Moving Day (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

**MrBallen** (0:00)
On a cold night in November of 2013, a woman sat in a hospital waiting room, wondering if her new husband would survive until the morning. It was a cruel reversal because just months ago, she had actually told him that she was dying. And in fact, it was her terminal diagnosis that defined their marriage from the start.
But now, it looked like she was the one who'd be preparing for a funeral. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark & Mysterious Delivered in Story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, the next time the Follow button is really struggling to fall asleep because they're scared, offer to tell them a very comforting bedtime story, and then proceed to tell them Bell's Canyon. Okay, let's get into today's story.
Around 8 p.m. on November 3rd, 2013, 45-year-old Will Walker taped up a cardboard box in the master bedroom of his home in Cleveland, Ohio. He labeled it with a Sharpie and then stacked it with a bunch of other moving boxes in the corner that he had also made up. Will was in the middle of moving his family out of their current place in the city to a bigger house in the suburbs. And even though it did sort of seem like an upgrade, he had mixed feelings about it, in part because he'd invested a lot in this community and the city. He'd raised kids here with his first wife, and he also worked here as a lieutenant firefighter. But Will knew it was time for a big life change, because his beloved new wife, Yuloma Curry Walker, had recently been diagnosed with cancer. And realistically, she actually didn't have very long left to live. And so Will wanted her to spend the time that she had left in a neighborhood that was more comfortable and more quiet than this one. As Will began to pack one of those moving boxes he had made, he felt a stomach growl. He was hungry. So before getting into really heavy packing, he stopped and he headed down the hallway to the living room, where he found his wife laying on the couch wrapped in a blanket. And she was clearly on the phone with her 17-year-old daughter, Jackie. So Will and Yuloma both had previously been married, and they both had kids from their previous marriages. But most of them were adults and they had moved out and they were living their own lives. Except for Jackie, the girl that was on the phone with Yuloma right now. She actually still lived with Yuloma and Will. But this evening, she was across down at her boyfriend's place, but for the time being, she was just chatting with her mom on the phone. As Will approached the couch, Yuloma looked up at him and she waved and she smiled. As she continued chatting with Jackie on the phone, she began coughing, just a small dry cough, but immediately Will was on edge because anytime he heard his wife coughing or just acting like she was sick, he worried that this was the start of the end. Is this her dying? He was just so worried about her.
But luckily, the coughing passed and she just kept on chatting away with Jackie.
So Will, he walked up to her and he sort of gently interrupted her and just said, hey, you want me to run out and grab us both some dinner. I'm pretty hungry. Yuloma, she nodded and she smiled, and she covered up the phone and said, yeah, I'd love to get some McDonald's. Then she just went back to her call with Jackie. Then Will, he bent down and he kissed her on the top of the head. He grabbed his keys and he headed out the door. McDonald's sounded great.
A half an hour later, at 8:30 p.m., Will pulled back into his driveway and parked in front of the garage. He cut the engine and then he grabbed the McDonald's bag off the passenger seat. As he stepped out of the car, though, he paused and intentionally looked back out toward the street just to make sure the coast was clear. So Will had lived in this block for decades and it had always been sort of a rough neighborhood.
But lately, it just seemed to be getting a whole lot worse. Less than a month ago, Will had actually gotten into this really heated argument with a guy right here in his driveway. And it had been so heated that Will had actually brandished a gun to get the guy to leave. Will was still very much on edge about that, sort of worried this man would come back to exact his revenge or something. And in some ways, this was another reason why he felt like maybe it really was time to move out of here and get to the suburbs. But for now, looking out to the road and the surrounding areas, he didn't see anything or anyone that concerned him. So he closed his car door and with his McDonald's bag in hand, he crossed the driveway towards the back door of the house. However, when he slipped his key into the lock on the door, he heard footsteps coming up behind him. And as Will turned, there was a deafening bang. Inside the house at the same time, Yuloma heard the sound of what sounded like four gunshots echoing from outside. Instinctively, she leapt off the couch and ran over to the window, still clutching her blanket tight around her. And when she looked outside, she saw her husband's car in the driveway, but she didn't see her husband, or anyone for that matter. Nobody was outside. Then she heard the sound of someone moaning in pain. And it was like instinctively, she immediately knew it had to be Will. And so she ran to the back door, she's frantic, she opens it up, and there he was.