The Deer Stand - Classic

I searched the sky for what to see,

but caught myself staring back at me.

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in Michigan.

It's a ritual.

Late fall, early winter, ride four hours up north.

Stop the car.

Put on your orange reflective jacket, your orange knit cap, gloves.

It's cold boots.

Maybe even a flask of Kentucky's finest to help you pass the time.

And you're gone.

Trek over hill and dale to your secret spot, the special place only you and your boys know about.

Then you lean right there against your tree,

still,

silent.

Wait.

Then maybe

you hear the underbrush crackle before you actually see the creature.

Wary,

suspicious, wild, dear, antlers raised, noble.

I've walked these forests, these Michigan woods, dozens of times, sighted the animal, raised my rifle, braced it against my shoulder, rested my finger on the trigger, checked to be sure all is clear still.

I've never fired a shot.

Never.

I don't know why.

Don't know why.

Friends say I'm too scared.

I don't think so.

I think instead I like

the power in these woods, the power to decide

what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if.

My name is Glenn Washington.

Safety first.

Spook starts

now.

Now,

today,

we've got a story from someone who truly loves being outside.

The hunting season, it's Dan's favorite time of the year.

He and his family gather at his uncle's farm, over 800 acres of Midwestern wilderness.

And Danny loves the ritual.

He climbs up to the top of a big ancient tree, sits in his tree stand,

and looks over the world.

It's bitter cold, freezing, but for Dan, this is where he feels quiet.

This is where he feels at peace.

Spooked.

A quick note.

Today's story is about the darkness and the light.

It involves suicide and graphic imagery as such.

Sensitive listeners, please be advised.

Deer hunting weekend is the one weekend that's guaranteed to see these uncles and cousins and we all come together.

Since I was 13 years old, it's always been family only.

A number of years ago we had one non-blood family member join our group.

That was my cousin's husband.

His name is Andy.

When I was young, I didn't have a lot of opinions.

I felt that my opinion really didn't matter a whole lot, but I didn't really like Andy.

Andy came across as

really arrogant.

He was occasionally argumentative.

My uncle that owns the land and his son, my cousin, are both doctors.

And Andy had no medical training.

He worked in a completely different profession.

We got into a conversation about prescriptions.

One family member that had a specific ailment and the two doctors were talking about the best drug to treat them and Andy started arguing with them about that.

The whole family kind of stopped and looked at him like, are you, are you for real right now?

These are two doctors.

They've, you know, they've been doctors their whole lives.

We can't argue with them on this.

And that's a no-brainer.

Pretty early on in the relationship, I learned to just distance myself

and

not respond to comments that he might make.

And he wasn't a bad person, but it changed the feeling when we were sitting down and having dinner after dinner when we were talking about our day.

We hunted together for roughly a decade.

So one summer, I got a call from family saying that Andy had left his home one night and went to his work and decided to shoot himself.

This was devastating for the family, primarily because my cousin, his wife, you know, was now left with her kids and no husband.

It was also a revelation for the family that he was depressed, and we never knew that deer hunting.

But we learned that he had told his wife that he was never happier than when he was deer hunting.

that he really, really loved that

experience and that time with us.

That was a shock to me because I didn't think that I was very nice to him and I didn't think that some of my other relatives were very nice to him,

not perhaps rude, but not as loving as we could have been.

And so that was a real surprise to hear.

So after Andy died, the next deer season came upon us, and we were sitting in the farmhouse talking about who was going to hunt out of which stand.

And

Andy Stand, having always been productive, was offered to me by the group that I could hunt out of his stand on the following day.

You know, tree stands are just very personal.

It's a very spiritual place.

It's kind of like your own altar or your own church,

in the sense that it's your space.

And

he was happy there.

Half of his ashes were buried underneath his tree stand.

It seemed very appropriate to hear that, given how happy he was in his tree stand.

We go to bed, wake up very early the next morning.

We have a truck and one person drives and we do a route and drop people off.

So I get dropped off.

It's pitch black out.

I walk through the woods to the stand.

I climb up.

roughly 20 feet up a tree to sit in

There's not a lot of space.

It's about a four foot by four foot

platform that you sit on and get all my gear situated in the stand and I'm sitting there.

And I decided, well, so I felt it would be appropriate for me to speak to him about how I had treated him.

I started off and I said, Andy, I don't know if you can hear me.

I don't know what happens after death,

but I really hope you're in a better place right now.

I'm really sorry to hear that your life was so full of pain.

And I'm also sorry that I was kind of a jerk to you when you were alive.

I'm hunting in your stand.

It's opening weekend.

I hope you're okay with the fact that I'm in your stand.

And again, I just, I really hope that you're in a better spot right now.

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As I got done talking to Andy, it was the time of morning.

And if you've ever sat out in the woods, there comes a point in the morning when I would say the world is gray.

And it was that point in the morning, and that only lasts for maybe 10 minutes in my experience, but it was that time of the morning when I felt my entire body was suddenly incredibly cold.

It felt like a wave had passed through the environment and sucked energy out of it.

If you've ever broken through ice and fallen into water, you have a better idea of what it's like for your whole body to be cold.

Every hair on my body was standing up.

Andy's body

appeared in front of me

as though it was a movie that was fading in and all of a sudden was

there.

I could see through him.

I had goosebumps from head to toe.

He was hovering above the tops of those two pine trees.

So

he wasn't at ground level walking or moving around.

He was directly in front of me and all of a sudden was

there,

you know, 20, 25 feet up in the air.

I was creeped out.

He was a little bit rough around the edges, like his hands and lower legs weren't entirely visible, but definitely the core of his body was right there.

He was in the air and his back was turned towards me.

One of the things that I noticed that was different about Andy was how he was dressed.

When we get up to go out deer hunting and come down for breakfast, most of us are wearing our long underwear.

And then we put on, you know, after breakfast, put on our winter clothes and go out.

Andy was wearing a pair of khaki pants

and a short sleeve, three-button polo shirt that was

bluish-green in color.

And so to see him appear in this outfit was different.

It was unique.

I could see his shoulders shrugging as though he was laughing.

I couldn't see anybody else, but I could kind of hear that there was chatter in the background.

Somehow he communicated to me that he was at like a cocktail party, you know, standing around having some hors d'oeuvres and you're laughing and talking with people.

And I don't know how to verbalize what

telepathy would be like to experience, but it was very, very clear to me that there were other people around him.

While Andy was at this cocktail party, and

he sent some very clear messages.

One, he was with loved ones, he was in a good place.

It was very clear from him

that he was okay now.

He then went on to say that it was, that he and I were okay.

And he didn't elaborate on that a whole lot.

After he communicated those two messages, the other people that I couldn't see, but I could hear,

it was as though they left the room.

And it was just Andy and myself at that point.

Andy turned around very quickly

and faced me and looked straight at me.

When he did that, I felt that I had been punched in the chest.

Like the wind was knocked out of me.

Now, Andy had shot himself in the head, and

looking at Andy, part of his head was gone.

And I won't get into the details, but it was clear when he turned and faced me that he had had trauma to his head.

And at that moment, as I felt that full body punch, he

expressed, What have I done?

as well as a message of this didn't fix anything.

I didn't have anything to say back to him.

My eyes were wide open, and I was just trying to process an experience that I had never experienced before.

Andy was in front of me for maybe two minutes.

He fades away and he's gone.

And there's nothing.

There's no communication.

There's nothing visual in front of me.

Being logical, I was trying to process what had just happened.

And I really struggled with that

because I had no explanation that was scientific or

I had no explanation that I could really believe.

I spent the day sitting in the tree stand.

I don't know if I even was looking for deer after that point.

I spent the next 12 hours reflecting on what had happened,

what I saw, what I heard,

and I'm using air quotes, what Andy communicated to me.

And

12 hours later, I saw the headlights.

It was dark again.

It was evening.

And when I saw the pickup truck, I packed up my gear, climbed down the ladder out of the tree stand.

Walked a hundred yards through the woods and made it to the pickup truck.

When I got there, my dad was driving, and I got in the truck and I didn't say anything.

And he looked at me and he said,

What's wrong?

What's wrong with you?

And I turned to him and I said,

you wouldn't believe me.

And

he said,

Tell me, tell me what happened.

So I told him the story.

And he said, oof.

So my dad says, well, it's up to you if you want to share the story with the rest of the family when we get back to the house.

Keep in mind that my uncle is the patriarch of the family.

He's your

quintessential old school doctor, just very stoic.

Well, we walked into the house, and the first thing my uncle says, Danny, what's wrong?

And I didn't say anything at first, and my cousin, who was making dinner, kind of chuckled, oh, would you see Andy's ghost or something?

And his dad immediately tells him to be quiet.

And my uncle is looking at me.

He's very serious.

And he says, Danny, what's wrong?

And so I tell the rest of the family the story.

Oh, watch your step.

Wow, your attic is so dark.

Dark.

I know, right?

It's the perfect place to stream horror movies.

Play me.

What movie is that?

I haven't pressed play yet.

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I was impressed

with the

respect that the rest of the family showed me as I was telling this story.

They were very interested in hearing what had happened.

When I was done telling my story,

my uncle said, Well,

it's up to you if you want to tell Susan.

Susan's my cousin, who had been married to Andy, and is also my uncle's daughter.

And so he gave the choice to me whether or not to share this with Susan.

Keep in mind, this is about six months after her husband's died.

And I decided that it was really important that I do share this with her.

And I didn't understand at the time why I felt it was important.

So I called Susan

on speakerphone speakerphone in front of the rest of the family.

Now, Susan's a stayed away.

She has no idea of any of this.

And I said, Hey, Susan, it's Danny.

I have to talk to you.

Do you have time to focus on me?

You know, did I catch you at an okay time?

And she said, Yeah.

I said, Are you sitting down?

Because I think you need to sit down for this.

And she said, Yeah, I'm sitting down.

I said, Okay.

Before I tell you anything

what was andy wearing when he died

susan replied

you know you think i would know what he was wearing when he died but i i don't i don't remember

But I'll never forget the outfit I picked for him to be cremated in.

It was a pair of khaki pants and a bluish-green, short-sleeved, three-button polo shirt.

Now, there's only a couple people that know what Andy was cremated in.

Susan, the folks that, you know, at the funeral home, and Andy.

I proceeded to tell Susan my experience and the story, and she found great comfort in hearing that he was okay.

She wasn't surprised to hear that he had shown up.

About eight months after my experience in Andy's Stan,

I was at a cousin's wedding.

And Uncle Number two, that

is a disbeliever and adamant that that never happened and I imagined it,

brought a guy over to me.

This guy's name is Jack, and Jack's a friend of the family, and he occasionally will, you know, bird hunt on our property.

And

Uncle Number two said to me, you two need to talk to each other about what happened.

And turned around and walked away.

I mean, he clearly wants nothing to do with what happened to us.

So I'm like,

I was a little confused when I turned to Jack and I said, so what happened to you?

And Jack said, well, I was bird hunting

at the farm and I got done for the day.

I unloaded my shotgun and was getting ready to walk out, and all of a sudden, there was somebody else in the woods with me.

I said, Okay,

what do you mean?

I mean, we're in the middle of

maybe somewhat close to the border, but you know, eight to nine hundred acres, it's not normal to run into other people.

And Jack said, Yeah, I never saw another person, but there was somebody else in the woods with me.

And he said,

I was walking out of the woods and I was right underneath Andy's stand when this happened.

And I went, Wow.

Jack had never heard of the experience that I had.

You know, I think one reason that perhaps he chose me and that time and location to show up is because

we both found nature, we find it to be a very spiritual place.

There's absolute beauty in sitting in the woods.

And it's almost like a sound deprivation chamber

because you don't hear any man-made sounds.

All you hear is the wind if it's blowing, silence if it's not, the annoying squirrel that you think is a deer approaching, but it's really just a squirrel.

You know, you might see a wolf, but you never hear them because they're absolutely silent.

I mean, it's really just a powerful place to be, and it's my version of a church.

And

it clearly was for Andy as well.

To this day, I still hunt out of his tree stand.

Honestly, he built his a lot better than I built mine.

So

it's a lot nicer place to hunt out of.

the other thing that I appreciate is that

my cousin's kid

started hunting with me when he was real young.

Before he was old enough to hunt, he would just sit in the stand with me.

Every opening morning, he and I speak to Andy.

You know, we wish that Andy is doing well.

We ask for a successful hunt because if you have a connection to the divine, why not, you know, ask for a little help?

But more so, thank him for being in a stand and the fact that he built it.

And it's really,

I think, a beautiful practice that has come from Andy's death and the subsequent experiences.

And that I have a teenager that wants to hang with an old fart like me, you know, for 12 hours sitting in the stand.

We provide thanks to the world.

I think that it's just a really good practice for both of us to express our thanks and wish Andy well.

Thank you, Dan, for sharing your story with the spook.

Now, you gotta know, Dan is a listener.

He shared this story with us, and we knew we had to share it with you.

And if you have your own terrifying tale to tell us, best believe you want to hear it.

Email us, spook at snapjudgment.org.

That's spooked at snapjudgment.org.

Yes, it is that time, but not to fear.

We have just set foot on this road.

We've not even begun.

Let somebody know if you dare, spoot.

If you like your storytelling under the heat of the noonday sun, check out our sister podcast, Snap Judgment.

Storytelling with the beat, Snap Judgment Studios.

Spook was created by the team that refuses to climb any tree in any forest.

I don't know why.

What's to be afraid of, especially when the Forest Ranger is none other than Mr.

Mark Ristich.

Anna Sussman, our chief spookster is Eliza Smith, Chris Hambrick, Annie Nguyen, Aaliyah Yates, Zoy Frigno, Lauren Newsom, Jacob Winnick, Leon Roy Moto, Renzo Gorio, Teo DeCot, Missa Dodge, Greta Weber,

Sonic Han, Tiffany DeLisa, Ann Ford, and Fernando Hernandez refuses to wear the proper Forest Ranger uniform.

Some say

the animals of the dark wood have not been granted the power of speech.

People who know this program may have discovered otherwise still.

I beg you,

no matter what those strange voices request, no matter how desperately they plea, no matter what they promise,

never,

ever,

never, ever, never, ever

turn out

the lights.