Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early

and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Today's story is about a

three-year period in France, where people were going missing at an alarming rate and nobody knew why,

but eventually it was discovered why. And let me tell you, it is absolute nightmare fuel.

But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious,

delivered in story format, then you come to the right podcast because that's all we do,

and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

So, if that's of interest to you, please offer to walk the Follow Button's dog,

but then just immediately go sell their dog in the parking lot of a big box store.

Okay, let's get into today's story. Okay, let's get into today's story. early on the morning of January 12, 1765, a 12th,

a 12-year-old boy named Jacques Portouffi sat up suddenly in his bed breathing hard.

The room was pitch black that he was in, but he could feel he was sweating and his heart was racing, and he tried to shake his head to kind of wipe the nightmare he had just had from his mind,

but he just couldn't do it.

All he could think about was how in this nightmare something had been chasing him,

and he had been running for his life and he was trying to get away,

but whatever this thing was, this horrible beast that was following him,

it just kept getting closer and closer and closer until it finally got him, and that's what woke him up.

Jacques reached up and touched his face and he realized he was crying,

and he quickly wiped the tears away because he didn't want any of his brothers or sisters to see that he was crying.

Jacques was the oldest of eight kids in his family, and all of them slept in the same

small room on straw-filled mattresses inside of their family's little cottage in the southern

French province of Jevoudon. And so, you know, Jacques, he's looking around the bedroom to make sure none of his

...