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- [00:08]
A
Do you enjoyed the bath? She asked, a gleam upon her eye. Oh, the water's good and hot, I noted with a sigh. It tasted nicely salted, but then it began to boil. I saw carrots in the bathtub and onions fried in oil. I tried to scramble out, but my limbs stayed stuck like glue. She cackled. Won't you join me for a hearty bowl of stew? You've crossed over the Spook. Stay tuned. For the new people, the good people who work here at Spook. It must feel as if they have arrived in the middle of a long running argument. Because one of the first things I insist upon is not a ghost story, not a demonstration of research, chops or ability to create a particular sound. No. First, first I want to go to lunch and the veteran spooks just start to groan and I don't care. I don't take this new person up the street. Not far to Oakland's Chinatown, down 12th street, off Broadway to a nondescript restaurant. It's called Spices 3, and inside the good folk they hand us the laminated menu. I don't need to see the menu. This is nominally a Szechuan restaurant. It's known for galactic level spiciness. Think like mounds and mounds of peppers. Spicy. But I insist, order whatever you want. Everything is delicious. The stinky tofu, the spicy eel strips. It is tasty. I just want you to try some of what I order immediately. The uberdoozer, that spook. He starts to holler and don't do it. Don't order it. Don't do it. I smile. He smiles. We both know good and well I'm going to order it. When the nice lady comes to ask what we like at the end I add my favorite dish. It's called Gangsta Casserole Murder style. What is it? I admit it's not for vegetarians. There's other stuff to eat here, if that is your proclivity. No. Gangster casserole Murder style. There's a hot pot stew cooked to order at the table. It's made from offal, from intestine, tripe from blood, pork stomach, pork skin, bits and pods of I don't know, with peppers, lots and lots of peppers and stuff. There's an alchemy that only occurs when you let all of this bubble up together in that pot for a while. It's a goodness. And I. I like to see the eyes when I offer some up to the newcomer. To watch them peer into this pot, to lean in or recoil away from. This is not A trick? Is it hazing? Initiation? Maybe it's an imitation as well. Truly. Because make no mistake, I love this dish. I love it. It is home. It's Oakland. It's family. It's warmth. It's memory. It smiles. It's awe. It is magic. You may or may not enjoy it, but all I ask is that you try it. Spook stars. Now. Sa. Imagine that we're the only ones that are odd, that the mystery doesn't have a sense of humor. And today, we're gonna take a ride with Lee. Lee is a spin class instructor at a gym in Los Gatos, California. Now let Lee take it.
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B
Three words that describe my classes. Energetic. Challenging. Sweaty. Very sweaty. Soaking wet. Sweaty. I like to put on music first thing. Usually a house beat right out of the gate. It's like the energy is there. So when my members come in, they'll set up their bikes. They'll get on the bikes and they'll start pedaling because the music's on. Once I know that everybody's set up, I'll get on my bike and I'll say, how is everyone doing? Is everyone feel good? Do you have your water? Once I get the thumbs up, I turn the lights off immediately, so it's very dark, but there's neon lights that like bars along the walls, and there's a spotlight on me. The room just turns into this really colorful space. Then I'll say, let's go. Okay, everybody, I just want you to have a little bit of tension on the bike. Just stay in the blue zone. Getting your heart rates up. There's two screens, both behind me, one on the right side, one on the left. And that's where the ride is put up so you can see everybody's bike and the color that that person is pushing. So it'll look like all these little rainbow circles with bike numbers and watts at this point now, all the indicators should be blue. Blue was easy. And then I'll say, I want you to push a little harder. I want you to add a gear or speed up. We're going to ride into the green zone, and then on the course, push into the red, and that would go into dark red. You can maybe do it for three minutes, maybe four minutes, then you're toast. And then there is a purple zone. The purple is the hardest zone you can be in if you're a human being, Right. So you have to produce a lot of power to do that into the purple zone. So the whole thing is like this rainbow of music and color and light and intensity. And it's pretty amazing. It's a really fun workout. When I was teaching fitness classes at a local gym around 96, 97, the club got some bikes and they said every fitness instructor has to learn how to teach cycling. And I remember getting on a bike and thinking to myself, why would anybody do this? This is painful. And I was totally convinced that cycling was not going to last. Obviously, I'm wrong. I'll be teaching. It'll be 30 years in a couple of years. At this point. I've been teaching at the club at Los Gatos for four years. On Wednesday morning, I pull up to the gym. It's about 6:45 in the morning. The sun was just coming up. I like to get there early because I want to make sure everything is working. There's a lot of bells and whistles. I walked through these gorgeous glass doors. The Club at Los Gatos, it has been around for a long time, but had just been remodeled from the ground up. And it's all brand new. I go through the gym and there's some people working out, but it's pretty quiet because it's still relatively early. Classes haven't really started yet. And I say hello to the attendant that's taking the towels past me. I go right up the stairs. I go into the cycle room. I walk in and I look up and I see that there is a gauge on the screen against the back wall. I'm looking up and I'm thinking, I wonder why there's a gauge on the screen. Someone must have just been in here or something, maybe riding a bike. And it's just kind of left over. And then I notice that the little arrow. There's a little black arrow that goes around the color wheel, like if it was your speedometer, that tells you what color zone you're in. And it was in the blue zone. And it's going up and down exactly like someone was on the bike. Just pedaling softly, like, warming up, which means someone would have to be on a bike. And I'm standing there, and I'm just staring at it, going, uh, like, how's that happening? Then I hear the door open, and a member comes in, and he stands next to me. And this is Phil. And I love Phil. Phil's great. He's got a great attitude. He always is smiling. And I. He stands next to me and he looks up at the gauge that I'm looking at, and I go, phil, do you see that, Phil? And he's like, hmm, bike 23. And we both at the same time, look behind us, and we look at Bike 23, which is in the back. It's not moving. It's not making any noise. I walk back there, and I'm thinking, there's got to be some sort of glitch here. Like, it's stuck. And so I get on bike 23 and I pedal it, and I get the gauge to move into the different color zones, and I stop the bike, and I get off the bike, and the gauge is at zero. And it was just kind of, like, over. So I look at Phil and I go, huh, Must be just a tech glitch. And he's like, yeah, I get on my instructor bike, and more people come in, and I teach the class, finish my class, and I change my clothes, and I grab a smoothie from the cafe, and I go all the way back to home, and I don't think about it again. On Saturday morning, I drop my daughter off at the reservoir because her Practice starts at 8 for the Los Gatos Rowing Club. And then I go into town, I go into the gym, I walk down the hall, I walk into the cycle room. My members started coming in, they started getting on their bikes, and they started pedaling. When class was over, I look at my watch and I'm like, okay, I gotta go get my kid, because practice is gonna be over at 11. So I open my bag, I put my shoes in the bag, I put my towel in the bag, and I grab my iPad. And as I'm turning it, I see a gauge right in the middle of my iPad. It's Bike 23. And all of a sudden, Wednesday morning comes rushing back into my head. And I turn, just like I did when Phil was there. I turn and I look at bike 23, and nobody's on it. And I look at the gauge, and I see that the little black triangle is moving up and down again in the blue. And I'm like, no way. What the heck? I talk to myself all the time. Like, I'm always talking to myself. And so I looked at this gauge, and I was like, okay, can you work a little harder? And I was really just playing. And the pin moved up to the yellow zone. It just went. I couldn't believe it. Did that just happen? This has got to be some sort of coincidence. Something is happening, and it just happened to switch over when I said it. But I thought to myself, okay, I gotta see if this will happen again. And I say, wow, that's pretty good. Can you work as hard as you can? And it goes all the way. And it goes right into the purple zone. No frickin way. No way is this actually happening right now. I felt like an adrenaline bolt, and it made my heart rate go up and it felt like a heat that went down the core of my body. Now I'm thinking to myself, like, what do I do now? So I went into instructor mode. I say, wow, you're working really, really hard. Can you reduce the work? But not all the way. And it. The pin on the gauge reverses all the way down and all the way back around and hangs out in the blue zone again and just bobbles up and down in the blue zone. Just like that. I'm stunned. This was not a tech glitch at all. This was real. I want to continue. I really want to continue with this. And then I look at the time and I think to myself, my kid is going to have my head on a platter if she's alone next to the reservoir all by herself, and I am the last person to come get her. So I decide that I got to go. And I walked out because the ride home is a little bit longer. Going southbound on the weekends, I always make sure I get my daughter something to eat. So I go to the cafe that's just out from the cycle room. It's all light and airy. People are talking and walking. There's people drinking coffee. You know, it's just a whole nother energy. I order my smoothie, and I was sitting on one of the really nice leather sofas, and I see the general manager. She walks right past me and I say, hey, I need to tell you. Something weird just happened in the spin room. And she's like, oh, what happened? And I told her about the gauge and the pin and me talking to whatever was making the pin go up and down. And her eyes got really big and she just started saying, I don't want to know. And she had her hands up like, stop. She's like, I do not want to know. And I said, why? And she goes. When they were remodeling, the workers kept saying that something was going on because every single time they'd come to work in the morning, things had been moved. The women's locker room was a mess. Every single time they came in, it was like someone came and just knocked everything over. Then at one point in time, when they were working and putting the floor in or something like that, all of the doors blew open. All of them at the same time. Just all poosh blew open. And everyone was like, oh, my Gosh, what is happening here? And the workers were convinced that it was paranormal. I wanted to see, is there any other explanation for this? Because maybe there's something else that could have happened. There are two of the same exact bikes on the exercise floor that anybody could use. And I said, is there any possible way that anyone on one of those bikes could have made this happen? Like randomly Bluetooth and come UP as Bike 23? And she said no. She kind of went on and on and ranted and said she didn't want to know, and then she just walked away. And I was still waiting for my smoothie when I confirmed with the general manager that there was no other logical explanations. That's when I knew that I was communicating with somebody. I was stoked because I've had friends and family members tell me stories about things that they had experienced where I was just in awe, but nothing like that had ever happened to me, ever. And I was always kind of feeling like that's never going to happen. And so I did feel honored. And I really wish I would have asked so many more questions. So they call out my smoothie order, and I get my smoothie. I walk out into the sunshine, and I get in my car and I get on the highway. I was thinking about who this spirit could have been and why they'd be showing themselves to me like this. It could be someone who just loves spin class. But if I were to come back, I'd probably choose something a little easier. Not so hard on the. On the Katush, I go wrap around a little bit and go on to Lexington Reservoir, and there's my kid waiting, you know, to be picked up. And she's like, mom, it took you so long. And I said, get in the car. Have I got a story for you.
- [21:02]
A
Thank you, Lee, for sharing your story. Spooksters. If you find yourself in California, Santa Cruz area and you need to get your spin class fixed, look for Lee on the schedule at your nearest gym. And Lee is just like you. She is a listener. She's a spookster. We love hearing stories from our listeners. The original score for this piece was by Sandra Larson, ndu. It was produced by Zoe Frigno. Now, next storyteller Jesse. She's in college, living with her friend Nita's family right outside of Chicago. Jesse feels at home in the house. At least she thought she did.
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C
This is a home that I often visited as a child. My friend and I, we were our childhood friends. We went to high school together. Nita's mom has always Been a very welcoming mom, you know, always welcomed kids into the home, fed us, made sure that we were entertained, you know, really was a true caretaker. And so I've always called her Mom. Everyone that knew mom called her Mom. About a year into me living there with the family, they go on their annual trip to Florida. And this is the first time I'm ever alone in the house. When I got out of work, it had already started to rain. So I was just trying to get home as soon as possible because I knew the storm was coming. I get in, get into some PJs, wash my face, and I go down to the family room. I'm channel surfing. I landed on lawn or SVU marathon. The storm is really coming down. In the family room, there are skylights, so you could see the rain just like really hitting the glass on the skylights. And then I see the hallway light come on. I didn't think anything of it. There's a thunderstorm happening. I didn't know if any of the fuse box had, like, tripped anything like that, but it was embedded in me by my parents to turn off all the lights in any of the rooms that you're not in. And so I turn it off and go back to the family room. About a few minutes later, I hear the switch and the light comes on again. And I was thinking to myself, I gotta find the fuse box. I gotta figure out where this is. And then I see the lights downstairs come on. And then I start to hear the doors creaking to the downstairs. And that's when I started to get uneasy. Is there someone in the house? Then I hear another door upstairs creaking. And then things just start spiraling out of control. There's lights coming on and off. I can hear the doors opening and closing. And it's storming outside. There's lightning. And so there was just a lot of chaos happening at once. And now I am terrified. I just balled up in the couch. I was paralyzed with fear. My throat feels very tight, and I didn't know what to do. I just want it to be over. And I started praying. And then as there's like this big flash of lightning and just kind of illuminates the entire sky. Then I noticed there's a cat outside of one of the windows. It's like dark shades of gray, slightly fluffy, but because it was raining, you could see kind of the fur hanging. It had orange eyes, and it's looking in. I thought, why is this cat standing out in the middle of the rain and Then it gets dark. There's another flash of lightning. Now I see the cat on the side sliding door. And then I don't see it anymore. And then you have another flash of lightning. And then I look up. The cat's on the skylight looking down. There's lightning behind it. And so there's this electric outline of this cat. And I'm scared because I don't understand how I got there. So I try to close my eyes. I just keep praying. And then I hear one of the pictures from the mantle fall down. It's a metal picture frame, so it made this very loud sound when it hit the floor. I open my eyes. I walk over to see the picture. And when I pick up the picture, I see that it's Nita's grandpa's picture. It was from the 70s. He's just sitting down on a very ornate chair. That first thing that pops into my mind is, oh, my God, it's Grandpa. Mom's dad lived in that house. And I was told that he passed away in that home. The running joke of the house is that grandpa spirit lives there. But I really thought it was just like a joke to them. But now I wonder if Grandpa was aware of the fact that I lived there, if he thought I was an intruder, because I don't think he's ever seen me in the house alone without any one of his family members. And so I start screaming out loud like, I live here, Grandpa. I live here. But there's lights going on and off. There's doors opening and closing. There's this storm. I needed something to just stop. And so I felt like I was left with no choice but to call Mom. And I called Mom. It's like, midnight, illinois time. It's 1:00am Florida. And she's, you know, sleepy. She's like, hello. Mom is from Pakistan, and she grew up in England. So she has the cutest little, like, British accent with, like, a hint of Pakistani underneath. And I was like, mom, what's wrong? What's wrong? I'm almost crying, but I don't want to cry. I'm like, I think it's Grandpa. I think he's trying to get me out. So I put her on speaker, and I said, I need you to tell him I live here. And she's quiet for a moment. She doesn't say anything. My internal dialogue is, she's gonna think I'm crazy. She's gonna think I'm on drugs. She's gonna think I'm drunk. And then she speaks, and she goes dad, she lives there. Stop it. She lives there, okay? We'll be back soon. And then we sat in silence for a little bit. The lights then start to, like, not be as fast. They start to slow down, and I don't hear the doors creaking anymore. And she says, call me back if there's any more problems. And I said, okay. And I hung up the phone. And now I'm just waiting 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and then I don't hear anything. And so I start to calm down, but I was too scared to go upstairs. So I'm trying to just get some rest on the couch in the family room. As I'm drifting off, I see this cat walking by the sliding door. When I woke up the next day, it was very sunny. I remember that I started to question myself. Did I dream it? Did it really happen? Then I checked my phone log. Did I call Mom? I did call Mom. I wasn't sure if there was still Grandpa's angry presence. But nothing happens while I'm getting ready for work. And I don't have an experience with Grandpa the rest of the weekend. But this cat was always a constant presence. This house has a lot of windows. If I look out the window, I can see the cat outside looking in, watching me. During the day, I would try to go outside to see if I could catch it or see it. But by the time I would walk outside, it was gone. The family gets home on Monday. Mom walks in and she hugs me and she sits me down. She says, let's talk. What happened? So I'm telling her what happened, and I'm describing the cat to her, right? And she starts to chuckle, and I said, what's so funny? She goes, well, the last cat that Grandpa had before he died was similar to the cat that you are describing to me. She goes through her room and she starts digging through the photo albums, and she finds me this picture of Grandpa with the cat that looks exactly like this cat that had been circling the home this entire weekend. There's this heart drop to my stomach moment, because at that point, Grandpa had been dead for over 15 years. I didn't want it to be a ghost cat. I was still trying to rationalize this being a real life cat that was outside the home. But I never saw that cat again. You know, from the moment that the family got home on Monday, and I was still kind of peering, looking out the windows, waiting for this cat to be around the house. I never saw it again. I don't know if it was Grandpa spirit cat. I don't know if it was Grandpa as a cat, but I believe that Grandpa had the cat there to keep an eye on me while I was home alone. I'm not really sure why Grandpa did what he did that weekend. I've dwelt with that for a really long time, thinking, what if he was a jokester? What if he was a prankster? What if he was just pranking me? Maybe he truly didn't recognize me as somebody that was supposed to be in this house. And then I started thinking about conversations that I had with mom. Mom spoke very fondly of her father. She talked about what an intelligent man he was and what a hard working man he was, all the sacrifices he made. She never talked about him as a dad, right? Or like he was very kind. Then it made me question, was he even nice at all? Was he trying to be malicious? It felt like a question that I wasn't going to get an answer to. But after that experience, I never stayed in the house alone Again.
- [36:34]
A
A big thank you to Jessie for sharing her story. This piece was scouted by Vero Avigna Visual Scores by Nicholas Marx. It was produced by Zoe Frigno. Now then, often when we think of the gods, we think of the Creator, the one that made the sun, the moon, the stars. But this God of the universe, this God of everything, this is fairly new. For most of human history, the gods were smaller, more accessible. The God of the valley, the God of the river. The gods would walk with you, talk to you, sometimes in human form and in other forms as well. Some say even today, that they still do. And if you have had one of those conversations, one of those relationships, I would sure love to hear about it. Take us with you into the forest. Spooked@snapjudgment.org because there's nothing better than a spook story from a spooked listener. The door to Spook Studios lays hidden directly behind you, connecting to the catacombs deep underneath KQED in San Francisco. Please don't seek to find it, lest it seek to find you. We've got the special incantations and spooks legal reading that no SNAP Studios content may be used for training, testing or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. On Team Spooked, the union representative, producers, artists, editors and engineers are members of the national association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL CIL Local 51 and SPOOP. Brought to you for the team that, when asked, often refuses to pull your finger. Except for Mark Ristich he cannot resist. There's David Kim, Zoe Ferrigno, Ann Ford, Eric Yanez, Teo Da Cott, Marissa Dodge, Miles Lassie, Regina Berriako, Tsuyi Chu, Evan Stern, Yves Jeffcoat, Ischell Lopez, Jack Darrell, Nicholas Marks, Doug Stewart. The Spook theme song. It's by Pat Mercede Miller. My name is Glenn Washington, and in middle school, I ran track. Did the hurdles, the pole vaulting. And before every event, my buddy Carlos would always pour a little bit of Gatorade to the ground. None of us understood exactly why, but pretty soon it became a ritual. Before every track meet, we huddled together and poured liquid to the ground to seal our bond, to note our commitment, to ask for blessing. I don't know. But later I saw people pour libations in tearful memory of those who had passed before a meal in their honor. In Japan, we offered both incense and food to the small gods first. Before we could partake, they must partake before us. Them before us. Them. Before we even knew what we were doing with that Gatorade, we knew this. We felt this. Before us. Them. Never, ever, ever turn out the last. Sam.