0:02

Snap Studio. Jack

0:14

found the house like empty

0:16

The. House was Jack the

0:19

light. Jack went to sleep inside

0:21

and. Jack

0:23

Subject at night.

0:28

The. Ah

0:30

ah. Listen

0:33

to Spooked stay. To.

0:43

At a time with information continues

0:45

to combat as bastard in fast

0:47

sometimes you need to hit pause.

0:51

And rewind. Employers

0:56

do. Line takes you back in time

0:58

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1:01

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1:03

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cake you a d and p

1:51

r x you've crossed over to

1:53

spooked So

2:06

I'm in the woods, in front

2:08

of a campfire, trying to figure out

2:10

why these vegan marshmallows won't melt between

2:12

the graham crackers like marshmallow marshmallows. And

2:16

I feel someone tugging on my shirt. I

2:19

look down and see a beautiful little girl, my

2:22

buddy Sam's daughters, who asked

2:24

me, Uncle Glenn, what's

2:26

a ghost? I

2:29

glance over at Sam because I

2:31

get what's going on here. She'd

2:33

ask him first, but he over there trying

2:35

to dodge. He smiles,

2:37

shrugs, waves his beer at me like,

2:40

hey, hey, this is supposed to

2:42

be your arena. You answer. Huh,

2:47

what's a ghost? And she's

2:49

looking up at me, big brown

2:51

eyes expecting. So

2:54

I tell her. I

2:57

don't know what a ghost is, but I

3:00

might know a little something about what ghosts are made

3:02

of. I

3:06

think a ghost is made of secrets that

3:08

are buried deep. Stories

3:11

that someone didn't get to tell, they're made of hurts

3:13

that don't go away and

3:16

big things are left undone. And

3:20

I'm really proud of this answer. Uncle

3:23

Glenn breaking it down. You're welcome

3:25

little girl, friends, one and all.

3:27

You are welcome. I

3:30

look back down at her face. She's

3:33

not as pleased with my talky talk as I am.

3:37

Shakes her head at me like, like I'm slow. No.

3:41

She says, ghost is people. Well,

3:46

if you understand so much, what you asking

3:48

me for? Because

3:52

they told me to. So

5:01

certain areas are forever

5:03

imprinted upon us. We're

5:05

built to have attachment to places, to childhood

5:07

homes that like you used to go to.

5:10

We've been drawing the spots where bad things happened.

5:14

As a kid, Marielle, she moved

5:16

around a lot. And when her

5:18

family ended up in James Island, South Carolina,

5:21

Marielle thought they'd hit the jackpot.

5:24

A nice neighborhood, a beautiful

5:27

home. Everything seemed awesome. But,

5:31

of course, this is

5:33

spooked. And here's Marielle.

6:09

I am selling Sally Foster

6:11

gift wrap with my neighborhood

6:14

friends. We take turns on

6:16

who's going to knock on which door and

6:19

there's one house that we

6:21

always play rock, paper, scissors for

6:23

to see who will have to go. There's

6:27

a one style ranch with a little square

6:29

of a front yard. The lawn

6:32

is overgrown. The cars

6:34

in the driveway never move and

6:37

we can see through the window

6:39

and see furniture and things inside

6:42

but we never see people. There's

6:46

so much just

6:48

neighborhood lore about this house. My

6:52

friend Jan had

6:54

to go up to the door to knock on

6:56

it one time and she swears

6:58

that she saw a headless woman and

7:00

a white lace gown rocking a baby.

7:04

Other kids in the neighborhood would

7:06

have said that we were crazy for

7:08

walking up to this house but

7:11

we were over achievers so of course we

7:13

had to go up. Rock,

7:18

paper, scissors. Rock,

7:20

paper, scissors. I

7:23

lose rock, paper, scissors and

7:25

I have to walk up to

7:27

the house to knock on the door. The

7:30

driveway feels like a very

7:32

long walk. I feel like

7:34

I have weights on my ankles and

7:37

yet I am pushing

7:39

forward till I

7:42

reach the front door and am ringing

7:44

the doorbell. Nothing

7:47

happens. I

7:49

don't hear anything inside and

7:52

I even peer through the front window and

7:54

I see the rocking chair but I don't

7:56

see a headless woman. And

7:59

yet I am not. I can't wait to get

8:02

off that front porch stoop. I

8:05

sprint back to my friends who are waiting

8:07

on the street, not even in

8:09

the driveway on the street. One

8:15

day my mom picks me up from school and

8:18

tells me that we're going to

8:20

move. But in the same breath

8:22

she tells me not to worry. We

8:24

found another house in the same neighborhood, so

8:27

I won't have to move away from my

8:29

friends or change schools. And

8:31

we're going to go there now so that you can

8:33

see it. She

8:41

doesn't tell me anything after that.

8:43

We just start driving through our

8:45

neighborhood. I'm curious which house we

8:48

were able to rent because I

8:50

hadn't seen any for rent

8:52

signs. And I ride my

8:54

bike or rollerblades on those roads every day.

8:58

So we drive past the

9:00

house we're currently living in. And

9:03

we keep driving down a couple

9:05

of streets until we

9:07

turn onto the street

9:09

with the spooky house. And

9:13

to my shock and horror, we

9:16

pulled into that cracked, weedy

9:19

driveway. And

9:21

she said, we're here. I

9:26

tell her, no, no, no, no, no, no. We

9:29

can't go in there, you don't understand. And

9:32

my mother gives me a stern look that lets me

9:34

know I need to get out right now. So

9:37

I begrudgingly get out

9:39

of the car and she

9:41

takes my hand and we walk

9:44

up to the front

9:46

door together. My

9:48

mind is racing because everything

9:51

I know about this house is

9:55

scary. And

9:58

all of my fears. of

10:00

what is lurking behind that front door

10:02

or crashing around me at once. I

10:09

don't expect anyone to answer because

10:11

no one ever has. So

10:16

when the door opens and

10:18

a man is standing there, I am

10:20

utterly shocked. And

10:25

my mother introduces me to

10:27

Mr. Walters, who

10:29

owns the house. Mr.

10:32

Walters is tall.

10:35

He's pretty lanky

10:38

and he has a mustache. And

10:42

he's in kind of dirty

10:44

jeans and a plaid flannel. He

10:47

invites us into the house. I

10:51

do not want to go inside the

10:53

house, but I do because I'm a

10:55

kid and you do what

10:57

your parents say. So

11:03

as we walk through the house, I've

11:06

realized that it's not scary

11:09

in the way that we all thought

11:11

it was. I'm

11:13

astounded at how normal everything

11:16

looks. In

11:18

the bedroom there's change on

11:20

the dresser. There's food in

11:22

the pantry. There are no monsters

11:24

that I can see. There are no

11:26

ghosts lurking about. It

11:29

looks like somebody lives there, but

11:32

nobody does. At

11:37

first, Mr. Walters seems

11:39

hospitable, willing to give us a tour.

11:42

But as we look around, he

11:44

seems very anxious. He

11:47

doesn't seem interested in answering any of

11:49

my mother's questions. But

11:55

what I learned is that two years

11:57

before, in 1989, a

12:00

really horrible hurricane came through

12:02

Charleston called Hurricane Hugo. And

12:06

what Mr. Walters is telling

12:08

my mom is that

12:11

he and his wife were so afraid

12:13

of what the hurricane would do to

12:15

their house that they

12:17

left and never returned

12:20

until now. And

12:22

I was perplexed by that because

12:24

the house didn't look damaged. Everything

12:26

seemed fine. And

12:29

I couldn't understand why you just

12:31

wouldn't return to a house for

12:33

two years with all your stuff

12:35

in it. I

12:51

peek into a coat closet and

12:54

that's where I see several

12:56

boxes full of children's toys.

13:00

And this small

13:02

stuffed gorilla is peeking out

13:05

at the top of one of the boxes. Mr.

13:08

Walters saw me looking at it and

13:10

he picked it up and handed it to me and

13:12

offered it to me as a gift, as a housewarming

13:14

gift. As he

13:16

hands me the gorilla, he suddenly

13:19

flips from anxious to warm

13:21

and friendly. But that only lasts

13:23

for a few seconds. And I get

13:26

the feeling that he wants us to get out. That

13:33

night when my dad got home, we

13:36

all talked about it over dinner and I learned about the deal

13:38

that my mother had made with Mr. Walters. My

13:40

mom felt like that house was abandoned. So

13:44

she started asking around in the

13:46

neighborhood to see if anybody knew

13:48

who owned it. And that's

13:50

when she got in touch with Mr. Walters and

13:52

basically begged him to rent the house to us. He

13:56

didn't want to be in the neighborhood. want

14:00

to at first. My mother

14:02

didn't say why Mr. Walters and his

14:04

wife didn't want to rent out the

14:06

house and

14:08

I didn't get the

14:10

feeling that she or my dad cared

14:13

because they were just desperate to

14:15

move somewhere and this seemed

14:18

like the perfect place for us to move. On

14:24

the morning of moving day I'm feeling

14:26

really scared. We

14:29

belong to a small fundamental

14:31

Christian church and

14:33

we got another family involved

14:35

with their kids and we

14:37

all ran around the house opened every door

14:39

and into every corner did

14:41

what we what we call calling on

14:44

the name of Jesus to bless the

14:46

house. It felt fun.

14:49

It was like a game and and it

14:51

was something new we've never done that before.

14:56

By the end of the day when it's

14:58

time for bed I'm feeling

15:00

pretty peaceful about being

15:02

in the house. I

15:05

have new bedding. I

15:07

like the setup of my new room. I'm

15:11

snuggled in my bed lying on my back holding

15:15

on to the gorilla that Mr. Walters

15:17

gave me. My

15:21

door is cracked a bit and

15:24

the hall light is on. My eyes

15:26

are just kind of

15:29

lazily gazing around

15:31

my room and they land on a

15:33

little bit of movement around my door

15:35

and that's

15:38

when I noticed a little

15:40

boy maybe seven or eight years old

15:43

peering into my room. He

15:46

has reddish

15:48

brown hair parted on the side

15:51

clean cut. He's

15:53

wearing a long sleeve

15:56

shirt something that looks similar to

15:59

long john. I

16:04

feel a strange sense of calm. I

16:07

don't freeze. I'm not scared.

16:12

We just kind of stared at each other. He didn't

16:14

say anything. He didn't come any closer. He

16:17

isn't smiling, but he doesn't

16:19

look angry or even afraid

16:21

of me. He looks really

16:24

curious. After

16:26

a few seconds of our

16:28

eyes being locked, I

16:30

realized that boy can't be

16:32

there. And

16:36

not because I thought I

16:38

was hallucinating, but because he

16:40

physically couldn't be there. There

16:42

just wasn't space for his body. Because

16:46

where my door frame ended

16:50

was a mirror. The way

16:52

that he was peering into my door, he

16:55

would have to be coming out of the mirror. And

17:01

then I realized this is probably the ghost

17:03

we've all been so afraid of. And

17:05

there's nothing to be afraid of at all. Once

17:11

I decide he's a friendly ghost, I'm

17:13

so tired I go ahead and fall asleep. I

17:16

fall asleep with him standing there

17:18

looking at me. I

17:24

wake up to the sound of

17:26

footsteps overhead pounding,

17:29

running. I

17:33

don't understand what's happening. And

17:36

then as my eyes

17:38

focus, I realize something

17:40

is hovering over my face just

17:43

a few inches from me parallel

17:45

to my body. Just

17:48

kind of what you see through

17:51

being with these dark hollow eyes

17:53

staring me down. My

17:56

heart is racing. My chest feels

17:58

tight. up by my

18:00

voice, I'm also thinking

18:02

I was wrong about

18:05

the little boy being the only ghost in this

18:07

house. All

18:10

I can do is squeeze my

18:12

eyes as tight as I possibly can

18:14

and hope it'll go away. And

18:17

that's what I do until I fall asleep again. Coming

18:25

up in the room the next morning, I

18:28

knew without a doubt that I had not

18:30

made any of that up. None of it

18:32

was a dream. I feel like

18:34

I can't say anything to my parents because I

18:36

don't feel like they would believe me. I

18:39

thought that they would tell me. I was

18:41

being silly and I'm always worried

18:43

something's going to happen. Each

18:46

night for a little while,

18:48

I'm on the lookout for them, especially

18:51

the boy. But over

18:53

time, neither of them returned. So

18:55

I don't forget about them, but

18:57

I kind of put them in a

19:00

little box in my mind and try not

19:02

to think about it. I

19:05

start to let my guard down. Months

19:10

go by without anything else

19:12

happening, but Mr. Walters from time

19:15

to time will show up unannounced

19:17

so that he can check out things. He

19:20

does sweeps at the house and

19:23

he's in and out within minutes.

19:26

But it's random. He

19:28

doesn't give warning and he

19:31

never gives an explanation. There's

19:34

something that just doesn't sit right with me.

19:37

Something strange about him. I

19:41

don't trust him. It's

19:49

near the end of summer because school starts

19:51

up again soon. We're

19:53

just enjoying the last lazy days of summer.

19:56

My mom is grilling

19:59

outside. on our patio. I'm

20:02

setting the table for dinner when

20:05

I hear my mom scream

20:08

in a crash and

20:12

I run out to the patio. I see

20:15

my mom on the ground, her

20:18

body's kind of curled

20:20

around the grill and

20:23

I see that her hand is burned. She's

20:26

holding her burned

20:28

hand with her other hand, kind of

20:30

squeezing her wrist and her hand just

20:34

looks white. It's a

20:36

really charred and grilled

20:38

human flesh. I start

20:40

screaming for my dad. My dad

20:45

got aloe vera gel and

20:47

smothered her hand in it

20:49

and then filled up a ziploc bag

20:52

with ice cubes and water. I over

20:55

hear my mother telling my father

20:58

what happened. As

21:00

she was taking the food

21:03

down to the grill, it felt

21:05

like someone had pushed her down the stairs

21:08

and she grabbed the hot grill

21:11

and held on to it to

21:14

hold her body up so

21:16

that she didn't land on her head on

21:18

the patio. She'd

21:20

walk up the stairs a hundred times before

21:22

and never fallen, but

21:25

as she and my dad talked more

21:28

about it, they reasoned she must have

21:30

just lost her footing in our trip

21:32

somehow. I

21:34

feel like they are downplaying what

21:36

really happened and I immediately

21:40

feel that the thing is

21:42

bad and things are getting

21:45

worse. Mr.

21:50

Walters continues to randomly show

21:52

up and

21:54

demand that he come into

21:57

the house and look

21:59

around. I'm beginning to feel

22:01

like Mr. Walters

22:03

knows that the house

22:05

is haunted. I am

22:08

convinced as I have been from

22:10

the beginning that we

22:12

shouldn't be there. A

22:18

few months later, my dad and I

22:20

are watching TV in the family room.

22:22

I decided to get off the couch and play with

22:24

my dog a little bit. The news is

22:26

on and I'm getting bored. So

22:29

I'm playing with my dog off to

22:31

the side. And suddenly my

22:33

dog, who is a toy dog that

22:35

seems to be ziggy, starts barking

22:38

furiously at my dad. My

22:41

dog seemed very agitated,

22:44

almost like he is trying

22:46

to frighten something away. And

22:50

my dad at first

22:52

just said, shh, shh, shh. And

22:56

then because my dog

22:58

won't relent, he angrily jumps off the

23:00

couch with his finger pointed and gets

23:02

up in his face to say bad

23:05

dog. But just

23:07

as he does, this

23:09

wooden beam chandelier comes crashing

23:11

out onto

23:15

the couch right where my dad had been sitting.

23:19

The chandelier was solid and did

23:22

not break into pieces. My

23:28

dad calls on the name of the Lord and

23:31

thanks the Lord for protecting him. And

23:33

then mumbles something about needing to call Mr.

23:35

Walters to have it fixed. I

23:40

am not convinced Scott is protecting us. I

23:43

keep imagining how it would have

23:45

destroyed my dad if he

23:47

had been sitting there. So

23:49

my father calls Mr. Walters to

23:51

tell him that the chandelier fell

23:53

and that he needed to come

23:55

fix it. And Mr. Walters.

24:00

responds with an

24:02

eviction notice and tells my

24:04

father that we had to get out of the

24:06

house immediately because he had sold it. So

24:11

we moved out of Mr. Walter's house. The

24:20

house we moved into was ugly and

24:22

had multiple shades of royal carpeting everywhere.

24:26

It was probably the ugliest house we ever

24:28

lived in, but I felt

24:30

so much safer there. I was so

24:32

happy. Except

24:35

for when Mr. Walters would

24:38

drive by our house slowly, studying

24:41

us just as

24:43

randomly as he showed up

24:45

when we were living in his house. I

24:49

feel like Mr. Walters

24:51

was definitely hiding something. He

24:54

just wanted to make sure that we

24:57

were keeping his secrets if we knew anything.

25:04

A few years ago, now a

25:06

full grown adult, I was thinking about

25:09

this experience and I finally

25:12

decided to ask my parents about

25:14

the house and what they remembered

25:16

happened inside of it. I

25:21

finally told them my account of the story. They

25:25

didn't admit that the ghost

25:27

I saw might

25:29

have been real. They also didn't deny

25:31

it. In

25:33

hindsight, I think that's why they

25:35

made up the blessing or cleansing, whatever

25:37

it was to reassure

25:40

themselves that God would protect

25:42

us. We had

25:44

never done that before. We never did it again.

25:51

The one thing I've never been

25:53

able to stop thinking about is Mr.

25:55

Walters. me

26:00

so I looked the house up on Zillow

26:02

to see what it would look like now. And it

26:06

looked about the same. The lawn

26:09

is all overgrown again, the paint's chipping

26:11

on the shutters.

26:14

It just looks like it's been a state of

26:16

disrepair like it always did. But

26:19

I noticed on the Zillow price

26:22

and history section that

26:25

it was not sold in 1993.

26:27

I think

26:29

that Mr. Walters knew he'd made

26:31

a mistake letting us and he

26:34

evicted us to get

26:37

us away from the danger that was in

26:39

that house and then made sure

26:41

nobody else would ever live there. Thank

26:56

you so much, Marielle, for sharing your

26:58

story with the Spookt. The original score

27:00

for that piece was by Nicholas Marks.

27:03

It was produced by Zoe. Now

27:21

Spookters, we walk this

27:23

path together. My question is, do

27:25

you inhabit a world that others do not have

27:27

access to? Do you know

27:29

things that you should not know or see

27:32

things that remain hidden to those dearest to

27:34

you? If there

27:36

is no one you can tell, tell

27:39

me. I want to know.

27:41

Spookt at snapjudgment.org because there's

27:43

nothing better than a Spookt

27:45

story from a Spookt listener.

27:48

Now there's no Spookt at

27:50

snapjudgment.org. You can

27:52

tell the dark side you spook with some

27:55

Spookt deer. Get the t-shirt of your dreams

27:57

at the Vable right now at snapjudgment.org. And

28:01

remember, if you like your

28:03

storytelling under the bright light of the

28:05

noonday sun, get the

28:08

amazing Stupendous Snap Judgment Podcast

28:10

and Storytelling with

28:12

a beat. There's

28:24

an assessment, our chief spookster's Eliza Smith, Chris Hanford, Aynan

28:26

Nguyen, Lauren

28:42

Newson, Leon Morimoto, Davey

28:44

Kim, Renzo Gorio, Peyo

28:47

DeCott, Melissa Dodge, Zoey Farrigno,

28:49

Tiffany Aliza, and Ford, Doug

28:51

Stewart, and Isaiah Sims. The

28:54

Spook Theme Song is by Patrician Miller. My

28:56

name is Ben Washington. And

28:59

the thing about a

29:01

pattern is that

29:04

it makes it easier to set an expectation

29:06

of what it is you do, of how

29:08

your world is ordered. And it's

29:10

a guidepost, a handrail. It

29:13

leads us away from the dark heart of

29:16

the forest. A pattern can even save your

29:18

life in one habit. One

29:20

habit I advise above all others is

29:23

that wherever you go and whatever

29:25

you do, never, ever,

29:30

never, ever, never, ever, ever. It's

29:35

your name now.

29:45

The story was someone in the

29:47

dark of night by AQED

29:50

and PRX. relying

30:00

on disconnected software to manage

30:19

your business, then you need Odoo. Odoo

30:22

is an all-in-one management platform with a

30:24

suite of user-friendly applications designed to simplify

30:26

and connect every aspect of your

30:28

company in spooked. Odoo. Because

30:31

amazing employees deserve amazing

30:34

software.