Hello from the Other Side

Speaker 1 Jim Timmity,

Speaker 1 Chim Timmity,

Speaker 1 Jim Chim Carly

Speaker 1 I'll pick the cards to show your destiny

Speaker 1 Chim Chimity, Chim Chimity, Chim Chim Chiru.

Speaker 1 There's no turning back cause there's naught you can do.

Speaker 1 So run till your mom see

Speaker 1 And we'll catch her too.

Speaker 1 You've paused all the spoiled inner

Speaker 1 stay tuned.

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Speaker 14 Oh, watch your step. Wow, your attic is so dark.
Dark.

Speaker 14 I know, right?

Speaker 10 It's the perfect place to stream horror movies.

Speaker 14 What movie is that? I haven't pressed play yet.

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Speaker 14 Sometimes I book a hotel without reading the reviews.

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Speaker 1 Late Friday, I get off the bar train. In the bad old days, downtown Oakland near City Hall is deserted.
Nothing but boarded up windows, locked doors.

Speaker 1 And with the four women, three guys, friends walking huddled close for safety, head on a swivel. Don't want no funny business.

Speaker 1 And then,

Speaker 1 like from from a fairy story,

Speaker 1 we hear the peals

Speaker 1 of a bagpipe. Why?

Speaker 1 Who knows? Maybe there's some underground Scottish thing going on. Let's maybe check it out.

Speaker 1 This

Speaker 1 music

Speaker 1 pipers us along. And there,

Speaker 1 between two dark buildings,

Speaker 1 Warm light spills onto the sidewalk, an open door, and there are people.

Speaker 1 Old people, young people, mothers holding babies, men hugging old friends, laughing, shouting, singing, grandmothers dancing to the bagpiper,

Speaker 1 throwing back tiny glasses of something that looks alcoholic in the window. A small handwritten sign reads, Bulgaria at night.

Speaker 1 We peek in like wild-eyed refugees and for greeted with smiles, with slaps on the back.

Speaker 1 Hey, man,

Speaker 1 what's going on with the bagpipes? There's some kind of Scottish, there are bagpipes.

Speaker 1 Our Bulgarians, don't you know? Scott stole the bagpipe from Bulgaria. It's our national instrument.
Then he's pressing the cups of something called raca into our hands. One sip,

Speaker 1 and I almost go blind.

Speaker 1 Some kind of crazy bulking moonshine. They laugh as I stagger.
Pour another. There's food.

Speaker 1 Thick blood-red sausages. A woman shoves spiced beef into my mouth.
Cabbage rolls and cubes of cheese that don't come from a cow.

Speaker 1 In the corner, a couple sing operatic accompaniment to the bagpiper. A guy hands me a baby to hold while he dances.
More moonshine. Hey, tell tell a story.

Speaker 1 Alcohol gives me courage. My tail makes him laugh and pour more moonshine.
At a table, an old man slams my buddy's wrist down an arm wrestling.

Speaker 1 Everybody else is dancing, dancing, dancing, eating, dancing, dancing, laughing, drinking, dancing, spinning. We finally stagger away from Eastern Europe.
Back onto the streets of Oakland.

Speaker 1 Four in the morning. Smiles on our faces, songs in our heart, 50 brand new best friends, and I know

Speaker 1 exactly where I'm spending every weekend for the rest of my life with my people, the Bulgarians.

Speaker 1 When I return the next night,

Speaker 1 there's no warm light,

Speaker 1 no sign,

Speaker 1 no bagpipes, nothing.

Speaker 1 And I know it was right here.

Speaker 1 I know it.

Speaker 1 My friends, over days, we'd give a search empty.

Speaker 1 I even look online. Bulgaria at night.

Speaker 1 Scarce brief mentions, a few broken links. What?

Speaker 1 And this was years ago.

Speaker 1 Every once in a while, I see one of us who walked into the light that night, one of us who was there, we look at each other in the eyes.

Speaker 1 That happened, right?

Speaker 1 We were there, right?

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Here's the thing:

Speaker 1 every once in a while, I still go by that spot.

Speaker 1 I'm still looking for that sign.

Speaker 1 Believe me,

Speaker 1 this time,

Speaker 1 if I hear bagpipes,

Speaker 1 I don't know

Speaker 1 if I'm coming back

Speaker 1 Spook Star Star Star Star

Speaker 1 Now

Speaker 1 Magic doors.

Speaker 1 Magic doors. Sometimes it feels like the universe is having a laugh.

Speaker 1 Ingrid Johnson, she just escaped a bad marriage. She's broke.
She needs every bit of rest so she can get on to take care of herself and her baby boy.

Speaker 1 So Ingrid's really, really relieved to get into a brand new apartment.

Speaker 1 Spooked.

Speaker 14 The apartment was very small.

Speaker 14 I found it on Craigslist.

Speaker 14 It was obviously at one time a building that was one unit and the owner had split it up.

Speaker 14 No washing machine. No dishwasher, no parking, basically a studio that happened to have a door on the bedroom.
It didn't feel like a permanent place.

Speaker 14 It felt like a place just to crash and then start over from.

Speaker 14 I lost a lot of friends in the divorce. I wasn't leaving the house and I wasn't dating.

Speaker 14 In the beginning,

Speaker 14 I had three jobs.

Speaker 14 I worked from 3.30 in the morning until 8 in the morning, opening a juice bar.

Speaker 14 Then I would change into my business attire and I would go to a job where I was working as a recruiter for an agency downtown from 8 to 5.

Speaker 14 And then on the nights that I had help with my son, I would pick up shifts at restaurants until 10.30 or 11 at night. I don't know how I did it.
You just do.

Speaker 14 One night, a few months after we moved in, I came home, I hit the pillow and fell asleep.

Speaker 14 A noise shocked me out of sleep at one in the morning.

Speaker 14 It sounds like the grumbling of a crowd.

Speaker 14 My son sleeps like the dead, so he didn't wake up.

Speaker 14 I blinked a little bit and I saw a blue light coming from the living room.

Speaker 14 And I went, I didn't leave the TV on.

Speaker 1 Or did I?

Speaker 14 I walked out into the living room

Speaker 14 and the TV was on full volume.

Speaker 14 It was on the weather channel,

Speaker 14 something that I don't watch.

Speaker 14 I turned off the TV.

Speaker 14 I thought, that's weird. And then I went back to bed.

Speaker 14 About three days later, I was having a night that I couldn't sleep. I was really worried about the reality of the situation that I was in.

Speaker 14 How I'm going to do daycare, how I'm going to do babysitting.

Speaker 14 All of a sudden, the TV was on.

Speaker 14 And it was blasting. It was so loud.

Speaker 14 I got up, I went out to the living room.

Speaker 14 It's on the weather channel again.

Speaker 14 Volume 50 out of 50.

Speaker 14 I turned it off and I went to bed.

Speaker 14 But this time I was thinking, wait a minute, I turned that off.

Speaker 14 What the hell?

Speaker 14 After that second time,

Speaker 1 it just started happening all the time.

Speaker 14 Always at night. Always super loud.

Speaker 14 And there were only two channels that it would come on.

Speaker 14 The weather channel and HD TV.

Speaker 14 Which I thought was really funny because I did not have a home or garden.

Speaker 14 But at the same time, it made me really angry.

Speaker 14 I was exhausted. I was barely making it through the day.
And then my TV is gonna come on at full volume and wake me up?

Speaker 1 What a cruel joke.

Speaker 14 I figured, okay, there's something about this technology that I don't know anything about.

Speaker 14 I looked on YouTube and I watched some videos about it. And then I googled TV wiring.

Speaker 14 Should I change the plug to somewhere else? Do I need one of those big breaker plug-ins that protect it from a power surge?

Speaker 14 I ran all these things by my stepdad, who is a home builder and he does electric work.

Speaker 14 He just said, there's nothing possibly wrong with your wiring that could cause that. Just unplug it.

Speaker 14 I was so tired, I hadn't even thought about it.

Speaker 14 It felt like a birthday present. I said, that's a great idea.
Thanks, Dad. I'm going to do that.

Speaker 14 That night, I unplugged the TV and it did not come back on.

Speaker 14 The next night I unplugged it again.

Speaker 14 Did not come back on. I had fixed it.

Speaker 14 And then the third night I was asleep. And then

Speaker 14 the TV is blasting again.

Speaker 14 This time it's the weather channel.

Speaker 14 I got up and I stormed out to the living room.

Speaker 14 The TV was plugged back in.

Speaker 14 I remembered specifically unplugging the TV right before I got into bed.

Speaker 14 My son was only three and I wouldn't even have let him play with a plug.

Speaker 14 I knew that I wasn't hallucinating about the TV being on.

Speaker 14 I knew that I didn't watch the weather channel

Speaker 14 If it wasn't me and it wasn't my son,

Speaker 14 it had to be a ghost.

Speaker 14 That's the only thing that I could think of.

Speaker 14 And I said, what do you want from me? What do you want?

Speaker 14 Stop it.

Speaker 14 And I turned it off, unplugged it, went back to bed.

Speaker 14 But things ramped up.

Speaker 14 Like I was in a relationship with this awful roommate.

Speaker 14 Instead of the TV coming on once every three nights, it would come on every night.

Speaker 14 The volume was so loud that earplugs or anything like that would have done nothing.

Speaker 14 I would cuss this ghost out.

Speaker 1 You

Speaker 19 are

Speaker 14 serious right now.

Speaker 14 I was so tired

Speaker 14 and I didn't understand why this was happening to me.

Speaker 5 Support for Spooked comes from Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport.

Speaker 6 OAK offers non-stop flights to your favorite destinations across the U.S.

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Speaker 14 Sometimes I book a hotel without reading the reviews.

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Speaker 14 About a year into my living at this apartment, I had a light bulb moment. I'd been watching a documentary and it was in French.
So I was reading closed captions.

Speaker 14 And then my mind was like, holy shit,

Speaker 14 I can do this for the ghost.

Speaker 14 If I'm reading closed captions on this documentary, maybe the ghost will read the closed captions if I leave the TV on and then I can sleep.

Speaker 14 I said in the living room out loud to the ghost,

Speaker 14 if I put on the closed captions,

Speaker 14 Will you stop turning the volume up?

Speaker 14 Nobody said said anything back to me, but I felt like it was a compromise.

Speaker 14 I didn't know if this idea was going to work, but I did my best to sound confident that it would.

Speaker 14 So at night, instead of turning the TV off, I muted the volume on the TV and I put the closed captions on.

Speaker 14 Even switched to the weather channel.

Speaker 14 When I woke up in the morning, I was like, holy shit,

Speaker 14 it worked.

Speaker 14 From that point on, I never woke up again to the blasting volume of the TV.

Speaker 14 I eventually quit working three jobs, figured out that I could start my own recruiting agency at home and make money.

Speaker 14 My son was going to regular daycare. We had our bills paid and we had food in the fridge.

Speaker 14 I had money in the bank. I was sleeping.
We were living in peace.

Speaker 14 Eventually, I hired someone who was going to work in operations, billing and invoicing and computer systems and all sorts of stuff like that.

Speaker 14 I hired a gal from Texas who I had met on LinkedIn.

Speaker 14 I flew her out to Seattle to meet her face to face.

Speaker 14 We were going to go out to dinner and I wanted to have her drop her files and her briefcase and her laptop at my house so she didn't have to lug it with her to the restaurant.

Speaker 14 We walked into the building. We walked up the stairs.
I opened the door.

Speaker 14 She paused in the door and turned white.

Speaker 14 I said, are you okay?

Speaker 14 She just looked at me and she said,

Speaker 14 You have a ghost in your house. Her name is Christine.

Speaker 14 I didn't need her to tell me I had a ghost in the house because I already knew. But it was the name of the ghost that was brand new.

Speaker 14 It was almost like solving a murder mystery. Like, I got you.
It's Christine. You're the one.

Speaker 14 And I said, you can tell Christine, it's time to cut the shit.

Speaker 14 That ghost has just really pissed me off.

Speaker 14 She didn't really know how to take that. She looked shocked.
I don't blame her.

Speaker 14 For dinner, I took her to a really nice restaurant in Seattle on the water, and we just talked about work.

Speaker 14 It wasn't until later on during the dinner that I started asking, how do you see ghosts?

Speaker 14 She was pretty reticent to talk about it, but after a glass of wine, she told me, yeah, I've seen them my whole life.

Speaker 14 It wasn't something that she was proud of. It was almost like a, I'm sorry.

Speaker 14 I told her all the things that had been happening for over a year at this point.

Speaker 14 And then she told me a little bit about the ghost.

Speaker 14 She said that she was wearing a dress.

Speaker 14 And she had brown hair in a bun.

Speaker 14 She said this particular ghost was a recluse in life, almost to the point where she was agoraphobic and she never left the house and she was really shy.

Speaker 14 She said, I think she likes you because she thinks that you're also a recluse

Speaker 14 and that you also don't leave the house

Speaker 14 and she's comfortable with you.

Speaker 14 And I was like, well, I hope she's not because I hate her and I never want to see her again.

Speaker 14 I went home.

Speaker 14 My son was with my mom that night, so the house was empty.

Speaker 14 I turned the TV on, closed captioning. I just left it on something my son was watching, the Disney channel.
And I went to bed.

Speaker 14 I woke up the next morning and the TV was not on HGTV or the weather channel. It was on the Disney channel, which is what I had left it on.

Speaker 14 It was the first time ever.

Speaker 14 I was like, oh my God.

Speaker 14 As the days went on and it didn't come back on, it went from having a day-to-day roommate who I interacted with and had some kind of peace with to nothing.

Speaker 14 It made me feel really alone.

Speaker 14 I started regretting the way that I had reacted to finding out that my ghost's name was Christine.

Speaker 14 I started thinking that was rude and I was mean.

Speaker 14 That was the only time that she had made an effort to show me who she really was.

Speaker 14 She wanted me to know her name.

Speaker 14 I had never been nice to this ghost. I was frustrated with this ghost every day.

Speaker 14 I learned her name and I snapped at her.

Speaker 14 I felt very guilty.

Speaker 14 I reached out to the gal who flew out from Texas and I said, hey, I think that ghost is gone.

Speaker 14 She told me, put a feather on a piece of paper. Write yes or no on the piece of paper and then you can ask a question.

Speaker 14 And in the morning, the feather will be either on yes or no.

Speaker 14 I wrote yes and no, and I put the feather in the middle. I said, are you still here?

Speaker 14 Christine, are you still here?

Speaker 14 And I went to bed.

Speaker 14 I came out in the morning. The feather hadn't moved either way.

Speaker 14 She was gone.

Speaker 14 Six years later, I turn on the weather channel from time time to time and leave it on. Just while I'm doing dishes, laundry, I just leave it on and

Speaker 14 it's comforting to me.

Speaker 14 Ingrid and her son, Rex, they don't live in that apartment anymore, but they are loyal spook listeners.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Ingrid, for keeping the lights on. The original score for that piece was by Clay Xavier.
It was produced by Ann Ford.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 our next storyteller comes to us from India. About a year ago, he wanted to get some space to himself in Mumbai.
He thought he'd find some peace and quiet down by the riverside.

Speaker 1 What he discovered instead, wow,

Speaker 1 he's still trying to figure out

Speaker 1 spast,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 21 I went on this trip with three of my friends because we were bored

Speaker 21 just a weekend getaway.

Speaker 21 We started early.

Speaker 21 We left our city, we took a long drive towards the countryside.

Speaker 21 We are joking, we are laughing.

Speaker 21 We're there by 11:12 during the day.

Speaker 21 This was right in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 21 A remote village kind of a place, and I could see a very small, beautiful lake out there.

Speaker 21 And over this side, we have just a small trailer where we can get our food.

Speaker 21 Also, there were small tents to sleep on

Speaker 21 and a small bonfireplace.

Speaker 21 That's it, nothing much.

Speaker 21 I was like, That's fine, I can spend two days here very comfortably.

Speaker 21 The host wasn't available that day, there was only the cook who would just help us out in whatever we need.

Speaker 21 We went down to the lake,

Speaker 21 sat on the rocks,

Speaker 21 put our feet in the water,

Speaker 21 and just sat around listening to the sound of water crashing the rocks.

Speaker 21 Very silent.

Speaker 21 It was a peaceful place.

Speaker 21 Took some pictures,

Speaker 21 came back up, had some tea,

Speaker 21 and then we lost the daylight.

Speaker 21 And you can hear the night,

Speaker 21 some animal sounds, some bird sounds.

Speaker 21 We knew that the biggest animal here could be a fox, so nothing much to worry about.

Speaker 21 My friends prepared our chicken in the bonfire,

Speaker 21 helping the cook do the barbecue.

Speaker 21 You basically hang it over the fire,

Speaker 21 and I want you to take a smoke break

Speaker 21 across the lake is some mountains

Speaker 21 and on my right hand side there is a small river. I went to that spot by the riverside.

Speaker 21 It's not very far like what 15-20 steps.

Speaker 21 They could see me from the tent. It's that close.

Speaker 21 I light up a smoke.

Speaker 21 It's very dark.

Speaker 21 There were birds noises. I could hear the sound of water and puffing in the cigarette.

Speaker 21 All of a sudden, I hear a slight sound of someone's presence there.

Speaker 21 I turn to my right.

Speaker 21 I see a man standing on the other side of the river

Speaker 17 and not very far.

Speaker 21 It's just a small jump and you're on the other side.

Speaker 21 I cannot see his actual face because it's dark.

Speaker 21 But I can see a silhouette of him.

Speaker 21 He just looked like a normal guy to me.

Speaker 1 He says, hi.

Speaker 21 I say hi.

Speaker 21 I was like, how is this place? I'm here for the first time.

Speaker 1 He's like, oh,

Speaker 21 so you don't know much about this place.

Speaker 21 I'm like, okay, enlighten me.

Speaker 21 This cook interrupted me saying, sir, please come.

Speaker 21 I don't know why he was calling me, but I just ignored him and I continued my conversation.

Speaker 21 The guy who was talking to me is like, so the thing is,

Speaker 21 probably probably you are on the wrong side

Speaker 21 I'm like what do you mean by wrong side

Speaker 21 and he goes

Speaker 21 something really bad happened very very very long ago

Speaker 21 there was an angry god

Speaker 21 who cut that land into half and passed a river through it

Speaker 21 because that side is banished and that side is cursed.

Speaker 21 The story of this place is that

Speaker 21 there's one side of the river that's completely fine to go to

Speaker 21 and the other side of the river is where you're not supposed to step into.

Speaker 21 It's said to be a very haunted place.

Speaker 21 Now that you're here, be very careful.

Speaker 5 Support for Spooked comes from Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport.

Speaker 6 OAK offers non-stop flights to your favorite destinations across the U.S.

Speaker 8 and Mexico with new non-stop flights to Los Cabos and Zacatecas.

Speaker 9 OAK makes travel easy with Park OAK's convenient parking options.

Speaker 11 Reserve a spot in the daily lot or economy lot and save on your next trip.

Speaker 4 Learn more at iflyoak.com, the best way to San Francisco Bay.

Speaker 14 Oh, watch your step. Wow, your attic is so dark.
Dark.

Speaker 14 I know, right?

Speaker 10 It's the perfect place to stream horror movies.

Speaker 14 What movie is that? I haven't pressed play yet.

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Speaker 21 The first reaction that I had was, a random person is trying to bully me.

Speaker 21 You're trying to scare the kiddo of me. Okay, fine.

Speaker 21 I'm not going to buy it.

Speaker 21 I was like, okay, it's nice meeting you.

Speaker 21 I need to go back now.

Speaker 1 And I left.

Speaker 21 While I walked, I'm like, look at this place, what do I have to worry about here in such a nice place?

Speaker 21 I walk back up to the tent and just sit back with my friends and start chilling again.

Speaker 21 Listening to music, having barbecue, talk about random things.

Speaker 1 Chicken is delicious.

Speaker 21 I did not mention to anyone that I met someone.

Speaker 21 It just slipped my mind.

Speaker 21 I'm talking to my friend who came along with us.

Speaker 21 He is the guy who always researches on everything.

Speaker 21 And he tells me,

Speaker 21 this place has a story to it.

Speaker 21 I'm like, yeah, what's the story?

Speaker 21 Very seriously, he tells us,

Speaker 21 there is a side of the river

Speaker 21 that is cursed.

Speaker 21 You're not supposed to go there.

Speaker 21 If you go towards that side,

Speaker 21 you'll never come back.

Speaker 21 Before I could utter a word, he goes on and saying,

Speaker 21 If you hear anybody from that side, you're not supposed to respond.

Speaker 21 I'm like, oh, what happens if I respond?

Speaker 21 Then he goes,

Speaker 1 The story goes,

Speaker 21 someone tries to call you on his side.

Speaker 21 Then, the moment you jump the riverbank and go towards that side

Speaker 21 is the time that you're not coming back.

Speaker 21 And now, a little fear does come into me.

Speaker 21 What is happening? Why is someone telling me something like this?

Speaker 21 I kept on thinking in the back of my head:

Speaker 21 Am I on the wrong side?

Speaker 21 Are they on the wrong side?

Speaker 21 I tried to go back to my tent and take a small nap.

Speaker 21 One hour passed, I cannot fall asleep.

Speaker 21 I was like, you know what, let me just go back to the riverbank and see if I can see someone again.

Speaker 21 And I go back to the riverside again.

Speaker 21 Now, when we were kids, the thing that we were told about paranormal things or ghosts and stuff was light up any sort of fire, the ghost will never come near you.

Speaker 21 So, I am lighting a cigarette because I know I am have fire in my hand.

Speaker 21 Nothing's gonna go wrong.

Speaker 21 I am standing there listening to the silence of the river,

Speaker 21 and then I again hear someone's presence,

Speaker 21 And I see a silhouette again.

Speaker 21 The guy is sitting there.

Speaker 21 I can see his back.

Speaker 21 This time I am a little scared. And I am also very curious.
I want answers now.

Speaker 21 So I say, can I continue the conversation with you? Last time you were saying something.

Speaker 21 about me being on the wrong side.

Speaker 21 I am a little curious because the information I am coming with says that I am on the right side, and the side that you are on is the side that is cursed.

Speaker 21 He's like,

Speaker 21 I am not meaning to scare you, but your side is really small. There are not good stories of people coming back from that side.

Speaker 21 All of a sudden, my cook comes and calls me, and he's like, Sir, what are you doing? Come up.

Speaker 21 Please just come up.

Speaker 21 And I'm like, I'm having a cigarette.

Speaker 21 Why is this guy calling me up at four o'clock in the night?

Speaker 21 Every time I come down, this guy calls me up.

Speaker 21 And suddenly, my friend in the tent

Speaker 21 screams at the top of her voice.

Speaker 21 I run back, I'm like, what happened to you?

Speaker 21 And she said,

Speaker 21 I thought something came and touched me.

Speaker 21 I tried to calm her down. She was okay.

Speaker 21 I went inside my tent, I take a small nap,

Speaker 21 get up in the morning, seven, eight o'clock.

Speaker 21 I get out of my tent and I tell my friend,

Speaker 21 why did you scream last night?

Speaker 21 And she says, When did I scream?

Speaker 21 I'm like, Last night, I was smoking on the riverbank.

Speaker 21 You screamed at the top of your voice.

Speaker 21 You said that you felt like something touched you.

Speaker 21 She's like, No, I don't remember screaming.

Speaker 21 I'm like, Okay, you must have forgotten.

Speaker 21 We said we'll leave around 10, 10, 30, 11 o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 21 And in that two, three hours, we again took a small bath in the river, took some pictures, packed our stuff.

Speaker 21 I'm like, you want to just tell the cook we are leaving?

Speaker 21 He's like, what cook are you trying to talk about?

Speaker 21 I'm like, the guy who was making the chicken barbecue for us on the bonfire.

Speaker 21 He's like, yeah, I did it.

Speaker 21 I'm like, okay, I saw you there, but there was a cook there.

Speaker 21 Both of them are looking at me in surprise.

Speaker 21 Are you trying to mess with us early in the morning?

Speaker 21 We haven't had our coffees yet.

Speaker 21 But there's a small shiver in me.

Speaker 21 I have goosebumps and I am a little scared.

Speaker 21 I am like guys, please do not mess with me.

Speaker 21 We had a cook.

Speaker 21 I spoke to him every time I would go to the riverbank for having a cigarette.

Speaker 21 He would call me and I would tell him, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming.

Speaker 21 One of my friend told me, listen guys, let's get out of this place.

Speaker 21 Let's just get out of here.

Speaker 21 Let's start walking back to our car.

Speaker 21 There was silence for some time until we hit the main road highway.

Speaker 21 The moment we hit the highway, we started talking about it again.

Speaker 21 I'm like, guys, I saw the cook. I spoke to the cook.
I saw you helping him do the barbecue.

Speaker 21 He's like, there was no cook there.

Speaker 21 And then he says you know what else was weird?

Speaker 21 Every time you're going on the riverside,

Speaker 21 we hear you talking to someone.

Speaker 21 Why were you talking out loud to yourself?

Speaker 1 I was like, I'm not talking out loud to myself.

Speaker 21 I was talking to someone on the other side.

Speaker 21 And he's like, all we know is, we would overheard you talking out loud

Speaker 21 why were you shouting I'm coming I'm coming again and again

Speaker 21 I was like that cook was calling me

Speaker 1 they are like there was no cook

Speaker 21 so the story is left to a big question mark

Speaker 21 who was this cook

Speaker 21 what side I was at?

Speaker 21 And who was the guy I spoke to on the other side?

Speaker 21 We never know the reality of anything.

Speaker 21 Could be that the guy who says you are on the wrong side,

Speaker 21 he was on the wrong side.

Speaker 21 Maybe the cook was my savior.

Speaker 21 Maybe the guy was my savior.

Speaker 21 I can tell you for sure, something was trying to get me on the other side.

Speaker 1 Big thanks to our storyteller for coming back to tell his tale. The original scores by Nicholas Marx

Speaker 1 was produced by Anne Ford.

Speaker 1 Now then,

Speaker 1 1726, Mary Toff, a woman in Surrey, England, begins experiencing contractions.

Speaker 1 Bent over in pain, Mary starts giving birth to parts of animals,

Speaker 1 including what looks like a rabbit. The local doctor, John Howard, is called and astonished as Mary keeps delivering more and more animal parts, including whole rabbit heads, legs, intestines,

Speaker 1 witnessing a medical miracle. The good doctor notifies other physicians, even sends specimens to King George's court.

Speaker 1 At once, the king's personal physician comes to see the marvel for himself and see it, he does.

Speaker 1 Mary births more rabbits in front of his eyes.

Speaker 1 The story becomes national news. Newspapers scream, Mary gives birth to rabbits.

Speaker 1 Unfortunately, spooksters, under examination, this little story unravels.

Speaker 1 Mary has to come clean, spend some time in jail. Every doctor that signed off on this farce has her reputations ruined forever.

Speaker 1 Horrible stuff.

Speaker 1 Terrible shame. The biggest tragedy

Speaker 1 is the world.

Speaker 1 It's far crazier than rabbits.

Speaker 1 The shadowlands are so strange, so fantastic, so weird.

Speaker 1 You don't need to make things up.

Speaker 1 That's why we appreciate so much. The best listeners in the world reveal what really happened.
And if you have a story,

Speaker 1 I would surely love to hear about it. Spook at stampjudgment.org, because there's nothing better than a spook story from a spook listener.

Speaker 1 Spook is brought to you. By the team that always turns the other cheek, except for Mark Ristich.

Speaker 1 Those are the wrong cheeks, Mark.

Speaker 1 Put on some pants. Nobody wants to see that.

Speaker 1 There's Davey Kim, Zoe Frigno, Ann Ford, Eric Yanez, Taylor DeCotte, Marissa Dodge, Miles Lassie, Doug Stewart, Paulina Creeky, Elizabeth Z. Pardu, Aditya Matu, and Lulu Jemima.

Speaker 1 The spook theme song is by Pat McCede Miller. My name's Glen Washington.

Speaker 1 And there have been been so many times sitting right next to a person, a person I love, when we experience the same moment completely differently.

Speaker 1 The same words, same place, the same scene. And if you ask us both what happened, the answers,

Speaker 1 it's like we weren't even in the same universe.

Speaker 1 And I wonder.

Speaker 1 If someone so close

Speaker 1 can be so far.

Speaker 1 Is it possible that someone so far can be close do we sense echoes of others echoes of ourselves are the spaces between us both enormous and small at the same time

Speaker 1 and if so

Speaker 1 what is the glue holding us all together

Speaker 1 maybe

Speaker 1 Maybe we're not as far away from each other as it might seem. And if you're trying to maintain a connection in this vast darkness, perhaps

Speaker 1 the best thing you can do

Speaker 1 is to never,

Speaker 1 ever,

Speaker 1 never, ever, never, ever, never

Speaker 1 turn out

Speaker 1 the lights.

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