We Burned the Wrong Book… Now I Wish We Never Had..

I'm saying, you can say that you're a hero.

“You're a master of the club, right? But you don't understand.”

Exactly. It's just a challenge. You're just a master of the club. You're just a master of the club. And if you work, you'll be able to do it. - That's right? - Safe. You're just a master. - You're just a master of the club. - Now, let's try it out. Injections. A sadistic killer whose murder was inspired by the hit TV show, Dexter.

These are just a couple of the dark true crime stories you'll hear each week on the crime hub podcast. In each episode, I dive deep into new disturbing true crime stories. Like the story of the religious cult, Heaven's Gate. A group who convinced its followers to commit suicide in order to reach a level of existence above human. Disturbing true crime stories like these are what make the crime hub podcast worth listening to.

If you enjoy my horror stories, then you'll absolutely love my true crime stories. Go check it out today by searching crime hub and the search bar on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Amazon Music. Be sure to click Follow to get notified every time a new episode is released.

“Want to hear brand new horror stories brought to life?”

Live. Join me every Sunday at 7pm Eastern Time on the Dr. Nose Leap Podcast YouTube channel,

where I narrate fresh, never before heard stories in real time. Just search Dr. Nose Leap Podcast

on YouTube and make sure you're subscribed with notifications on so you don't miss it. I guess you could say it was Kurt's dad who really screwed us. I mean, I don't know if he was the one who actually put the idea in the old lady's head. Maybe not. But I do know if he had no been to his mouth that day. She might have done something a whole lot less heinous to us. Like Kurt and me might just be hopping around the fountain in the town center,

catching flies and stuff. But that's not how it worked out. I guess I should start earlier. The Bogdans moved into our town when I was just starting third grade. Mr. Bogdans, his son Vladimir, who was about my age, and old Mrs. Bogdans, Vlad's grandmother. I don't know where they were from, but Mr. Bogdans and the old lady spoke in these thick central European accents like something from an old horror movie. The grandmother

in particular reminded me of the old gypsy woman from the original Wolfman movie. But my mom, who taught anthropology at the college told us to never, ever call them gypsies. Because people like them apparently found a defensive. Like someone calling a southerner, a redneck.

“I think Mr. Bogdans worked in the factory outside of town. We never saw much of them.”

My dad, who was an executive at the factory, told me once he was a real hard worker. But he never seemed to speak to anyone outside of work. Sometimes on weekends you'd see him sitting on his front porch drinking beer and watching people. If you waved at him, he'd just stare at you. As for Vlad, he was a big kid. I don't mean he was older. Like I say, he was about my age.

But for a third grader, he was practically a giant, really tall and heavy set. And he never ran

like the other kids. He'd sort of trudge. People at school thought he was slow at first. They called him short bus and dumb dumb. And things like that, at least when the teachers weren't around. But he was actually a really smart kid, even back then. And he had a pretty sharp sense of humor. He could make jokes that were funny without relying on swear words or sexual references. And he didn't hurt that he shared a name with the original count Dracula.

The other kids thought that was funny. But in kind of a cool way, it was obvious he was never going to be one of the in-ground. But by the end of third grade, he'd carved his own little niche in the school's social hierarchy. Everybody knew him and nobody really disliked him. As for his grandmother, old Mrs. Bogden, she was something else altogether. It was hard to say how old she was. She looked

like she might have even been around for hundreds of years. She wore handmade dresses and never appeared

without a bandana wrapped around her head. Her face was wrinkled and sour looking. And she always looked like she was mad about something. But she wasn't actually mean. She seemed to like kids. And a few times I went over to hang out around their house. She would bring out plates of homemade cookies that were really good. But she was super protective of lad, especially that first year. She would walk him to school every day and then stand out front, glaring at the school's windows.

As though she might catch somebody being mean to him. One time she caught Kurt and some of his

about what happened next. But she must have scared the hell out of him because Kurt was suspended for a week. When he came back, he scouted every time he saw a Vlad but didn't dare say a word to him. And I guess that brings us to Kurt. I'd known him forever. He was good looking and pretty smart too in his own way. His dad worked with my dad at the factory. And our two moms were friends. So I'd been encouraged to pal around with him from an early age. But he was kind of spoiled. His family

“was pretty rich. And I remember he always got a fancy party every year for his birthday. And the”

best toys for Christmas. And he was kind of mean. I don't say that lightly. Because if you know kids at all, you know, even the good ones aren't exactly little angels all the time. But Kurt's particular brand of meanness. I guess you could say he had an edge. One time in fourth grade, he caught Amber Nelson in the playground. Amber had a pretty bad overbite. And Kurt stood there with his face and hers, calling a rabbit face over and over again until she broke down crying.

Most of the kids thought he was a serious asshole for that. Because Amber was a sweet girl and really shy about her teeth. But nothing actually happened. There was nothing like the kind of blow-up glad grandmother caused. Eventually, Amber got over it, like kids do. But I remember my mom one time buttering that Kurt had issues. The way she said it, you know she meant something serious. Not just that he liked teasing other kids. So, the years rolled on and we all got older. Our personalities

became more set and developed. Vlad carried himself better and he took an interest in computers. You could tell he had really impressed the teachers. He won a special award one year that came with a small honorarium. Most of the other kids were more or less happy for him. I mean, it wasn't any

“skin off their teeth, right? But I remember the day the award was announced in the school auditorium.”

Kurt had this look on his face like the school was plundering his college fund to give Vlad the award. Kurt? Well, he didn't exactly turn into a sweetheart. He kind of dialed back his nasty personality. But I had the feeling that was mostly to cover his ass. It was generally known he

didn't want to mess with him. He never bothered me because we were friends. And I knew how to

shrug him off. But they were incidents. One kid, Tom Shelton, who was real skinny in a bit of a comedian, stopped writing the school bus after an encounter with Kurt. He chose to walk instead, which was crazy because he lived kind of far out from the school. His mom didn't drive and his dad worked on the other side of town, so they couldn't drive him. I asked him once why he didn't just suck it up and ride the bus again, mostly to see what he'd say. He just shook his head. And I noticed

he wasn't much of a comedian after that. In particular, Kurt developed kind of a creepy side, especially when he came to girls. A lot of them had crushes on him, but that tended to go away

after the first date. One girl, Valerie Prentice, just disappeared one year. I mean, one day she was

sitting in algebra with the rest of us, and the next day she was just gone. A few kids asked the teacher what happened to her, and they just changed the subject. They were rumors that Kurt had gotten her pregnant, and that her parents had sent her off to live with an aunt out of state. Other rumors were even unclear. Somebody said Kurt had tried to get her to sleep with him, and when she said no, he threw acid in her face. Obviously, I don't think that actually happened,

but I could see how the rumors started, which in its own way was just as troubling. Kurt still carried a grudge against Vlad from all those years ago, but he largely avoided him. Part of that was because, even though you got the feeling he'd sooner cut off his own hand, than raise it against someone else, Vlad had gotten even bigger. Just seeing him stride across the field behind the school was like catching a glimpse of big foot or something.

Nobody was going to screw around with someone who looked like that. Not even Kurt. But there was something about the way Kurt watched him. Like he was just waiting for his chance

“to get him somehow. One day, I'm not even sure why I remember this. It's such a small thing.”

Anyway, one day in high school, Vlad started bringing a book to school. It was an old heartback,

and he was always reading it and studying all. I remember hearing a kid, I don't remember who,

asking about it. Vlad kind of got red in the face, and said it was just something his grandmother had given him for his birthday. The kid passed her to him until he opened it up and showed him a few pages, just literally opening the book and then shutting it, almost immediately.

The text was in some kind of heavy jagged font, and there were, I don't know,

“diagrams or something as illustrations. What I'm saying is it didn't look like a book of”

folk stories or anything like that. Anyway, whatever it was, Vlad really loved it. He brought it in

and sat reading it every chance he got. But he never talked about it, and if he asked him,

he just kind of shrug. It probably won't surprise you to hear that Kurt noticed all of this. He didn't say anything to anyone, but I could see him watching Vlad as he read, a kind of calculating look on his face. One afternoon, Vlad came back from gym class, and when he looked in the locker where he kept his things, the book was gone. Vlad was normally slow to anger or speak, even, so his reaction really surprised me. He went

absolutely apeshit, ripping everything out of his locker, and questioning everyone who came near him about what happened to his book. Of course, they said they hadn't seen it, and Vlad actually screamed at them, calling them names, and accusing them of lying doing. This was so unlike

“the old Vlad that people got a little freaked out, but worse was to come. That day, things kind of”

blew over. Even though Vlad was acting like he just lost his most valuable possession.

But when he came in the next day and looked in his locker, he found a pile of ashes. And a few torn, charred bits of paper, that were obviously pages torn from the book. Things might have blown over again, probably not, but there was a chance at least. The problem was that Kurt was standing right there, with this nasty grin on his face. It was a sneering, I got you kind of grin, and nobody who saw it,

could doubt that he was the one who'd taken Vlad's book and burned it up. Well, Vlad lost it right there. He bellowed at Kurt, and actually picked him up by the shirt front and slammed him against the wall of lockers, so hard that his teeth rattled. He hit him too. I don't think he knew how to throw up proper punch, but he hit Kurt upside the head so hard,

“it damn there knocked him out. Mr. Davis, the gym teacher, came running out and just barely managed”

to get Vlad off of Kurt, but it still wasn't over. Mr. Davis was a really big guy himself, and even he had a hard time handling Vlad. Vlad just kept yelling mindlessly. "He took my book, he took my book!" When Mr. Davis tried again to calm him down, Vlad slammed his fist into his gut. I mean, hard. Now, that was just beyond anything any of us had ever seen.

Physically taking on a teacher was just not something he did, at least, not in our school. I mean, even Kurt's eyes bugged out at the sight of Mr. Davis crouched on the floor, gagging and vomiting, and Vlad looked like he would have been more than happy to give Mr. Davis another punch. So all in all, it wasn't a good scene. Girls cried in a couple of the boys literally ran away. It wasn't long before someone called the cops, and Vlad got hauled off.

Our teachers tried to get things back to normal that day, but there wasn't much hope for that. All anybody could talk about was how Vlad had hit Mr. Davis over his precious book. And you know how these things go. Pretty soon the story was that Vlad had broken the teacher's arm and threatened to kill Kurt. Some kids tried to tell the teachers that somebody really had stolen Vlad's book and then burned it, and that the somebody was almost certainly Kurt.

But nobody even talked to Kurt about it. He pretty much got a free pass. Vlad was out of school for a good two weeks. Once again, there were all kinds of crazy rumors flying

around, some did the effect that he'd won himself a trip to prison. When he finally came back,

he looked several years older, exhausted and deeply depressed, as if he were carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. He didn't crack jokes anymore or speak up in class as often. Kurt kept his distance, but Vlad didn't seem to notice one way or another. I really wish that was it. I wish that were the end of this story, but he got stranger. Kurt told me that Vlad had started stalking him. Not like sneaking behind bushes or anything,

just walking up and down his street, glancing casually at his house. And he'd do this like five or six times a night, every night like clockwork. Frankly, I could understand how that would make Kurt's family nervous, even though nobody doubted Kurt deserved it. Things came to a head one night when Kurt's dad came out of the house and started yelling at Vlad. I was there hanging out with Kurt, so I saw the whole thing. I guess I should talk about Kurt's dad a minute.

If Kurt was a bully and a creep in the making, his dad was just an asshole. A big blow heart. He thought he was a big man at the factory and he liked hanging around when Kurt had his buddies over,

which was kind of creepy in itself. I overheard my dad tell my mom one night that nobody at the

“factory liked him and that he had a reputation for yelling at the people who worked under him.”

I almost asked Dad why he acted all buddy buddy with a guy if he was such a dick, but I knew someone could ask me the same question about Kurt. So anyway, Kurt's dad walked straight up to Vlad and started yelling at him, wanting to know what he was doing, sneaking around his house. He asked if Vlad thought everyone was afraid of him because he was so big and assured him that he, Kurt's dad, wasn't afraid of him at all. Vlad was, and Kurt's dad's opinion,

just a big bully, probably half retarded and a cissy to boot, practically throwing a temper tantrum when someone stole his weird ass book. Vlad just stood there and took it. Not even getting that resentful look, kids usually get when adults confront them. He looked to me like an old dog putting

up with a puppy snapping and barking at him, waiting for the torment to finally end.

I guess Vlad's silence must have really pissed Kurt's dad off, because that's when it happened. He shook his fist and Vlad's face and said, "Now you listen to me, you freak. I don't want to see you around here anymore. I want you to leave my son alone. I don't want to see you. Here you. Feel you or know you exist. You got me!" Vlad nodded and shuffled off. That might have been it, but that's when we noticed his grandmother standing a few feet behind him, listening.

She must have known where Vlad was going every night and came out to find him.

“I still remember the look she shot at Kurt's dad. You know that old saying about how if”

looks could kill? I mean, the look blasting out of old Mrs. Bogdens' eyes was like a laser beam. Picture this, it's late at night, you're scrolling and suddenly you find exactly what you've been looking for. You added to your cart, maybe browse a little more than head to check out, only to realize you don't have your wallet. But then you see it, that purple shop paid button, and just like that, you're done in seconds. That's the power of Shopify. It supports millions of

businesses and drives 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. from major brands like Mattel and Jim Shark to entrepreneurs just getting started. With Shopify, everything you need is in one place from customizable store templates to built in AI tools that help write product descriptions and enhance your images. It also makes marketing easy with integrated email and social campaigns.

“And if you get stuck, Shopify is award-winning customer support is there for you 24/7.”

See less cards go abandoned and more sales go with Shopify and their shop pay button. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com/dns. Go to Shopify.com/dns. That's Shopify.com/dns. It's your garden start-clap for the fru-ling, by exchange quality and the niedrish price hand in hand. For example, a garden-lochte 40 cm, just 70 cm or a garden-touch shelf, just 70 cm. In that case, all the garden products in our billion and in the

X&F, extra little price, great price. I've never seen such absolute hatred on a human face before.

I stepped back a few steps, unable to help myself. I was almost ashamed of doing it, but then I saw Kurt moving past me, hotfooting it back into his house. As for his dad, he looked like he was about to piss himself for real. He tried to say something. I don't know if it was intended to calm Mrs. Boggedon down or keep on showing the neighborhood what a badass he was, but whatever it was came out as a kind of squeak. Finally, he cleared his throat and silently

followed his son back into their house. Mrs. Boggedon muttered something, then repeated it in her heavy accent. It wasn't until the third or fourth time that I caught what she was saying. Don't see him, don't hear him, don't feel him, don't know he there, ha, don't see him, don't hear him, no feel, ha, don't know he even there. It was like she was memorizing it, repeating Kurt's dad's little speech until it was burning into her mind.

Something about it was scary. I mean, it made my guts crawl. Then she looked at me and smiled.

Whoever you are, I hope you never see anyone smile like that. I knew somehow that she would still

be smiling like that even if I dropped dead right there of a heart attack. This was Vlad's grandma, the old lady who made kids in the neighborhood cookies including me, but I was tied to the guy who'd hurt her grandson, and that meant nothing was too horrible for me, or Kurt, to suffer. It got to me eventually. I'm not proud to say it, but I pretty much turned tail and ran, not stopping till I reached my house where mom had dinner waiting. I breathed a sigh of relief

and Kurt's friendship out of my life. See, up to now, I hadn't really been involved in the

“feud between Kurt and Vlad, but now I'd become a little too close for comfort. I didn't care”

to be involved anymore. It didn't occur to me that maybe I'd waited too long, that maybe the choice was now out of my hands. The next morning, I woke up at the sound of my mother's voice calling my name. She sounded agitated and I figured I'd overselect or something, but I realized it was Saturday. I'd dressed and went downstairs. I found mom in our basement wreck room, a worried

look on her face. Finally, she stood with her hands on hips, looking around as though she might

find me hiding behind a piece of furniture. "Scot!" She sounded. "Scot! Where are you?" "Fum! I'm right here!" I called. She didn't look at me. And when I moved in front of her and touched her shoulder, she looked right through me. "Scot!" She shouted again. "For God's sake, stop playing around!" Now, my mom isn't one for stupid jokes. I started to get scared, feeling like she might have some kind of episode that had impaired her senses. Like maybe a stroke. I reached for her hand,

but she walked quickly upstairs. I went out to the backyard where my dad was relaxing with his

“morning coffee. "I think something's wrong with mom!" I told him. But he didn't even look at me.”

He took a long drink of his coffee and sat staring into the distance. I shook his shoulder, but again, got no response. Instead, he pushed a finger into his nose and sat contentedly rooting around his nostril. Exactly like I wasn't there. Now I was getting seriously freaked out. I went back in to grab the phone and dialed 911, intending to get an ambulance out to our place, but the phone just rang and rang. Nobody answered, even though I hung up and called back

almost 10 times. Finally, I went over to the Anderson's, our next door neighbors. We weren't exactly

great friends with them, but I felt sure they'd help me, but you can probably guess what happened. Mr. Anderson was sitting at a desk in his dad, working on filling out some form. He didn't even look up, that he burped once or twice. It would have been kind of funny if I weren't so weird

“to doubt. Mrs. Anderson was stretched out on a chase lounge, watching TV. I screamed in her ear.”

Nothing. It was the same way in every other house I checked, and I checked about it doesn't. Nobody responded to me, but I did hear a voice, or I imagined it. An old lady's voice, an old lady with a strange accent whispering. "Don't see, don't hear him, don't feel him, ha!" Something told me that Mrs. Bogdan was the one I really needed to see, but I wasn't quite ready to do that. Instead, I went to Kurt's place. I wasn't prepared for what I found. Someone in the house

was screaming in an absolute rage. When I opened the door, there was Kurt, and it was his father he was screaming at. His old man was in the kitchen making himself a couple of sandwiches, and I was treated to the sight of Kurt trying to yank one away from him. Each time his finger slipped off the bread, like he was too weak, or his hands too slippery to get hold of it. "Angela!" He called suddenly. "Angela, I knew," was Kurt's mother. "Angela, have you found Kurt yet?"

"No!" A voice called from upstairs. "He must have gone out or something, or he's staying with the friend." "You think this is funny?" Kurt roared, trying frantically to get enough of a hold on his father to shake his shoulders. "Click fucking around! I'm right here! Say something!" Kurt, I said, and he started, looking at me. "Oh, thank God!" He babbled, coming over and grabbing my shoulders. "You can hear me!

Scott, what is this shit? I've been trying to get my parents to say something to me, it's like I'm not even here!" I forced myself to be as calm as possible. I told him, it was the same for me, and I had no idea why. I didn't say anything about Mrs. Bogden. I knew how it would sound, and how Kurt would react to it. Instead, we spent the day walking around town, trying to get somebody's, anybody's, attention. Nobody would talk to us. Nobody saw us,

or heard us, or felt us. Finally, we went back to my place and sat heavily down in the kitchen.

We were both hungry, but we couldn't seem to get hold of any food. Even though a huge lasagna sat cooling on the kitchen counter. Somehow, we got through the rest of the day and night. By morning, our stomachs were growling. More than that, we were thirsty. I mean, we were both dying for a drink of water, even if it was out of the kitchen tap, even if it was out of the toilet. I think it was getting to Kurt more than me. He sat staring off into the distance,

look at him, calling her mommy. I mean, there were tears rolling down his cheeks. It was the most

“pathetic thing I'd ever seen. By noon, I was getting desperate. I told Kurt I would be back,”

and he just nodded, looking zoned out. I headed straight to the Bogden's house. I would do anything until myself. Get on my knees and beg the old woman to cancel whatever she'd done to us. I'd be her slave. I'd emptied out my parent's bank account for her, whatever she wanted. As long as she would give us our lives back, our realities back. When I got to their house, I found a flat out front, pushing a lawnmower. I called to him, but of course, he didn't say a word.

“He looked right through me. I didn't even look for his father. I knew who was behind what had”

happened to us, who I really had to talk to. And if she couldn't see us, we might as well lie down and die. I was about to go inside and look for the old lady when I realized something was off about the flat. He was pushing the mower in a strange crooked way, going straight for a few seconds before angling onto the sidewalk. Then up the sidewalk, then back to the side. He had a far away look in his eyes, like he didn't know where he was, and the front of his overalls I saw was soaked

with blood. After a minute, he muttered to himself. The way his grandmother had, a stream of syllables have ground out by the lawnmower. I had to get right up close to him to make any of it out.

Treating me like a fucking baby. I'm not a baby. Never had any friends because of her.

Never went anywhere, did anything. No girls got arrested because of the old bitch all the time, just. Study flat and make a big good boy. Don't play with the bad boys. Stay home with the bunny. She'll make you cookies. Buddy will take care of the bad boys. His voice was awful. A parody of his grandmother's accent. Wow. He went on a horrible lopsided smile in his face.

“I took care of bunny, didn't I? Didn't I? Didn't I?”

I ran into the house, sobbing, praying that what I expected wasn't true. But it was. Flats grandmother and his father sat slumped at the kitchen table. They're blood everywhere. It was sticky under my shoes. The butcher's knife flatted, used to kill them, lay in a red puddle on the tabletop. I stood there looking at them for a long time, listening to maniacally cheerful polka music playing from the nearby radio.

Whatever Vlad's bunny had done to us, she wasn't going to be undoing it anytime soon.

Finally, I turned around and left the house, walking past Vlad, who had given up his monologue

in favor of six sounding giggles. I went back home, walking slowly to conserve energy. To tell Kurt, neither of us would talk to anyone ever again. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this story, be sure to follow or subscribe and share the show with a fellow horror fan. I'll see you in the next one.