You Might Also Like: MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories

**MrBallen** (0:00)
In October of 1999, a 911 dispatcher in Austin, Texas, was nearing the end of a long night shift when a strange call came in. The caller was a man who just said his guts had been blown out of his stomach. The dispatcher asked him to explain what actually happened, but the caller wouldn't say. He just kept saying that he had woken up and his guts were hanging out, and now he's holding his guts in with his hand, and he needed an ambulance right now. But before we get into that 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. So if that's of interest to you, please sneak into the Followbutton's house and add hot sauce to the solution for their eye contacts.
Okay, let's get into today's story.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:04)
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Stream now, pay never.

**MrBallen** (1:29)
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On the night of October 1st, 1999, a 75-year-old man named Steve Beard sat on the patio of his mansion in Austin, Texas, sipping on a cocktail. And it was a great night. Warm evening, the leaves rustling in the trees all around his property, and behind his house there was this creek that was flowing along. And in the house, he could hear his wife Celeste washing the dishes. So Steve had met Celeste only about six years ago. It was actually shortly after his first wife Elise had died of cancer. And Steve had been with his first wife for 45 years, and they'd raised three kids together. And he'd just been totally lost after she had passed away.
And really, after she had died, he had spent a lot of nights just sitting alone at the Austin Country Club, where actually Celeste had been working as a waitress. Celeste was only 30 years old at the time, which meant she was almost 40 years younger than Steve. But there had been an immediate spark between them, and they got married just over a year later. Now, some of Steve's friends and family had immediately assumed that, given this age gap, that Celeste was simply after Steve for his money. Steve, after all, had made a fortune as a business owner and a TV station executive, and he was worth about $10 million.
But Steve knew that money could not possibly be the only thing Celeste saw in him. I mean, he knew that he took great care of Celeste, and also he took great care of her twin teenage daughters. I mean, he really helped give Celeste and her girls the stability that they desperately needed. However, despite that stability, one thing that Celeste had always struggled with for much of her life was depression. And in fact, earlier that year, it had gotten so bad that Celeste had actually tried to end her own life, and she had failed, she had lived. But as a result of that attempt, she'd spent a few weeks in a psychiatric hospital. Now, of course, that was a really traumatic and awful thing for the family, but from Steve's perspective, the upside of this was that Celeste was put on some new medication as a result of this hospital stay.
She had made some good friends, actually, while she was at the hospital, and to Steve, it just seemed like, you know, maybe now things were starting to maybe turn around for Celeste. And to Steve, the fact that Celeste appeared to be on the right path again was great timing, because recently, Steve had actually been dealing with health problems of his own. Twice in the past few months, Steve had passed out and actually had to be hospitalized himself.
The doctors told him he had high blood pressure, sleep apnea, and he had some heart and kidney issues. But they actually couldn't quite figure out why he was fainting. They just knew he had several symptoms going on. Now, Steve thought it was very likely stress related, and he just needed to relax. So in fact, in two days from now, he was going to be taking Celeste on a three-week vacation around Europe. After everything Celeste had been through that year, and also Steve had been through as well with his own medical issues, he felt like they both could use some time away, just the two of them. But now, when Steve got up from a seat out on the patio of his home, and he put the empty cocktail glass down on the table, and he turned, and he opened the glass door that led into the bedroom, he saw that even though he'd already packed his suitcase for this European trip several days ago, Celeste's suitcase was still empty in the closet, and Steve couldn't help but feel like, it seems like Celeste might be getting cold feet about this European vacation, like she should have been packed already, and she's clearly putting it off. So Steve left the bedroom, and he went down the hallway and went into the kitchen where he found Celeste cleaning up. When he got in there, as gently as he could, he told Celeste, hey, when you get a chance, you really ought to pack.