I Curse You: A Family's Paranormal Nightmare (ft. Jim Harold)

[00:00:00] Welcome to True Scary Story. We have a bonus episode today with Jim from Jim Harold's Campfire, who's going to tell us a true story that was shared with him. My name is Edwin and here is Jim Harold's True Scary Story.

[00:00:17] Hi, I'm Jim Harold. I do a podcast called Jim Harold's Campfire and real people come on and tell their stories every week. We do about 90 minutes of real stories from real people. And occasionally we will put these together for a book. And just recently I came out with True Ghost Stories, Jim Harold's Campfire 6. And this is what I think is one of the most frightening stories in the book. And this one's about a curse. This was John from Idaho.

[00:00:51] And I'm going to share the story in his voice. John's story. John says, I kept this story to myself for many, many years, primarily for fear of ridicule. I probably wouldn't believe it had I not been there. My father ran a painting business in the late 70s and early 80s employing several people. One of the men wasn't working out. My dad decided that he needed to let him go. I don't remember why I was home that particular day, but I witnessed it.

[00:01:24] The entire incident. I was only about 10 years old. This man came to our house on the day in question, as all the men did every morning before going out to perform their assignments. My dad pulled the worker aside and said, I'm going to have to let you go. This just isn't working out. And the fellow, well, he became very upset and he said, you can't fire me.

[00:01:46] My dad replied, why couldn't I do that? The man said, because I'm Jesus Christ. What do you say to that? My dad says, you're not Jesus Christ. You're fired and you need to leave.

[00:02:01] This man was obviously very upset. He looked at all of us and said, I curse you. I curse you. I curse your family. I place this curse on you and you will have bad luck from this point on.

[00:02:12] Now, you always hear about curses, but you rarely see the real thing. We didn't think too much of it because this guy seemed somewhat unhinged.

[00:02:22] Now, this may or may not be the event that led to everything that followed. Still, it framed that way in my mind because it was directly after the curse that life began to go very poorly for our family.

[00:02:39] I hate to call it bad luck, but within a year, my mother became ill with cancer and passed away.

[00:02:44] Then, my dad had a couple of multi-million dollar lawsuits filed against his business due to a couple of freakish accidents.

[00:02:52] He lost his business, got ill, and died within a couple of years.

[00:02:57] With the context of all this going on, some extraordinary things began to happen around the house.

[00:03:02] It started to stray out of the area of terrible luck into my mind.

[00:03:07] The paranormal.

[00:03:08] I recall minor incidents.

[00:03:15] I was walking through the house and heard a knocking on an inside wall.

[00:03:19] Not an outside wall, but an inside wall.

[00:03:21] When I was home by myself.

[00:03:24] It was a very loud, clear knocking.

[00:03:28] That sort of thing continued for some time, and we could never figure out why.

[00:03:33] And I'd be up a lot in the middle of the night, and I remember looking out our front yard and seeing

[00:03:37] someone standing underneath our willow tree at two or three in the morning.

[00:03:42] This was after my mom passed.

[00:03:44] And my initial thought was that my eyes were playing tricks on me, and I was only seeing a shadow.

[00:03:49] But it was one strange shadow.

[00:03:53] On more than one occasion, I saw it detach itself from the tree and move away.

[00:04:01] Life was tough.

[00:04:03] Within a few short years, my mother died.

[00:04:05] Then my grandmother.

[00:04:06] My only surviving grandparent died.

[00:04:08] And my father passed as well.

[00:04:11] The intensity continued to ratchet up until this one night.

[00:04:19] It was 1980, and I was asleep in bed when I had a dream, which was absolutely horrible.

[00:04:26] In it, I began to see this green fog come up the stairway, and then out of the midst, I saw my mother and grandmother emerging.

[00:04:32] But they weren't ordinary people.

[00:04:36] They were crawling along the ceiling with claws and fangs.

[00:04:39] It was just a terrible, terrible dream.

[00:04:42] I woke up with a start, very shaken, but clearly cognizant that this was just a dream.

[00:04:48] And at that point, I felt pressure on my chest, pushing me down into my bed and holding me there.

[00:04:54] Of course, I'm familiar with sleep paralysis.

[00:04:58] But I don't know how to think about it.

[00:05:01] Sometimes I considered it a purely physical phenomenon.

[00:05:05] And other times, I believe there was a supernatural component that may exist.

[00:05:12] And when I experienced it, it felt anything but physical.

[00:05:16] As a matter of fact, it seemed like what I believe they called the old Hag syndrome.

[00:05:20] That seemed to be a lot more appropriate because not only was I unable to move, but I felt pressure pushing me down into my bed.

[00:05:28] Then, as I was fully awake, struggling against that force, I heard a voice whisper my name very loudly, clearly next to me.

[00:05:36] It said,

[00:05:37] John.

[00:05:39] I still couldn't move.

[00:05:41] I was obviously scared to death in trying to shake this off.

[00:05:46] Finally, the pressure was released.

[00:05:49] I jumped out of my bed and quickly went toward my light switch.

[00:05:53] Underneath it, I saw something very hard to describe.

[00:05:58] Words fail me.

[00:06:00] And I don't know what to call it.

[00:06:01] Maybe a creature?

[00:06:04] It stood about three foot tall.

[00:06:06] It was red and had a scaly body.

[00:06:09] Very thick.

[00:06:10] It was about the size of a fire hydrant.

[00:06:13] At least, that's what it reminded me of.

[00:06:17] Around its head going all the way around in a circle were small horns protruding outward.

[00:06:22] I saw it.

[00:06:24] I stopped and I'm telling the truth.

[00:06:26] It opened its mouth and it laughed at me.

[00:06:30] I leapt to the side, turned on the light switch.

[00:06:33] And there was nothing.

[00:06:36] I was very shaken at that point, questioning my sanity.

[00:06:41] I went downstairs into the living room.

[00:06:43] I sat down in a chair.

[00:06:45] I put my head in my hands, trying to make sense of the world.

[00:06:48] Opposite me, our television set.

[00:06:51] Well, it turned itself on.

[00:06:54] We didn't have a remote control.

[00:06:56] It was 1980.

[00:06:57] You had to physically go over to the TV and pull the knob out.

[00:07:00] I didn't turn it on and I know it.

[00:07:03] It powered on by itself.

[00:07:06] The stations didn't broadcast 24-7 back then.

[00:07:10] So there was only static on the television.

[00:07:14] I didn't know what to do.

[00:07:16] I got up, shut it off, and looked out the front window.

[00:07:20] There was that shadow again, standing by the willow tree.

[00:07:32] I don't remember what happened from there except to say

[00:07:36] I tucked this away as best as possible into the back of my psyche,

[00:07:40] thinking nobody would ever believe this.

[00:07:42] If you said I felt a touch, I heard a kick, that's one thing.

[00:07:47] But to claim I saw a creature that I could see and describe,

[00:07:51] that's likely to be dismissed.

[00:07:54] But there it is.

[00:07:56] That's my story.

[00:07:59] After my father died, everything seemed to just turn around.

[00:08:04] It was a strange series of horrible coincidences for those few years.

[00:08:09] If that's what they were, coincidences.

[00:08:12] I have my doubts.

[00:08:14] It was just one tragedy after another.

[00:08:18] And I wouldn't have tied it together had I not seen that man point at us,

[00:08:24] look us in the eye and say,

[00:08:26] I curse you.

[00:08:34] And that's the story of John from Idaho,

[00:08:37] from the files of Jim Harreld's Campfire.

[00:08:40] So what do you think?

[00:08:42] I mean, to be clear, that's John's story.

[00:08:44] Not mine, thank goodness.

[00:08:46] But are curses possible?

[00:08:49] Can we be cursed?

[00:08:51] And I do believe in the triumph of good over evil.

[00:08:54] But I also think evil exists.

[00:08:57] And I believe curses are real.

[00:09:00] And they can have real impact.

[00:09:02] And I believe they had a real impact on John.

[00:09:06] What a story.

[00:09:09] It's really awesome to be on the show with Edwin and love what he does.

[00:09:14] And we do our own little version of True Ghost Stories.

[00:09:18] You can find Jim Harreld's Campfire anywhere you find podcasts.

[00:09:22] And we do it every week, 90 minutes of people calling in very kind of raw

[00:09:27] and just their first person experiences with the strange and supernatural.

[00:09:33] And also, I have a series of books, True Ghost Stories,

[00:09:38] volumes 1 through 6, Jim Harreld's Campfire.

[00:09:41] You can find those mainly on Amazon.

[00:09:43] It's the best place to find them.

[00:09:44] Don't have to read them in any certain order.

[00:09:46] Every book has 65 to 70 spooky ghost stories in it.

[00:09:51] And not just ghost stories.

[00:09:53] We have some cryptid stories and so forth.

[00:09:56] But we've been doing those for years.

[00:09:57] So we hope that you get to check it out and you add Jim Harreld's Campfire

[00:10:03] in your rotation along with the great podcast you're listening to now,

[00:10:07] True Scary Story.

[00:10:15] Thank you so much for being on the show, Jim.

[00:10:17] If you want to hear my story through an interview with Jim,

[00:10:20] go check out his podcast over on The Paranormal Podcast

[00:10:24] and let him know I sent you.

[00:10:26] Thank you very much for listening.

[00:10:28] Keep it scary, everyone.

[00:10:30] See you soon.