Scary True Stories Told In The Rain | Ep. 498

Scary Stories and Rain

This horror podcast episode presents five distinct first-person narratives centered on supernatural dread, psychological terror, and visceral body horror.

Key takeaways

• Mr. Hinkle (also spelled Henkel) lures children with a punch bowl of candy before attacking them with a cane, dies shortly after, and allegedly appears at their windows on Halloween night.
• A narrator in rural Ontario experiences paranormal phenomena at his girlfriend's family home, including distorted rooms, periphery movement, and a pale arm crawling under furniture.

Main topics

• Supernatural hauntings and ghostly encounters
• Childhood fears and neighborhood legends

Notable quotes

"You got some candy, didn't you? You dirty little girl," he said in a sing-song type of voice.

Conclusion

The episode delivers a tightly paced collection of atmospheric horror tales

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Hey, welcome to Scary Stories and Rain. Do you want to listen ad-free? Just subscribe on Spotify for $2.99 a month. Now turn out the lights, enjoy the stories, and enjoy the rain. Speaker 1 (0:16) When I was seven years old, I lived on 62nd Street. I had a ton of neighborhood kids that I played with every day, and the days were spent roller skating, riding bikes, and going from house to house playing with all my friends. It was 1981, and my parents were pretty relaxed about letting me leave and be gone all day until nightfall. I don't remember when I first saw Mr. Hinkle, the old man that lived at the end of the block, but I remember the other kids warning me about him. Make sure never to walk in front of Mr. Hinkle's house. If he sees you, he'll run out and chase you. Mr. Hinkle grabbed me and tried to drag me into his house one time when I was getting my frisbee out of his front yard. Mr. Hinkle is the meanest old man in the world. Mr. Hinkle hates kids. After hearing all this, I was afraid, but I was also intrigued. I wondered if he really was as mean as they had all said. Would he actually try to chase us? So over time, we all got a bit braver and started to walk in front of his house. Nothing happened the first four times we did it, but on the fifth time, I heard the screen door open, and there he was. I see a short, bald, wrinkled old man. holding a wooden cane, raised over his head shouting at us kids to get off his property. He wasn't fast, but he began to shuffle out the door towards us. I noticed he was wearing slippers, and I was surprised by that for some reason. But then all of us ran as fast as lightning to get out of there. Once we were all the way down the block, we stopped running and began to laugh and talk excitedly about what just happened. It was like seeing Bigfoot or the Wolfman and outrunning them. Seeing such a feeble and slow old man made us feel that he couldn't do anything to us. So after a couple of days, we decided to up the stakes just a little on our fascination with him. I dare you to knock on Mr. Hinkle's door. This dare went on between all of us kids for about two days before someone was finally brave enough to try it. It was Mikey, the oldest boy of ten. As we all watched from the safety of some bushes across the street, none of us breathed as Mikey crept over to Mr. Hinkle's driveway. My stomach was in my throat as Mikey tiptoed over to the porch and the front door. Just as Mikey reached his arm out to bang on the door, Mr. Hinkle whisked the door open faster than we thought possible and grabbed Mikey by the arm. We heard him shouting at the boy who was hopping up and down trying to get away. We all screamed and ran in every direction to each of our houses. I ran so fast I never looked back. As I rushed in my house breathlessly telling my mother about the kidnapping I had just witnessed, she clearly didn't believe me and told me that I should be ashamed of myself for bothering a little old man. I was then forbidden from going down to Mr. Hinkle's house again and sent to my room. As I sat on my bed, I could only imagine what was happening to Mikey. The next day, as I rode my bike down the sidewalk, there was Mikey. I rushed over to ask him what happened. He dragged me into his house, and he was laughing because I couldn't get away. He had an iron grip on my wrist, but my brothers taught me how to fight, so I kicked him right in the knee and he let me go. He was bent over, so I knew it had to hurt. My mom went and talked to him after I told her what happened. She said she would call the police if we came near his house again, so I'm basically grounded. Wow, me too, I said. After this, we all left the old man alone. It wasn't worth it, and after seeing Mikey get grabbed, it was just too scary to mess with. So life went on. Months went by. I only saw Mr. Hinkle one other time when a nurse was helping him get out of his car and walking him into his house. It looked like he had a nurse with him at all times, so we all assumed he was really sick. But as I said, life went on, and we forgot all about mean old Mr. Hinkle. until one day in October. It was about two weeks before Halloween, and all of us kids were totally excited. The neighborhood was decorated, and we talked about trick-or-treating, which houses were the best, and what costumes we were going to be. Playing somewhere in the middle of the block, we finally look over and notice that Mr. Hinkle is sitting in a lawn chair in the middle of his driveway. He never came outside, so this was definitely out of the ordinary. He was wearing a large brown fedora hat, a tan jacket and trousers, brown leather shoes. His cane was resting against his leg, and on his lap was a huge punch bowl, filled to the brim with candy. We watched him for a minute, until he looked over at us and smiled. Speaker 1 (5:44) Ah, young children, come and get some candy! He yelled. He then chuckled to himself but kept smiling this weird, too large of a smile. It instantly felt like a trap. We huddled together and talked it over. Should we go over there? No. But he's got all that candy. It's a trick. I don't know. Let's just walk over but don't cross the street. We finally all agreed. We slowly walked over towards the end of the block, making sure to stay on the opposite side of the street from his house. Yes, come children, get you some candy. He bellowed as he saw us walking towards him. It was completely and totally weird. We all knew this was not right, but the temptation of candy was just too enticing for all of us. We had to know what the catch was. Finally, we are directly across the street from Mr. Hinkle. Come, come on, have some candy! He would keep yelling. Mikey finally shrugged his shoulders and walked over. Mr. Hinkle just smiled and nodded his head, and Mikey gingerly grabbed a candy bar from the punch bowl. He stood there and opened it, and Mr. Hinkle, seemingly understanding that Mikey was the test dummy, said, Speaker 1 (7:13) See? Don't you want some candy? My friend Beth then walked over and got some candy. She stood right there and ate it. Me and Angela exchanged looks and smiled. Guess it's alright. We ran across the street and both reached in and grabbed some candy. Speaker 1 (7:34) Good, Mr. Hinkle said. We all stood there eating our candy, and Mr. Hinkle, still smiling, said, Go get some more. As we all clustered around the punch bowl, each of us grabbing more candy, Mr. Henkel had picked up his cane without us noticing. THWACK THWACK THWACK Speaker 1 (7:59) He laughed as he began wailing on all of our heads with his cane. Get you some candy! Mr. Hinkle yelled and laughed as he swung the cane wildly, trying to hit us again. We were all stunned, but we all yelled and ran far enough away so that he couldn't reach us. We stood there watching him, confused as to why this little old man was so crazy. Finally, his nurse came out and said, Mr. Hinkle, you get back in this house and leave those kids alone. And she bent to pull him up out of the chair, moving McCandy to the ground. Mr. Hinkle was still wildly laughing and shaking his cane up to the sky as she led him inside. We all went home quietly, wondering what just happened. Too young to understand. Speaker 1 (8:55) Two nights before Halloween, I heard sirens. I looked out my window to see an ambulance heading down the street, and to see it stop in front of Mr. Hinkle's house. I saw lots of commotion, but I didn't know what was going on. I found out the next day that Mr. Henkel died. I was sad, but disturbed, and I didn't know why. Halloween night was a blast, and after gorging on candy and watching all the Halloween cartoons that night, I finally went to bed. I woke up to a loud thunderstorm. My bed laid directly underneath my window to my room, and when I was lying in