Stuck (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

But neither of them really took the time to actually learn exactly what they were signing up for.

That led to disaster. But before we get into today's stories,

“if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format,”

then you've come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload two, three, even four times every week. No, if that's of interest to you, please give the follow button a brand new Gumball machine. But don't tell them the Gumb is actually just painted balls of candle wax. Okay, let's get into our first story called DreamCar.

At 8am on June 8th, 2015, 72-year-old James Lee Rogers parked his beautiful red Corvette in the parking lot of a waffle house in Port Arthur, Texas. And as he pulled that car into the lot, I mean, James, he just felt so proud to be driving this vehicle. This was a 2007 C6 Chevy Corvette pristine condition,

and it was exactly the car that James had been dreaming about like his whole life.

I mean, it drove amazing, it looked incredible, and more than that.

And at all these modern elements to it, I mean, it didn't even have regular door handles, everything was like push buttons and electric. I mean, to him owning this car was like owning a really flashy sports car,

“and he thought that, you know, anybody who saw him driving it, they knew this guy had made it.”

And on top of having this really cool car, James also had like a pretty awesome life here in Port Arthur. I mean, he had lots of family in the area, he had grown up here, he loved living here, but he also really loved this particular waffle house. It was where he went basically every morning in his flashy car to get his coffee.

But, you know, it wasn't just their coffee that he was drawn to. It was the weight staff, it was the regulars who went to this waffle house. This had become like a sort of second home for him, and he really looked forward to coming here basically every day. And so he parks his Corvette, he gets out and before he walks into the restaurant,

he has to tell his dog he brought his dog along Leia, this cute little dog, to stay in the car, because the dog was not allowed in the waffle house. You know, this was something he knew, but it was going to be quick. So he told Leia, you know, to be a good girl and stay in the car, don't rip it up, you know, this is his dream car.

She was a very good dog.

“And so she sat down, he shut the doors, you know, use the electric push buttons to do it,”

and then once he knew his dog was secure, into the restaurant he went. Once he got inside, James took his usual seat at the counter, where his friend MJ was already sitting. MJ was in his 60s, and like James, he was also a fixture at the waffle house. And so the two immediately began chit chatting about the weather and their kids.

And then at some point, James ordered his coffee and used that as a chance to catch up with some of the weight staff that he spoke to every morning. And then eventually more regulars began filtering in and out, and James made a point to chat with them and laugh with them as well.

I mean, again, this was like his second home.

And in fact, on this particular day, there were so many people that he wanted to talk to coming in and out of the restaurant that he decided, you know, what my dogs find out there. You know, I've only been in here for a few minutes. I'm an order some food as well.

However, right after James ordered his food, he turned and he looked out the window into the parking lot, and even though he couldn't actually see his Corvette, he could see that it was extremely sunny and very hot outside. Like he knew that when he showed up.

But I mean, he's looking out there and it just looks like a desert out there. It's so hot and like there's nobody out there. It's just cars getting blasted by the sun. And he's thinking like, "Lay us out there." And even though he had had the AC on when he pulled up and so, you know,

likely his Corvette was still a little bit cool, there was no way that it was particularly comfortable in his car right now. And so before his food showed up, James turned to MJ and just said, "Hey, I'm going to be right back.

You want to just like hold my seat. I'm going to go out and check on something." And MJ, who was kind of busy talking to other people, he's like, "Yeah, go ahead. I'll save your seat."

And then James left the restaurant to go check on Lail. And so, James after leaving the waffle house, he sort of ran around the corner out of view of where he had been sitting, and he went over to his beautiful dream car. And as soon as he walked up to the window,

he could see that Lail was very excited inside, happy to see James again. And, you know, just for good measure, even though he now knew his dogs okay. He climbed inside the driver seat and shut the door,

and he turned around, and he pet his dog, and he could tell the temperature inside the car was not that bad. And so, he was only going to be in the restaurant for another 15, 20 minutes tops.

However, after only having sat inside his car

“for a matter of maybe like 30 or 60 seconds,”

he felt himself getting really hot. I mean, it was definitely not cool inside the car, and the sun's burning through the windows, and he just was like, you know what? This is not responsible to leave my dog in here.

I can't do this. And so, even though he had placed his order for food, he figured he could go in there, cancel the order. He was a regular, they'd understand. You know, he could have one more sip of coffee,

but that was it. He needed to get back out here, and basically put the AC back on, and get him and his dog back into the comforts of their own home. But, when James pushed that super fancy button

on his car door that he was sort of so proud of how modern his vehicle was, when he pushed it to open his door, nothing happened. And so, James, like he's just staring at the door

and confusion because this has never happened before,

and so, he starts pushing it a few more times, but again, nothing happened. And then after a few moments when this car door was not budging, James reached across and started pushing the button on the passenger side door to see if maybe it was just

an issue with his door, but no, that door wouldn't open either.

“And so, finally, he decided he would just try to turn the car on”

to see if maybe that would help, but he couldn't get his car to turn on. The Corvette was completely dead, and James had no idea why, but he knew this was not good,

because this car, because it's so modern, didn't have normal handles. He really were all electrical buttons. And so, if these buttons aren't working, and all the windows are up, like, what do you do?

How do you get out? And so, James, he's starting to stress out about, like, what's going to happen here? Like, is he going to have to break a window

of his beloved vehicle here?

Is that what he's going to have to do? And also, how crazy is that? How could he have wound up in this position? But also, the sun is just burning through the glass and he's suddenly becoming really aware of just how hot

it was getting inside of his car, like, this is sort of becoming an emergency really quickly. I mean, because again, he can't even turn on the car, so he can't turn on the AC. He's, like, inside of an oven at this point.

And so, James instinctively reached for where his phone would normally be, but it wasn't there. And that's when he remembered,

“he had left his phone inside the waffle house.”

When he had gone in earlier, it was low on charge, and he had handed it off to one of the weight staff to go plug in somewhere, and so his phone's inside.

He has no way to contact anyone. But luckily, right at that point,

James looked out the corner of his eye,

and he saw a couple walking out of the waffle house, and he's like, "Oh, thank goodness. Someone's coming out. I can get their attention. They can come over here and get me out of here,

or at least, you know, call someone who can." And so, he starts waving, you know, through the front windshield at this couple as they're sort of walking generally in his direction, but they clearly didn't seem,

like the sun is glaring off the glass, kind of making it hard to see inside. And so James is sort of realizing this, and he's becoming more and more desperate as he and his dog are getting more and more overheated,

and so he began leaning on the horn to get their attention that way, but no sound came out of his corvette, because the horn was powered by electricity, and again, the car is dead.

And so James now is getting frantic. He's banging on the windows. He's screaming to them, but this is a nice car. It's totally soundproof inside.

Again, there's the glare from the sun and the glass, the windows are partially tinted, they can't see or hear him, and so this couple eventually comes right near his vehicle, they climb in their car,

and they drive away without ever noticing him. Once they were gone, James told himself that, you know what? This is a busy area. Lots of people come in and out of this waffle house.

Someone's gonna see us. Someone's gonna get us out of this car. And so, for the next several minutes, James looked all around him looking for anybody walking through this parking lot,

looking for people come out of the waffle house, and anybody who came even close to his vehicle, he would scream and yell and bang and do anything he could to get their attention, but nobody noticed him,

like no one could see or hear him. And now, James and his dog were really starting to struggle with the heat inside of this vehicle. It really was like they were trapped inside of an oven.

And so eventually, when it seemed like no one was gonna notice them, James just began frantically looking around the interior of his car for a toolkit. He thought he had left a toolkit

and here somewhere, you know, in case of emergencies. And he's thinking, you know, maybe there was a tool in there he could use to maybe Jimmy open one of the doors or if he had to, he could maybe use

something heavy in the toolkit to break a window just to get out that way. And so eventually, in the back seat near Leia, he found this toolkit, but when he cracked it open,

he was disappointed because it really didn't have anything that useful. There were some pliers, there were some jumper cables and a flashlight. But, you know, James, he still took the pliers

and he jammed the head of the pliers

to attempt to basically wrench open the door.

But the pliers were very thin and so he didn't budge the door at all. And he used a lot of energy trying to, you know, force the door open.

“And remember, it's like blisteringly hot”

inside of the vehicle at this point. And it's getting harder and harder to breathe like Leia's struggling to breathe. James is, you know, drenched in sweat and so he drops the pliers

and he just has this huge wave of anxiety come over him that like, oh my goodness, like, is this it? Are we gonna die in here? And so as like this crushing reality

is coming down on him, James has this adrenaline surge and he leans back in his seat and he starts kicking as hard as he can against the glass with his feet

to try to break open the windshield or kick open the driver's side window but amazingly despite all of his energy going into this he didn't crack the window at all like it felt like he was kicking a concrete wall

there was no much nothing and so again after exerting even more energy

and now sweating even more

and it's getting harder and harder to breathe James took those pliers and he's like he's really gas to can barely breathe and he starts smashing the head of the pliers

into the window that didn't do anything so it's like I can't do anything to get out of this vehicle and so James, he's sort of just like

lays back in the driver's seat which he had reclined at this point and he's just he's panting he can barely breathe he's opened up his shirt a little bit

and he's looking back at his dog and she's really struggling

“and he's just like I can't believe this is happening”

and as he's laying there he sort of looks towards the front of the car and his eyes land on the glove box and front of the passenger seat and it was like oh my goodness

how could I forget there's a manual inside of there there's got to be instructions for what to do if your car dies there's got to be a way to get out

like it's got to be in that manual and so suddenly having all this energy James sat up he opened up the glove box and he pulled out this manual

that he had never read before

or I mean he had no reason to but he opened it up and he began looking through it looking for the section that would explain what to do

because of total power outage and you're stuck inside the vehicle but as he's looking at the pages like his vision swimming it's so hot

he's so tired and he just it's all this little text it's hundreds and hundreds of pages and nothing explained the situation

it was like so not user-friendly

“and so James he's flipping through all these pages”

and even just the act of turning the page was becoming so laborious like he is just beginning to shut down I mean he's basically dying inside of an oven

and he can barely turn the page and then before long after about a quarter of the way through it was like he couldn't see any more

and he literally just like he couldn't turn the page anymore he had no strength left MJ so James's buddy

the guy in his 60s who was also a regular at the waffle house he's inside the waffle house he's having his breakfast

and his coffee he knew James had stepped out he was going to be right back and he did not come right back but he figured no big deal

like you know he probably got caught up with something maybe he forgot that he had ordered food but you know MJ he's got all these reasons for why James

has not come back to the restaurant and also MJ being a regular he's chatting it up with other people he's not really even aware of the fact that James has not come back inside the waffle house

and eventually after MJ had his coffee in his food he's getting ready to maybe make an exit himself when two employees come running in the front door of the waffle house

and so everybody turns to these employees who clearly are sort of making a scene here and they're like what what's going on and the employees they're like we we just saw James

he's he's asleep in his car and we can't open the doors we slammed on the windows but he's not reacting at this point

MJ felt sick to a stomach because he suddenly realized when he looked at his watch it had been four hours since James had gone outside

saying he'd be right back now MJ you know he got caught up doing other things and he was in here all the time he loved being here time flew when he was in here

but even he like didn't understand how much time had passed he's thinking like oh my gosh what's happened to James and so MJ

jumps out of his seat and he runs outside into the blistering heat he goes around the corner to the red corvette

he sees you know through the tinted glass there's James inside of the vehicle he starts hitting on the window but there's no answer

you know James isn't moving and so MJ calls 911 it would turn out when James bought the red corvette I mean it really was like his dream car

he fell in love with it I mean it was beautiful it was flashy it oozed status and it all this new tack

it looks so expensive I mean it was perfect and James I mean he didn't just you know

and that was it I mean after he had it he obsessed over it he learned every little detail about it he took great care of it

he drove it everywhere I mean this was like his child but despite you know really obsessing over the car

“he never learned one really important thing”

about this car which is what do you do if you happen to be inside of the vehicle with the windows rolled up and your power goes out

because the doors are not regular doors powered by buttons and if you have no power you can't open them as he found

well it turns out there's actually a lever under the driver's seat that once you pull it up it pops open

the driver's side door and you can get out no matter if there's electricity or not but that information

was buried on page 80 of that owner's manual that he had pulled out and begun flipping through but he was so delirious

from heat exhaustion he couldn't get that far into the manual he's like combing through all this really dense text

“he made it about a quarter of the way through”

when unfortunately he and his dog Leia died from heat exhaustion James' family filed a wrongful death case with Chevrolet

the maker of the Corvette in 2018 but the case was dismissed Chevrolet still makes Corvettes with these special electric doors and there have been numerous additional incidents

of people getting locked in and trapped but in more recent Corvette models the manuals have the information about the doors release lever much closer to the front of the manual

our second and final story today

is called a call to arms on the morning of August 20th, 1862 a 17-year-old farmhand named Jean LeRou carried his axe over to a stack of logs

by a barn on a farm in auto-attownship, Minnesota as a farmhand Jean was responsible for lots of different odd jobs

like splitting the firewood and feeding the animals and helping with the crops basically Jean had to know every single inch of the farm and the woods that surrounded it

and had to take care of it all but even though he was basically constantly busy Jean still found his mind

“wandering to a place that was sort of difficult”

which was he felt a lot of times pretty homesick so Jean was actually from France and he had left behind his whole family and his previous life

to come here to America where there was supposed to be more opportunity however, America was turning out to be a pretty violent place the country was currently fighting the Civil War

and on top of that the area specifically where Jean lived was pretty much like the frontier and so there were these constant territorial disputes and virtually no law enforcement

so just a really dangerous place but more than any dangers he faced Jean just really missed his family especially his mom

so he spent basically every spare

minute he had which was you know, few and far between sitting out in the woods by this one particular just huge beautiful oak tree

and he would sit at the base of it and he would make journal entries about basically everything he was doing so he could track it all and know what to tell his mom

when he finally got to see her again he just wanted to tell her all about his experience also just for context Jean had saved virtually all the money he had worked so hard to acquire

and his whole plan was to eventually send that money to his mother who he loved so very much and missed so much but more and more like the more homesick he became the more he wished he could actually just go back to France

and get out of America and literally hand the money to his mom and just see her again and be done with this whole America experiment but for now Jean raised his axe over his head

and he brought it down on the log that he was going to split and it did, it split open and he raised the axe again to chop another log but as he did he froze

because often the distance he could hear a series of repetitive booming noises like really loud and for Jean I mean immediately his heart started to race and he was so scared

because he knew what those were I mean those were gunshots and he was terrified that the thing that he and really everybody else in his town had been scared of for days

was now finally happening

so right on the other side of the woods that surrounded the farm was the Minnesota River and over the last decade lots of people had settled along this river

and there had been a town established right nearby and new homes were being built constantly however all the expansion had literally forced out the indigenous tribe who had previously lived in the area, the Sue

the Sue had struggled to find food and a place to live

“while the settlers just continued to expand”

and take more of their land

so finally just two days earlier

the Sue had had enough and they finally retaliated attacking settlements along that river it was being called the Sue uprising and the attack so far had been horrific

a lot of farms along that river had been burned to the ground and their occupants had been killed right alongside it and then just yesterday the Sue had attacked a city

that was just 50 miles down the river from where Jean was right now and so Jean and everybody else in this particular area had really been terrified the last 24 hours

that the violence was moving in their direction towards auto-attounge up and so now Jean he had put his axe down and he just stood there trembling as as the sound of gunshots continued

I mean this was not just a few stray bullets this was a barrage of gunfire and so this could only mean one thing the Sue were here now Jean couldn't tell exactly where the shooting was coming from

but he could tell it was pretty close

“and so Jean knew that he likely only had”

maybe several minutes to gather up whatever he could of his possessions and get to safety before the Sue arrived so Jean he bolts over to the farmhouse

goes inside and he goes to the area inside where he slept and he grabbed his rifle and he also grabbed his notebook and all that cash he'd been saving for his mom

and he jammed the notebook and the cash into a satchel and with his rifle over his shoulder he ran back outside and then once he was outside

he sprinted right towards the tree line at the edge of the property and after running for a little while

Jean finally stopped to catch his breath

and to listen to see if there was more gunfire and as he sat there listening he couldn't hear anything but that's when he realized like he's all alone out here if the Sue came charging to the trees right now

he wouldn't stand a chance even with his rifle but Jean had an advantage he knew these woods like the back of his hand he was in here all the time and because of that

he knew exactly where to go to find safety about an hour later Jean's boss in the owner of the farm Edward Gleek

hustled from his farmhouse towards town Mr. Gleek had also heard the gunshots I mean basically everybody in town had and he had come running out of the barn

just in time to see his farmhand Jean Lerou bolting off into the woods

“and you know Mr. Gleek he didn't blame the kid”

he was also horrified by the reason to tax and was also very worried that those shots they were hearing were a sign

that trouble had finally arrived in their town

but after all these gunshots no Sue warriors showed up in town and so now Mr. Gleek was heading to the town center to see what had actually happened like what were those gunshots

now Mr. Gleek had sort of accepted that this could have been something totally benign or it could have been the Sue he didn't know but he was just going to find out he was rational he was calm

despite you know the risks here but when he got into the town center I mean all he could see was just chaos many of the areas residents were out running around carrying trunks

and bags and all their belongings like they were fleeing the area much like Mr. Gleek's farmhand Jean Lerou had looked like he was doing however it didn't take long for Mr. Gleek

to hear what had happened and it was not an attack by the Sue those people running around like maniacs you know fleeing the area they just hadn't heard the real story yet

they were sort of operating like there was an attack coming so apparently a group of American soldiers had been riding on a boat up the Minnesota river

and for some reason they just gotten overly excited and began firing their guns repeatedly so those war gunshots and unfortunately because they were gunshots

they completely freaked out all the residents around the river because of this growing threat of the Sue attacking but fortunately at least in this case

there were no attacks this was just you know an unfortunate event and so after hearing this Mr. Gleek went back to his farm to find Jean

and tell him that you know everything was actually just fine but when he got there Jean still had not come back yet and when Mr. Gleek went into the woods to go look around for him

he couldn't find him Mr. Gleek figured that Jean would eventually find out what happened much like everybody else in town I mean not everyone had the news yet and so at some point that day he was bound to return

but by the time night fell Jean still had not come back and then the next day Jean didn't come back and the next day and the next day he just

didn't come back and so finally after repeatedly searching his property and asking all over town if anybody had seen Jean Mr. Gleek finally came to the conclusion

because of this, this su attack

“and then likely gone back to France to be with his mother”

something he knew he wanted to do anyways maybe this was his excuse 57 years later on a morning and July of 1919 Mr. Gleek sat on his porch looking out over his farm

the same farm that Jean had been a farmman for 57 years earlier Mr. Gleek was old now so he could no longer actually physically work on the farm himself so instead he had to hire entire crews to do various jobs

and in fact right now he had a whole bunch of workers out in the woods clearing away some dead brush for him

and so as Mr. Gleek is just kind of surveying his property

he notices a worker come running out of the tree line and starts waving at Mr. Gleek

“really frantically like he had something really important to say”

and then as the man got closer Mr. Gleek could see that this worker looked terrified and before Mr. Gleek could ask what had happened the worker whose face was you know white as a ghost said Mr. Gleek needed to come and see something

and so Mr. Gleek who was you know very intrigued at this point managed to haul himself up and he slowly hobbled off into the woods with this worker and as he got to where the rest of the crew was inside the forest he saw that they were all mostly gathered around this very large

recently downed oak tree and the whole group was was very quiet and tense and they were all just staring at a section of this tree that it split open when Mr. Gleek joined the group and looked at this particular section

“of the trunk of this tree this hollow part”

and first he didn't even know what he was staring at it was just this hollowed out sort of split section of the tree and there was a few items that didn't belong there that were inside of it like a cache of sorts but then he sort of fixated on one particular item

and that's when he understood why the group was just so stunned and as he stared and sort of took in what he was seeing he suddenly became utterly horrified it would turn out when John ran off into the woods 57 years earlier he used his intimate knowledge of the farmland

and the surrounding woods to escape what he thought was a very dangerous situation and he did that by hiding

John knew that that oak tree where he would always go

when he would write in his notebook happened to have a hollow trunk and he figured he'd be just the right size to crawl inside of there and stay in there hidden until the silver gone

and so John had made it to the tree and he had wedged himself inside of there totally out of view and then unfortunately he got stuck from inside the trunk of the tree John had managed to write one last letter to Mr. Gleek

saying that he couldn't get out he was stuck and if he did die here to please give all his money to his mother and friends and so decades later when Mr. Gleek's workers cut that big oak tree down what they found inside of the hollow trunk

was John's gun, his money, his notebook and his mumified body a quick note about our stories they are all based on true events but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved

and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes the Mr. Ballon podcast strange dark and mysterious stories is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballon our head of writing is Evan Allen

produced by Jeremy Bohn and Cole Acaccio this episode was written by Kate Murdock story editing by Evan Allen research and fact checking by Shelley Xu Samantha Banhouss, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway,

Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Fasiano research and fact checking supervision by Steven Ere audio editing and post-produced by Whitlicoccio and Jordan Stitham production support by Antonio Manada and Delana Corley artwork by Jessica Klogst and Kiner

theme song "Something Wicked" by Ross Bogden