"We Used to Live Here" by Marcus Kliewer

'Get Out meets Parasite in this eerily haunting debut and Reddit hit—soon to be a Netflix original movie starring Blake Lively—about two homeowners whose lives are turned upside down when the house’s previous residents unexpectedly visit.'
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In this Halloween episode of BYOB, hosts Nikki and Kelly dive into Marcus Kliewer's horror novel, 'We Used to Live Here'. The conversation explores the author's background, potential film adaptations, and casting choices, while also delving into the themes of reality and perception. They share their favourite scares, analyze the relationships between characters, and theorize about the mysterious family and the house itself.

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Transcript

Nikki (00:12)
Hi everybody, welcome to BYOB, the Bring Your Own Book Podcast. I'm Nikki.

Kelly (00:17)
And I'm Kelly.

Nikki (00:18)
And today we are talking about Marcus Kliewer's horror book, We Used to Live Here. We were both so excited about this book. I feel like since it came out, we've been talking about it. And I am so excited to hear your thoughts. But before we say thoughts, Kelly is going to say the synopsis.

Kelly (00:43)
Okay. As a young queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can't believe the killer deal they've just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they're working in the house one day, there's a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in. As soon as the strangers enter their home, uncanny and inexplicable things start happening.

including the family's youngest child going missing and a ghostly presence materializing in the basement. Even more weird, the family can't seem to take the hint that their visit should be over. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family. Or is Eve just imagining things? Girl, you're not. You are not imagining things.

Nikki (01:40)
But maybe she is. The ending is pretty... honestly anger inducing. maybe we should start at the beginning with a question that I'm gonna ask you. What did you rate this?

Kelly (01:44)
you

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

A very good place to start.

So I gave it a five out of five and I was so excited to read this book. I mean, all I knew was that people show up and they used to live there and they don't want to leave. And I was like, nope. As soon as I heard that, I was like, no, no, no, no. I knew this was going to be creepy. I was ready to read it and I had a great time. I know you warned me about the ending and I don't know.

Nikki (02:06)
Okay.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kelly (02:32)
If I would have felt any differently had I not had your warning, but I get why you warned me because we will get into the ending. But like I had a great time and I found this book. It was kind of like toeing the line between horror and thriller. And I liked that because it was really fast paced. I didn't know who to trust at all. And it started like page one.

Nikki (02:54)
Mm-hmm.

Kelly (03:02)
I was creeped out the first page, family was already there. I was like, what the fuck? Like I thought we were going to meet people before I thought we were going to, I don't know, but it just started right away. And I was like, I actually, it took me three days to read it, but I spent most of my time reading it in one day when I was sick and I was just fully in it to win it in bed. Like just, yeah, I was disgusted or not disgusted. Well, I was disgusted at some parts.

But I was disgusting, curled up in bed, like, ugh, can barely breathe. And it wasn't just from my COVID, it was from the terror. So the anxiousness. What did you give it, Nikki?

Nikki (03:45)
I'm so glad. I gave it a 4.5 out of 5, and the 0.5 that is taken off is purely because of the ending. I really, the last two chapters, yeah, two chapters-ish, I really didn't like. I didn't feel like they added anything to have that kind of ending.

Kelly (04:07)
Mm.

Nikki (04:12)
I don't know if it's because I feel like I want something to be like wrapped up, like with a definite answer. But yeah, the, I didn't like that it turned around on her and that the family or Thomas was still there. I wanted it to be like they defeat the thing.

Kelly (04:23)
Okay.

Yeah, I did too.

Nikki (04:42)
because, you know, that's, it's just nice. I like that in a horror too. I don't think that every horror has to be like a sad ending. But I mean, haunted house stuff is my favorite genre of horror. A creepy house, a scary, scary basement. Like,

Aspects of the house keep moving around, like the windows change and different things like that. I thought it was great. I really did. I'm excited to get into details, but that's basically my overarching opinion.

Kelly (05:26)
Well, and I don't know if you looked this up or read anything about it, but I guess so the author he's an animator traditionally, I guess he's also Canadian. So that's cool. Yeah, but he submitted this as a short story for some contest on Reddit and he won and from that I should look up the name of the contest. I will look it up in a sec, but from winning

Nikki (05:35)
Yeah.

Woo woo!

Kelly (05:54)
they were like, they, publishers came and they signed him and they're like, we want this as a book, a novel, and which I'm kind of curious about because like, I really wonder how, how many things changed from his original short story to this like full length novel. But also from the short story, producers came by, I guess contacted him and wanted the movie rights for it. So like,

Nikki (06:03)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kelly (06:25)
Just all this stuff from a Reddit contest. That's just crazy to me. I 'll have to look this up.

Nikki (06:30)
Yeah, I wonder. I wonder like if it will ultimately get made into a movie like just because they purchase rights doesn't necessarily mean that it's gonna happen happen. But I'm torn on whether I actually want it to happen or not. There are a lot of really amazing thrilling moments in this book that could be so destroyed by a movie if they don't do it.

Kelly (06:53)
Mm-hmm.

Nikki (06:59)
perfectly. And I don't really think that it's worth potentially ruining. I know that it's different if you're the author and it's a lot of money and that's a really big deal, but as a reader, not worth it to me. For this.

Kelly (07:15)
Hmm, yeah. Yeah, like I was trying to not think about the movie adaptation possibilities while I read it because I also was like, how are they going to do some of this stuff? Like, especially when a lot of it is in her head or is it right? Like, we don't know. But not like there haven't already been movies like that. But yeah, I was wondering, like, how are they going to make this happen without cheapening it? I don't know.

Nikki (07:27)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kelly (07:43)
but I think it is gonna be a movie. They said on Goodreads, it says soon to be a Netflix, Netflix original movie starring our favorite Blake Lively.

Nikki (07:54)
Noooo

Kelly (07:57)
Is she playing Paige? I'm kidding. She's not. Paige is like Thomas's crazy wife who's like super religious and also just very unsettling to me anyway. But.

Nikki (08:05)
wife.

Well, now I know for sure I'm not gonna like it. I can tell you almost right off the bat that I'm not going to effing like it. That makes me so mad. She doesn't even act. What are they gonna do? Be like, you don't know this, but in editing, actually, every time I kissed Charlie, I was actually kissing my husband, Ryan. And then we had to CGI the actress's face onto her.

Kelly (08:18)
Thanks.

Like, she's gonna be like, but...

Nikki (08:43)
Because Ryan's in everything that I do. Is that what they're gonna do? Like...

Kelly (08:47)
God, or even worse, he's going to be Thomas. I don't know if they have anyone cast like announced yet. I don't know. But like, or it's going to be like, you know, she's in the house like, with her mouth open. I just don't understand. Right. Like her cool persona. And then it's going to be like the door is slightly ajar and then it zooms down on her shoes, which don't make any sense for this context. It'd be like a sparkly.

Nikki (09:06)
Yeah.

Kelly (09:16)
platform heel this gay house flipper living out in the middle of nowhere why she all done up we don't know yeah just gonna go to bed with her stockings still on the true horror of it all

Nikki (09:18)
Yeah.

Yep.

I pictured Eve as like this really quirky kind of like indie look kind of like Emily Skeggs or somebody like that that's more low-key and not ultra mainstream famous. Also that's that's also just like how I prefer my actors to be in thriller and horror movies.

Kelly (09:43)
Thanks.

super tall glamazon

Nikki (10:00)
How am I going, how are you gonna make me believe Blake doesn't act Lively is scared in this basement and her name is Eve? You can't, you can't do it.

Kelly (10:00)
Yeah.

right? No, no, I don't know. That's that's an interesting cast and she's too old. I hate that I'm saying that but like, I didn't picture her in her 40s or late 30s whatever she is. I don't know. 40s.

Nikki (10:19)
Right? She is. Yeah. Yeah, she's like 36 or 37 or something.

Yeah.

Kelly (10:32)
Okay, I don't know. I don't know what that look means. Don't look too far into it. I'm just so confused. Okay. For some reason.

Nikki (10:40)
I think everybody knows what this look means. I'm mad about this.

Kelly (10:49)
Like, like I said, I tried not to picture this as a movie, but I did picture Thomas as Jason Bateman.

Nikki (10:59)
I get that. Yep.

Kelly (10:59)
You know what mean? Yeah. And I think he could do it convincingly, I feel like, because he's kind of like, you know, guy next door, guy next door, you know, personable, like not really threatening, but could be a little iffy, sketchy. Yeah. Especially like stone cold faced, like, I don't know.

Nikki (11:13)
Yep.

menacing, yeah.

like Zachary Quinto. He does the... he does like charming psycho killer really good.

Kelly (11:28)
he's scary.

No, because I used to watch Heroes and he was so scary in that before the show went downhill. But anyways, so yeah, Save the cheerleader, save the world. Right. But I don't know if you watched that show that's from the show, but it's like a huge. OK, it was pretty good until it wasn't. But so, OK.

Nikki (11:39)
Yeah.

That's a different episode.

I didn't. I remember the commercials though.

I guess we should talk about this book.

Kelly (12:04)
Yeah, so I was gonna say I did look it up. The contest was on the subreddit No Sleep. And it's a forum purportedly devoted to true horror stories. Everything is true here, even if it's not. And there was a readership at the time. Yeah, there is a readership at the time of about 14 million people. So that's pretty cool. And he won.

Nikki (12:21)
I like that.

Yes. Yeah.

Kelly (12:33)
It was in a four part series similar in structure to the novel.

Nikki (12:39)
Nice. That's dope.

Kelly (12:40)
Okay. yeah. It says,

There's a second book? Sorry. Okay, what? There's another there's a okay, so he got he sold the rights for the film and he got a publication deal for three books before even one book had been fully written and the second book is based off of an unpublished story called The Caretaker and he's already sold the rights to Universal

Nikki (13:02)
Right.

Kelly (13:14)
with Sydney Sweeney attached to it to star. Holy crap, this guy hasn't even started and he's like, good for him. Shit.

Nikki (13:19)
Interesting.

Yeah, I'll definitely read more from him.

Kelly (13:26)
yeah, I loved it!

Nikki (13:29)
And I find that with thrillers and horrors, the journey for me is more important than the destination. Like, even though I didn't like the end of the book, I can allow myself to just kind of forget that that happened and just enjoy the scares I had along the way.

Kelly (13:51)
Yeah, because it's such a small part of it, right? So it's like two chapters out of all of the rest that I was like, my god, like I was messaging you being like, I don't trust the six year old. Whatever she is, the little kid Jenny, I was like, I hate this.

Nikki (13:55)
Yeah.

I know.

Yeah.

So what was your favorite scare in the book or your favorite tense moment?

Kelly (14:21)
god, I think...

One of the best parts for me was when Eve was hiding from the lady with the hammer.

And she was like hiding in the attic and like running around was it the attic or the basement? The basement she was like going through like this labyrinth basically in the basement trying to get away from her. And then she was hiding in the wardrobe and like just looking through the crack being like, my god, she's gonna come here, you know, and then she like came in.

Nikki (14:44)
the basement.

Yeah, with all the paintings around her.

Kelly (15:02)
And then came in and then Thomas came in and just, because I was just like, I was holding my breath. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding , except I knew I was holding it because I was so scared. What about you?

Nikki (15:13)
Yeah. Yeah, the... So I loved the basement stuff. I thought it was really interesting that the basement kind of shifted and changed and you see the correlation between Eve, what Eve is seeing and what the boys saw in the kind of interview, the police interview where...

Kelly (15:38)
Mmm.

Nikki (15:40)
There was four boys outside the house and two went in and they couldn't find the other friend. And he was like, there was this hospital hallway and we, my friend went down there and something happened to him and all of this stuff. But my favorite, least favorite, favorite, I guess, because I was actually really terrified, was Eve going to the attic for the tire chains.

Kelly (16:10)
Yeah.

Nikki (16:11)
And she's like describing like going through that tiny hallway into the room and it has all of like boxes of Charlie's stuff and she can hear the dumb waiter moving. And then she looks out and there's no one there. And there's like this drip that's going constantly and she comes back out and the flashlight's not working. She's like hitting the flashlight on her hand to try to keep it.

you when you like shake the batteries to try to get it to connect and just the the flashlight falling to the ground and rolling and you seeing the lady's feet and then she runs at her is the stuff of my nightmares. I

Kelly (16:42)
Mm-hmm.

Sorry, she didn't even like run right away, which made it even more creepy because she like shuffled, shuffle, shuffle. And then she fucking booked it. I'm like,

Nikki (17:08)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And I remember reading that it was really late at night. I think I stayed up until two or three in the morning that night reading. And I had to wake my boyfriend up to go to the bathroom with me because I was terrified to go out there on my own. The way that my house is, is we're in a walkout basement. And so

Kelly (17:24)
God.

Nikki (17:40)
There's our bedroom and this hallway with an opening to the whole living room and then our bathroom and right across from the bathroom is an exterior door. Like it goes right out into the backyard, which usually doesn't bother me that much, but I...

I was running and I made him walk behind me because I was worried that if he walked in front of me, something would grab me. And he is a little asshole, it probably would happen that he would do that or like hit my leg or something. Yeah, but that scene really, really freaked me out.

Kelly (18:09)
Mmm, Gatsby. Seriously though.

Nikki (18:27)
And the next day I really appreciated it. Just in the moment I was like in bed.

Kelly (18:33)
Yeah

It's true. Like this was scary. It was the right amount of scary for me because like I said to Scott, I was like, maybe I will watch this movie, especially now that I know all the scares. Maybe I'll be more prepared. like it was because you were or least I was on edge like the whole time. You didn't really have to do that much more to get me.

Nikki (18:41)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Kelly (19:04)
really creeped out because it was already like shit is unsettling. I don't know what's going on. I don't know who to trust. I don't understand why these people are still here. And then they leave and I was like, thank God. But then we know they come back and, you know, but I guess to backpedal a bit. This book kind of puts into perspective, buying a house in middle of nowhere.

Nikki (19:06)
Yeah.

Yes.

Kelly (19:32)
Doesn't it? Which I already knew I didn't want to do, but holy.

Nikki (19:35)
Well, definitely check out your neighbors. You have abandoned house cabin over on one side through the woods. Terrifying. And then you have Stepford wife Heather on the other side with her beautiful garden and her creepy somebody in the house that's like opening the door and listening that we never hear about again ever.

Kelly (19:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, seriously, I know I was kind of like, well, that's what I I'm like, what is real in this book? You know, how far does this house reach and its inhabitants because she knew all about Thomas. She didn't know a lot about his sister we'll say

Nikki (20:04)
That irritated me.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Kelly (20:30)
she like she thought she was someone else like a different name and something else had happened to her and all this stuff so like we have two different realities going on in the area around this house but there's also like a motel or an inn nearby that's also kind of shady like i don't know it's weird

Nikki (20:55)
Yep.

Kelly (20:57)
Maybe it's on a ley line and everyone's like living in two different.

Nikki (21:03)
Yeah.

Kelly (21:04)
Because, okay, so let's try to explain this, because I feel like we could be confusing people if they haven't read it yet. We're going to spoil it for you, but be warned. did you say boo?

Nikki (21:13)
Boom.

Yeah, I said boom.

Kelly (21:20)
but like, okay. So the book starts off with Charlie and Eve and they just bought this house and they're trying to fix it up because they flip houses and Charlie is like out at work or running an errand or something and Eve's all alone and this family shows up and she's like, I don't want to let them in. But eventually she feels bad about saying no, because she's a people pleaser.

which was also scary because wow, can I not relate as I'm sure you can also relate to some of it.

Nikki (21:52)
I would have been that person. I would have been like, I really don't want them in here. And I would have been like, yeah, sure. I would have let them in. I can almost guarantee you I would have let them in.

Kelly (22:02)
I wouldn't have even opened the door because Scott and I have gone into discussions before where he's like, my God, Kelly, just open the door. And I'm like, I don't want to open the door. I don't know this person. Why are they here? I don't need to open the door. If it's so important, they can leave a letter in the mailbox or they can come back and try again. I don't need to open the door. You know what mean? So he actually had a friend in school in university

who opened the door during a house party. So you think people are here, it's fine. And he got beaten and mugged. Yeah. Right? So I'm just like, if I'm not expecting you, don't expect me to open the door. So, but if I was out and about, I'd be like, like, don't know what to do, but come to my door. I'm not opening it unless I know who you are and I'm expecting you, but yeah. So she lets them come in.

Nikki (22:32)
Which is awful.

Right.

Kelly (22:56)
And there, let me just look around for 15 minutes. Turns into not 15 minutes. We don't know how long. And he like starts talking about.

Nikki (23:05)
Well, they end up having dinner there because Jenny goes to the basement and won't come out.

Kelly (23:13)
What do you think? Do you think she was really in the basement? Yeah. Do you think she was really in the basement?

Nikki (23:13)
and that turns into spending the night.

Yeah, I do. Yeah, just like the way that the interaction happened down there and her, like, Tom is talking to her, like, through the gap.

Kelly (23:22)
yeah?

Nikki (23:37)
he was like leaning down being like, Jenny and she's like, sorry. And Eve was there for part of that. So I don't think that she wasn't in the basement. Do I think that her entity like stayed in the basement the whole time? I don't know. But I definitely think that the basement is kind of like the root of all evil. Because usually if a house gets

Kelly (23:42)
Hmm.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Nikki (24:04)
kind of redone or whatever, it stays on the same foundation. So, unless you demolished the whole thing, and even then, who knows, like that shit could just be in the ground. It's in the water. But yeah, so I think she was in the basement.

Kelly (24:10)
True, yep.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Okay.

I don't know. I have a theory, but I'll save it for later because we have to make it make sense first for everyone. So they say the night because

Nikki (24:33)
Yeah. Okay.

Well, hopefully they've read it and it makes sense, because this is a very complicated episode to listen to if you haven't read it.

Kelly (24:48)
Or if you plan on reading it and don't want to be spoiled because we're gonna say it all because we have to. Needs must. No. So they stay the night because there's a snowstorm, of course, and there's a bridge that you can't get over for whatever reason. Hate that. I was I was for sure thinking that Charlie was going to be dead in the woods or something.

Nikki (24:51)
Yeah. Yep. Maybe not in order, but we'll say it.

Kelly (25:12)
Like I was like, she's not coming home at the beginning, right?

Nikki (25:14)
That's what I thought too. That's what I thought. was like, okay, well, there you go. Charlie's gone. Whole character you don't even have to write in.

Kelly (25:24)
cast. Yeah. Bye. Yeah. So but she does show up and she's like all for it. She's like, whatever. Like they're fine. Just a family which I'm like, what the fuck? Okay, because I would have been like, who are these people here? Why are they still here? What?

Nikki (25:28)
Yep.

That would have been Scott. He would have been like, it's fine, Kelly.

Kelly (25:46)
I feel like he would pull me aside and be like, what the fuck? Like, how do we get rid of these people? I feel like I don't know. my God. No. I won't let him. So but then like, I also wonder, so the next day, that's when Eve goes down the hill, which I'm imagining she's like on top of a mountain. I imagine she walked for like an hour or two to get to Heather's house. I have no idea how far she walked.

Nikki (26:15)
okay.

Kelly (26:17)
Right? Like, because she's like talking about trekking several miles. So like, I don't know how far away she is from this next location. She brings her dog Shylo, which I was so worried about that dog. I'm glad the dog seems to be okay. I don't know. I don't know what to trust.

Nikki (26:35)
I I think the dog died.

Kelly (26:41)
What? When? No!

Nikki (26:47)
Yeah, you remember Shylo goes down to the basement and then Shylo comes back from the basement. Think Shylo died. I mean, if you want to believe Shylo lived, that you do that for your mental health. Shylo's fine. Shylo's fine. Dog came back. Cute dog. Proceed.

Kelly (27:10)
Well, at this point, Shylo was definitely alive, ok?! So she and Shylo go down to the next door neighbor, which is like down quite a bit. And they chat with Heather. There's that mysterious person maybe in the house making all these noises and the phone ringing for her at Heather's house with Charlie on the other end. That was so creepy.

I, for one, couldn't understand that she just left the family at her house, just like left them. Don't trust these people in your home. But what I was gonna ask you is what do you think happened during that time when she was at Heather's house and the family was just there?

Nikki (27:57)
This is silly. I was gonna be like, I think they all turned into really like large, arachnid like beings and just like scuttled around the house. then she came back and they were like, hi.

Surprised to see you here. I think that they just hurt. let me adjust my wig.

Kelly (28:19)
didn't know you were back so soon.

you

Bye!

Nikki (28:27)
think that they like, I just, that's maybe not spiders, but I think that they just absorbed into the house and they were just doing weird creepy ass shit. And then there, maybe they were awakening things. I mean, he does say when he first comes in, the real like 15 minutes of them supposedly being there, he's like, huh, that's different.

Kelly (28:32)
Mm.

Mm. Yeah.

Nikki (28:57)
the there used to be a stained glass window in this room, which later you find out is in the upstairs room and then it moves. So I'm. Yeah, I'm wondering if they're waking things up or if they're burrowing themselves deeper into the home now that they're back. Or he's back because it's kind of ambiguous.

Kelly (29:06)
Mm-hmm. The antler chandelier.

Mmm.

Nikki (29:26)
way that I looked at it towards the end was that Paige and the kids were just extensions of Thomas. They weren't real. That was my kind of thought, is that he created this illusion to get in with Eve, and the dynamic between him and his wife where

Kelly (29:35)
Okay.

Nikki (29:50)
His wife is more of all of the aspects that Eve doesn't like with like religion and things that make her uncomfortable because of her own childhood and like familial trauma. And then Thomas becomes this person that she can relate to in the way where he is kind of always side eyeing Paige and being like, the religion thing and no phones. That's so silly.

Kelly (30:03)
Mm-hmm.

Nikki (30:16)
and so Eve can relate to him in this way where they're both looking down on this woman so that he can get into her mind even more. That's my idea, is that they're all not real.

Kelly (30:17)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Okay, so my theory, yeah, my theory is because throughout the book, which I also really loved, they had like little snippets of articles or like case files and write like the Reddit kind of posts, know, of like conspiracy theories and stuff like that. Which makes sense that this was from a Reddit contest now. I think that's clever. But

Nikki (30:32)
or the Hymn.

I loved that, yeah.

Yeah.

Kelly (31:00)
In one of or a few of the different clippings, they talked about there was a group of five men around the house at one point and they were never found. I feel like the five men are this family and it's the five, like they're five ancients, because they talked about Thomas was an ancient or like there's ancient forces being around here and like there's that, what did they call the?

not the outside house, there was like that cabin that was like a portal or some kind of thing, which was also like very trippy. And I was like, Whoa, wait a sec. Who is that old man? I pictured the man in She's the Man being like, "I gotta turn on the sprinklers." "I gotta turn the sprinklers on."

Nikki (31:40)
Right?

I thought the man, I thought that the man could possibly have been the boy that they interviewed at the police station. he goes back because he's still looking for his friends and for the reality that he is from. Because there's all this stuff on the walls, right? Like all these postings and articles and maps and drawings and all of that stuff. And I just after

Kelly (31:57)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Nikki (32:16)
when I'm like, was re kind of capping the book in my head of everything I just read because it was wild. I was like, I wonder if that is this guy that was in the basement.

Kelly (32:22)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it could be. Yeah, like I feel like it's definitely someone we met peripherally. It's got to be because why are they showing us all this stuff?

Nikki (32:35)
Yeah.

Kelly (32:38)
I wondered, I'm trying to remember it was like, if you go to the house and the middle aged woman is there, don't talk to her or like don't let her see you or like something. I was like, who's the woman? And I was going down rabbit holes of like, is that Eve? Is it Heather? Is it like, I was trying to figure out who these people were. I don't know who she is. I don't know if we'll ever know. But, my, yeah, my theory because of all that extra stuff in the book, I feel like

Nikki (32:56)
Right.

Kelly (33:07)
because there were five men and there's the family of five, they just come as whoever they need to be for it to, for it, like to do what they want to do, I guess. So when Eve kills Paige, I wonder is Paige actually dead? Cause I don't know. It's like, how do you kill an ancient? I have no fricking clue.

Nikki (33:31)
Yeah, or do they just go into like a resting period and it just takes them time to reawaken.

Kelly (33:35)
Yeah.

Mm hmm. I don't know in stasis. Yeah. I have no clue. No clue. but I did, I kind of liked the stuff with the cabin in the woods because it added another layer of like, what is going on? Where did this house come from? Like, because I don't always like the trippy kind of horror stuff.

Nikki (33:42)
I don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

yeah.

Kelly (34:09)
because sometimes I'm like, okay, this is too much, we're losing the point here. But I thought it worked pretty well. I don't know.

Nikki (34:14)
Right.

I do too. Especially with how she gets to the cabin, she's following somebody. She's like running after this person that she thinks she sees. And I can't remember specifically if she thought it was Thomas.

Kelly (34:26)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Nikki (34:37)
Like I think that he was like kneeling out in the snow. She sees him out the window or she's walking back from Heather's or something and she sees him kneeling out in the snow and then he gets up and he starts to go and she's following and he's getting faster and faster and he's up in the trees and leads her to this clearing with the cabin. And that in itself was enough for me to be like, no.

Kelly (34:42)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right? No! Right? my god, no.

Nikki (35:04)
I wouldn't follow. I'd be like, please go in there, never come back. Like just. But when she goes into the cabin, my heart was beating so quickly and the man coming to the door. And it didn't feel like one of those books where, you know how sometimes you can feel the essence of a book and it's like, she's going to get raped or.

Kelly (35:18)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Nikki (35:33)
It feels like something where the author wants to be overly provocative with sexual situations. And I didn't feel like that at all. I didn't, that wasn't a fear, but I was just feeling like this man is going to run at her or what if something happens to the dog or what if he holds her there forever?

Kelly (35:42)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

No.

Hmm.

Nikki (36:03)
And then she's trapped in another house or, you know, there's just so many possibilities. And her scooting past him, when he says, you have to leave here, you have to get out of here. And she's like, okay. And she's running past him out the door. And I was just thinking, he's going to grab you. He's going to grab you.

Kelly (36:04)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nikki (36:27)
Yes.

Kelly (36:28)
hoping that they would work together. He was like, you need to leave. And I'm like,

Nikki (36:32)
I you were gonna say, I was hoping he was gonna grab her.

Kelly (36:42)
like, he can give her some like, not tools or resources, but like some info, you know, like, they can work together, maybe bring it down. I don't know, because the other thing I was thinking about while reading this is like, they the way the book plays with time, and space, if you will, right, because it's like parallel universes of sorts. Every time she left the house and went on these kind of like weird side quests, I was like,

Nikki (36:50)
Yeah.

Right.

Kelly (37:11)
Is this actually real time or is she like has she been gone for days? Has it been like, I don't know, right? Especially in the cabin because weird shit's going on and there's yeah, like I don't even know. I don't know.

Nikki (37:22)
Where are you?

I think until... I think it is real time just because Charlie is still Charlie until she picks Eve up in the truck and Charlie goes into the house to get her stuff. So you'd think when Eve comes back Charlie'd be like, where you been? It's been five days.

Kelly (37:40)
She's not.

Hmm.

Ugh, yeah.

Right?

Nikki (37:59)
or whatever. So I think that it is real time.

Kelly (38:00)
Yeah.

Nikki (38:05)
But I think my question with it is when she's leaving to go do those other things, is she actually leaving the house?

Kelly (38:17)
Yeah, I wondered that too at times. Yeah. I don't know. Because I mean, Charlie comes and goes, it seems like with no problem. I did wonder at first if she was in on it at the beginning. Did you think about that? She was sketch.

Nikki (38:18)
Or does she just think she's leaving the house?

Yeah. Well, when Eve calls her from Heather's house and Charlie's like, what do you want, basically? And ignoring her and being so shitty. I'm thinking, I think Charlie is cheating on Eve. And I think that's a whole other thing. But also when

That phone call happens, is she talking to Charlie at all or is that Thomas pretending to be Charlie and trying to make Eve worry to create a separation between them? Because it's very clear that Thomas doesn't really seem to give a crap about Charlie at all. He's very focused on sinking into Eve because she's the weak one, which she is. Charlie's very self-assured and

Kelly (39:16)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Nikki (39:37)
kind of has this like, blase, fair attitude about things. And Eve is very worried, very self-conscious, and anxiety to the max.

Kelly (39:42)
Hmm.

Yeah, but I wonder though, let's just let's just have a I don't want to say a debate because no a discussion because do we think Eve is the weaker one because although she is a worrywart and you know, she is constantly like battling with her inner monkey toy. Right of like, which was so sad.

Nikki (40:09)
Yeah, creepy Phantom of the Opera situation. Yeah, that's what I was thinking the whole time.

Kelly (40:14)
Yes, masquerade. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So she's like always thinking like, don't open that door because this is going to happen or like she hates you or blah, blah, right. There's always these like insecurities going on. But with Charlie and to be fair, we don't get her in her dialogue, but like she doesn't worry about anything and she just kind of falls for everything. She takes everything at face value.

with the family, right? And she's like, it's fine. Like, what are they going to do? You know, like, so I don't know. I don't, I don't know. Like at least Eve is like, something is off and I don't know what it is, but I'm on edge. She's not, if we're going to say weak, strong, whatever. If she's, she's not strong enough to say no to them and not even let them in, which is really bad, but she's never like,

Nikki (40:57)
Right.

Kelly (41:11)
It'll be fine. Like Charlie's just like dismissive, like it's fine. Even like the saddest, one of the saddest parts for me in the book is when they're about to get out, you know? And Charlie is like, well, I gotta go pack some things. And Eve's like, no, you don't. Like, let's just go. But she's like, no, no, I gotta go in. Like, And her Eve watching them through the window in the house, like tracking them.

Nikki (41:23)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Kelly (41:41)
That was stressful.

Nikki (41:43)
Yeah, that was stressful. I think in terms of weak and strong, this situation, this book would not have happened if Charlie had been the one home.

Kelly (41:46)
Ugh.

Oh probably, Yeah.

Nikki (42:03)
because of the way that Thomas set his family up. I think that if someone would have come there in the night, Charlie would have either not opened the door or been like, sorry buddy, you gotta go, storm's a-coming, move it along. So yeah, I really, I-

Kelly (42:09)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you should get going.

Nikki (42:29)
think that it was set up perfectly to prey on everything that makes the that prey on all of Eve's weaknesses. Charlie has weaknesses, but that's not what they were targeting. They just used her, her attitude to their advantage because she was so, well, whatever. I mean, I don't know how anybody could be like that, but

Kelly (42:41)
Mm. Mm. Yeah, that's true.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nikki (42:59)
I think too, when you are in a relationship with somebody, this is getting very like psychosomatic, when you're in a relationship with somebody that worries so much, you have to be like that in a way because of what are you going to do? Just drive both of you into this like crippling anxiety. Somebody has to say, it's chill. Just be calm and stop because you can't always. So

Kelly (43:12)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Nikki (43:30)
I don't know if that's something Charlie always had or if being with Eve made her more that way. And just having to hear Eve all the time, the monkey is telling me whatever, you know, that kind of thing. I think I too would be like, we're, it's good. It's good. Cause you can tell that Charlie's getting annoyed and

Kelly (43:38)
Mm.

You

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nikki (43:57)
I don't really blame Charlie because I think it would be kind of annoying. It would be hard to deal with. I'm speaking as the person who has the anxiety in the relationship. I annoy myself. like, I... It's hard and you can't be a perfect partner all the time. And when somebody is always upset about something, it gets a little grating. So I like...

Kelly (44:16)
Hmm. Yeah.

Hmm. But.

Nikki (44:26)
see a lot of... things.

Kelly (44:31)
to to kind of you know back us up you and me up okay sometimes back it up sometimes it's not even worrying it's like i can see five steps ahead and here's what it is okay and why aren't you listening to me and that ticks me off so much like okay

Nikki (44:38)
Beep, beep.

Kelly (44:57)
Where I live, as you know, is right by a highway and we don't have a door that connects our backyard to our house. And so to take the dog out, we need to put the dog on the leash and then get to our fenced in backyard, close the door, let her off. Same thing with Linus, our other dog. And Scott took our other dog out a couple of times off leash because he was like, it's right there. It's fine. And what happened?

dog ran out into the road and almost got hit by a car twice and I was like, are you kidding me? So like things like that. It's like, I'm not worrying. It's like, put him on a leash, put her on a leash. It's right there. You're avoiding all this stuff. So with Eve, she probably feels like that sometimes too of like, my God, like all these things, all these things. Whereas like the other person's like, just relax. It's not going to happen. Sometimes it is going to happen if you don't

Nikki (45:29)
Right.

Yeah.

rate.

Kelly (45:56)
do the frickin things. But if Charlie was home, like you said, this wouldn't have happened because she would have been like, no, or not open, not even open the door. Like, so I don't know. I just need to defend us a little bit as  worriers because sometimes it's not even a worry. It's like, hello, why can't you see this is how it's going to happen? You know?

Nikki (46:01)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Well that is like, that's what it feels like. like, we can see the worst case scenario and even though that might only happen one out of a hundred times, you just don't want to take the chance that this is the time. Like,

Kelly (46:23)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I have said so many times growing up and even now, I'd rather be stupid and okay than, you know, cool and dead. You know, like, just do it.

Nikki (46:45)
Yeah, well, that's the thing, right? There are, there really are certain things that it's okay if people think you're a little like dorky or weird if you are keeping yourself safe. That's just my opinion. Like I don't, I don't mess around with shit.

Kelly (47:05)
Yeah. Right? Right?

No, no. So I think that makes sense though, that like, the fact that Eve was there alone, they decided to strategize and just pinpoint because I did think for a sec, like, why are they zoning in on Eve? Like, why not Charlie? Because we don't see Charlie's point of view at all, which I liked. Because I think if you get too much in a horror, it's like, it's not very scary. If that's what happens, you know, so.

Nikki (47:21)
Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, that's the thing, if we were thinking, my God, what if Charlie, like, doesn't like her, Charlie's so mad at her, but then in her head we're hearing her be like, aw, Eve. Well, and then it ruins that whole line of tension because you're getting answers to these things that they're trying to build up worry about.

Kelly (47:51)
You

Yeah.

Yeah. Or like Charlie being like, I lost my locket. You know, then we know OK. She knows she lost her locket. Which that part I was like, OK, Charlie's dead. You know, like she finds the locket hanging on like a nail that she already took out or a screw she already took out hanging over the fireplace.

Nikki (48:05)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Kelly (48:24)
I don't know. But thank God she took that locket because it's grounding her in her reality, the real reality we think, right? This is the thing. This book is so trippy. It's like, what is real? What is not, you know?

Nikki (48:25)
Yeah.

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Well, I mean, talking about that, then we have to talk about how they go to the motel. The motel that they drive past on their way to the house at the beginning of the book or around the beginning of the book, and it's missing letters and it's really dilapidated and clearly not really in use anymore. And after they leave and I think personally,

Kelly (48:46)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Nikki (49:08)
If I were leaving that situation, I would have driven a little further than the motel, like 40 minutes down the road, but whatever, not me.

Kelly (49:17)
right?

right? Well that's the thing because it's like clearly this whole I don't know if it's a town or a village this whole little tiny area is being affected by the house. Shit is afoot okay? Something is awry and I would not go 40 minutes down the road be like well I guess we're gonna stick the night out here whatever you know like no I'm not I know

Nikki (49:38)
Yeah.

Kelly (49:48)
Why don't we drive an hour or two get to like a Best Western, Holiday Inn, whatever three star place.

Nikki (49:55)
Yeah, credible. Yep.

Kelly (49:58)
with power, with Wi-Fi, so you can try to look things up. Whatever 'cause she doesn't have her phone.

Nikki (50:05)
But also because the real Charlie's in the house and it's this entity with her, is it then that the boundaries of this are endless because she has it in the car with her. So does it not even matter how far they drive now because she's carrying it around essentially.

Kelly (50:07)
Mm-mm.

Mm. Yeah.

And like what? Who is this fake Charlie? And not who, what is this fake Charlie? You know? Have you ever seen the movie, right? Have you seen the movie It Follows?

Nikki (50:41)
That's what we all want to know.

about the sex demon? Yeah.

Kelly (50:51)
Yeah, yeah, this is why this is it's like, you're like, it's following. I'm like, it's the STD. It's the haunted STD. Like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what Charlie is anymore. And so by the end of the book, Eve is like she's she feels like she's losing her mind. She like kind of plays along with the family for a bit. And like the kids are calling her aunt.

Nikki (50:57)
Yeah.

I don't either.

Emma.

Kelly (51:23)
Emma yeah Aunt Emma and because the the sister Thomas's sister alleged sister who is like the first person she hears about who kind of loses her mind with that family or with Thomas in the house her name let me look here

Nikki (51:46)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Kelly (51:46)
Alina.

Okay, so Thomas came to the house as a child. Okay. This is like, right? It's I got it. Yes, I have to like try to keep straight these several plot lines here and realities. He shows up at the house and Allison's family lives in the house. They adopt him kind of.

Nikki (51:57)
A A child-shaped being.

Kelly (52:16)
shit starts going weird, Allison starts to feel like things are moving, changing in the house, and soon they start calling her Alina, and she's like put away in like a psych ward or something, and so...

Nikki (52:33)
the parents become very religious.

Kelly (52:37)
Yes. Yes. And.

Nikki (52:40)
and they used to be rockers. The dad was in a band and stuff and the mom was like a groupie and...

Kelly (52:47)
Why did I think Heather was also a rocker groupie person?

Nikki (52:54)
She was, you see pictures of her husband playing the drums.

Kelly (52:58)
Okay.

Okay, so they all were kind of like rocker types and they all became kind of straight laced or more straight laced.

Nikki (53:09)
I don't know about Heather, but with the parents, they start to become like really religious. And I think that the girl's name was Alina first, because I think he refers to her as Allison, like my sister Allison, I think. But anyway, not super important. She starts to...

Kelly (53:33)
I don't know.

Nikki (53:37)
go crazy thinking that things are moving, the windows are moving different places, things are different in the home, and then she like a lot. Yeah that's what was gonna say, I like I think it's 37 for some reason.

Kelly (53:43)
Mm-hmm.

She stabs Thomas.

37 times with

with like a pen or something. Something like that. I'm trying to look it up here. Yeah, she stabs him a bajillion times and he has like little marks all over that Eve notices when she first sees him.

Nikki (53:58)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kelly (54:12)
and which I thought was like drugs or something at first I was like this guy is doing opiates or something I don't know like I don't know

Nikki (54:16)
Okay, yeah.

I didn't realize that she noticed them at the beginning. I thought that after she was told that she goes back and she looks at him and she notices them. And I was thinking, did he just make those appear? I was like, whoo.

Kelly (54:39)
No, yeah, I think she sees it at the beginning, but she's like, what is that? Yeah, because it could also just be like acne scars because they are like small kind of

Nikki (54:41)
shivers. Yeah.

Yeah, or like chicken pox, like if you had really bad chicken pox as a kid. Yeah.

Kelly (54:52)
shingles. Yeah. So, so she gets sent away. Life goes on. And she hears about his sister and all this stuff like Eve hears about his sister and everything. And so I feel like the lady in the house with the hammer, that's got to be his sister, right? But is this is the lady with the hammer real?

Nikki (55:13)
That's what I think.

Kelly (55:21)
Like how Charlie and Shylo the dog is assumedly stuck in the house?

Right? There's like so much. There's so much. I feel like I'm losing my mind just going through the events again. Because so how I started this trail, this rabbit hole was Eve is at the house with that crazy family. They are now referring to her as Aunt Emma, Thomas's sister. She decides to bide her time because she sees a

Nikki (55:33)
I don't know man. There's like... I know.

Kelly (56:02)
a note from Allison or Alina saying, you know, Thomas has a temper, you got to play along until he like starts to crack and then attack basically is what she says. And so she does that she kills Paige, she wounds Thomas severely. And the kids are just like there through it all, which is like yikes, if they're even real, or even children.

Nikki (56:15)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kelly (56:31)
and then she gets sent away into a mental institution. And that's what the book ends. She's like, everyone's calling her Emma, her girlfriend Charlie is her ex Charlotte. And she doesn't remember the locket like, but Emma slash Eve. Yep. Mm hmm. Yeah I was gonna say Emma slash Eve has the locket. And that's what's grounding her.

Nikki (56:48)
and Thomas visits her.

Yeah.

Kelly (57:02)
her somewhat reality. But okay, wait a sec, at the very end, don't we get a glimpse into Charlie for a sec?

Nikki (57:13)
Charlie calls her from... So she has Charlie's phone and Charlie calls her from Eve's phone because Eve lost her phone in the house. She couldn't find it. And she's like, where are you? And she goes, I'm still in the house. Which is why she goes back because she's driving. You remember she like leaves Charlie number two when she's looking at her hand and...

Kelly (57:19)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nikki (57:40)
or her arm and there's no tattoo there where there's supposed to be one. yeah. And so she runs out in her sock feet. There's the creepy policeman who stops her and just like, what are you doing? Are you on drugs and all this stuff? And she's like, I wish.

Kelly (57:41)
Yes. Yeah. The inverted triangle.

Yes!

Yeah. Right. This would make things make more sense.

Nikki (58:04)
right?

I can't remember exactly if she gets the call while she's in the bathroom.

from real Charlie or if she gets the call after.

Kelly (58:18)
Okay.

Nikki (58:20)
but real Charlie makes contact and she goes back to the house.

Kelly (58:27)
Yes. Okay, but at the very, very end...

Nikki (58:32)
Mm-hmm.

Kelly (58:35)
It's this like document thing, right? Transcript of post on highstrangenessforums.net. And the title of the post is, my partner went missing, but everyone is telling me she never existed to begin with. And so I thought that was Charlie writing that.

Nikki (58:38)
yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Kelly (58:57)
Is it not?

Nikki (59:02)
It's been like...

two plus months since I've read this book.

Kelly (59:05)
everything's redacted, right? That's the thing, Nikki read this way before me and I was like, I really want to read it. And so then I did. But like...

Nikki (59:19)
I don't know, that's the thing, right?

Kelly (59:19)
Maybe it's not.

I thought it was Charlie. Maybe it's not. Maybe it is Eve. But okay, here's one little silly thing. Did you try? Nikki's like, I love your silly things. She probably doesn't. Well, you're stuck with me, That's true. Silly things and stardust. That's it.

Nikki (59:34)
Of course I do. All we are is silly things.

Kelly (59:51)
So on one of the forum things or like redacted documents, they're like the spelling errors are left in and there were no spelling errors. There were just certain letters that were capitalized. Did you or did you not try to keep track of them and decode it? Because I did and it didn't make any sense.

Nikki (1:00:19)
Can't say I did. Can't say that I did. Although I wish I could because I feel like it would make you feel better.

Kelly (1:00:29)
Like I had to stop myself because I was lying in bed sick. So I had no energy for this, but I kept flipping back and forth. No, because I was in bed. So if I had had energy, I would have been like, OK, and like I would have gotten up. I would have gotten a pencil, done my stuff. Because when we were reading Lord of the Rings, yeah, it's over there on the shelf. When we were reading Lord of the Rings, I started decoding the Elvish or Elven message at the beginning.

Nikki (1:00:34)
Were you writing them down?

Your magnifying glass.

Yep.

Kelly (1:00:58)
And then later on they tell you what it means and I was like, God, I was halfway through solving it.

So this document, there were no spelling errors!

once they said that I was like, this is a clue spelling errors left in that's got to be some kind of message. No spelling errors, just random letters capitalized and it was "The" and then random letters and I was like, God damn it. So if I had been of clear mind, not all congested in bed, I would have gotten a pen and started cracking this yes because I'm telling you, there's gotta be, I gotta contact Marcus and be like Marcus.

Nikki (1:01:35)
Yeah.

Kelly (1:01:45)
Is it a code? Can you tell us? Yes!

Nikki (1:01:47)
I feel like we do need to talk to Marcus because this is wild. The amount of questions that we have had crop up from this. feel like half of them, if not all of them, he would just say, I don't know and let us suffer. We could promise not to record it. It's just for us.

Kelly (1:02:03)
Well, this is, yes. Yeah, I don't know if we ever said this, but when we spoke to Rebecca Yaros, once we got off air, she literally, as soon as we stopped recording, she was like, okay, do have any questions that you wanna ask me now that we're not recording? And I was like, Rebecca, let's get into it. We didn't have too many, because we were trying to be nice. We were like, we don't wanna be spoiled, but we want a little bit of a spoiler. But like, we've never gotten to speak to a horror author yet.

Nikki (1:02:20)
Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

Kelly (1:02:33)
yet. Fingers crossed. But I wonder with a standalone book like this, would they reveal these secrets or would it just be like, I don't know, I guess you'll have to think about it or never sleep again. Like, I don't know. It's like, can you just tell me? It's not a series.

Nikki (1:02:33)
No.

never sleep again. Just wonder the rest of your life about all of these unanswered questions.

Kelly (1:02:57)
What did those spelling mistakes mean?

Nikki (1:03:02)
Should we waste our time writing all of the odd letters out so that we can crack the code?

Kelly (1:03:09)
Why did you mention, that's the thing, if we get to talk to Marcus ever, Marcus Kliewer, if you're out there listening, I'm looking at you. Why did you mention spelling mistakes of which there were none, but there were random letters capitalized. Why were they left in? Was there a purpose other than just to drive me up the wall? Like I need to know because to me that's like, okay, we're getting into a code here.

and they've left it in the online forums for the people in the know or the conspiracy theory people to crack, right?

Nikki (1:03:46)
Yeah, you, he really needs to put a note at the beginning of the book and be like, Millennials who read Chasing Vermeer, don't read too much into this.

Kelly (1:04:04)
This is the thing! I'm always trying to crack the code. I'm like, there's something in here, you know?

Nikki (1:04:08)
my god.

Kelly (1:04:11)
Whatever. I'll figure it out one day.

Nikki (1:04:15)
I hope you do.

Kelly (1:04:16)
Hopefully there's lots of time left so I can be like, okay, I figured it out. Listen, it's been 84 years.

Nikki (1:04:26)
Do we have anything else?

Kelly (1:04:30)
I don't think so. I haven't cracked the code, so I can't tell you that answer yet.

Nikki (1:04:36)
Well then, that's it for today. Thank you all so much for listening and watching this episode of the Bring Your Own Book Podcast. We had such a blast with this. If you want to see more from us, you can follow us on Instagram at BYO Book Podcast or TikTok on Bring Your Own Book Podcast. And remember, don't let people into your home unless you want to, I guess. Until next time, see ya.