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- [00:00]
Host
Hey, welcome to Scary Stories and Rain. I really hope you enjoyed this episode. And don't forget you can subscribe to this podcast for just $2.99 a month. You can get rid of all of the irritating ads and be automatically entered to win a Nintendo Switch 2 Mario Kart bundle. Only $2.99 a month. No more ads. I have all the info you need in the description to this episode. And one last thing. Thank you so much for being here. I really hope you enjoy.
- [00:30]
Guest
Mom and dad. The school supplies you buy me this year will mostly end up in my mouth. Maybe shop low prices for school at Amazon so I don't eat up all your money. Just something to chew on. Amazon. Spend less, smile more. You say you'll never join the Navy, that living on a submarine would be too hard. You'd never power a whole ship with nuclear energy, never bring a patient back to life.
- [00:59]
Host
Or play the national anthem.
- [01:01]
Guest
For a sold out crowd. Joining the Navy sounds crazy. Saying never actually is. Start your journey@navy.com America's Navy forged by.
- [01:14]
Host
The sea during the summer of 2012, I, a nine year old boy, was playing with my friends at my local park. Being young and oblivious, I didn't really notice anything unusual at first. I kept playing until I noticed my best friend who was one year older than me, and someone I looked up to staring at the treeline with a pale, wide eyed look of sheer terror. He couldn't tear his gaze away from it. Curious and fearful about what could have caused such an intense reaction from someone I knew to be so fearless, I followed his eyes and tried to catch his gaze. As I looked over at the tree line. I slowly began to see a woman. Her features were hard to make out as the sun was shining directly behind the trees, blinding me. But even with that I could see the way she was standing was surreal. Her feet were crouched on the ground and she had her hands pressed against her eyebrows like she was trying to make binoculars with her hands. Peculiar as it was, my friend and I decided to brush it off and continue playing. At our young ages, we weren't really aware of the dangers of the world and were more focused on enjoying our time together before summer ended. A few hours later, around 10 or 11pm, I was lying in my bed when I heard an eerie sound coming from my window. It wasn't the usual scraping sound of keys on glass, but rather something like sharp nails dragging back and forth across the window pane. To understand how strange this was, you need to know that my room was on the second floor and my window was positioned high up, about 16 to 18ft off the ground. It was not a low hanging window. It was placed at the top of the room to my right. So when I decided to push past my fear and investigate the sound, I stood on top of my bed and peeked out the window. To my absolute horror, I saw the same woman from the park. Even though I hadn't had a chance to get a good look at her features before, it was unmistakably her. Her unique posture and physique made it clear. She was gripping my window sill with her hands, her cold, dead eyes staring directly at me. We locked eyes for what felt like five minutes, but in reality it was probably only five seconds. Then, to my horror, the woman broke the silence by scraping the window not with her nails, but by opening her mouth so wide I could see the back of her throat. She then pressed her teeth to the window pane and bit down as if trying to chew through it. At that moment, to my absolute shock, the woman began to bang her head against the glass over and over again. That was all I needed to snap me out of my frozen terror. I bolted out of my room and ran straight to my parents room. As soon as I told my dad what I had seen, he sprang out of bed, grabbed a weapon from his nightstand while my mom called the police. My parents and I waited anxiously for the police and after what felt like an eternity, they finally arrived. They searched the house and found nothing except for the broken glass on the floor of my bedroom. They were as confused as we were. There were no traces of how anyone could have climbed that high, and no footprints or evidence were found anywhere around the house. After that, my parents didn't allow me outside without a guardian. Security cameras and an electric fence were installed around our property. To this day my only question is how could have someone climbed that high and left no evidence whatsoever in such a short span of time? This story happened over the summer. I had started seeing this guy I met through mutual friends and we had been hitting it off for a while. I won't say exactly where for privacy, but one of our first dates was a late night drive to a popular lake area in the Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado. The first night we went, we enjoyed some green and spent time chatting under the moonlight. A night full of romance, conversation and a little bit of passion. After we left and went back to my place to watch Hulu. He and I both have busy schedules, but we had another whirlwind date to the same area about Three weeks later, the moon wasn't quite full, but that didn't stop us from enjoying each other's company. Now for a bit of layout of the land. This lake and park area has two places where folks can park vehicles. One where you can pay a sum of money to park while you enjoy the lake, or a dirt track where folks usually go hiking. We were parked in my car on this dirt lot trail both times. The second time we pulled up, there was another car parked there. It was past midnight and we assumed that whoever was in the other car was likely doing what we were as well as what we were about to start doing. We got out, smoked a little, and even though I was having a good time, something felt off. You know that feeling that someone's watching you amplify that by five and that's what I was feeling. I figured it was a mixture of exhaustion and the few hits off the joint made me feel a little jumpy, so I didn't pay much attention to that feeling. But I did keep in mind to be aware of my surroundings. After smoking, we climbed into my back seat and started cuddling and kissing. I had the car running with the headlights on, and just because I was feeling a little anxious, I had the doors locked too. As my date and I started getting a little hot and heavy, he began to lay me down on my back in the passenger seat. As our lips broke apart for a second, I glanced out the windshield quickly and my blood ran cold. I saw something dart behind a tree that was lit by my headlights. I froze for a second, and after a pause, I saw something that has been seared in my mind permanently. There was a shirtless old man wearing torn up overalls with a scraggly beard peeking out from behind that tree, almost like a kid peeking around a corner during a game of hide and seek. It was almost as if he knew I saw him because he quickly darted back behind the tree, but I could still see the side of his leg from where I was positioned. My date was still kissing my neck and his head began to move back to my lips, but I stopped him and whispered, trying to remain as calm as possible with the adrenaline rushing through me. I wish I was making this up, but we have to go right now. There's a man behind that tree right there. I motioned slowly with my head to where I had seen the man. I don't know how long he's been there. I don't want to find out. My date quickly darted his head to the side and Whisper shouted, no way. I instructed him to follow my lead. Since we had locked the car, I didn't want to exit the vehicle. After seeing what I had seen as carefully as I could, I sort of spider crawled over to my center console and settled into the seat. My my date followed suit, accidentally bumping my head with his knee in the process. I began the process of trying to get the car out of that bumpy dirt lot as quickly as possible. Without bottoming out the car, I white knuckled the steering wheel for the five mile drive back into town. As soon as I was far enough away to finally process what had happened, I became nauseous from the fear. I also began to shake and my date, being the absolute gentleman he is, calmly asked me to pull over so that he could drive us back to my place safely. As soon as we entered the doors of my home, we began a debrief on what we possibly saw. At first I thought of the first logical explanation, the other car that was there. Maybe the owner had to step out to relieve himself or something. But this was past midnight night in Colorado in the mountains. Despite it being summer, those mountains still get pretty chilly at night, and it was definitely cold. Why would he be shirtless? And why did he dart behind the tree only to peek out and watch for as long as he did and then dart back behind it? Was he watching us? Who was he? My date from that night and I have still been going pretty steady and we still try to figure out what it possibly could have been, even three months later. If you're going for late night drives where you park, please make sure you never go alone. Make sure someone has your location. And always, and I really do mean always be aware of your surroundings. I have lived in Colorado for the majority majority of my life, encountering bears, mountain lions and coyotes. Heck, I was even chased by a bull when I was a teenager. But none of those encounters compare to the sheer terror I felt seeing that man after midnight. Around the ages of 12 and 14, I would often sleep in my older brother's room. I would set up my blanket and pillow on the floor next to his bed and we would talk about dreams and nightmares we had had, fictitious scenarios and other random topics that I have no recollection of now. But after the conversation and laughter would end, I had to deal with the part I dreaded most about sleeping in his room. The awful silence and the oppressive darkness all around me. I could have sworn I would experience something paranormal almost every night in that room. Whether it was lingering shadows that I may have very well been Imagining strange noises, or the time I felt an all too real sensation. Sensation of something gripping my blanket that happened while we were still awake. And I remember rushing my brother to turn the light on while I lay there in absolute terror. However, in typical paranormal fashion, nothing was there. But this one experience I had in that room still freaks me out to this day. One day, as I usually did, I decided to sleep in his room. The only thing I did differently that night was set up my sleeping space on his recliner. We talked for a few hours past midnight, and finally we fell asleep. Or rather, he fell asleep. To tell the truth, I was stuck in my usual state of impending doom. But this time, I think my fear was justified. While I lay there reclined with my arms on the armrests, trying my hardest to fall asleep, I heard the worst thing my younger self could ever hear. Scratching on the back of the chair. My eyes immediately darted to my brother's bed, wanting to call out to him for help to get whatever this thing was behind the chair to leave. But nothing came out of my mouth. I lay there, motionless and unable to speak, my heart pounding so hard that I could feel it in my wrists. The scratching persisted, slow and sinister. My young mind imagined a horrifying dark creature with gray hands and long black fingernails crouched behind the chair, purposely trying to scare me. But another, more logical part of my mind wondered if it was possibly a rat or some fabric in the back of the chair ripping. But none of that made sense. The scratching was too slow and controlled to be an animal or something tearing. I ended up not saying anything and just waited for the scratching to stop. Eventually, after what seemed like forever, it did. But I knew better than to stay in that awful room straight out of a horror film. So I went back to my room. When I told everyone about the incident in the morning, I got a bunch of comments like, that's creepy or that's weird. Until it was brushed off. My brother never minded hearing things in his room. One time, he heard an object fall off his windowsill in the middle, middle of the night. And instead of getting freaked out like a normal person, he just thought, well, whatever, and went back to sleep. Now, I am not that type of person. Every paranormal experience I have had in that house is probably going to stay ingrained in my mind for the rest of my life. Walking to your mailbox to get the mail and mowing your lawn are normal, trivial tasks that no one thinks much about. But when someone is watching you do those things, it's a different story. For as Long as my dad could remember living there, every time he went outside to cut the cross grass or do any other task, she would be watching him from across the street in the scorching Texas heat. Out there in her nightgown, no shade, no drink, just sitting there. Her borderline emaciated figure and lack of expression stood out as concerning to my dad, and most times when he saw her, he would wave, but she never waved back. My mom said that when she would wave at the old woman, it would be returned, but for some reason she never acknowledged my dad. One day while my dad was sitting on the porch having a drink with his friend, the woman was there, quiet and motionless. A guy who lived with her returned home from work and was assumed to be her son. Tom parked his car in the driveway, got out, and walked right past her. What a jerk, my dad thought. He didn't even say hi to her or offer to bring her a drink or help her inside. He and his friend continued their conversation, and about 10 minutes later Tom walked back outside. Hey man, do you want a beer? My dad called out. He knew Tom, and though he was frustrated with his actions, or lack thereof toward his mother, he thought he would invite him over and possibly ask him about her. Tom said yes and walked across the street to join them. After they chatted and got comfortable, my dad decided to bring it up. Is that your mom who sits in the chair outside? Tom looked confused. What do you mean? The old woman who sits in that chair every day? My dad said, waiting for him to catch on, but he didn't. My dad then went on to describe her appearance and informed Tom that he had been seeing her daily. It was difficult to tell whether Tom was shocked, sad, or scared. He then went on to tell my dad that his mom had passed away a few years ago and used to live in that house. The chair my dad said he saw her sitting in was her favorite chair. Tom brought my dad across the street to tell his girlfriend about what he had seen, and she was equally baffled. But it gave them comfort knowing that their mother was still there with them. Ghosts and demons weren't of any interest to my dad back in the day. He never believed in them. He thought any sightings of ghosts could be explained by logic and reason and that the people telling the stories were just straight up lying, probably for attention. But this was one of the experiences that made him question what he believed and ponder the possibility of the spiritual realm of good and evil. I've had nightmares for as long as I can remember. It started with Recurring dreams about friendly childhood figures like Snuffleupagus chasing me and devouring me, and progressed to more realistic scenarios such as being shot. As I got older, I'm not bothered by my nightmares anymore. I have unfortunately grown quite accustomed to them. However, there is one nightmare that has stuck with me for years, and it was unlike any other scary dream I have had. Let me preface this by saying I had recently visited the Museum of Shadows, a museum near my hometown that showcases supposedly haunted artifacts from around the world. I consider myself a bit of a skeptic when it comes to ghosts, but I don't limit myself to what could possibly exist and what could not. Growing up in a religious household, I was raised in a family that strongly believed in demons and possession. I still admittedly believe in such things, which may have influenced the experience I am about to tell you, but I still still don't know if it was purely psychological. In the museum, there's a basement filled with demonic objects, items that allegedly contain spirits that have harmed people. Being someone who loves thrills, I excitedly explored this section, reading the stories and seeing the things that supposedly caused so much harm that a jar of holy water is kept at the entrance to bless those who enter and protect them them. I had rented one of those ghost detectors that beeps when there's a fluctuation in energy, which is often associated with ghosts. I wasn't getting any response from my device, and when I did, it was usually because I was pointing it at spots where electrical wires ran. However, when I stood in the center of the basement, where no walls or electrical wires were present, I suddenly got a large response from the ghost detector. I looked around to see what could be causing it, holding the device up, down, and side to side, checking for possible energy fluctuations. I was then surrounded by a cold air that gave me goosebumps. I looked up, expecting to see an air vent, but there was none. I stepped out of this one spot and immediately felt fine. Experimentally, I held my hand out to see if the cold was contained to that spot, and to my surprise, it was. I looked down at the ground and suddenly noticed that the spot I was standing on was marked with an X in duct tape. After finishing up my museum experience, I decided to ask the curator about the X on the floor to see what it meant. Oh, she said, this building is very old. There might have been some tragic incidents long before we moved in. Here we mark areas like that to show where someone has died according to the history of the building. I was in disbelief and a bit Shocked, I did feel like it was a gimmick, and I was unamused by this fact. I thanked the curator for her explanation and left. That night, as I was about to sleep asleep, I started thinking about my experience again. Had I really encountered a ghost? A demon? Or was it all circumstantial and psychological? I slept on it, trying to ignore the unease I felt when I finally fell asleep. I woke up in my dark room, confused. I looked around, wondering why the night had felt so short. As a lucid dreamer, I preferred my usual checks around the room to see if there were any abnormalities that could confirm whether I was asleep or not. While I was performing my look around, I felt a shift on the side of my bed, like a sudden pressure being applied. I snapped my head to the side, and there, crouching by my bed, was a decrepit lady. Her bony hands were pressing into my mattress. Her eyes were large and pure white, her mouth locked in a grotesque grin with missing teeth. Her hair was dark, scraggly and falling out. Her skin was wrinkled, almost corpse like, and devoid of color. She knelt beside me, frozen in place, her hollow eyes seemingly staring right through me. Count my fingers.
- [23:30]
Guest
Fingers.
- [23:31]
Host
She croaked in a voice that was a strange mix of a whisper and a groan. Terrified and confused, I looked down at her fingers. Against my will, my index finger began to touch each one of her cold, skeletal fingers, and I counted aloud how many she had. One, two, three. But she didn't have ten fingers. Three, I said, my voice shaky. You have three fingers. With alarming speed, she whipped her hands behind her, hiding them from view, before rapidly returning them to the bed. This time, more fingers were placed on the mattress, but not all of them were hers. Some of the fingers looked like they had been taken from another person's bed body. I couldn't tell. I started counting again. 1, 2, 3, 4. In the corner of my vision, I saw her pluck one of the fingers off the bed and hide it behind her back, as if to trick me. I said nothing and continued counting. 5, 6, 7, including the one she had hidden behind her back. Without touching it. Her face twisted into a horrifying frown, her mouth opening wide, and she moved again, hiding her hands as she shifted her fingers around. Then she placed a large sum of fingers on the bed. Her grin returned. Cowards. My fingers. She rasped. I started counting again, but now she was removing fingers left and right, trying to get me to mess up just once. I still have no clue what her plan was, or who or what she is, and I have no idea what would happen if I miscounted. 13. 14. 15. I paused as I went to place my finger on the 16th finger. She pulled it away before I could touch it. Out of sheer panic, I blurted, 17. I said the wrong number. Her eyes widened with a hunger that reminded me of a starving man looking at a hot meal. Her grin stretched wider. If that was even possible. Slowly she lowered herself from her crouching position until she was no longer visible, all the while maintaining direct eye contact with me. I jolted up wide eyed, looking around my room. I heard skittering noises. It was pitch black and I couldn't see anything. My hands fumbled around the nightstand as I grabbed the Xbox controller I kept there in case I needed to throw something. It felt solid, real in my hands. Too real to be a dream. Suddenly I felt her jump out onto the foot of my bed. She began crawling toward me at a terrifying pace. I was then startled awake, sitting up as fast as I could. My room was dark and it looked exactly the same as it had in my nightmare. I felt insane. There was no way that had been real. I pinched my arm. I was for sure awake this time, but in my left hand I still gripped the black Xbox controller. I couldn't explain it. I am not someone who sleepwalks or does things like this in my sleep. My only conclusion was that it was a very vivid dream. But her face still haunts me and I can't help but wonder. Did a demon attach itself to me that night?
- [27:39]
Guest
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- [29:09]
Host
I'm a 21 year old female and this happened when I was around 14. I wish I had sent this story in shortly after it happened so I could remember all the details more vividly, but I'll recount it the best I can. My best friend at the time, Courtney and I were very into the world of the paranormal and all things spooky. We used to make Ouija boards out of paper, take them to our local park and graveyard and play with them frequently. There are many stories I could tell about what happened during those sessions, but I'll save that for another time now. I am a firm believer that if you're calling out to the spirit realm, even just in your bedroom during the daytime, you're always leaving a door open and anything could come through. I think that's what happened in our case as we used to call out to things often not just with the Ouija board for some call context. Let me tell you about some other things that happened around that time. Courtney and I would have frequent sleepovers where we would watch movies, eat snacks and just hang out. Nothing out of the ordinary would happen until we woke up in the morning. We used to top and tail in a single bed. For those unfamiliar with the term, it's when two people sleep in the same bed but with their heads on opposite ends. I have always been a super light sleeper when sharing a bed with someone. This is something that has continued into my adult life, so every little move Courtney made I could feel and it would wake me up briefly. After we had eaten all of our snacks and watched some movies, we would get pretty tired and decide to call it a night. As you can imagine, we would leave behind bowls, cups and other things that we would clean up in the morning. But when we woke up, everything in the room would be in places that we hadn't left them. I remember one time I had placed both of my TV remotes on my desk chair after turning the TV off and the large popcorn bowl we had been using was on my desk along with the glasses that we had been drinking from. But when we woke up, both TV remotes along with the popcorn bowl were on the bed between us and the glasses had been moved to my bedside table. We have both sworn to this day that neither of us moved anything around. This happened so frequently that it got to the point where we had to take pictures of the room before and after we went to sleep to see if anything had moved. I should mention that my house isn't haunted and this happened both at my place and at hers when we stayed over at each other's houses. Neither of us have ever been sleepwalkers, so the whole thing was just bizarre. Another thing that happened during one of our sleepovers was that we had just woken up in the morning. By this point, Courtney had been sleeping on a mattress on the floor to give us more space. I was lying on my bed and she was on the floor. Suddenly I felt a very distinct single finger tip harshly poked me on my spine. It was so hard that it made me jolt and startle verbally. You know that feeling when someone comes up behind you and pokes their fingers into the sides of your waist to tickle you? It felt just like that. I laughed at first because I 100% assumed it was Courtney, but when I saw her very confused expression when I asked if it was her, she swore she didn't do it. By this point, I had been friends with her for three or four years and I knew when she was lying. I knew she was serious and I was freaked out, to say the least. Now, this last experience is the one I'm recounting in this post and it's by far the most bizarre thing that's ever happened to me. I still can't explain it to this day. Courtney and I had agreed to have yet another sleepover. This time though, her little sisters weren't home for the weekend so we could use their bunk beds for the night, which was the first time we had ever done this. I should mention that around this time we would often get boys phone numbers and message them during our sleepovers, like most teenage girls do. We grabbed our snacks from the the store and made it back to Courtney's place. We decided to chill out for a bit in her sister's room since that's where we would be spending the night. We were both sitting on the bottom bunk when we got a message on Courtney's phone from an unknown number that simply said hey. We looked at each other confused and asked, who's this? The reply was the same, who is this? This? At first we assumed it was a boy or someone from our school trying to mess with us. But the messages started getting stranger. They started saying things like I know you. And again we assumed it was someone messing with us. We played along, amused and replied, okay, if you know Me. What's my name? The reply came back Courtney. At this point, we didn't think it was that strange. Maybe it was someone who knew us. But then it got creepier. The text started saying things like I see you and I can see you right now. We got a little freaked out, but we continued playing along thinking it was still a prank. Courtney Ra replied, if you can see me, then what am I doing right now? The response? Sitting on your sister's bed. That's when our blood ran cold. How? We both looked out the window to see if we could spot anyone. But we saw nothing. We decided to shut the curtains just in case. The messages kept getting creepier, saying things like I know everything about you. At this point, we were getting really freaked out. We decided to ask something no one would know. Something Courtney did not tell people just to rule out the possibility of a prank. No one knew her middle name. And that's when she asked, what's my middle name? The cbn. We were confused for a moment until my blood ran cold again. Those were Courtney's initials. Her first, middle and last name. I remember we asked the number, where are you? It replied in the walls. Which freaked us out even more. There were other crackers, creepy things, the messages said. But those are the details I remember most vividly. We were pretty freaked out at this point. So we began cross checking all the numbers I had in my phone against this one. Texting Courtney. After a while we found a match. It was Courtney's own phone number. Sending the messages. We checked a dozen times just to make sure we were weren't going crazy. But it was definitely her number. The messages stopped after about an hour and it began responding the way it normally does when you text your own number. We sent hi and got a reply hi. We sent how are you? And got the reply how are you? And so on. I have tried to search online to see if if anyone has had an experience like this. But I have found nothing. All I have come across is stuff about people being able to hack your own number and send messages from it. But even then you usually get spam text about bills or someone has used your credit card. And even if it was some weird hacker, how did they know where we were, what we were wearing and everything else about us. The whole thing was just incredibly creepy. I am still searching for an explanation to provide some context. I was in my senior year of college. It was a bit stressful all around. In order to make some extra cash to fund my thesis project, I decided to pick up a job at a nationwide retailer that sold scented products, shower gels, candles, lotions, etc. What was nice about this job was that I was able to quickly move up from sales associate to key holder, essentially a manager on duty, within the year. This story takes place shortly after that that promotion Another thing to note is that the mall where I worked was an outdoor mall. In order for employees to run trash or shipments, every store had a back door that led to a private hallway, which then led to the outside. This way we didn't have to worry about customers and it provided a quick path to wherever we needed to go. So with that in mind, this was one of the first nights I was not not only in charge of the store as the manager on duty, but I also had to close up, including balancing the tills, preparing the store for tomorrow, etc. My other closer had left at 9:30pm and I was finishing up balancing the tills, checking all the numbers and counting the cash. Since we were closed and the doors were locked, I had my own music playing softly from my phone because our stereo system had broken earlier that day. As I was walking back with the money from the till to the safe, I began to hear a banging sound coming from our back door. The one that only employees use, which customers don't know about. At first I figured it was someone from another store, probably trying to get in after closing time. I thought that they would stop once they saw the label of the door indicating it was our store and not theirs. Nope. The banging kept going for a good five minutes. At first I didn't think much of it, but when I looked through the peephole I saw nothing. And yet the banging continued. Then I started hearing a voice from the other side of the door. Let me in. Let me in. In. It grew more and more annoyed with each repetition. Since I was the only one in the store and I knew for sure it wasn't the co worker who had closed, I began to do what any 21 year old would do. Panic. Should I call my store manager? It was 10pm at night and she worked the day shift. She was probably already in bed. Should I call the assistant store manager? Unlikely. She wasn't fond of me and I doubted that she would answer. Should I call the store supervisor, a friend of mine? Yes. So I gave her a call, praying that she would pick up. She didn't. I called her two more times hoping she would answer, but nothing. I realized I still had to finish any remaining closing duties, leave, lock the store and walk outside in the dark to My car in the Kohl's parking lot. About a five minute walk. Normally I wouldn't have cared, but not tonight. When the banging finally stopped, I poked my head out the back door to find no one. Nobody was there. I started to wonder if all the stress from college had been messing with my mind. Since the person hadn't gotten into the store and I wasn't hurt and it seemed like he was gone, I figured calling the cops wouldn't do much. I did, however, call security to ask for an escort to my car that night, which was a bit of a relief. Fast forward to the next day. I'm telling my co workers about my creepy closing the previous night and we are all speculating about what it could have been. Homeless person, drunk guy, etc. Just then, a man in a repairman type uniform walks into our store asking for our boss. I go to get her and he proceeds to tell her that he's here to fix our stereo. Great. He also mentions offhand that he tried to stop by the day before, but he couldn't get in. At first I thought, oh, that makes sense. He wanted to fix it while the store was closed and there were no customers, so nothing could be disturbed. But here's the thing. I had worked the previous day. I never saw anyone come by to fix anything. And the man talking to us that day had a completely different voice from the guy I heard in the back hallway last night. So there's no way it could have been him trying to fix the stereo the day before. He said that he was the only one scheduled to work on our store, so it wasn't like it was a coworker of his. That's when it hit me. Who was trying to get into my store last night? I never did find out.
- [42:58]
Guest
Close your eyes. Exhale. Feel your body relax. And let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. No. Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order.
- [43:26]
Host
1-800-Contacts. The McDonald's snack wrap is back. You brought it back. Ranch snack wrap. Spicy snack wrap. You broke the Internet for a snack? Snack wrap is back. Ba ba ba ba ba. This episode is brought to you by LifeLock between two factor authentication strong passwords and a VPN. You try to be in control of how your info is protected, but many other places also have it and they might not be as careful. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast for 40% off terms. Apply. My family is from the rural townships of Ayrshire in western Scotland. My grandfather moved his family to Ontario, Canada in the mid-1960s when my mother was only a baby. I was born and raised here and my mother often took my brother and me to visit our family overseas to enjoy the ancient landscapes and rugged coastlines of our ancestral lands that our family had been immersed in for centuries, if not millennia. I fell in love with the whole thing, the folklore, the old traditions, the cultural differences, and the connection to familial history that we lacked back home. I had been brought up alongside folk tales and retellings of old kings, fairies and spirits roaming the desolate fields and peat bogs of my ancestral homeland lands. From a young age. For the most part, I took comfort in it. The far fetched and fantastical mythology in familiar settings echoed a connection to a timeless past that I have always found to be something of a powerful emotional bond, something I could always count on. In my darkest hours and my fondest daydreams, I always had a pretty wild imagination. At the best of times I was prone to all sorts of bursts of creative inspiration, music, drawing, painting, and making up little games in my head. At the worst of times, I could be plagued with nightmares and anxieties about waking life. I was afraid of the hazards of the outside world, seen or unseen. What could go wrong, what I didn't know know, and in particular, especially as the light scattered in the dimming of twilight and led into the dead of night. I was afraid of ghosts. In a sense, I did it to myself. I really enjoyed ghost stories, folk tales and the like. Anything old really. But with my overactive imagination, such a young and fearful demeanor, I would frequently spook myself. I often found myself dreading the turning of a dark corner at night, or feeling as though I was being watched through the cracks of the blinds that didn't quite cover my windows. At night before bed, I would watch television programs about ghost stories and unexplainable accounts of all manner of paranormal activities. Of course, being from the background, I was my favorite stories were about old buildings, castles, and the hidden catacombs of Britain and Europe. Anything that seemed outlandish was right at home amidst the late night glow of the box TV in the living room while I sat there snacking until the very last minute I could get away with before being ushered up to my room to go to sleep. Most nights were pretty pretty uneventful for me, but I have always been the sort of person to wake up in the dead of night around 2:30 to 4:00am for whatever reason, and usually I was able to drift off back to sleep with relative ease. Whenever this happened, on occasion I would wake up to a feeling of being watched, which usually preceded a sense of dread or doom, like I was lying in bed, ever exposed to some sort of inevitable terror, hidden just behind the closet door or on the other side of the window, peering in through the cracks of my blinds. Or worse yet, right behind my back as I lay still on my belly, shrouded by a thin blanket that somehow kept me safe from harm. One summer when I was 11 or 12, I woke up in the middle, middle of the night during a sweltering heat wave. The hum of the air conditioner loudly worked away through the humid and sticky July air, a common sound at this hour, cut only by the odd flyby of squeaking bats over the high treetops in the woods across from my house. But when I awoke, I became aware of absolute silence in my immediate surroundings. No sound of crickets, no bat screeching, no rise and fall of my family's breathing. The air conditioner had stopped. I didn't think much of this at first, and for a while I just sat in the silence and looked around my room in an almost peaceful state. For about 20 minutes I sat still in the silence, just awake in thought. The sort of liminal headspace where you aren't really thinking about anything, but your mind is tuned in and active nonetheless. I began to think it was a little too quiet, almost like it was unnatural. I tried to brush the feeling off, but as I started to notice how out of place the lack of sound was, I began to feel a building sense of dread, like it was permeating my room through the walls. At first it was only only slight, as if I were just starting to spook myself with my mind wandering. But eventually it became uncomfortable. Off in the distance I heard some sort of high pitched hum, but even from my upstairs bedroom I could tell that it wasn't coming from the air conditioning unit or from anywhere on the property. It seemed to be coming from the other side of the empty field that sat across the road between us and the forest. I couldn't tell what it was, only where it was coming from. It almost sounded like the whining cry of a horse. Faint and muted by the distance, it would start and fade back into silence, then return again. I told myself it was just some animal, maybe a screech owl or something I hadn't heard before. As I listened, the sound became more frequent, and every time it rang out over the hills, cutting through the silence, it seemed to be getting louder, as if it were getting closer. The ongoing sense of dread surrounding me intensified tenfold. Each time the sound got louder and more frequent. As the pitch gained in volume and frequency, I noticed the unmistakable sound of hooves trotting up to the house. As if on some cobblestone road, old and unseen, they slowly clip clopped up to what I perceived as the front of our lot and seemed to make their way up the driveway. By this time the sound had become almost uniform and was no longer coming and going. It ceased to be unknown, known to my young mind, and now sounded undeniably like the wailing of a woman. Whoever it was sounded as if they were coming right up to my window. I could hear the breath of a stationary horse positioned directly under my window, down where the driveway met the gate to our side yard. I was absolutely petrified. I shut my eyes almost immediately and rolled over quickly, curling up and huddling underneath my bedsheets until it was all over. It seemed like ages, but the woman eventually stopped shrieking. But I didn't hear anybody leave. I was still so scared, and I was more afraid than I have ever been, even to just move, lest it be some fatal miscalculation on my part. The sense of dread was still there, but things seemed to lessen to some degree. It wasn't so pervasive, and I no longer felt my world was coming apart at its seams. But still, as I lay curled up in the safe shroud of my thin bedsheets in the summer heat, I could hear her. At this point she seemed to be murmuring softly, crying from down under my window. Curiosity eventually got the better of me, and looking back, that same curiosity could very well be the death of me one day. With care, I slowly swung myself out of bed and softly crept low up to the window, peering out from just above the sill to see down into the side yard where our kitchen light shone out onto the path and the gate that led to the driveway. Down on the other side of the gate, I could see the faint outline of a shrouded woman, head bowed down, sobbing into her hands. She was indeed atop a large black horse, and though I could only see her silhouette, I could tell she was wearing some sort of thin veil around her head and a laced overcoat or cloak. Go away. I stammered out, terrified, and all the more surprised at my stupid choice to utter something more than a staggered breath. Her sobbing immediately ceased and I drew back, away from the window, low back onto the floor, afraid of what that might mean. I didn't hear anything at all after this point. The gloomy feeling of. Of dread was still there. I almost jumped into my bed, and I'm not sure how I did so without making so much as a sound. Maybe she had some effect on sound. I'm still not sure. Even years later. I lay stiff as a board with my head on my chest and my arms over my head, eyes shut tightly, holding my breath, hoping that she would just go. The sense of doom was so intense by this point that if I thought it was unbearable before, now it was almost hellish. She was watching me. I just knew it. I don't know how, but she was. After what felt like either a lifetime or 10 seconds, the feeling lessened again, and I could hear the soft sound of hooves slowly heading away down, down the driveway into the distance. But as I turned around to check, I looked over at my window to see two bright and glowing eyes, blood red and shining with some ungodly light, peering through the blinds and into my own eyes, locked gaze to gaze with something not of this world. I couldn't move a muscle. My window was on the second story. At this point I didn't know what was happening, and I was convinced this would be the last thing I would see. As I lay there helpless, locked eye to eye with this fiend, she began to shriek and howl at an ungodly volume that seemed to take up every corner of my bedroom and every inch of my soul. As the dread intensified with the volume of the relentless screaming and howling, the woman's jaw began to unhinge and her sallow face contorted under the COVID of her thin veil. I started to black out, and the last thing I remember about it was her wrathful, hollow eyes. As the sound began to fade into obscurity and I lost consciousness. I woke up to the sun beaming through my windows, which my parents would often open when they woke up to get us all up and keep us from sleeping in. The sound of people mowing their lawns outside, the cicadas and the trees and the familiar buzz of the air conditioning unit were all back and it was as if nothing had even happened. The events of that night had a huge effect on me as a child. And even today, decades long later, it still creeps me out to think about. I never really did get an answer as to what happened or what I saw, but in the days following, I convinced myself that I had come face to face with a banshee. I have since developed more of an interest in cryptid encounters and folklore from around the world, digging up all sorts of accounts of otherworldly beings, fairies, demons and the like. Fairly recently, I started revisiting some of my Scottish heritage and found something within the folklore that matches what I had seen to a pretty high degree. With almost absolute certainty, I'm convinced that what I saw was something called a kunyag. It couldn't have been a traditional banshee. According to folklore, only certain Irish families are associated with the banshee. And after all, nobody in my family died or even came close to death, and I'm obviously still here. However close the cognag is to the banshee. There are some key differences, and the most common distinction is banshees aren't actually there to torment you. You. You can even talk to them by most folkloric accounts, and they will often respond with some message about a loved one who is in danger or somebody you know who has passed away. Do not talk to the kunyag.
- [57:59]
Guest
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- [58:34]
Host
My grandma was a simple woman. A firm yet kind mother, a nurturing gardener, a passionate baker, and above all, a devout Christian. Her identity revolved entirely around her faith. Even her sense of humor was so plain that the plainness itself was what made her funny. We had all had our quarrels with her over staunch religiousness, but beneath it all, we knew she cared so much she just couldn't bear the thought of our poor souls being damned. That was the world she lived in. But she was a loving grandma. When I was young and sleeping at her house, I often was too scared to sleep alone. I would come to her bed and tell her that I was too scared. I was always terrified of being alone in the dark. She had this Bible verse she would sing do not fear for I am with you. Isaiah 41:10. She would wag her finger before tapping my heart to relay that God would always be with me. Thanks a lot, Grandma. She would always sing Bible verses to us instead of sharing her own thoughts. This one stuck with me though, whether it actually made me feel better or I just realized that was all Grandma was going to do. When I came to her scared, I always went back to bed and eventually fell asleep. Sadly, when I was 16, she passed away. After the funeral, my extended family gathered at her house for a long get together since we hardly saw each other. Being one of the oldest kids, I found my place entertaining my younger cousins, some of whom I had only seen a few times in my life. We decided to play hide and seek and after being the designated seeker five or so times, I said that it was their turn to find me. I snuck into her basement, which was cluttered with things she had kept over the years. There was a bed frame and mattress springs leaning against one of the walls with various frames, paintings and other items stuffed between and around it. So I crawled. Underneath was dusty and filled with cobwebs, but I knew the kids wouldn't find me so easily. The basement had one light and it was underground with no windows. No one really came down here other than to grab a soda or ice cream from the extra refrigerator. So there I am, hiding in old cobwebs, hearing my little cousins stomp around looking for me. They came down to the basement to look around and then sped off somewhere else. After a while I started to move out a little and the bed frame shifted, pinning me against the concrete wall a bit. I start working my way out, but my feet are stuck in an awkward position that I can't do anything about. Just when I'm halfway emerged, someone opens the door and I realize the kids have now found me and the game's over. Oh well, I'm ready to come out anyway, I think. But then the light goes out and the door shuts. One of the grown ups must have figured the kids were finished playing in the basement and didn't want them down there anymore. So they turned off the light and shut the door. Now it's pitch black. I am cramped against this wall. I am not okay with this. I start struggling to move out of the way and panic starts to set in. I shout, hey, I'm down here. But no one can hear me. It was only probably 10 seconds of panicking in the darkness. And then I heard it. Do not fear, for I am with you. Isaiah 41:10 My blood freezes. I can't breathe. I know what I heard and I know whose voice I heard it. I stood in absolute bewilderment with the lower half of my body still pinned under the bed frame. Grandma? Silence. Only the silence that follows after you hear the words of your dead grandma while you're trapped in a pitch black room. Blares in your head, alarm bells ringing. I panic. I start shouting and shoving my way through the debris when suddenly the door opens and the light flips on. Little careful footsteps inch down the stairs. Found you. It was one of the littlest of my cousins, my niece Sarah, only about four or five years old. Sweating, I relent. Oh God, you sure did. Great job. Now let's get out of here. I start up the stairs, but she's at the bottom, staring into the cluttered room. I admit I was eager to forget what had just happened down there, but as if that were ever possible, it was about to be Frank, firmly cemented into my memory. Come on, Sarah, let's go upstairs, I said in my best sweet uncle voice. Still looking into the dark corner of the basement. She started waving her hand. Bye bye. I love you too, Grandma. My breath was pulled from my lungs, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end and little Sarah just carefully crawled back up the stairs on all fours like kids do. I took a moment, drew in one last breath of the dusty basement air and said, goodbye, Grandma before I followed her up the stairs. Since then I have wondered why only little Sarah came down to get me and no one followed her. I have theorized maybe Grandma led her into the basement. I could have hurt myself in the dark down there. I think Grandma would have been worried. It's funny, that Bible verse used to be what she would tell me so I wouldn't be scared, and it ended up being the single most terrifying thing that I've ever heard. Well, thanks for trying, Grandma. Ma, I love you too.
- [65:05]
Guest
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- [66:14]
Host
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- [66:17]
Guest
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- [67:05]
Host
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