“When I was 3 years old I heard scary noises. And then after that something nibbled my bed. My cats will be fine, but they’re not answering. I tried to talk to them but nobody answered. I saw lightbulb people.”

“What are lightbulb people?” I asked.

“You know at the end of the Sledgehammer [the music video]. Kind of like that.”

I tried to repeat this story back to him, to make sure I got it right, but he interrupted very quickly she told me to stop.

A little while later he told me that he’s not scared of the ghost story podcast we were listening to; he’s scared of his own story.

And he was very scared.

We were listening to Jim Harold’s Campfire episode 681 from Halloween 2024: “A Demon Story” when Elliot wanted to tell me his story.