RAD RERUN - Its Coming From Inside The House... (It Is)

0:01 To the restless, the insomniacs, the stressed out, the overwork the doom scrollers, the worried, and the board. This is for you. Good writing is meant to make you think. This is the opposite. Sure funny and unfortunately true stories that have mostly to do with nothing to help you turn off your brain and turn on your rim. All names have been changed to protect the guilty. These are Anxiety Addicts Bedtime Stories. Hi, this is Joe, and welcome to a very very very special episode of Anxiety Addicts Bedtime Stories. This specific story is read by Kristen Sevie, who is an actor, a passionate storyteller, and a podcaster based in New York and Maine.

0:57 Kristen is the star right researcher of Murder She Told, which is Mine and Morgan's favorite true crime podcast because Kristen has an ability to paint a picture and tell a story of an entire. Person's existence in a way that is really heartful and beautiful. So enjoy tonight's story. Trigger warning you think it's scary, but it's not. So enjoy, Sit back, relax, put your feet up or down, and sweet dreams. Shauna is a millennial through and through, and she's not about to apologize for it. She loves athleisure, trending, water bottles, gentle parenting, getting in her daily steps, and her not so secret obsession true crime, particularly podcasts. How meta are we?

1:51 But this podcast is about a whole lot more than podcasts. Shauna's nine to five is structure business. She started from the ground up renovating old homes in North Dakota. She documents her before and after photos on social media, has three admittedly adorable children, and likes nothing more than putting in her headphones and listening to an episode where she tries to solve a murder while installing hardwood flooring. She has to remember not to press her sander down too hard right before they catch the perpetrator. Shauna enjoys her days, her family, her business, but sometimes the dark, gory and kind of traumatic podcasts get into her head, and Shauna finds herself lying in bed, awake in the middle of the night, suspicious of every creek and grown emanating from her one hundred year old farmhouse. Early in September of last year, while cleaning up the dinner dishes as their kids fought over the remote Shauna recounted the day's episode to Wit, her husband of almost a decade. But I knew it was the neighbor all along, yeah, Witt replied, paying little attention to the horror of whatever grisly murder that Shauna was so casually reporting. You should have been in the FBI.

3:17 Now. Shauna wasn't an idiot and knew that Witt was being kind of a dick. But she'd been feeling like she missed her calling as a detective for some time now. She'd been obsessed with one series after another, and swore that she figured out the killer long before the official investigators ever did. In the middle of caulking and painting or wiring, she'd yell at the top of her lungs, check the husband, or it's the gardener, generally scaring the shit out of her construction crew. A lot of the guys worked with Shauna were deeply superstitious, and her outbursts would rattle the dude using a circle saw or a nail gun, and her firsts were most definitely becoming a personal injury liability. Stop listening to that garbage, George, the foreman, would instruct Shauna as she installed a new ceiling beam, but Shauna couldn't. The podcasts put her in the work zone, made the time go by, and occupied a different part of her brain than her hands on labor, and if she were being honest, she was kind of addicted. Her heart would race when the narrator described the scene and the investigation, and her brain would crank out its own list of possible suspects. The only one she disliked were the unsolved ones. Okay, Shauna, Yeah, I hear that a lot those offended Shawna's sense of justice. She was okay

4:50 with the horrifying tales, but she needed to know that in the end, justice was served. George thought it put a bad energy out the world to be entertained by other people's pain. Shauna did not like this categorization at all. Here, George took the phone, pulled up the Purple Square app and typed in a couple words, Listen to this instead. These won't cause any harm. While George may have thought that he was saving Shauna from her downward spiral of true crime horror and opening up her mind to brighter horizons, he just substituted one addiction for another. Because George introduced Shauna to stories of the supernatural. It wasn't long before Shauna's post dinner conversations revolved around alien encounter conspiracies, historical haunting stories, and tales of spiritual reincarnation. Wit wasn't exactly entertained.

5:54 You don't really believe all this stuff, he cringled his forehead while drying the casserole dish No, of course not, Shauna lied, while moving plates around the bottom rack of the dishwasher. Do I believe this stuff? She wondered that night in bed as she put in her mouth guard to fend off her nighttime teeth grinding. The dentist had told her on multiple occasions that she needed to do a better job of decompressing before she slept, or she'd be toothless by fifty. Shawna knew that she needed to focus more attention on relaxing and relieving stress, but the truth was that wasn't really her jam. Sure, the idea of sitting in some lavender scented bubble bath while reading a romance novel sounded like a great way to spend an evening, but ripping out that old bathtub and replacing the rusty plumbing while listening to in depth reporting of how Bugliosi prosecuted Charles Manson sounded way more appealing. Shauna thought in her own that George's podcast was a step in the right direction because people weren't getting hurt. Even the alien abduction stories, while sure in some cases, ruined people's lives because of the obvious stigma of telling your neighbors that little gray men came out of the sky and invited you into a flying saucer for a rectal examination isn't the greatest way to become the most popular

7:28 person on the block, but it wasn't what Shauna would classify as tragic. Shauna ruminated over her choice of audio entertainment as she got ready in the morning, pulling on her favorite army green carpenter jeans and steel toed boots. So did she believe the stories? Well kind of. There was no way that humans were the only intelligent life in the universe right Statistically that would seem highly, highly improbable, and Shauna dealt with people all day. She questioned whether humanity was really as smart as he gave itself credit for, and what about the supernatural stories, the tales of witches and warlocks and people who seemed to communicate with the dead. Well, when Shauna first started listening to George's episodes, she looked down on those people and enjoyed laughing at them as she laid the kitchen tile or cockd a bathroom. But after binging hours of this type of content, Shauna found herself slowly convinced that there was just as much evidence proving as spiritual afterlife as there was disproving it. And what about monsters. Nope, that was where Shauna drew the line, but that didn't make the stories any less entertaining bigfoot lock ness the yetti. Those sightings and conspiracies made the day go by just as quickly as her old true

9:00 crime favorites. However, Shauna didn't find them as truthfully compelling. That is, of course, until a Tuesday night in late October. As the grove of aspen trees shed their leaves, carpeting the ground in a satisfying crunch. The days quickly grew darker, shorter, and colder. Shauna and Wit had let their daughter Mabel talk them into carving a dozen pumpkins, which now adorned their covered porch. She also talked the couple into adding a new member to the family, a husky puppy named Echo who talked more than Mabel. And Shauna liked Echo see.

9:46 Their one hundred year farmhouse was a work in progress, with way too many rooms for Wit and Shauna to monitor. As Echo trailed Mabel everywhere, usually howling or whining at something, it was easy to know where their only child was playing. Now, if Shauna were being totally honest, her switch from true crime podcasts to supernatural ones wasn't necessarily helping our sleep better. Sounds that made Shauna's hair stand on end escaped from all corners of the house as temperatures dropped drastically at night, they'd shake Shauna from a dream that occasionally involved some kind of ghost or mythical creature. And that is what happened on this particular October night, the twenty ninth, a day before Halloween, which just happened to be a full, shockingly orange harvest moon. The ironwood, ponderosa, and cottonwood had all been in need of pruning over the summer, but both Shauna and Wit had been too busy with work and Mabel and the basement renovation to take time to cut them back. Last eyes herself over this lapse as she lay in bed, listening to the leafless branches scrape against the side of the farmhouse like an old lady's fingernails against the thick window panes. The wind was fierce that night, and Shauna crossed her fingers that it wouldn't

11:18 take down a power line because she had way too much work planned for the following day. Somewhere downstairs, echo howled the moon, his tone ringing through the ancient walls. Then another sound made Shawna jerk her head towards the door. She felt her heart beat quicken, jumping to her now tight throat. It was mabel mom. Her voice trembled. That sound sent a chill through Shauna's bones. The joke in the family was that Mabel could sleep through an earthquake. Even as a baby, Shanna learned that she could build nursery furniture a mere three feet from her infant not wake the sleeping girl. Maybe it was Shawna's prolific use of power tools while Mabel was in utero. Whatever it was, nothing could wake her when she was out for the night.

12:17 So to say, it was unusual to have Mabel pad into her parents room in the middle of the night was an understatement. I can't sleep. Shauna reached out and pulled her strong little daughter into her bed. She couldn't explain it, but something felt weird. What is it, honey? She tried to keep her voice as even a non alarmist as possible, but that's certainly not how she felt inside. Something is making a really loud noise in my room, in my wall. I think it's a monster now. Who knows if Shauna would have laughed this off had it not been the night before Halloween in a very old home with a howling dog, a full moon, branches that sounded like hands scraping across her windows, and her head was not chalk full of very detailed stories of the other worldly. We don't know. What we do know is that Shawna took the baseball bat from her closet and walked down the old hallway, floorboards groaning under every step, to Mabel's room, and the sound she heard in there vibrated through her entire body, turning her blood to ice.

13:42 There was a noise coming from the wall, a noise a loud enough to wake Mabel Turner Johnson and the noise sounded as though, well it really didn't want to be there. The rational part of Shawna's brain momentarily poked its meek little head out. It has to be an animal, Shauna told herself, and then repeated it out loud to Mabel. But it didn't sound like any animal that Shauna had ever met while living in her landlocked northern state. It wasn't just scratching or whining like a squirrel, raccoon, or a possum. No, it was a hum, a groan that seemed to vibrate through the unicorn clad room, and it felt like it was talking to them. Shauna grabbed Mabel's hand and dashed back into her room, shaking a snoring wit wide awake with a start. It has to be an animal, he insisted, after groggy half listening to Shauna and Mabel's breathless story. Your head is full of those crazy podcasts. Of course, you think there's something creepy in the wall. He pulled his gray Army sweatshirt off the floor and over his head, Turning to his young daughter, There isn't he told her gently That stuff isn't true, he insisted, looking up at Shanna with a tone conveying

15:14 that he didn't want to hear about any supernatural theories on this particular midnight. Mother and daughter each took one of WIT's hand and walked him down the crackling hallway and into her room. And what he heard there was undeniable. Wit didn't show how creepy the sound made him feel. You refuse to believe there was anything more than a perfectly boring and logical explanation for whatever it was. But the sound was real. It was a deep vibration, as if a very baritone voice was in a lot of pain. It definitely wasn't a rodent or a bird, but it also didn't sound quite human. He walked over to the wall and banged his fist against the wood, feigning confidence, but that backfired. The noise got louder. Wit jumped back, sensing his unease. Mabel and Shauna gripped each other's hands so so very tightly. Shauna's mind started digging a tunnel of its own. She imagined a corpse behind her daughter's wall, decomposed between the insulation for who knows how many years.

16:31 She imagined his tortured spirit holding on to some kind of very important secret, now ready to claw his way through the sheet rock and into their lives. It was at that moment that Shauna would have sworn. She smelled rotting flesh, and the goosebumps on her arm were so hard that her skin began to ache, But her maternal instinct managed to stop her imagination from spiraling any further. My camera, she eked out to it what he looked at her so intently that for the first time in their eight year marriage, Shauna could see the true fear in his eyes. Shawna's brain grasped for the word. Remember, she was a contractor. She had a lot of tools and a lot of various contraptions. One of those happened to be a thermal camera. It wasn't a strange thing to own in her profession. She would use it to inspect a roof for leaks, or detect moisture or a missing shingle. Shauna tried to focus on the practical uses of the device as she flew down the old stairs into her storage closet and pulled out the camera. She pressed the power button a mixture of relief and pure unadulterated fear when she saw that it was charged and working, and brought it back up to Mabel's room. The picture that appeared on the digital screen sent a shock wave

18:02 of chills through her spine. There was something behind the wall, something in the shape that looked vaguely human, and yes, it was alive because it was giving off heat. The yellow and red outline stretched six feet to the ceiling, glowing through the small monitor. It seemed to have one leg, a large thick torso, and no discernible head. For the second time that night, Shauna saw something in Wit. For the first time, he had no idea what to do. He stood in the room, bare feet, gripping into Mabel's lavender shag carpet, the walls illuminated by the menacing full moon and the bright Hello Kitty lamp on her bedside table.

18:52 The moaning in the wall was impossible to ignore. It has to be an animal, Wit insisted, with absolutely zero mabes, so you can sleep in our room tonight. That should have been a joke, because not one of them slept for a single minute. The three of them tossed and turned and pretended that they were alone, but they weren't. The dawn crept over their house, like a slow leaking liquid slipping into the cracks and holes, filling the house with a suffocating gray gloom that felt heavy on its inhabitants. Bleary eyed, Shauna and Wit looked at each other across their daughter, sound asleep in the center of their bed.

19:34 Shauna spoke, first, we punch a hole in the wall, small enough that nothing can get out. So many of these boards are totally rotten. It has to be some kind of nest with a sleep deprivation and honest to God, fear in his heart. Wit wasn't sure what to say. Maybe they should call the exterminator, animal control, a freaking conjuror exorcist. He kept these thoughts to himself. Yeah, okay, sledgehammer. Shauna nodded and wiggled her arm out from under Mabel. She wished she could control how fast her heart was beating. Standing in Mabel's room in the freezing morning air, wrapped in her bathrobe and work gloves, Shauna looked at the wall.

20:22 It's much quieter, she whispered to Witt, who nodded in agreement. Where are you going to punch it? Shauna gestured to the thermal camera lying on Mabel's rumpled bedspread. She must have tossed it there in fear hours earlier, I guess at the bottom, where there was the least amount of heat. Shauna heard her voice quiver unless it moved, Unless it moved, Wit ventured. The thought of being that close to an unknown being that was living mere feet from where her only daughter slept creeped her out more than she could articulate.

21:04 Here goes Jana swung her arms back, gripping the heavy tool with everything she had, while instinctively closing her eyes and smashing the steel end into the wall. And that's when the quiet hum got loud and then louder, and something escaped from the hole. The cacophony of sound momentarily stunned both Shauna and Wit. The crash of the sledgehammer woke up Mabel, who came running into their room screaming, and what she saw was the last thing she expected bees. Honey bees, to be specific, the largest swarm that any of them had ever seen. The family booked it to the door, slamming it behind them. They didn't laugh right away, Nope.

21:56 It took a few minutes that felt like hours for the adrenaline to drain from their bodies, but when they were finally able to relax, the laughter was contagious. They laughed through breakfast, through Saturday Morning cartoons, and were still laughing when the beekeeper arrived with a truck and tools to cajole their extra thousands of uninvited HouseGuests into a new hive. Shauna sipped her third cup of coffee and watched in awe as the beekeeper found the queen, put her in a cup, and then allowed her workers to follow her into a box. A little handheld smoker helped them along as the bees left in the back of a Chevy pickup. The family watched them out the kitchen window as Mabel waved goodbye. I didn't know that monsters are really bees. That's interesting. And Mabel went back to her cartoons and she took a few days off, but by Wednesday, Shauna was back to her true crime podcasts.

22:58 She's also now on a mission to tear out all the old insulation and fill her walls with the new stuff, leaving zero room for anything or anyone to set up home in our walls, and she's looking for lighter, funnier stories to keep in her earbuds as she installs cabinets and countertops, so please leave suggestions here in the comments, Sweet. Dreams, Thanks for listening. If you still can't sleep, why not do some shopping on the small business links at anxiety addictsbedtime stories dot com and support some really cool people, and don't forget to subscribe and to send us your stories.

23:50 Sweet Dreams,