The Last Bus/In the Mist | Campfire Stories with MrBallen

tell you. They are both of the strange variety. In both stories we're going to talk about a tragedy,

“but it is not the tragedy that is the reason we remember these things. We remember these events”

or we still talk about these events because in both stories there are elements that just nobody can fully explain. There are truly unexplained phenomena that are fascinating, that are terrifying, and I know you're going to love it. So if that's of interest to you please sneak into the fall of buttons house and replace all of their shoelaces with 20 foot long shoelaces. Also please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay,

let's get into tonight's stories. Just before 10 a.m. on November 14, 1995, a 19-year-old man named John ran down a dark street toward a bus stop on the outskirts of Beijing, which is the capital city of China. John, who worked at a fast food restaurant, had gotten off work late. And so now he had to

“catch this bus because it was the last one out of the area and if he missed it he'd be stranded.”

So this area where John worked was actually a pretty historic district in Beijing. It was home to several old palaces and shrines that were built at the foot of this mountain called by Wang Mountain. And so this area was sort of like a popular tourist area and so during the day it was very busy.

There was lots of cabs coming in and out of the area. But at night it was basically deserted

and no cabs came through here. So again the bus really was his only shot of getting out here unless you wanted to walk on foot and that was just not practical. And so John continued running along until he turned the corner and up the head he saw the bus stop and he didn't see the bus. It was just basically a deserted street but standing near the bus stop was this old woman. And it appeared like she was waiting for the bus which suggested to Zhang that he had not missed

“the final bus because clearly she was waiting for her too unless she also missed it perhaps.”

But it just seemed like she hadn't. And so Zhang who by this point is like kind of about a

breathy he stopped running and he walked the last distance up to the bus stop where the

woman was and then as he approached her she kind of turned and looked at him like who are you you know it's late at night she's all alone you know it's just kind of weird but she looked at him and he kind of just smiled at her to signal like I'm no threat you know I'm just here for the bus too and then before the two could even talk Zhang heard the sound of a bus approaching and he turned and here comes bus 375 came to a stop the old woman climbed on and Zhang followed up right after her. A moment later

Zhang was inside the bus the doors are closed behind him the driver had taken off from the curb. Zhang had had paid the ticket seller who was separate from the driver sitting in sort of the front right seat and the woman who had been in front of him she also had paid she had sat down in the row right next to the ticket seller right behind the driver and Zhang even though the whole bus was empty nobody else is on here except for these three people he just sat down right behind the

old woman so he takes his seat you know they're driving down the road and you know it's late at night he's tired he's had a long shift and so for a little while Zhang just looked out the window and watched all the you know imperial gardens and the shrines and all the various landmarks that drew people to the area you know this was again sort of a touristy area you're just watching it all pass by you know it's late it's dark you can't see much out there but eventually you know

relatively soon after they had started they passed by sort of all the touristy stuff and they entered into this the stretch of road that Zhang was very familiar with he took bus 375 home all the time that you know this stretch was very desolate there was no more buildings no more anything there's just kind of forest and wild on either side of the road and so as a result at night driving this desolate stretch was very very dark there was just literally no lights and so once they were in this

this sort of desolate stretch Zhang found himself just kind of leaning back and closing his eyes because it was a little bit of a ride before he'd get to his stop and get off the bus and so he just closes eyes and he's trying to kind of not off and they're driving for a little while and he kind of felt himself beginning to fall asleep when suddenly he felt the bus start to slow down now there was no indication within the bus that anything had happened Zhang knew that it was way too early to be at the

next bus stop and so immediately he opened his eyes and he's just kind of looking around for some cue from the driver or the ticket seller or even this woman like what was going on here but then the

out there and no one's saying anything and the driver just kind of inexplicably gets up from his seat

“and he walks out of the bus like he exits the bus which was odd like there's no clear reason for this”

and so Zhang the woman even the ticket seller they're kind of just like peering out the window out the front window of the bus to see what's going on but given how dark it was outside and the fact that there was really only light inside the bus it had the effect of just kind of making all the interior glass of the bus be sort of reflective like really difficult to look out imagine sitting inside of a dark room with a light and being surrounded by glass it'd be impossible to look

out it all you would see was like a mirror effect all around you and so for a minute Zhang and the others are just kind of like wondering what's happening what did the what did the driver see and then Zhang heard something outside the bus that sounded like people talking or maybe thought it was people talking and so he pressed his face up to the glass and put his hands up to it to see if

he could cut through that sort of mirror effect to see what was going on out there and at first it

“was just darkness you couldn't see anything but eventually his eyes adjusted and on his side of the”

bus on the road the driver clearly was interacting with what looks like multiple people like two maybe even three people that are down there they're didn't appear to be you know any other vehicle like it just wasn't clear what was happening but there was definitely people outside the bus and so Zhang and the others no one's talking they're all just kind of trying to make sense of what's happening and then before anybody could ask any questions the driver comes back

on the bus sits down in the driver seat and then behind him come these three new people who presumably were the same people the driver was speaking to outside the bus they also are likely the reason

the driver stopped in the first place although again it's it's very unclear why they stopped

in the first place like there's no reason to be stopped again but you know Zhang at this point just wants to get home it doesn't really care but these three people they come on board the bus

“and immediately Zhang and the woman and the ticket seller they're all looking at them like what's”

going on here so there were three men and they were all wearing these these traditional silk robes there were two in blue and there was one in red and the two men in blue were like physically holding up the third man in red almost like he couldn't stand on his own like a picture somebody who was like really intoxicated he couldn't quite stand but immediately Zhang clocked that this guy didn't look drunk or something he looked hurt like he was covered in mud and like grime as if he had been like

rolling around on the ground or something or you know maybe he had fallen or whatever like it wasn't clear but something happened to this guy and the two guys in blue who their robes are pristine they're they're holding this guy up and they they kind of you know bring him into the bus and then without saying anything to these people on the bus they just kind of dragged this man who was conscious but again barely able to stand down the aisle past Zhang past the others to the back of the bus

where they took their seat and then it was like nobody said anything you know the driver didn't acknowledge how bizarre this whole thing was he just pulled away and started driving and then before long it's like Zhang is just sitting there really unclear like what's even happening but as they're driving along he just felt so uncomfortable the woman right in front of him she had gone you know back to looking straight ahead she's not paying attention to what's happening behind her same

with a ticket seller but Zhang he just felt really uncomfortable and specifically what he felt was it just seemed like the three guys in the back the the silk robe guys one they were completely silent eerily silent and too it just felt like Zhang it was almost like he could feel them staring at him not just looking straight ahead towards the front of the bus but it was like they were looking at him it was like a primal sense that Zhang had and the more he thought about it the more uncomfortable

he became and frankly the more fearful he became like it was like every little noise behind it was like confirmation that they were like looking at him or maybe moving up the aisle to get closer to him but he just he couldn't bring himself to turn around and look it was like he was terrified of what he was going to see behind him and so he just he just stayed glued to a seat rigidly looking straight ahead but again it was like this whole ride he's just like their staring at me something is

off like what's going on with these guys and it went on and on for like 10 15 minutes of just this really tense ride but despite how sort of awful this ride had become even though he couldn't fully articulate exactly why it was just so uncomfortable despite all that Zhang is thinking you know any minute now we're gonna get to my stop I'm gonna get off the stupid bus and this is going to be over and done with and I'll forget all about the stuff but before they reached his stop while

is just sort of glued you know looking straight ahead he notices the woman the woman right in front of

“him who this whole time has seemingly completely forgot about the guys behind her like she's just”

looking straight ahead no big deal she just all of a sudden turns around and looks towards the back of the bus just one fluid motion she just turned and looked and Zhang he's staring at the woman as she does this and he watches as her face goes from you know curious and just sort of normal to eyes going wide and she stands up and she just starts screaming and pointing towards the back of the bus and then before Zhang can turn around himself and he's still too scared to even look he

feels something smack into the side of his head and so he's like disoriented it hits him again and again

and he realizes it's the woman who's screaming at whatever's happening in the back of the bus and

she's hitting him over and over again with her purse and she's yelling something and Zhang said what is going on he's realizing she's screaming thief at Zhang she's hitting him in the head

“screaming thief Zhang's he's got no clue why he doesn't know why she's yelling at whatever's”

happening in the back and before long the bus driver just stops the bus and without even asking what's going on he just looks at Zhang and just gestures get off the bus as if Zhang is like the central issue on this bus not the the strange people we've picked up 20 minutes ago that no one has any explanation for no explanation for why this woman is screaming about whatever they're doing back there the bus driver has just decided that Zhang is the issue and Zhang at this

point does just want to get off the bus he doesn't want to be here and so without even looking at the back he just got up no questions asked breeze past the woman who's still hitting him with her bag and out the door he goes he didn't care he knew we had a long walk home but anything was better than being in that bus now once Zhang actually got off the bus he realized he actually was not

in as bad of a spot as he could have been like he expected to get off and basically being the

middle of nowhere because he knew they were in this sort of isolated area but when he got off he realized they had sort of just came to the end of that isolated section and so pretty nearby he could see a neighborhood which meant he actually was not that far away from his home and so he's thinking okay I got a bit of a walk but again thank goodness I'm not on that bus I don't even want to think about what's happening on that crazy bus like thank goodness I'm just out of there

and so Zhang he just starts walking towards his home and he's making his way when he hears something behind him and he immediately stops because think about think about how traumatic whatever just happened was for him he can't process what's happened it's this totally crazy inexplicable thing he's on the side of the road now like he's on edge and so he hears something behind him and he just stops and this time unlike on the bus he does turn around to see what's

going on and he turns and he sees he's not alone standing behind him on the sidewalk is the old woman and she's staring right at him and so Zhang he's looking at her and immediately he clocks that like something's different about her on the bus that that expression she had on her face when she screamed at whatever was in the back of the bus and then began hitting him with

“her purse that expression she had was like fear and paranoia and even anger that's what he saw”

on her face but now she's like smiling and she's looking at him with this almost like I'm sorry look on her face like a like please I want to talk to you about what just happened like it was she was signaling to him like we need to talk and so picking up on that Zhang like he wanted to just go over to her and be like what are you doing like why did you do that to me I didn't take anything from you like he wanted to yell at her but again there was just that look on her

face that said like I got I got to go talk to this woman and so Zhang he turns and he walks to this woman and he says to her like what happened on there like what's going on like what did you see why did you what happened and she looked at him and she was like I have to tell you a secret so that night unbeknownst to Zhang and very likely unbeknownst to this woman this bus they were on bus 375 after they got off it would take off and drive off with its strange occupants on board

and believe it or not the bus would vanish it would just go missing nobody knew where it went and then three days later it was found crashed in a reservoir 60 miles north of where Zhang and this woman had gotten off and on board the bus were three dead bodies it was the driver the ticket seller and then also the man wearing red the guy who was needing to be propped up by the other two men in

on board the bus now it was determined that all three of them had died from a broken neck and so

“the running assumption was the crash itself caused them to to break their necks and that's what”

killed them but there was a very strange determination about the condition of the bodies so the occupants on board the bus presumably died within 72 hours because that's the time frame they were missing and when they were found dead but it was determined that their bodies were so decomposed they likely had been dead for months the secret that the old woman told Zhang was that when she turned around on the bus and she looked to the back and she saw the men she said the men in blue

were staring at Zhang with just a look of pure evil on their face she was like I knew it wasn't right these were for evil spirits and they were after Zhang it was like she instinctively just knew it she didn't know why she just knew it and almost like reflexively she began screaming

and then it was like this thought crossed her mind that she needed to save Zhang and the first thing

“she thought to do was accuse him of being a thief so the bus driver would stop and kick him off the”

bus and so she put on this performance hitting him calling him a thief basically to save him to get him off the bus away from what she thought were literally evil spirits and so think about this she's telling Zhang this on the side of the road they're in the middle of nowhere they're right is pulling away Zhang was it like oh boy thank you so much for saving me from the evil spirits on the bus he's like okay okay I get it now I guess I appreciate it and then the two of them just

took off on their merry way it wasn't until three days later that Zhang realized whatever caused her to have that reaction literally saved his life and who knows who the men in blue were because something happened on that bus something caused it to vanish and then crash into the reservoir and everybody dies on board with their next broken and their bodies decomposed more than they

“should be like none of that makes any sense but all Zhang knows is because of that woman he was”

still alive and so Zhang is like a mix between terrified that he was involved in this but also so thankful that this woman saved his life but what he did when he put it all together when he found out about this bus and you know what happened on board you know the dead bodies and all that he went to the authorities and he said there were two other people on the bus that were acting so weird the men in blue you know the ones the woman basically warned him about being these evil spirits and

he told the authorities and you know whether or not they they bought the evil spirit line didn't really matter what they're being told is there were two people acting strange on the bus before

this all happened and they went out and they looked for the two men in blue and they never found

no one has any idea who they were and so to this day all the locals all say to never take the last bus ride along route 375 on a fall afternoon in 1887 a man named Jean Wilson wrote his horse next to the plat river in Wyoming hurting some cattle that were grazing there next to him was Jean's dog who was running along due to flee right behind him and sort of nipping at the cows heels to keep them

in line so Jean was a ranch hand and he worked for a ranch in the town of Casper which was about maybe 10 miles away from where he was right now and part of Jean's responsibilities was going out and finding lost cattle that wandered too far from the ranch and hurting them back to the pasture so on this particular day the weather was perfect at sunny it's beautiful you know and generally Jean actually really enjoyed this aspect of his job like he liked being out here

but today even though he should have been like this is a great day he just felt really really tired he had worked many many hours up until this point and he really just wanted to be done then head back home to where he lived with his wife they had this little house that was sort of tucked away in the secluded area in this valley surrounded by hills it was like his oasis Jean and his wife were like absolute best friends like the very best part of his day even on

days where he went out and enjoyed his job still the best part of his day was always returning home

and just catching up with his wife over dinner that was like the thing he looked forward to the most and so right now it was like he craved just being home and being with his wife he could not wait but Jean you know he was a diligent guy and he just continued doing his job you know he's

mindlessly doing his job because again he doesn't want to be here anymore he looks down and he notices

“his dog is no longer next to him his dog was always right next to him you know helping you know”

doing hurting and his dog's not there and so he stopped and he began looking around and that's when he realized that maybe because he was becoming so mindless doing this job today that this huge amount of mist had sort of rolled out over the plat river like he hadn't noticed that there was just all this mist and as he's looking out seeing this massive cloud of mist he noticed his dog and his dog was actually kind of going nuts the dog had broken off and run to the edge of the

plat river and it was sort of like barking like mad and it had been for some time it was like Jean just hadn't noticed it and so he's seeing the mist and he's seen his dog and he's like what's going on

over here he can't see anything on the river this is a I usually pretty well traveled river but

there hadn't been any traffic no boats or anything and so it's a quiet day but it's like he can't see

“anything out on the river the dog is just going crazy and so Jean's like what what's going”

on what's out over there and this is also like very unusual behavior for his dog like his dog was very well trained this is an odd thing for it to be doing but you know Jean's thinking there's got to be a good reason for it the dog wouldn't do this for no reason and so Jean he let's the cattle just continue making their way along the river but he on his horse he turns and begins making his way over to the dog who again it's sort of stationary by the river's edge barking and

looking out at something in the middle of this mist presumably however as Jean trotted his way towards the dog the horse began to react to something Jean's horse began to like react to something that Jean couldn't even see it started to get really scared it was winning and sort of unwilling to go

any further and then finally when Jean really tried to get the horse to carry on here the horse

“actually reared onto its back legs and almost kicked Jean off of it Jean managed to hold on and”

when the horse came back down on all fours he just calmed the horse down and and brought it over to a nearby tree the whole time the dog is still barking like crazy looking at something out over the water and so now Jean's like what is going on here he gets off his horse and he ties it to a tree and then on foot he walks over to his dog and so he walks over to his dog his dogs you know yapping and barking and as soon as Jean is next to his dog his dog stops barking but it continues

to be really fixated on the water which again is like utterly covered by mist he can't see anything out on the water it's quiet like eerily quiet you know the the mist is almost obscuring the sunlight at this point like they it's almost like they're inside of a cloud and it's just him and his dog the dog is fixated on something and Jean's looking out over the water and then all of a sudden it was like the mist began to part and this enormous like way bigger than he had ever seen

in the plat river this huge wooden ship suddenly comes into view and so right away Jean is sort of baffled by the ship number one it seemed fairly obvious that this is the thing that his dog was barking at and it might have been the same thing that the the horse was reacting to but Jean's like why there are ships that go up and down this river all the time the dog the horse they don't react this way to any of those ships what's so what's that about but more than that this ship really

was just enormous like looked out of place it was so big and this is this is not a particularly deep river and so Jean's like how how is this big of a ship here and so Jean's almost like fascinated with what he's looking at you know he's sort of not really worried about the dog anymore or the horse or even his cattle he's just he's looking at the ship wondering what the heck it's doing here like who's who's ship is this and so Jean continues to watch as the ship you know

continues just slowly making its way down plat river and as he's staring at it again to sort of fascinated by it he counts nine sailors on the deck moving around doing something on the deck but but what they were doing on the deck just wasn't immediately clear they weren't doing sort of obvious sailor things they were they were clearly working on something in unison on the deck there was something they were doing all together like there was this this apparent huge tarp

almost that sat in the middle of of the deck of the ship and they were sort of moving it around and it appeared like there was something underneath it but you know Jean couldn't see it and he was too far away to make out what it could be and so Jean is just he's staring at this this this crew he's looking at the ship and then all of a sudden all nine of the sailors on board the ship almost like in unison just stop what they were doing and they turned and they all at the exact same time just

stared directly at Jean and it sort of like disarmed Jean like he was really you know staring

and so we sort of taken it back and he's he's looking how did them like are they looking at me

“what did I do what's what's going on here and then all at once these nine people they go back to”

what they're doing and they begin to to lift up this tarp right so they're revealing what's underneath it and now you know Jean he's both terrified and sort of confused and still just fascinated and he's he's looking out like what are they gonna reveal like this is so weird and the tarp comes

up and at first all Jean could see was like this weird mound like a black mound sitting on the deck

of the ship that was underneath this tarp but as he continued to stare he suddenly realized what he was looking at it it couldn't be possible like how how could that be out like that that doesn't make any sense to me and he was horrified he was he was scared and he's thinking like I don't even know what to do and and all of a sudden he just he grabs his dog he runs back to his

“horse and he thinks I have to get home I have to get home right now and so honest horse”

he goes he just gets his dog he abandoned the cattle from what he's seen he doesn't even care he has to make sure that everything back home is okay and he takes off he starts galloping as fast as he can back in the direction of that quaint little homies got it down in the hillside and so

over an hour of riding basically at full tilt he finally pressed the hill and by this point

he's tried to convince himself that what he saw in board that ship could not have been a real thing but he goes up the hill that looks down into the valley where he would normally first see his home except when he looked down into the valley his home wasn't there anymore his home was just the smoldering black ruin the home had had burned down apparently in the last few hours while he was gone and so gene is a mixture of horrified but also weirdly not surprised and he blazes down the hill

he gets to his what remains of his home and he sees that's not all he sees there is a black mound that looked just like the mound he saw on board that ship that is laying on the ground

“not far from where his house was and it's the body of his wife that's what he saw out on the ship”

he saw the dead body of his wife burned and destroyed but it was definitely hurry could he could make her out from here and scared him so bad he went back to check and now he's seeing it in real life now of course for all you folks who are hearing the story you're going to think come on like this happened in the 1800s like how much of this is really true what he looked out and he saw a ghost ship appear with a with you know a premonition or or or a vision of his of his wife who he's going to find

dead sure right well listen to this so after gene finds his dead wife you know he has this incredible

story about how he sort of knew about it beforehand by seeing this this ghost ship if you will and so he went and told people he told a lot of people about what happened and eventually a few years later his story found its way to a journalist named Vincent Gattis and Vincent Gattis happened to have done all this extensive reporting about the infamous Bermuda triangle which is just off the coast of Bermuda there's this section of the ocean where all this very strange activity has been reported

over many many years like stuff that is basically paranormal and nature consistently is reported in this part of the world and so he had done a lot of research on the Bermuda triangle and so he's primed to hear stories like gene story and take them seriously and so when he heard about gene story he began looking into it and Vincent pretty much immediately discovered that there was absolutely no record of this enormous ship being on the plat river in fact as Vincent found it would have been impossible

for a ship of that size as gene described you know this hundred foot ship being able to travel on the plat river it was too shallow so there was no record and it really just it seemed impossible and so the way Vincent responded to this is okay well clearly gene is a man who's who's been racked by guilt and shame he feels probably like he he somehow let his wife down by going out that day and she winds up dying in the fire and so this is a man who's just dealing with grief

and it says grief that as somehow created the story in his mind to explain what happened to his wife you know it seems crazy but people do crazy things when they are really deeply affected by grief however many years later that same journalist wound up finding out that actually gene was not the only person who had a story like this he discovered that apparently 25 years before

reported seeing this enormous ship on the plat river that apparently had the dead body of one of

“their loved ones on board and like all the sailors are looking out at them and they're like”

showing them this dead body but that person that they're seeing was alive as far as these people thought but then when they went home they discovered that their loved ones were in fact dead

it was the same as gene story in the years since these sightings this ship has become known as

“the death ship and it's widely considered to be a death home in both in the plat river valley”

and also throughout Wyoming 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. ballen pod cast strange dark and mysterious stories is hosted and executive produced by me mr. ballen our head of writing is Evan Allen produced by Jeremy Bon and Cole Acaccio the episode was written by carouspash Cooper research in fact checking by shellys shoe Samantha van Housse Evan Beamer Abigail Shumway Camille Callahan Alex Paul Ben Faciano Research in fact checking supervision by Steven here audio editing and post-produced by

Whitley Cossio and Jordan Stitham production support by Antonio Manada and Delana Corley artwork by Jessica Clogston Kiner theme song something wicked by Ross plugged in thank you for listening to the mr. ballen pod cast and just a reminder every new and exclusive episode we put out on the mr. ballen pod cast you can also now watch on the mr. ballen youtube channel that very same day and trust me some of these stories you truly have to see to believe

“again my youtube channel is just called mr. ballen if you want to listen to episodes one week early”

and add free you can subscribe to serious xm pod cast plus on apple pod casts or visit seriousxm.com/podcast+ to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice so that's gonna do it I really appreciate your support until next time see you