This Olde House

There was a village.

In the village every year, on the day between Midsummer and All Hallows' Eve, the people would select a boy and lead him to the hill overlooking the land.

There they told the boy to watch, and if he saw the creature, he was to shout, wolf,

and they would run to the rescue.

Even as they rushed to press the goats and the sheep and themselves behind the tall iron gate, they grin at each other,

refusing to look him in the eye.

The boy tasted their lies, their betrayal, still he waited.

And when the wolf came that night, he knew her.

For he had run these glades, swam these rivers, given his own offering to this queen of the forest.

She told him, in the non-vocal language they shared that she was sorry she had to devour him,

but that she was the wolf

and he the sacrifice.

The boy told her that he would give her a far greater gift in trade.

From his pocket, he pulled a wooden box and he opened the box to show her a long piece of jagged metal.

The wolf shook her enormous head.

You are creatures of iron and fire,

but we have no need of such things.

No,

he said,

this is not my gift.

She followed him to the towering gate.

He withdrew the piece of metal, reached as high as he could reach, and turned the key into the slot.

Here he threw wide open the gate and led her, patting beside him inside.

There,

there is your gift.

As the boy pointed in their direction, the townfolk gaped in horror.

To them, the boy whispered,

Wolf

Suit,

season of the wolf,

say

to me

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Vampires have a scent, a presence, an energy.

Just a little while ago, Walking down a park trail in the middle of the day, sun bright in the sky, I smell something.

Something sinister, but it's not dark outside.

There's no full moon.

Still I smell it.

I feel it.

Looking around frantic for the danger, and all I see is an attractive middle-aged woman in a tracksuit

walking behind me.

Normal.

Regular, getting her steps, putting her earbuds in.

What is my problem?

Where's the big threat?

Then she's tapping on her phone, makes a call to, hi, Susie, Shelly, Sarah, something like that.

She says, oh my goodness, it was so great to see you the other day.

And Tommy's getting so big.

And now the scent is becoming overpowering.

Goosebumps tear across my skin.

What is going on?

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Oh.

now I know what's going on.

I know the tell.

I know every word of the script.

I know the dangling of the dream.

I know the fangs hovering over the victim's skin.

How do I know she's a vampire?

Wow.

Because I used to be a vampire too.

See, I'm from the multi-level marketing pyramid scheme capital of the world, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

And whatever product you just thought of, and I said multi-level marketing, probably started somewhere near Grand Rapids.

Makeup, vitamins, essential oils, fat burners, knives, energy drinks, scent packets, whatever.

And I recall my own initiation.

Fancy building guys with crisp white shirts, nice ties, being recruited with the, oh, oh, I can tell you have something special.

I can tell.

Then the we have an opportunity we're offering to just a select group of candidates.

And finally,

I'm standing in the living room with a bowl of peppermints on the table, trying to sell a nice little old lady a $2,000 vacuum cleaner that she does not need.

So maybe I can go back to college in the fall.

I did that.

And I burn hot with shame thinking about it because I did that.

Using the exact same words I hear Shelly using to leech the lifeblood.

And I want to tell who's ever on the other end of this phone to run away, to save yourself.

We are not to be trusted.

We are not your friend.

And thankfully, it sounds like this Shelly hears me.

She's just got something else she's got to do because the phone call ends and it's quiet on the trail.

Except for the sound of footfalls.

And the footfalls speed up, and she's no longer behind me.

She's next to me.

And she is

beautiful,

truly.

She flashes her gorgeous smile.

She says, Hey,

hey, I see you out here all the time.

Tell me about yourself.

Spook starts.

Wolves, vampires.

There are different types of monsters carved from the shadow and different types of prey.

And now, we're going to cross the pond to a town called Wells

in Somerset, England.

Rich Symes has lived in Wells his entire life.

He works as a contractor renovating houses.

When our story starts, Rich has got his work cut out for him with this one place.

And I let Rich take it from here.

Suit.

Lovely, idyllic little spot, beautiful.

It's a stone-built house, two storeys, just below the Torwoods in Wales.

From the front of the house, you look straight across to the cathedral and to the left-hand side is the Bishop's Palace.

The Bishop's Palace is where the main Archbishop of Canterbury lives.

It's basically a castle with a moat round.

Behind the house, there's a little brook, and that brook runs under the road and goes into the moat.

Originally, it was just a soda barn, so full of apples, and there was a press there, and they would make soder.

The oldest part of the house dated, I think, it was 14 something,

1480, I think it was

so the house had a lot of history

so I got a couple of blokes in Ted was one of my my workmates he's a stonemason bricklayer fantastic chap we went up and we started pulling the house about cutting it and all the rest of it

We're upstairs we took all the ceilings down, stripped all the plaster off the walls and we shovelled it all out the window.

And And we were outside shoveling all that into the skip.

And this old man walks down the hill, walking his dog.

I would say he must have been in his early 80s.

He had a cap on, brown, greeny tweed jacket.

To the right, lads, how you going?

Everything's all right.

I said, just cutting it out.

Gonna start putting it all back together soon.

Oh, look forward to it, lads.

Look forward to it.

Off we walked.

It was nice summertime when we were doing the renovation.

So we'd sit out and have our breakfast outside at 10 o'clock.

Sandwich and a cup of tea and a cake or something.

And this old chap, every morning he'd come along.

He'd say...

Lars, how are you getting on a day?

Every morning he'd walk along.

One day, I didn't see him.

And I thought, oh, we hadn't seen the old chap the day teddy.

He said, no, he hadn't come along.

He's there.

And I said, no.

He said, that's a bit funny.

I said, well, I hope he's alright.

And with that, Richard Carter turned up, which was the man who now owns the house.

And we were just chatting away.

Richard was asking how we're getting on and that.

And I said, oh, not too bad.

I said, we haven't been able to give our update today to the old chap walking along his dog.

And he said, what do you mean, old chap?

I said, well, old chap will walk along his dog every day.

We said, we have the last three weeks.

We'd come in for an update and see how everything's going on.

He said, Oh, but what was he look like?

And I said, Well, I said you were a shortish chap, white hair, and brown coat, and a bit of a halotroby hat on, walking in a little jack rustle dog.

And he said, You sure?

And I said, Yeah.

Richard Carter looked at us a bit funny and he went off.

And we went back to work

about half an hour later.

Richard comes up the stairs with this picture.

It's a loose photograph.

It was of his chat with his arm round his wife and the dog.

And the backdrop to the picture was the bishop's palace wall, which is behind them.

And Richard says,

is this him?

And I said, yeah,

yeah, that's he.

He said, are you sure you've been talking to him?

I said, yes, I've been told we've talked to him every day for the last three weeks.

He said he died 10 years ago.

I was absolutely gobsmacked and so was Ted.

He was somebody who lived down the road.

When Richard Carter grew up in that house, which was his dad's, what we were renovating, He obviously knew this old man for many years.

He knew his wife.

He knew the dog.

And for the dog to be there with him, that's the bit that I can't even get my head around even now.

Because the dog never died with him.

It spooked Ted more than me, because he was a bit of a Ted's a bit of a wimp, but it did spook me,

and it was such a surreal feeling.

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But that's not all that happened in that house.

Ted and I, we were working late because we wanted to move in before Christmas and we had a lot to do.

So we were working till 9 to 10 o'clock at night some nights just to try and accelerate things on

one night we were putting the battens down on the concrete floor in the living room

it was dark because there was no power on in the house whatsoever

so we were working with battery lights battery halogens

ted was cutting the battens to length and i was screwing them down

using the SDS hammer drill to drill down into the concrete

so it's a very noisy job.

I was on my hands and knees and I'm drilling away

and I had this feeling someone was trying to push me down to the floor.

Like someone was sitting on me back.

And I thought, what's he doing, the plonker?

I thought Ted was messing about.

And I said to Ted, I said, come on, don't have to mess about.

I'm going to get this done.

It's getting late now.

He said, I'm not doing anything.

And I looked up and he was nowhere near me.

you know there's no way he could reach me from where he was stood to you know not as he's easy inspector gadget

I thought oh my mind's playing tricks with me here

anyway I carried on screwing down and then it started happening again

I was being pushed down to the floor

well this is weird

I didn't know who it was, what it was, but I knew we weren't alone.

And I turned around and said, excuse my language, fuck her off, leave me alone.

I'm trying to get this done.

I want to go home.

Wherever you are, leave me alone.

And with that, I could smell the most beautiful rose-scented smell I've ever smelt in my life.

It was absolutely divine.

I said, Ted, can you smell that?

he said yeah

and he said you sure that ain't mrs carter come to have a look i said no one can come in ted

i locked the door it was bolted from the inside

and that really put the spooks up ted

his colour started draining he said

are you like this

He said, Dickie, he said, I can't stay here not tonight.

We gotta go.

I said, well, let's get these last two buttons down and then we'll call it a night.

I carried on, screwing the last two down, and that was it.

We just packed up and left.

A couple days passed.

We had a toilet coming, and we needed to get the ensuite bathroom plaster boarded upstairs in the main master bedroom.

So, Ted, we're gonna have to work late in the night because we need to get this done

About half past eight at night it was pitch black outside and not many cars about

no electric in the house still

so we were on torch lights again

Ted and I were working away He was shaking the measurements out and I was cutting the board and he was screwing it up

I was cutting this bit of plaster board

and he called out some measurements.

Well Well, I looked up.

The bedroom door looked straight onto the landing, straight on the top of the stairs.

And I seen a man stood there

in a black cape,

a black pointed hat.

I can make out the creases like a fold in the cloak,

and I can see his feet,

boots, black boots.

But I can't see a face.

The face is dark.

I was gobsputt to see anybody stood there

and I said oh hello can I help you?

There's no answer.

So I looked down to get the halogen up to turn it round to the doorway so I could see who it was.

And as I looked back up with the halogen, there was nobody there

But I caught a glimpse of his hat going down the stairs.

I ran, I said, Ted, somebody's in the house.

So Ted came running out.

And I said, you lock that front door?

He said, yeah.

I said, how the hell do they get in?

I said, quick, come on, let's go and see who it is.

So he ran down the stairs with his halogen light.

He looked round and looked round the house

and there's nobody there.

and Ted by that point.

Well, I mean, Ted was absolutely bricking it.

He was like

shaking, he was shaking.

He says,

F is dick.

I'm going.

I said, You ain't leaving without me.

I said, I can tell you that now.

So we're staying here and getting this done.

So we worked 100 mile an hour and we like plastic board went up faster than it ever did in its life.

When we left, I locked the front door and Ted was right behind me.

Firstly, touching me.

Normally, he'd have ran out of his avarant pretty quick, you know, left me to it, but he didn't that night.

He stuck close to me.

And I was quite glad of that, if I got to be honest.

I was quite glad the fact that Ted was so close.

We walked out the gate and we were looking behind us the whole time, looking at every window.

As we walked along, I was

feeling very uneasy,

thinking,

what's in there?

Does it mean it's any harm?

Probably about three weeks later, we were all sat in the kitchen.

It was November time, so we had these halogen heaters right in front of us.

I was eating my Kit Kats and we were chatting.

All of a sudden, I could feel this cold.

It sent shivers down my spine I thought well how can I have shivers on my spine?

I'm sat right in front of a blooming heater.

So I put my hand out in front of me and it felt freezing like absolutely stone ice cold right in front of the heater.

I thought, that's blooming odd.

I said, here, Ted, come over here and feel this.

I said, put your hand there.

I said, it's warm there.

He said, yeah.

I said, put your hand down there.

He said, oh my god, what is it?

What is it, Dickie?

What is it?

I said, I don't know.

I said, but whatever it is, it's blooming freezing.

I started getting really cold.

All I wanted to do was warm up.

I just said, just bugger off.

Leave us alone.

Don't try and eat me, Kit Kat.

Go away.

And with that,

it stopped.

And the cold went, that that was it.

Ted said, What's written that word, Dickie?

I said, I don't know.

I don't know what it were, Ted.

I said, But you're definitely there, weren't it?

He said, Yeah, I could feel it.

So, anyway, we laughed about it and just carried on.

We said, Oh, well, it is what it is, Ted.

And he said, Yeah, yeah, be all right, we're all right.

We're stuck together.

You know, he said, I said, All right, we're stuck together.

And Ted didn't leave my side that much that day.

And then about lunchtime, Mrs.

Carter turns up.

She called in and she said, Rich, Rich, can you come and do me a favour a minute?

I said, what?

I said, can you come and hold the dog for me?

He won't go in the house.

She's dog sitting for a friend.

Golden Labrador dog, beautiful dog.

I said, what do you mean he won't go in the house?

He won't go in.

I can't pull in any.

He keeps pulling back.

He won't go in the house.

I said, I wonder why.

She said to me, what do you think of the house?

I said, lovely, innit?

Beautiful house.

That's not what I mean, she said.

I said, What do you mean?

She said, What do you think of the house?

I said, Lovely.

I said, We'll be when it's done.

She said, No,

what do you think of the house?

She was looking at me in a real stern face.

She said, The dog won't go in the house.

Why?

Well, I said, There have been a few things that we've had

She said, don't tell me.

And that was it.

She got the dog and she walked off.

I thought, oh, dear, I've upset the apple carton out.

She comes back about an hour later.

She said, right,

I've got a lady from Glastonbury who's a spiritualist.

She's coming on Wednesday.

I want you gone at three o'clock.

I'll pay you to five.

I said, okay.

Said, she's going to come in and see exactly what's in this house.

And I said, are you sure you want to do this?

She said, I've heard stories what Harold used to say, which was Richard's dad.

I want to know what's going on.

I said, all right.

Three o'clock Wednesday, she came around.

She said, come on, lads, I want you out.

This lady's coming.

So we went on.

At the time,

I thought, oh, yeah, righto.

You know, I mean,

it was a lady from Glastonbury.

I mean, Glastonbury is full of hippies,

but I do know

what we experienced in the house.

So I was interested to see what this lady turned up.

Did you know Tide has been upgraded to provide an even better clean and cold water?

Tide is specifically designed to fight any stain you throw at it, even in cold.

Butter?

Yep.

Chocolate ice cream?

Sure thing.

Barbecue sauce?

Tide's got you covered.

You don't need to use warm water.

Additionally, Tide pods let you confidently fight tough stains with new cold Zyme technology.

Just remember: if it's got to be clean, it's got to be Tide.

Thursday morning, Richard Carter was there early.

He said, I won't tell you anything.

I'll let my wife tell you.

I said, Okay.

It was about eleven o'clock.

She turned up.

Mrs.

Carter told me, Lady come from Castlebridge.

She went in and she put these stones around and incense sticks around and all these things.

They were in there for about an hour.

And the lady said that

there was

three spirits in the house

that she could actually talk to and contact and resonate with.

So

the lady explained that

There was a Victorian lady in the living room.

The medium lady said that the Victorian lady said he was making a noise

and I didn't like it.

And I was telling him to stop.

I was pushing him down to the ground

and he would not stop.

And then Mrs.

Carter told me, and this Victorian lady heard me say, What's that smell, Ted?

Her perfume was the smell.

She had rose perfume on.

I was absolutely gobsmacked when she was telling me.

I get goosebumps.

On the back of my neck, the hairs go up.

Because I never told Mrs.

Carter nothing.

And I looked at her and I said, Oh my god.

She said, Well, that was the first instance, she said, and there was more people in the house.

She said, when you were upstairs, you see the man, didn't you?

And I said,

How the hell do you know that?

She said, the lady told me.

And do you know who that man was?

I said, I ain't got a blummin' clue.

I said, because it put the wind up us somewhat chronic.

And she said, That man asked the medium lady, why was that man standing in my mum's bed?

The story is, he was a man that looked after all the valuables in the cathedral

because

they soldiers used to rob and pillage all the gold and all the valuables out of the churches.

I'm talking Civil War time,

six, seven, eight hundred years prior.

And he used to come back from the cathedral to check on his mum because she was poorly in bed.

And that's what he was doing that night.

And where I stood to was her bed.

And the reason he had no face because

he was defaced, apparently.

That was his punishment for hiding the gold.

The soldiers, when they caught him, they cut his face off.

I was blown away then.

And I couldn't believe it, nor could Ted.

But we all stood there with our mouths open in sheer amazement.

This lady, she must have some merit because to come up with these stories, nobody else knew what we'd seen.

Then

she said, right.

You were in the kitchen and you were eating chocolate one morning.

I thought, right, well, you know me too well.

You know, I thought, right, okay, yeah, fair enough.

Yeah, I was eating chocolate.

And she said, and something was cold next to you.

And you told her to bugger off, didn't you?

And Ted looked at me and his face.

And I looked at the Ted.

She said, the little boy told the lady.

He said, he made me upset.

Because he swore at me, I wanted some of his chocolate and he wouldn't let me have any.

And I said, little boy?

How old?

And she said to me,

six, seven.

And I said, well, what are the little boy doing in there?

And she said,

he died.

He drowned in the brook behind.

I felt so bad.

I felt so emotional.

I felt so guilty.

And I said, I'm so sorry.

I'm so she's not here now.

She's gone.

I said, what do you mean he's gone?

She said, the lady asked them all to leave.

She said, it's time for you all to go now.

They all lived there at different times.

And she said, You don't need to be here no more.

You can go on.

to your resting place and you can rest in peace.

So we carried on working in the house

and from that day onwards the house felt different.

It felt light.

It felt fresh.

So I went to Shepherd Mullet one night to Ted to take some money up to him because he wasn't with me on the Friday when we got paid.

So I took his money up to him on the Friday night, come back down over past the house, and it was black, pitch black because it was quite late at night

and there was a light on in the landing.

Top of the stairs there was a window, landing window.

The light was shining in that window.

I thought, oh we left the halogen on.

So what do you mean?

We went on in the house.

No light.

I thought that's weird.

Well perhaps the battery ran out.

Went out, locked the house,

went back, got in the van, drove back up the hill,

turned around the lay-by, come back down, light was on.

I thought, but how the hell could this light be on in there?

I've just checked, there's nothing on, there's nothing in there.

So I stopped and I went in again.

No light.

I was absolutely scared witless.

I felt sheer panic inside me.

I felt the hairs go up on the back of my neck and my heart's beginning to race.

Thinking, I gotta get out of here.

I cannot be in this house on my own.

So I went down the stairs.

I locked the front door behind me.

I got in my van.

I looked at that house.

I knew that there's someone still there.

We carried on, got the house finished.

Mrs.

Carter and Richard moved into it.

I thought, well,

good.

Within two months, the house was on the market.

She wouldn't live there.

She didn't like it there.

She wouldn't live there.

And that's the last I knew about that house.

They sold it, and the people living in the low I've always wanted to stop and ask do they get any

feelings but I don't want to put the wind up and I don't want to frighten people

but I do wonder I drive past that house and I look at it

with caution

even though and I look at it thinking I wonder if it's still there

Now, Rich,

if you do decide to someday stop to get out to knock on that door,

please, please, please, please let us know what you find on the other side.

Until then, big love from Spooked.

That story was scouted by Sasha Wilson.

The original score composed by Yari Bundi, it was produced by Zoe Frigno.

Now,

do you imagine that because you've made it through the season of the wolf, that congratulations are in order?

What?

Do you suppose that Spook will not return to the Shadowland each and every week, huh?

Do you think the monsters are afraid?

They are not.

Spook continues to walk down the dark path each and every week.

Tell someone you care about because that's the only way they'll know.

And listen.

Listen to me.

If you have a secret spook story that you've always been afraid to tell,

tell me.

Spook acceptjudgment.org because there is nothing better a spook story from a spook listener.

Spooked is brought to you by the team that never picks up random phone calls from numbers they do not recognize.

Except for Mark Ristich.

No matter who it is, no matter what time of night, Mark always picks up on the very first ring.

Running besides the wolf, Team Spook, Davey Kim, Zoe Ferigno, Eric Yanez, Teo DeCott, Marissa Dodge, Miles Lassie, Doug Stewart, Elliot Lightfoot, Paulina Creeky, Juan, Diego Beltran, Sasha Wilson, Daniashinski, the spook theme song is by Pat Massidi Miller.

My name is Kim Washington.

And it's become popular to say that there are two states of being,

two types of people, the hunter, and the prey.

And like everything else that is overly simplistic, this is both incorrect and correct at the same time.

For during the season of the wolf, the weak may find their teeth grow sharp in the shadow.

The prey suddenly hungry for the hunt, while the hunter discovers that they are now the prey.

And you must listen closely because

more often than not,

The beast you're running from

wears your own face.

We are everything all at once at the same time.

And if you need a reminder,

a beacon, a guide to tether you between the here and the there, the only thing I know that sometimes works

is to never, ever,

never, never, never, ever, ever, never,

ever

turn out

the lights.