The Bouncer (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

**MrBallen** (0:00)
One early morning in April of 2012, a man was walking through the woods in coastal France. He lived nearby and he had just seen a column of smoke coming out of the trees in this area, and so he was just coming out here to make sure there was not a brush fire or something. And so he walked through the woods and eventually he reached the source of the smoke. It was in this clearing and right away he felt relieved because what he saw was just the remains of a bonfire, and it was just smoldering and now there was just some smoke coming up off of it. He was about to turn around and go maybe get some water and douse it out completely, but he smelled something, like it was a weird smell that clearly was coming from the fire.
And so curious, you know, there's nobody else around, he just began walking to the fire to see what was making this smell.
And as he got close enough, he realized there was something in that fire. 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've come to the right place because that's all we do. So if that's of interest to you, please offer to make the follow button a nice fresh burrito. But don't tell them instead of using ground beef, you used cat food. Okay, let's get into today's story.
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On the night of April 26th, 2012, a 39-year-old bouncer named Léonel Varanez opened the door of a nightclub in Chamboury, France, and he let a woman inside. And as this woman came in, she stopped and made a point to look at Léonel and smile at him and thank him by name. So, Chamboury was a small city up in the Alps, and Léonel, the bouncer, was a fixture in its nightlife scene. Pretty much everybody in town who went out to the bars and clubs had either seen Léonel standing at the door outside or partying inside when he was not on the clock. And it was not just the locals who knew who this guy was.
Léonel was also well known among the rich and famous tourists who often vacationed in Chamboury, and even sometimes he would pick up side work as a bodyguard for these rich and famous people. And for Léonel, I mean, his career as like sort of this fixture in the nightlife scene was fun and pretty glamorous at times, but it also could be dangerous. In fact, just a few months ago, he got into this huge fistfight protecting one of his clients, and in fact, he actually got arrested for it. But tonight, Léonel was just trying to get through a shift without any trouble. There was this long line of people who were waiting outside the club waiting to get in, and Léonel checked their IDs one by one and let them in. And then finally, when the line started to clear, Léonel saw a familiar face walking toward him. It was his good friend, Mike Bouff, who Léonel often went drinking with multiple times a week. And at first, Léonel was just really glad to see Mike, but as Mike got closer, Léonel realized that Mike actually looked really mad. And so by the time Mike actually reached Léonel, Léonel just said to him, like, hey, what's going on? You look pretty upset.
And Mike would tell him that he had just been at his friend, Philippe's house, and Philippe had told him that seemed really, really weird. So Philippe Perrier, Mike's friend, the guy whose house he just came from, was extremely wealthy because his family ran this world-famous winery near Chambourie. Now, Léonel had never actually met Philippe himself, but he knew of him. His family was incredibly well-connected in town because they're so rich and they had this winery. And Mike was friends with him and often talked about him. And so now Mike explained to Léonel what this really weird thing was that he heard when he was visiting with Philippe.