Listener Tales 103: Halloween 2025!

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Speaker 1 The thought of getting a degree can be straight up terrifying. We get it.
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Speaker 1 Today is one of those days, honey. I woke up early.
I gotta go here. I gotta go there.
I gotta go everywhere. I got errands.

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Speaker 1 Welcome, foolish mortals.

Speaker 1 Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. I'm Elena, and also Pennywise's Side Piece.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And this is Morbid.

Speaker 1 Happy Halloween, y'all.

Speaker 1 Hey, welcome back to Listener Tales.

Speaker 1 We got Pennywise's side piece and me, Madame Leota. I mean, a moment.
A moment for for me, the table for me. A moment for this.

Speaker 1 Shout out to my husband for making this for me mostly. Shout out to Drew.
He made like the head thing and the table, and then I decorated it. It's hot glue.

Speaker 1 I burned the shit out of my fingers on some hot glue. Oh, I never, I love that you have to do this to look at me.
Yeah. Because you look like you're like,

Speaker 1 I can see all through Charlotte. I always burn the shit out of myself when I use hot glue.
I cannot not burn the shit out of myself. It's hard.
Welcome to the club. It's a hard knock life.

Speaker 1 It is a hard knock life. We're trying something new today.

Speaker 1 It was absolutely impossible for me to use my laptop in my current state. Yeah.
So

Speaker 1 in my current state. So the TV is behind one of the cameras and we're going to read off of that.
And if it works out, I think it could be better for filming.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because we will have our hands more and we'll be able to use more props and shit. Well, some of us don't have hands, but I mean, some of us don't.
Maybe later you'll get some.

Speaker 1 Or maybe in the future they'll grow back. Yeah.
You can see the future, so tell us.

Speaker 1 I feel like

Speaker 1 hence

Speaker 1 i feel like hence i feel like hence you heard it here first

Speaker 1 madame ray leota said that

Speaker 1 i should have done so

Speaker 1 on this like mick aw missed opportunity hey i have the table and i'm trying to use it much much more in the future because this is too good to not use on this we're gonna use it again imagine i'm madam rayliota damn oh my god we could have put some good fellowship in there absolutely all right well you know what we'll put in our pocket a bullet wound in my head put it in our pocket oh my god we'll figure it out next time yay um so we're gonna try this we're gonna read on the thing and if it works out it works out yeah and if it doesn't we'll go back to live if it doesn't then fuck it we'll be laptop first yeah laptop forward again yeah okay so tell us what you think and also my audio might be like a little bit different i'm in a globe okay that's it that that will That will be a little different.

Speaker 1 Yeah. We'll differentiate.
But it'll be good, I think. I think so.
Mikey's the producer. He's nodding his head.
I don't produce. It's fine.
I'm just it. It's fine.
Yeah, it's fine.

Speaker 1 So who's starting here? Because we have Halloween tales. We have Halloween.

Speaker 1 Thanks to Deb Deb. Hold on, I need to curve my spine a little bit more.
Boya.

Speaker 1 That's the stuff. She's really committed.
Yeah, I'm super committed right now. Very committed.
All right. Do you want to start or do you want me to? Yeah, I'll start.
Okay, start.

Speaker 1 So this one's called, He Said His Name Was Bart Simpson? Who knows? Me. Hey, Ash and Elena, longtime listener, longtime lover of you both.
Oh my God, I love you too. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Your voices keep me company at work, at home, insert literally any activity here, including when I'm trying to sleep. I adore your banter.

Speaker 1 We love when someone adores the banter. Most people do, I think.
I think so too. Yeah, and they're loving us.
Thank you for that.

Speaker 1 And the clear love you have for each other makes listening feel like a warm, haunted hug. That's so sweet.
I like you. I like you a lot.
I'm going to move this so I can see you. There you go.

Speaker 1 We can iPod.

Speaker 1 See, I saw hands.

Speaker 1 You saw hands, Rayleota. My name is Amanda, and you can use my name.
There are one trillion of us, so it's not like it's mysterious.

Speaker 1 I've even dropped the A because I'm still dirty at mum for using such a popular name. Although she did want to call my younger sister Echo.
Wow. Imagine if you were Amanda and Echo.
Amanda and Echo.

Speaker 1 I'd be real pissed. I begged her not to and said the teacher will do roll call and get to her and say Echo, Echo, Echo,

Speaker 1 which would kind of be funny, to be honest. She thankfully decided on Gemma, so maybe I dodged a bullet.
Oh, Gemma's pretty. That is pretty.
Now let me take you back to the early 2000s. I was 12.

Speaker 1 My little sister was 8, and we lived in a cozy little Australian suburb, not quite rural, but outside the city. Directly across the road were two other sisters, exactly our ages.

Speaker 1 Dream come true, right? Built-in besties you could walk to barefoot. Everybody wants that.
Oh, yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 At the time, our family had just converted the garage under our house into bedrooms for my sister and I.

Speaker 1 It felt like the pinnacle of independence, far enough from mom and stepdad to feel like big kids, but still within yelling distance if needed.

Speaker 1 We even had an intercom system, which we definitely abused. Oh, that's as you should.
I want an intercom system. If you have an intercom system, abuse it.
Abuse the abuse of it. That's me telling you.

Speaker 1 One afternoon, probably inspired by one of my late-night charmed or buffy binge sessions,

Speaker 1 my kind of girlies.

Speaker 1 We decided to make our own Ouija board.

Speaker 1 Succeed. He said, go forth and find successful.
He said

Speaker 1 you will succeed. That kind of thinking is successful thinking.
Did he just say come forward and kneel? He gets so fucking reckless.

Speaker 1 I don't know what YouTube takes off, but like, I feel like that's borderline YouTube offensive. I don't know what to say about that.
Like, I'm... That was a message for you.
I have a lot of feelings.

Speaker 1 I don't like that one.

Speaker 1 He gets so sexy.

Speaker 1 Like, okay, Nicholas. Damn.
Nicholas. That's wild.
Come forward and kneel. No, thank you.
Never have, never will. Okay.

Speaker 1 I need to move on from that. That was a long time.
We all kidded. Okay.
We should have all of that. I've watched my balloon.
I see the future and we've moved on.

Speaker 1 That, like, really sent me. I was like, yeah, it's not good.
I feel assaulted. You should have.
Okay.

Speaker 1 A piece of A3 paper ripped from one of our art assignment books, some scrawled letters and numbers, yes and no in the corners, the alphabet and so on, a shot glass from the bar, and four little knucklehead kids thinking this would be a fun time.

Speaker 1 Voila. Hello, nightmare fuel.
Nightmare, nightmare, nightmare. At first, it was all giggles.
The glass barely moved, but when it did, it was jagged and slow. We put it down to our giggles.

Speaker 1 We must be bumping it. We slowed our breathing and decided we would get super witchy with it.
Really get in the zone, but when we did, the glass did too.

Speaker 1 The slow, smooth glide of the glass started moving faster with more certainty, not really spelling anything out, just zipping around the board.

Speaker 1 We asked for its name and the letters spelled out B-A-R-T.

Speaker 1 Bart, if you're nasty.

Speaker 1 M-P-S-O-N. There you go.
We all looked at each other with slight smiles, but also a little scared. Bart?

Speaker 1 Not a name I would have thought of, and neither family were big Simpsons fans, so it felt off, but also a tiny bit comical and surely not really an entity called Bart.

Speaker 1 We continue to ask questions, probably how old he was and when and how he died.

Speaker 1 The questions and answers are foggy, and I can't quite recall the details here, probably as a coping mechanism, but I definitely remember the fun little make-believe witch coven vibe shifting fast into something more sinister.

Speaker 1 That sinister vibe.

Speaker 1 Without speaking out loud or deciding as a group, we all just individually started asking if we could stop, all of us with vague understanding that it was something you were meant to do.

Speaker 1 You were not meant to take your fingies off without saying goodbye or being granted permission to leave the session. We just kept begging, can we please stop? We want to leave.
Can we please stop?

Speaker 1 I hate that. Yeah, that's awful.
I hate that. You were smart, though.
Can you not just say, like, okay, we're stopping now?

Speaker 1 I think you can. I think you can declare, like, I'm ending this now.
Yeah. But maybe because they were young, they were like, we need to get permission.
But I don't know.

Speaker 1 I'm not positive, so don't take me. Damn, I guess I won't be doing a Ouija board with you.
I know, I need to get

Speaker 1 to read up on my shit. Yeah, you better.
So the glass darted between the center of the paper and back to no over and over, aggressively fast, maliciously, and with what felt like evil intent.

Speaker 1 And that's when things snapped. My sister started bawling.
My friend began driving damn.

Speaker 1 My friend's little sister. Me, though, just barfing everywhere.
Just driving everyone. Fingy still on the planchette, yawking.
Everyone's so upset. They're like, stop, that's gross.

Speaker 1 I would get so overstimulated. I'd be like, get out!

Speaker 1 I'd be like, stop

Speaker 1 the planchette.

Speaker 1 I'd be like, you just have to die then, leave.

Speaker 1 I'm getting listen to me.

Speaker 1 In the beginning of this, she said she liked me, and then she just said, I guess you have to die then, leave.

Speaker 1 No dry heaving during the Ouija board session where we're getting like possessed by some evil.

Speaker 1 Your rules are

Speaker 1 just, they are real. They're solid.
They're crazy. I know.
Crazy. I know.
I say from inside a table.

Speaker 1 My friend's little sister, white as a ghost, blank stare, obviously unable to compute what was happening. I couldn't help it.

Speaker 1 All spooky logic went out the window, and in that moment I decided to break every spirit communication rule in the book and pulled the cup from the paper and snatched the paper and threw it behind me.

Speaker 1 And we all just sat there cross-legged, scanning the room to try to find some understanding to what just happened.

Speaker 1 I began trying to comfort everyone, while comforting myself, that maybe we somehow, I don't know, subconsciously fell into our role too much, became little actresses, and didn't realize the talent we were held to really lean into our witchy characters.

Speaker 1 But by the distressed look on all of our faces, I knew deep down that wasn't true.

Speaker 1 We bolted upstairs and through breathy pants explained the situation to my mom, who basically rolled her eyes and said, you're all being silly. That didn't happen.
It's in your imagination.

Speaker 1 That's so rude. But her generation was not one to entertain these types of things, and how could she help anyway?

Speaker 1 March down and wag her finger in the invisible demon's face and scold it for tormenting us? Yes.

Speaker 1 Feeling awkward and scared, the girls headed home, and I sat with our sister in our new cool rooms, pretending to be adults, and addressed the bonkers situation again, without our friends near, and desperately tried to calm each other down.

Speaker 1 Seeing my sister so afraid, I decided to do something. Make a big move.
Something that goes against everything I stand for. Lie.

Speaker 1 I lied.

Speaker 1 I lied! I told her I'd move the glass. I had to ease her fear in that moment.

Speaker 1 I knew she would forgive me, and even though it hurt to see her little heart break at the thought that I did just try to frighten everyone was super sucky, but she wasn't afraid anymore.

Speaker 1 She was mad, but I knew that wouldn't be forever. You're a good sister.
You really are. I decided to just box that shit up and sent it back into my noggin.

Speaker 1 I couldn't make sense of it and it was terrifying, so I saw no other option. Fast forward, I'm now 16, living with my dad, with a whole different group of friends, and my last year of high school.

Speaker 1 No one in my pack with any knowledge of Bart. It was but a vague memory that sat in the back of my mind locked in a box, no key in sight.
I wasn't afraid of the thought.

Speaker 1 The box was there, but I had not even acknowledged it since that day. I'd completely disconnected.
The memory was just a weird, shitty horror movie I once watched.

Speaker 1 One weekend, my friends and I were hanging out at my dad's while he was away for work.

Speaker 1 Correct. He said, that's right, baby.
He said, hell yeah, have a party. Classic teen chaos.

Speaker 1 Snacks, and snarks, I bet.

Speaker 1 Laughs, pretending to be adults, but with no responsibilities. What a bloody time.
Oh, I miss it. What a bloody time.

Speaker 1 As the afternoon went on, with a friend in the corner playing guitar, some friends up and down the back steps from playing pool under the house, when someone brought up doing Ouija, I noped out.

Speaker 1 It's not that I felt afraid or that the memory was brought to the forefront of my mind.

Speaker 1 I was still very disconnected from it being a real memory at all, but I knew for sure I was not joining in on the seance.

Speaker 1 I hung in the kitchen while some friends got together their makeshift Ouija board while I continued chatting with another friend. Then I heard one of them laugh and say it.
Bart.

Speaker 1 And remember, she just said she did not tell any of her friends this. I should have seen this coming.

Speaker 1 You should have.

Speaker 1 I immediately looked over, and while most of my friends were laughing at the hilariousness of this Simpsons wannabe ghost, one friend sat on the lounge had her eyes pinched shut.

Speaker 1 It caused me immediate discomfort to see her, and as I watched her eyes slowly open, I could see that her pupils were large and started to roll back into her head. Sorry, what?

Speaker 1 Her chest was rising and falling fast as she sank back into the couch. Shallow breaths, then really fast breaths.

Speaker 1 The visual of her felt too intense to register what was happening, but the sign finally caught the attention of everyone else in the room.

Speaker 1 Disturbingly, I remember her tugging at her denim skirt, looking as though she was using all her strength to drag it to her knees.

Speaker 1 What? Eyes still shut and her breathing intensifying. Panic set in.
This was my house. I was responsible.
My friend is not breathing. I have to call an ambulance.

Speaker 1 My mind raced, and I ran into the hallway and picked up the phone to call emergency services. I started going through what I would say in my head.
Um, yes, hello, we need an ambulance.

Speaker 1 My friends are doing Ouija and Bart and breathing heavy, and she's not okay. Not and Bart.
Honestly, and Bart. Not and Bart.
Then I heard her name being yelled out with sounds of relief.

Speaker 1 I rushed back into the living room, everyone crowding around her.

Speaker 1 She was pale, misty-eyed, and looked exhausted when she looked directly at me with purpose on her face and said, don't worry, Manda, my sister got rid of him for you. Oh, I just got full chills.

Speaker 1 Under this table, it's chilly. Her older sister had passed away from an asthma attack when she was young.
What the fuck? I can't explain the cold that settled in me.

Speaker 1 No one there knew about Bart, not a soul. But somehow.

Speaker 1 Because they just didn't know, Nicola. They didn't know.
She didn't tell them. Okay.

Speaker 1 Sorry. I'll be clear.

Speaker 1 she didn't inform her new friends of her old entity bart i love nickel what

Speaker 1 i'm sorry

Speaker 1 sometimes he scares her i just like when he goes what

Speaker 1 that was so funny

Speaker 1 He was just like, can you please explain?

Speaker 1 I did say it really fast, so sorry, Nicholas.

Speaker 1 So yeah, she just hadn't let her new friends in on her old friend Bart, okay?

Speaker 1 Anyway, no one knew about Bart, not a soul. But somehow, he had followed me or had been with me since then or something.
I like the dot, dot, dot, or something.

Speaker 1 I just kept saying to myself in almost a chant, it didn't hurt me, so it's okay. I was never scared.
Nothing happened. I'm fine.
It didn't hurt me. I was never scared.
Nothing happened. I'm fine.

Speaker 1 It didn't hurt me.

Speaker 1 We are doing a lot of fast-forwarding here. I apologize.
Never apologize.

Speaker 1 But over a decade later, a memory jogged that moment loose from whatever dusty mental box I'd shoved it in. And I needed to know, did that day really happen?

Speaker 1 Surely it was some weird memory I'd formed after years of listening and watching morbid material. TM.

Speaker 1 TM.

Speaker 1 I decided to message a friend who was there, someone I hadn't spoken to since high school. Hey, do you remember that afternoon at my dad's? The Ouija board? TM? It sat on red for a week.

Speaker 1 And finally, I'd be like, fuck you then. Yeah, guess you don't.
But honestly, if it was me, it would also sit on red for a week. So

Speaker 1 double-edged sword there. Then finally, I got a reply.
I'm sorry, but I can't go there. I worked really hard to get over the trauma of that day.

Speaker 1 Seeing our friend like that, the feeling in the room, it was terrifying. I had nightmares for years.
I love that you just like completely re-traumatized this person.

Speaker 1 It's kind of a good for you. That message, that response broke my heart, but it also confirmed something I doubted for years.
Bart was real. He was there.

Speaker 1 And I think he was right beside me for all those years, doing who knows what. It's working.
Anyways, I'm almost 38 now and I'm still very disconnected from that experience.

Speaker 1 Still super close with my sister though. Hell yeah.

Speaker 1 And I've confessed to her only recently that I did lie to her that day, that I did not move the class. I lied to you about lying.

Speaker 1 Sorry, but she shuts that shit down quick and says she doesn't want to talk about it anymore, ever. I just say, it didn't hurt me, so it's okay.
I was never scared. Nothing happened.
I'm fine.

Speaker 1 It didn't hurt me. I was never scared.
Nothing happened. I'm fine.
It didn't hurt me. That's great ending.
That's a good one. I like that.

Speaker 1 Also, that was like a really spooky way to end it is just chanting that over and over. Yeah, honestly.
Damn. Spooky.
I like that one. I like that one too.
Manda, you killed it. Good job, Manda.

Speaker 1 All right, so this one is called The Void with Eyes. My own passenger demon.
Ooh, it's a void with eyes. All right, it says, greetings, ladies, which we are, if morbid.

Speaker 1 Attached is my submission for listener tales at the request of my wife. Hell yeah.
We are both fans, and she thinks this tale of possible demon possession/slash interaction will pique your interests.

Speaker 1 I think it will be too.

Speaker 1 In exchange for your time, I offer you no less than three photos of our kitties, Maximus and Giles. Bet you can't guess who he's named after.
Rupert Giles. I love it.
I love that. I hope it is.

Speaker 1 I hope so. I'm not Giles Corey.
Yeah. Jolls.

Speaker 1 Jollscore. Jiles Corey.
Jiles Corey. Oh, it could be Giles Corey, too.

Speaker 1 Well, let us know. Attached is the story in a 14-point double-space pudafah that, when it was 12-point and single-space, was roughly six pages, and took me about four minutes to read aloud.
Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 Please feel free to edit as much as needed or reach out if you have any questions.

Speaker 1 You might have questions. We never will edit it, but we won't edit.
This is from Chris. Greetings, morbid mistresses, queens of the cast, wonderful weird women of the interwebs.

Speaker 1 Oh, I love when people come up with very elite names. I do too.
It's fun. Love that.
Yeah. Queens of the cast is fun.
Queens of the cast, wonderful weird women of the the internet in the interwebs.

Speaker 1 I like it. I like it all.
Yeah. My name is Chris, and you can use my name.
That's good because I happen. Chris? Everyone else does.
At the request of my lovely wife, Brittany, please use her name.

Speaker 1 She will be stoked on life. Chris and Brittany! Chris and Britt! Hell yeah! Who introduced me to your show? I am now submitting one of my personal favorite tales from my wildly irresponsible years.

Speaker 1 Yes, we love those kind of years. They always come with great stories.
They do. Some quick backstory on what to expect.

Speaker 1 I dabbled with cursed objects and came back haunted, unfortunately without Trent Ruster. Aww, I'm sad for you.
I know, that's a bummer.

Speaker 1 Per the obligatory fandom, I've thoroughly enjoyed your take on true crime and overall style of your podcast.

Speaker 1 I've been pleasantly surprised with the content and overall humorous bantering that you both provide. People are loving the banta.
I like the banta. Oh my god.

Speaker 1 Also, I'm late to the party, but congratulations, Elena on the butcher and the wren. Thank you.
And congratulations, Ash, on your marriage. Thank you.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 I wanted to thank you both for making our hour-ish each-way drive from to and from work more bearable, giving us plenty to discuss. Also included, you're welcome.

Speaker 1 Also included with this tale are pictures of our Meow pals, Maximus and Giles. We love that.
Yes, Giles is named after Rupert Giles from Buffy.

Speaker 1 Brittany and I also enjoy listening to The Rewatcher almost as much as Angel enjoys diving into piles of trash for rats and becoming part one. Oh my god, Chris.
Listen to The Rewatcher. Chris.

Speaker 1 That was iconic. That was iconic.
Slip that into a listener tales next one. Truly.
And to have a cat named Rupert Giles. Yeah.
Come on. All of the above.
You're really killing it at life. Tweed magic.

Speaker 1 Well, apologies for the length of this.

Speaker 1 Never apologize. Never.
If you do deem it long, feel free to edit as needed. No.
No. I feel there is some important context here, so I hope you enjoy.
Moving on to the title. I love the tale.

Speaker 1 Let us travel back to the ancient times. Let's go.
The 90s. I know.
It hurts me too. Oh, I do miss the 90s, Chris.
Me too. Those four years were awesome.

Speaker 1 Well, here we are back in the 90s where an angsty child was exposed to dark genes. I was going to say genes.
Oh, dark genes. To dark genres entirely too early, and the macabre spoke to them.

Speaker 1 That honestly describes both of our upbringings. Yeah.
One because I had you, and you because you are just creepy. Yeah, because I'm just naturally weird.

Speaker 1 So, I grew up on science fiction, horror, and fantasy. No regurts, but this led to a natural and very active interest in the supernatural.

Speaker 1 Fast forward to the late teens/slash early 20s, when I was living my high life as an hourly manager of Spencer's Gifts in Utah. Oh, you really killed it with that.
You really got it. Got a job.

Speaker 1 I ended up working at Spencer's immediately out of high school and made friends with the odd ducks working there already, namely John, my manager then and now longtime friend. We love John.

Speaker 1 The best part about my interview was being told later that he effectively stopped listening to my job experience after I mentioned previously having a pet bat.

Speaker 1 He was confident that I met his expectations. Oh my god.
I love you and John. I'd like to know a lot more about your pet bat.
Yeah, I really want to know about that.

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Speaker 1 Elena and one of her littles was learning French and I said, hmm, you're not going to sit there and have French conversations without me, honey. So I started learning French.
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Speaker 1 Rules and restrictions may apply. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.
I feel like it's that time of year where you kind of start to reconnect with people you haven't seen in a while.

Speaker 1 I got lunch with a friend the other day who I hadn't seen in quite some time, and it was so nice. As the seasons change, shorter days don't have to weigh you down.

Speaker 1 This season, BetterHelp encourages you to reach out, check in on friends, reconnect with loved ones, and remind them that you're there.

Speaker 1 Just like it takes a little courage to send that text or grab that coffee with somebody you haven't seen in a while, reaching out for therapy can also feel difficult, but I fully believe that it's worth it.

Speaker 1 It can leave people wondering, why didn't I do this sooner?

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Speaker 1 john spoke to all my inner 90s kids angst and we shared most of the interests uh the same interests in history growing up this was a nice change for being characterized by the or chastised by the locals i was that guy always wearing black trenched coats not fearing the sky not fearing sky grandpa etc

Speaker 1 sky grandpa sky grandpa goes crazy i love it john was the big brother i never had and we got along swimmingly oh now that all the gushy shit is out of the way, you can now understand why John took me under his wing and began to teach me about magic, supernatural forces, and that which I always felt calling out to me, but never knew how to answer.

Speaker 1 John sounds awesome. He does.
You're kind of my John. Oh my God.

Speaker 1 I'm your John. You're my John.
That sounds weird. You're my Chris.
Yay. There you go.
All right. So spoilers.
Should have sent that, that called a voicemail. Oh.
Oh. I'm scared.
Oh, no. Oh, no.

Speaker 1 Oh, no. What's going to happen? We started small.

Speaker 1 John was trying to determine if I had any ability to detect or otherwise sense these types of things in my vicinity, and whether I had any connection at all to the forces at large.

Speaker 1 The specific tests aren't important to what follows, but necessary according to John based on what I told him about my life.

Speaker 1 I've always been a bit weird, and I've had on multiple occasions been exposed to strange or inexplicable events with others present.

Speaker 1 I don't know why I'm a magnet for weird stuff, and the weirdness of life had come knocking several times before. I've encountered ghosts on multiple occasions, future sight.
Say,

Speaker 1 Madame Releota. I cannot get over that.
And accurately predicting the future. Ha ha ha.
Oh, look at that. And also having been temporarily possessed.
Asteric. Future listener tale, if you would like.

Speaker 1 That's what we call burying the lead. We would like.
Yes.

Speaker 1 The specific item I do need to call out here as relevant is a vivid, terrible, and specific recurring dream of me versus me that I have experienced off and on.

Speaker 1 I essentially dream battle the Cenobite empowered version of myself for domination of my mind and presumable soul. That's the coolest thing I've ever heard in my entire life.

Speaker 1 I'm shocked that you don't do that. Why have I never fought the Cenobite version of myself? Why have I never seen the Cenobite version of myself? Elena's deeply pissed right now.
I can feel it.

Speaker 1 It's like ruminating.

Speaker 1 I want to see the Cenobite version of myself. I don't know if I want to see the Cennobite version of myself.

Speaker 1 I smell another costume. What do you?

Speaker 1 Uh-oh. Here we go.
That's the coolest thing I've ever heard. Well, the dream has afflicted me ever since the said possession episode.
Good times. Yeah.

Speaker 1 John decided to really see if I've got any sort of ability and goes to his room and locked cabinet. Oh,

Speaker 1 I don't like that he went to a locked cabinet.

Speaker 1 Now, despite being pretty fucking weed, whoa, what? Pretty fucking weed. Pretty fucking weird.
I'm a very rational and logical person. Yeah.

Speaker 1 When I see a locked cabinet, I immediately assume valuables or weapons, which makes perfect sense to me why those would be locked up.

Speaker 1 What did not make sense was the immediate sense of uneasiness that I felt wandering into this room where the cabinet was and the increasing feeling that followed once the cabinet opened.

Speaker 1 I assured myself it was nerves and all in my head. At this point, knowing John, this was the first time I'd been to his apartment, so this was all new to me anyway.

Speaker 1 John removed only one item from the locked cabinet, an object wrapped curiously in ornately marked silk cloth and its own individual bindings keeping the cloth in place. Ooh.
This was ominous as hell.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it sure was. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And once unwrapped, I could see what the hubbub was about. A mirror.
Ooh. A round single piece of glass with a silver-colored metallic rim.
The mirror itself was blackened glass, but otherwise plain.

Speaker 1 That sounds sick. That sounds awesome.
I like that. Is it like a scrying mirror? A scrying mirror?

Speaker 1 That's exactly what I was just thinking. Look at that.
The one specific phrase that John said as he did this was, do not not look directly at yourself in this mirror. Oh, no.

Speaker 1 I'd immediately look directly at myself in that mirror. My vain ass.
The second someone tells it, right?

Speaker 1 I'd be like, how am I looking though? It's just the second someone tells me not to.

Speaker 1 We did an investigation recently and they said, don't look at the symbol. Did you look at the symbol? I kept looking at the symbol.
Oh, my God. She said, this person said, don't look at this symbol.

Speaker 1 You looked at it. It'll put you in a trance.
And I was like, well, fuck. And I just started looking at this because I was like, oh, no.
Did you go in a trance? Stop.

Speaker 1 No, I didn't because I kept stopping myself. But the second you tell me not to do something because I'm going to go into a trance or I'm going to explode.
I'm going to do it. You know what, though?

Speaker 1 I don't want to say you're going to explode. I don't want to.
It's just I'm built that way. You tell me to do something, not to do something.
I'm like, you are pretty defiant.

Speaker 1 She told me not to look at the symbol and I said, got it. She said, don't look at the symbol.
And I said, I'm going to look at it so hard. And then I did.
In the right scenario,

Speaker 1 I'll listen. Like, if there's, you put me in the room with like a button and it says, don't push this, I'm going to struggle.
Struggle, but don't. I'm going to struggle.

Speaker 1 Try to succeed in the end, you know? I try. Okay.
My mouse is moving. That's so weird.
Maybe my leg's tired. Anyway, so.

Speaker 1 Maybe the table is tired. Maybe the table is tired.
Maybe. I don't know.
Maybe it's yammy. I don't know that table's life.

Speaker 1 You know, it's sentient. So don't look at yourself in the mirror, he explained.

Speaker 1 And he explained that it was a type of seer's glass or special device used to see what normal eyes are not attuned to. It's fair to say at this point I was skeptical.

Speaker 1 And next he showed me how to hold the mirror in such a way that I could see reflections but not myself.

Speaker 1 He said he would explain why not to look at myself once I proved that I could see with the mirror. Okay.
I would want some explanations beforehand. Yeah.
I absolutely would.

Speaker 1 I may have some certifiable smooth brain moments in my lifetime. We all do.
I know how to hold a mirror, okay? I know what they do, or I thought I did.

Speaker 1 This is the part where I apologize if you brought the whole seat, because you're only going to need the edge for this shit show. That was fun.
That was a great sentence. I like that a lot.

Speaker 1 Remember the uneasy feeling I mentioned going into the room with the cabinet? I do. I do.

Speaker 1 I held the mirror over my left shoulder as John directed, positioned the mirror so the reflection was facing the doorway to John's cabinet room, and almost immediately dropped it.

Speaker 1 An ethereal, hazy outline of what appeared to be a person standing in the doorway of the room, mimicking the shape of a humanoid, but was clearly not.

Speaker 1 Oh!

Speaker 1 I hate it here. No.
The only distinguishable features I could focus on were a claw hand on the door frame,

Speaker 1 small protrusions on the head, and shoulders resembling spikes or bones, and two eyes that I could tell were looking at mine as I did theirs.

Speaker 1 Why did you just say Africa, Nicholas?

Speaker 1 He said, it's getting too heavy.

Speaker 1 It's getting too weird in here. I'm gonna laugh.

Speaker 1 I gotta bring us back to geography. That was so good.
Nicholas, that was so hard. I'm gonna cry.

Speaker 1 I can't cry. Oh my god, I can't cry either because I have no hands.
Oh my god. If you saw them once or twice, no, you didn't.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Africa, what boy? Africa.

Speaker 1 Maybe he misses the rains. He plus the rains down in Africa.
Damn, Nicholas. All right.
Wow. Wow.
Appreciate that little palette cleanser.

Speaker 1 So the being almost felt like it was trapped in that space by the tenacity it was exhibiting to move toward me, but it was stopped by some sort of barrier.

Speaker 1 I'm assuming the look on my face was what caused John to burst out laughing. What a dickwad.
I kind of love John. Yeah, you're the John.

Speaker 1 And took the mirror from my hand before my shaky hands dropped it.

Speaker 1 He explained that this being arrived after he was previously attempted to perform incantations unsuccessfully and stressed to me the importance of not meddling with natural order.

Speaker 1 I love that he was like, just taught you some shit. Yeah, he's like, good job.
You just taught him some shit. That's wild.
Damn. That's crazy.

Speaker 1 And he said, I shouldn't do that when learning about magic and paranormal. Um, what? That's all I get? Huh? Don't do that? Fuck you, John.
Don't do that listening. Love you, though.
Did I listen?

Speaker 1 Fuck no, of course not. Of course not.
Like, I would send you a story that ends with smudgy glass. Just kidding.
It wasn't smudgy glass. I did try to clean it, though.

Speaker 1 Going back to the mirror, I did the same thing and saw the being in that room, watching, glaring. I could feel the intensity of it as I moved around the living room.

Speaker 1 Any angle I directed the mirror at the room's doorway, I could see this being focused very very intently on me.

Speaker 1 John even walked through the doorway to prove to me that there was nothing in or on the mirror that could simulate what I had seen. It wasn't long after this that things began to escalate.

Speaker 1 They always do. It hasn't already? I know, Real.
Damn. Fast forward a couple more months to where my mother decided to run away from her abusive husband.

Speaker 1 And I needed a new place to live because I didn't want to become the new target of abuse. Oh.

Speaker 1 My brother John took me in, of course. I love that.
Okay, I take it back, John.

Speaker 1 Brother John, I always believed in you, John. Right.
After moving in with John and the entire time leading up to, I grew increasingly curious about the mirror and other occult objects that he had.

Speaker 1 I don't blame you. But never as curious as I was about the mirror.
His only request was that I only use or study these items in his presence for safety, as he said.

Speaker 1 Bitch, I've been possessed, I thought. I could handle this.
I waited for John to leave one day, and then I opened up the horror cabinet, which I now had access to regularly. Oh, no.

Speaker 1 I removed the mirror from its inclusion and held it in my hand. Chris, you are fucking up right now.
What are you doing, Chris?

Speaker 1 You know those moments where you tell yourself you shouldn't do something and you do it anyway? Yeah. I looked at the mirror.
I raised it slowly and with my eyes closed.

Speaker 1 Once at face level, I opened my eyes and initially the panic did not set in. It was seemingly a normal, dark mirror and otherwise worked as a mirror should.
Insert heck and concern.

Speaker 1 Heck and concern.

Speaker 1 When I felt the same unusual feeling from the first time that I entered the room months before and what I felt the first time I used the mirror, but did not see the same entity I had before.

Speaker 1 Instead, I only saw the room reflected in the dark glass and myself.

Speaker 1 This next part, I'll do my best to explain, but I don't know if I can truly define the horror of this moment. I felt internally.
Oh, I thought that was a new sentence. Oh well.

Speaker 1 He said, I don't know if I can truly define the horror of this moment that I felt internally. I was thinking internally.

Speaker 1 I very distinctly remember thinking to myself, I must have been crazy to think that this was anything more than just a mirror, and saw the reflection smirk

Speaker 1 in the way that I normally would.

Speaker 1 Except that I hadn't physically moved. Oh.

Speaker 1 I was almost paralyzed everywhere except my eyes. My attention focused intently on my reflection in the mirror.

Speaker 1 So I noticed that my expression in the reflection changed for my own, turning into a scowl and gradually changing into

Speaker 1 a wide, wide wicked smile so as the mirror moved farther away from my face and overall my reflection faded out the hazy outline of our previously mentioned hellish version of myself from my recurring dreams stared intently at me it's the cenobite cennobite the cenobite i can't tell you how jealous i am that you've seen the cenobite version of yourself oh we locked that's so bad i don't know if you do based on this story i just want to see it i'm not sure i want to know what i look like as a cenobite maybe somebody can just draw it for you and you don't have to go through all this Well, we locked eye contact.

Speaker 1 I panicked and wrapped up the mirror, placing it back in the cabinet, then closing the door to John's room. Smart.
That was the first time I saw myself outside of a dream.

Speaker 1 This was the first time I truly started to fear that my previous experiences, I know I don't really know what happened. I couldn't let it go.
To fear. To fear.
To fear.

Speaker 1 My previous experiences were real.

Speaker 1 A little. Did he say I'm scared?

Speaker 1 A little. Are you scared? Yeah, I am scared.
I am a little, Nicholas. Fear?

Speaker 1 I just sat for what felt like an eternity trying to wrap my mind around what I had just experienced and infinitely made this worse by going to our bathroom to try to wash off my face and gather myself.

Speaker 1 As I walked past the mirror in the bathroom, out of the corner of my eye, I could see that my reflection was not the same as what I was wearing.

Speaker 1 Scars, cuts, and abrasions covered my face and exposed flesh, made me appear almost ghoulish. But when directly looking at the mirror, I appeared as I normally did.
That's not not okay.

Speaker 1 That's so scary. Imagine seeing yourself all fucked up.
You just look in the mirror and you go, that's a scary maspru. That's a scary mask, bro.

Speaker 1 Another fun imagery I began to see was violent outbursts, such as punching the reflection surface and breaking the glass.

Speaker 1 Another was smashing my face into the mirror and then reveling in the blood and gore of my shredded flesh. And this is a vision? That he's getting?

Speaker 1 No, I think this is what he's seeing in like he's seeing. Out of the corner of his eye,

Speaker 1 in the mirror. Like he looks directly in the mirror and he just sees himself, but if he gets himself out of the corner of his eye, I think that's.
He's like smashing his face into a glass.

Speaker 1 What the fuck? And it said, this would only happen for a moment before being whisked back to my current state, confused and simply standing in front of a reflection. Holy shit.

Speaker 1 Always pain, torment, and violence, but never in reality. And always, always the face that haunts me from the reflection.

Speaker 1 I'm so freaked out by this.

Speaker 1 Over the following weeks and the remainder of time that I and others occupied the premise with me, there were many instances or strange, unusual behavior occurring, even after John ultimately moved out to be with a cursed bikini worse than Buffy.

Speaker 1 Worse than Buffy! Oh my god. Whoa, that's pretty cursed.
That's cursed. Leaving me alone to battle whatever demons I inadvertently summoned, we eventually moved out.

Speaker 1 But this brings us to the most important part of the story. Confirmation.
Ooh. Two distinct moments I feel are why I now have a passenger entity tied to my being.
You better call Rachel Stavis.

Speaker 1 You better.

Speaker 1 John and I went on many adventures together. One that followed the events described was meeting a friend and mentor of his that was supposedly a mystic.
Insert actual title here.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure what she had was a mystic other than cryptically horrifying my ass. 10 out of 10 would be horrified again.

Speaker 1 So he wanted me to meet her in the context to the types of magic and energy that we studied, which was fine. No problems there.

Speaker 1 The problem was, when walking into this person's home, she stopped what she was doing, looked at me, and in an unusually callous way, pointed in my direction and asked, are you here to get rid of that?

Speaker 1 Bitch. And she motioned to what was an empty space beside me, or what you thought was empty.
Are you here to get rid of that? I'd be like, I am now.

Speaker 1 Imagine if you were like, no, no, that's not a good idea. That's my secret.
Thank you. Maybe don't be rude.
God, I'm taking our shit elsewhere. Why isn't everyone welcome here? Come on, Steve.

Speaker 1 So then you

Speaker 1 come on, Steve.

Speaker 1 So she proceeded to confirm visually what I saw in the mirror from the first time I used it.

Speaker 1 Obviously, I was perturbed without me telling her any specific details about it before, which I took as a sign that she knew what she was doing, or she was the real deal.

Speaker 1 She and I spoke at length following this, and she was even able to speak to events in my childhood that I never told anybody about, including my wife and my family. Whoa.

Speaker 1 To this day, I cannot explain how a person I had never met before was able to tell me about events in my life that I'd never spoken about out loud to any other human being.

Speaker 1 But I trusted their judgment because of it. I would.
I would too.

Speaker 1 The second moment was honestly a bit scarier because it came from someone I knew and not the same woman that John could have slipped a 50 to to mess with me beforehand. That's funny.

Speaker 1 Years later, I was living with a bunch of friends, the standard too broke to live on our own arrangement in a house of five. Been there.

Speaker 1 By this time, I had taken a friend under my wing as a brother of sorts, as John had with me. Blue, we'll call him, since I don't want to get him in trouble for this.
That's a good friend.

Speaker 1 He was experimenting with a substance like DMT. I mean, to each their own.
It was a rough time. Blue wasn't an addict, but he just hit a rough spot and tried something that he never tried again.

Speaker 1 It's not like he was hooked on it, like how Angel was hooked on rats and diving into piles of trash and becoming part one.

Speaker 1 This is chef's good. I'm obsessed.

Speaker 1 We're just melding our two words worldwide. We really are.

Speaker 1 Anyway, the reason this is important is that Blue was not somebody who had ever known or been told the story about my passenger entity, so there's no way that he could have known to say what he said.

Speaker 1 While he was under the influence of this substance, I was walking by him as he sat on a couch. He stopped me and said, What is that? Ooh.

Speaker 1 And I could tell from his tone and response that he was not excited about what he was seeing. What? I asked, confused, as it was just he and I at home at that moment, and we didn't have any pets.

Speaker 1 That void with eyes, the white thing? Oh!

Speaker 1 Insert clip of my Oscar-winning performance of playing it, of playing it cool when every fiber of my being was screaming to flip out. What the f- If somebody said, what is that?

Speaker 1 That void with eyes, the white thing? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'd probably just start crying and never stop. You know, at the end of that Marcus video, when he just takes to the sky? I think I would just take to the sky.

Speaker 1 You should say, nah, nah. Like he does and just take to the sky.
Nah. Nah.

Speaker 1 So I asked him again, and he described a translucent white, hazy creature resembling the shape of a human, but specifically with red eyes following closely behind me and looking directly at him. No.

Speaker 1 You gotta. No.
You gotta shower that shit off. You got something to take to the sky.
You gotta shower with holy water. I eventually told him the entire story once he sobered up.

Speaker 1 What he described before I explained the story shook me to my core, though. He had seen what I had seen and described exactly how I'd seen it without having any means to know what was seen previously.

Speaker 1 He didn't even know John or the mystic.

Speaker 1 What's more is is that as he described it, I could feel that same energy when he called it out as I once had before when I first was exposed to the mirror as if my dark passenger was trying to remind me it was there.

Speaker 1 Oh fuck that. You need one of those spray bottles of holy water where it's like

Speaker 1 a cat. You're just like

Speaker 1 it. Yeah.
Yeah. Damn.
You need to like Blanche Nevereau it and be like

Speaker 1 Yeah, honestly Since then, I still have an aversion to mirrors and my reflection.

Speaker 1 I don't like seeing my reflection, nor do I like being in front of mirrors and reflective objects for extended periods of time either. Can't say I blame you.

Speaker 1 I have had others mention unusual energy in my presence.

Speaker 1 The mystic I spoke to explained that if this was truly a malevolent being, that it would have certainly acted on that by now, and instead offered me an unusual explanation of it needs me.

Speaker 1 And our semi-symbiotic relationship must be required for it to exist in our realm, and therefore it has no reason to hurt me.

Speaker 1 Well, it hasn't helped me either. Yeah, real nice.
I didn't get cool powers.

Speaker 1 I wasn't shown such sights it wanted to show me. Oh my god, you and I are meant to be friends.
Yeah, 100%. Like, truly.

Speaker 1 My unusual dreams of self versus self have also changed over time, becoming less frequent, but now more vivid. When they happen now, it almost feels more like a conversation between this being and I.

Speaker 1 Ooh. The void with eyes.
Oh.

Speaker 1 I love that. Wow, that's terrifying.
That's so scary. Thank you for taking the time to consider consider my tale.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Consider it considered.
You and your wife forever. You and Brittany.
And John. Chris and Brittany and John and Chris, Brittany, John.
And Blue. Blue.
Everybody. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And the void with eyes. Forever.

Speaker 1 Maybe not the void with eyes forever. I hope you figure out a way to get rid of it.
I appreciate the wonderful content you lovely gals bring into the world. Thank you.
Thanks.

Speaker 1 I plan to keep it weird long into my elder years, how Dark Passenger allows. I hope this brings at least a little bit of excitement into your lives.

Speaker 1 And if anyone ever tells you to look into a cursed mirror, maybe don't. Maybe they don't.

Speaker 1 Keep it weird, but not so weird that you go into a locked room in a locked cabinet with a locked mirror and you look into it even though John told you not to.

Speaker 1 And then you get a dark passenger for the rest of your life, unless maybe he decides to leave at some point when you spritz yourself like Blanche Devereaux with holy water. Wow, that was a good one.

Speaker 1 Thank you. I really tried.
I literally lifted this to look for the thing. I was wondering what you were doing.
I was like, where is this? Don't look under my table. Don't look under my table.

Speaker 1 You never know what you'll see under there. With such sights to show you under there.
Damn.

Speaker 1 Can a home security system really call itself security if it only responds once somebody's already inside? I don't think so, but what I do think, scratch that, what I know, SimplySafe is different.

Speaker 1 It's designed to help stop crime before it even starts. How does it do this? Well, AI-powered cameras detect threats while they are still outside your home and alert real security agents.

Speaker 1 This is the game changer. The agents can take action while the intruder is still outside, and that is so important.

Speaker 1 They confront the intruder, letting them know they're being watched on camera, the police are on their way, and they can even sound a loud siren or trigger a spotlight if they need to.

Speaker 1 That is real security. I personally have been a customer of Simply Safe for over five years at this point.

Speaker 1 When I bought my house, it was one of the first things that I had on my list, get a Simply Safe home security system. I had heard such great things and now I've experienced them.

Speaker 1 It was super easy to up.

Speaker 1 It gives me the greatest peace of mind, not only when I'm sleeping inside my house, but even when I go on vacation, I can pull up the app and it literally, the cameras, it looks like I'm looking outside my window.

Speaker 1 I can tell everything that's happening, and I know that somebody is protecting my house who has a vested interest.

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There's no safe like simply safe.

Speaker 1 All right. This one is called Listener Tale.
A kinky ghost choked me in a haunted castle. Hot.

Speaker 1 Let's go. Nicholas is ready.
Yeah, Nicholas. Nicholas.

Speaker 1 He's been ready. Dear Ash and Elena, please find attached my double space putafa for your reading pleasure.
My praise and adoration for you are at the beginning of the story.

Speaker 1 I have also attached some pictures of my gorgeous pup, Derek. Derek is an iconic name for a dollar.
That's a great doll name. I love it.
Also attached is a picture of myself and younger sister.

Speaker 1 She's in the story. I really hope to hear this on the podcast one day and love you ladies.
All the best. Chelsea.
Here you are. Chelsea.

Speaker 1 Welcome.

Speaker 1 There you go. Foolish Chelsea.

Speaker 1 Welcome, foolish Chelsea. There it is.

Speaker 1 Hi, Chelsea. Hello, Ash and Elena.
Greetings from Scotland. Oh, oh!

Speaker 1 Bitch.

Speaker 1 We want to go to there.

Speaker 1 My name is Chelsea. If I'm lucky enough to hear you read this on the podcast, I will shit myself and pass away.
Don't do that. Don't wait.
I'm looking into the future. You didn't.

Speaker 1 You come back to life. There you go.
You would also probably hear my name again, as there are some people I would seriously haunt. Please feel free to use my name and all the names within the story.

Speaker 1 Firstly, I want to shower you with praise and adoration. Cruel.
Oh, dumb. You are absolute goddesses.

Speaker 1 What does this say? Imaho de benevolent, amazing and beautiful souls. Thank you.
I loved that. I recently moved to Scotland from

Speaker 1 the northeast of England, and it had not been an easy adjustment. I have many lonely days.
Who would have believed making new friends at 32 would be such a chore? Oh, yeah. It's hard.

Speaker 1 However, your podcast keeps me company when I walk my pug. His name is Derek, and pictures are attacked Derek the pug.
It makes it even better that he's a pug. It does.
I love a pug named Derek.

Speaker 1 Or commute to my job as a teacher. Hell yeah, teacher.

Speaker 1 It is lonely here. However, when I walk my many miles a day, I listen to you and feel like I have two best friends keeping me company.
You do.

Speaker 1 Here we are. You and your podcast really make an impact, so thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Also, I always dreamed of writing a book, however, the confidence was never there.

Speaker 1 Listening to Elena has inspired me to start writing, so thank you. That's awesome.
I love you more than life. Write that book.
You could do it. That's awesome.

Speaker 1 Let me know when you have a tiny URL link. Yes, and we'll scream it from the rooftops.
I've rambled enough, so let's get into the story. I recently listened to your episode about Chillingham Castle.

Speaker 1 That's a fun one. As I mentioned, I'm from a small town in the northeast of England called Sunderland.
Sunderland is about an hour and 20 minutes away from Chillingham Castle.

Speaker 1 It is two councils north. Growing up.

Speaker 1 I know I like that too. Growing up in the northeast England, we had a lot of access to castles and took this for granted when we were 13, lying to our parents about where we were.

Speaker 1 In reality, we were breaking into castles and mental health facilities, exploring. The fact that you just got to break into castles and old institutions in your youth.

Speaker 1 I mean, you broke into institutions in your youth. I did do that.
But castles? Castles goes crazy. Castles? Like, you're just like, oh, bye, mom.
Just going to go ghost hunting the castle.

Speaker 1 Unfortunately, the institution that you used to break into burned down by the time I was cool enough to break into it. Yeah, it was pretty awesome.
Yeah, I'm super jealous.

Speaker 1 Side note, if you're interested, you can look into an asylum called Cherry Knoll. Ooh,

Speaker 1 I feel like that's familiar. This was exactly a stone throw away from my house, and my friends and I spent many nights in that abandoned building.

Speaker 1 It was almost as if everyone just up and left one day. Medicine bottles, beds, etc., all left as they were.

Speaker 1 It has since been demolished, but the history is very fascinating. I digress.
So back to the castle. Maybe we'll feature that on one

Speaker 1 episodes. A few years ago, my two best friends and I did a legitimate historical tour of Chillingham Castle, trying to be all cultured and shit.

Speaker 1 Rather unlike the weirdo teens sitting in an abandoned asylum trying to contact the dead.

Speaker 1 The tour is very much sold as a history tour and not a ghost tour, but we were hopeful some spooky shit would happen, and they did tell us that the castle was haunted, and ghost stories are part of the deal.

Speaker 1 It was in the middle of November, bullock freezing, and a rainy night. The tour started at 9 p.m., so it was pitch black too.

Speaker 1 When we arrived, our tour guide was very quick to tell us that there would not be actors running around or jumping out at us during the tour. I assume people show up expecting some type of pantomime.

Speaker 1 We learned all about the history of the castle and the ghosts, which frequented the different areas. Our guide was fantastic, and I can confidently say absolutely nothing happened.

Speaker 1 No spooky sightings or feelings. We drove home with our brains full of historical facts.
However, slightly disappointed as we really went for a ghost hunting.

Speaker 1 Upon returning home, I told my ma'am all about the visit. She had no interest in history or ghosts, so I was surprised when she said she would like to visit the castle.

Speaker 1 She saw it as part of a local culture she wanted to experience. A few weeks later, my ma'am, my younger sister, who was 14 at the time, and I went for a night tour of the castle.
What a cool family.

Speaker 1 I know, that's so fun. This one got off to a more eventful start.
On the drive up, I was telling my ma'am and my sister about some of the ghost stories, so the atmosphere was set.

Speaker 1 When we arrived, I parked the car. It would help to know the driveway, which you park is only lit by lanterns and candlelight.

Speaker 1 That's gorgeous. That's iconic.
I was getting ready to park the car when a lady knocked on the passenger side window.

Speaker 1 She had platinum blonde hair, which somehow seemed to illuminate and glow in the pitch black. Because she was a ghost.
She was. She was a ghost host.

Speaker 1 My ma'am, who was sitting in the passenger side seat, let out a scream and almost flew through the roof. The poor woman almost brought the castle down screaming back.

Speaker 1 The four of us ended up bent over, double laughing, and my ma'am profusely apologized, relived some of the ghost stories, and she said she was already spooked out.

Speaker 1 As we tried to calm down and regain our composure, ready for the tour, the whole atmosphere of the castle felt different. I put this down to the eventful start, which had not happened previously.

Speaker 1 The tour took the same route as previously, through the castle gardens, cemetery, basements, bedrooms, living rooms, and finally the grand dining room.

Speaker 1 We were taught of the brutal history of the castle jailer, John Sage, or as he was more commonly known, John Dragfoot Sage. This is important later.

Speaker 1 Sage was part of King Edward I's army and despised the Scottish people. I remember covering this.
Yeah, when I was talking about this. When I remember this guy.

Speaker 1 During a battle, his leg was injured and he became known as Dragfoot. He was no longer able to battle, and so he became the head jailer and torturer.

Speaker 1 Sage was a seriously pissed off at the world angry man and has been quoted to be the most evil ghost in history. I believe it.

Speaker 1 We were all instructed to take a seat around the dining room table, exactly as last time. There were around 10 people in our tour and 15 seats around the grand table.

Speaker 1 Both my sister and ma'am were to my left of me and there was no one sitting to the chair on my right.

Speaker 1 The chair to my right was smack bang in the middle of the table and I was the last in our group to sit down. Everyone else was to the left of me.
The chairs were huge.

Speaker 1 I looked like I had been photoshopped sitting in them. Our guide told us all about Sage and his treatment of the Scots and his desire to torture and kill as many people as possible.

Speaker 1 Our guide was full history teacher flow when the gigantic chair to my right, which would have easily easily weighed 50 kilos, flew back around five feet.

Speaker 1 The legs made the most blood-curdling sounds as all four scraped along the wooden ancient floor, and it seemed to create a loud bang as it came to a stop, although it did not fall over.

Speaker 1 I was frozen in absolute horror, but could not take my eyes off the chair. You could have heard a pin drop in that grand dining room.
I was terrified.

Speaker 1 I questioned my sanity and I truly believe my soul left my body for a moment.

Speaker 1 Trying to comprehend what I was seeing, I turned back to face the group. Everyone was clearly having the same internal crisis I was experiencing.

Speaker 1 Frozen faces full of horror, questioning eyes darting around the room, and color drained from already pale British faces. Our guide eventually broke the silence after what seemed like an eternity.

Speaker 1 He stated the chair, which was smack bang in the middle of the grand table, was the preferred of Sage because he could see the kitchen. I kind of like Sage's style here.

Speaker 1 He asked us to take a seat on the grand dining chairs, but we all did as we're instructed. Suddenly, I felt all oxygen leave my body as if someone had grabbed me by the throat.
I'm sensing they did.

Speaker 1 The sound which left my body was the most inhumane thing I have ever heard, still to this day. In utter panic, I grabbed for ma'am's hand, and I am not ashamed.

Speaker 1 Strangely, my ma'am did not take my hand. My ma'am is the ultimate mama bear, protective and extremely loving, but it was clear that she could not fathom what was going on.

Speaker 1 As quickly as the oxygen left my body, it returned. At the same time, the chair swung backwards, replicating a rocking motion.
However, it had four very stable legs.

Speaker 1 I could not stop rubbing my hands over my throat and wondering what the actual fuck had just happened.

Speaker 1 I soon heard the voice of our guide again, stating he had seen this type of incident before, especially around the dining room and discussions around dragfoot sage.

Speaker 1 Turns out, Sage got his kicks from strangling people almost to death, and then finding alternative methods of torture. Have I really just been tortured by a 14th century ghost? Bullshit.

Speaker 1 Rings a whole new meaning of choke me.

Speaker 1 Dazed, horrified, but also in a trauma response way, I was feeling special.

Speaker 1 Is it me? Is it me?

Speaker 1 I stood up from the chair without taking my eyes off of what was apparently Sage's chair. It is said that Sage pulled his chair far out from the table to ensure his injured leg remained comfortable.

Speaker 1 Everyone makes their own mind up about that night. However, I truly feel that second experience at Chillingham Castle was dark, sinister, and Sage was hanging around.

Speaker 1 I find it strange irony, in fact, that I now reside in Scotland and have not had the best time. Was it some type of warning from Sage? No, Chelsea, stop it.

Speaker 1 Safe to say, I was silent for the rest of the tour, and the discussion on my way home was all about dissecting our experience and agreeing a third visit was not necessary.

Speaker 1 He said, we will not be going to the house. We got what we came for.
I feel strongly you ladies would love to visit our small part of the world. Haunted castles, fairy pools of sky.

Speaker 1 Oh, I want to go there. And the thin areas of Northumberland and Scotland are the most magical but haunted places on earth.
I want to go

Speaker 1 bad.

Speaker 1 Thank you for reading my story, and I would love to hear your opinions about my experience. Thank you also for being my company and inspiring me to follow my passions.

Speaker 1 I wish you all love and happiness in the world.

Speaker 1 Wow. And then Nicholas just called us elderly.
Wow, Nicholas. That's super rude.
That was rude. Chelsea, that was a fucking terrifying but sick story.
You were choked. You were choked by Sage.

Speaker 1 And not in the hot way. Not in the hot way.
I don't think Sage has that in him. No, he's not.

Speaker 1 I don't think that at all. And I, I do, that's horrifying.
Imagine

Speaker 1 just the fact that the first time you went to the castle, nothing happened. Yeah, that's interesting.
Like,

Speaker 1 it was like he remembered you and he was like, well, he came back. Yeah, he's like, he came back for more.
So here I am. Here it is.

Speaker 1 And that he pulled his chair like far away from the table to make sure his injured leg was comfortable. Yeah, that was him.
That was fucking him. You got choked by a 14th century torturer.

Speaker 1 Nicholas says you shouldn't go back. Yeah, don't come back.
He says, leave. He said, no, you shouldn't do that again.
He might have told us to leave here, but he might have.

Speaker 1 I'm under a table, so it's kind of fun. I'm putting this below your table.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 Here you go. All right.
This one is called That Awkward Moment When Your Friend Gets Possessed at Pennhurst. Oh.
That's pretty awesome. So awkward.

Speaker 2 Ladies.

Speaker 1 Ladies. My name is Matt, and you can use my real name.
Hi, Matt. Hi.

Speaker 1 This is the crazy story of when my skeptical friend who never believed in anything paranormal ended up getting possessed at a historically haunted location.

Speaker 1 Apologies, I know it's long, but I hope you like it. Enjoy.
Already. It was the start of 2012.
I was a junior in college and unhealthily obsessed with ghosts, aliens, and Bigfoot. Never unhealthy.

Speaker 1 That's not unhealthy at all. Let me just say that when I use the word possession, I'm not talking about somebody getting thrashed around on a bed and shoving crucifixes up there.
You know.

Speaker 1 I guess spiritual attachment is a more accurate term to describe what happened to my friend Lawrence. Okay.

Speaker 1 A once skeptical man whose life was forever changed when he accompanied me on one of the most haunted places in America, Penhurst State School and Hospital. I want to go there really bad.

Speaker 1 I think I covered that, didn't I? Yeah, I think you did. Yeah.
But first, if you don't know Penhurst, if you didn't listen to my fucking episode.

Speaker 1 Hopefully you did cover it. I feel like you did.

Speaker 1 Dangerous. It is dangerous.
Actually, no. I don't think I did cover this.
No, I think we talked about covering it, so we'll cover it. Yeah,

Speaker 1 I shouldn't have yelled at you about not listening to my episode because I didn't cover it. And Nicholas was like, that place is dangerous.
It does sound dangerous.

Speaker 1 So, but first, if you don't know Penhurst, here's a recap. Its history is so disgusting.
Yeah. This was a school and a hospital for quote-unquote sick children.
But back then, what did sick mean?

Speaker 1 Anything. If you thought maybe your kid had Down syndrome, you sent them to Penhurst.
If you thought they had OCD, you sent them to Penhurst. Your kid was in a wheelchair, you sent them to Penhurst.

Speaker 1 There were too many patients and hardly enough staff.

Speaker 1 Rooms that could fit only 10 10 or 20 people would be filled with like a hundred or more patients, tied to their beds for days on end, going to the bathroom on their own sheets without medical care.

Speaker 1 And if you got in trouble, punishment was tooth removal.

Speaker 1 We have not covered that. No.

Speaker 1 Wow. No, we have not.
That's horrible.

Speaker 1 My life was changed forever when my friend John, who used to work at Westchester University Radio and happened to know the right night watchman of the school, called me one afternoon and said he he was able to arrange a private ghost hunt for us and our friends.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's sick. It was the happiest news of my life.
Yeah, honestly, I get it. Mark had also previously gone to Penhurst on his own ghost hunt where endless creepy stuff happened.
Oh, I'm sure.

Speaker 1 The scariest story he told me was when the watchman was looking up, locking up a door on one of the catwalks. He heard a noise, turned around, and saw someone in a hospital gown marching toward him.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 and then they jumped off the catwalk. Oh, oh, the catwalk.

Speaker 1 I had to. Damn.
When the watchman ran over to look over the bridge, there was no one there. They were too sexy.
They were too sexy. They are too sexy for this hospital.

Speaker 1 So Mark picked me up with a couple other friends

Speaker 1 and we amassed at his house. The plan was that after the ghost hunt, people would sleep over at my house if they were too afraid to go home.
That's so hostly of them. That is very hostly of me.

Speaker 1 We arrived at Penners just after dark, and holy shit, it was huge. Otherworldly, innocent, yet sinister.
The quiet was what unsettled me the most when we pulled up.

Speaker 1 I couldn't even hear animals or cars, and it was as if the wind had stopped the instant we got there.

Speaker 1 Before the possession, a lot of weird, unexplainable things happened throughout the night that made my skeptic friends almost crop themselves. Here's a list.

Speaker 1 In the hospital, I heard a man groan behind me as we were walking down a hallway. Don't groan behind me.
Don't do that. Don't do that.

Speaker 1 Under one of the tunnels, the K2 meter went berserk and it started giving us intelligent responses.

Speaker 1 In addition, we asked the spirits to light up the meter and we would instantly hear loud bangs just a few yards from us.

Speaker 1 We went into one room where all the women, just the women, started feeling severe pain just above their pubic region. Oh my God.

Speaker 1 One of the women, my friend Katie, suddenly groaned and grabbed above that region. And at the exact moment she did, one of our walkie-talkies started going crazy and gave off static.
Holy shit.

Speaker 1 That's so fucked up. Fuck.
I would leave at that moment. Yeah.
The night took a huge turn.

Speaker 1 However, when we entered Quaker Hall, a claustrophobic room famous for exhibiting the most violent paranormal activity, we were warned to never make provocations out loud.

Speaker 1 This part of the location had the most abysmal history. It is said that many

Speaker 1 patients were trigger warning, sexually assaulted, and punished most severely in Quaker Hall. We entered the room and stood around in a semicircle.

Speaker 1 I started asking questions to the spirit, and it had been just a minute when suddenly, we need to leave, said Lawrence out of nowhere. What? I asked.
We have to go. We have to go now.

Speaker 1 His face was paler than Edward Cullen.

Speaker 1 When I skipped this, I saw Edward Cullen and I said, we will be doing that. So everybody, get your voices ready.
We harmonize. Back to the story.
Good job, everybody.

Speaker 1 Buddy, what is it?

Speaker 1 Good job, everybody. All right, back to the story.
Buddy, what is it? Asked my other friend, Nick. Something's grabbing my heart, and I'm having trouble breathing.
Oh, shit. Lawrence, it's okay.

Speaker 1 I think you're just freaked out. No, I'm not.
He interrupted me and started walking to the exit. I can hear something in my head.
Someone's talking in my head. Please, let's go.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 I would shit myself. That's so sick.
Hearing something. I'm hearing something in my head.
Something's talking in my head. Oh, God.

Speaker 1 I would cry. That would fuck me up.
And cry and cry and cry. You would dry heave.
I would dry heave. No, I would be doing a lot more than dry heaving.
I would wet heave.

Speaker 1 That's the new term for throw heavy.

Speaker 1 All the kids would say in it.

Speaker 1 So what the hell was going on? Something was grabbing at his heart. Something was in his head.
I stared at Lawrence, and his head was beginning to rock back and forth.

Speaker 1 His hands were out of his pockets and his eyes were glued to the floor. Something wasn't right and for his safety alone, we needed to leave.
Yeah. The night went on and Lawrence wasn't getting better.

Speaker 1 We left Quaker Hall the worst of the worst. Why was Lawrence still behaving like this? The night was coming to a very strange close and soon we arrived back at our cars.

Speaker 1 We thanked the watchman a hundred times for allowing us to investigate for free. It was midnight or so and as we were talking to him, I noticed Lawrence wasn't with us.

Speaker 1 I turned around and there he was in the backseat of my friend Chase's car, hood up and just staring blankly at the ground.

Speaker 1 His body was there, but his mind was someplace else. Dude, I nudged Nick and pointed at the car.
I don't know what to do, he said, and chorted a little, trying to break the worry on our faces.

Speaker 1 Okay, let's just get out of here. Let's go home, I said.
A group of us, including Lawrence, drove back to my house to sleep. We got to the living room and started setting up our sleeping bags.

Speaker 1 Lawrence still looked so uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 After rolling out his sleeping bag, he sat right on my couch and just continued to stare straight forward, mouth agape, eyes wide, not saying a word, completely lost and scared looking.

Speaker 1 So, I stammered, trying to break the ice. What the fuck do I do? What a night, Am I right? How do I wake up Lawrence? Should I slap him?

Speaker 1 Should I put a funny YouTube video on that I know he'll laugh at? Valid. No one answered.
We just stared at our friend. I went upstairs to get more pillows and I made Nick come with me.

Speaker 1 We got to my room. Nick, I whispered, because my parents were asleep in the next room.
I'm actually freaking the fuck out. I don't know what to do.

Speaker 1 And if he brings any ghosts into my house, so help me, God. Bang!

Speaker 1 The back door of my house slammed shut. Oh, fuck that.
Nick and I sprinted down the stairs. Chase was standing just outside the door.
What the hell happened? I asked him.

Speaker 1 Matt, he just stood up and yelled, I need to get out, and then slammed the door. My heart was palpitating.
The three of us walked outside. Lawrence was walking around in circles in front of my shed.

Speaker 1 His right hand raised silently over his head. Oh.

Speaker 1 His finger was bent but pointing. What the hell was he doing? Lawrence, I asked suspiciously.
Hey, what are you doing? Come on, you got to talk to us. Hey, buddy.
Hey, it's cool.

Speaker 1 He said, there's a voice in my head. I can't get this voice out of my head, and I'm freaking out.
God! Oh, he screamed and walked back to the steps. Oh,

Speaker 1 I'm so excited for him. I'm so stressed for him.
This poor kid. This reminds me of Talk to Me.
Yeah, like, I'm like, stop.

Speaker 1 Nick, Chase, and I backed up, fearful that Lawrence was going to clock us or something. He put his arm on the tip of the railing and collapsed his head on top.

Speaker 1 Something had followed Lawrence from Quaker Hill. That much was clear.
I can't make the voice stop. I can't make the voice stop.
He repeated to us, moaning in frustration. I needed to do something.

Speaker 1 Lawrence, do you want me to speak to the voice? Pause. That's a good friend.
I know. You're the best friend.

Speaker 1 Very good friend. Lawrence, let me talk to the voice.
No, he interjected. No, that won't.
He kept stammering. Let me just go in.
He hopped up the steps and went back into the house. Holy shit.

Speaker 1 Nick, Chase, and I stared at one another in more than disbelief. I was willing to drop Lawrence off at a holiday inn and look for an exorcist in the yellow pages.

Speaker 1 There was a historic Presbyterian church near my house. Did they have any exorcists? I mean, these are all very real questions.
You know, desperate times call for justice. These are the questions.

Speaker 1 For desperate measures, does every church have exorcists? What do I need?

Speaker 1 My parents were also upstairs. Could the spirit leave Lawrence and possess one of them? Oh, no.

Speaker 1 My hand's shaking. I think he just needs to sleep.
Let's just let him sleep. He'll be fine tomorrow.
Honestly, I'd probably do this tomorrow. I'd be like, yeah, sleep it off.
It's like being drunk.

Speaker 1 Go to bed. We walked back to the living room.
Right there, sitting up in his sleeping bag, was Lawrence, hood down, texting on his phone. Hey guys, he said, totally normally.

Speaker 1 Lawrence, said Chase. Are you okay? You good, bro? Yeah, I'm fine.
Are you sure? Oh, yeah, he said, still texting on his phone. Matt, there was something bad in your shed, so I came back in.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry, what? I asked, taken aback. Yeah, there was something bad in your shed.
Good night.

Speaker 1 He said, put his phone down and got under his sleeping bag. Lawrence confessed to us later that when he was in my living room, he was texting himself what the voice was telling him in his head.

Speaker 1 He then immediately deleted it because he wanted to study abroad in Florence and wanted to forget about this incident.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry. What?

Speaker 1 He's like, sorry, I can't bring this to Florence. Florence will not allow this kind of thing.
Lawrence will say, get the fuck out of here if I, you know, remember this experience.

Speaker 1 He was fearful that the spirits would follow him internationally. Wow.
Whatever happened to him was very real and very scarring. I want to know what was in the shed.
Yeah, I'm like, what?

Speaker 1 Did he put the thing in the shed? Yeah, did he just put it in the shed and be like, cool, it's gone. Maybe.
To this day, if I bring up Penhurst to Lawrence, he won't say anything.

Speaker 1 He doesn't crack a joke. Sometimes he just leaves the room or politely asks us to change the subject.
I have not been back to Penhurst since, and I doubt any of my friends want to return either.

Speaker 1 It's not your typical answer when somebody asks you, what happened in college? And you say, oh yeah, my friend just got possessed. Damn, Matt.
Matt, that was crazy. That's a scary one.

Speaker 1 You should never go in your shed again, I feel. I don't think you should.
You should light that shed on fire. Yeah, light it ablaze.
Do it. Commit arson.
It's fine. Why not?

Speaker 1 What's your face got away with it?

Speaker 1 Penhurst is terrifying. Yeah, I don't want to go to there.
The energy there must be wild. I do want to go to there, but I would be scared to.

Speaker 1 This bitch really just said, I do want to go there. I do want to go there.
I want to, like, do a ghost hunt there. I don't know if I want to get something in my head.
Yeah, I don't want that either.

Speaker 1 There's already a lot going on up there. So maybe there's no room.
And right now I'm just ahead, so. You are just ahead.
That's all you got. I'm just ahead.

Speaker 1 I'm just touching you.

Speaker 1 Wow, what a way to end that with Nicholas saying, he is touching you. Damn, don't touch me.
I'm under Nicholas.

Speaker 1 He's always just lawless. He's just the most restless motherfucker lately.
He is. What are you doing there? Nicholas, what's going on? I didn't know we were taking our relationship to this level.

Speaker 1 I'm going to tell John. I'm telling John on you.
I'm telling John on you, Nicholas. Guys, those were great tales.
They were so so scary. I'm freaking genuinely scary.

Speaker 1 Guys, I hope you guys have the best Halloween

Speaker 1 salin ever. Be safe.
Don't talk to strangers. Check your kids' candy.
And dress up as whatever you want. Yeah, dress up.
How much do you want to do? Do you have a fucking table? Do it. Live your life.

Speaker 1 We almost forgot to mention. We're going to have our very own morbid tarot cards that you guys can order.
So exciting. I'm so fucking excited.
We partnered with this sick-ass artist.

Speaker 1 She's so talented. Marissa Aragon Ware.
She's so cool. They're like made to order cards.
There's only a limited amount of them. They're going to be available for a limited time.

Speaker 1 I think they're going to go live at midnight on Halloween. And you can buy them up until December 21st.
Again, they're a limited run. When they're done, they're done.

Speaker 1 Super excited because it ends on the winter solstice, which is like... witchy.
From Halloween to the winter solstice. Yeah.
And they're only available at morbidterot.com. Yes.

Speaker 1 And they're going to have like little Easter eggs, like fun little morbid Easter eggs in them. Little quotes, maybe.
Gold and silver foil accents. They're like beautiful.

Speaker 1 So yes, go to morbidterot.com on midnight, on Halloween. And again, these are made to order.
And we're actually going to reveal the first five major Arcana cards at launch.

Speaker 1 So keep your eyes peeled. And then we'll gradually reveal the rest of the deck, like, you know, throughout the order.
Through the window. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 So keep checking in because more will be let out. But we're very excited about this.
It's going to be really fun. Yeah, we've been having such a blast working with Relatable on this.
They're amazing.

Speaker 1 Maybe there will be more cool things in the future. Maybe there will because we love them.

Speaker 1 So Nicholas is mad about it, but Nicholas said it's mad sick. Yeah, but the new cool.
Yeah. So, guys, go order those.
Do it. Keep listening to the pods and have a happy Halloween.
Happy Halloween.

Speaker 1 We hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird.
But not so weird that you don't order our fucking tarot deck. Do it.
Love you.

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