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You've seen something. Heard something. Felt something you can't put into words. Rae Nowack and Luke Adams want to hear it... live, every Thursday night on 91.1 FM WGEL, Brakensville Community College Radio.
Call in. Tell your story. You're not the only one.
00:10
Welcome in, dear listeners. You are now listening to the Overnight Radio Hour on WGLE 91.1 FM. This is your hour to tell your spookiest and unexplainable stories from all around Brackensville. I'm one of your hosts, Rae. And I'm Luke. The line's hot, so sit back and take a listen, because the truth is on the air. The truth is on the air. Nightmare!
00:44
Hello, hello, dear listeners, and welcome back into the next episode of the Overnight Radio Hour, the spookiest and scariest show where you tell your spooky and unexplained stories from all around Brackensville and beyond. I'm one of your hosts, Ray. And I'm your other host, Luke. And we're going to get straight right into this because we learned that we have Jack back on the call. Hey, Jack, how are you doing? Hey, thanks for having me back. Of course.
01:12
I have a little bit of an update from my story last time. That's good. We want to hear it.
01:21
Yeah.
01:23
I guess I'll just get right to it.
01:27
You know, Thea, after last time, Thea never returned home on Saturday night. I mean, you know, after our call, I figured I should go look for her myself, so that's what I did.
01:41
After I called the police, that is, I headed to the trail alone.
01:46
Well, not entirely alone. I brought our little dog, Giselle, but as soon as I pulled into the parking lot, my heart dropped.
01:54
There was her car. Her beat-up Honda Civic parked crookedly under the street lamp. The beat-up was still there.
02:02
But she wouldn't do that, at least not voluntarily. You know, it was already pretty dark out, and there were a lot of coyotes in the area, so... She wouldn't be stupid enough to keep hiking past dark, would she?
02:15
I tried the door to her car. Of course, it was locked.
02:19
I shined my phone's flashlight in the window. She wasn't in there. Nothing looked out of place, though. I mean, it was hard to tell with how messy Sia's car always is, but... After that, the pit of my stomach just grew. I grabbed Giselle and headed for the trail.
02:38
I'll tell you what. As soon as we stepped into the woods, it was even darker, with what little light was left in the sky choked out by the thick foliage. I took a second to glance at the sign to figure out which way the waterfall was, and then I continued into the forest.
02:53
I called out to her a few times, and I got no response. I looked at Giselle, and she didn't seem to be picking up anything. I tried to call Thea again, and she still didn't answer. All I had was that last text staring me in the face.
03:07
She said, I'm going to be home late. Sorry. I love you.
03:12
As a last-ditch attempt, I sent one more text back. I think it was, I don't know, 8.20 p.m. I said, how late? Where are you? I've been trying to call you. And I watched as the indicator went from sent to delivered, and then to read. My blood ran cold.
03:29
My fingers flew over the keys, starting to type, where are you? Please call me. But then I stopped.
03:36
It really wasn't Thea writing those texts. If it was someone who had her, maybe that wasn't the smartest thing to do. So instead, I stood there in the middle of the woods, my heart pounding as Giselle whimpered at my feet.
03:50
And then I typed. That's fine if you want to stay out late, but I'm going to bed.
03:55
Love you. Good night.
03:57
Three little dots appeared in response. And then it popped up.
04:01
Thea, no you're not. She stared at those words. Three words.
04:07
My head was swimming. What does she mean? Giselle pawed at the ground a few feet away and then another text came in.
04:15
She said, you're out here looking for me. I hear you calling my name. Why don't you come a little closer?
04:22
I grabbed Giselle and we broke into a run over the thick roots and large stones. The terrain sloped up and then down and then up and then down. And out of breath, I stopped, shining the flashlight in a circle around myself. Thea! I screamed. straining my ears for something, anything that might sound like her.
04:39
A rustle, a footstep, a sound, anything. But there was nothing.
04:45
I pulled my phone out and I said another text.
04:47
Where is Thea? And then finally, finally, I heard a sound. A bing.
04:55
That strange little tone. I've heard it all over my house the past two years. Whenever Thea got a text or an email, it was Thea's phone. Right out there.
05:04
Somewhere. in the dark. I blindly ran to that sound, but as soon as I stepped off the trail, the terrain changed.
05:11
A deep slope, a carpet of dry leaves. I hadn't gone ten steps when I stepped on the uneven surface of a jagged rock. My ankle would buckle, and I lost my balance and careened into the darkness.
05:24
Then I heard a rustling sound to my left, the snap of a branch.
05:29
I pulled myself up as fast as I possibly could, Pain shot up my ankle, but I continued forward, waving my phone every which way.
05:37
White light flashed across gnarled trunk, yellow leaves. Giselle barked at me from up above on the trail, but I didn't see anything.
05:45
Cynthia, another text. I said it all caps, HELL ME, and then I listened. But this time, there was no papa ping, no footsteps, no rustling, nothing. Just silence, punctuated by Giselle's barks.
06:05
Police arrived soon after that.
06:07
I told them everything. Showed them the text. Showed them where I'd heard via phone.
06:13
They didn't find her. But they did find something in the parking lot that I missed. Turquoise earrings.
06:20
I didn't sleep well on Saturday night.
06:22
I drove around the town for hours looking for anything suspicious. Asking late night party goers if they'd seen anything. I told the police repeatedly, checking in on their search, but nothing.
06:35
And then, when the sun broke over the treetops, my phone pinged.
06:41
To my surprise, it was Thea.
06:44
It was 6.42 a.m. She said, see you soon, with a smiley face. And then she sent an image, a selfie, more or less.
06:56
But this one wasn't like the others. The photo was dark and grainy. The forest was all grays and shadows, maybe taken just after sunset or maybe just before dawn.
07:07
In there, leaning against a tree, was Thea, arms hanging at her side, hair wild. Her cap pulled so far down, her eyes were completely hidden in shadow. Just looking at it made me feel like throwing up. I sent the photo to the police immediately, but they haven't been able to do anything with it yet.
07:28
I can point the location of a cell phone, but either they haven't been able to do it or they don't want to tell me what they found.
07:36
There is one thing I haven't told the police.
07:38
Tonight, I got one final text from her. After nearly one week without Thea, after my fruitless search in the forest, after everything the police have done, that's all I have. One final text.
07:51
At 12.01 a.m., Thea texted me. She said, Are you going to come find me? It's a wink. a winky emoji. I think maybe it's time for me to return to the woods.
08:10
That's a development in all this.
08:20
I don't know what... I have to do something. I mean, she's still out there. Yeah, I mean...
08:31
so so she knew you were out there looking for her and you could hear her phone but but I don't know I mean her that thing or something that took her I I have to do something you know if you're gonna do it be careful man you know it's dangerous out there
08:59
Yeah.
09:00
But I believe in you, and I hope you can find her, or the Brackensville Police Department can finally do something about something. Thanks.
09:12
You know, if I have good news, I'm sure you guys will be the first to know.
09:16
Thank you, Jack. Take care, man. Take care. Be safe.
09:23
Well, that was...
09:28
That was what? I don't... I don't... I don't like this, Gray. I... What do you... I mean, yeah, it's... I don't like it either. But... I... I... Hmm.
09:46
Hmm. I mean... I... I don't... There's no way he's gonna not go out in those woods, you know? His girlfriend's out there.
09:54
And I... I understand. I don't know if I would... feel comfortable not doing anything either you know if the police aren't going to do anything but i i really hope he stays safe and you know maybe this is just all bit one big joke gone wrong or something something has taken her yeah i mean i mean uh
10:18
You know, I mean, if... I mean, on phones, you can get texts on multiple things. Like, if there's, like, an iPad or something.
10:30
Maybe she had her iPad out there. Do you think she took her iPad on a hike? I'm just meaning, like, if that could be why you heard the phone and she's not there by the phone. Is that, you know, it's like... I don't know. You got...
10:46
You can text her on your laptop. I mean, it's like kind of, it's like a thing. You can, but it kind of seemed like something wanted him to come find her.
10:57
Well, that's probably the perpetrator of whoever has this. I mean, like, taunting, like, it's messed up. It's messed up. It's messed up, but I don't... That makes sense. I mean, right? I mean...
11:17
Yeah, it's just a stressful situation, and I don't envy Jack in this moment.
11:26
I really do hope everything can go through. Unfortunately, I think we're going to have to go to break soon, but Jack, if you're still listening, be safe out there, and I really hope Thea's okay and Giselle is safe and everything turns out great.
11:45
I hope whatever, or whoever has Thea, you know, if that's what is happening, it'll all get resolved soon, hopefully. But if you have a call, you can call us at 334-844-9345 to have your story, or to tell your own story on air. We'll be right back after this short break. Take care.
12:17
Ladies and gentlemen, the platters for Smokey Bear. Only you can make your forest safe. Only you.
12:35
can keep it for yourself. When you love this land, you'll understand the magic that you do. You're the one in two, the one and only you.
13:07
Only you can prevent forest fires. A public service of this station, the Smokey Bear Program, and the Ad Council.
13:18
Ask almost anyone what they don't like about radio and TV, and the first answer you'll probably get is, too many commercials.
13:26
We won't explain how advertising accelerates the distribution of goods and services and keeps our economy moving to give Americans the highest standard of living in the world. We'll just say that maybe some people have forgotten that if it weren't for commercials, there'd be no free broadcasting. Broadcasting stations in the United States have only one source of income to pay salaries and operating expenses, just like any other business, the sale of advertising.
13:51
Why do we tell you all this? Because some people would like to change our broadcast system so drastically that it could no longer operate as a free enterprise. And if that day ever comes, we'll all lose a lot. We'd lose the choice in programming that competition brings, but more important, we'd lose a part of the free press that is broadcasting. Let's keep broadcasting free in America.
14:47
Hello, and welcome back, listeners, to the Overnight Radio Hour, the spookiest and scariest show on the airwaves. I'm your host, Ray, and I'm with... Your other host, Luke. And, you know, last time we had a serious one, but I think we have an ex-caller, and I think it's going to be a fun one, right? I believe so. Hello, caller, you're on the air.
15:10
I killed her.
15:12
What? She... She was beautiful. She was perfect. She... She was everything that I... I wanted and needed to be.
15:25
And I killed her. What?
15:30
She... She looked like me.
15:34
Right? She looked almost exactly like me, but there was just something that was off.
15:40
And not... Not like in a grotesque way or anything, but she was just too perfect.
15:49
Ray? Are you there? Uh, yeah. Um, who's this? It's Sophie. Oh, hey. Hey, Sophie. How are you doing? I haven't talked to you in a long time.
16:04
Oh. You know.
16:08
You know, uh...
16:10
When you get up in the morning before work sometimes and you just need like any sort of extra gumption that you can get, you know, you look in the mirror and you let your brain fill in like all the little spaces. And it's like the stuff that gets to you, you can't really change it.
16:31
It's not anything that's worth changing. It's like your chin or your lips or just like the, you know, the little things. But your brain gives you a path.
16:43
And it's kind of like a little salve, a little treat or something to make up for the fact that you're rolling out of bed at 5.43 in the morning to go diving in crawl spaces all day. I saw this person. I saw me.
17:03
It was just like that. It's that feeling of looking in the mirror and seeing yourself, but it's not you.
17:12
Yeah, that would be weird, I guess.
17:19
Look, I know this is crazy. I know this is far-fetched. I know you're probably thinking, what the hell is going on? I just need you to listen to me, just for a little bit.
17:29
And I promise I can... I'm not a crazy, twisted psychopath murderer. You know, I just... If you'll let me explain this, I can...
17:41
I can make things make sense, I think. Maybe.
17:46
You got one? Yeah.
17:49
Okay.
17:51
The first time I saw any of this, I was coming home from a show. It was a Friday night. It was a couple weeks back.
18:01
The show ran long, and there was afters after that that just ran way longer. It was probably like 3 a.m., 3.15 or something. I don't know. I walk in the door, and I go to set my shit down on my table in the kitchen, and I look outside the back door, and there she was.
18:24
I was standing a couple yards away from the door, so I couldn't see anything concrete, but there's this woman.
18:33
She's covered in, I guess it was mud. I don't really know. It was kind of hard to tell. It looked like it was red. I mean, it could have been blood. Maybe, I don't know. I wasn't really able to see shit, but I knew it was, I knew, I knew she was me.
18:49
It couldn't have been anybody else but me. And, you know, for whatever reason, I wasn't afraid.
18:59
I wanted to, I wanted to go to her. I wanted to walk out of the back door and just into the arms of this random muddy person but i i didn't i couldn't there's something in me just knew it was bad news and like after that i'll admit that i went off my rocker okay like i'll cop to it you can call me crazy you can call me obsessed whatever kind of crazy conspiracist you you want to invoke in my name it's fine i don't care i know that there's something here
19:32
There's all kinds of stories about this shit. People have been talking about stuff like this for centuries. It's usually that bullshit, pulpy, crackpot hearsay, but once I started digging, though, I just couldn't stop. I found things, names and addresses and people that used to be people, but not anymore. One day my neighbor just started acting completely different.
20:02
He sucked. He was a sleazeball. You know, he left full-ass cups of dip on his balcony, and they stunk like shit. He yelled at ladies that he'd have on, you know, just over at the crib all the time. Like, you get the picture. Yeah, I remember him.
20:20
He sucked. You were there. You smelled that shit. It was disgusting. Every morning, though, I, without fail, 5.15.
20:32
I hear the alarm.
20:35
517, I hear the alarm. 522, the alarm that he'd set and then snooze and then set again until his bum ass could actually wake up and stomp out the door.
20:44
One day it just stopped. At first I thought the guy got fired. No surprise. You act like that shit at home. I hate to be around you at work, but no.
20:55
I stepped out on my balcony for a bowl in the morning.
21:01
And there he was. He was just fully dressed, sitting on his sofa, waiting until it was time to leave. No empty beer cans.
21:09
No half-full Gatorade bottles of, you know, chaw and spit. I knew something was up. It was not, could not have been him.
21:25
I've been calling them doubles.
21:28
They're used.
21:30
but the you that you just wish you could be. The person you think about at night, the person whose bangs sit right all the time, the person who doesn't stumble over their words or eat shit on the sidewalk all the time, that's who they are. But they are not you. You understand?
21:56
You call them doubles, you said? Doubles.
22:05
I've been following them.
22:07
I've been tracking them down. I killed one.
22:11
I killed me. I killed the only person I ever wanted to be.
22:21
Ray, I know you.
22:25
And I know that you can figure this out. That you can fix whatever... The hell this is.
22:34
I've got some stuff that I'll send along to you that you really need to take a look at, but I've got to go for now. We've been on the line for way too long already, and they could be listening.
22:45
Okay. This isn't a joke.
22:49
Okay, I'll call... Oh.
22:54
Goodbye, Ray. Bye. Stay safe. I... What?
23:02
So, um. There was Sophie.
23:05
I mean. Thank you, Sophie, for calling in. That was something. Am I right, Luke? Yes, that was something. Hey, we're going to go.
23:15
You're listening to the Overnight Radio Hour on WGLE. I think Ray and I, we're going to cut to break. We'll be back in two or three. Yep. Stay tuned. We got, we got more. Yep. We have another, we have another. Call her up next, I think, so. Toodle-oo.
23:44
There's a disease in business today we might call spiritual schizophrenia. You see it in individuals who apply one code of conduct in their personal affairs and a quite different one in business or government. The belief seems to be that we are less responsible as individuals when we make business decisions, that business has a different code.
24:05
When you think about it, that doesn't make sense. Profits are not the only gauge of business success.
24:11
Business doesn't change the priority of values.
24:14
We are born to the community of man first. The others are secondary allegiances.
24:19
Make your personal morality work where you work and see the difference.
24:24
The Community of Man, God's Club. Be an active member. This message has been brought to you by Religion in American Life in cooperation with this station.
24:37
An important message about personal freedom. Hi, this is Corey Hart. Once you start to smoke, it's hard to stop. So think twice before you light up. For freedom from smoking now, contact your lung association.
24:56
Do you listen to music that sucks?
25:01
Do you wish you didn't? Tune in at midnight every night for more of the Edgy Hour, where we listen to rock, punk, metal, and music that makes you want to put holes in your drug.
25:18
Your parents will never look at you the same again. Tune in midnight every night for music that'll blow your socks off.
25:36
Welcome back. You are tuned in to the Overnight Radio Hour here in Brackensville on WGLE. Just came back from PSA break, so it looks like we have time for one more caller. Hello, caller. State your name, please.
25:49
Hello, my name is Wheeler Watson. Hi, Wheeler. How's it going? Hi, Wheeler. Oh, it's going pretty well. I had a story that I thought might be, you know, put in it.
25:59
Well, we're all ears. All right, well, this happened well back, talking like 1980, and I was serving in the reserves, and I was at Fort Rocker in South Alabama in a transport company. And then sometimes my girlfriend at the time, she's my wife now, she'd come down with me on drill weekends, and we'd crash at a friend of hers' apartment, and that's where this happened.
26:23
This particular weekend, we were in a large convoy in the middle of nowhere, on some back road out in the sticks, way, way out of the city. And that was when I got the most confusing, bizarre, creepy phone call in my young life.
26:38
She was in utter hysterics. I mean, she was crying and screaming, wondering why I would frighten her so badly, what the hell my problem was, and asking me how I even pulled it off.
26:49
After I was finally able to calm her down, this is the story that she relayed to me.
26:56
Sometime that afternoon, her friend was at work, and she was at the apartment by herself. Suddenly, there was a loud bang on the door, and not a knock, several violent, loud bangs.
27:09
And after looking through the peephole, she saw me, but there was something off. She says, I was wearing my uniform. It looked like me, but I had this very angry, irritated, upset look on my face. She opened the door, wondering why I was home so early, and apparently... Without saying a word, I angrily blew past her, shoulder-checking her into the wall, and quickly walked down the hall, turning into my bedroom and slamming the door behind me so hard the whole place shook. She was very alarmed and confused about why I was home so early in such an agitated state. I mean, this is so out of character for me. I'm not a violent guy at all. I never even was back then. And on top of that, if something did happen to set me off, she would have been the first to hear about it. So she's walking behind me trying to get some information out of me, and she opens the bedroom door and sees the closet door slam shut. She proceeds to run over to see what I was doing in her friend's closet and claims that when she opened the door, it was completely empty.
28:08
And then she had a panic attack, and it finally went away, and that's when she called me.
28:14
So imagine my shock and confusion hearing the story, knowing that I was well over 60 miles away at the time. She finally believed me after I sent her a photo with my current GPS location, which only served to freak her out more. I thought there must have been some kind of rational explanation for what she saw.
28:33
I'll be honest and say she did smoke a little weed here and there, but I know she was sober at the time. She didn't mess around with anything harder than that. She barely drank at all. She had no mental illness of any kind. Over the years since that happened, I came to learn about what they call doppelgangers and
28:50
I don't know what they mean, what they represent, or why they come around. All I know is they're creepy as hell, and a girl that I dated for several years who is now my wife came face-to-face with mine and put the fear of God into her soul.
29:04
Take from this story what you will, and honestly, I don't care if anybody believes it or not. I just got to get it off my chest.
29:12
It's understandable. That's a crazy story.
29:17
I don't know... what happened, or why it happened, or how it happened.
29:26
I wish I had some answers for you, too. And maybe someone out there listening does, or already gave us some. But, Luke, what do you think? Well, um...
29:39
That could be a lot of stuff. Especially back then when the woods were less developed. You're out there in one of these transport companies. I just don't know if that's what I need to do.
29:58
Thank you so much, Wheeler, for calling into our show. That was a great story. I'm sorry it had to happen to you.
30:06
I hope everyone enjoyed the episode today. It sure was an interesting one. Am I right, Luke? Yep. Thank you for everyone who called in with all your different wide variety of stories.
30:19
There's something strange. I don't know. Some of y'all have these strange stories.
30:27
Here at the Overnight Radio Hour, we are trying our absolute hardest, our darnest, to go through them all. So thank you all for calling. Thank you all for listening. And we'll be back next time here on the Overnight Radio Hour.
30:48
That's all the time we have tonight, Bracketsville. Thank you for tuning in, thank you for calling in, and thank you for being brave enough to tell it. I'm Luke. And I'm Rae. We'll be back next week on WGLE 91.1 FM.