ENGLUND: Hidden away in news reports from America's past
are tales so frightening that they must be true.
I'm Robert Englund.
Join me on a journey
into the dark shadows of our nation's history
to uncover a trilogy of stories
as terrifying as they are real.
♪♪
A humble storekeeper is tormented
by a prophetic countdown to doomsday.
Oh!
It's the dream. It's always there.
ENGLUND: A police station becomes a battleground...
[ Gunshot ]
...for a vengeful spirit...
I murdered him.
ENGLUND: And a teenager finds himself trapped
in a waking nightmare.
I heard something from inside the coffin!
Someone is alive in there!
Brace yourself for "True Terror."
[ Man screams ]
♪♪
[ Wind howling ]
You know, I've always been a bit obsessed with life and death.
Why do people think of them as opposites?
Their relationship is less black and white than gray.
It's that unnerving, murky middle ground
only the bravest of us dare enter.
But the stories I have for you now
are about three unlucky souls who had no choice.
We begin in North Carolina, the year 1848,
and there we find an everyman
named Jonah Middleton
just before fate decides to let him in on a dark secret.
[ Thunder crashes ]
♪♪
As the story goes, it was a rainy night,
and a 40-year-old shopkeeper is caught away from home.
[ Indistinct conversations ]
Jonah's never been inside a saloon before,
but the open door offers him a haven from the storm.
Whiskey, please.
Coming up, Jonah.
♪♪
Thank you.
Jonah's story is reported in a newspaper
called The North Carolinian,
and it says in the story that soon after he arrives,
he bumps into an old friend...
♪♪
Harvey.
...a man by the name of Harvey Crenshaw.
♪♪
I haven't seen you in ages.
-Cheers. -Cheers.
ENGLUND: What good fortune on an otherwise dreadful night.
Would you join us?
If Jonah didn't know better,
he'd assume someone planned this.
Jackson.
And Tom.
Sally Houston.
Am I seeing things?
There at the tavern was a table full of old friends.
Some of these people Jonah hadn't seen
or really even thought about for years.
But there they are, all at the same time.
How has the family been?
Been awhile.
They're well.
ENGLUND: There's a saying about coincidence,
how it exists only until a connection is made.
How about you all?
What -- What have you been up to?
Just sittin'.
Thinkin'.
Remembering.
Lots of remembering.
Not much else you can do around here.
MURPHY: The longer Jonah sits with all of his old friends,
the more he realizes there's something off about all of them.
ENGLUND: It's a struggle for Jonah to put his finger on it,
but then...
then it hits him.
Oh, boy, does it ever hit him.
Wait a minute.
Harvey, you -- you died last year.
It was black-lung disease...
[ Coughs ]...from the mines.
Jackson, you -- you were killed robbing a bank.
[ Gunshot]
Tom, you -- you were hanged as a horse thief.
[ Bones crack ]
And, Sally, you -- you drowned.
It was ten years ago.
♪♪
[ Chair scrapes ]
I don't belong here. I'm not dead.
Not yet.
But we'll see you in six weeks.
What?
You'll be dead, too!
[ Laughs ]
Six weeks, six weeks, six weeks, six weeks.
Oh! [ Breathing heavily ]
Jonah? What's the matter with you?
Nothing. I'm fine.
I just -- I just fell asleep for a second.
It looks like more than just a little nap to me.
Well, I was having a weird dream.
It was --
All my old friends were there.
I hadn't seen them in years, but they -- they --
they were all dead.
♪♪
REBEL: During ancient times,
dreams were thought to be prophecies
from the gods or other supernatural forces.
When I first walked in, it all seemed like a normal bar,
and then I saw my friend Harvey.
Jonah's case is much like what happened to President Lincoln.
On April 11, 1865, President Lincoln told a friend
a premonition he had of his own death.
Four days later...
[ Gunshot]
...he was assassinated in Ford's Theatre.
♪♪
ENGLUND: Try to imagine the fear and unrest
racing through Jonah Middleton's mind.
He's healthy as a horse with no deadly habits to speak of.
The odds he will die in six weeks are remote --
or so he prays.
It was just a dream.
♪♪
It seemed so damn real, like it was happening to me
and not just something I was dreaming about.
Well, real or not,
you need to get back to work.
But it --Ah. Hey.
Wash up. Look at this mess.
Your hands are filthy.
♪♪
BARTENDER: We'll see you in six weeks.
♪♪
Four, five, six.
ENGLUND: Friday the 13th -- as far as prophecies go,
I've heard it's a popular day to die.
What are you still doing here?
You're supposed to be delivering this package to Mr. Lavery.
♪♪
Did you hear me?
[ Inhales deeply ] Yeah, yes.
♪♪
[ Door creaks ]
Mr. Lavery, I have your order from the store.
Mr. Lavery?
♪♪
Mr. Lavery?
[ Gun cocks ]
ENGLUND: In his dream,
the bartender said Jonah had six weeks to live.
This is only Day 1.[ Gunshot ]
[ Man screams ]
♪♪
ENGLUND: In the fall of 1848, shopkeeper Jonah Middleton
had a prophetic dream
giving him just six weeks to live.
But this horrifying prediction seems to have been expedited.
This all you got?
From what we can tell from the records,
it appears that Jonah
was only about 12 hours into his six weeks
when he had the, shall we say, bad luck
of walking into a barn...[ Horse neighs ]
...where somebody was waiting to rob him.
[ Gun clicks ]
♪♪
[ Insects chirping ]
Mr. Lavery!
♪♪
[ Bullet ricochets ]
♪♪
[ Blows landing ]
♪♪
[ Yells ]
[ Thud ]
♪♪
[ Screams ]
Jonah!
What are you doing?!
You have to deliver this to Mr. Lavery.
I-I guess I just dozed off again.
[ Sighs ]
Get yourself together.
Yeah, of course, I'm -- I'm sorry.
♪♪
ENGLUND: They say our dreams reflect whatever's on our mind,
and Jonah's been thinking a lot about death lately
for obvious reasons.
Could his nightmare be real?
♪♪
ST. AMAND: A deep belief in a dream world like this one
is the kind of thing that can drive a man insane,
and that's exactly what starts to happen to Jonah.
REBEL: Once Jonah starts believing
in the prophecy of his death coming true,
he begins to morph between sleep and wakefulness
and sanity and madness.
♪♪
ENGLUND: As it gets closer to Friday the 13th,
the day of Jonah's prophesized demise,
he can think of little else.
Can you blame him?
♪♪
Aah!
♪♪
[ Gasping softly ]
For protection, he now carries a cross and rosary beads
with him at all times.
He also refuses to sleep.
He thinks if he stays awake,
his prophetic dream can't touch him.
♪♪
ENGLUND: It's Friday the 13th.
Finally, his hideous countdown is over.
The day the man in Jonah's dream
predicted he would die has arrived.
Jonah?
You don't look well.
Are you running a fever?
Fe-- Fever?
No, no fever. I'm -- I'm not sick.
We'll see you in six weeks.
The -- The dream. It's the dream.
It's always there.
[ Scoffs ] I-I can't shake it.
Jonah, you have got to stop.
Why don't you head on home?
Get a decent night's sleep.
Yeah.
REBEL: The stress of worrying about this prophecy
has led Jonah to exhaustion.
He can barely keep his own eyes open.
Lilly, you take care of yourself.
♪♪
[ Sighs ]
Jonah heads home, but he's so freaked out.
He's always looking over his shoulder
expecting imminent danger.
♪♪
Whoa.
ENGLUND: Jonah is consumed with fear.
[ Horse neighs ]
Fear he is being followed.
♪♪
Yah! Go on now!
And to Jonah,
it appears that Death is chasing him on horseback.
♪♪
[ Horse neighs ]
♪♪
MURPHY: When Lilly rides home,
she finds him dead along the side of the road.
The official report calls it an accident.
He was thrown from his horse,
and he hit his head when he landed.
♪♪
[ Glasses clink ]
ENGLUND: After his tragic death,
I'd like to think Jonah found himself
right where he started six weeks earlier --
among friends.
So, are we in Heaven, or are we in Hell?
[ Laughs ]
[ Laughter ]
BARTENDER: Six weeks, six weeks, six weeks, six weeks.
♪♪
I guess you could call Jonah's story a cautionary tale
or perhaps even a wake-up call,
but if there's a lesson here to be learned,
it's that if dreams can come true,
then so can nightmares.
We now meet a teenager named George Banks.
Of his fate, the press reported,
"Seldom has such a deed of horror been chronicled."
[ Chuckles ] And that's because when death comes a-calling,
it comes in the form of a waking nightmare.
[ Thunder rumbles ]
[ Indistinct conversations ]
♪♪
WOMAN: George, I'm here.
♪♪
Right beside you, dear.
♪♪
WELLS: George Banks was a 19-year-old man.
He had fallen ill,
and at first, his mother thought it was just a fever,
but he got sicker and sicker.
Finally, George went to a doctor
who diagnosed him with smallpox.
CLARKE: Smallpox is a nasty disease.
It's a highly contagious virus.
The symptoms of it are headache, nausea, sweating, tight muscles,
pustules and sores all over the body
that, if you survive this, leave horrible scarring.
George contracts the disease during a 20-year epidemic
that ravaged New Orleans from 1863 to 1882.
Records suggest that it caused about 6,450 deaths.
♪♪
To contain the disease,
George is confined to a vermin-ridden hospital
that only treats smallpox patients.
♪♪
DOCTOR: Has he been coughing?
No.
That's a good sign, right?
♪♪
I'm afraid not.
ENGLUND: It's been four weeks
that George has been battling this disease,
and his mother has been holding vigil
by his side the entire time.
♪♪
I'm sorry.
He's gone.
No.
George, no.
♪♪
But on the morning of Tuesday, May 25th,
the doctor can find no pulse,
so he declares him dead.
♪♪
George, no.
ENGLUND: His mother now faces the unthinkable --
burying her own son.
There's just one problem.
BANKS: [ Thinking ] No, no, no, no.
George is still alive.
Please, I'm not dead.
Mother, tell them I'm still alive.
Medicine in general in 1875
was nowhere near where it is today, obviously.
They didn't have technology.
They didn't have the science.
They didn't have heart monitors,
and so if they tried to take your pulse and couldn't find it,
if they couldn't find any other outward signs that you were alive,
they declared you dead.
Don't put me in that box.
No, please. I'm not dead.
Mother, tell them I'm still alive.
♪♪
[ Hammer pounds ]
♪♪
ENGLUND: George is alive but too weak to say so,
trapped inside his own mind,
aware of everything yet able to do nothing.
Please, no, no!
[ Man screams ]
-[ Grunts ] -Got it?
Y-Yeah, I got it.
ENGLUND: At the height
of the New Orleans 20-year smallpox epidemic,
time is never wasted getting the dead underground,
and there will be no exceptions for 19-year-old George Banks.
BANKS: [ Thinking ] No.
This can't be happening.
ENGLUND: His transportation to the cemetery
is as pitiful as it gets --
the charity wagon.
WELLS: The charity wagon is like a hearse for the poor.
During this time in New Orleans,
there were so many destitute people
dying of these diseases
that the city couldn't keep up with all the dead bodies,
so they used charity wagons to go around the city,
pick them up, and carry them into cut-rate cemeteries
called Potter's fields.
♪♪
ENGLUND: The wagon is driven by a man named James Connors,
a man as grim and humorless as his job.
James Connors was born and raised in New Orleans.
The only time he ever left was to go serve for the Confederacy
during the war between the states.
He wasn't married, no children.
I would imagine him to be a loner.
♪♪
Please, please let me out of here.
Please, someone.
I don't understand.
I'm not dead yet.
♪♪
WELLS: It seems bizarre and macabre to us today,
but in those days, being buried alive
was a fear that gripped many people.
There's even a word for it -- taphephobia.
Famous people were sufferers of taphephobia.
Alfred Nobel, Renoir, Hans Christian Andersen,
and George Washington all feared taphephobia.
ENGLUND: George Washington's fear of being buried alive
was spelled out in one of his last requests.
The fear of being buried alive was so widespread
that inventors were getting rich
selling specially designed coffins.
Those special coffins all included a mechanism
that could let the person inside communicate
with the people aboveground to let them know,
"I'm still alive. Come rescue me."
[ Bell rings ]
ENGLUND: But George Banks' coffin has no such features
though his fear of being buried alive is not irrational.
For him, it's all very real.
♪♪
Okay, think.
I've got to do something.
I've got to save myself somehow.
ENGLUND: About the only thing that can save George
would be a miracle.
[ Muffled groaning ]
♪♪
CONNORS: Whoa!
That's a good way to get yourself run over.
Sir, I heard something from inside the coffin!
Someone is alive in there!
CLARKE: As Connors drives the charity wagon to the cemetery,
a woman named Mary Thompson is walking down that very street
on her way to work.
Oh, thank God. Someone heard me.
...moaning from inside the coffin!
This here man [Knocks on coffin] is dead.
Dead body can make strange sounds.
At times, dead bodies do make noise.
Air inside of the lungs can shift when the body is moved,
and that can vibrate the vocal cords
and make sounds like grunts or moans.
I have the proper death certificate.
Well, I don't care what you have!
If you won't open that coffin, I will!
I'd be careful now.
He died of the smallpox.
♪♪
CLARKE: People were deathly afraid
of catching diseases from dead bodies,
and while it's remote, it's definitely not impossible.
[ Clicks tongue ] Let's go, donk.
♪♪
Why are we moving?
She was here to help me.
This can't be true.
This is madness!
ENGLUND: So close to being saved and still so far.
For George Banks, there is no reprieve from his torture.
His slow and steady march to the grave goes on.
If he can only get another chance.
But how likely is that?
Excuse me, sir, please.
WELLS: So, put yourself into Mary Thompson's place.
Whatever she heard must have been big enough
to convince her that there was something really going on here,
so she rallied a bunch of other people in the streets.
She convinced all of them, as well,
and then they all, as a group, chased James Connors
and his charity cart down the street.
THOMPSON: Sir, stop your cart!
-Stop! -He's still alive!
[ Breathing heavily ]
Sir, I heard him, and I know you heard him, too.
You're going to look in that coffin now.
WELLS: When that big crowd
finally caught up to James Connors,
he knew that he wasn't going to be able to bully all of them.
This was it.
George finally has a chance to be saved,
to get out of this nightmarish situation.
[ Breathes heavily] Finally, it's over.
♪♪
Oh, thank God.
♪♪
[ Hammer pounds ]
[ Sniffs ]
Dead -- just like the doctor said.
Let's go, donk. [ Smooches ]
Well, I heard him.
No! He saw me blink!
Why are you doing this?!
ENGLUND: Brought to the brink of rescue
only to be sealed up again in an unholy pine box.
[ Whimpers]
Maybe George Banks really is dead.
Oh, God.
If that were true, why is he so scared?
Mother, tell them.
They'll listen to you.
Tell them I'm feeling much, much better.
ENGLUND: Ah, yes,
because the gravedigger awaits.
♪♪
[ Man screams ]
♪♪
ENGLUND: In 1875, New Orleans doctors
have declared smallpox victim George Banks dead.
They couldn't be more wrong.
And George is fully aware
he's on the brink of being buried alive.
BANKS: [ Thinking ] Please, sir, where is your mercy?
The only man left who can save him
is charity wagon-driver James Connors.
But what's in it for him?
♪♪
WELLS: Connors wasn't paid for driving the cart.
He was paid for bringing bodies to the cemetery.
$1 for every corpse he delivered.
If he let George go, then he wouldn't get paid,
and so George really wasn't a person to him.
He was just a payday.
♪♪
[ Shovel scrapes ]
[ Dirt crumbles ]
ENGLUND: The odds are stacked against George,
and time is running out.
Seemingly unable to move or cry out,
what, if anything, can the poor man do?
Let me out! Let me out!
WELLS: The burial was already underway.
George had to do anything he could
to let that gravedigger know
that he was burying someone who was still alive.
Help me!
I'm alive!
I'm still alive!
[ Indistinct shouting in distance ]
THOMPSON: Sir, I know what I heard.
ENGLUND: For George Banks, nothing would be sweeter
than the sounds of angry voices.
I don't care about the money that you need to make.
But is it all a dream?
[ Gunshot ]
How could someone actually be trying to save him again?
George, I thought I'd lost you.
[ Weakly ] Mother. Mother, it was horrible.
♪♪
Here, I made you some soup.
♪♪
BANKS: No, no, no, no, no, no! No, please, please, please!
No! No, no! I can't breathe!
Help me, please! Stop!
ENGLUND: In the end, there is no salvation
and no resurrection of George Banks.
At only 19, the young man goes to an early grave
in more ways than one.
BANKS: Noooooo!
♪♪
WELLS: Mary and the others were witnesses
to everything that had happened that day.
They reported it to the police,
and the police eventually found Connors
and charged him with murder.
CLARKE: But Connors is acquitted,
mostly because George's doctor testified under oath
that he was dead when he left the hospital,
and there's no way to revive him.
ENGLUND: At his trial,
James Connors delivers the most disturbing of quotes.
He declares, "Even if George wasn't dead"...
As horrific as it sounds,
George Banks' ordeal was confined
to only one nightmarish hour.
But another man walked a fine line
between life and death for years.
That man was Atlanta police officer Calvin Hart,
and until one fateful graveyard shift,
he had no idea just how tenuous
and how terrifying that fine line could be.
♪♪
MURPHY: Calvin Hart is a five-year veteran of the force.
He normally walks a beat,
but after a month of double shifts,
he's so exhausted, he requests some station duty.
Hart's superior that night is Jack Stone,
and he's only months away from retirement.
♪♪
ENGLUND: The two officers are enjoying a quiet, uneventful night --
just what both of them were hoping for.
Here's to boredom.
Amen.
It's times like this
that fate has been known to show off its sinister side.
[ Sips drink ]
[ Door slams ]
[ Breathing heavily ]
He's after me!
It's all right, sir. You're safe here.
Come on in.
CLARKE: Hart reacts to the intruder as most people would.
He sees someone that's completely freaked out,
and he's concerned.
STONE: It's alright. Come on in.
It's alright.
♪♪
You -- You've got to help me, please!
Certainly, sir, certainly.
Hart, get this man a chair.
Calm yourself.
♪♪
Calm yourself.
[ Panting ] He -- He --
Let's start from the beginning now.
What is your name?
Peter Lester.
He wants me dead!
Who wants you dead?
Edward Smith.
Officer Hart recognizes the name,
but he can't place where he's heard the name before.
HART: Sir, calm down.
You just tell us where he is, and we'll question him.
Hart suggests that they find Edward Smith and question him.
It's then that Lester drops the bombshell.
Well, you can't question him.
Why can't we question him, sir?
[ Breathing heavily ]
I murdered him.
♪♪
CLARKE: This entire session has just changed gears.
Lester has just confessed to a murder.
The police aren't sure if this is a real murder confession.
Sometimes people make this up -- sometimes for attention,
sometimes because they're just crazy.
ENGLUND: If Peter Lester is telling Stone and Hart the truth,
a killer may not be the only one
who's entered the Atlanta police station.
♪♪
LESTER: Smith is here!
♪♪
He's here! In this room!
ENGLUND: The hour is late, but the most unearthly night
in the history of this Atlanta police station has just begun.
[ Man screams ]
♪♪
ENGLUND: The night that stockbroker Peter Lester
entered an Atlanta police station
remains the most bizarre in the department's history.
Never before and never since has anyone confessed to a murder
and also claimed the ghost of his victim
is trying to kill him.
HART: His name sounded familiar.
MURPHY: It doesn't take long for Officers Hart and Stone
to confirm that Smith is dead.
He was strangled with his own necktie,
but his killer was never found.
CLARKE: Officer Stone decides to ask Lester a question,
something only the killer would know.
♪♪
So how'd you do it?
I -- I strangled him with his own necktie.
♪♪
Lester tells the police that his girlfriend
had an illicit affair with Smith.
♪♪
When he found out, his emotions got the best of him.
Son of a bitch!
Smith.
Lock him up.
ENGLUND: Lester came to the police for help.
If he's placed behind bars,
you'd think that would make him a sitting duck for a ghost.
-Up you go. -Wait, no, no, no.
You can't keep me here, though.
HART: Up you go.
[ Gun clicks ] Wait.
Whoa, oh, oh, Lester, calm down.
Ain't no one gonna hurt you. Calm down.
[ Gun cocks ]
ENGLUND: What began as a quiet graveyard shift
has plunged into chaos.
♪♪
[ Punch lands, Peter groans ]
♪♪
I'm getting too old for this. [ Chuckles ]
ENGLUND: Ghost or no ghost,
Lester's confession is enough for the police to jail him
until he can be arraigned the following morning.
H-Hey. Hey. Can you, uh -- Can you let me out of here?
Sit down.
You've got to let me out of here!
Sit down and relax!
Stone doesn't doubt for a moment that Lester is insane,
but Hart -- Hart isn't so sure.
MURPHY: Hart knows fear.
He's a seasoned cop, and he knows
that Lester is afraid of something.
Now, the problem is, is it real, or is it in his mind?
May I have my coffee, please?
Yes, sir. It's hot.
♪♪
Just go back out front, will you?
He's fine. He ain't going nowhere.
Yes, sir.
♪♪
ENGLUND: Waiting for work to end
can be as futile as watching a pot boil.
But what Officer Hart doesn't realize
is that on this graveyard shift,
he will confront his own destiny.
♪♪
Hart has been hearing this ghost story all night long,
and naturally, he's getting a little jumpy.
ENGLUND: The power of suggestion is a powerful thing.
That doesn't mean that ghosts aren't real.
♪♪
[ Clock ticking, crickets chirping ]
♪♪
CLARKE: I think we've all been in this situation before.
You're exhausted, and there's that point
where the mind starts playing tricks on your eye.
♪♪
ENGLUND: Delusions? Perhaps.
But what if it's real?
Can one actually see things that lie hidden
in a dimension beyond our normal perception?
♪♪
[ Sighs ]
♪♪
[ Gasps ]
[ Man screams ]
♪♪
[ Gasps ]
ENGLUND: Could a vengeful ghost
be stalking an Atlanta police station
on a deceptively quiet night in 1909?
Officer Calvin Hart's police manual
has no chapter on the paranormal.
MURPHY: Think about this for a second.
When you see something that shouldn't exist,
it can be a shock to the system.
We all want to be in control,
and it's petrifying to think that a force,
maybe even a supernatural force, has taken over.
♪♪
[ Sighs ]
[ Gasps ]
ENGLUND: When a restless spirit makes contact with the living,
perhaps it's like a wanderer in the dark,
bumping into strangers
until it finds its intended target.
♪♪
[ Grunts ]
[ Gags ]
[ Groaning ]
♪♪
[ Inhales deeply ]
♪♪
ENGLUND: Officer Calvin Hart
swore an oath to protect and to serve.
His goal now is as clear as it is improbable --
save a confessed killer from his victim's ghost.
Let him out.
STONE: What?
You need to take a break.
You've been working too hard.
Go have a smoke. Calm do--
Give me the keys.
-Give me the keys! -I saw him!
ENGLUND: As one battle rages between mortals,
another begins between the living and the dead.
♪♪
History is full of ghostly encounters,
and one thing's for sure.
If a ghost is after you,
it's not going to come in for a quick kill.
It's going to torment you over time.
[ Indistinct arguing ]
♪♪
[ Groans ]
[ Grunts ]
[ Fork clatters ]
[ Knife clatters ]
[ Indistinct arguing ]
HART: You may be too old and don't care anymore...
[ Gags ]
Old? I'm not too old!
[ Arguing continues ]
[ Gags ]
♪♪
[ Weakly ] Help.
[ Gags ]
♪♪
[ Thud ]
♪♪
ENGLUND: Revenge is a dish best served cold,
and a ghost's revenge is as cold as the grave.
[ Camera shutter clicking ]
♪♪
CLARKE: The headline in The Francisville Tribune
qualifies as one of the most chilling in American journalism.
♪♪
The article says...
♪♪
And the case is as baffling now as it was 100 years ago.
♪♪
ENGLUND: Word to the wise -- justice has no expiration date
and no limit to its range.
It can reach us any time from anywhere,
even the grave.
Whether you're tormented by the dead
or you're marked for death
and can't stop it
or alive but can't prove it,
accept the unsettling truth
that life and death have a relationship
more twisted than you ever imagined.
Oh. [ Chuckles ] It was just an afterthought.
That is, until our next descent into "True Terror."
♪♪