The Ghost That Ate Us

The Tragic True Story of the Burger City Poltergeist

By: Daniel Kraus

Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne

Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

The Ghost that Ate Us is a true crime style mockumentary that details the events leading up to a massacre at a fast food restaurant. Using the backdrop of Jonny, Iowa, a truck stop town in a flyer over state, Kraus explores the many ways forgotten Americans with little money and less prospects can hasten their own doom. At turns darkly absurd and tragically grim, this story will have you Googling to make sure nothing like this ever really happened because it just might be crazy enough to be true

You remember the brutal crime, don’t you?

Maybe you read about it on Twitter. Maybe a friend sent you a news clip. Maybe you saw it on an episode of Spectral Journeys that night you were flipping through channels, unable to sleep.

Maybe after hearing the true story, you won’t ever sleep again.

On June 1, 2017, six people were killed at a Burger City franchise off I-80 near Jonny, Iowa. It was the bizarre and gruesome conclusion to nine months of alleged paranormal activity at the fast-food joint—events popularly known as “the Burger City Poltergeist.” The story inspired Facebook memes, Twitter hashtags, Buzzfeed listicles, Saturday Night Live sketches, and more. But the case was never much more than a punchline…until bestselling writer Daniel Kraus (The Shape of Water, The Living Dead) decided to head to Iowa to dig up what really happened.

Presented here is the definitive story of “the most exhaustively documented haunting in history,” including—for the first time ever—interviews with every living survivor of the tragedy. The employees of Burger City were a family. They loved one another. At least, at the beginning. But love can make you do unspeakable things.

©2022 Daniel Kraus (P)2022 Random House Audio

I'm begging you to read it

Definitely a slow burn with a slower opening and sometimes there's to many characters at once but hot damn when shit kicks off it doesn't let up. I'm talking about ten straight hours of creeping meat based dread. It is fantastic.

A slow burn, but worth the investment

This book will not appeal to everyone and your enjoyment of will be based on how easily invested you become in the world and characters that unfold throughout the long length of the story. I, like the narrator and the characters portrayed in this story, fell deep into the mystery and wanted to know more and more as things were revealed. When the story reached its climax and satisfying conclusion, I was left reeling. I will be thinking about this one for a while.

The narrator is the best I’ve heard. He really brings the characters world to life.

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Discussing this book seems to only bring misfortune. Dig no deeper. Settle with what you have.

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Another Political Hate Fest in Disguise

This story rambled on and around and never seemed to hook back up to anything. I listened to several parts of the book 2 or 3 times to be sure I wasn't missing something. I was struggling to hang on, just hoping the story would suddenly work and lift the brain fog created by the author. Unfortunately, the story took a very weird and unnecessary turn in the, "We're All in This Together" chapter. All of a sudden it became very political, polarized and extremely biased. One comment suddenly thrown into that part said people were upset and crying because the thought of a reality show rapist being president was too much for everyone. There were many more comments made and much worse comments made. I turned off the book after another 40 mins of listening. I only listened that much longer to be sure I had enough information to give a fair review. Final thoughts: Waste of Time and then obviously biased, political rants were suddenly added to the story for no reason. Its like the author did a bait and switch to try and push their polical views on unsuspecting readers.