423. The Moonlit Road

Radio Silenced Directors Matt Bettenelli open and Tyler Gillette are back for round two with

“their new horror comedy film, "Ready or Not To" here I come.”

Samara Weaving returns as Grace, the Battle Warren and Bulluddy Bride, and is joined by stars, Catherine Newton, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Sean Hadisey, Nestor Carbano, David Cronenberg, and Elijah Wood after Grace Mary's into a mysterious family and is forced to play a life or death theme of hide and seek. She emerges victorious, but what she didn't know is that by winning, she triggered

a whole new twisted battle. This time with her estranged sister faith at her side, the duo faces a shadowy group of rival devil worshiping families who control the world, and they must fight to the bloody death for the ultimate prize.

“Two times the kills, two times the Satanic rituals, and two times the human combustion”

don't miss the full tilt insanity, ready or not to, here I come, when it hits theaters March 20th. Hello, and welcome to "Scare You to Sleep". I'm your host, Shelby Novak, and I'm here to read you. A bedtime story.

Before we begin, I have two things I wanted to mention.

First, my friend Aaron was so kind to have me on his new YouTube channel, the Shangri-La

Lounge. It was probably the most fun interview I've ever had. We talked about Neil Breen and Ghosts, and people who are annoying about whether you like a movie or not, and so much more. I'll have that linked in the show notes, please go check it out and show my buddy Aaron some

love for his new channel. The second thing is that I would love to do a new Q&A episode soon. I posted the link on social media, but I'm also going to add it to the show notes. The form is fully anonymous. Please feel free to ask questions or even leave comments or critiques about the show, about

me, about my other shows, about life, about what crimes you've committed, whatever comes to mind, they may be featured on the episode, and I look forward to hearing from you. And now we come to the story. This is one of my favorites by Ambrose Bears.

It was first published in 1894, and then published again in 1907 in Cosmopolitan magazine.

Isn't it crazy that Cosmo's been around that long? So without further ado, this is the Moonlit Road. One, statement of Joel Hettman, Jr. I am the most unfortunate of men, rich, respected, fairly well educated and sound of health. With many other advantages, usually valued by those having them, and coveted by those

who have them not. I sometimes think that I should be less happy if they had been denied me. For then the contrast between my outer and my inner life would not be continually demanding a painful attention. In the stress of provision and the need of effort, I might sometimes forget the somber

“secret ever baffling the conjecture that it compels.”

I am the only child of Joel and Julia Hettman. The one was a well-to-do country gentleman. The other a beautiful and accomplished woman to whom he was passionately attached with what I now know to have been a jealous and exacting devotion. The family home was a few miles from Nashville, Tennessee.

The large irregularly built dwelling of no particular order of architecture, a little way off the road, and a park of trees and shrubbery. At the time of which I write, I was 19 years old, a student at Yale.

demand, I left it once for home.

At the railway station in Nashville, a distant relative awaited me to apprise me of the reason for my recall. My mother had been barbarously murdered, why and by whom no one could conjecture but the circumstances were there. My father had gone to Nashville, intending to return the next afternoon, something prevented

him accomplishing the business in hand, so he returned on the same night, arriving just before the dawn.

“In his testimony before the coroner, he explained that having no latch key and not caring”

to disturb the sleeping servants, he had with no clearly defined intention gone round to

the rear of the house. As he turned an angle of the building, he heard a sound as of a door, gently closed, and saw in the darkness indistinctly the figure of a man, which instantly disappeared among the trees of the lawn. A hasty pursuit and brief search of the grounds and the belief that the trespasser was

someone secretly visiting a servant, proving fruitless. He entered at the unlocked door and mounted the stairs to my mother's chamber.

Its door was open, and stepping into black darkness, he fell headlong over some heavy object

on the floor. I may spare myself the details.

“It was my poor mother, dead of strangulation by human hands.”

Everything had been taken from the house, the servants had heard no sound, and accepting those terrible finger marks upon the dead woman's throat, dear God that I might forget them. No trace of the assassin was ever found. I gave up my studies and remained with my father, who naturally was greatly changed.

The ways of a sedate, taciturn disposition, he now fell into so deep a dejection that nothing could hold his attention. Yet, anything, a footfall, the sudden closing of a door, aroused him in a fitful interest, one might have called it an apprehension.

“At any small surprise of the senses, he would start visibly and sometimes turn pale.”

Then relapse into a melancholy apathy, deeper than before. I suppose he was what is called a nervous wreck. As to me, I was younger than now. There is much in that, youth is guilty at, in which is balm for every wound, that I might who can dwell in that enchanted land unacquainted with grief.

I knew not how to appraise my bereavement. I could not rightly estimate the strength of the stroke. One night, a few months after the dreadful event, my father and I walked home from the city. The full moon was about three hours above the eastern horizon. The entire countryside had the solemn stillness of a summer night.

Our footfalls and the ceaseless song of Katie did, were the only sound. Aloof, black shadows of bordering trees lay at thwarts the road, which in the short reaches between gleamed a ghostly white. As we approach the gate to our dwelling, whose front was in shadow, and in which no light shone, my father suddenly stopped and clutched my arm, saying hardly above his breath.

"God, God, what is that?" I hear nothing, I replied. "But, see, see," he said, pointing along the road directly ahead. I said, "Nothing is there, come father, let us go in, you are ill." He had released my arm and was standing rigid and motionless in the center of the illuminated

roadway, staring like one bereft of sense. His face in the moonlight showed a paler and

I pulled gently at a sleeve, but he had forgotten my existence.

“Presently he began to retire backward, step by step, never for an instant removing his eyes”

from what he saw or thought he saw. I turned half round to follow, but stood irresolute. I do not recall any feeling of fear, unless a sudden chill was its physical manifestation. It seemed as if an icy wind had touched my face and enfolded my body from a head to foot. I could feel the stir of it in my hair.

At that moment, my attention was drawn to a light that suddenly streamed from an upper window of the house.

One of the servants awakened by what mysterious premonition of evil, who can say, and in obedience

“to an impulse that she was never able to name, had a lit lamp.”

When I turned to look for my father, he was gone. And in all the years that have passed, no whisper of his fate has come across the borderland of conjecture from the realm of the unknown. A statement of Casper, Graton, "Today I am set to live, tomorrow, here in this room, will lie a senseless shape of clay that all too long was eye."

If anyone looked the cloth from the face of that unpleasant thing, it will be in gratification of a mere morbid curiosity, some doubtless will go further and inquire, "Who was he?" In this writing, I will supply the only answer that I am able to make, Casper, Graton. That should be enough.

“The name has served my need for more than 20 years of life, of unknown length, true”

I gave it to myself, but lacking another I had the right. In this world, one must have a name. It prevents confusion even when it does not establish identity. Some, though, are known by numbers which also seem inadequate to distinctions one day for illustration.

I was passing along a street of a city, bar from here. When I met two men in uniform, one of whom, half-pausing and looking curiously into my face, said to his companion, "That man looks like 767." Something in the number seemed familiar and horrible. Moved by an uncontrollable impulse, I spring into a side street and ran until I feel exhausted

in a country lane. I've never forgotten that number.

And always, it comes to memory attended by gibbering obscenity peels of joyless laughter the clangs of iron bars, so I say a name, even if self-pastored, is better than a number in the register of the potter's field. I shall soon have both. But wealth of him who shall find this paper, I must beg a little consideration, it is not

the history of my life, the knowledge, to write, that is denied me. This is only a record of broken and apparently unrelated memories. Some of them as distinct and sequint as brilliant beads upon a thread. Authors, remote and strange, having the character of crimson dreams, with interspaces, blink, and black, which fires, glowing still and red in a great desolation.

Standing upon the shore of eternity, I turn for a last-to-look landward over the course by which I came. There are 20 years of footprints fairly distinct. The impressions of bleeding feet, they leave their poverty and pain, devious and unsure as one staggering beneath a burden, remote, unfrended, melancholy, slow, ah, the poet's prophecy

of me, how admirable, how dreadfully admirable.

of sin, I see, nothing clearly.

It comes out of a cloud.

“I know that it spans only 20 years, yet I am an old man.”

One does not remember one's birth. One has to be told, but with me, it was different. Life came to me full-handed and dowered me with all my faculties and powers of a previous existence I know no more than others, for all have stammering intimations that may be memories and may be dreams.

I know only that my first consciousness was of maturity in body and mind, a consciousness

accepted without surprise or conjecture. I merely found myself walking, in a forest, half-clad, foot sore, unutterably weary and hungry,

“seeing a farmhouse I approached and asked for food which was given me by one who inquired”

my name. I did not know yet knew that all had names, greatly embarrassed, I retreated, and night coming on I laid down in the forest and slept. The next day I entered a large town which I shall not name, nor shall I recount further

incidents of the life that is now, to an end, a life of wandering, always and everywhere

haunted by an overmastering sense of crime and punishment of wrong and of terror and punishment of crime. Let me see, if I can reduce it, to a narrative, I seem to have once lived near a great city,

“a prosperous planter married to a woman whom I loved and distrusted.”

We had it sometimes, one child, a youth of brilliant parts and promise, he is at all times a vague figure, never clearly drawn, frequently altogether out of the picture. One lockless evening it occurred to me to test my wife's fidelity in a vulgar common place way familiar to everyone who has acquaintance with the literature of fact and fiction. I went to the city, telling my wife that I should be absent until the following afternoon.

But I returned before daybreak, and went to the rear of the house, purposeing to enter by a door with which I had secretly so tampered that it would seem to lock yet not actually fassin, as I approached it. I heard it, gently open and close, and saw a man steal away into the darkness. With murder in my heart, I spring after him, but he advanced without the bad lock of

identification. Sometimes now, I cannot even persuade myself that it was a human being, crazed with jealousy and rage blind and beastly, with all the elemental passions of insulted manhood I entered the house and spring up the stairs to the door of my wife's chamber. It was closed, but having tampered with its lock also, I easily entered, and despite the

black darkness soon stood by the side of her bed. My groping hands told me that, although disarranged, it was occupied. She is below, I thought, and terrified by my entrance has evaded me in the darkness of the hall. with the purpose of seeking her, I turned to leave the room, but took a wrong direction, the right one my foot struck her, cowering in the corner of the room.

Instantly my hands were at her throat, stifling a shriek. My knees were upon her struggling body and there in the darkness, without a word of accusation or reproach, I strangled her till she died. Her ends, the dream, I have related it, in the past tense, but the present would be

over and over, I lay the plan I suffer the confirmation I redress the wrong, then all

“is blank, and afterward, the rain beats against the grimy window pains, or the snow”

fall upon my scant attire, the wheels rattle in the squalid streets, where my life lies in poverty and mean employment, if there is ever sunshine, I do not recall it, if there are birds, they do not sing, there is another dream, another vision of the night, I stand

among the shadows in a moonlit road, I am aware of another presence, but whose I cannot

rightly determine, in the shadow of a great dwelling, I catch the gleam of white garments,

“then the figure of a woman confronts me in the road.”

My murdered wife, there is death in the face that are marks upon throat, the eyes are fixed on mine with an infinite gravity which is not reproach nor hate nor menace nor anything less terrible than recognition, before this awful apparition I retreat in terror, a terror, that is upon me as I write, I can no longer rightly shape the words, see they, now I am calm, but truly, there is no more to tell, the incident ends, where it began, and darkness, and

doubt, yes, I am again in control of myself, the captain of my soul, but that is not respite, it is another stage and phase of expiation, my penance, constant and degree, is mutable in kind, one of its variants is tranquility, after all, it is only a life sentence, to hell for life that is a foolish penalty, the culprit chooses the duration of his punishment. Today, my term expires, to each and all, the peace that was not mine, three statement

of the late Julia Hettman, through the medium, Bay Rolls, I had retired early and fallen almost immediately into a peaceful sleep, for which I had a woken, with that

“end of final sense of peril, which is I think a common experience in that other, earlier”

life, of its unmeaning character too, I was entirely persuaded, yet that did not banish it, my husband Joel Hettman was away from home, the servants slept in another part of

the house, but these were familiar conditions, they had never before distressed me, nevertheless

the strange terror grew so unsupportable that conquering my reluctance to move, I sat up and let the lamp at my bedside, contrary to my expectation this gave me no relief, the light seemed rather and added danger, for I reflected that it would shine out under the door, closing my presence to whatever evil thing might lurk outside, you that are still in the flesh, subject to horrors of the imagination, think what a monstrous fear that must be,

which seeks in darkness, security from a level and existences of the night, that is to spring to close quarters with an unseen enemy, the strategy of despair, extinguishing the lamp I pulled the bed clothing about my head and late trembling and silent, unable to shriek, forgetful to pray, in this pitiable state I must have lain for what you call, ours,

of footfalls on the stairs, they were slow, hesitant, uncertain of something that did

“not see its way, to my disordered reason all the more terrifying for that as the approach”

of some blind and mindless malevolence to which is no appeal, I even thought that I must have left the whole lamp burning and the grove being of this creature proved at a monster of the night, this was foolish and inconsistent with my previous dread of the light, but what would you have?

Fear has no brains, it is an idiot, the dismal witness that it bears and the cowardly

council that it whispers are unrelated, we know this well, we who have passed into the realm

“of terror, whose skull can eternal dusk among the scenes of our former lives, invisible even”

to ourselves and one another, yet hiding for a Lord in lonely places, yearning for speech with our loved ones, yet dumb and as fearful of them as they of us, sometimes the disability

is removed, the laws suspended by the debtless power of love or hate, we break the spell

we are seen by those whom we would warn, console or punish, what form we seem to them to bear, we know not, we know only that we terrify even those whom we most wish to comfort and from home we most crave, tenderness and sympathy, forgive, I pray you, the inconsequenced

“aggression by what was once a woman, you who consults us in this imperfect way, you do not”

understand, you ask foolish questions about things unknown and things forbidden, much that we know and could impart in our speech is meaningless in yours, we must communicate with you through a stammering intelligence in that fraction of our language that you yourselves can speak, you think that we are of another world, now we have knowledge of no world but yours, though for us it holds no sunlight, no warmth, no music, no laughter, no song of birds, nor

any companionship, oh god, what a thing it is to be a ghost, cowering and shivering in an altered world, a prey to apprehension and despair, no I did not die of fright, the thing turned and went away, I heard it go down the stairs hardly, I thought as if itself in sudden fear, then I rose for help, hardly had my shaking hand found the door knob when, merciful heaven, I heard it's returning, it's footballs as it remounted, the stairs were rapid, had the

in loud, they shook the house, I fled to an angle of the wall and crouched upon the floor, I tried to pray, I tried to call the name of my dear husband, then I heard the door thrown open, there was an interval of unconsciousness and when I revived, I felt a strangling clutch upon my throat, felt my arms vaguely beating again something that bore me backward, felt my tongue thrusting itself from between my teeth and then, I passed, into this life,

no I have no knowledge of what it was, the sum of what we knew at death is the measure of what we know afterward, of all that went before, of this existence we know many things, but no new light falls upon any page of that, in memory is written all of it that we can read,

we still dwell in the valley of the shadow lurk in its desolate places peering from brambles and

“thickets at its mad malign inhabitants, how should we have new knowledge of that fading past?”

what I am about to relate happened on a night, we know when it is night, for when you retire to your houses and we can venture from our places of concealment to move unafraid in our old homes, to look in at the windows even to enter and gaze upon your faces as you sleep. I had lingered long near the dwelling where I had been so cruelly changed to what I am, as we do while any that we love, or hate remain.

Mainly I had sought some method of manifestation, some way to make my continued existence,

“and my great love and poignant pity understood by my husband and son always if they slept”

they would wake, or if in my desperation I dared approach them when they were awake, would turn toward me, the terrible eyes of the living, frightening me by the glances that I sought from the purpose that I helped. On this night I had searched for them without success fearing to find them, they were nowhere in the house, nor about the moonlight dawn, for although the sun is lost to us forever, the moon, full or door slender remains to us, sometimes it shines by night,

sometimes by day but always it rises and sets, as in that other life.

“I left the lawn and moved in the white light and silent among the road aimless and sorrowing.”

Suddenly I heard the voice of my poor husband and exclamation of astonishment, with that of my son in reassurance and disohesion, and there by the shadow of a group of trees they stood, near so me, their faces were towards me the eyes of the elder man fixed upon mine, he saw me, at last at last he saw me, in the consciousness of that, my terror fled as a cruel dream, the death spell was broken, love had conquered law, mad with exaltation I shouted,

I must have shouted, he sees, he sees, he will understand, then, controlling myself I moved forward, smiling and consciously beautiful, to offer myself to his arms, to comfort him, with endurance, and with my son's hand in mind, to speak words that should restore the broken bonds between the living and the dead, a last, a last, his face went white with fear, his eyes were as those of a hunted animal, he backed away from me as I advanced and at last turned and fled into the wood,

wither it is not given to me to know, to my poor boy, left doubly desolate, I have never been able

to impart a sense of my presence, soon he too must pass to this life invisible and be lost to me, forever. Thanks for listening and thank you to my author, Ambrose Bears, wherever you may be, and as I've mentioned on the show before, no one knows because Ambrose Bears disappeared at the end of his life, and it's a really fascinating story, highly recommend looking him up, he was not only an excellent

writer, but he went out just as his, a lot of his stories ended with a lot of mystery, I love this story so much as I mentioned at the top of the show, it's one of my favorites, it's so tragic,

and it builds to his father who now goes by a different name and doesn't remember his former

“life, and then that builds to a medium, contacting the ghost of his dead wife and explaining what”

happened, and the confusion from everyone, everyone is in the dark in their own way, the sun doesn't really know who killed his mother, and doesn't know what happened to his father, the father is cursed to a life of poverty, whilst also not really remembering his former life, and being haunted

by the dreams of what he did to his wife, and the life he used to have, and the poor mother, who never

knew that her husband was the one who killed her, and the fact that she can't reach her son, you know, she accidentally scared away her husband, which could ridden to him, but she says that she's never been able to let him know that she's there, and I don't know, I just love a tragic tale, I'm in a bluesy mood that today, especially,

“and when I'm feeling the blues, I want my stories to be feeling the blues as well,”

just makes me feel less lonely in my, in my loneliness, so I hope you enjoyed that story, and let's see, oh, you can find ad free episode on Patreon, patreon.com/scarytoesleep, and bonus episodes, you can also follow me on social media, you can follow the show @scarytoesleep on all the socials, you can follow me personally at Shelby B. Novak, there has been a lot going on over there, because I got back from creepaikan, and you guys, it was better than I could have imagined,

there's pictures of me with Cassandra Peterson, aka Alvira, which those panels I did, were filmed, they will be available at some point, I'll let you know when and where, and Ted Ramey, who I got to do a panel with, I got to do a bunch of promos with, which were very last minute, and I was very tired, I'll have to talk about that all in Patreon, I won't ramble about it all here, and you know, four of those of you who aren't that into these

rambles at the end, but I also got to go to dinner with them afterwards with my friend Tony and his wife, and Michael Rothman and Sammy Rothman, you know them from Halloweenys, losers, club, lady killers, and some new friends that I met, and I don't know if they're as public facing as any of the rest of them, so I won't mention their names, but they were amazing, and yeah, so it was just an amazing evening, you know, sometimes you wake up and you don't realize you'll be eating a

steak with Ted Ramey that evening, you just don't, so it was great weekend, very, very excellent,

“and let's see, baking, I need some rice crispy treats, I think the the night after the convention,”

or the day after, just as a little treat, I always like to treat myself after a convention,

it's a lot of work, and it's very tiring, so that's the extent of my baking, I also made some chicken soup that was excellent, but I made from scratch, but you guys I don't think are as into my savory offerings, it was also just kind of thrown together, I threw, whenever you make chicken soup, make sure to use chicken with bones, it makes the most excellent broth, it's that real good broth, like gelatinous broth, if you've never had real like broth before, where it gets gelatinous,

in the fridge, you're missing out, go make your own broth this weekend, so yeah, that was a little bit of a piss poor baking corner, I apologize, maybe this week I'll feel more inspired, I'll have a little more energy and time to do something fun, some, I would really, I really need some inspiration, I really just have had a little bit of a baking wall, so if you have any favorite recipes of yours, send them, send them over to me, I'd love some inspiration, so I would appreciate that,

and also in return, I'm always happy to send recipes, I've had a lot of people email me lately

for some of the recipes I've mentioned on the show and I'm always happy to send them over, it makes me happy to share the love of baking and cooking and all of that, let's see, I'm trying to think of anything else, oh yes, please go check out Erin's show at over at the Schinger Law Lounge, he's also interviewed with me from True Crime Campfire, and I know a lot of you are also fans of True Crime Campfire, he's just a really fun

interviewer, I don't get interviewed often, I'm usually the interviewer, not the interviewer, he, so it's a lot of fun to have someone ask me questions, things like I didn't expect to be asked, and we talk about like he always ends it, I think, with like your favorite

that were really interesting, I think you'll be surprised by my answers, so please go check that out,

“again, Blink is in the show notes, and for those of you who'd like to leave me an anonymous”

questions, comments, critiques, compliments, I always love a compliment, please leave the

Blink is in the show notes, it's like the NGL link, I started just using that, oh and I'm so sorry, this is so rude of me, I mentioned the convention and did not even talk about I'm at so many of you this weekend, more than I've ever met before, took so many pictures with people, and it meant so much to me, you may me look cool in front of my friends, which is there anything

“better than looking cool in front of your friends, some of you I didn't even get to meet, I would go”

to grab lunch or something, because we kind of work in shifts to give each other breaks, and I would come back and my friends would be like, oh my god, like three people stop by and said, they loved you, one of you stopped by and said my voice was very sexy, which again, thank you for making me look cool in front of your friends, and if that was you, then shout out,

in fact I didn't even believe them at first, I was like, no they didn't, I was like, no yeah,

“someone came by and saw your, and my water bottle, I left at the booth, the one Spotify sent me,”

it has my name on it, or my show is has scary to sleep like on it, that Spotify again, thank you, shout out, Spotify for sending that to me, and someone saw that sitting on the table and was like, scary to sleep, I love her voice, it's really sexy, I also had a bunch of stickers there, I hope

you all took stickers, I have too many stickers at the moment, so please, if you ever see me,

please take so many stickers at any convention, like hand folds, leave them everywhere, bandalize on behalf of the show, no, for all intents and purposes out of a such joke, that was a joke, any lawyers out there listening, that was a joke, okay, I'm gonna go, I hope you have a fantastic weekend, and go get some sleep, sweet dreams, (birds chirping)

(birds chirping) (birds chirping) (birds chirping) (birds chirping) (birds chirping)

(birds chirping)