STAD Ep. 3- Cheap Whiskey, Dark Sugarcane Fields and Teen Angst in Gramercy, LA!

Four bored teenage boys in Gramercy, Louisiana make a decision that seemed harmless at the time — steal a bottle of cheap whiskey and head out to a sugarcane field to drink where nobody could see them.
What starts as a dumb teenage plan quickly turns into something none of them can explain.
Something running beside them in the rows.
Something that moved through the cane without slowing down.
In the chaos of the night, one of the boys disappears into the field.
Search crews comb the area for days before he finally walks out on his own — dehydrated, shaken, and saying things that don’t make sense.
He claims whatever was in the cane with him that night wasn’t chasing him.
It was herding him.
Now the only rule they all agree on is this:
Don’t go into the cane after dark.

Submit YOUR Sweet Tea After Dark story so we can read it on our Podcast:

holdmysweetteapodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

Anonymous Listener Tale From Louisiana

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Welcome back to another riveting episode of Sweet Tea After Dark. I'm Holly. And I'm Pearl. And guess what?

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Chicken butt.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Yes. We got another listener submission. Thank you so much. We are so excited. That means more of you need to come in because they're they're trickling very slowly. But you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Just in the nick of time.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Really? Because I'm like, what am I gonna do? I need to come up with a story, and then boom, this one just lands in our lap. Here it is, you know. Hello. Yeah. So tonight's story, he does want to stay anonymous. Okay. And I was like, oh, it's a boy.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah, last time it was a girl.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

I know. Like, this one's cool. Somebody's like, I'm gonna tell my story. So he went ahead and changed all of the names on his story because he didn't want to like put his friends on there. But he's he's like everybody from my hometown pretty much knows who is who. So if anybody's listening um and lives in St. James Parish, Louisiana, and Gramercy, Louisiana.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

They're gonna be like, you'd be like, wait a minute.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

I've heard this story and I know who that is. But that would be cool if somebody does hear your story. So we are changing his name to Ben. So this one is for you, Ben. I'm gonna read it um almost exactly how it was sent to me. So, like I said, the names have been changed. Um we have the location, and this is what Ben wrote.

Setting The Scene: Sugarcane And Heat

SPEAKER_00 2:21

I've never told this story publicly before. People in Gramercy know pieces of it. They remember that Mason disappeared. They remembered he came back different, but nobody really talks about what happened in that field on that night. Uh oh. I was like, this one's gonna be good. So it was 2014, like back in the day. I say that, and it's just it seems like yesterday, but it it 12 years ago. 12 years ago. It was late August, and it was right before harvest. So, you know, they harvest the um there's tons and tons of sugar cane fields in like Gramercy, all in St. James Parish, because there's a huge um sugar refinery there where they produce sugar. And my dad used to work maintenance at that sugar plant. So crazy small world. Right. And there are like fields and fields of sugar cane, they're just like thick with sugar cane, and they harvest, and then after they harvest, there's a certain time that you do not want to go through there because they burn the fields off, and it is like it's like driving through thick fog. Is it stinky? It is, it is. I don't see like people that live out there. I'd be like, I have to go on vacation during this time. See you later. So, like I said, it was right before harvest. It was me, Mason, Tyler, and Brett. We were 18, 19, you know, both around all around that age.

Into The Rows Against Better Judgment

SPEAKER_00 4:09

We were bored, stupid in a way that teenagers are when they don't think anything bad can really happen to them. I mean, we've all been there.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Yeah. We've been there as stupid young adults, not necessarily teenagers. Right, but we've been there.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

So we rolled up to the quick stop off of airline to get some snacks, and Tyler ended up stealing a cheap bottle of whiskey. I was like, of all things, whiskey, yuck. Tyler. Tyler, shame on you. We thought we were slick. Looking back, that part bothers me the most, not because of the liquor, but because of what it set in motion. We don't want to drink anywhere obvious, small town. Everybody knows everybody. So Tyler said, let's just go out by the cane. So there's a long stretch off of Highway 44, where the refinery lights glow behind the fields, and there's nothing but rows and rows of thick sugar cane. If you've ever been down there at night, you know how dark it gets once you turn your headlights off. It's the kind of dark that feels heavy. Because without like the refinery lights, like everything is just pitch black. So we parked on a gravel turnout and killed the engine. The crickets were loud, the air, the river air felt heavy. Yeah, you could smell the cane. It was like sweet and green and damp, like it had that certain smell to it. And it was August, it was hot.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

So hot and dark, right? Sweaty.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

And at first it was normal. We were we were drinking, we were laughing, joking around and passing the bottle, talking big like boys do. Then Brett said we should walk into the rows of sugar cane. Just a little bit, just to say we did. Because you know, everybody's like, don't go in there at night. You know, people always heard things that would happen.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Not to mention when there's that much field. It's so easy to get lost in anything that grows tall.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Like, think of it if you've ever been to a corn maze, like you actually have paths that you can go on. This is there's no paths, like you're gonna get lost in there. Yeah. So I really didn't want to. Mason didn't either, but nobody wanted to be the one who said no.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Of course not.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

You don't want to be the one picked on. Right. And you're you're drinking, so you got a little liquid courage. Mm-hmm. So the first few steps weren't scary, just tight. The cane brushed our shoulders and the leaves like kind of cut our forearms a little bit. They were because it's scratchy.

The Glide Beside Them

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Those leaves are real scratchy, and if you know, you're not careful, they can like slice you a little bit. But about 20 feet in, everything got really, really quiet. Like very muffled. That's also why you get lost. Yes. Like the sounds from the road disappeared behind us. We like we're kind of looking around, nobody had a flashlight, but Tyler had a phone, so he turned his phone light on. You couldn't really see far in any direction, so like every row looked the same. And that's when we heard something move. It wasn't slow, it was fast. It was about one row over from us, the cane started shaking really hard, and it ran parallel to where we were standing. Tyler laughed and said that one of us was messing around, but we were all literally just standing still. I remember feeling that shift when your stomach drops because your brain realizes something before you say it out loud. Then it happened again, running fast. But here's what didn't make sense. When we started moving through the cane, we had to kind of push it aside, like it would it scraped and snapped back, like and everything. But whatever was next to us didn't sound like it was pushing, it sounded like it was gliding. Mason said, real, like real quiet, let's go back. So we turned around, at least we thought we did, and that's when it moved behind us, close enough that the cane brushed my arm from the other side of the row. So we started like fast walking, like real fast, and it it matched us. We started jogging, it matched us again. Like it was keeping pace with them. Then Tyler yelled, run, and everything fell apart. You can't really run in sugarcane. You trip, you get cut, you lose direction immediately. I remember hearing Brett fall. I grabbed someone's shirt, I don't know whose, and the whole time the cane next to us was moving too, not crashing, not stumbling, just keeping pace. It was like, you know, just as they were running. Crazy. Then we realized Mason

Panic, A Scream, And Mason Lost

SPEAKER_00 9:39

wasn't behind us anymore. We stopped and called his name, nothing. Then from deeper in the field, we heard him scream. I don't know how to explain that scream. It sounded like him, it was his voice, but it didn't sound like he was yelling to us. It sounded like he was fighting something. We ran toward it and then it stopped. Just stopped. No movement, no sound. I swear on my life, the cane wasn't even rustling in the wind. So we made the worst decision we could have made. We split up. But you know, fear doesn't make you smart.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

No. At all. Fear makes you do a lot of dumb stuff.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

And alcohol makes you do even dumber stuff.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

I mean, at that point, I'd be sober. I'd be scared straight. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

So I don't know how long I was running before I hit open air. It felt like forever, but it couldn't have been more than like five, ten minutes. We didn't come out where we went in. We weren't even near the truck. We walked the road until we found a house with a porch light and pounded on the door like animals. The police came, search crews came, Mason's parents came. We literally searched all night, nothing, could not find Mason anywhere. So day two, it was light, you know, they had search and rescue, police, dogs, everything out there, nothing. And they, you know, our truck was there where we parked, nothing. By day three, people were like whispering that maybe he ran away, maybe that they were lying, maybe something, you know, they were covering something up. You know, all the things that police come up with, like, oh, well, what really happened? Where's Mason? Yeah, what what did y'all do to him?

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

So late afternoon on the third day, as we were all standing out there just trying to like figure out our next move, Mason walked out of the cane, like not even 50 feet down from us, barefoot, sunburnt, shirt torn. He was dehydrated, but not as near as bad as he

Three Days Missing, Then He Returns

SPEAKER_00 12:11

should have been.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

So he comes out a hot mess. Yeah. Three days later.

unknown 12:16

Oof.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

He didn't cry when he saw us, he didn't hug anyone. He just kept looking back at the field. That's so scary. At the hospital, he didn't talk much, but he said a few things I'll never forget. He said it followed him after we split up. He said it stayed in the rows beside him. He said it didn't sound tired, even though he kept, you know, like running and like losing his breath. It just it just kept up with him. And then he said something that still wakes me up at night. He said it started calling y'all using my voice. Ooh. Because we all heard him scream that night, every one of us. But when we tried to compare what he yelled, none of us agreed on the words. So it was like mimicking his voice, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

And it seems like they all heard something different.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

That's crazy. Mason never slept right after that. I wouldn't either. I don't know if I'd sleep at all. He would wake up saying something was standing at the end of his bed. He wouldn't describe it. He just said it was tall and that it didn't move the way people move. Within a month, Mason had a full breakdown. Doctor said it was trauma, acute psychosis, and sleep deprivation because he he wouldn't sleep because he kept seeing things. So he was admitted

Voices, Night Terrors, And The Hospital

SPEAKER_00 14:03

for a while. There's something else I didn't tell anybody for a long time. When Mason was admitted, they kept him in Baton Rouge for observation. His mom asked me to visit because he wouldn't talk to his parents. He barely talked to anyone at the hospital. The first time I saw him in that hospital, he didn't look crazy. He just looked tired. Like someone who hadn't slept in weeks. He kept staring at the corner where the wall met the ceiling, not dramatically, not panic, just watching. I asked him what happened in the field. And he didn't answer right away. Then he said something that didn't make sense at the time. He said, It wasn't chasing me. I asked him what he meant. He said it was hurting me. Like I thought he was confused or delusional. So because it kept moving beside them, it herd him away from everybody else and singled him out. But then he told me something that made my stomach drop. He said, after we split up, he ran until he couldn't breathe anymore. And every time he tried to change direction, the cane would start moving in front of him, not behind him, not beside him, like in front. So it would cut it cut him off.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Yeah, it was like blocking him from going that way.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Like it was trying to steer him somewhere. He said, I never saw a face, I never saw eyes. It was just like tall and like dark figure and movement. And once he thought he saw the top of something above the cane, like it was taller than the stalks. But then he said the worst part wasn't the running, it was when he it stopped moving. He said at some point in the night, everything went still. There were no insects, no wind, no hum from the refinery in the distance, just silence. And then he heard his own voice calling out. From somewhere to his left, it was just like calling his friends' names, like trying to get them into the field. He said, I wasn't yelling, I was standing still. But he could hear his own voice shouting for help over and over, like it was trying to pull someone in deeper in. It was luring more people. Yeah. The hospital staff told us auditory hallucinations are common with trauma and that the brain can fracture memory. That fear can replay your own voice in ways that you feel that feel external, and maybe that's true. Like they're trying to scientifically diagnose it.

Wrong Row And Unsettling Clues

SPEAKER_00 17:21

One a nurse reported that Mason was sleepwalking at night. They found him standing at the end of his room facing the hallway, just standing there, no expression. When the nurse asked what he was doing, he wouldn't answer. He whispered something instead. She wrote it down in his chart because she thought it was part of the delusion. And she what she wrote down, he kept repeating wrong row, over and over, wrong row. Like he was correcting someone or warning someone or guiding someone. So the doctors ended up like giving him medication, adjusting it here and there, and and he stopped sleepwalking, he stopped talking about the field, but he never, you know, he he finally got out. Like I guess the medicine was kind of helping his brain, but he never stepped foot near the sugar cane again. And neither did we. I guess not. In Grammar C, people don't say that. They say the cane got him. I don't know what happened in that field. Maybe we scared ourselves into seeing patterns where there weren't any. Maybe it was the cheap whiskey. Maybe there was someone out there and we panicked and they were playing a prank. Or maybe Mason's mind couldn't handle being lost in the dark. But I know what I heard moving beside us. I know it kept pace without breaking the cane the way we did. And I know Mason was gone for three days in the Louisiana heat and didn't look like someone who had fought through Rose the whole time. I don't go near the cane at night anymore. Most people around here don't. Not because we think it's haunted, but because sometimes land isn't empty just because you can't

What The Cane Might Hide

SPEAKER_00 19:25

see anything in it. And sometimes fear isn't the only thing running beside you. Dang, Ben. That's scary. Yeah. I have often seen that sugarcane at night. I would never.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

I would not. No.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

I wouldn't even go in a cornfield at night. That's what I was about to say.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

I don't care what you're growing. If it's above my knees, I ain't getting in it. Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

I mean, remember the time we went to the uh haunted corn maze at night?

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

That was scary enough.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yeah, and we were there to be scared. Right. And I was just like, Yeah. We'll do that during the day.

unknown 20:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Because I mean, you are. You're lost in the unknown and you're like, not just that.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Which way do I go? I've seen Children of the Corn, one, two, and two. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

That too. Absolutely. Seen it, read it. But thanks so much, Ben, for uh submitting your story to us. And it was a creeper.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Yeah, absolutely. That was a good one. I liked it.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Most of that I read like verbatim. So it was very well written. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

So again, I encourage you all to not fear it. Just share it.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Just share it. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

And you can send your story to hold my sweet tea podcast at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Yep. And we're still waiting on Patty's story.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Yeah. Patty, where's your story? This is how we check and see if you're still listening. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

We text and go, I'm getting it. Hold on. Calm down. Yes. We're

Reflections, Thanks, And Listener Calls

SPEAKER_00 21:15

demanding. Yep. We did make our 7,500 download goal last week.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Yeah, that was exciting.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

And we got a little boost there. So we're now our next goal is 10,000. So we're so excited.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

We have 115 YouTube subscribers. Oh my gosh. So I I on purpose didn't check for a while because I was checking so much. I was like, stop it.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Yeah. And you're like, when is it gonna move?

SPEAKER_01 21:46

So, and then our our listener who moved, Andrea, made a little comment on one of our YouTube shares too. And I was like, Oh, looky. So I Responded to her. Thanks for continuing to listen, Andrew. Yes. And also, I know you got a story.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Submit it. Yeah, submit your story. We want to hear it.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

For sure. So y'all, y'all get busy. Type in. And now, as always, Sweet Tea After Dark is also a psycho drunken bee production. Y'all keep sending in your stuff. And just because we're good nightin' doesn't mean you can't keep frightening.