The Dionaea House | Creep Cast

Listen up!

Through November 29th through December 4th, everything in our goddamn store is 10% off.

That's right, baby.

Cover up that disgusting fucking body and stay warm with our beautiful merch.

And you get 10% off, which is a lot of fun.

So please go to the website here and be sure to check it out.

We appreciate you.

And thank you so much.

Welcome back to Creepcast.

Today we have an OG.

I don't think we even realized the kind of royalty that we were stepping into because today we're reading blindly.

We're reading

the Diania House.

Is that how you say that?

Diania House?

Diania, Diania, something like that.

I don't know.

The Diania.

I've known about the story forever.

This has just always been one of the OGs, one of the classic creepypastas.

We did not realize how OG and how classic it was

until we like started looking into it.

So this story was written by a man named Eric Heiserer.

Heiserer?

Is that however you pronounce that?

Heiserer.

Heiserer.

Eric Heiserer, who wrote a couple little movies you maybe heard of like Arrival and Birdbox.

So

an incredibly prolific writer.

I just want to

I just want to read this little blurb from Wikipedia, the most trusted website on earth.

Of course, this little thing just is a very interesting beginning.

We, I was just so floored by the beginning of this.

First off, so Heiser's professional screenwriter career was launched with the sale of the Diana House to Warner Brothers in 2005.

So, almost 20 years ago, he sold this story to what

we're getting ready to read to Warner Brothers, which I'm guessing they did nothing with it.

And it is considered to be one of the first popular creepypasta stories.

So, one of the first.

We did Ted, and then now we're doing the Dying Eye House.

Very I would say Ted is the first.

And then like Ted is the first.

You've got this.

Yeah.

I would say Ted's the first, but it's just insane to say that this guy wrote the story.

It's considered to be one of the first.

And then he ends up selling to Warner Brothers.

And then he ends up making

a full professional screenwriting career.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010.

The Final Destination 5, The Thing from 2011, a movie called Hours with Paul Walker.

Crip.

Lights Out.

Oh, fuck.

That's cool.

He did Lights Out with them.

And then Arrival that same year, Birdbox, and then Bloodshot, the Vin Diesel movie.

Now, granted, whatever you think of these movies, doesn't matter.

The fact of the matter is, this is a

long standing incredible.

Yeah, and Arrival is an incredible film.

He got his Academy Award nomination for it.

Like, great movie.

Dennis Villano, incredible director, like who he worked with on that film.

So like, yeah, this guy, this guy knows what he's doing.

And this is his first like at least published or you know any kind of popularity work from 2004 which is so weird to think about 20 years ago pretty crazy one of the earliest creepypastas as a matter of fact we have to go on the way back machine to read it yeah we are on the way back machine because it said that the it said that the website or the where the story was at was taken down in 2019 or 2020.

So now it's on the way back machine.

And what's interesting about this story is that it's all a collection of emails, I believe,

which is just kind of pog.

I like that.

And, you know, he sat there, he made a rival, Jeremy Renners, and that.

How good of friends do you think he is with Jeremy Renner?

I think they're, I think they're besties.

Maybe you show up on the Jeremy Renner app.

See, now we're talking about Real Royalty, the Jeremy Renner app, where a psychopath talks about how he broke both of his legs.

Really love Jeremy Renner.

I do like to think about it.

Wait, why do you think he's a psychopath?

Jeremy?

Yeah.

I'm almost positive he had, which do not correct me if I'm wrong, because I want to live this.

I want to live this fantasy, if not.

I thought he had a full-blown mental break.

And that's also why they didn't put him in son of some of the.

I'm almost positive because then he went in and he like started a rock band, had a mental break, did a rock band thing, had the Jeremy Renner music video that came out.

And then they were like, they kind of tried to cut him out of the Marvel movies.

As I remember, that's why he's only in like one scene.

He's like in Japan for like one of the uh in like Infinity War.

I think you're completely making this up.

I swear, I've heard of this.

I look up Jeremy Ritter mental break, and it's like mental recovery after his accident.

How his accident changed his outlook.

Like, there's nothing to do with the mental breakout.

All I'm saying is the real ones out there are going to realize what I'm talking about.

I don't know what kind of seedy parts of the internet I was in, but I saw it as I swear.

I thank you to God.

So he made it up.

He hasn't been the same since Hurt Locker.

His mental determination was the key factor in his recovery.

That's hurt coming.

Is this on jeremyrenner.com?

Is this on?

This is

Google, the internet.

Yeah.

Well, where do you think Jeremy Renner's app exists?

On the internet, my friend.

He hasn't been the same since Hurt Locker.

Let's be honest.

Let's be honest.

Okay, I don't support him.

I do not tie myself to that image.

Jeremy Renner, if you want to sue him, by all means, no, no, no, don't put that out there.

We don't, we don't want to.

do that.

As a matter of fact, I will help you.

I have a whole document ready to go.

I have several post-it notes around this whole workspace just full of things that he hates, including hikers, cream soda,

speaking in hallways, and old women.

So I'll help.

I will be your number one.

But you know what's not on that list?

What is not on the list is I do not hate Jeremy Renner.

I'm just saying he's a psychopath.

Don't know.

I do not hate Jeremy Renner.

I'm just saying he's a psychopath who can't be trusted in professional spaces

and should be kept at 10 feet from

the acting actor.

And if the app is still up, it needs to be deleted.

Okay, I can't wait for you to get sued.

That's going to be so funny.

Without further ado, let's get into the Diania house.

It says correspondence from Mark Condry.

At the top here on the Wayback Machine, which is probably part of the original website, is the September 6th, 2004 to October 1st, 2004, which is

I'm guessing just the amount of email chains, the length of that.

But coincidentally, our first email post here is on October 7th, 2004.

So six days after the last correspondence.

Yes.

So without further ado, let's get into it.

Jennifer, friends and family of Mark.

As promised, here are copies of the correspondence I received from Mark over the course of the last month.

For the most part, I've merely copied and pasted them from my email application.

As you'll read, he requested this and hopes that you'll better understand why he did what he did.

I made made this site because it's the most efficient way to share Mark's emails with all of you.

I'm not advertising this to anyone, but I do think it would be wise to pass this URL along to anyone who may help with the investigation.

As I collect more information from various sources, I'll update this site to keep it an accurate record.

I'll have that link at the end of the series as well.

If you need to speak with me, Jen has my number.

Thank you for your patience, and again, I'm profoundly sorry.

Eric.

Nice little first tie-in also there still is a hyperlink on the i'll update this site that takes you to the updates page yeah updates and other resources do we read this now or should we wait i think we wait okay i just have a feeling because he says uh as i collect more information i'll update this site to keep it accurate and the link will be at the end of the series as well so right now we just have eric sending over his correspondence with mark yeah uh so now we have uh our emails

that are between the two.

So this first one is from Mark Condry on Monday, September 6th of 2004 at 8 a.m.

Subject to an old friend.

Eric, hey man, it's Mark from Houston.

The Saturday Night Gang.

Feels like a long time ago, doesn't it?

The fuck does that happen?

Why did you not like that?

Hey, it's Mark from Houston.

The Saturday Night Gang.

What the fuck happened on Saturday night?

I think he's just being kind of cringe.

I think you get the town on Saturday night.

Definitely some Jeremy Renner stuff going on with the Saturday night, gang, for sure.

What does that even mean?

I think you know.

He's put together some apps.

Yeah, we're all making apps of our lives here.

If you want to come over on Saturday night, okay.

Saturday night, gang.

Feels like a long time ago, doesn't it?

I found your email from your website.

Looks like you're out in LA now.

Cool.

I remember telling you you should be out there doing the California thing.

You still with Connie?

I'm in Dallas now.

I met someone who works in my building.

We've been seeing each other for two years now.

Listen, the reason I'm writing to you out of the blue is because I got this newspaper article in the mail.

Maybe you got one too.

It's about Andrew.

Do you remember Drew?

Travis would pick him up most of the time.

Messy hair, sort of the fanboy type.

I didn't remember his last name until I got this thing, and now it's really disturbing me.

Do you know what happened?

Did you hear about it already?

Let me know if you have some time to talk.

I can call you or you can call me if that works better.

I'm going to see if I can track down Travis and Dave.

A quick search didn't seem to turn up any leads, but maybe they just don't have websites.

If you still talk to either of them, let me know.

Thanks.

Mark.

Little, little drop-in clue here of our boy Andrew, aka Drew, the messy-haired fanboy.

Something happened to him.

You know, I don't like about that, though.

Why don't you say what happened?

You know what I mean?

Why do I have to do all the legwork?

Well, because we're having fun, it's feeding pieces of the story to

something happened to Mark.

I'm holding back my complaint because also I hate the idea of some guy emailing me out of the blue, just being like, Remember me?

How you doing?

Like, dude, if you, if I haven't talked to you in a while, I probably don't want to talk to you.

You know what I mean?

So let me hold on.

Let me really quickly add that.

Okay, don't add that.

That's just, that's, that's not even a general.

That shouldn't be on the list.

To

old friends.

No, no, no.

Not talking to old friends.

Emails out of the blue.

That's what it should be.

Emails out of the blue.

Let me change that.

Any communication.

Okay.

All right.

Old friends.

All right.

Yep.

All right.

Well, now it's on the list.

Hey, Jeremy, you need that?

There you go.

There's a freebie.

On me, buddy.

He's like, sorry, I've updated the malware on my app.

We know, you know, for a fact, he never updates the malway.

No, absolutely.

Absolutely not.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That wasn't.

Everyone's info is just in the wind.

So, again, this is another one from Mark Condry

on Wednesday, September 7th, sent at 7 a.m.

Subject Response from Mark Condry.

Eric,

thanks for a quick reply.

I didn't mean to sound cryptic in my first email.

I'm just reluctant, I guess.

I hadn't really seen or thought about Andrew since he stopped showing up for game night, and that was five years ago.

That was about the time we all went our own ways back in 99.

You moved out west.

I moved up to Dallas, etc.

So, when I got this article in my mailbox, it caught me by surprise.

And yeah, I'll transcribe the thing for you.

I wasn't sure if maybe you were the one who sent it to me.

I'll put it into this email at the bottom.

I remember him.

He was never the kid with the idea.

He was the kid who agreed with yours.

Slowest to get the joke, usually.

Laughed the longest.

That's Andrew in a nutshell.

Yeah.

At least that's how I remember him.

He got on my nerves sometimes, but damn, if he didn't love being part of the gang.

He'd ask for some poker chips on card night or borrow dice from my bag, that sort of thing.

Whenever we play Tecmo Bowl on your Nintendo, he always wanted to be on my team, which would have been fine if he was any good

i haven't heard about travis or dave in years it fell off the radar about the same time you did none of us made much of an attempt to stay in touch it was just one of those things that's okay i wasn't trying to point fingers it happens uh but i was hoping you had already heard about andrew like you've gotten a copy of the article I still haven't been able to get a number or email for Travis or Dave.

Maybe they know more about this than we do.

Andrew usually hitched a ride with Travis most of the time.

It was on the way home for Travis.

Didn't Andrew live with his mom?

Like in an apartment?

And his stepdad was a real estate broker that had that one house way out past Highway 6.

Do you remember that?

Andrew was scared to death of that house.

Here's the article.

There's a photo of Andrew with it.

Looks maybe like his driver's license photo.

It's all had messy hair.

Gunman shoots two, kills self at Boise Restaurant.

Diners of the Roadside Breakfast Cafe on Interstate 84 fled to the parking lot and panic yesterday afternoon when a man entered and began shooting patrons inside, killing two.

The couple, John and Lucy Madsen, were having lunch when 26-year-old Andrew Hughes entered, wielding a Smith and Weston 59 pistol, according to police.

Witnesses claimed the perpetrator was muttering to himself as he approached the smoking section and opened fire.

Something funny, Hunter.

Opened fired into the first occupied booth, fatally wounded the Madsens.

Soon after, he turned the weapon on himself.

All three were taken by paramedics to St.

Alphonsa's Regional Medical Center, where John Madsen and the shooter were pronounced dead.

Lucy Madsen, 37, remained in critical condition for several hours, but did not survive the night.

Police are investigating Hughes' work and personal background.

But as of this morning, a motive for this attack is unknown.

Okay, see, the only reason that I chuckled there was I just the idea of a guy walking in and approaching the smoking section.

I don't know why for some reason, but the idea of a people just being, it was very French to me.

They're smoking so they're like, What?

And they said they're blowing big smoke clouds.

He's like, You goddamn dirty lung sons of bitches.

He pulls out the Smith Wesson.

Boom!

Boom!

So it was the inclusion of the smoking section that made you laugh.

Yeah, well, I like the idea of them being like, What?

What is

that?

They're holding her.

He's like, You

goddamn dirty, dirty little pieces of shit.

Boom!

The way you're saying it implies he did it because they were smoking.

It's why I was laughing because I like the idea of this guy being like, you motherfuckers.

Yeah.

They've had it too good for too long.

Exactly.

You keep dancing with death while the dance is over.

You don't appreciate what you have.

That's pretty much the plot of the Saw movies.

Exactly.

That's how Jigsaw, Jigsaw walks into a place.

He's like, you were smoking.

It's like, yeah, dude, I work 12 hours a day.

Can I smoke?

At the beginning of...

Why don't you try digging this key out of your stomach?

Like, what does it have to do with anything?

Oh, maybe you could unlock the reality that your life's a gift.

It's like, fuck off.

At the beginning of, I think it's the fifth one, he actually does kill a guy for smoking.

Do you remember that?

I mean, yeah, I feel like I've actually, ever since I did my saw video, I feel like

I've erased all those from my mind.

Okay.

Is it the fifth one where it's all about the one insurance guy who has to go through?

It's got like the

carousel shotgun.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think that's...

That's either...

No, I think that's seven.

No, no, no.

That's six.

I think that's Saw 6.

Okay.

Whichever one that is.

I don't know.

Whichever one that is, the opening, is there in that machine that takes your lungs.

Oh, and it's got the big press on the side.

And the old, the janitor is like, he smoked two packs a day for 40 years.

And it's like, that's it?

Yeah, exactly.

It's like, God, that's why it's looked off.

There's other people where it's like, they watched they're like pedophiles.

And you're like, okay, well, there you go.

Like, fucking get tortured.

Yeah.

But somebody's just like, oh, because I'm smoking Paul Malls.

Yeah.

Like, come on.

All right.

So anyway, after that, saying that the people were shot to death for smoking, If there's more to the article, I didn't get it.

That's where it was torn off.

The other side is part of a Dillard's ad.

This is really bothering me, Eric.

What the hell was Drew doing in Boise?

With a gun?

He hung out with us for almost two years.

I just don't get it.

Something else is eating at me.

I can't figure it out yet.

Mark.

I can't figure it out, Drew.

Why was he in Boise?

Not the why did he murder two people.

Yeah, it's just like, why would he murder someone?

Why the hell was he in Boise?

What was he doing in Idaho?

Who would ever go to Idaho?

He did love potatoes, I guess.

All right, so we have another one

from Thursday, September 9th.

Also, from Mark says,

Hey, I know how you feel.

It's hard not to think of the times he sat next to us at the table, smiling like a fool, rolling dice, moving his pieces around the board.

That's worded so funny.

Oh, I used to think about the good old days.

Would he roll his dice, smile, move pieces around the board?

He would watch someone play the board game.

Yeah.

It's like, what are you...

Can't you just say, like, the next line is, he loved Monopoly Night.

So it's like, just say he liked Monopoly, like, rolling his dice, moving his pieces the way kids do.

He loved Monopoly Night.

Always wagged his tongue when he counted money.

Well, okay, I don't like that.

Always wagged his tongue when he counted money.

I don't think he realized he did that.

It's impossible to think of him shooting up a diner.

That's funny.

Hold on, let me read all that at once.

Sat next to us at the table, smiling like a fool, rolling dice, moving his pieces around the board.

He loved Monopoly Night.

Always wagged his tongue when he counted money.

I don't think he knew he did that.

Possible to think he shot up a diner.

So good.

There's no return address on the envelope?

No, but the postmark is Idaho, not California or Texas.

Not sure if you've already considered this, but it's possible the whole thing is fake.

Some sick practical joke made to mess with your head?

You can get newsprint paper for.

Yeah, I've considered it.

I didn't tell you this earlier, but I called up Saint Alphonsus and asked if they had a patient named Andrew Hughes admitted in the last month and a record of him.

As if it would show if he had been pronounced DOA and i got transferred to er where they keep paramedic records and info on all doas they have him listed uh he showed up on august 28th died of a gunshot wound to the head pronounced dead by er resident at 3 14 p.m

i asked for some contact info like a phone or address where he might be living i got brushed off told to call the police for that stuff The hospital wouldn't give out any personal info, at least not without some signatures.

I haven't called the police yet.

That's probably the next step.

Glad to hear that you and Connie are going strong.

Sorry to sort of dump all of this on you.

I just didn't know who else could care to listen.

All right, if anything else comes with this, at this point, I'm thinking maybe Drew's mom sent it to me.

Maybe Drew kept track of me when I moved to Dallas and had my address.

I'm listed in the book.

That would explain the logistics part.

I'm overthinking things.

Take care.

Mark.

I do like this kind of weird buildup of

reconnecting with somebody over like a tragedy like this

when someone that you feel like you knew did something horrible.

But there is like a little inkling of, let me ask you this.

Do you think that are we dealing with a

weird kind of

alternate reality situation?

No, I think

the house made him crazy or something.

Which house?

The Dianea house.

Because there was that mention in the first email email where he said, Yeah, Drew's dad was a real estate

agent.

He had that house out on Highway 6 or whatever that always freaked Andrew out.

I see.

I see.

That's the Dianea house, I assume.

So, in the two years, Andrew's gone to that house, or it's taken a hold of him somehow, and it's driven him to the point to shoot these two people in a diner.

Now, were these just two random targets, or was Drew compelled specifically to murder them?

We'll find out, but I see.

I think it's I was kind of, I think I got thrown off of the whole thing of him being like, this could be fake.

And I thought that it was going to be not like a parallel reality thing, but didn't know if it was something where, I guess maybe, yeah, a parallel reality.

I don't know why my mind immediately went there.

I don't ignore him.

I think the purpose of that, the like, this could be fake, is just to show that even Eric is like, there's no way.

Like, there's no way that Drew did that.

Which, I mean, I would be saying the same thing.

If you knew somebody, if you knew somebody your whole whole life or had like a big, they had a big impact on you in a certain part, it's hard to imagine them any other way than they were when you knew them.

I feel like if I got a call from Allison tomorrow that said you shot up a diner, I would completely, I'd be like, yeah, that makes sense.

Is that true?

Would you actually believe that?

Probably.

You know what?

I can't blame you.

It would depend on who you shot.

It would depend on what the target was.

Smoking section.

Yeah.

I would be like, Allison calls and she's like, Isaiah, she's like crying.

And I'm like, was it the smoking section?

Like, I would just know.

Yeah.

How did you know?

He went straight for the early bird special section at the local Denny's.

They still have the smoking section in the back.

And it was a bloodbath.

I would be like, yeah, for sure.

Well, that seems he did not care for the smoking section, did he?

She's like, no.

He did not.

If there's one thing about him, it's that he didn't care for the smoking section.

Oh, absolutely not.

Absolutely not.

Also, I will say this.

Over the past couple of days, I'm surprised they haven't just given given each other their phone numbers and they just talk on the phone versus the email it's 2004 right they have phones when were cell phones magphones were a thing in like the 90s right uh

were cell phones i see this this goes back to my even wasn't a cell phone i'm just saying like that they didn't even home phone like home phone numbers yeah yeah

uh well emails are the new happening thing for like text messages uh

and also we need some way to visualize the story right?

Oh, sure.

I guess I'm just, which, you know, getting ahead of ourselves.

We're derailing the story too much, but it's just the whole thing of like, I'm surprised there's not a mention of like, yeah, like they've been talking.

Like, oh, like we were talking about on the phone the other night, where it's like they've reconnected and they're talking out of the email chain.

Yeah, I think it's just because they need everything to be visible for us, the reader.

All right.

Okay, so another one from Mark on Friday, September 10th, 3 a.m.

Subject Thoughts and Concerns.

Hey again, I know it's late or early, depending on how how you look at it but this andrew thing won't go away i finally realized what's eating at me and i need to spit it out do you remember what went on just before andrew stopped showing up for game nights at your place i do he was gone for two weeks because he had to house it for his stepfather boom bada bing look who's right that's not in the story that's me boom bada bing

is what a dis I i did not like that if that's your catchphrase or if that whatever I did not care for that okay well you thought the story was about to go into an alternate dimension so i still don't it might it might and if it does then i'll boom bada bing myself

i'll boom bada bing myself all day yeah i see if i need you this morning in the shower i did a nice little boom bada bing

mom and stepdad went on a big vacation every summer for like 10 days and andrew was just expected to stay behind Usually just stayed at his mom's apartment, but that year he was asked to mine that house his stepdad owned, the one out in that old ridge subdivision west of houston maybe the guy had a bunch of houses he was big on real estate wasn't he the guy had inherited this dog from one of his clients somebody who moved out and didn't want to take the dog with him i want to say it was an australian shepherd do you remember any of this andrew talked about it the weekend before dog had behavioral problems whined, barked, scratched at the door, pissed on the carpet, didn't want to be inside, always wanted to be outside.

Dad kept it in a kennel except when it rained.

Andrew was supposed to take care of the dog, plus a few other things like mow the lawn, that sort of crap.

But Andrew didn't want to go.

Dave got into that argument with him about how it was the perfect setup for a young bachelor, house all to yourself, party time, risky business.

And Andrew kept saying it was too cold there for a party.

Too cold.

I distinctly remember that.

Now he kept asking us to drive out and stay with him while he was house sitting.

I don't think anyone went out there, did they?

I never did.

We didn't see him for two Saturdays in a row.

Then Travis picked him up like usual since he was back at his mom's place.

That's the one night with Andrew I remember the most.

I bet it's the same with you.

It was the most bizarre, frustrating night I had with the group.

Andrew walked in, quoting some commercial verbatim.

I want to say it was a tie dad.

Travis told us he was like that in the car all the way over commercials shows movies radio songs the first couple of hours gaming was like being in the room with the tv on

then he started parroting us he just oh

he just copied oh i like that he just copied something we said you remember tell me you remember this i could see it in my head so clearly oh and What was his response to anyone's complaints?

Okay.

Drew, stop quoting Law and Order episodes.

Please, give the Pontiac commercial a rest.

Dude, shut up and roll the dice.

Okay.

And then he'd launch into something else a few minutes later.

It wasn't just that he would regurgitate that crap.

It was that he would take it so far.

Whole reams of dialogue that he'd somehow memorize from one throwaway TV episode.

Lyrics to entire songs.

It went from odd to funny to disturbing in the first hour.

Look, I'll come out and say it.

Whatever happened to those 10 days it changed him he wasn't the same person after that we all know this we never talked about it at least not with me around but screw it if we didn't know instantly that the person who came back from that house was not Andrew

I wrote before that I hadn't thought about Andrew since 99 that was a lie You know the way your brain sometimes reminds you of things you hate to dig up?

The ones that sour your stomach.

I've thought about him a few times.

times about that night.

Was that the start of his madness or whatever it is that drove him to shoot up a diner?

Were we there to see him first lose his grip?

Eric, why the hell didn't we say anything?

Okay, I'm bought in.

That email, immediately, I went from like vaguely interested to very interested.

The idea too of somebody just like he just copy copy something we said

is just

something that's so childish.

it's a very just very uncanny isn't it well imagine sitting next to someone and they're sitting there like tide the easy quicker laundry detergent tide's the number one product to help you families love tide like and he's just doing that for hours that's so

that's so uncanny it's like a robot i like to think too that the cadence of which he said okay like they're like hey would you fucking stop he just said okay

like kind of like it was kind of like almost not necessarily like mad or angry but just and not even defeated, just kind of almost emotionless.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just like very monotone.

But then if he's quoting the commercials, he has the same cadence as the commercial.

Tide has tied's going to get out all the way.

He's like repeating it very full bore one for one.

Yeah.

And that to me is unsettled.

That's where the unsettled.

Quoting entire episodes of Law and Order non-stop.

Man, that's creepy.

So the next email is from Friday, September 10th.

Subject, the door is open.

Eric, I woke up to the phone ringing this morning.

Turned out to be the reporter from the Idaho Statesman.

She finally called me back.

Did I tell you I called to track down the source of the article?

She didn't have any new developments on the story, but we'll continue to follow up with the police.

I asked if she had any other details about the crime, stuff that didn't find its way into the article, and we sort of went over her notes.

Most of it I already knew, but there was one piece of info that caught my attention.

She wrote in the article that Andrew was mumbling or muttering to himself when he entered the restaurant, but she didn't put in what he was saying.

According to witnesses, he kept repeating, the door is open.

Does that make any sense to you?

The door is open?

Write me back, Mark.

When you think of muttering, do you think he's like,

the door's open,

the door's open, or is he like kind of more like,

the door's open.

The door is open.

Like, do you picture him whispering it?

Or do you, like, do you imagine?

have you ever met someone with like a physical tick?

Yeah, one of my buddies has to rest.

Okay, so I imagine it's more so like that, like, doors, doors open.

The door's open.

The doors open.

Doors open.

I almost think when I'm thinking of muttering, at least the way, which I guess when I imagine him walking in, I don't know if this is the wrong way to think about it.

I almost imagine him like sweating.

He's kind of gaunt and he's like crazed.

And he's just like, the door's open.

The door is open.

He's like talking to himself in a weird way, almost trying to warn other people.

It's almost like like if you're being controlled and puppeted, right?

But inside of you, you're trying to scream out and tell people something.

It's that kind of thing.

It's like that weird, like sifted, like lost in translation approach of like trying to warn somebody.

I think it depends on what kind

of

what the nature of his possession is.

Yeah.

Because it could just be like he's on autopilot.

Like the door is open, therefore stuff is happening.

Yeah, he could have just walked in totally casually and he's just completely on autopilot, like you're saying.

Yeah, yeah.

The door is open.

The door, the door is open.

The door is open.

We'll find out.

I think we'll find out more.

Sure.

Just fun to speculate on.

I will say the lapses of time or like the email chain format is really fun.

I know that we were talking about,

I wasn't trying to discredit earlier.

I like the idea of it

being able to have these lapses of time and it's just like

very

fatty or like very like tasty bits of information, you know, not like these long, drawn-out, kind of flavorful wordings.

It's very like conversational.

And I like, I like that approach to the story.

Like a one-sided conversation.

Yeah, this is fun.

I'm bought in.

I'm in.

I'm told.

I need to know.

I think I remember listening to maybe a creepypasta reading of this when I was younger, but I don't remember what happened.

So I'm hype.

Looks like the next one's on Sunday, September 12th, 2004, 5.10 p.m.

from Mark Condry again.

And the subject is a plan.

Eric, I haven't heard from you.

Just writing to let you know I had a day to put some distance from the whole thing and I've made a decision.

I'm going to fly down to Houston and see if I can find someone in Andrew's family.

I once rode with Travis to pick Drew up.

I think I know where his mom used to live.

From there, maybe I can find sepdad and the house.

I've tried the boisey lead already.

I called the cops and got more questions than answers.

And now some Lieutenant Perez plans to call me back in case he needs more testimony from me.

Like, I know anything.

Apparently, Andrew was living alone in a rental up there, working at a blockbuster video.

That's about all I got from the cops in Idaho.

So, I'm aiming for Houston.

Even driving my own car in a cheapo motel, it's still going to cost me about $200 for the trip.

Genny is worried about me.

She'd rather I stay and pretend the police will figure this out on their own, but I have to go down there, Eric.

Here's why.

I think Andrew was afraid of that house for a reason.

Whatever that reason was, during those 10 nights, something emptied him.

Gutted Andrew like a fish.

Yanked out whatever he was inside or shocked him into forgetting it all away.

He was hollowed out.

To fill the void, he absorbed any input he could find.

Television, radio, conversation.

Soaked it up and presented it as Andrew.

He could walk and talk, and he wasn't injured, not physically, but he wasn't the same either.

There's a gap I need to fill in my head, like the time in that house.

I have these pieces of Andrew that don't match.

I need something to match.

Hell, I'll feel better if something will just make sense.

I won't ask you to fly down and join me, but I could use your help all the same.

I have some questions you might be able to answer.

Please call me or send me a note if you know any of these.

My phone is and then we get a note that uh is removed by Eric.

Eric, yeah, Eric has removed the phone number.

So the questions is, what was the stepfather's name?

First or last?

What was his mom's name?

Was her last name also Hughes?

What was the name of the subdivision where stepdad's house was?

I think Andrew mentioned it.

I hope I haven't freaked you out too much with my crazy talk.

I know it probably comes off sounding absurd.

Some of it, or maybe not.

You were there for some of this.

If you really think I'm off my noggin, tell me.

By all means, tell me.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Mark, you know what?

I like so far is uh, I feel like you can tell Mark is taking this a lot more seriously than Eric, even with how this section began with him saying, Haven't heard from you.

So it feels like Eric's kind of like, eh, you know, that is weird.

I guess he was a weird guy.

I feel like Mark is definitely more invested into seeing what exactly is happening.

Mark certainly has

a paranoia about it.

Whereas

I think Eric's kind of like, this is a lot all at once.

You know?

Right.

Okay, so the next one's from Monday.

So the next day, 8:22 a.m.

Subject is a response to the previous one, a plan.

So,

Eric, thanks again for calling.

Thanks again for calling.

I got your email as well, and it mentions a few things we didn't discuss over the phone.

So I want to add a comment or two.

What I remember was what Travis told us.

The time that he went to pick up Drew and had to go up to his room and get to him.

This was the last time Drew gamed with us.

Travis went upstairs to his room and the kid was pacing back and forth by his bed.

Everything was all neat and tucked in, but the carpet was worn in a line where Drew was pacing.

Like it's all he did.

Yes, I remember this too.

And the way Travis told the story, like he wanted it to sound funny, but he didn't believe it was.

And Dave laughed.

He said, Man, that dude's a broken record.

And we all agreed, nodding and chuckling.

Damn, we all just let it go with that.

Like, it was easier to write him off.

Travis was the last one to laugh.

He'd seen that room with his own eyes.

Go.

I really would, but Connie got sick last night and she's still throwing up this morning.

I don't feel right leaving town with her like this.

Understandable.

You stay there.

I'll continue to email you on this thing.

I can't really talk about Drew with Jenny.

She never knew him.

She doesn't get why this is so disturbing.

Outside of the horror that that took place in Boise, that's why I keep writing you.

Nobody else gets it.

Hey, maybe I'll somehow find Travis or Dave while I'm in town.

Mark.

All right.

Next, we have a very short one

that is sent from Tuesday, September 14th to Eric.

Eric, made it to Houston.

The drive was hell.

Traffic and a persistent rattle in the trunk wore me down.

The AC unit in my hotel room sounds like a submerged Cessna engine.

It'll be hard for me to sleep with it on and impossible with it off.

At least the whole internet access bit works and I'm able to check my email.

Tomorrow's a long day.

I'll be prowling Breezewood and your old neighborhood to zero in on an apartment complex I went to once.

Joy.

Wish me luck, Mark.

After that, we have another longer email sent for Mark the next day, Wednesday, September 15th at 9 p.m.

So

theoretically, a day after he's done research.

Yeah, he's like, I had a full day of researching.

Subject, lots of stuff.

Eric, great news.

I have a solid lead.

The whole day felt like I was pulling a string from the sand, but it's pointed me in the right direction.

These emails are becoming more of a journal for me to help me log my progress.

Hope you don't mind.

Took me an hour of driving back and forth around the Gessner and Breeswood area before I zeroed in on the right side street.

The landmarks had changed.

I was 90% sure I'd found the right apartment complex, but I was still grasping air.

With no name from Drew's mom and no guarantee her last was Hughes, I went to the manager's office and I just got lucky.

Her name is Nancy Hughes, and she stopped paying the rent in September of 99.

Drew paid it for the rest of the lease term, which ended the following February.

According to the note in the resident file, he paid in cash.

Seems mom moved out or just up and left one day.

Poof.

Andrew was living alone in the apartment then?

How was he paying for rent with just a minimum minimum wage job?

I showed the manager the article about Drew and then I lied.

I said I was a private investigator.

I don't know why.

Maybe to justify why I was having her dig up rental information from five years ago.

Anyway, she got off on it and kept rooting around in the Hughes file for me like a movie sidekick.

She found something.

A third-party check covered rent for December of 98.

Kurt Malone.

I'm thinking this is stepdad.

The manager photocopied the check for for me and 10 minutes later I was calling the phone number printed with Kurt's address in the upper left-hand corner.

No luck there, disconnected.

So I took another approach and called 411 for a local realtor service.

You can do a search for contact information for a specific realtor.

I remember hearing about this from a co-worker who'd sold his place in Greywood.

Malone was listed under a little RE-MAX affiliate office in Katy.

I got that number and called there, left message.

Evelyn, the owner, called me back and said Malone hadn't worked there in forever.

He had been vanished, left her with all kinds of issues.

She thinks he had financial problems and bailed for Mexico.

I find it hard to swallow a theory told to me in stage whisper, but maybe that's just her personality.

Still, that's two people gone.

Before, I thought maybe mom just moved in with stepdad.

Now, I don't know what the hell to think.

The call went on for half an hour as I got to hear the HR nightmare Evelyn went through through thanks to Kurt's disappearance.

Halting his benefits, freezing the 401k plan, surrendering documents to the police, etc.

I finally broke in and asked about the house, the one out in West Houston he owned.

She got very quiet after that.

Took me another 10 minutes to answer her questions about who I was.

This time I was honest and upfront with her.

I guess it paid off because she believed me, or at least believed in my intentions.

She checked her records.

I have an address, Eric.

Kurt had his own home in Sugarland, but get this.

He was renting a house from a client way out west near a pecan grove plantation.

The paperwork was curious since he was supposed to be selling this place, but the previous owners had signed off on it in multiple places, like it was no real conflict of interest.

She didn't know what happened to the house after it was seized by the bank.

I guess I'll find out tomorrow when I drive out there.

Close, man.

Real close.

Well, this, this is just all kinds of funsies.

I just, the amount of detail of going into that too, but also just the subtle nature of, as soon as he asked about that house, I like how she then re-asks him again, like, who are you?

You know, there's just, there's something that it feels weird.

I'm always sketched out whenever people also know of like the dangers of a place.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like, it's like, no one else should know about this creepy, weird thing, but then other people do as well.

It has like a reputation of being something creepy.

And that's what

she goes from like being a gossip queen, saying anything that comes to mind to like very serious all at once.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Then all of a sudden she clams up and then not until he reveals he's like, I'm his friend, whatever that she like ends up helping him.

First off, very cool character.

Like, thank God.

Man, this is sick.

Okay, so the next one, we have a note from Eric that says, note, Mark was able to send text messages from his phone, but I frequently receive them late, sometimes hours after he sent them, as is the case with September 21st messages.

But we're not to that yet, but that's a little bit of a breadcrumb for what's coming later.

I love that.

So, this is one of the text messages that Mark sent on Thursday, September 16th.

He was received at 3:33 p.m.

Aha, angel number.

Look at that.

All that Mark said was, Where are you?

Call me.

All caps.

Oh, shit.

And also, you know, it's crazy.

He and he receives that hours later, too.

Same day sent.

So Thursday, September 16th at 8.25 p.m., another email from Mark.

Subject, the house.

Holy shit.

I tried calling you five times today, but I got your machine.

I really need to talk.

Call me as soon as you can.

Where do I start?

The house is still there.

It's this generic one-story thing, bricks and siding.

Must have been built at the same time as the other homes in the neighborhood, but it just looks older.

The roof is scarred in places.

The driveway hasn't held up like the others have.

Cracks in the pavement.

A plank's missing from the side gate.

I rang the doorbell and figured I'd just talk to the new owners.

No one answered.

I couldn't really hear if it worked or not.

Blinds and curtains in the windows kept me from peering inside.

There was a dusty pickup truck with a warped front fender parked in the driveway.

A neighbor across the street saw me checking it out.

He talked to me for a while as he watered his shrubs.

He hasn't met the person who lives in the house now or if anyone is living there, really.

He remembered Kurt, but not by name, just as the guy who stayed there for a few months.

The previous owners, Kurt's clients, didn't live there that much longer.

They had all sorts of problems with the house, electrical, heating, that sort of thing.

They moved out, left most of their furniture behind, he said, packed into a big RV one day and just drove off.

He still remembered their names, John and Lucy Madsen.

Oh, fuck.

Let's go.

Let's go.

Let's go.

Let's go.

This is.

So Andrew went out of his way,

killed the smokers known as John and Lucy Madsen, who were the previous tenants of this house that his dad, like for a property that his dad owned.

Yeah, his stepdad, yeah.

Or his stepdad owned.

Love that little reveal at the end.

Holy shit.

So, John, so for whatever reason,

Drew stays in the house for 10 days.

Who knows what happens to him?

A couple years later, he goes to Boise, Idaho, and guns them down, the previous owners of the house.

And because Drew's mother and stepdad disappeared, I'm going to guess they're also dead.

Yeah,

I would have to assume it was a similar fate somehow.

Maybe not gunned down, but I imagine that they were probably killed.

Yep.

The door is open, whatever that means.

So the next email we have is from Mark on Saturday, September 18th.

It is response to the previous update.

Hey, Eric, we're playing phone tag.

When you called, I was already on the plane.

And when I called back, I guess you were at the hospital again.

Really sorry to hear about Connie.

Any idea what it is yet?

Food poisoning, something else?

What did the doctor say?

I'm in Boise now.

Yeah.

I had a ticket from Priceline on short notice, got on standby.

I left my car at George Bush Airport in Houston.

Jin freaked out when I told her.

Then she got very terse, said, I should do what will make me happy and hung up.

What will make me happy?

I don't know a soul in Idaho.

I haven't slept in two days.

I'm charging everything to my visa and I have no idea how I'm going to pay it off.

My watch stopped working yesterday.

I've got this weird ringing in my ride here.

It comes and goes.

Annoying as hell.

I'll tell you what will make me happy.

Closing my eyes and not seeing Andrew staring back at me.

What are you going to do once you get there?

Do you plan on telling the police the Madsen connection?

Do you think the Madsons left something in the house that drove Drew nuts?

And you killed them for it years later?

Seriously, this is fucked up.

Yeah, I don't know what to think.

Right now, it's just a connection.

They lived in the same house.

The Madsons were there for four and a half months, and Drew was there for 10 days.

I have no idea what it means.

I'll email you and I figure something out.

I feel like I should pass this along to some people.

Like to get you some help out there.

Or bring in the feds or something.

I don't know if anyone else has managed the connection you did, and it's an important one to the case.

Can I forward your emails and contact info to someone?

I've been thinking about that because i was going to ask you to do that for me at first but now i don't think i'll get the kind of help i need let's face it there are enough unexplainable pieces to this thing i'm going to get two kinds of interest nuts and skeptics I wouldn't mind so much the skeptic, except I get this vision in my head of some guy calling Jenny, calling my parents, calling my boss at work, looking to paint the picture of a guy who's lost his mind after hearing that his dead friend went nuts.

I really haven't been totally honest with Jenny or my supervisor at the office because this is not something you can easily explain.

I've been calling in sick to work and I told Jen I had to go to Boise to attend a pseudo-wake.

I don't want that to bite me in the ass while I'm looking into Andrew's past.

Here's what you can do for me though.

You can hold on to this stuff as evidence or whatever.

If something crazy happens and I'm in trouble, use this to explain the situation for me.

Forward emails to my friends or family.

Maybe if they read them, they'll understand what I'm going through.

I know you didn't mean to inherit this job.

I'm sorry to make you do it, but I really appreciate the help.

Mark in Potato Land.

Do you think that you would, if your buddy was doing this kind of thing, would you try, even if, like,

so Eric's girlfriend or wife, Connie, is sick.

in the hospital really bad.

Right.

Which does,

it does give it more of an anchor here as well.

Do you think there's any point of like, oh,

I guess what I'm saying is, is there any point at all where you would be like, I'm going to go, I'm going to leave?

Or do you think that, like, would you be compelled to go and help him?

Depends on how sick.

If Kayla was just like throwing up for a day, I'd probably be fine, but if she was in the hospital, I wouldn't leave the hospital.

Yeah, I guess I mean, because that's obvious.

I guess I mean more so that do you think that if there wasn't something there, do you think Eric would be there with him?

Or just because the only thing that brings up this question to me is just a piece of conversation is him being like, well, I haven't even been totally, you know, honest with Jenny or my boss, stating the fact that, yes, he doesn't want to look crazy to them, but also he's probably missing tons of work as well.

Would you jeopardize with these kind of things, with this thing happening, do you think that he's at least bought in with that Madsen thing?

Or do you think that he's just like, this is like, I can't just like uproot my entire life and go on this goose chase?

Well, Mark certainly is, right?

Yeah, I'm saying if you're Eric, if you're,

if your buddy was saying this, do you think that you'd be compelled enough to be like, fuck it, I'm I think if I was Mark's friend after

the connection to the previous homeowners, I think I would.

Yeah.

Assuming that there's, I'm not in Eric's condition where I have a sick wife or girlfriend.

Right, right, right.

Otherwise, yes, I think I would.

I think I would find a way to get out there.

Because up until then, no.

But as soon as you find out that the people that he shot to death death were the previous owners of the house, now it's really weird.

Right.

I mean, it's a major coincidence, or not coincidence, but it's a major piece of information.

I just didn't know with this thing of how much do you also, with your learning that your friend is a psychopath that killed people in a restaurant, whatever, you find out like, oh, yeah, he was kind of weird and he did some nutty things.

And now you have a new friend who is also becoming obsessive with it.

I just, from a standpoint on Eric, I just think it's a lot going on right now.

Even if it is compelling.

It is.

It is.

But putting it this way.

Yeah.

If tomorrow you shot up a diner for smoking, you know, like as any good Christian would,

and then I get a call from like Harry or something that's like, I found this Latin book under the floorboard of the bedroom.

I'm flying to Kansas City tomorrow.

Yeah.

I don't think I can.

I have to investigate.

Well, I appreciate your lack of dedication, but I'm getting to the bottom of this.

So I mean,

I'm glad that Jeremy, Jeremy, I have something else for the suit.

Something else I just added.

I think of all the other kind of crazy shit that YouTubers do, maybe not to the extent of murdering someone, but I think about all these different things.

And not that you're desensitized to it, or that, like, if someone murders somebody, it's insane.

But I just think, I guess I'd try to put myself in

a situation where, am I even mentally able to handle all of this?

Like, I feel like it would drive me fucking insane.

It might, but uh, I'm also weird.

And like, I couldn't, I couldn't go the rest of my life without pulling that thread.

Yeah, I think it would eat at me forever.

I don't know.

Maybe odd side tangent.

I was just curious where you how you would approach it.

So another email from Mark dated September 20th, Monday at 10 a.m.

Subject to new lead.

Update.

I called the hospital, the one where Andrew was taken back in August, and asked some pointed questions about where Andrew's body went.

Who picked it up?

Did a relative or friend show up?

The answer was no.

But he was tagged with John and Lucy, and I kept demanding some sort of lead.

So the intern gave me the names of the relatives who were called in to confirm the IDs of the Madsens and to arrange for funeral home delivery.

John's cousin lives out here.

I'm about to head out and meet Greg Archer, the cousin, and his wife.

Right again from the motel, Mark.

So after that, we have another one from September 20th, a bit later at 10 p.m.

Subject, the Archers.

Back.

That was

strange

i met the archers i know what you said last time i called i need to stop lying because it'll make it harder on me later but i wasn't able to tell them i'm a good friend of the guy who killed greg's cousin i said i knew the madsons when they were in houston i had some burning questions about what happened to them as i claimed they practically dropped off the map when they left town I hadn't heard from them since.

Greg did most of the talking.

His wife Helen was pleasant in that that stiff smile way, but she found ways to interrupt my chat with Greg and remind him of other things he needed to get done.

The more she did it, the more I encouraged Greg to keep chatting.

The Madsens, as he tells it, had a long future planned in Houston.

John got a transfer to Schlumberger Oil and looked forward to settling down.

Then things started to go wrong after they moved in.

Just little things that piled up.

Their car kept getting flat tires.

Lucy broke her ring finger while folksing with the dishwasher.

Trouble getting mail.

Their phone got disconnected when they didn't pay the bill for two months.

A bill they never got.

That sort of thing.

Finally, something happened.

Greg doesn't know what.

It was enough to get them to put the house on the market.

That same week, John sold all his company stock, gutted his 401k, quit his job, and put everything into a big RV.

He and Lucy drove off in their new motorhome, never looked back.

They've been driving around the country the last five years, nomadic.

Lucy got pregnant in 2002, but miscarried.

They still kept on the road.

Greg thinks they would have just kept driving through Idaho if the RV hadn't broken down with an AC problem.

Greg says John called him up out of the blue and asked if he and Lucy could stay over.

Greg made the guest room upstairs, and he and Helen welcomed them in their house for a week.

This was right before the shooting.

Here's where it gets stranger.

Greg took me up to the guest room and pointed to some spots on the carpet right in front of the closet door.

Oh, let's go, baby.

This is so cool.

Furniture footprints, like something had stood there.

Greg says it was the dresser, the one against the opposite wall.

They barricaded the closet door for the duration of their stay.

It was the strangest thing.

He also noticed they kept the bedroom light on around the clock and bundled up with the spare set of woolen sheets for the bed.

Greg never found the right way to ask a number of questions.

I think he felt a little better talking to me about it.

I'm not his cousin, but I'm someone who listened to him and agreed it was bizarre.

Left Greg and Helens not feeling any better.

I feel worse now.

I ache the way you're sore right before you get really sick.

Trying to put things together.

I really am.

I have to go to the police now, don't I?

I'll go first thing in the morning.

I promise, Eric.

So it seems like they packed up, did the RV, and now it became a nomadic lifestyle so they could never settle and be caught.

I feel like something was after them.

So then that way, even whenever they stopped, they barricaded the door and stuff.

Like, I feel like

something happened to that house they were running from.

That's what I mean.

I think that that's why it was like they had the RV to where they could continuously move and survive without ever staying in one place, you know?

And that's why when I think when he broke down, even then when he stayed in the guest bedroom, he propped the thing up against the door for their safety.

Barricading the closet and leaving the bedroom light on is interesting.

You know, it's like, what?

What are you running from that you're afraid of it coming out of the closet in someone else's home?

Well, that's what makes me think that something that we don't know inside of the house that made them leave makes me think that that's the correlation there.

Yeah.

Between the two.

Maybe not necessarily the closet.

It could also be them going crazy too, though.

Like them barricading the closet door instead of the regular door.

Yeah.

You never know.

I'm interested.

I'm so bought in.

My body is ready.

Another transcript from Mark.

This one's Tuesday, September 21st at 2 in the morning.

No subject.

Hey, I just saw this thing on Discovery Channel.

Probably a rerun.

I bet you can catch it sometime.

All about natural predators and stuff.

Wild things.

Yeah, I'm up watching TV since I can't sleep.

Anyway, they had this thing on the Venus flytrap talking about how it lures the curious insect to its slip and then these invisible hairs or something since when one of the suckers lands on it and wham, it swallows the bug.

Just like that.

Later on, it spits out the skeleton of the fly and waits for the next victim.

Some types of flytrap plants emit this odor to entice more food, says the voice on the TV.

The fancy name for them is Dianea muscipula.

So wonder if that's all this is.

This whole thing with the shooting and the anonymous article in Houston and the footprints on the carpet.

It's all to get me into the Venus flytrap.

Only the sin isn't sweet sap.

It's guilt.

Guilt over all the times I was around you and didn't do anything.

You know what I mean?

And I'm flying all over the country.

My head's buzzing and I think I'm getting close to the truth.

But really, I'm tickling some invisible hair and the ground is about to fold up on me and swallow me down into that place where Nancy Hughes and Ken Malone went.

I'm going to go take some sleeping pills.

I hope Connie is going better, man.

I miss Jen.

She has a way of making me feel like I'm home just by being around her.

I'm tired of motels.

I'm sorry, Eric.

I'm so sorry, Mark.

Do you think Mark is slowly kind of descending into his own madness?

Yes, I think the same thing that is affecting everyone else who has anything to do with this house is getting to him.

I mean, he did visit it, right?

So, what's what I'm saying?

He went out right outside of it, never fully went inside, so maybe it's just taking him slower, which also makes me curious about the people living around there, that the guy like watering his shrubs and stuff.

I wonder what the effects are of living next to it.

I don't know, maybe that guy's weird too.

I mean, he's obviously lived there way longer than any other tenants have.

So, being across from it hasn't hurt that bad.

But maybe it's him going up and touching the house that did it.

I don't know.

Or just the general like paranoia of this whole situation is getting to him.

I think also we're under the impression that the house itself is the evil thing, and unless it's something inside or something else.

Yeah, yeah, it could be some greater force around it.

It doesn't have to be the brick and mortar necessarily.

Yeah.

Right.

So we have another one from Tuesday at noon,

September 21st, 1215 from Mark.

Subject where Andrew stayed.

Eric, bingo.

I went to the police and asked to talk to Lieutenant Perez.

Instead, I got Detective Sokloff.

He said he was working the Hughes case now.

I'm more inclined to think he was just running interference for Perez in case I was a wacko.

Anyway, I told him about the Matza connection with Andrew to see if that would help.

He said they'd look into it.

Then he started with the questions about me, and I looked for a way to cut that chat short.

Police stations make me uncomfortable.

The rest of the talk was rather banal, but at the end of it, almost offhandedly, he asked if I wanted to sign for Andrew's personal effects, since they had copies of all the important stuff.

I said sure, even though it made me feel like they've already written off this case.

Drew's been busy the last four years.

He has driver's license for Kansas, Colorado, Arizona, California, and Idaho.

Looks like he stays at friends' homes because none of the addresses printed on the license have apartment numbers.

His Idaho license is just two months old and has the address of the rental home where he stayed.

I'm going to drop by this afternoon and see what happened to his things there.

Maybe there's a clue to how he knew where to find the Madisons

or why he shot them.

Perez or somebody has done this already, I'm certain, but I'm not sure he looked very far.

Wish me luck, Mark.

Our next email.

There's a funness to especially on the Wayback Machine where you have to like click a button to go to the next one.

It's like you skip ahead and it's like, what's going to be on the next page?

There's like this tension with it, I like a lot.

It's a nice actual turn page, like an actual turn of the page that I think is lost with a lot of the other creepyposes that we read.

Yeah,

still, once again, building the uh, building the idea that people are nomadic in nature or don't or refuse to stay in one spot.

Um, they're afraid of being too sedentary, yeah.

Uh, so this is another text message from Mark sent on September 21st at 4.14 p.m.

Standing in front of house now.

It's the same one, the Houston house.

Same marks on roof, same fence damage.

Oh, well, look at that.

Interesting.

Looks like you're right.

Multiple different houses of the same.

So wait, hold on a second.

So is he saying that this is the exact same house that he saw in Idaho?

No, he's in Idaho right now.

Or the same house from...

I see.

Okay, so he was in Houston.

Yeah, yeah.

Saw that house.

That's where he talked to the guy with the shrub.

And now

he's in Idaho now.

And it's the same house from Houston.

That'd be such a fucking mental whirlwind, dude.

The exact same house.

Well, go to the next message, which was sent 10 minutes later, that says,

just talked to old man across the street.

He says house has been here for years, rented out as far back as he can remember.

It's the same guy.

It is effectively the same guy.

Or if the message looks exactly like him, basically.

It's the same loop.

Yeah, this is happening across.

This is happening in both Houston and Idaho.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Next message sent three minutes later says, I rang the doorbell.

No answer.

It's exactly the same.

Eric, I don't understand.

After that, we have

one from another four minutes later that says, ears ringing again.

I don't know what to do.

How is it the same?

Next one from four minutes later.

Oh, God.

There's a way into the house here.

Oh, God.

Oh, this is fun.

Pick up the goddamn phone, Eric.

God, where are you?

Pick up the phone.

You know what I mean?

Like, holy hell.

That's the next message.

That's the next message.

That's what I'm saying.

I'm like, I'm agreeing with him.

I'm like, where the fuck are you, dude?

Jesus.

Well, I mean, he's in the hospital with his girlfriend or wife, supposedly.

Yeah, I mean, does she have a stomach problem?

Who gives a shit?

And also,

hold on, hold on.

Remember what he said on September 15th?

I didn't receive the text messages until well after they were.

I mean, it's hours later.

I agree.

I'm just saying, like, can you imagine, like, put yourself in the shoes of Mark here.

You get there.

It is photo.

I mean, it is identical to a T.

And you have no, the only person you've been talking to is,

there's like some kind of like lapse of time as well.

Also, if I'm Eric here, I would be, I would find some kind of way to make sure that I can still answer.

Like,

here's, this is going to sound really bad.

I'm just saying my wife is not.

She's in the hospital.

We don't know what's wrong.

We don't necessarily know that she's not like she's dying.

At least that's not what we've been perceiving.

I would at least be like, I am going to keep my phone near me, you know, because this is fucking crazy.

Some of the stuff that's been going on.

I'm just saying I'm on Mark's side here.

Well, again, he said he wasn't receiving the text messages until hours later.

So all of these could have came in at the same time before he could do anything about it.

I mean, it's true.

It's true.

The technology is not as convenient as it is now.

That's what's frustrating.

Yeah.

So 433, where are you?

Pick up the phone.

438.

I'm going inside.

Love it.

441.

Inside the house.

Nobody is here.

Air is cold.

Metal smell.

441.

I found stairs.

Going up.

Didn't see second story from street.

447.

Did you call?

Signal cuts off.

Three bars, the no bars.

I'm looking for more of Drew's stuff here.

Layout is really bizarre.

Lots of rooms.

447.

Door at end of hall.

Made of metal.

Checking other rooms instead.

Okay, definitely getting.

I'm not going through the Silent Hill door yet.

505.

Call.

Question mark.

509.

Found something.

Drew's backpack.

Getting out of here now.

511.

I think someone's here.

I just heard something.

Oh, God.

Stop texting and just get the fuck out of there.

And then finally, at the impossible time of 577,

the door is open.

Oh, shit.

And that ends the text logs of September 21st.

Interesting.

Okay, so he walks inside and there is a

second story that isn't visible in the house from the outside.

It's like extra-dimensional.

He goes up that staircase at the end of the hallway.

And the inside of the house, it smells like metal.

It's cold.

It's very off-putting.

On the second floor of that house, there's a metal door at the end of the hallway.

And he hears someone else in there with him.

He says the door is open and he disappears.

Yeah, because the last chain here,

by the way, for people who don't remember, the last interaction they have in the document is October 1st.

And now with this new one,

the next update is September 27th.

So, I mean, we are closing in towards what's happening.

And this is actually very peculiar if you want to read this one.

So, September 27th, Monday, sent at 1.18 p.m.

from Mark, subject for Thursday.

Hello, Eric.

This is Jennifer.

I'm on Mark's PC now.

Fuck.

I did like you suggested, and I've looked through his outbox, and I don't see any emails about this to anyone else.

There aren't that many really.

He didn't tell me a lot of this stuff, Eric.

Like, now I'm reading the last thing he sent you back on the 13th.

I didn't know he was so emotional.

Why didn't he tell me about this?

But anyway, like you said, he wrote to you from his laptop when he was in Houston and Boise.

And the police up there said they found that in his hotel room.

And they're taking their own sweet time checking it out for clues.

So yeah, I'll keep asking for that to be sent down.

Where else should I look?

I don't know what else to do here except wait until you come down and look at it.

He does have aim, but I can't tell where the chat logs would be saved or anything if he's done that.

Please tell me what else I can do.

You know more about what he was up to than anyone else.

Because of this old friend the two of you had who went crazy, and now Mark is missing for almost a week.

Please send me the other emails he sent you, please.

I want to know now.

Jen

after that, we have an email from Postmaster.

This is sent on October the 1st, 2004.

So this is our last update.

Um,

subject undeliverable mail.

So an unknown user

receipt to generated following response.

550 unknown user original messages.

Follows.

So this is supposed to be a message from

unknown on October the 1st.

No subject.

So this is just kind of like a ghost email, sort of.

It's in the wind.

So no subject, October 1st, 2004.

Human arm and leg bones found on street.

Scottsdale resident got a shock at the start of their morning commute when they found what seems to be human bones lying in the road on Sage Drive.

Crime scene technicians arrived within half an hour and began to sweep the scene for more evidence that might help identify this human victim, or at least establish an approximate time of death.

Police spokesman Daniel Swift said bone evidence alone isn't usually enough to determine identity or even cause of death.

These remains didn't just appear in the road.

They were moved here, here, Swift said.

Therefore, we're asking any witnesses to contact the police with information that might pertain to what happened.

No other evidence was found along Sage Street or in yards or neighboring homes.

More of this story as it develops.

Whoever you are, whatever you are, fuck you.

I may not know you, but I can tell what this is, and I'm not fooled.

Your Venus flytrap game won't work.

I'll make damn sure to warn Jenny and others too, so nice try.

But no one is falling for your bait this time.

It stops here.

And that's the last of the updates.

And then that's the last of the logs.

And it goes to the updates section.

Kind of like the idea, though, that this,

that Eric comes to the conclusion that this thing is like, oh, you're just like, it's almost like a

domino effect.

One person gets invested.

They come in, they have a new victim.

Then because people care about that person, they come looking for him and then they're given this carrot that's dangling in front of their face, you know?

oh yeah it's like well at the end the bones being thrown out in the street is the same as he said happens with a fly in a flytrap it spits out the skeleton so i mean it's not technically a skeleton spits out the remains of the fly after the flytrap's done and that's what the human bones found in the street were isaiah was there any other parts that store was there any other

the only other thing really evidence that we had was

the shooting, right?

So there wasn't another person that was discarded bodies.

There was no other bodies found in the story correct that's the only mention yeah okay there's the mention that the house smells like metal which you could take to mean blood but that's not like confirmed right i just think it's i i think it's kind of implying that the house is almost like a living thing

right

like the house is a natural predator that uh

It maybe pops up.

Maybe it's like a plant that grows in several places around the country, right?

And like you can be in it for a while and be okay, but once you trip the hair, so to speak, once you pass through that metal door, you're gone.

You're consumed.

And then the bones spit out.

That's why I think it's meaning.

It'd be kind of sick.

Very odd.

Very kind of like just mysterious.

It would be so brutal if the house was actually just like a living organism.

And when you step in, it disguises itself as a real house, but really you're kind of like walking around its mouth and intestines and shit.

You know, that'd be kind of sick.

Once you go through the metal door, it's over.

Yeah.

It's like it puts this veil over your eyes so you think you're seeing one thing.

But then I'm not entirely sure where some of the stuff comes in.

Like you don't like, why then were the Madsons afraid of something coming out of closets?

Why do they need to keep moving?

Why?

I don't know.

Well, the only thing I can think of is that if they did something similar.

So the whole idea here that I think that ties in with the Madsons to me.

is Mark goes down, he sees the house in Houston, right?

Goes up to Idaho, sees a similar house.

Could the Madsens have done something similar to where every time that they go a place, they're being attacked from, like, let's just say a closet or something along those lines where they're losing their own perception of what is the house and what is not, to where when they stay in a place, maybe they still see the house, you know, like is that veil put over their eyes, so to speak, as they break that kind of barrier when they walk into the house?

I don't know.

We could, we could, we do have the updates at least, so maybe more answers can be

answered here.

Let's go to the updates.

So,

again, this is put together by Eric.

It says, it has become painfully obvious that, although I want this to end, for all of us to have closure regarding Mark's disappearance, the trail he left has raised too many unanswered questions.

Since the time I first published this site for Jin and those close to Mark, new information continues to arrive from a variety of sources.

In my last posted email, I refused to take the bait.

I said it would stop here, but it doesn't stop there.

Not by any stretch.

This page will chronicle chronicle my findings and other resources as I discover them.

Some may have no connection to how or why Mark vanished.

Only time will tell.

Final note for those of you like Sandra and Nathan Condry, the truth is I don't know what to believe with this whole thing, but I know what I don't want to believe.

So, first update, October 14th, again, 2004.

Jen called.

She spoke with Boise Police again yesterday, and they have finally agreed to ship down the laptop.

Once she gets it and looks at it herself, she'll send it my way.

If I find anything new, I'll add it here.

October 17th.

Among the spam today, I received this email from someone who seems to have stumbled upon the site.

From Mr.

Paranoia Subject House.

Very interesting.

If it's real, I have some information for you.

I don't know Mark, but that won't matter once I send you this link.

Based on what I've researched, those who have figured out what this flytrap house is risk becoming its next victim not everyone is eaten by it or them maybe some may just not be psychologically susceptible to it the way some aren't able to be hypnotized but if you walk away knowing too much about it the house will get to you sooner or later witness the madsons

Maybe you don't want to know anything else.

And then back to Eric.

Well, regardless of how I feel about it, this site isn't for me.

So in case you read it here first, send me what you have and I'll decide if I want to share it, Mr.

Paranoia.

Also, don't expect me to publish your messages to me ever again.

I'm not a PR firm.

October 22nd.

After trading emails several times with Mr.

Paranoia, he finally sent the link mentioned in the October 17th email.

Jen, I've read it already and I want you to treat it as a hoax unless you get something in the mail from a grocery store in Arizona.

Call me when you've read it, and we'll talk.

It's a live journal site, which means to read it chronologically, you need to scroll to the bottom of the page and work your way up.

The journal author is allegedly a 16-year-old named Daniel Stevens.

Here's the link.

Hi, everybody.

Especially Jonathan.

Here we go.

It's Danny's first LJ here.

LJ?

Lick job?

What does LJ mean?

Legit job, probably, or something like that.

Here we go.

It's Danny's first legit job.

Hee hee.

Well, it took me long enough.

I just need a reason for one.

My life is pretty boring for the most part.

So try to keep a diary going felt like too much work.

But whenever I get a job, like over the summer, I always have these great stories to tell.

Like when I worked as a lifeguard for Highland YMCA Outdoor Pool or a public library last year.

You wouldn't think you'd meet so many weirdo people or end up on crazy adventures like raccoon hunting with the drain net.

but it happens all the time to me

well this time i will be sure to write them down here because i have a new job that's right it's all part of danny's genius plan to pay for xmas i want to get my friends and family nice things this year so i took a babysitting job at a house three blocks away babysitting yeah doesn't sound like a steady job but this one is different The Ellisons are both full-time working parents, programmers at some tech company downtown.

When big deadlines get close, both of them have to work hella bad OT hours.

And they had someone watch their daughter, Lenny, from 5 to 10, Mondays through Thursdays.

That seriously cuts into my own downtime after school, but it's worth it.

I keep telling myself that.

I went over tonight and met Lenny and Mr.

and Mrs.

Ellison.

They look like total geeks.

Done, bitch.

Their living room has a big screen TV and also a table with two PCs and a bunch of other gear like DVD burners.

The place is cold.

It must run the AC a lot to keep the hardware from overheating.

It's like that in school computer room all the time.

Lenny's eight.

She's quiet and shy, but she has the cutest crooked teeth smile.

She likes Nintendo and Barbie.

I think we'll get along fine.

My first day is tomorrow.

It's so weird to have someone house key on my keyring.

I guess my references were good for them, though.

Wish me luck.

XOXO, Danny.

Current mood, bouncy, current music, the killers.

Somebody told me.

Well, it's a good song, at least.

The idea, though, of the flytrap thing, we started getting the name of the flytrap house and stuff.

Now it feels like it's luring in another person.

We have all the other kind of

warning signs as well, it being really cold.

And this house is in Arizona, right?

Yes.

Right.

Because of what he said to her.

He was like, assume it's fake unless you get something from Arizona.

Right.

Yeah.

So you have to assume it's Arizona.

So there's at least three, probably more around around the country.

Yeah.

Which the next login here is Tuesday, October 12th, 2004.

So the next day, 10.55 p.m.

First night, dot dot dot.

Oof, I'm back.

First night, babysitting was pretty easy.

I got there a little before five and met Kathy.

She's the one who takes Lenny home from school.

She has a boy who goes there, too.

She knew Mr.

and Mrs.

Ellison when they lived in Chicago and helped them find a place here.

She was in a hurry, I guess.

But she seems kind of rude.

She told me to be on time so I don't have to wait for you.

I was on time.

I was early.

That's creepy.

Lindy was still very quiet, but she doesn't know me.

So that's okay.

We played some Nintendo, and after dinner, she wanted to play house.

She has a doll house in her room.

It's really cute.

I grabbed a Barbie doll and started to play with her, but she told me Barbie wasn't the right size for the house.

It's true, too.

Barbie's just way too tall.

So what long legs get you sometimes?

But Lindy doesn't have any dolls for the house.

She says it doesn't need any because it's just just a house.

But I think she secretly wants some.

If we get along, I maybe may add that to Danny's Xmas List project.

I gotta remember to take a jacket with me next time, though.

It gets way too cold, and I didn't find the thermostat.

I was gonna say something when Lenny's mom and dad came home, but when they showed up, they looked so tired.

I don't know how they work such crazy hours.

I just got my money and told them I'd be there tomorrow.

That was it.

Pretty eventful first day.

So sleepy now.

Off to bed.

XOXO Danny.

Current mood, sleepy.

Current music.

Michelle Branch.

Are you happy now?

So definitely Lenny was like, do not let me fucking stay here long.

Please be on time.

Like she was already angsty.

What's weird with these kind of situations?

Why do you think the person who they're like, yeah, this house is weird?

Why do you think they keep showing back up?

Is that just because they're like, oh, my kid goes to school here, but I hate dropping him off or having to drop him off?

They need a job, I would think.

They can't say no to good pay, right?

Right.

So you're assuming that the pay is just like really, really fucking good.

So they're just like,

well, I mean, like, they have steady employment by this one family, so they can't say no to that, right?

And also, it's nothing expressly weird.

It's not like they saw a giant mouth at the end of the hallway trying to kill them.

Whoa, it's just

always gives me the creeps.

Wait, wait, wait.

So Kathy, I got there a little before five and met Kathy.

She's the one who takes Lenny home from school.

She has a boy who goes there.

So to me, I don't think that she works there.

I think that she's just like another little boy's mom.

and she like takes uh lenny home just because she's like all right fine i guess i will but then she's i think that she understands something weird happens and she's just like i'm gonna drop this little girl off and i want you to just take i don't want to have to wait here you know that yeah sure yeah that too so that it could just be that family friend next day is wednesday october 13th and it's 10 34 p.m

Bizarre.

Tonight was pretty bizarre.

Lenny spent most of it in her room playing quietly, which is okay for me since I had to finish my American history paper.

I made her soup for dinner and checked on her

from time to time.

But when it got close to her bedtime, I heard her talking to someone.

So I went back to see if she was calling to me or just chatting with her dolls.

She isn't supposed to be on the phone.

She was moving furniture around her little house, just talking to herself.

I think she was repeating stuff she overheard somewhere.

Maybe even the house.

You know how sometimes kids say stuff and they don't realize,

could realize it could get their parents in trouble.

I think Lenny was whispering, Come on, Rick, answer the phone and the door.

Um, is Mrs.

Ellison maybe saying Rick on the side?

When I talked to Lenny in bed, I asked her what she was saying before, and she shrugged and said it was stuff she heard.

When I asked where she heard them, she said around.

Well, we'll see if the plot thinks tomorrow night.

Off to bed now.

Danny, current mood, confused.

Interesting.

So, this daughter, Lenny,

uh

she is

hearing something from the house is speaking to her basically as her picked as the next victim yeah she's hearing something in the house also I thought that it was kind of peculiar how when she said around it felt like it was something very similar to okay you know that those responses yeah yeah kind of made me think of that I don't know if you thought of the same, but that's kind of

probably right, yeah.

So the next day on Thursday, October 14th, 11.02 p.m., it's titled Crooked.

Oh my God, Lenny is a strange little girl.

I love the, I love how it's like, yeah, she's cool.

Maybe I'll get her a gift.

And I'm like, this little bitch is crazy.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

Lenny is a strange little girl.

Last night, it was weird phrases.

Tonight, it was rhyme or some children's song.

Something about a crooked man with six pants.

Nope.

Nope.

Nope.

Absolutely not.

Get me out of here.

What the fuck?

Check out.

Check out.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Let me out.

Let me out.

Let me out.

Let me talk about a crooked man with six pants.

I don't know.

I mean, she can be cute and smiles a lot, but already I worry she doesn't get enough attention from her parents.

Well, the.

Otherwise, I wouldn't have this job.

She wanted to go to bed early tonight.

I tucked her in and she hugged me.

I kept her arms around me for a long time.

She's definitely going to get an exodus present from me.

Even if I'm not her sitter by then.

Just the crooked man with six pants is so fucked.

It can't be good.

Oh, God.

I told her a story to put her to sleep about a family of bears in a bake house.

I was using her dollhouse as the one where the bears lived, you know, just improvising.

So I was looking over at it and I saw she had colored a room upstairs in red.

Marked it all up in Magic Marker.

Nope.

I asked her what the room was and she said, the one upstairs.

Why is it red?

Lenny just shrugged like she didn't know.

What's it for?

It smells like cookies and candy.

Nope, nope.

Kill me.

Kill me.

Get guns.

See what I mean?

Strange, strange, strange.

No idea what that's about.

Oh, I almost forgot.

On my way back to the living room, I found a set of keys on the floor in the hall.

Just lying there.

I was like, what the fuck?

They weren't even mine.

And the house keys didn't work on the doors for the house.

I don't know how I missed them before.

I think they belong to Rick.

Anyway.

They have one of those grocery keychain cards on them.

So I took them.

Maybe I should have handed them over to Mr.

and Mrs.

Elson, but what if I'm right right and mom is having a fair and these are for her boyfriend's place?

I don't want anybody to get into trouble.

This weekend, I'm going to go to the store and have them scan the little card for me to see who it is.

I'll be good Samaritan and nosy at the same time.

John's little brother Sax at the one on Camelback, I think.

What a week.

Finally, I can get a week into myself, though.

I'll write if I find anything juicy about the keys.

XO Danny.

Current mood, cold.

Current music.

Queen's Reich.

Sounds silent lucidity.

God, hell yeah.

I have a bad feeling it's going to be Mark's.

I have a bad, bad feeling.

Saturday, October 16th, 2004.

11.10 a.m.

Keys.

Well, that was a letdown.

Okay, so I went and had the keychain car thing scan at the Fry's, which worked even though they were another place, because all part of a big chain of stores.

The keys don't belong to anyone named Rick after all.

The guy told me they're for somebody named Mark Holly.

Oh, God damn it.

Mark Condry.

I think it was.

He lived there.

Wait, Mark's last name was Condry.

Oh, I bet she's spelling it wrong.

Condry, Condry.

Yeah, yeah, yep.

Yeah.

He lives in Texas.

I didn't get back to him either.

It's policy to have some sore mail in the back.

Whatever.

Still makes you wonder what in the world they were doing in Mr.

and Mrs.

Ellison's hall.

Hmm.

LOL.

Listen to me.

I'm like Nancy Drew.

Okay, off to the mall.

John is waiting.

Danny.

Curious.

So hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Okay, hold on.

What date was this?

October 16th?

October 16th.

And he died

September 21st.

Or was it December was it September 27th was his last email?

No, September 27th was the email Jen sent from him.

Oh, Jen sent to him.

Yeah, you're right.

You're right.

The text chain of him going through the house was September 21st.

Yeah.

So like three weeks later, his keys show up in this other house.

This one's in Arizona, though.

That implies that all of these Venus flytrap houses are connected somehow, like dimensionally.

Like it digested him in Idaho and spit out his keys in Arizona.

Digesting him through the parallel universe thing, and then it just like shits out something into one of the random other houses.

Like it's like they're all connected.

They're all the same, but they're all

in this, like, I think the same building, but there's different versions of them in these different like parallels.

I think you're right.

Very odd.

That's so cool.

This is such a cool thing.

So now she's back on Monday working, October 18th, 2004.

10.31 p.m.

Back on the job.

What a weekend.

Let's see.

I hung out with John.

I saw the puppet movie by those South Park guys.

It's Team America.

Okay, let's put some respect on it.

And went lipstick shopping because I read this article about how lipstick is all undervalued now.

Like, people don't wear it as often.

And I love lipstick.

Rebel.

Tonight was pretty boring.

Lenny was her usual quiet self, and we spent most of the night watching TV.

We watched Aladdin twice and then it was bedtime.

The house wasn't as cold this time, or maybe it wasn't that bad since I brought a jacket and kept it on.

Oh, I burned dinner.

That was frustrating because I know I set it for the right time.

So I made it.

So I made his uh PB and J's.

Sandwiches instead.

I'm such a mom.

No joking about that.

I gotta tell you this one weird part.

When I was cleaning up in the kitchen after putting Lenny to bed, I heard what sounded like something barreling down the stairs.

Jesus.

Only there are no stairs in Elliott's house.

I think it was just the TV or maybe the garage door just makes a sound like that.

Because the Ellisons came in a few minutes later.

Boy, they look tired.

They could have used a couple of Danny's special PB ⁇ Js themselves.

I still don't know if I should mention finding the keys that belong to Mark or not.

Anyway, time for bed.

Danny.

The whole thing with the staircase is very interesting to me.

Well, it's like it presents as a single floor house, but the second floor is like the extra-dimensional part of it.

Yeah, it seems like it only reveals itself at one time, too.

Like, I don't think at one time it could reveal itself to everybody.

It's like picking and choosing.

Again, giving the Venus flytrap imagery, it's like its mouth opening.

Yeah.

But I think that even though it doesn't reveal itself, I think people are still able to hear it in the other dimension.

So, like, someone was probably rolling down the steps in another one of those houses wherever it was.

I think that's reasonable.

I think that's probably right.

Um,

I'm thinking too about when the little girl, when uh, what's her name, Lenny?

Yeah, it's a horrible name for a a girl.

But Lenny heard,

or no, there's the red room that she says smells like cookies and candy.

That to me is the pheromones, the scent of the creature, right?

Luring you in.

Yeah, like it's supposed to be good almost.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like it entices you to come to it.

Yeah.

That would be kind of, it'd be kind of brutal.

So the next one's Tuesday, October 19th, 2004.

It's titled, Why Am I Doing This Again?

And it's at 1048 p.m.

Ugh.

I don't feel good.

I have a headache for half the night.

Just pounding on the back of my ears.

I've taken like four Advil already, and it won't go away.

Babysitting was a nightmare.

I had two papers to write.

Plus lit homework.

Plus, two days are workout days for me, but I got up late and couldn't work out in the morning.

So I sort of squeezed in a quick 20-minute session after school.

Oh my god, Lenny kept singing that stupid rhyme all night.

Drove me nuts.

I swear if I hear it one more time, I'll snap.

I had such a hard time with everything tonight.

The house got really cold at one point.

Made my ears ring.

You know that high-pitched sound like they use for the tests for emergency broadcast systems?

Yeah, my ear was doing that.

I thought it was the computers at first.

They tell you about the PCs in the living room.

Anyway, they're always on.

I went over and checked them out.

The table's like spaghetti bowl of cables leading off behind furniture or into the wall.

Turns out it's not them.

The ring was in my ear.

The Elsins had some sort of monitoring monitoring program going.

All these numbers are scrolling like mad in a window.

The program wasn't anything I recognized.

The file name was TempTest Attic.

I didn't want to get into trouble, so I didn't touch them.

Got warm in the hall.

Lily and I stayed there for a while.

It also smelled good there.

Like a bakery.

I think the vents must be messed up in the house.

Seriously.

I don't know how anyone could live like this all the time.

I want to quit.

But I want to hurt Lenny's feelings.

Maybe I should just suck it up.

Ugh.

there goes their ringing again mood drained i think you're right about the pheromones thing like i think it's also are we under the impression too now that the parents are trying to evaluate where the other uh

uh i wouldn't be surprised if they're not even this girl's parents oh interesting this could be like two researchers or something who are opposing to try to do uh status monitoring of the house sure like the uh the computers everywhere in the temp test attic it's like they're trying to monitor what's happening inside of this house, and they just need an excuse to get test subjects in there.

Okay.

That's interesting.

Well, this one's a longer one, so I'm guessing this is a...

This one's Wednesday, October 20th, 2004, 11.31 p.m.

Home, finally, is the subject.

It's taken me this long to feel good enough to type.

I got home over an hour ago.

If last night was awful, tonight was 100 times worse.

I don't know where to start.

I got there at five, waved bye to Kathy, played with Lenny some.

The TV was acting up, so we had dinner already, or we had dinner early.

I made some raviolis with pasta sauce, and it was good.

But when I was taking Lenny's plate, I thought I felt something touch me, and it made me jump.

And the bowl spilled onto Lenny's shoulder.

She had pasta sauce in her hair.

She asked for a bath, which is fine.

But I had not given her a bath before.

I was a little uncomfortable just because I wasn't familiar with the temp setting on the tub and I didn't know how Lenny's mom and dad would feel about it, but Lenny kept pleading with me to stay with her for the bath.

So I ran the water and helped her into the tub.

The string came out of the faucet as the tub filled up.

It made Lenny nervous.

I tried to tug on it and pull it all the way out, but it must have been caught on something inside the pipe.

It just dangled from the faucet and floated on the water.

Some of the pasta sauce had gotten in Lenny's hair, so I rinsed it out a little.

There wasn't any soap in the guest bath.

So I went into the Elsin's bedroom to borrow from the master bath.

That's when Lenny started screaming.

I've never been so chilled to the bone before hearing her tonight.

It was horrific.

Hearing her scream.

I turned and ran back to her as fast as I could, and when I got back, she was hanging onto the edge of the tub, trying to get out.

And the string was wrapped around her leg.

I yanked and yanked it at it again, but it wouldn't budge.

And Lenny kept screaming, get it off, get it off.

And so I started to try and unwind it from her leg, but the shampoo in the water or something had made it slippery.

And I started crying, and then suddenly the string went slack, and I tore Linny away.

She had set of marks on her like stripes where the string had cut into her skin.

Later when I went back with a pair of scissors the string was gone and the water had drained away.

We spent the rest of the night in the living room on the couch piled under two blankets of pillows from Ellison's bed.

Lindy eventually fell asleep but I was so worried about her and confused about what happened.

I was a nervous wreck.

And around 9 p.m., one of the PCs started beeping like crazy.

I got up to check on it.

An alert had popped up.

It said, like that.

Then,

oh, it said, like that.

That's what the computer said?

It said, dot, like that.

Oh, it just said, period, like that.

Okay.

Then, the power cut out and back on again.

Only, some of the lights didn't come on.

Just a light from down the hall.

Oh, fuck.

In the hall, it was easier to see.

I took a wrong turn on my back on my way back.

Tiny hall and door that leads to the garage was not where I thought it was.

Instead, I found a set of stairs, like real stairs, going up.

Oh, God.

And it smelled like cake.

Like, right out of the oven.

I felt so lost and strange, I can't explain it.

Except I didn't think the house had a second story.

It's too hard to see from outside.

I finally found a way into the kitchen and from there went back to Lenny, who was still asleep.

It got real cold after that.

When the Ellisons got home, I told him about the bath and the other problems, but I didn't mention the stairs.

Then I told them I couldn't babysit anymore.

I think I used schoolwork as an excuse.

They said they understood, but I could tell they were depressed about it.

I'm sorry I can't keep doing it.

Well,

Mrs.

Ellison asked me to please just make it for one more night, and then they would get a new sitter over the weekend to start on Monday.

She paid me advance for tomorrow too.

I didn't want to say yes, and I don't want to go back, but I feel so bad for leaving them on such short notice.

And really, what if it's just me being a spazz?

Like I'm freaking myself out or something.

Anyway, I told Mrs.

Elson yes.

Oh, you dumb bitch.

One more night.

I can do this.

I will come back and tell you about the final five hours sitting for Lenny in that house.

And come Friday, I will talk about something new like friends Don and Kim.

My friends Donny Kim.

Or how I love Starbucks strawberry cream fraps.

Me too, girl, or whatever.

Just to keep me in the habit of writing here.

I think I've been pretty good about it anyway.

I sort of get on and start typing automatically before I go to bed.

Okay, okay.

I wish I wasn't so scared going back.

I feel so empty.

Danielle, current mood, numb.

In the last post,

did it work out for her?

Let's find out.

Thursday, October 21st, the next day, 2004, 1141 p.m.

There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile.

He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.

He bought a crooked cat, who caught a crooked mouse, and they all lived together in a crooked little house?

Red Rover, Red Rover, let Jenny come over.

Let's go.

That is, baby.

I want to say this real quick.

The story of everything was fine, whatever.

That thread is awesome.

I love that thread with Danny.

All that back and forth.

That was a lot of fun.

Oh, this?

Yeah, this was really fun.

This whole section was fun.

Because it's just like someone overheard the original story of Mark and was like, this reminds me of a blog post I saw and then links this whole thing, right?

So, that's really fun.

I like the idea that the parents are like aware of this or it's some kind of experiment, and they have like these computers going because the computer says, like that, like period, like the computer is detecting that the

flytrap is about to open its mouth, right?

Like the second staircase, like the staircase is about to appear.

And then, when Danny doesn't choose to go into it, uh, it closes back up.

It says the house gets cold again.

It's very creepy, too, to mention that the house gets warm.

It's like the monster is opening its mouth and you can feel its hot breath go through the house yeah and it's like and whenever it shuts its mouth it's cold again let me ask you this the like that period is it trying is it replicating her cadence of how she's been typing and that probably how she talks uh no i think that is the the computer in the main room that's monitoring the house because the computer know either it is an extension of the monster house or it is created by the quote-unquote parents to monitor what the house is doing.

I think it is the computer running data data and then being like, oh, period,

like the house is about to open up.

It's about to have an instance of opening.

See, I was reading it like the computer from, because I agree.

I do think that they are like people testing it or whatever.

They're people running experiments somehow.

And who knows if even Linny's their kid.

I completely buy into that.

It's like an SCP thing, yeah.

Exactly.

And I'm wondering if the PC itself is using it as a translator to try to decipher the codes or like the kind of things that the house is saying to them.

And I didn't know if, because of how before the thing was replicating like the

commercials it was hearing and stuff, I didn't know if it was also like saying something similar or deciphering something to her as an indication that she's going to be the next victim.

That's how I kind of translated it, but I, but I do agree.

Like, I think I like the idea of that Venus flytrap at opening.

She's like,

no.

I'm so sad too.

Danielle seemed like such a good character.

I like that poem.

The rhyme is so fucked.

So there's a crooked man.

The six pants is sixpence, right?

Money.

So there's a crooked man.

Watch a crooked mile.

He found a crooked sixpence

upon a stile.

He bought a crooked cat who caught a crooked mouse.

And they all live together in a crooked little house.

Is that maybe that's saying the first instance of this?

Oh, wait, wait, wait.

I found a crooked man with a crooked smile.

Is this not almost referring to her?

Crooked Man with a Crooked Smile, optimistic girl

upon a crooked style.

He bought a crooked cat who caught a crooked mouse.

Is that in reference, you think, to the parents catching her?

They'll live together at a crooked mouse.

It certainly could be, but this also, like, the reference of the crooked man could be in reference to like the first instance of this happening.

Like, whatever caused this house to exist in the first place, or it could just be a case of them killing her.

I don't know.

I will say, in case you didn't catch it, that ending, Red Rover let Ginny come over.

Jenny is

Mark's wife, yeah.

Exactly.

So

even though Danielle never met her, the house is now calling to Jenny next.

So I think Jenny's going to be the next target.

I think so.

That was a link that Mr.

Paranoia sent, supposedly another, well, definitely another instance of the house.

So now going back to Eric's update blog, we have an update from October 26, 2004.

Jen, please call me back.

I know it must be driving you crazy, but do not go to Phoenix.

Mark was never there, despite what the postmark says on that box.

The keys are just like the article about Andrew.

Bait.

Please, please don't do this.

Send me the laptop and we'll figure it out together, okay?

I wouldn't have to put this here if you'd answer your phone.

I know you visit this page regularly.

Call me.

So that's interesting because it's like...

The house knew that sending the keys to Danielle, she would post about it on a blog, which would then get shared by Mr.

Paranoia to Eric, which would cause Jenny to become obsessed and travel there.

Yeah.

I mean, it's perfect.

It's the perfect luring system.

Emotionally target people.

They're distraught.

They will do whatever they can to get their loved ones, you know?

And also, the final update, the whole let Genny come over was October the 21st, one day before it gets shared here.

So this is all happening very quickly with each other.

Another one from October 26th later that day says,

Lots of responses.

I didn't expect this.

Thank you for your support and your technical notes.

At this time, I cannot involve and will not involve anyone else for a number of reasons.

Please respect my decision on this matter.

I will keep the contact information for the paranormal investigators, and I will continue to help those close to Mark as best I can.

Please, no more phone calls.

Connie is going out of her mind.

Thank you.

Another one from the next day, October 27th.

Sandra Nathan, check your email.

I finally heard back from your Sprint PCS service rep today.

No more account authorization hassles.

He said their records show and have billed for only 14 text messages from Mark's phone on September 21st.

The last one timestamped at 5.11.

He's sending me a copy of the logs, but I'm not sure if they'll do us any good at this point.

Awaiting the laptop now.

Hold on, what does that mean?

Okay, Sandra and Nathan, who were they?

Were Sandra and Nathan?

Was that not his cousin?

No, it wasn't the cousins, was it?

It might have been.

Let me look real quick.

I've got.

It looks like it's somebody that's related to Mark at least.

No, because the cousins were from Andrew.

So that's not real.

So they're mentioned at the top of the updates as Sandra and Nathan Condry.

So I imagine family members of Mark, right?

Yeah, that's what I would assume.

So it's Mark's family members.

And then he's updating here and saying that

they had.

The service company said 14 messages were sent from Mark's phone on September 21st.

The last one was at 5.11, which means the last one they have record of him sending

was the,

I think someone's here.

I just heard something.

And then the 15th message, 577, that says the door is open, they don't have record of.

So that wasn't being sent by Mark.

That was deposited

straight to Eric's phone, effectively.

Interesting.

That's when the bait was first sent out.

Yes.

So then now we have one from October, the next day, October 28th.

I've been contacted by Diane M,

who says she was friends with Lucy Madsen when she lived in Houston.

Okay, so.

Hello, Eric.

A friend linked me to this site asking if this was the same Lucy I knew when I lived in Sugarland.

After doing some reading, I'm convinced it is.

I had no idea what happened to her after she and John moved.

Lucy and I met through a little book club some mutual friends friends started up.

We were both avid readers.

Yes, she and John had all sorts of unexplainable problems with that house.

I remember seeing some of them firsthand, like the leak.

After reading about your friend Mark, I stewed a bit, called up my father.

I often talked with Lucy on AIM when she lived here, and thought maybe some of these old dialogues would be of use to you.

But they would have been on my old PC, which I gave to my dad, oh, a year ago.

I went over earlier tonight and dug through the program files for any signs of my aim chats with Lucy way back when.

Dad had removed a lot of stuff, he deletes things, but I did find a scrap from February of 99.

It's the one I remembered, the one that made me curious to visit.

Note, I don't really think it's a supernatural thing.

I'm more prone to think Lucy had a sort of nervous breakdown and created or imagined traumatic moments in the house.

The rest of it, like your friend's experience, I can't explain.

But I hope you find closure soon.

The attachment wouldn't open, but hopefully, Diane will try again.

Then we have an update that says, I got the chat log and converted it to HTML.

I don't know if Diane is still using her screen name or if Lucy's is taken by a new user now.

So, to protect both from any unwarranted IMs, I've removed the numbers from the ends of their NICs.

If there are users with the NICs in this log, they are not the same people.

FYI, here's the AIM chat log.

Uh, session start.

This was February the 10th, 1999.

Hey, Lucy.

Hey.

You still at the office?

Yeah, so tired.

Oh, by the way, I finally picked up that Adams book.

Looking forward to reading it.

Tired.

Still having problems with the house.

What did the electrician say?

He couldn't find anything wrong.

OBS.

Yeah, John is calling another tech today.

Good for him.

You want to come over tomorrow night?

Grab some dinner?

I'll bring Paul so the men can talk talk hockey.

But it's just the short circuits.

Sure, that sounds nice.

Oh lord, is it turning into a money pit?

I don't know.

I hear things now and then.

What?

It's just weird.

Like things in the walls?

Is it orcan time?

Not like that.

Voices.

Voices?

I don't believe in ghosts.

But it's like that.

That's the closest comparison.

Whoa.

You're serious.

I went to the laundry room Monday night to get an extra blanket for the bed, and I swear I heard someone choking in the hallway.

It was like choking.

What?

Lucy, that's horrible.

There's a weird mark on the wall there that cuts off at the ceiling.

You think is it haunted?

Do you know much about the place?

I think it's stress.

I think I'm just falling apart.

I'm so sorry.

The movers and my mom getting sick and John's crazy hours of the new job working for those French oil people.

It's making me all stressed out.

You need a spa day, Paranto.

But really, I'm here for you.

Thanks.

You're the best D.

Oh,

did I tell you about the leak?

The fridge?

No, no, in the master bedroom.

There's a leak.

Hold up.

The bedroom?

Yeah, from the attic.

It's the one in the corner of the ceiling.

A big stain.

It's spreading.

Water damage.

I know it rained recently.

Is this something else?

It's slowly eating at the paint on the drywall.

WTF, Plumber?

John went home early to meet the plumber.

Yeah, they searched the attic up and down and couldn't find where it was coming from.

Plumber says it doesn't seem like chemicals, but it doesn't seem like that.

What does it smell like?

Like,

I don't know, like bile.

Vomit?

No.

More like stomach acid.

This is just too weird, Lucy.

I want to come over tonight.

Can I come over?

I'd rather come and see you just to get out.

Okay, well, go to Ninfuz.

First round of margaritas is on me.

Sounds really good.

I gotta go now.

Call you later.

Okay.

All right, so it took us a minute to find the continuation of the story because, again, this is through, you know, archived web pages so not all of it is uh super easy to read but i believe we have now found an updated edition of the website so that we can continue we're almost done just a little bit more left so hunter are you ready to uh wrap this up oh i am and also i want to say since we have had a break i still am very moved by the 16 year old babysitters uh

Like blog post, whatever.

That was, I really, really bought in from there with the fly house, with the flyhouse trap kind of methods building.

So now we're on October 29th, 2004 posting.

Yes, one day after the last post from Eric.

So, laptop arrived.

There's a lot to sort through here.

Most notably, some pictures Mark must have downloaded from his camera phone.

But his laptop wasn't equipped with Photoshop or any other photo app, so I can't see more than thumbnails.

I'll move them to my hard drive along with recent files and see what I can find.

Also, it's crunch time at the office, so I'll be working this weekend FYI.

Maybe we all could use a little mental break from this.

And there's another update from October the 31st, Halloween of 2004, or in other words, a couple days later.

Hooray for automated FTP uploading.

What is FTP?

I was just wondering the same thing.

I was getting ready to Google it.

It is a way faster, a way to transfer files to a remote server using a FTP file transfer protocol.

File transfer protocol.

Got it.

If this sees publication, it means I'm still not back from my trip to the never-ending suburban grid in the valley.

Consider a precautionary update.

When I return, I will remove this link since I can't stand sounding like some sort of martyr, nor do I like to cause a panic.

In the meantime, in case it could wind up being important, I've been keeping a personal blog on a remote host.

Don't worry about me, Connie.

I'm sure I'll have quite a story to tell.

Love, Eric.

Okay, so that's interesting.

He says that he's going away for the weekend on October 29th.

Is that just a ruse so that he can go check out the house?

I'm wondering if it's, that's what I'm wondering.

If he's also being bought in by this point, I would be surprised.

Because he says that he is navigating the never-ending suburban grid in the valley.

So that implies to me he's going to Phoenix or he's going to one of the locations where the house is located or a house is located.

So

I think that's what that, this was a dead man switch of sorts.

Yeah.

And this also leads into his personal blog here.

And this section is called a quiet space.

Yeah, exactly.

All right, so Tuesday, October 26th, 2004.

So just a few days before

we got the dead man's switch message from Eric.

Title, Getting Surreal.

What the hell am I doing?

I'm going crazy.

Ever since I first got pulled into this whole ordeal, ever since Mark's first email to me, I've been spiraling.

Now I'm struggling just to separate the facts from the fog, the real from the unreal.

For weeks, I've been trying to keep his disappearance and everything trailing after that at arm's length, and I failed.

I'm an absolute mess.

I don't know what to think.

I can't help the Condries or Jin any more than I already am, yet I feel wholly inadequate to answer their questions.

Truth is, I simply don't know.

I don't.

I wish I did.

The one person who can answer them has been missing since September 21st, and it's possible he lied to me about what he was doing.

And to make matters worse, I can't even lean on Connie.

She doesn't like the fact that I keep updating Mark's site or that I'm talking to Jen in the middle of the night.

But I don't think she understands.

The questions she asks, they're always centered around Jen and what I was talking about on the phone.

I know that tone of hers.

In the midst of this terrifying ordeal, she thinks I'm cheating on her.

I can't dump my thoughts and feelings on the site I made for Mark.

Too many people, including Jen and Connie, are paying attention now.

And when I've called Cam, he's been more interested in the crazy theories than how I'm feeling.

The email box I set up for questions by Mark's family is now flooded with messages from total strangers, some of them a little too eager to help.

Or maybe I'm just paranoid now.

I need a place to unload all of these things weighing me down.

And as I've come to appreciate so well in the last month, a place to record events in my life.

This is just for me.

A little sanctuary, or maybe a confessional.

Here's something I haven't told Connie yet, nor Jen, for that matter.

Yesterday morning, when I took out the trash, I saw a man standing at the other end of the alley over on the Labreo side, just standing there, staring at me.

He's wearing his sweatsuit like a jogger wears.

It looked dirt-stained.

His hair was unkempt.

I tried not to stare back.

I think he may be homeless.

This morning, I saw him again down by Olympic.

Just standing and staring at me as I drove by.

God, I'm going out of my mind.

I just know it.

Any way that could be Mark, you think?

I had the idea that it's either Mark or what was the first guy's name?

Drew.

Because there's the mention of Drew having like messy hair and look at it.

It could be the body of someone he knows, right?

I definitely don't think it's them alive and well.

No, no, no, definitely not.

Well, you know what's kind of funny is with Eric talking about Connie here, does it not seem a little reminiscent of Mark and his obsession at first, too?

How they've kind of traded places now?

Yeah, that is true.

He seems like he's kind of updating it more.

Whereas before, I know there were some we had comments about being like, oh, you know, Mark's way more invested in this than Eric is.

Yeah, I think it's like

Eric now has the same bug Mark did to the same degree.

Right.

And now from the October 31st message, it looks like he also chased down the house.

So it worked on him too.

These comments are so funny.

It's people commenting.

I guess this was an active site at one time people could comment on because a lot of the comments are like, dude, read that girl's blog.

Lenny, it's the same house, man.

It's the same house.

I was going to wait for.

I was going to wait for the ending of this, but since it's so early on the internet, you have to imagine, same with probably Ted, right?

That people believe this to be like real.

It had to be because the way that this story navigates is very interesting.

It's kind of a choose-your-own-adventure with how you have to go to different web pages and stuff like that.

You could just read it on one page and be like, Well, that was weird, or you can keep diving further and found further down this rabbit hole and read every single thing, but it also works as just standalone on one page if you wanted it to be, which I think is pretty sick.

Yeah, there's a bunch of uh

comments through here that are like,

there's no way this is real.

This is fake.

Why are you trying to scare people?

Like, it's before the age of the internet.

We're just posting scary stories with standards.

Yeah, people were.

So a bunch of people are like, what do you mean?

This is stupid.

This didn't happen.

That's how you also know those people are scared too.

Yeah,

say it's fake, man.

Come on.

Funny game.

Okay, so the next one after that is

posted by Eric same day, I'm guessing.

Yeah.

Right?

7.36 a.m.

Yeah, I'm guessing it's same day.

Yeah.

Well, it can't.

Okay.

Previous one was at 11.09 p.m.

And then this one's at 7.36 a.m.

So maybe it's like the next day.

There's not a day, but I'm guessing we just assume the next morning.

Yeah, yeah, that's fine.

So it's, he's out there again.

I can see him between the two apartment buildings across the street, just standing there.

I'm torn between the urge to confront him or to call the police.

Connie isn't talking to me much this week.

Used to be.

We get up together and chat over breakfast.

Now she just sleeps through.

She won't let me kiss her on the lips.

I know she's just worried about me.

Maybe concerned.

I've become obsessed.

Maybe she's right.

I'm late for work and the car's been acting up on me.

Damn it.

The last thing I need now is a trip to the dealer in Burbank.

Alright, so that's he's out there again.

Now we have another one called Strange Text Message.

I got this on my cell phone today.

The caller ID is listed as unknown, and my text replies bounce back.

The message reads, Beware Flesh Puppet.

If this is a prank, it's not funny.

Well, that's a horrible.

That's not good.

It's like, what do you mean, Flesh Puppet?

What are you talking about?

Oh, oh, dude.

Okay.

All right.

This is interesting.

Oh, all right.

So I was glancing at the comments to see if anything popped up, right?

And on the last one, during he's out there again,

where it says, I'm late for work, the car's been acting up, a user named Ginny Levin commented and said, hi, Eric.

I'm so sorry to hear about the troubles you're having with Connie.

If you want, I will stop calling, but really,

you have been such a big help.

And no, I won't go to Phoenix, but it drives me crazy, Eric, not being able to do anything.

Jen.

And then Eric replies.

and says, Jen, thank you, thank you, thank you.

And I'm sorry if I inadvertently dumped all this personal stuff on you just by getting it off my chest.

Don't you worry about me.

And yeah, I know what you mean about feeling helpless, but hang in there.

So it's like Jin is coming.

That's why I love these ARG things.

Yeah, ARGs are a lot of fun.

Just the interaction is really fun.

Once again, it's like that choose your own adventure of you can keep diving.

You could never read these comments and it would still be a cohesive story.

But you just get more and more meat out of it.

by actually digging deeper.

I don't know how many of these are legit.

There's a lot of anonymous through here, anonymous messages, but some of this I'll leave for URLs because I can't parse which ones are canon and which ones aren't.

So you all can have fun with it.

We'll leave links to this stuff on the Wayback Machine in the description as well.

So

okay, so Wednesday, October 27th, we have another post by Eric called A Dose of Normalcy.

Good news, Jen.

Not all things are crazy.

I realized that today after shirking off this sense of suspicion and paranoia I've been carrying around.

Maybe it will help you too.

I'm just going to rattle off a few things here.

Call it a mental exercise.

Call it what you will.

It's helped me calm down.

The car drove smoothly today.

No engine hiccups.

It actually rained here last night, and the air has that crisp feel to it.

I walked to lunch from the office and passed by all these people who were out, people with normal lives.

I stood next to a guy at the crosswalk and listened to him chat to a friend on his cell phone about GTA San Andreas.

Hell yeah.

I brought home sushi takeout for Connie.

She's finally able to eat regularly again, and I know she's been craving it.

When she gets really excited or happy, it's like she can't talk.

She just makes this high-pitched giggle squeal and claps the palms of her hands.

Absolutely adore that about her.

Sushi equals squeal-worthy.

Gross.

Okay, so she's a seal, I guess.

What the fuck, God, Connie's a gross seal.

I'm with you.

I'm with you on that one.

People who like quit talking, they're like, oh,

yeah, yeah, that one's worse.

I hate that.

Yeah, I hope bad things happen to Connie.

No sign of sweatsuit, man.

I think he's gone.

So, yeah, there's plenty of good things going on.

I can't let the bad thoughts creep in and ruin the rest.

I hope you have some good ones, too.

And I'll let you know when the FedEx guy shows up with the laptop.

Yeah, and he posted on the 29th, right?

That the laptop showed up.

So this is two days before.

Yeah.

So the next post is Thursday, October 28th.

But before that, Ginny left a a comment.

Thank you for that note.

Sorry, I haven't been by here in a couple days.

Just spent the day printing up flyers with Mark's photo on them.

I know it won't really do any good, but it makes me feel like I'm at least being productive some way.

And it keeps me from thinking about the fly trap.

So there's further proof that she's gone.

Yeah.

Yeah, no.

I think, once again, the house is just finding ways to...

Really infiltrate Eric.

Yeah,

Eric's got it next and he's going to be Dunzo.

And then after that, it's going to be Jin and then Connie, if I had to guess.

Yeah, I mean, you're right.

So, next up, we have a post the next day from October 28th called Thoughts and Theories.

So,

it's been a long day.

I'm buried in more email, and I've had two glasses of wine.

Time for a long, rambling post full of tangents and disturbances, staring an ensemble cast of the horrific little thoughts that have been collecting in the back of my mind since September.

Yay.

So, the problem with this whole mess.

With With Andrew and Mark and Danielle and who knows how many others, the problem is it's crazy.

You'd have to be crazy to take this all in and convince yourself, yeah, it happened and it will continue to happen.

So let's get crazy, Jen.

I'm already there.

I'm to the point that I think the reason something this horrific continues to spread is the power of human denial.

Skepticism and curiosity, a dangerous duo.

The house knows this.

It banks on it.

It gets its next victim that way and prevents the truth from becoming so widespread and accepted as to blow its cover.

The old line about the greatest trick the devil ever pulled.

All right, so there's a house, a set of houses, identical.

How?

I don't know.

The houses are inexorably tied.

They share some sort of, inexorably tied, sorry.

They share some sort of space in some way.

I picked up a science book the other day called The Holographic Universe.

Talbot, the author, talks about the phenomenon of this decaying photon particle and how when it decays, it suddenly seems to be in two places at once.

But really, it's just the way we're perceiving it with the tools we're using that gives it that illusion.

There's this whole example.

If you had a guy who didn't know what a camera or TV was and hadn't seen a fish before, and you set him down in front of two monitors, each focusing on different angles of the same fish, his knee-jerk conclusion would be that there are two separate creatures somehow behaving as a unified pair.

What one does, the other does.

I know I butchered that, but the book is in my car, so you'll just have to bear with me.

So this house is like that photon particle.

It's in different places, but also in the same place.

See, yeah.

See, this explains the strange sounds and voices people hear inside.

The sound is bleeding through from other locations, other iterations of the same hallway.

For example, maybe Lenny heard Mark trying to reach me on the phone, even though he was in Boise and she lives or lived in Arizona.

Then there's the way it regurgitates things, like keys.

They don't show in the same place either.

But then again, the entire second story isn't supposed to exist, so all bets are off, right?

I'd like to find the architect who drew up these plans and locked that guy in an upstairs room.

So he's saying

that the house is in it's everywhere at once.

We perceive it in different locations, even though it's just something that's spread.

Um,

the sounds bleeding through from other locations, other iterations of the same hallway.

Uh, for example, maybe Lenny heard Mark trying to reach me on the phone, even though he was in Boise and she lives in Madison.

So, you were exactly right when the when you heard like the uh the running down the staircase in uh Arizona and you were like, Maybe that was Mark in the house at a different location, you were you were 100% right.

So, good job.

Yeah,

okay, so the house can do one of two things: One, digest you.

Two, sort of partially digest you, hollow you out, as Mark would say, and make you a subservient tool to obey the house.

Why would it need us like that?

Again, two options spring to mind.

One, self-preservation, and two, appetite.

An example of self-preservation, the Madsens.

They'd been in the house, lived there for some time, and they managed to escape.

I'm guessing here, maybe they posed a risk like Mr.

Paranoia mentions.

Was that risk due to them having stayed so long in the house without falling victim?

Or was it a discovery?

It had to be something big, for the house to keep tracking them for four years.

If Drew kept taking jobs at blockbuster video stores, maybe he had the Madsen's account info and could tell where they were renting movies.

Speaking of, Mark mentioned Drew had a lot of IDs for different states.

Did he stay in another iteration of the house in each state?

How many are there?

The appetite theory is self-explanatory.

The house uses people, who then use email articles, etc., as lures to ensnare new victims.

Flies.

I know I'm leaning heavily on Mark's original theory now, but I agree with him.

Maybe I secretly believed him all along, and if that's true...

God, it's Andrew all over again.

I let Mark slip away because I didn't want to face this mess.

And now he haunts me the way Drew haunted him.

As a memory.

I'm so sorry, Jen.

I'm sitting here trying to convince myself of the same ridiculous, insane, terrible thoughts Mark attempted to share five weeks ago.

Why is the unexplained so taboo?

We can't accept it.

We can't go to friends for help.

Did you know the human eye only sees about 40% of what we think is really there?

Our brains interpolate the rest and fill in the missing space.

Our brains interpolate the rest and fill in the missing space.

There's a visual exercise in this quantum book that demonstrates it.

I don't know what that has to do with this, but it sticks in my head after reading about it.

I want to see Mark again.

I want this whole nightmare to be over, Jen.

I feel so bad.

I wake up aching in my chest at night.

I leave lights on.

I worry that I'm starting to go crazy, and the act of worrying pulls me further from sanity.

But I still worry about you, about Connie, and me.

Are we in danger?

Are we in a position to kill this monster that took Mark?

Is that also why we're in danger?

Too many questions.

And the wine is doing all the talking now.

Off to bed.

That was fun.

I like that.

I like him like going insane and just like getting drunk and rambling about like what this creature could be.

Yeah, at first I was like, is this going to be a thing like Psycho, where it's just kind of like telling you all the things we've already been through so far?

But I think it added a lot to where he was at so far mentally.

Yeah.

So

in the comments of that, Jenny replies and says, hey, hang in there, Eric.

I know what you mean, and I'm having the same feelings and thoughts just like you wrote here.

It's good to get them out.

Really, it is.

Let me tell you how far I've gone so you won't feel so alone in this.

I thought some more about the flytrap idea and went to a nursery to see one of the plants close up.

Have you seen a Venus flytrap?

I really didn't know what they looked like.

I mean, aside from old cartoons.

Here's Here's a picture I found online.

It looks like the one I saw at the nursery.

Notice something, Eric?

All those mouse, they're all alike.

Now, it sounds like I've been drinking all the wine.

Jen.

Okay, so the picture, it seems, is lost.

It's a 404 error when I try to search it, but I imagine it's just, if you've seen a Venus flytrap plant, that's what it is.

Right.

And then Eric replies to that and says, hey, you, I'm doing better this morning.

Yeah.

It comes and goes.

one night all is well the next night I'm a conspiracy theorist or something but you're right feels good to talk about these things just to get them out call you later Eric

so I'm almost positive that he is

I'm kind of with Connie a little bit yeah

yeah I mean it yeah

I think she has her rights to be a little upset.

She maybe

might

need to be a little suspicious of his behavior.

She's like, I'm dying in the hospital for two weeks, and you do this.

He's like, baby, come on.

Honey, gosh, I'm trying to find Mark.

Yeah.

Hey, Jen, don't let her bother you.

Jen, baby,

please don't let this ruin our night.

Thank you so much.

Jen, we got to talk about your missing husband.

That's right.

Are you wearing those little mysterious panties?

I like, Jen.

You're wearing the trash.

You're wearing those flesh puppet things I bought you.

Venus flytrap panties and we can watch

my little shop of horrors tonight.

You want that to happen, baby?

Don't worry about Connie.

She's a prude.

Babe, I'm talking

to my friend's girlfriend.

What is your problem?

I guess I can't have friends.

I guess I can't have friends.

I guess I'm just...

I guess I'm the bad guy, isn't I?

I'm not the bad guy.

Oh,

what?

What?

Are you going to go to the hospital?

Like, it's visibly leaking down.

You're like, are you going to go to the hospital again?

Yeah, I pissed myself.

Let me enjoy my weekend.

No, I piss myself.

It's not that.

It's not that.

I was working on model cars earlier.

It's glue.

It's glue.

Connie.

Don't leave me, baby.

Total 180.

I fucking love you.

It's just the middle of the night.

Yeah.

It's 3.30 in the morning.

Jin, baby, don't let her bother you.

He's not even in the same house.

He's talking to himself in a mirror.

He's like wine drunk.

What am I?

What am I?

Out of this goddamn house.

Fuck.

Yeah, there's like an Italian-American family next door.

Buddy, Jesus Christ,

just give her a rest, drink some water, and get some sleep.

Fuck.

The phone's not even plugged in.

Yeah,

yeah.

He's like, Ginny,

why are we playing all these games, sweetheart?

Why don't me and you go get it lust in a little house of our own, you know what?

You want Uncle Eric to come over?

You got uh, you got Ginny, baby.

You got yourself a room that smells like cookies, if you know what I mean.

Having the door be cracked open and you walking by, and there's a man talking into an unplugged phone.

In his whitey tighties, and he has like a bathrobe on.

He's like, you want me to come over there and look at your your panties?

Would that not be fucking horrifying?

Yeah, we're gonna go.

The house is like a Venus flight trap, huh?

Yeah, can you like peek your head in on that?

And then he like he like looks up.

He has like wine, his like lips, his lips are totally stained red from all the wine.

And he's like, He's like, I keep going to houses that are eating me like a bug.

I keep going to houses that keep eating me like a bug.

I'm just a big old bug in the house.

The house wants me to be a bug.

I guess that's what they want.

Housekeeping.

My buddy keeps getting eaten like a bug in his house.

My buddy keeps getting eaten like a bug in his house.

Sir, I need you to...

I need you to go.

Check out what six hours ago.

My buddy keeps getting like a bug in a house.

Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you?

You really like that.

Wait!

Jen?

I bet.

Yeah, I bet.

Do you been to just

a second store?

Are you Jen?

I think.

Are you Connie?

Are you my wife?

I think.

There's just 25.

Connie, I told you, Jen's coming, go away.

Jin's gonna be here soon.

There's 25 empty bottles of barefoot red wine just

all over the apartment.

25.

Oh, God, I've made some mistakes.

Jen, we gotta go to the house.

Do I look like Dionysus?

Do I look like Dionysus' baby?

Just like

the rumba guy.

Do I look like Dionysus' baby?

Because I can be.

Just hear a little pinch real quick.

See him.

He immediately gets attacked by the cops.

How do you been in the house?

I'm trying to explore your second story if you know what I'm saying.

Do you have a second story?

Are you going to eat me like a bug?

Do you have a second story?

Are you gonna eat me like a bug?

You want to be a second story?

I'll crawl into your red room.

Eric walks in naked to a cafe, lays on the table, eat me like a bug.

You say that fork, you eat me like a bug.

Yeah, he likes that what he is.

Yeah, he probably liked that.

Tell Connie I want to come home.

You tell Connie I want to get the keys back.

I want to get the whole band back together, please.

You do that or you eat me like a bug?

There's no invasion punch about it.

Eat me like a bug.

Just going to different...

Just like a ranc in public service.

Yes, worker ran.

Exactly.

So are you going to just look at me?

You can eat me like a bug?

Is that going to happen or not?

I need you to look at me right now and eat you tell me the truth.

I know, I know, or I've seen you people before.

You think you're better than me?

You think you're better than me?

Because your house only has one floor?

Paints himself green, puts himself in a flower pot with leaves.

He does, feed me!

He's walking into like a Starbucks, completely naked.

Scooting forward like a giant penis flystrap costume on.

Scooting forward in a big orange pot.

So I think I'll take a white chocolate milk with

non-fat milk, extra hot, and I want you to eat me like a bug.

He's just completely fucking.

I feel like the house will just be like, I don't want to fucking eat this guy anymore.

Yeah,

he comes up to the house.

He's like, is this what you want?

Is this what you want for me?

And the house just sinks into the ground really quick.

Yeah, the house sees him, shows up, and the locked doors.

He's like, let me in.

They won't let him in the house.

They're going to eat me up.

You're going to eat me all the way up.

I was tasty before, but not now.

Okay.

Still, yeah, just like throws the empty bottle of barefoot wine at the front door.

I'll be back.

He's still in his pot, though, as he scoots away.

The police show up and he's like, this house thinks it's better than me.

This house thinks that.

I want you to shoot me four times in the chest.

I want you to gun me down right here in front of this house.

I want to be a martyr.

Can you make me a martyr, please?

God, we got to finish the story.

Get me out.

We also.

I want to be a martyr.

We have.

I want to be Mother Teresa.

I want to be like Jesus.

Jesus Christ said I want to be like a curatoriama.

I'm going to pay the house to eat you like a bug.

Yeah, like a bug.

Return of sweatsuit, man.

This is the next day, Friday, October 29th.

Yes, he's back again.

This time, he has a vehicle.

It feels so weird going back to like him being normal.

Because I was, I literally, when I was reading it

in my head, I was like, yes, he's back again.

This time,

he has a vehicle.

I saw him parked along the curve just across the street from my building.

He was in this dirt-caked pickup truck with a crooked fender,

just staring at this main entrance like it was a bank he was about to rob.

I guess the rules are homeless.

So, who the hell is that guy?

I don't like it,

and I'm really,

really trying not to be

This character we made up to show.

I love the idea of a drunk guy being like,

guys, honestly, I'm really

trying not to be paranoid about this.

Guys, please.

And he's painted green the flower pots.

He's completely naked in front of like a citibank, like with a giant laptop.

He's like this eyes.

His little porky pig cock outside of a Bank of America.

I think that guy's following me.

I think this guy's trying to eat me like a fuck.

I think he's a bee and he's trying to take the pollen out of my head.

Don't let him, don't, sir.

Don't let him take the pollen out of my head.

Please, don't let him.

You're all beats!

He's like, freak out.

Scoop for it.

Where's your queen?

He's dressed like that stupid shop plant for Mario.

Me,

me, you, and Bullet Bill should get the hell out of here.

It just went from like he was actually concerned, like,

what are you gonna do?

What's the house gonna do?

Is it gonna eat me?

You'd like that wooden cotton.

We cannot record this late again.

I'm sorry to all the audio listeners.

My God.

Okay.

I'm cry.

Okay.

Just thinking about a completely naked man in green body paint.

Like, I'm trying to keep it together.

I don't want to alarm anyone.

But I'm kind of scared.

Go look now.

But I think that guy across the street is looking at me.

I think he's kind of weird.

He's just like taking a shit.

He's taking his shit.

He's like standing upright, taking his shit on the ground.

I think that guy's starting to look at me weird.

Don't worry about that.

It's my fertilizer.

It's like rolling down his leg.

It's just the wettest diarrhea he's had.

It's the fertilizer.

Don't worry about it.

Just

keep an eye on that guy.

He's on a laptop, a 2004 laptop, like, guys.

2004 Toshiba laptop.

I aming Jenny.

Come pick me up.

Connie kicked me out again.

Yeah, Connie won't.

I keep soil in the bed with my soil.

I should be working.

Jen in her head is like, I hope he's doing okay.

She pulls up and he's dressed like a giant fetus flat.

You've been gone for six days.

Eric, what the fuck?

Connie, I thought you were dead.

Oh, I'm blending in so it won't find me, Connie.

Yeah, he's like standing by a tree.

How could you see me in the garden?

Do you think the house can see me, do you?

If it sees me, I bet it'll leave me like a book.

I'm seeing a two-story Victorian house walk around here, Abby.

Every house he passes, he like hides.

He's like, You can't be too sure with these things.

Oh, God.

Okay, we have to continue.

Yes.

So after that,

I should be working the same day.

But I keep going back to the printout I took with me to the office.

The one from Mark's PC.

This has to be the pick of the house.

It looks exactly like Mark described.

You know the funny part?

It doesn't really look scary.

It's just this generic, slightly neglected thing.

I keep staring at it as if I'll see Mark's face in a window or a second story or the front door will suddenly swing open but none of that happens it's just a low res snapshot it's just a low

it's just a low res snapshot of a house i've emailed it to you jen i'll i've emailed it to you sorry i've emailed it to you jen i'll send along anything else i find tonight so far nothing exciting he was a great guy you know great

dude

there's only two more sections left from this let's just plop through.

Hold on, hold on.

We're almost there.

Jen replied and said, thank you so much, Eric.

Just got the email.

Thanks for the kind words about Mark.

I miss him so much.

Call me if you know anything new.

And please stay away from strangers.

It's here.

So this is Eric's post from October 30th.

It's here.

Jen, where are you?

And why haven't you answered your cell?

I don't see how you would check here before checking voicemail but just in case call me.

I got home from work about 7 p.m.

and saw a sweatsuit man driving out of the alley in his pickup.

I don't know if I was fed up or suspicious but this time I followed him.

It was night and I felt that I could follow at a reasonable distance without drawing much attention.

If he knew my car it would have been harder to identify at night.

Anyway

He drove north on Highland and entered the 101 westbound.

We stayed on the freeway all the way to the 405 where he merged north for the valley.

There was some heavy traffic there, and for a few minutes, I couldn't see the pickup, but I found him again as we passed Victory.

He exited Sherman Way and headed east.

Then I got stuck at a light at the North Ridge Med Center and lost him again.

I just kept driving and looking.

I thought,

I'm sorry, I just imagined like a naked guy in a green suit

driving a car,

trying to be low-key.

It's hard to press the gas in the brakes when you're driving with a giant flower pot still.

So he's like,

opening up tiny wines of barefoot red and sipping on them like a baby sips on a binky.

Oh, I'm so tired.

Oh, God, I'm tired.

Oh my gosh.

I'm just the thought of the guy completely naked.

He hits

his feet

in a flower pot.

And every time he hits the

break or the gas, it's like the loudest noise you've ever heard.

Just like...

Clink, clink, clink, bubble.

Look at everything.

He's trying to hit the brake, but he's trying to be low-key and tell someone.

Yeah,

large green leaves and stuff are going up his windows.

He's trying to be inconspicuous, but he looks like a goddamn parade outfit.

The car is also painted like a Venus fly trap.

Yeah, it has the it has the Rocky horror, or it has the little shop of horrors mounted on the front of his car.

He had it modified.

It's all papered machine.

Stop!

He honks his horn and does, feed me!

I'll finish it.

I gotta get through.

I gotta get through this.

I'm so tired.

Oh, God.

Oh, man.

I want to go to bed.

I just kept driving and looking.

I thought I saw a pickup take a right on a residential street and followed.

I had no idea where I was.

No way to write down the street names.

I have MapQuest open in another window right now.

I'm narrowing it down, trying to recognize familiar names.

I'd gotten lost after taking too many zigzags, chasing after taillights.

Some of the stop signs...

Some of the stop signs had no street labels, just an unmarked intersection.

But I know the general area.

And I made my way back to the freeway.

I can retrace my steps in the daylight.

I found the house, Jen, and the pickup.

It's the same house.

The lights weren't on, but I could see it well enough under the street lamp.

Same floor plan, same elevation.

Not sure if the gate had a plank missing.

It's too dark, but it's the one.

I called Cameron as soon as I got to a place where I had a signal again.

He's on his way over now.

Connie is at her mother's this weekend.

I think we're going to have to go over tomorrow, middle of the day, and confront the man.

I'll round up anyone else I can too.

Power numbers.

If, given the chance, we can enter the house.

I'm undecided.

I want to be able to put a stop to this madness to expose or explain it, and that may require going inside and facing the madness.

But this time, we won't be unprepared.

So, of course, he's doing the very thing the house wants by going straight up to its open mouth, right?

Yeah.

All right, so last post to this blog

was on Sunday, October 31st, Halloween Day.

It's titled Early Start.

It's not yet noon, but I haven't been able to sleep since last night, and waiting seems pointless.

Sun's up, let's go, let's go.

Cam is on his way over now.

I went to Home Depot early this morning and bought some supplies for the trip.

I already had a few essentials here, mostly electronics.

We're taking two high-powered flashlights,

a Canon Digital ELF camera, a Sony Minute camcorder, nose plugs, Swiss Army knives with built-in scissors, and a laser pointer.

This is just House of Leaves, by the way, at this point.

Now and then, I glance over at the gear and chuckle.

It's like we're going on some hiking trip.

Except Cam is bringing his handgun.

That scares me more than anything right now.

I don't want anyone to get shot today, even sweatsuit man, if he's home.

If we need to involve police the firearm will change things will make things look worse and lastly it's not like he's going to unload a clip into the drywall

we may we may have two more coming with us two friends of cam's who are along for the ride i don't know either of them but i guess the more the merrier an outside perspective will do me good connie won't be back from her mother's until about 4 p.m should be home long before then The main objective of this trip is one confront sweatsuit man, find out who he is, two, document the house, including address info.

Update: Cam's friends can't make it, it's just the two of us.

Well, that makes it easier to keep an eye on each other.

He's on his way up, Jen.

I'm guessing you had to recharge your cell overnight or something.

Call me.

Here we go.

That is the end of Eric's vlog.

So, I think it's safe to assume what happened to Eric.

Yeah, it looks like Jen had comments here that said, Eric, wait, I just now got all your messages.

Don't go, just call the police or something.

You told me the same thing when I wanted to go to Phoenix, remember?

Now you're not answering your phone.

And then she said another one at 1228.

Please, please answer your phone.

This waiting is killing me.

Oh, and I see Eric said something, but this post has been removed by blog administrator.

One point that's interesting, this might be real.

There's an account, which anyone can make their name anything, but there was one near the top

from a oh Danny girl, which that was the name of the girl during the blog, right?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Jenny Levin, where are you?

The boys are all inside now.

Come and find us.

The door is open.

I assume that's meaning

like Mark and Eric are all inside.

They're all consumed by it.

Yeah.

So now it's Jenny's turn.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, as soon as this started, Eric was super dead, right?

He's not coming out of it.

Yeah.

So Eric died.

We know that because, or sorry, he never came back because his dead man switch lights up on October 31st on the original update blog.

So

I think the flesh puppet he was seeing, the guy in the track suit, I think that was Mark.

Yeah.

Because

we know that that's what happened to Drew, right?

He was scooped out.

And the things he'd heard on the TV became him.

And I think the same thing happened to Mark here.

Yeah.

He became a vessel to kill them.

Yeah.

And it did its job.

It literally showed up enough for Eric to see it.

And then Eric followed him back to the house.

Then Eric goes in the house and dies.

So

Mark's body was effectively a lure being thrown out in the water to reel Eric in.

So then finally, we have a post from almost one year later.

So the last post that Eric did was October 31st of 2004.

We have a post from October 4th of 2005.

And again, this is on eric's blog

so or not his personal blog this is the update page

october 4th 2005

this is connie it has been nearly one year since eric drove off and never came back

eric drove off and never came back i don't know how to do html i don't know if this is how eric did things I'll be doing good just to copy this page back onto the website.

What has happened in a year?

A lot, not enough.

I don't have any answers, just a million questions.

Let's see.

I met Jennifer and Rachel, who is Cam's girlfriend.

The three of us still keep in touch.

Legally, Eric and Mark and Cam are considered missing.

That makes some things very hard on us.

What else?

I have a mount of files, emails, letters, digital photos that may or may not have anything to do with their disappearance.

Every time I tried to start in, I got overwhelmed.

So last week, I hired someone to go through all of it for me and see if anything made sense.

The reason I'm finally learning this thing is that he has found one or two pieces to this puzzle.

And I feel a responsibility to continue what my husband began.

This is a test post.

Later this week, after I hear back from Ginny, I will post more information.

And it looks like Connie's going to be the next one dead.

Yeah.

So we have another post a week later, October 12th, 2005.

For one reason or another, the new information has yet to be verified.

So

until I hear back from I, the source, I can't post the link.

Now I get how hard this is.

You never know who is on the other end of a modem.

Thank you for your patience, all three of you who are still reading.

And finally, we have our last post, I believe, of the whole thing, which is October 14th of 2005.

Despite the fact that she just used her diary to lash out at me instead of answering me privately, I will link to a live journal by a woman who claims to know about what both Mark and Eric were investigating.

Edit.

Okay, I'm still figuring out the link thing.

Here we have the blog of Lorene Mathers.

She says, hoping that works.

So, first one,

you must hear the truth from August 16th of 2005.

My name is Lorene Mathers, and I don't know much about the internet, and I don't care to.

The reason I am in this so-called internet diner in an old downtown, I'm about to tell you which city, thank you kindly, is because there is no record of what I did in October of 2001.

Not anymore.

I killed a man.

Killed him dead.

Thing of it was, he was trying to kill me first.

I don't take too kindly to that sort of behavior.

At the time, I was in another state from the one with my last known address, a tourist.

Never mind, I had all my shit in the back of my station wagon and revolver in my glove box.

To anyone else, I was a visitor from out of town.

So was the man I shot to death.

He wasn't a local either.

See, we both were from Boise.

There's a trial.

There were lawyers and all that shit.

And I would have been happy to serve my time in a cell for what I'd done.

One of the safest places for me to be, considering what I know.

But the damn lawyer got me up on the chair next to the judge and asked me why I did what I did.

And I told him.

I told all of them.

I went on for 11 pages into court transcripts, laying out everything I know about it.

And my big mouth got me just nine months in a mental facility.

Nine months.

Like my delusion was a pregnancy.

Once I had it out of me, I could go free out among the world.

Now I'm out.

Been out for a few years.

I still carry a gun on me too, and I'm not afraid to kill again if cornered.

Maybe I've walked right past you, but I guarantee you didn't pay a cent of attention to me.

That's the way I like it.

I would have stayed that way.

Never to go into one of these coffee places with computers hooked up on the tables like were the Jetsons because anyone who wanted to know the truth just had to read the court transcripts.

It was all there.

But they're gone.

Disappeared from Boise Police.

Man named Mark Condry came looking for them and calling for me.

That's how I know.

Used to be you could type my name into the search engine things like Wahoo.

My name would get you these new stories about the shooting in Salt Lake City.

Now, there's there's nothing.

Well, I aim to put a stop to that.

I'm going to tell you what happened, and also what happened to that fellow, Mark.

Slew of other names you may not recognize.

First thing I can tell you is this: they aren't houses.

Stop thinking of them like houses.

As soon as I can panhandle enough money for another hour on this bitch box, I'll be back.

Bitch watch is so funny.

So I assume when it says, she said she killed a man, how long ago?

October of 2001.

That was was before any of this, right?

But I assume it was after Mark died in the house or was scooped out or whatever that Mark, quote unquote, started looking for her police records, right?

Right.

So another post from September 20th, 2005.

So about a month later, called New Town Same Lorraine.

All it took was one entry on this journal thing, and I had a man in a sweatsuit come trolling around downtown for me.

Took me a good week to to make sure I had shaken him loose.

Now I'm in a different place, new Jetson's Cafe.

And I got a new shopping cart from the target down the street.

It's a good cart.

Got smooth wheels.

No pulling to the left or right.

No squeaking.

I just need to find a good place to sleep tonight.

So, about Boise.

I best get to that now before someone finally catches up to me.

Now it's really just a matter of time before I'm dragged through that front door of a house that smells like fresh bread and warm blood.

But as I said, they aren't houses.

Here's what I know, and what I said to everyone in the courtroom.

It started with the little things.

This was a week after I moved in, summer before my first semester teaching.

The sound traveled in odd ways, especially in the kitchen.

No echo, even in empty rooms.

Now and then, I thought I felt the carpet wiggle under my feet.

The outlet things.

They felt, I don't know how to put it, I guess soft is the word.

Like I was jamming the plug into a jar of jelly.

Power fluttered a lot, but damned if I could find a fuse box.

Thermostat didn't seem to care how I futzed with it.

The air just came on and when it wanted to.

Most of the time, it was warm and smelled like cinnamon toast.

All of this feels par for the course when you buy a home at auction.

I got in on one of these deals where the bank offloads all the real estate they reclaim from defaulted loans or some shit.

Get what you pay for?

Not this time.

Not even close.

I tried getting into the attic, seeing if there was anything like a fuse box there.

I searched all up and down the house for the trapdoor to the crawl space.

No sign of it anywhere.

So I did what any self-respecting middle-aged woman would do.

I went out and bought an axe.

As soon as I jammed the axe into the hall ceiling, it all started to go to hell.

Shit, internet cafe guy shooing me off.

Be back when I can.

So that's the end of that post.

October 4th, 2005.

So this is like two weeks after the last one.

Continued from last entry.

Let's try this again.

Last two times I got on here, I was halfway through typing a new entry when I got kicked out for smelling bad.

Late last night, I snuck into a condo, took a bath on their rooftop pool, changed into fresh clothes I bought at the thrift store.

Getting right back to it, the house bled.

Not like red human blood, but something else.

I got it in my eyes when I chucked the axe into the ceiling.

Went to the kitchen and wiped my eyes with the towel.

When I went back to the hall, a trap door had suddenly opened from the ceiling and a set of steps or stairs extended to the floor.

Like I had a whole second level or something.

I couldn't see up past the threshold, not because of the angle, but because it was so damn dark.

First, I thought something black and large was just blocking the way up, but it wasn't an object.

The smell was the most bizarre.

A thick, heavy scent of sweets and baked goods that was trying desperately to drown out the stench of rotting meat.

Made me queasy.

Oh, that's so cool.

It's got like these, it's got like these

scent glands to like lure prey in, but just behind it's all the bodies, you know?

Yeah, exactly.

All the damages.

All like the rotting corpses.

And it's like, it's like this new staircase is, or the attic staircase has been rolled out like a tongue.

That's like a tongue.

That's so cool.

It's like an adult version.

Do you remember that movie, Monster House?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Of course.

It reminds me a lot of that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I wanted to go up there.

No, that's not entirely true.

I didn't want to go, but at the same time, I had this urge to step up the stairs.

Like, that's what happened next.

I needed to keep going.

Maybe just poke my head in and look around in all that dark.

Started arguing with myself about it.

And by the time I finally listened to the screaming in my head, I was already two steps off the floor.

I turned and ran fast as I could for the front door.

The whole house was making these weird noises overhead and the walls cracked like I was in an old clipper ship out at sea.

The knob on the door wouldn't turn and my hands were all sweaty by now.

I tried kicking at the damn thing, but it was no use.

The door would not open.

Behind me, I heard this loud sound like a chorus of fat men sucking on their teeth.

It Came from somewhere in the middle of the house.

I wasn't going to try and get past the stairs to the sliding door in the back.

It was out the front or not at all.

I grabbed a chair from the little dining area and bashed it against the picture window that looked out on the front yard.

Let me tell you, I swung that thing like the bases were loaded.

I am no wimp.

I once took down a guy.

I once took down a guy a full foot taller than me outside a bar, and that was when I was a little tipsy.

But damned if that window didn't break here's what it did it stretched like it was made of see-through skin that chair bounced back and cracked me in the skull hard and i was left bleeding from my scalp real gusher

carpet and living room started swaying like it was grass in a breeze and that smell started filling up the front half of the house making me wonder why i didn't walk up the stairs in the first place making me think the best bet now was to go up and see if there was a way out from the attic It took some miracle for me to find my way to the kitchen with a bloody face, hands scrambling for that towel again.

What I found was a bread knife.

Those rated ones with the fork end.

I made like I was going back to the living room, then dove at the window again, screaming like a banshee, and I fell right out onto the porch.

And I fell right onto the porch outside.

Was like the window just opened up ahead of me.

That knife was Moses and the glass was the Red Sea.

That's how I remember it.

stone cold truth Really did the trick was what I found when I went back two days later

So we have another that's the end of that entry then we have another one from October 11th 2005

This one says vomit notes

if body fresh eaten by oh vomit notes as in just like unorganized notes gotcha if body fresh quote unquote eaten by house less than 12 hours strings strings attached.

If body cooked inside mouth for more than 24 hours, no strings visible.

If body stale, too long, question mark, time inside mouth, bones.

Physical strings, small range just within house, can go outside very, very fast movement.

No strings, able to go outside and perform basic tasks.

Slower, used as lure or bait.

Then bones, digesting fluid for too long, or house gets hungry.

So that, okay, that makes sense to me, right?

Because remember in the Lonnie one, how she was taking a bath and the string came out of the drain and grabbed her leg?

Yeah.

That seems like the house physically grabbing you and like puppeteering you around, right?

Right.

And it's a small range just within house, can't go outside, very, very fast movement.

So is that saying people who are like attached to it, the strings are moving fast, or they're like being puppeted super fast?

I'm guessing that's the strings are moving fast is what I would assume.

Okay.

Okay.

And then no strings, able to go outside and perform tasks, lower use is lower bait.

That's what happened to Drew and Mike, right?

Right.

And then bones is just house gets hungry.

Like it has to digest some to live.

And that's where the bones show up when it completely finishes someone, right?

Right.

So warning signs are open sore on nape of neck.

Last string disconnects from here.

Oh, if you see someone who has a sore on the nape of their neck, that is someone who is a puppet of the house.

Yeah, the last string disconnected from that wound.

Repeats phrases, unusually strong or weak.

Okay, makes sense.

And then connection theory, potentially all same house

TS anomaly.

What does that mean, TS?

I'm not sure.

Connection theory is they're all the same house.

Oh, TS, time and space.

Oh, there you go.

Time-space anomaly, yeah.

Or multi-dimensional, or just something beyond human understanding.

Okay, so these are just her vomited notes of how she understands things work.

All those make sense.

We've seen clues of all of those throughout the previous stories.

Here's the question I have.

Remember how

Eric got a message that said, beware flesh puppet?

Yeah.

What did I'm scrolling back to that?

It says, I got this on my cell today.

The caller ID is listed as unknown.

And my text replies bounce back.

And it said, beware the flesh puppet.

That was on October 26th.

And she's posting this on October 11th.

So maybe it was Lorene who sent him that message.

If in a second she figures out what he's doing, it might have been her.

Yeah,

she could have gotten a hold of him.

Yep.

That might have been her message.

So this next one is called on October 13th called For Connie.

Okay, so yes, then, okay.

She knows about Eric and Connie

because

we knew that because the only reason we have this link is because on October the 14th, again, of 2005.

Oh, wait, no, I've got the year wrong.

She is posting this stuff in October of 2005.

And that was all happening to Eric in October of 2004.

It still could have been, still could have been Lorraine.

but it just would have been a year before this, right?

Right.

So who knows?

But yeah, connie knows about lorene because she's sharing it so now on october 13th the day before colleen shares it to eric's blog um loreen posts this on october 13th called for connie this also makes sense because connie said even though she berated me in her last post so october 13th 2005 for connie I was going to pick up where I left off last week, but

I had to wait through four email from some woman before I could get here.

I don't have time time to respond to all of them.

This bitch box costs me money.

Money I could be spending on booze or coffee, my lifeblood.

Look, Connie, or whoever you are, I don't give a shit if you believe me or not.

It's not my mission to validate my existence for you and your little project.

Yes, I did talk to Mark Condry.

I'm getting to that.

As for proof or whatever you're looking for from me, Did you not read the bottom entry here?

The proof is gone.

I can't even prove I was a resident in idaho anymore either you believe me or you don't put up a link if you want to get the word out let people decide for themselves no way in hell am i going to meet you somewhere i didn't survive this long by being stupid if you want i can describe mark for you i can do that much i'll send that your way

as for my last entry with the formulas i just wanted to get that written down before i forgot I'll talk about them more later.

Some of it's speculation.

Some of it I've seen with my own eyes.

I'm not playing tic-tac-toe.

So none of this XO shit.

All right.

And then finally, we have our last entry from Lorene.

This is on January 17th of 2006.

So this is

even three months after the last update on Eric's blog that Colleen posted, right?

So this is three months past anything else we know.

This is the furthest even in the timeline.

We have something titled, I'm back.

So here we go.

Three months and five states later, I got news, kitties.

So sit down and hear me out.

Okay, first off, about what I was saying earlier.

Before that woman contacted me and I suddenly got popular, I mean, about my house.

You know, that was my house.

Maybe that's just how we Americans operate.

But once I put a payment on anything, that sucker's mine.

So after two days, I then came up with a few conclusions.

The first of which was to really see what I thought I saw.

It was a monoxide leak, or I got sloshed and had some episode.

Two days in a motel was plenty for me to work up the old courage and go back.

Somebody was living in the house.

In my house.

Two somebodies, turned out.

Twin brothers.

My stuff was there.

At least the furniture I could see through the windows.

But they were living it up like nothing was wrong.

The window I thought I busted through was replaced and everything looked almost normal.

But damn, if you just don't know what to do when you come home and find two strangers living in your house.

I wasn't even bothered that they could be out to kill me or something.

You know what worried me?

They were going through my stuff, putting their grubby paws all over my music CDs, my underwear, sleeping under my covers.

Damn it.

I would have stayed outside, just watching them move around like shadows behind the drapes.

But then this nest of blackbirds made a racket flying out of the little elm tree in the front yard.

I see those twins at the window staring at me.

Then the front door opened like something was there inviting me inside.

But no one was there.

And something in Lorene's brain said, no monoxide leak, no drunken nightmare, move your ass.

So I listened and I bailed.

Left my CDs and my clothes and my house behind.

A few months later, one of the brothers found me in Utah.

and I had to kill him then.

Now I got some of the

now i got some of that out of the way i need to tell you important information enough with history i'm your secret agent out in the field getting you the files you need to stay alive

theory somebody had to start building these things right

start snooping around here's what i found get your pencils out

near as i can tell original designer the floor plans was a man named jared lewis tore down his own house in topeka and built a new one on top of the foundation family left him at some point in the process.

Okay, but there's more.

Lewis was an old student or disciple of some nut named Jack Parsons.

Man, oh man, is there a ton of background on Parsons?

Too much to go into here, but this Lewis guy went after this home building project like he was some land-based Noah.

So I'm still collecting information on the shared Lewis and his little group of followers.

Should also have some goodies like an actual floor plan and maybe some photos of the house, assuming I get up the courage to visit the one in the city where I'm squatting now.

Damn, gotta go talk more later.

And I think that's the end of it.

Is that where that ends?

That is so sad.

I don't know if that's it.

I feel like there should be more.

If not,

that's crazy if that's actually the ending.

Well, hold on.

Let me look.

Unless the guy just like stopped wanting to write.

What name did she say?

Uh, at the end, Jack Parsons.

Yeah.

Okay, listen to this intro from Wikipedia.

John Whiteside Parsons, born Marvel Whiteside Parsons, was an American rocket engineer, chemist, and Thelemite occultist.

Parsons was one of the principal founders of both the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Aerojet Engineering Corporation.

He invented the first rocket engine

to use castable composite rocket propellant and pioneered the advancement of both the liquid fuel and solid fuel rockets.

Uh, Parsons confirmed to Thelema, a religious movement founded by English occultist Aleister Crowley.

Oh, okay, I see where this is coming from.

Aleister Crowley is seen as like the head of like modern satanic worship and like paganism and stuff like that.

I know the uh Ozzy song, dude.

Oh, excuse me.

Sorry, Mr.

Crowley.

Uh, shortly afterward, L.

Ron Humber defrauded Parsons of his life savings.

Small world.

This is the craziest.

His career in rocketry ended due to accusations of espionage and the increasing trend of McCarthyism.

Parsons died at the age of 37 in a home laboratory explosion in 1952.

His death was officially ruled an accident, but many of his associates suspected suicide or murder.

What the heck?

Are they trying to say this is Jack Parsons' house?

I think that's what they're trying to say i okay so here's what i suspect happened let me double check this i think what happened

when when did he sell this to warner brothers 2000 uh 2005 he sold it in 2005 that's what it is yeah he wrote it in 2002 started writing in 2002 and then sold it in 05.

okay so almost certainly what happened and this sucks but that's part of it uh i had that pulled up here okay

So nine months, the final, the fourth story, the blog of Lorene Mathers, is told through January of 06.

Nine months, she goes to explain various details.

Evidently, it was supposed to be...

Okay, I'm reading about the Dianea house, right?

Evidently, it was supposed to be made into a movie, but it unfortunately was in development hell and was scheduled to release in 2011 under the title The Occupants, and at another point, The Residence.

According to the creator, creator, it's dead for now.

Whether or not the door is still up to be made seen.

Okay, what I think was happening is

he was probably writing it, and then they were like, You need to stop writing that publicly.

Well, yeah, I think he was writing it, and his plan was to connect it to Jack Parsons and a bunch of weird occultists, like real-world history, Aleister Crowley, all this strange stuff.

And then he ends up like as soon as he writes that last entry in January of 06,

or you said he sold it in 05.

So right after he sells it, he makes that entry.

Okay, so right after he sells it, he makes that entry.

And then they're like, you have to quit because the next paragraph, again, this is going off tvtropes.org, says,

as of September of 2014, there has been no further word regarding the Diana House film.

And Eric Heiserer still isn't allowed to continue the story.

Yeah,

Warner Brothers definitely cucked him again.

You know, Warner Brothers does that.

They're pieces of shit.

Yeah, he he wrote from autumn of 2004 to winter of 2006.

I bet you anything.

Because it was in development hell, they're probably like, you need to stop adding to this.

I bet you anything is what it is.

Like, that's, they stopped him from doing it.

Yep.

I guarantee you that's what it was.

And then.

Okay, now I'm interested.

So he had this whole direction he was going to go with like occultism, stuff like that.

It didn't go anywhere.

But according to tvtropes.com, there is another story that he posted in 2014 called Information I'm Dumping Here for Safekeeping.

And this is on No Sleep.

And he posts and says this.

This is the first paragraph.

Okay, first things first, I'm Eric Heiserer.

Well, I've been a lurking reader here.

I've been more active on I'm Ger for the past year or so.

10 years ago, I wrote an online epistolary story called The Dianea House that caught some attention, including here on Reddit, and it launched my screenwriting career.

Since then, I've learned some brutal lessons about working for studios and i've had some rewarding experiences too but the most interesting are the potential horror projects sent my way for adaptation either as a movie or a documentary The minute you succeed with one scary story, everyone calls you the horror guy.

So for the past years, I've been a kind of catch-all for weird and creepy stuff.

Sometimes I'm approached by a friend or extended family member with a disturbing experience, and they just want someone to listen to them and not say they're nuts.

And then he launches from there, and it is,

he wrote a creepypasta about him coming across a very strange story.

So he basically wrote himself into a horror story.

But that opening paragraph of that story implies to me that he was writing The Dynea House and then it launched his screenwriting career.

And then, as he said, I've learned some brutal lessons about working for studios.

So they've shut him.

They took the rights to it, were going to make a movie, never made a a movie, and did not allow him to continue the story.

Classic Hollywood.

I will say if there's another creepypasta by him, I would definitely want to read it because this is a lot of fun.

It's not a completed story, but once again, as I've said, I'm going to be a broken record about it, that you could read part of this and just end it.

And you could be like, oh, and they're gone.

You know, like.

The more you give into it, the more I really like how customizable this reading experience could be if you wanted to.

But, you know, I do wish that there was an ending to it, that we could see if he did go into the weird occult stuff and all that kind of jazz.

But, you know, Warner Brothers do be fucking you.

That is super lame.

I would love.

Okay, so this guy is still an active screenwriter, right?

He like writes stuff online all the time.

And I remember the Dionea House being a huge influence to a lot of stories I read as a child.

Even if I don't remember listening to it, people talked about the story all the time.

I would

love to see him continue this story in whatever way needs to be.

And just tell me who I have have to yell at to make that happen, and it'll happen.

I would love to see this continue.

I'm really bought in.

It sucks that the whole studio deal went the way that it did.

But from everything we got, this was super interesting.

I enjoyed it a lot.

Well, you know, it is what it is.

This was a fantastic episode of Creepcast.

This is a bit of a journey.

This was a long episode for us.

We had a lot of different stuff going on today.

We got to record all of it.

So I'm glad we were able to do it all in one sitting.

But I am exhausted and tired.

So it is time that I finally get my sleep how do you before you leave though how did you feel about it the dining a house what no i said i no i said i mean i liked it i liked it a lot i think in terms of originality i mean you you're talking about how it's basically just house of leaves now i would need to read that book to understand well connections there but i will say that in terms of just like a weird like fleshy house that eats you and lures people in and it kind of basically creates missing posters out of real people to lure people in as a Venus flytrap.

I think it's just a really compelling idea.

And then to have it be email exchanges and have it to be blog posts is a great Twitter ARG.

I like that he also included the comments to reflect to make it more natural and real.

And I know that there's people being like, oh, this is fake or whatever.

I bet you 80% of people were buying into this shit.

Because he also, it took a long time to get to the spot where it's like, oh, the house eats people.

You know,

it doesn't just immediately throw that kind of suspension of disbelief or whatever

out.

It doesn't happen all at once.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I really like the story.

I like the way it was done.

I didn't mean to say it directly rips off House of Leaves.

House of Leaves is about there as a house that becomes multi-dimensional.

Like it has hallways that extend for hundreds of miles and like these infinite staircases.

The reason I said this is House of Leaves all of a sudden is because a lot of the aesthetic of House of Leaves is like guys loading up like they're going on a winter expedition, like they have coats, they have flashlights and guns to open a closet in a house because they don't know how long that closet will go.

So that's why I said this is literally like house of leaves.

Yeah, on that laundrilist part.

Yeah.

This realistically had more in common with like monster house than I think it does like house of leaves.

Yeah.

So it's just a living house and I think that's really cool.

As you said before, too, I love the idea of it having pheromones that lures you in because it's a sweet smelling thing.

But as you get closer to it, you can smell the actual dead rotting meat inside of it that's just been like digesting there also whenever she stabbed uh whenever uh lorraine stabbed the ceiling i'm guessing it was just stomach acid pouring out of the ceiling um and then that way when the the where the body's been digesting i think is in the attic yeah is what i is what i assume but it's like i like the natural second floor is like its stomach that it lures you in with it's so cool i think this is a great story i'm a big fan yeah no i i had a lot of fun with it i once again have never heard of this and i know that you said that this was a classic, and it's just cool to see these things where we've been lately tapping into these OG creepypasta stuff, and people utilizing a new thing like the internet for the means of horror storytelling is just extremely compelling.

And also, just want us to give a shout out to all the people that have picked up some of the merch so far.

We do have the new hoodie, the beanie, and the shirt.

Our store is basically stacked right now.

So be sure and check that out because it's a lot of fun goodies and they're they're very, very good.

I have

get in the merch if you're interested.

I think it's very comfy.

And thank you so much to the people who have already supported us through that.

You really don't have to do that, but it means a lot and lets us keep doing stupid stuff like this.

So we appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you all so much.

And until next time, everyone, stay scared, your creeps.

We'll see you in the next one.

Scare your creeps and be sure to get completely naked on the side of the road and dress like a Venus flytrap with a flower pot.

Bye.

Yes, yes, yes.

Bye.

Bye.

Yes, yes, yes.