0:05

Snap Judgment Studios. Remember,

0:14

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0:17

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tuned.

0:26

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a few moments to give us your thoughts. Please

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slash spooked. Thanks.

0:54

From KQED and PRX,

0:57

you've crossed over to Spooked.

1:10

I imagine how he decided

1:12

to give it to me. Probably

1:14

smiled to himself, thinking, it's the only

1:17

way to make sure that boy shows up

1:19

on time. And

1:21

it was beautiful to me. Wrapped

1:24

in the parchment paper with his neat handwriting.

1:27

For my nappy-headed

1:30

grandbaby. His

1:32

pocket watch. The

1:34

one he always carried around. I think he gave the chain

1:36

to somebody else, but I get

1:39

the watch. Beautiful.

1:42

Hamilton. I

1:44

remember watching him polish it until it shone.

1:48

Until I polish it. Until it shines as

1:50

well. I imagine

1:52

him saying, now that's how you do it. Everything

1:55

can only be done one way with him. What's

1:59

the way we do it, boy? The

2:01

right way? That's right. Do

2:04

things the right way. You can't go wrong. I

2:07

must forget from now, as I was then.

2:10

That's why I never

2:12

carry Granddaddy's watch with me. I'll

2:15

lose it, break it, but I

2:17

know me. No way I can let

2:19

that happen instead. I keep it hidden.

2:23

Squirreled away in my special spot.

2:26

So imagine my shock when

2:29

I reach my hand into the bottom of my sock

2:31

drawer.

2:33

And it's not there. And

2:35

only after frantically ripping apart the entire

2:37

dresser do I understand that I

2:40

have been robbed. A

2:43

ring, a frame, and

2:45

my grandfather's watch stolen.

2:47

And I'm sick. Sick.

2:51

How dare someone put their

2:53

filthy hands on something Batman gave

2:56

to me. That's not a watch

2:58

to me. It's him. It's a piece of

3:00

him. And see, everything

3:03

I own is scuffed. It's

3:05

torn. It's chipped. It's broken. My bike, my

3:07

jeans, my shoes. But I'll be goddamn.

3:11

That watch sparkled.

3:14

At least that because you polish

3:18

it the right way. So

3:22

I holler, I scream, I plot my revenge.

3:24

I want the person who took it to pay.

3:26

I want them to suffer. Then

3:29

I think about someone

3:31

else holding a piece of

3:33

my grandfather in their nasty

3:36

pocket. And I know, I

3:39

know

3:41

with every fiber of my

3:43

being, I know that they

3:46

will suffer.

3:50

They will indeed. Spook

3:54

starts now. Subs

3:59

by www.zeoranger.co.uk Now, spooksters,

4:01

we are so lucky today because

4:03

we're traveling back to Paradise.

4:28

I bet you thought we'd only take you to Hawaii once,

4:30

am I right? Well, know

4:33

that we spare zero expense

4:35

at spooked. And if we're going to go back

4:37

to those white sand beaches and dip

4:40

our toes in the turquoise water because

4:43

there's a story we got to get, well, sometimes

4:46

you have to suffer for the truth.

4:49

But in this case, make

4:51

no mistake, understand there

4:54

is darkness in paradise. Spooked.

5:02

I lived on the windward

5:04

side of the island. Being

5:21

very tired from work, I would sit down and maybe

5:24

have a beer or two. One night

5:26

I'm doing that and I have a friend of mine with me.

5:28

We're just sitting around out in the yard in front

5:30

of the house, Dee and my brother

5:33

JJ, and we're just kind

5:35

of like shooting the breeze and talking. When

5:38

all of a sudden this car comes just screeching

5:40

down the street and it just pulls

5:42

up in the back of Dee's car.

5:44

So we all kind of like stand up

5:47

really fast and we look in the direction

5:49

of this car. My friend, we call

5:51

him Joe Bones, just, you

5:54

know, threw the door open and came out.

5:57

He's only wearing shorts and he's got this

5:59

look of shorts.

5:59

His eyes were just huge. And

6:04

at first, he has a hard time talking. And so I go out

6:06

there and say, Joe, hey, what's going on? You

6:09

know, I mean, is everything all right? We call

6:11

people like him Kalabash cousin. He's

6:14

not family, kind of like adopted in a way. But,

6:16

you know, he's very close to my family. And

6:20

finally, he's able to say that

6:22

we had to go to his

6:24

house. And we had to go there right away.

6:29

And he was insistent on that and

6:31

kept repeating himself about that. Something

6:34

had gone on at his house that

6:36

he had just moved

6:37

into. You

6:39

know, I'm thinking, wow, how big is this?

6:42

I get into the car with my friend. We're sitting in the front seat.

6:46

My cousin and my brother jump into the back seat. We

6:49

got about 15 minutes to get

6:51

to the location itself. As soon

6:53

as we get onto the highway, Joe

6:56

starts to describe why

6:58

he came to see us. He really

7:00

starts just unloading. And

7:03

that was scaring me because

7:05

the words and everything were coming out so

7:07

fast. He begins to

7:10

tell us he had just moved into this house, which

7:13

is near a place called

7:15

Kawainu imarsh.

7:18

He was moving in with his girlfriend, and he was

7:20

very, very happy about the circumstance. In

7:23

the back of the house, there's this big plumeria

7:25

tree filled with these

7:27

beautiful flowers as well. People

7:30

use them to make leis. And

7:32

so the first day they're in the house, they

7:34

start to unpack.

7:36

That

7:38

evening, they start to hear

7:42

from out of nowhere the

7:45

beating of drums, what we call in Hawaii,

7:48

pahu. And it

7:50

just kept building and building up.

7:53

And it sounded like it was everywhere, like outside

7:55

of the house, around them. And everything

7:58

is coming from the back.

7:59

of the house and the only thing that's back there is

8:03

that marsh. And he took a

8:05

good look at that marsh. There's no houses.

8:08

There's nothing there.

8:10

And so eventually the drumming

8:12

stops.

8:14

Joe said they call it a night and then they go to bed.

8:17

The next day he goes to the back of the house

8:20

and he looks around and a beautiful

8:23

plumeria tree that was there

8:26

is now dead,

8:29

shriveled up. The

8:31

flowers are gone and the tree

8:33

is wilted. And he looked on the ground

8:36

and there were these footprints. They

8:39

come up to the tree and go around the tree and then

8:42

go off again, off into the distance.

8:44

Something is definitely not right with the situation.

8:48

He's very very scared. He

8:50

goes back into the house. The

8:53

sun goes down. He just wants things

8:55

to be normal.

8:58

Driving down the highway you

9:00

could hear the fear in every single

9:03

word that came out of his mouth when

9:05

he was saying I know I'm not crazy.

9:07

I know what I saw is real and I just

9:10

need you folks to be there. I need

9:12

you to tell me that this actually

9:15

is happening.

9:19

And he was telling us as the night goes

9:21

on and everything goes quiet

9:25

those drums

9:27

come back. It's

9:29

extremely loud. It's outside.

9:32

It's everywhere.

9:34

And they look to the back

9:36

of the house and

9:39

one by one with

9:42

each window faces

9:44

started to show up. The

9:47

windows are pretty much high off

9:49

of the ground and there is these faces

9:51

of these men looking

9:54

into the house. With

9:56

complete fear they back away from that part

9:58

of the house.

9:59

So he goes, I got away from

10:02

the windows. I didn't go near that

10:04

part of the house. They

10:06

just kind of like waited it out to

10:09

see what would happen. And eventually

10:11

the drums start to fade

10:14

out and everything gets

10:16

quiet again.

10:19

So the next day they go outside

10:21

again. There's more footprints outside,

10:24

but it's cold. The

10:27

third night before he came to

10:29

see me

10:31

and my brother and my friend,

10:34

he said we were in the house, this

10:36

time totally terrified. And all of a

10:38

sudden again, the same

10:40

thing, the drums

10:43

extremely loud. And

10:46

they look to the windows.

10:49

Are their faces going to show up this time? Maybe

10:51

it'll just be the drum beats tonight. Who

10:54

is making those footprints? Are they

10:56

out there as well? Should we

10:58

run? What should we do? So they

11:01

take a glance towards the windows and again faces

11:03

pop up in each and every

11:06

one of those windows. But

11:09

this time the faces

11:11

press against the window. And as they

11:13

do, they begin to go through

11:16

the window and their bodies start to

11:18

show up and they're very,

11:19

very large

11:21

men. And

11:24

they're walking with a sense of

11:26

purpose through the house.

11:28

And that's when he left,

11:31

got into his car, drove

11:34

up to my house to seek

11:36

help. He said,

11:38

I don't think I can even go back there, but I need

11:41

to understand that, you know,

11:43

I'm not crazy with what I had

11:45

seen or experienced.

11:48

I had this feeling of dread when he was

11:50

explaining what happened. No two ways about

11:52

it. Was I thinking that it was

11:55

night marchers? Yeah,

11:57

in a way I was.

11:59

the first things that happen with

12:02

an experience with the marchers of the night, the

12:04

night marchers. You can hear the drums, you

12:06

can hear the conch shell. All of these are

12:08

sounds of the past coming

12:10

into the present. These are the gods

12:13

of old Hawaii. They

12:15

can travel at incredible speeds. Say

12:18

you hear them and they're way off in the

12:20

distance in the dark. All

12:22

of a sudden you see torches. They

12:25

all show up and you hear

12:27

them approaching.

12:29

What you're supposed to do is take off all

12:32

of your clothes and

12:34

lay down, preferably

12:38

with your face into the dirt

12:42

and not move, not

12:45

breathe if you can, and just

12:49

hope they will not come in your direction.

12:52

And if they do, you have to be very,

12:54

very quiet because

12:57

they will say out loud that this

12:59

is shameful. This is shame what you do.

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Glenn. in

14:00

in. When

14:07

I was growing up you occasionally would see

14:09

these signs that would say kapu which

14:12

means forbidden for

14:14

people to be at because of the fact that these

14:17

are the paths of the night marchers you call them Kings

14:19

trail we call it King's Landing. Night

14:22

marchers based upon stories

14:25

that have been collected and shared over

14:27

many many years can

14:29

be very intense in the way they react

14:32

with people and it's an interaction

14:34

between them and

14:37

us and it's the

14:39

ways of the old and the ways of the

14:41

new that create this interaction

14:44

and sometimes it could have

14:46

very terrible consequences. The

14:49

main thing is to give them as much

14:51

space as you possibly

14:53

can and then there are the situations with

14:55

the night marches where they will march through your home

14:57

and you better

14:59

get out of their way when they come. That

15:02

house was apparently what

15:04

it seems like is that was built upon a

15:06

path of the night marchers

15:09

and now we're going towards this

15:12

we are now going towards this

15:15

circumstance that he just experienced.

15:19

As quickly as he's talking my mind

15:21

is racing along as well you

15:23

know trying to keep up with all of these facts that are

15:25

going on. My friend Dee

15:28

is just driving and she's looking very

15:30

very concerned I'm sitting next to her we're

15:33

both giving each other's looks as he tells me about this

15:35

last night and we're getting very

15:37

very close to this house.

15:39

By the time he finishes up

15:42

his story or he gets to the part of them going through the

15:44

walls and everything we've already pulled up

15:46

to the place. I said Dee I

15:48

want you to pull into this parking lot across the

15:50

street from this house. As she stops

15:53

the car Joel

15:56

turns to all of

15:58

us. Well one of you

15:59

please come with me to the back of the

16:02

house. This is why you're here. I want you to go

16:05

and look with me to see if there's anything

16:07

going on.

16:09

I was not eager to do this at

16:12

all. Whatever it is, whatever kind of lease

16:14

agreement you have, you know, it's not

16:16

worth it. But my brother had enough

16:18

in him to say, you know what, let's get out of

16:21

the car. We're going to go across the street

16:23

and we're going to go check this out. So

16:25

my brother gets out of the car

16:27

with my cousin. They were

16:29

gone for a couple of minutes. I'm

16:33

very quiet. I'm just sitting

16:36

there with my thoughts. And

16:39

so is my friend D. It's just

16:41

this silence that is like

16:43

shared between us. So

16:45

all of a sudden, here comes my brother.

16:48

Here comes my cousin. They

16:51

come from the side of the house. They run across

16:53

the street super, super fast.

16:56

They climb the embankment and

16:59

instead of opening the doors, they

17:01

went through the window to get into the car. I'm

17:04

just scrambling in legs and limbs and everything.

17:07

And my cousin just

17:09

screams,

17:10

go, go, go, go. We

17:13

got away from that place as quick

17:15

as we could. But as we were driving back, my

17:18

brother said they went to the back of the house

17:20

and it's pretty dark back there. And the lights

17:23

are on. So him and my cousin

17:25

are looking around and my

17:27

brother's like peering into the dark and

17:30

it just got bone

17:32

chilling cold.

17:33

They

17:35

both look out into the marsh. They

17:40

saw what they thought at first. Were

17:43

people. They

17:46

could see the faint outline around

17:48

them in the dark. They start

17:50

kind of like to glow. They had

17:52

this orange golden glow

17:54

around all of these people. But

17:57

after a while, they knew them

17:59

to be.

17:59

It's terrifying. We

18:03

go back to my house, and, you know, at this

18:05

point, my cousin, he feels like, okay, I'm not crazy. You

18:12

know, he thanks us for going down

18:14

there with him, and after talking for a

18:16

while, I'm pretty sure I

18:18

gave him a beer or two or three

18:21

or four. He went home,

18:23

wherever that was. I

18:25

know it wasn't at that house.

18:28

After Joe leaves, we went to bed, but

18:30

the next day, that

18:32

story stayed in my head. I

18:35

can't tell you why. All

18:38

I knew is that something

18:40

wanted me to go there. So

18:43

I went and I spoke with Kalabash family.

18:46

I said, you know, I got to go back there. If

18:48

anyone wants to come with me, you know, you can.

18:51

I'm going to go get some tea leaf, which

18:53

is what you use to ward off spirits, and

18:55

I'm going to take a look at this place for

18:58

myself. And

19:01

so we all got together. There's more of us now. There's

19:04

about ten of us, and we

19:06

all decided to go back to the house. I'm

19:10

so scared. I'm not only holding on to tea

19:12

leaves. I have

19:14

a tea leaf lay around my neck for protection.

19:17

As we go to the side of the house, this is narrow

19:20

walkway, and it's pitch black, and we're

19:23

all walking single file, and no one's really talking.

19:26

It's really quiet. As

19:29

we walk to the back of the house, it starts to

19:31

get cold.

19:33

I

19:33

am just edgy, and

19:37

I'm looking around, peering into the dark. It's

19:40

like I want to see, yet not see. My

19:44

fight or flight is in overdrive. But

19:47

we get to the back of the house, and I

19:49

still feel this force that has brought me

19:51

to this moment. Everyone else is

19:53

standing there, totally scared, holding

19:56

on to their tea leaves, and

19:59

our eyes are dark.

19:59

around in the dark. We're

20:02

looking out into the marsh and they

20:06

were there. In the marsh

20:09

itself were people

20:12

yet they're not

20:14

people you know they're ghosts and

20:18

they're glowing. They're

20:20

giving off this weird

20:23

golden color something

20:26

otherworldly

20:28

and

20:29

there was like a group of them and they

20:31

were bending over and picking

20:34

up rocks or planting something in

20:36

the marsh. Others were going

20:39

about walking around and

20:41

off to the side of this group of spirits

20:44

these ghosts was this

20:46

really tall Hawaiian

20:49

warrior very big

20:52

muscular guy. He

20:54

was wearing a mallow a mallow

20:56

is like a loin cloth. He's about eight

20:58

feet tall

20:59

his arms are crossed

21:01

and he looks like he's watching over the rest

21:03

of the spirits and he's looking

21:06

in their direction. That was absolutely

21:09

overwhelming and

21:11

we're looking at this site that's in front

21:13

of us my friend that was driving the car that night

21:15

she decided to bring binoculars with her

21:18

and so she puts these binoculars up

21:20

to her eyes and she's

21:23

looking at these spirits and right

21:25

at the moment she does that that huge

21:28

Hawaiian guy eight foot

21:29

tall

21:30

built like a bodybuilder just

21:33

kind of like snaps his head in our direction boom

21:38

and he's looking at us and

21:41

my friend practically dropped the binoculars

21:43

at that point. This is a very

21:45

intimidating looking spirit. I

21:48

can tell you right now he

21:50

was not happy with us being

21:52

there he finally saw us and

21:54

I could feel the tension with everyone

21:57

around us they kind of like stiffen up I

21:59

pushed myself a few steps

22:01

back and we're all kind of like taking

22:03

a couple of steps back and because

22:06

I was facing the marsh the house is behind

22:08

me and my back goes right up against

22:10

the house and

22:13

Right at that moment from inside

22:15

of the house every single

22:18

cupboard every single

22:21

door Started to

22:24

slam bang bang bang bang bang over

22:28

and over and over again. I got

22:30

so scared I felt like you know

22:32

I have my heart not only leaped out of

22:34

my chest it went running back to my house.

22:38

I didn't want to be there and I

22:40

whipped off that tea leaflet and I threw

22:42

it on the ground and I said I'm sorry I

22:45

am so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm leaving

22:47

right now. I'm going We're

22:50

leaving I look and everyone's

22:52

just booking it out of there going through

22:54

the side of the house squeezing themselves to

22:57

get out of that walkway going

22:59

to their cars and Saying they don't

23:01

want any more part of this at all that

23:03

it was done I was on the same

23:05

page kind of like the spell was broken

23:09

We got into the car

23:11

and we just left Everything

23:15

has changed Absolutely

23:18

changed. We've done something

23:21

wrong They were coming

23:23

for us There's very

23:26

few things that will stop night marchers They

23:28

are a force to be reckoned with that

23:30

they can do so many different things to

23:32

you which

23:35

means Something

23:37

will happen to you Physically

23:42

Spiritually probably

23:45

both crippled

23:49

or your life

23:50

is just falling apart There

23:55

was a huge huge concern that

23:57

we had interfered with something that we shouldn't interfere

24:00

with it all. And now

24:03

it was too late. Now

24:05

all I could do was hope that in some

24:07

way that things

24:10

could

24:12

be made better.

24:16

We didn't have many options. We went

24:18

to where I felt safe.

24:21

We get back to my house. And I left

24:24

my brother

24:25

and my friend outside. Got out of the car and

24:28

I went straight into the house, got myself

24:30

a bowl, and put water in it.

24:33

I had Tea Leaf already with

24:36

me. So I just went to the

24:38

corners of my house and I saw it sprinkling

24:40

water and I started praying.

24:43

And I'm doing it from one corner to the house,

24:46

to the next, just in

24:48

desperation, sprinkling the

24:50

water, letting it hit the wall, and

24:54

just asking for whatever

24:56

it just happened to stay away from us. And

24:58

I did all four corners of my house

25:00

with that. And by the

25:03

time I hit the fourth corner, the

25:06

light started to flash off

25:08

and on, off and on. And I knew

25:11

that it was them.

25:13

And that made

25:15

me almost drop the bowl to the ground. I was

25:18

so scared. I practically screamed. And

25:21

I

25:22

went to run outside of the house. And

25:24

at this point, I don't know what else to do. I

25:26

am spent. I

25:28

really need to clear myself. I'm

25:31

thinking, what can I do? I

25:33

have used up all of my resources

25:35

at this point. There was nothing much left

25:37

in me to do but to just try

25:39

and put together bits and pieces

25:42

from other things that I knew. So

25:45

I went into the house and I see

25:48

the pork. OK, grab the pork.

25:52

And then I saw the Tea

25:54

Leaf. I have Tea Leaf. And

25:56

I saw the rock outside, one of the most basic

25:59

types of offering was to take

26:01

a rock and wrap it with tea leaf. So

26:03

I get the tea leaf, I get the pork, I

26:05

go outside. My heart is just beating

26:08

so fast. I take this rock, I

26:10

put it into the center of the yard. I

26:12

can't wrap it because the rock is too

26:15

big. So I just have a couple of tea

26:17

leaves underneath this rather large rock.

26:19

I grab the pork and I put it on

26:22

top. I just put everything

26:24

that I had

26:24

into apologizing.

26:28

In a place where I didn't even know existed inside

26:31

of me, I said, I am so sorry.

26:33

I am so sorry that this happened. Hoping

26:36

that these spirits would acknowledge it, I apologize

26:39

profusely. I'm

26:42

trying my best to

26:45

explain that I

26:47

am sorry and this will

26:49

not ever happen again because I was

26:51

wrong

26:52

for what I did. Plain

26:56

and simple. I

26:58

was wrong. We all were wrong.

27:03

And while this is going on, Dee

27:05

and JJ are looking up into the sky. They

27:08

saw all these clouds come from different

27:10

directions in the sky and they all

27:13

gather over the house and they

27:15

all are starting to come together. And

27:19

at one point with me talking and saying,

27:21

I'm sorry, it just stopped.

27:25

It paused. And

27:29

then it slowly started to go back

27:31

in every direction that

27:34

all of those clouds came from.

27:38

I needed to make things

27:40

right. So that was my

27:43

heartfelt gesture. So I was

27:46

doing pono to right the

27:48

wrong that I did. It's from

27:50

the heart and it's from the spirit to

27:53

live like that, to live in harmony.

28:00

Thank you Obaki for showing us the

28:02

path.

28:12

If

28:16

I ever cross the Kingsguard I promise

28:18

you I will bow my head in reverence

28:21

and get the heck out the way. If you

28:23

want to hear more of the magical man himself

28:25

Obaki we'll have a link to all of

28:27

his channels and handles and all that

28:30

good stuff on our website spookpodcast.org.

28:35

The original score for that piece was by Richard Haigh.

28:37

It was produced by Chris

28:40

Hamrick. It's

28:56

that time. But the story

28:59

it is never over. Never. Now

29:02

if you dig your storytelling under the light of the

29:04

sun get our sister podcast

29:07

Snap Judgment. Movies of

29:09

the mind cinema of sound storytelling

29:12

with a beat. Spooks

29:14

brought to you by the team that never talks

29:17

to dead people. Run.

29:19

Hide your face in terror. Mark

29:22

Ristich from Anna Sussman our chief

29:24

spookster in Eliza Smith.

29:27

Chris Hamrick, Annie Nguyen, Marissa Dodge,

29:29

Lauren Newsome,

29:30

Renzo Gorio, Leon Morimoto, Jacob

29:33

Winnick, Tiffany DeLisa, Ann Ford,

29:35

Eric Gagne, Sonic Han. The

29:38

Spook Theme Song is by Pat

29:40

Massey Miller. My name is Phil

29:42

Washington. When you have guests

29:45

over to your home you want

29:47

to be accommodating to other people's ways of doing

29:49

things. That's all well and good. You

29:51

are a good person. Let them know. Though,

29:56

in your household you will adjust to heat

29:58

as they prefer. They can. You

30:01

don't even care if they wear shoes inside

30:03

the house or not. It's all good. But

30:07

never, ever, never,

30:10

ever, never, never, never, never,

30:13

ever, ever turn out

30:16

the lights. This

30:26

story was Summoned in the Dark

30:28

of Night by KQED

30:31

and PRX.