't understand.

859
00:49:50.559 --> 00:49:54.239
<v Speaker 2>The words, didn't compute. I just sat there staring at her,

860
00:49:54.559 --> 00:49:57.599
<v Speaker 2>waiting for the other shoe to drop. The tumors have

861
00:49:57.639 --> 00:50:01.719
<v Speaker 2>shrunk significantly, the doctor continued. Her blood work is improving.

862
00:50:02.199 --> 00:50:05.159
<v Speaker 2>She's not out of the woods yet. She'll need monitoring,

863
00:50:05.480 --> 00:50:09.760
<v Speaker 2>follow up treatments, regular checkups. But for now the cancer

864
00:50:09.800 --> 00:50:13.800
<v Speaker 2>is retreating. She's going to be okay. My voice came out,

865
00:50:13.840 --> 00:50:18.920
<v Speaker 2>cracked and strange. The doctor's smile widened. She's going home, Brian,

866
00:50:19.400 --> 00:50:23.239
<v Speaker 2>your Mama's coming home for Christmas. I cried. I'm not

867
00:50:23.320 --> 00:50:26.519
<v Speaker 2>ashamed to admit it. I sat in that windowless room

868
00:50:26.559 --> 00:50:29.079
<v Speaker 2>and I cried like a baby, and Bill and Angie

869
00:50:29.159 --> 00:50:31.960
<v Speaker 2>held me, and for the first time in almost a year,

870
00:50:32.320 --> 00:50:35.440
<v Speaker 2>I let myself believe that everything might actually be okay.

871
00:50:36.280 --> 00:50:39.440
<v Speaker 2>Mama came home on December twenty second. She weighed maybe

872
00:50:39.480 --> 00:50:43.119
<v Speaker 2>eighty pounds. Her head was bald and smooth, covered with

873
00:50:43.159 --> 00:50:45.960
<v Speaker 2>the scarf that Angie had knitted for her. She was

874
00:50:46.000 --> 00:50:48.519
<v Speaker 2>so weak she could barely walk, and Bill had to

875
00:50:48.559 --> 00:50:50.639
<v Speaker 2>carry her from the car to the house while I

876
00:50:50.679 --> 00:50:52.800
<v Speaker 2>held the door open and tried not to cry again.

877
00:50:53.639 --> 00:50:57.800
<v Speaker 2>But she was home. She was alive. She'd beaten the odds,

878
00:50:58.039 --> 00:51:02.400
<v Speaker 2>beaten the doctor's predictions, beaten death itself. And the first

879
00:51:02.440 --> 00:51:05.000
<v Speaker 2>thing she did once she was settled on the couch

880
00:51:05.039 --> 00:51:06.840
<v Speaker 2>with a blanket over her legs and a cup of

881
00:51:06.880 --> 00:51:09.840
<v Speaker 2>tea in her hands, was look at Daddy's empty chair

882
00:51:10.239 --> 00:51:14.239
<v Speaker 2>and make a decision. We're leaving, she said. I thought

883
00:51:14.280 --> 00:51:19.920
<v Speaker 2>I'd misheard her. What we're leaving, Brian, This house, this marriage,

884
00:51:20.599 --> 00:51:23.599
<v Speaker 2>all of it. She turned to look at me, and

885
00:51:23.639 --> 00:51:27.079
<v Speaker 2>despite everything she'd been through, despite how weak and frail

886
00:51:27.199 --> 00:51:30.719
<v Speaker 2>she was, there was steel in her eyes, the steel

887
00:51:30.760 --> 00:51:33.800
<v Speaker 2>I remembered from before she got sick, the steel that

888
00:51:33.840 --> 00:51:37.360
<v Speaker 2>had always been there, hiding under the surface, waiting for

889
00:51:37.440 --> 00:51:41.519
<v Speaker 2>its moment. Your daddy isn't coming back, she said, And

890
00:51:41.599 --> 00:51:44.480
<v Speaker 2>even if he did, I wouldn't take him. I spent

891
00:51:44.559 --> 00:51:47.159
<v Speaker 2>a year fighting to stay alive, and I'll be damned

892
00:51:47.159 --> 00:51:49.280
<v Speaker 2>if I'm going to spend whatever time I have left

893
00:51:49.360 --> 00:51:52.519
<v Speaker 2>living like this. She reached out and took my hand.

894
00:51:53.199 --> 00:51:55.639
<v Speaker 2>It's just you and me now, baby, you and me

895
00:51:55.719 --> 00:51:59.519
<v Speaker 2>against the world. You're ready for that. I looked at

896
00:51:59.519 --> 00:52:03.119
<v Speaker 2>my mama, this small, fierce woman who'd stared down death

897
00:52:03.119 --> 00:52:08.440
<v Speaker 2>and won, and I nodded, yes, ma'am, I said, I'm ready.

898
00:52:08.719 --> 00:52:11.800
<v Speaker 2>But I wasn't ready for what happened next. Nobody could

899
00:52:11.840 --> 00:52:16.679
<v Speaker 2>have been ready for what happened next. Chapter five, Fire

900
00:52:16.719 --> 00:52:19.880
<v Speaker 2>in the Night. The hospital had sent Mama home with

901
00:52:19.920 --> 00:52:25.559
<v Speaker 2>pain medication, strong stuff, oxycodone, morphine. Things I didn't know

902
00:52:25.639 --> 00:52:28.480
<v Speaker 2>the names of Back then, she was supposed to take

903
00:52:28.480 --> 00:52:30.559
<v Speaker 2>them for the lingering pain from the cancer and the

904
00:52:30.599 --> 00:52:34.039
<v Speaker 2>treatment to help her sleep, to make the transition back

905
00:52:34.079 --> 00:52:37.079
<v Speaker 2>to normal life a little easier. She never took them,

906
00:52:37.719 --> 00:52:41.079
<v Speaker 2>not because she didn't hurt. Lord knows she hurt. I

907
00:52:41.079 --> 00:52:43.280
<v Speaker 2>could see it in the way she moved, the way

908
00:52:43.320 --> 00:52:46.079
<v Speaker 2>she held herself, the way she sometimes stopped in the

909
00:52:46.159 --> 00:52:48.519
<v Speaker 2>middle of doing something and just stood there with her

910
00:52:48.519 --> 00:52:52.119
<v Speaker 2>eyes closed, waiting for a wave of pain to pass.

911
00:52:52.519 --> 00:52:55.440
<v Speaker 2>But she'd seen what pills did to Daddy. She'd watched

912
00:52:55.519 --> 00:52:59.159
<v Speaker 2>him disappear into bottles and baggies, watched him choose chemicals

913
00:52:59.199 --> 00:53:02.119
<v Speaker 2>over his family. She wasn't about to follow him down

914
00:53:02.159 --> 00:53:05.199
<v Speaker 2>that road. I'd rather hurt than not be here, she

915
00:53:05.280 --> 00:53:08.000
<v Speaker 2>told me once, when I asked why she didn't take

916
00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:11.920
<v Speaker 2>her medicine. Pain means I'm alive. I can live with pain.

917
00:53:13.000 --> 00:53:15.840
<v Speaker 2>So the pills sat in the medicine cabinet, a whole

918
00:53:15.880 --> 00:53:20.360
<v Speaker 2>pharmacy's worth of narcotics, just waiting. Daddy found them within

919
00:53:20.400 --> 00:53:22.719
<v Speaker 2>a week. I don't know how he knew we were back.

920
00:53:23.239 --> 00:53:26.119
<v Speaker 2>Maybe someone in town told him, maybe he'd been watching

921
00:53:26.119 --> 00:53:29.679
<v Speaker 2>the house. Maybe he just got lucky but two days

922
00:53:29.679 --> 00:53:32.280
<v Speaker 2>after Christmas, he showed up at the front door like

923
00:53:32.320 --> 00:53:35.440
<v Speaker 2>nothing had happened, like he hadn't abandoned us for almost

924
00:53:35.480 --> 00:53:38.159
<v Speaker 2>a year, like he hadn't left his wife to die

925
00:53:38.440 --> 00:53:41.440
<v Speaker 2>and his son to fend for himself. He looked bad,

926
00:53:42.039 --> 00:53:44.920
<v Speaker 2>worse than I'd ever seen him. His face was gaunt,

927
00:53:45.280 --> 00:53:47.960
<v Speaker 2>his eyes were bloodshot, and his hand shook so bad

928
00:53:48.039 --> 00:53:51.199
<v Speaker 2>he could barely hold his cigarette. Whatever he'd been doing

929
00:53:51.280 --> 00:53:54.840
<v Speaker 2>for the past year, it hadn't been good to him, Jeane,

930
00:53:54.960 --> 00:53:58.880
<v Speaker 2>he said. When Mama opened the door, Baby, I'm so sorry,

931
00:53:59.320 --> 00:54:03.880
<v Speaker 2>I'm so don't Mama's voice was ice. Don't you dare?

932
00:54:04.760 --> 00:54:06.920
<v Speaker 2>I know I messed up. I know I shouldn't have

933
00:54:07.599 --> 00:54:11.400
<v Speaker 2>you left. Mama stepped forward, and even as small and

934
00:54:11.480 --> 00:54:14.840
<v Speaker 2>frail as she was, Daddy took a step back. I

935
00:54:14.960 --> 00:54:18.719
<v Speaker 2>was dying, Jerry, I was dying, and you left. You

936
00:54:18.800 --> 00:54:22.400
<v Speaker 2>left me alone, you left Brian alone, and now you

937
00:54:22.440 --> 00:54:24.559
<v Speaker 2>show up at my door with sorry on your lips,

938
00:54:24.559 --> 00:54:28.320
<v Speaker 2>like that's supposed to fix anything. I was scared. Daddy said,

939
00:54:28.800 --> 00:54:31.960
<v Speaker 2>I didn't know how to handle it. You were a coward.

940
00:54:32.079 --> 00:54:35.559
<v Speaker 2>Mama said, You've always been a coward, and I'm done.

941
00:54:36.119 --> 00:54:39.920
<v Speaker 2>You hear me, I'm done. She tried to close the door,

942
00:54:40.480 --> 00:54:43.000
<v Speaker 2>Daddy stuck his foot in it. Just let me get

943
00:54:43.039 --> 00:54:45.400
<v Speaker 2>my stuff, he said, I'll be out of your hair.

944
00:54:45.760 --> 00:54:48.760
<v Speaker 2>I just need my stuff. Mama stared at him for

945
00:54:48.800 --> 00:54:51.800
<v Speaker 2>a long moment, then she stepped back and let him in.

946
00:54:52.800 --> 00:54:55.320
<v Speaker 2>I watched from the hallway as he moved through the house,

947
00:54:55.679 --> 00:55:00.320
<v Speaker 2>gathering things, clothes, tools, a few bottles of boo he'd

948
00:55:00.360 --> 00:55:03.360
<v Speaker 2>hidden in place his mama hadn't found. And then he

949
00:55:03.400 --> 00:55:06.239
<v Speaker 2>went into the bathroom, and I heard him rummaging around

950
00:55:06.239 --> 00:55:08.880
<v Speaker 2>in the medicine cabinet. And when he came out, his

951
00:55:08.960 --> 00:55:14.320
<v Speaker 2>pockets were bulging. He'd taken mama's pills, all of them, Jerry,

952
00:55:14.559 --> 00:55:17.599
<v Speaker 2>Mama started, I need them more than you do, he said,

953
00:55:18.440 --> 00:55:21.119
<v Speaker 2>And then he was out the door, climbing into his truck,

954
00:55:21.480 --> 00:55:25.119
<v Speaker 2>disappearing down that long dirt road. We never saw him again.

955
00:55:25.960 --> 00:55:29.400
<v Speaker 2>Well that's not entirely true. We saw what he did

956
00:55:29.480 --> 00:55:32.920
<v Speaker 2>with those pills. In a town as small as Liarly,

957
00:55:33.360 --> 00:55:37.000
<v Speaker 2>word travels fast, Liarly was the kind of place where

958
00:55:37.000 --> 00:55:42.360
<v Speaker 2>everybody knew everybody's business. Population maybe a thousand, no stoplight,

959
00:55:42.760 --> 00:55:47.480
<v Speaker 2>one gas station, one grocery store, two churches, the kind

960
00:55:47.480 --> 00:55:50.039
<v Speaker 2>of place where you couldn't sneeze without three people asking

961
00:55:50.079 --> 00:55:53.039
<v Speaker 2>if you were coming down with something. Word got around

962
00:55:53.119 --> 00:55:55.880
<v Speaker 2>quick about what Daddy was doing. He wasn't just taking

963
00:55:55.920 --> 00:55:59.960
<v Speaker 2>the pills, he was selling them, trading them, using them

964
00:56:00.239 --> 00:56:03.119
<v Speaker 2>to buy more of the downers he really wanted. He'd

965
00:56:03.159 --> 00:56:06.239
<v Speaker 2>become a small time dealer, operating out of whatever hole

966
00:56:06.320 --> 00:56:09.960
<v Speaker 2>he was living in, feeding his habit by feeding other peoples.

967
00:56:10.280 --> 00:56:13.599
<v Speaker 2>And word got around about us too, about Mama's cancer,

968
00:56:14.159 --> 00:56:16.239
<v Speaker 2>about how the church had taken up a collection to

969
00:56:16.280 --> 00:56:19.639
<v Speaker 2>help with medical bills, about how the community had rallied

970
00:56:19.679 --> 00:56:22.800
<v Speaker 2>around us while Daddy was nowhere to be found. People

971
00:56:22.840 --> 00:56:27.000
<v Speaker 2>were angry, not at us, at him, at this man

972
00:56:27.039 --> 00:56:29.559
<v Speaker 2>who'd taken their charity and their goodwill and thrown it

973
00:56:29.599 --> 00:56:33.159
<v Speaker 2>away for pills, and booze, at this husband who'd abandoned

974
00:56:33.159 --> 00:56:36.480
<v Speaker 2>his dying wife, At this father who'd left his child

975
00:56:36.480 --> 00:56:39.679
<v Speaker 2>to fend for himself. I didn't know how angry until

976
00:56:39.679 --> 00:56:43.599
<v Speaker 2>that night in January. I was asleep when the noise started.

977
00:56:44.239 --> 00:56:47.440
<v Speaker 2>At first, I thought I was dreaming. The sounds were muffled,

978
00:56:47.840 --> 00:56:53.159
<v Speaker 2>distant voices, vehicles, the crunch of tires on gravel. But

979
00:56:53.199 --> 00:56:56.320
<v Speaker 2>then Mama was shaking me awake, her hand on my shoulder,

980
00:56:56.679 --> 00:57:01.440
<v Speaker 2>her face pale in the darkness. Brian, Brian, wake up,

981
00:57:02.320 --> 00:57:06.960
<v Speaker 2>what's wrong. Something's happening outside. I got out of bed

982
00:57:06.960 --> 00:57:09.599
<v Speaker 2>and followed her to the window. What I saw there

983
00:57:09.719 --> 00:57:12.920
<v Speaker 2>is burned into my memory like a brand. The front

984
00:57:13.000 --> 00:57:17.480
<v Speaker 2>yard was full of people, twenty maybe more, all of

985
00:57:17.519 --> 00:57:20.719
<v Speaker 2>them dressed in white robes, all of them wearing masks

986
00:57:20.760 --> 00:57:23.760
<v Speaker 2>or hoods that covered their faces. And in the center

987
00:57:23.800 --> 00:57:25.840
<v Speaker 2>of the yard, right in the middle of the dead

988
00:57:25.880 --> 00:57:30.079
<v Speaker 2>winter grass, was a wooden cross, twenty feet tall at least,

989
00:57:30.559 --> 00:57:33.519
<v Speaker 2>and it was burning. The Ku Klux Klan had come

990
00:57:33.519 --> 00:57:36.119
<v Speaker 2>to our house. I'd heard of the Klan, of course

991
00:57:36.679 --> 00:57:39.519
<v Speaker 2>everyone in Georgia had. They were supposed to be a

992
00:57:39.559 --> 00:57:42.400
<v Speaker 2>relic of the past, something from the bad old days

993
00:57:42.400 --> 00:57:45.920
<v Speaker 2>that didn't exist anymore. But here they were standing in

994
00:57:45.960 --> 00:57:49.280
<v Speaker 2>our front yard, their robes glowing orange in the firelight,

995
00:57:49.840 --> 00:57:53.679
<v Speaker 2>their faces hidden behind white cloth. Get away from the window,

996
00:57:53.719 --> 00:57:56.800
<v Speaker 2>Mama said. Her voice was steady, but I could see

997
00:57:56.800 --> 00:58:02.079
<v Speaker 2>her hands shaking. Get down, Crouch beneath the windowsill, listening

998
00:58:02.159 --> 00:58:04.039
<v Speaker 2>to the crackle of the flames and the murmur of

999
00:58:04.119 --> 00:58:07.360
<v Speaker 2>voices outside. I couldn't make out what they were saying.

1000
00:58:07.920 --> 00:58:11.559
<v Speaker 2>It was just a low rumble, a crowd noise, punctuated

1001
00:58:11.599 --> 00:58:15.719
<v Speaker 2>by the occasional shout or cheer. Why, I asked, why

1002
00:58:15.719 --> 00:58:19.039
<v Speaker 2>are they here? Mama didn't answer for a long moment.

1003
00:58:19.559 --> 00:58:23.400
<v Speaker 2>When she did, her voice was barely a whisper. Your daddy,

1004
00:58:23.440 --> 00:58:27.119
<v Speaker 2>She said, this is because of your daddy. I learned

1005
00:58:27.159 --> 00:58:30.239
<v Speaker 2>later what had happened. The clan in that part of Georgia,

1006
00:58:30.519 --> 00:58:33.119
<v Speaker 2>what was left of it, anyway, had gotten wind of

1007
00:58:33.199 --> 00:58:36.599
<v Speaker 2>Daddy's activities. They'd heard about the collection the church had

1008
00:58:36.599 --> 00:58:40.320
<v Speaker 2>taken up for us. They'd heard about Daddy abandoning his family,

1009
00:58:40.800 --> 00:58:44.199
<v Speaker 2>about him stealing the pain medication meant for his dying wife,

1010
00:58:44.760 --> 00:58:47.320
<v Speaker 2>about him selling drugs in a community that had shown

1011
00:58:47.360 --> 00:58:51.440
<v Speaker 2>us nothing but kindness. They didn't approve. Now, I want

1012
00:58:51.480 --> 00:58:55.000
<v Speaker 2>to be clear about something. The clan is evil, always

1013
00:58:55.079 --> 00:58:58.840
<v Speaker 2>has been, always will be. What they did that night

1014
00:58:59.000 --> 00:59:03.719
<v Speaker 2>wasn't justice. It was terrorism. Burning across in someone's yard

1015
00:59:03.840 --> 00:59:07.599
<v Speaker 2>isn't a warning. It's a threat, a promise of violence

1016
00:59:07.639 --> 00:59:10.679
<v Speaker 2>if you don't fall in line. But I also understood

1017
00:59:10.719 --> 00:59:14.519
<v Speaker 2>even then that this wasn't really about us. Mama hadn't

1018
00:59:14.519 --> 00:59:18.079
<v Speaker 2>done anything wrong. I hadn't done anything wrong. This was

1019
00:59:18.119 --> 00:59:21.880
<v Speaker 2>about Daddy, about his choices, about the shame he'd brought

1020
00:59:21.880 --> 00:59:24.840
<v Speaker 2>on his family, and a community that took such things seriously.

1021
00:59:25.719 --> 00:59:28.639
<v Speaker 2>We stayed huddled under that window for what felt like hours,

1022
00:59:29.159 --> 00:59:32.280
<v Speaker 2>listening to the fire burn and the crowd murmur, And

1023
00:59:32.360 --> 00:59:36.639
<v Speaker 2>then just as suddenly as they'd appeared, they were gone.

1024
00:59:36.719 --> 00:59:39.280
<v Speaker 2>The headlights of their trucks were seated down the dirt road,

1025
00:59:39.840 --> 00:59:42.719
<v Speaker 2>the murmur of voices faded into the night, and we

1026
00:59:42.719 --> 00:59:45.480
<v Speaker 2>were alone with the smoldering remains of a twenty foot

1027
00:59:45.519 --> 00:59:49.760
<v Speaker 2>cross in our front yard. Mama called the sheriff. He

1028
00:59:49.840 --> 00:59:52.719
<v Speaker 2>came out, took some notes, shook his head a lot,

1029
00:59:53.199 --> 00:59:55.679
<v Speaker 2>said he'd look into it, but we all knew nothing

1030
00:59:55.679 --> 00:59:58.920
<v Speaker 2>would come of it. The clan protected their own and

1031
00:59:58.960 --> 01:00:01.679
<v Speaker 2>the law, and that part of Georgia wasn't exactly eager

1032
01:00:01.719 --> 01:00:04.719
<v Speaker 2>to go poking around in their business. Y'all might want

1033
01:00:04.760 --> 01:00:07.119
<v Speaker 2>to think about moving, the sheriff said, before he left,

1034
01:00:07.800 --> 01:00:11.719
<v Speaker 2>might be healthier. Mama looked at the burned cross, than

1035
01:00:11.760 --> 01:00:15.599
<v Speaker 2>at me, then back at the sheriff. We're already planning

1036
01:00:15.639 --> 01:00:16.440
<v Speaker 2>on it, she said.

1037
01:00:17.440 --> 01:00:17.800
<v Speaker 1>We left.

1038
01:00:17.840 --> 01:00:21.039
<v Speaker 2>Liarly two weeks later, Mama had already filed for divorce.

1039
01:00:21.639 --> 01:00:23.519
<v Speaker 2>Turns out it's not hard to get a divorce when

1040
01:00:23.559 --> 01:00:25.960
<v Speaker 2>your husband has abandoned you for a year and has

1041
01:00:26.079 --> 01:00:30.159
<v Speaker 2>multiple witnesses to his drug dealing. The paperwork went through quick,

1042
01:00:30.519 --> 01:00:34.000
<v Speaker 2>quicker than I'd expected, and just like that, we weren't

1043
01:00:34.000 --> 01:00:37.599
<v Speaker 2>the Pattersons anymore. Well, I was still a Patterson. I

1044
01:00:37.679 --> 01:00:39.920
<v Speaker 2>kept Daddy's name because it was the only name I'd

1045
01:00:39.920 --> 01:00:42.920
<v Speaker 2>ever had, but Mama went back to her maiden name,

1046
01:00:43.480 --> 01:00:46.639
<v Speaker 2>Jeene Turner, like she was reclaiming something that had been

1047
01:00:46.679 --> 01:00:50.320
<v Speaker 2>taken from her. We couldn't afford much. What little money

1048
01:00:50.320 --> 01:00:53.000
<v Speaker 2>we had went to first and last month's rent on

1049
01:00:53.079 --> 01:00:55.920
<v Speaker 2>a tiny apartment in the low income housing complex over

1050
01:00:55.960 --> 01:01:01.360
<v Speaker 2>in Somerville. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, the size of a closet.

1051
01:01:02.159 --> 01:01:04.599
<v Speaker 2>The walls were thin enough to hear our neighbor's TVs,

1052
01:01:05.079 --> 01:01:07.320
<v Speaker 2>and the carpet was stained in ways I didn't want

1053
01:01:07.360 --> 01:01:11.400
<v Speaker 2>to think about. But it was ours, and it was safe,

1054
01:01:11.440 --> 01:01:14.519
<v Speaker 2>and most importantly, it was far away from that house

1055
01:01:14.559 --> 01:01:17.519
<v Speaker 2>and lyrely, far away from the woods and the things

1056
01:01:17.519 --> 01:01:20.320
<v Speaker 2>that lived in them, far away from the darkness that

1057
01:01:20.360 --> 01:01:23.360
<v Speaker 2>had followed us for too long, or so I thought.

1058
01:01:24.199 --> 01:01:26.360
<v Speaker 2>The thing about trauma is that it doesn't care where

1059
01:01:26.400 --> 01:01:29.800
<v Speaker 2>you live. You can move across town or across the country,

1060
01:01:30.239 --> 01:01:32.840
<v Speaker 2>but you can't outrun the things that live inside your head.

1061
01:01:33.639 --> 01:01:37.000
<v Speaker 2>I know that now. I didn't know it. Then the

1062
01:01:37.079 --> 01:01:40.519
<v Speaker 2>nightmares followed me to Somerville. The dark figure that had

1063
01:01:40.559 --> 01:01:43.039
<v Speaker 2>stood at the foot of my bed, and lyrely he

1064
01:01:43.119 --> 01:01:46.480
<v Speaker 2>came with us, appearing in my new room at random intervals,

1065
01:01:46.840 --> 01:01:49.159
<v Speaker 2>standing in the corner or looming over me while I

1066
01:01:49.239 --> 01:01:52.760
<v Speaker 2>lay frozen and unable to scream. The voices in the

1067
01:01:52.760 --> 01:01:56.000
<v Speaker 2>walls were gone, and the scratching was gone, but the

1068
01:01:56.079 --> 01:02:00.400
<v Speaker 2>dreams remained vivid, terrible dreams of something chase seeing me

1069
01:02:00.400 --> 01:02:04.079
<v Speaker 2>through endless woods, something that huffed and growled and never

1070
01:02:04.199 --> 01:02:07.519
<v Speaker 2>quite let me see its face. I didn't tell Mama,

1071
01:02:07.639 --> 01:02:10.840
<v Speaker 2>she had enough to worry about. After we got settled,

1072
01:02:11.000 --> 01:02:14.400
<v Speaker 2>she started looking for work. It wasn't easy. She was

1073
01:02:14.440 --> 01:02:17.400
<v Speaker 2>still weak from the cancer treatment, still bald under the

1074
01:02:17.400 --> 01:02:20.599
<v Speaker 2>scarf she wore, still dealing with follow up appointments and

1075
01:02:20.639 --> 01:02:24.440
<v Speaker 2>medications and all the aftermath of almost dying. But Jean

1076
01:02:24.519 --> 01:02:26.920
<v Speaker 2>Turner wasn't the kind of woman to sit around feeling

1077
01:02:26.960 --> 01:02:30.679
<v Speaker 2>sorry for herself. She got a job at the grocery store. First,

1078
01:02:31.199 --> 01:02:34.679
<v Speaker 2>part time, minimum wage, standing on her feet for six

1079
01:02:34.719 --> 01:02:38.519
<v Speaker 2>hours a day, bagging other people's groceries. It wasn't much,

1080
01:02:38.840 --> 01:02:41.760
<v Speaker 2>but it was something. And then she got a second job,

1081
01:02:42.039 --> 01:02:46.079
<v Speaker 2>cleaning offices at night. And then, because apparently two jobs

1082
01:02:46.079 --> 01:02:49.400
<v Speaker 2>weren't enough, she enrolled in classes at the community college.

1083
01:02:50.239 --> 01:02:52.400
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to get my degree, she told me one night,

1084
01:02:52.960 --> 01:02:55.199
<v Speaker 2>her textbook spread out on the kitchen table while she

1085
01:02:55.280 --> 01:02:58.280
<v Speaker 2>drank coffee to stay awake. I'm going to make something

1086
01:02:58.320 --> 01:03:02.760
<v Speaker 2>of myself for you, for us. I wanted to tell

1087
01:03:02.760 --> 01:03:05.000
<v Speaker 2>her to slow down. I wanted to tell her that

1088
01:03:05.039 --> 01:03:07.639
<v Speaker 2>she didn't have to do this, that we'd be fine,

1089
01:03:08.199 --> 01:03:11.400
<v Speaker 2>that her health was more important than any degree. But

1090
01:03:11.480 --> 01:03:14.800
<v Speaker 2>I saw the determination in her eyes, the same steel

1091
01:03:14.800 --> 01:03:17.280
<v Speaker 2>that had helped her beat cancer, and I knew better

1092
01:03:17.360 --> 01:03:21.480
<v Speaker 2>than to argue yes, ma'am, I said instead, And because

1093
01:03:21.519 --> 01:03:23.880
<v Speaker 2>I was my mother's son, I got a job too.

1094
01:03:24.639 --> 01:03:26.800
<v Speaker 2>I was fifteen years old and working at the Dairy

1095
01:03:26.880 --> 01:03:30.559
<v Speaker 2>Queen after school, flipping burgers and making blizzards and mopping

1096
01:03:30.639 --> 01:03:33.760
<v Speaker 2>floors at the end of the night. The pay was terrible,

1097
01:03:34.119 --> 01:03:37.360
<v Speaker 2>but I didn't complain. Every dollar I earned was a

1098
01:03:37.400 --> 01:03:40.679
<v Speaker 2>dollar that Mama didn't have to worry about school, clothes,

1099
01:03:41.079 --> 01:03:44.039
<v Speaker 2>lunch money, the electric bill when it got too high.

1100
01:03:44.920 --> 01:03:47.599
<v Speaker 2>These were the things I bought with my minimum wage paycheck,

1101
01:03:47.960 --> 01:03:50.360
<v Speaker 2>and every one of them felt like a victory. I

1102
01:03:50.400 --> 01:03:53.159
<v Speaker 2>didn't have time for the woods anymore, didn't have time

1103
01:03:53.199 --> 01:03:56.280
<v Speaker 2>for forts, or maps or reading about cryptids in the library.

1104
01:03:57.159 --> 01:04:00.840
<v Speaker 2>My life had narrowed down to three things, school work

1105
01:04:01.199 --> 01:04:04.440
<v Speaker 2>and taking care of Mama. Everything else was a luxury

1106
01:04:04.440 --> 01:04:07.280
<v Speaker 2>I couldn't afford. But I never forgot what I'd heard

1107
01:04:07.280 --> 01:04:10.679
<v Speaker 2>in those woods, back and lirely, never forgot the huffing

1108
01:04:10.719 --> 01:04:13.559
<v Speaker 2>and the growling, and the footsteps that sounded too big

1109
01:04:13.599 --> 01:04:16.800
<v Speaker 2>to be real. Never forgot the thing that had charged

1110
01:04:16.800 --> 01:04:20.000
<v Speaker 2>at me and stopped just twenty feet away, hidden in

1111
01:04:20.039 --> 01:04:23.480
<v Speaker 2>the underbrush, breathing and watching and deciding whether I was

1112
01:04:23.519 --> 01:04:26.760
<v Speaker 2>worth killing. I knew it was real. I knew it

1113
01:04:26.840 --> 01:04:30.079
<v Speaker 2>was out there, and someday, when I had the time

1114
01:04:30.119 --> 01:04:32.480
<v Speaker 2>and the resources and the freedom to look for answers,

1115
01:04:33.000 --> 01:04:35.719
<v Speaker 2>I was going to find it again. But first I

1116
01:04:35.760 --> 01:04:38.559
<v Speaker 2>had to grow up. First, I had to survive

1117
01:05:36.800 --> 01:05:36.840
<v Speaker 1>Di