S1 Ep2: Black-Eyed Kids and Bad Luck

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Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Astonishing Legends Network. The views and opinions expressed by hosts and listeners on the Astonishing Dead Letter office are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Astonishing Legends Productions, the Astonishing Legends Network, or any affiliated entities or guests. When something unexplainable happens to you, it can make you feel isolated or alone. But trust us, you're not. For over a decade, you've been sending your strange stories to Astonishing Legends, and now it's time for our fellow legenders to hear them too. Join us weekly in the vault beneath Blanket Fortiana, which we call The Astonishing Dead Letter Office. Tonight's episode, Black-Eyed Kids and Bad Luck. Man, this one is freaky and a little depressing. It kind of takes a turn at the end. Yeah, it does. But it also has one of the hallmarks of many of the descriptions of these types of encounters where things take a turn for the worse after you meet one of these kids, which is, I thought it would be interesting at first to one day, maybe just get a glimpse of one, just see what that feels like. But then I forgot that people often describe afterward that they get a run of bad luck, and that seems to be possibly the case here. And this one also goes back to one of the most downloaded topics we've ever covered on Astonishing Legends, Black-Eyed Kids. Yes, this comes to us from Fran, and not only is it a B-E-K encounter, it's combined with the oppressive atmosphere of the onset of the pandemic. Ah, there you go. Another harbinger of doom, which is people also describing being showing up during pandemics throughout history. If you know what we're talking about, just things showing up to keep an eye or check on them or maybe cause them. So yeah, it's all pretty chilling. And I think you should read tonight, sir. All right, here we go. My story starts in March 2020. If you remember, this is the heart of the pandemic, and I was late coming home because the governor of Illinois had announced our state lockdown that day, and we had a meeting at work. I called my husband, who was locked down in Arkansas for work, to tell him that we were now on lockdown too. When I got home, I stayed in my car to continue the conversation, and it was very dark at this point. It was also 30 degrees. While on the phone, I looked up and saw a little boy between 10 and 12 walking down my street in a red hoodie with the hood up alone. I commented to my husband that he was giving me the creeps, and I didn't know why he was walking down our street alone during a pandemic in the dark and 30 degree weather. The boy walked past my car, and I watched him walk to the end of the street and turn right around the corner, and told my husband so, who laughed and said, I hope he jumps out at you. I replied I would divorce him if that kid scared me because he willed it to happen. 20 minutes later, I finally hang up the phone and step out of the car. I had just straightened up, but not taken a step yet, when I heard a small, sickly sweet voice to my left at the trunk of the car. The little boy was there and just said, excuse me. I screamed quite loudly and dropped my purse, to which he replied, sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I told him he didn't, but at this point, I was terrified, and my inner monologue was screaming at me to run. My fear of this small child was so intense that I wanted to kick him and run. He then asked me if I had seen another little boy in a black hoodie, and my inner voice started screaming, oh, and no, there's two of them. What I said, though, was that I hadn't, and I would help him look. My inner voice said, no, we won't. At that exact moment, I thought that to my right and several streets away, I heard another little voice scream. Not a I'm hurt scream, but a warning call. The little boy in front of me cocked his head to the side and said, there he is. He then turned on his heel and ran up the street in the opposite direction. I ran into my house, locked the door, and faced two startled teenage boys who had no idea I was even outside. They hadn't heard me yell ten feet from the front door, and had no idea there was ever an exchange with anyone. I started to tell them what had happened, and it was when I described the clothes that I realized I had never seen his eyes. He had the red hoodie on with the hood up, black shorts, and no shoes. He had his back to the streetlight, and there was a black shadow band right across his eyes. I could see the forehead and chin, but not his eyes. I never saw that kid again, but after that night, I have bad luck ever since. I did in fact divorce my husband of 20 years, move out of our home, and eventually file bankruptcy. My sister died the following year of a drug overdose. I haven't formed a lasting relationship with anyone, friend or romantic, in the last three years. I believe all of my bad luck has been caused by that meeting. Well, there you go, classic B.E.K. encounter with some common themes in this story as well. The inappropriate dress for the environment, which at this point is 30 degrees out, kids wearing shorts, no shoes. Now, I've not heard the no shoes angle before. I know. But I'm not surprised. Usually it's like vintage shoes. The kid's got Edwardian workhouse old boots on. But it just shows you that this is not possibly a normal kid out for a prank. I mean, that's a weird thing to do, just run around with no shoes. For what point? And how long could you keep doing that? I'm glad you brought that up, because when I always think about, well, well, you know, kids like to prank. This would be a great prank, especially if you've heard some of these stories before, which are, you know, now, let's face it, with the internet and everything, it's easier to find kind of spooky stories, creepypasta and all that, which is where a lot of people thought that Black Eyed Kids started, but if you listen to the main Astonishing Legends show, if you've not heard our series on Black Eyed Kids, you should check it out. We traced it all the way to one of the earliest stories and actually talked to the guy who shared it, Brian Bethel, who was a member of our Facebook group. Yeah, yeah. We've been in communication with Brian. Yeah, yeah. But the point is, the whole thing of pulling a prank, this is pretty well orchestrated, and the level to which it freaks out the adults and then the coordination between the two kids, that would take some pretty good planning. And I really feel like if you're the adult in this scenario, you would be able to feel it if it was just a joke or a kid trying to freak you out or something like that. Of course, that's the aspect that people don't often, when they criticize these types of stories or encounters or want to dismiss them, they aren't feeling what that person felt when they had the experience, which doesn't translate. I get that. But in this case where it's a prank, like, what's the prank? Just saying hello? It's not like they wore a mask or jumped out or had the scream mask on. You know what I'm saying? There's no prank part here. It's just, oh, hello. They'd have to know all of the stuff that's canon for Black Eyed Kids because they stuck to it pretty well. No, I mean, that's pretty rare, too. I think most people have not heard of Black Eyed Kids. You know, people who love the genre have. Right, that's what I mean. I bet most even many horror fans have not really come across that. And it's not a new experience, as you were talking about. Like, it didn't just happen in 1994, and that's where it started. Descriptions of this have occurred earlier. But it's like I was talking about in the beginning of the story, in that people who were known as shadow people, shadow beings, were sometimes known as the Black Monk in the Middle Ages. They were called by different names. There's not many descriptions of them, especially something like this, where people don't want to talk about it as well. There's not a huge catalog of these types of stories that we can go back to in earlier eras to point to, like, well, there you go, Black Eyed Kids. But you can bet that this is not a new phenomenon. This sounds ancient to me and has taken many different forms in past eras to perform whatever devilish deeds they're doing. But here, like I said, there's no prank. It's not like one kid walks up to the woman, the other one comes out from the bushes and scares her. It's not even like a type of Halloween prank. The kid's just there, and he's apologetic. Oh, I didn't mean to scare you. And so the feeling that she gets deep down, that's what you should always trust, folks, is that deep down gut feeling, that will save your life, or in this case, avoid some bad luck. But she was ambushed here. She couldn't help it. Not like she went looking for them or really had much interaction. It's not like she invited them into the car or into her home. Sometimes maybe it doesn't take that. It's just a brush with them. How about that detail of her getting into the house and the two teenage boys in there, who I presume her family, hadn't heard anything. They didn't even realize she was out there having any kind of exchange with anyone after all of that. And it was just a few feet away. So what does that make you think? Does it make you wonder if it's all in her head? And I don't mean like she's imagining something that didn't happen. I just mean these beings are somehow being oppressive through a psychology somehow and not actually existing. What it reminds me of is you could explain this a way, saying, well, the teenage boys, they have the TV up loud. They're listening to rock and roll too loud. And maybe they didn't hear her. Okay. But that's not part of the story she wrote to us that, oh, they probably didn't hear because, yeah, I came in and the TV was blasting. I think this also is an element that is common in many stories that we receive. One I can think of here where a group of friends were out and legend tripping at this old kind of an abandoned building, several of them. And one person hears something that was very loud. And the other is like eight feet away. Don't hear it. This kind of phenomenon sometimes creates its own space and time, perhaps its own bubble of reality, which is meant to be experienced or is only experienced by the one person. And people very nearby don't get any sense of that, or they get another sense of something else happening that the person who's telling the story didn't experience. And they said, oh, well, my friend said they saw me talking to somebody who wasn't there, but I wasn't at all. Strange things have happened. And I think in this case, let's go with this being a genuine B.E.K. story that for whatever reason, this thing was creating its own bubble of space and reality or somehow shielding it others from experiencing them. It's like you do wonder if kids are screaming loud enough down the block, aren't people going to come out of their homes to see what kid is screaming and why at that late hour? Maybe not. People hear all kinds of strange things happening on their street. They don't bother to poke their heads out the window, but here also the scream is interesting in that it seemed to be a form or method of how they communicate with each other. It's not like, hey, Ricky, I'm over here. And also when they travel, they often travel in pairs together. It's often described as two kids, but one will be like 13, 14, and the other one will be seven or eight, a younger one or a taller one and a shorter one, or two roughly identical in height and age, young boys appearing. And here they seem to be traveling separately and one was not aware where the other one was. So that's another interesting and different aspect of this story. But we've heard that as well of one kid showing up and then there's another one or there's two and they want to come inside and nothing was asked of her. It's not like, hey, can you give me a ride? And maybe that was coming if she had agreed to help them out or help the one boy go find his friend. I'm glad that she did not proceed further, but also kind of sorry that she's had that run of what she thinks is bad luck connected to this. Yeah. When you were talking a minute ago, it reminded me of our listener and friend, Max Kelso, who came to MonsterFest and told his story actually about the Boy Scout summer camp where he saw some crazy like black swirling mass in the woods that was approaching him. And all his friends who were standing in the distance saw him standing and talking to someone. They saw a person. No, that's what I was referencing. That's what was flashing through my head here as you were reading the story and that he was dealing with a black swirling, you know, blacker than black mass, this black fog of consciousness or some kind of entity. And then his friend said, hey, who was that weird dude you were talking to in the woods that scared the crap out of us? Everybody was scared. But to him, they had a different perception of what that was. And so, again, it comes back to that question we've been talking about. Is the swirling black mist, the raw or base shape of this thing? And to others, it takes on a different form. And the mist can be different. It could be gray. It could be black. Usually a darker color. Never a fuchsia. Never your pastels. Something pleasing. It's something that is not necessarily just evil. I think in this case, this was bad news. These B.E.K. encounters never seem to go well or like a nice, creepy, but pleasant Halloween surprise you want, even for our fans out there who are just begging for some spooky season encounter. You don't want to run into this. The only time I've heard of something that was the opposite of that, perhaps, was a B.E.K. encounter or a black eyed adult encounter or some dark force, regular adult happening. And then another being shows up and their eyes were glowing white. And the person who described the story said, it felt like this other being showed up to chase the other one off. So maybe it was a force of good keeping the darkness in check. Well, Fran, thank you so much for sharing your story. This is one of the most compelling black eyed kids stories we've heard, but we're so sorry for your run of bad luck. Yeah. We hope that sharing your story with other legenders will bring something positive back into your life. You're not alone. Thank you for sending your letter into the Astonishing Dead Letter Office. The Astonishing Dead Letter Office is hosted by Scott Philbrook and Forrest Burgess and is executive produced by Tess Feifel. The show is edited and mixed by Sarah Voorhees-Wendell at VW Sound. The theme is based on the Astonishing Legends theme by Judson Crane at Founder Music, arranged by Alan Carissia, who composes all the other music in the show. Tommy Beaver Design created the logo. The announcer is John Bolan. That's me. Stories are lightly edited for length, content, and readability, but otherwise presented as they're sent to us. 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