November 19, 2024 • 34 mins
Therésa is back from her “relaxing” getaway to the Elysian Fields. Still basking in her post-vacation afterglow,” Therésa dives right in with tales from two supernaturally sensitive women who seem to have a knack for attracting trouble from beyond. Elizabeth’s college night turns hellish when an unexpected guest joins her in bed—Eww. No, not like that. And then Ashley, whose prison tour will send shivers down your back after she endures physical pain from a very unfriendly spirit. Buckle up, keep the lights on, and remember: “Soft white light, you’re all right!”
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
THERÉSA (00:19):
Good morning undead-heads. Or maybe it's not morning, as you know,
I have no idea what's what in here. But I
just got back from the most relaxing long weekend in
the Elysian Fields. I can already hear the AP English
nerds in the comments
of Greek mythology go when they die!" First of all,
I'm a hero to many, and secondly, it's open to tourists.
(00:42):
I lounged in the sun, explored the groves, and did
a booze cruise around the Isle of the Blessed, where
I met some really fun orbs on a bachelor party,
I'm pretty sure we saw John Lennon eating a pear.
People always say they come back from vacation feeling refreshed
and ready to get back to the grind. Well, I
(01:04):
couldn't disagree more. Coming back from vacation just reminds me
how much I'd rather still be on vacation. No, not
that I don't love talking to you guys. Sometimes it
just feels good to rot, you know? In the metaphorical sense.
In the literal sense, I can't recommend. Today's stories have
something in common. They're both from very supernaturally sensitive women.
(01:26):
Of course, everyone we have on the show is somewhat
open to the other side, but these two have what
my old psychic Monica would call "the gift." We'll start
with Elizabeth, whose demonic experience on frat row had nothing
to do with gravity bongs or holes punched in the drywall.
STORY A (01:45):
We have a prayer that's been passed down in our
family for a few generations. My mom taught it to
me when I was little. She was like, if you
get scared, you just need to say this prayer. It's
basically just praying for white light. But generally speaking, the
thing about demonic entities is that the shinier something is,
(02:09):
the more they want it. My name's Elizabeth, and I
learned that you don't fuck with the demon in the basement.
I've always had a sixth sense, if you will, or intuition.
The way that I can tell if maybe there's some
sort of spiritual energy going on is my ears will
(02:34):
pop like I'm on an airplane and typically don't unpop
for at least ten minutes. It's a genetic thing. People
in my mom's side of the family always tend to
have extra senses is the way I would describe it,
which is why my mom taught me this prayer. Put
(02:54):
me in a white light and protect me. Halloween weekend
is a very big deal in the town I went
to college, and there's decorations everywhere. They actually block off
the whole downtown and you just get to walk around
bar hop, do whatever. And there's also a lot
(03:16):
of parties in the neighborhood where all the students lived,
so you can just walk from party to party. That night,
the air it's crisp, it's a little cool. I chose
to wear black off the shoulder crop top, darker wash, highwaisted,
(03:37):
wide leg jeans, and then this new pair of platform heels.
Me and a group of my girlfriends decided to go
to a fraternity party off campus, and when we got there,
we noticed it was like weirdly quiet. People were just
(03:57):
sort of standing around with their beers talking. It was
supposed to be a big rager, but one of our
friends in the fraternity had fallen into the speaker and
broke it, so there was no music and everyone was
just kind of standing around brainstorming what to do next.
(04:20):
A group of our girlfriends wanted to go to the bars.
Another group wanted to go to another house party, but
me and my friend Stacy wanted to have a chilled night.
And that was when our friend Scott invited me and
Stacy back to his house to watch movies, hang out,
and just have a chilled nigh in. We go back
(04:42):
to Scott's house, which is an older home. I think
he told us one time it was built in the
thirties or something. When we got to the house, every
light was on, which I thought was strange because no
one was home, and I just noticed that the vibe
in the house fell off. It felt like a wave
(05:03):
of something came over me that was heavy. My ears
had popped and I couldn't hear. I remember asking for
gum hoping that if I chewed gum that that would
help it unpop and I'd be able to hear better.
I just kind of wrote it off, so I ignored
(05:25):
it and just figured I was in my head. We're
hanging out. We hadn't had anything to drink at that
point really. I had had a corona. We were like
mildly sipping on beer. The night winds down and Stacey
(05:46):
decides to meet up with one of her other guy friends.
She leaves and it's just me and Scott in the
living room hanging out talking. It got to be around
two thirty three in the morning. The college town where
(06:07):
we went to school is smaller. Once the bars close
at two, there's a very limited window to get an
uber or a lyft back to wherever you're staying for
the night, so there weren't any ubers or lyfts. I
was either going to have to walk home in the
dark by myself, which I didn't like. So Scott offered
(06:30):
that I could stay upstairs in his room and he
would sleep on the couch and I could go home
in the morning. He walked me to his room. It
was at the very right end of the hallway. I
took my shoes off, I put them at the foot
(06:50):
of the bed. I turned on the lamp, and he
just kind of made sure I was good and said
if I needed anything, I could come downstairs and get
him and he would just be on the couch. We
said good night, and he shut the door and I
laid down in the bed and I didn't feel sleepy
(07:15):
at all. I remember immediately feeling like something was really wrong.
My ears were popping number one and I was just
starting to get a sense that I wasn't alone up there.
I couldn't quite place my finger on it, but I
felt strange and watched. So I chose to sleep with
(07:39):
the lamp on. I just felt like I didn't want
to turn it off. The next thing that I remember,
I was conscious, but I was standing at the opposite
end of the hallway. I was looking into Scott's room.
(08:02):
The door was open, and I could see myself laying
on the bed. I could see my hair splayed out
behind me. I could see the crop top I was wearing.
I could see the jeans. I could even see, like
at the foot of the bed where I had sat down,
my shoes. It's jarring to feel conscious and you're not
(08:27):
in your body. It's the weirdest sensation I could ever imagine.
And then I realized there's something in the hallway watching
my body laying on the bed. It just looked evil
(08:48):
and dark. I mean it was literally as tall as
the door, with huge, broad shoulders that looked bumpy, lumpy,
bulky. It had what looked like ram's horns, and
it was so tall it looked like it couldn't fit
(09:10):
through the doorway without crouching its legs looked so muscular,
they looked like ropes that had been twisted together, or
tree roots. It had its hands just hanging by its sides,
and it was the deepest shade of black that I've
ever seen in my life. I knew this was not
(09:37):
just a dream. I felt like a sheep that had
broken off from the pack and a wolf was circling it.
It likes the fact that I wasn't aware that it
was watching me. That terrified me. Whatever it was wanted me,
(09:59):
is this thing trying to get into my body? What's
going on? I start freaking out and praying, put me in
a white light and protect me. Put me in a
white light and protect me. When I started praying p,
whatever this thing was in the doorway started to turn around.
(10:19):
Put me in a white light and protect me. But
once it started to turn around, I'm back in my body,
in bed, right where I was before, drenched in sweat,
and I'm just freezing cold, shivering, teeth chattering. I look
(10:42):
over to my right. The door to the bedroom that
Scott had shut was now wide open, and I could
see directly down the hallway to where I had just
been watching this all happen. I knew Scott had shut
the door before he went downstairs. At this point, it
(11:04):
must have been around four in the morning. I just
instinctively know I have to get away from here. My
fight or flight kicks in, so I thought I'll just
take my chances and run. I grabbed my shoes, grabbed
(11:25):
my purse, ran outside, and sprinted back to my dorm.
I ran home barefoot, holding my shoes and my purse.
I cut through people's yards, over uneven sidewalks. It's probably
a good four miles. I was terrified. My feet were bleeding.
(11:48):
I ran as fast as I could, but I didn't
even pay attention to how my feet felt. I was
just more scared than in pain. I ran home to
my dorm. I remember being terrified to get in the elevator.
I was so scared that it followed me and that
it was gonna mess with me.
The dorm was dark. My roommate was there with her
(12:13):
boyfriend he was visiting for the weekend. They were completely asleep.
I ran and I jumped into my bed, fully in
my clothes, covered in sweat. I just laid there with
the covers pulled up over my head, and I just
prayed put me in a white light and protect me.
(12:34):
I didn't look out from under the covers. I just
laid there and I repeated the prayer that my family
has passed down until the sun came up. The next day,
I didn't tell anybody what happened because I didn't really
want to talk about it or like give it any
(12:55):
more power. So I just went on about my life.
I never went back to the house, even when they
still lived there for the rest of the school year,
I never went back to that house.
I just refused. I would actually have to walk by
that house to go to work. I'd walk by it
on the way to other friends' houses. I would always
(13:18):
make it a point to keep my head down. I
wouldn't even look at it because I was terrified. I
could sense that something was like in the window watching me.
I didn't want to look up and see it, connect
with it and let it know that I knew it
was there, and then just shy of A year later,
(13:40):
Scott came over to our dorm and my friend Stacy
casually asks do you still live in that same house?
His face changed really suddenly. He said no, very abruptly.
(14:00):
He told us how he would be home alone and
hear something call his name from somewhere else in the house.
It would sound like one of his roommates, and then
he would go look around and would realize he was
the only one in the house. They would wake up
(14:20):
to all their kitchen cabinet doors being open. There would
be unexplained slamming and loud footsteps. This was also how
I found out that Scott never slept in his room
because he was convinced that something in his room was
(14:42):
messing was him. One of the roommates who slept down
the hall from Scott actually had drilled a dead bolt
lock into his door and then a chain lock. The
last thing he said was During Alumni weekend, they were
(15:03):
on their back porch grilling, and a group of older
men were walking down the street and one of the
men in this group introduced himself and he told them
how he used to live in that house. They invited
him in and offered him to go in and see
(15:23):
his old room, and he said, no, I don't want
to go in, and he wouldn't step on the porch either.
As the guy turns to leave, he says, it was
nice meeting you and by the way, don't fuck with
the demon in the basement. After living in that house,
(15:50):
Scott actually wound up leaving school and had to go
to therapy because of whatever it was that had been
taunting them and messing with them all that time. As
scary as it was, seeing that, I do feel like
I was deliberately shown that so that I knew to
get out of the situation. I'm very grateful for that.
(16:13):
It's my hope and prayer that whoever lives there now
has some sort of strong positive force in their life
and no interest or curiosity in the paranormal, and they
don't give it any power by trying to contact it.
THERÉSA (16:36):
Didn't love the sound of that! There's a saying we
have here, "soft white light. You're all right. Hoof or
horn is spirit scorned." Of course, it's not just hoof
or horn you need to watch out for. There's tall
and slender, glowing red eyes, bodies of shadow, what else? Smelly, chilly, shrieky, ceiling, leaky.
I'm missing some
LEN (16:57):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (16:58):
oh right, door slamming as you a bad sign. There's others.
I'll keep thinking on it. In the meantime. We've got
ads for you.
LEN (17:13):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (17:17):
Right, footsteps can be bad. Well, any kind of low growl,
I guess sounds in general. Eerie singing seems to be
a big pass-time for spirits.
LEN (17:25):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (17:29):
Len, you said "purgatory!" Back in the Elysian Fields. Anytime
someone says "purgatory" everyone responds, "Did someone say limbo?" and
they break out the limbo stick and pomegranate Bellinis. Pomegranates,
you know, "fruit of the dead".
LEN (17:44):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (17:46):
I guess you had to be there. You really should
go sometime, Len. They do Zumba classes every afternoon on
the Divine Plain. You would love it.
LEN (17:54):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (17:56):
Well, anyway, our next story comes to us from Ashley,
who's something of a spiritual Empath. You know, I'm sort
of empathic myself. I could always tell when someone felt
intimidated by me. It happened a lot, honestly. I just
have that effect on people. You know what, someone right
(18:16):
now is shrinking in my presence, Probably a listener maybe, Len
LEN (18:22):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (18:22):
Whoever you are, never let anyone dull your shine, not
even a perfect undead influencer with awesome skin if you
ignore the patches of decay. Okay? good.
STORY B (18:39):
I never really talk about what happened to me. Psychic
mediums were like, you're a clairsentient. You can't hear, you
can't see things, but you can feel things in places
that have had immense trauma or very strong emotions. But
this is the only two times in my life it
has ever happened. And they were in the span of
(19:01):
like a year. My name is Ashley, and I was
haunted while on a historical prison tour.
The first time it happened, we went to visit my
aunt in eastern Europe. We were there for two weeks total.
(19:21):
My parents are huge history buffs, so it was really
important to my mom that we go do a couple
of museum type stuff while we travel. We went to
a bunch of different places. Like we went to a
couple of the castles that are over there. She took
us to a bunch of different towns just to kind
of explore and broaden our horizons. While we were over there,
(19:43):
my aunt planned for us to check out one of
the prisons that they have there, and they've turned it
into a museum as well. We pull up, we park,
we go up to the gate and my aunt and
my mom and my brother they're all going inside, and
(20:06):
I'm only at the entrance, but my body will not
move past this point. I felt like my feet were
cemented to the ground. I could not go in, and
my mom thought I was being like a typical teenager
of like I don't want to do this, and I
(20:26):
was like, no, you don't understand, like I physically cannot
bring myself to go inside. I physically felt like I
could not breathe, like I could not get air in
my lungs while I was on the premise. The tour
guide comes over and she's like, are you okay? And
(20:47):
I said, I feel like this overwhelming sense of dread
and I can't physically bring my body past this gate,
But just give me a couple of minutes. I gotta
calm myself down. Finally, we go into the actual prison.
(21:11):
The tour guide walks me over to my aunt and
she goes, you can walk all the way through, and
then at the end it's going to lead you to
the museum. And like my mom had already gone in,
I wasn't even fully inside, and suddenly I just feel
like I can't breathe. The tour guide she's staring at me.
(21:37):
Her eyes are huge, and she's like, are you okay?
And I said, I can't explain it to you. I
feel like I'm choking. And she's like, there's nothing happening
to you so she kind of like walks me over
to the side, and my mom's like, what is going
on with you today? Are you sick?
(21:57):
I said, no, it's this place like I feel like
I'm suffocating. I still had the feeling all throughout the
time that I was on the grounds, and then when
we left and we got in the car, I felt
one hundred percent normal again.
(22:20):
The second time it happened to me, I was in
high school. I went to Shawnee High School in Medford,
New Jersey, and I took a photography class from my
sophomore year to my senior year, and in my junior year,
the teacher decided that we were going to start doing
field trips to different places in the area, and one
(22:41):
of the places that they decided to pick was Eastern
State Penitentiary. Eastern State Penitentiary is a very old prison
in the heart of Philadelphia. It hasn't been used in
many decades. That place is one hundred percent haunted. It's spooky,
(23:02):
but it is very cool. A lot of the prison
is kind of disheveled and broken, so it's got a
lot of very interesting areas to explore, not only like landscapes,
but also to focus on like the lighting aspect of it.
I was super excited and I was like one of
(23:24):
the first ones to sign up. The day of the trip,
we got on the buses, we got there. I think
there was like fifteen students. When we pulled up on
the buses, it kind of looked like a dungeon with
the old stone and the ivy and just very run down.
(23:49):
We were dropped off at the gates. We had about
three hours and they basically said, listen, you can explore
a little bit. Just obviously stay within the walls of
the penitentiary. You can do a guided tour, but it's
really up to everybody. Just meet back where the bus
is to go home. So me and my girlfriend Chelsea,
(24:14):
we are exploring, We're taking pictures. We got to see
all the cool spots like Al Capone's Cell. Al Capone's
Cell is very interesting, to say the least. It has
everything exactly the way that he left it on the
day that he was released. His furniture, there's rugs, there's lamps.
There's a radio, which, according to the Eastern State Penitentiary
(24:40):
tour guides, tends to go off out of nowhere and
it's not connected to anything. It doesn't have any type
of batteries, so shouldn't be doing that. I was really
hoping that the radio would go off while we were there,
but it didn't. It was Chelsea's idea to sign up
(25:02):
for a guided tour. She was like, the only way
we're going to be able to see certain areas of
the penitentiary is if we sign up, because like, Death
Row is not open to the public. You can't just
walk through it. It's like gated off. We were the
only two that were from the field trip on this
guided tour. There was maybe ten of us total. The
(25:27):
tour guide was a woman in her mid forties, and
of course, back when I was seventeen, I was like, ah,
this old lady. But no, she was very nice, very
put together, very soft spoken. She had been doing this
for about ten years, so she was very knowledgeable of
the entire penitentiary.
(25:51):
We start the tour. She's taking us towards Death Row,
which is very narrow when you first walk in. She explains,
there's two areas that you can explore in here. The
guard's side, which is the path that most guards took
to get into where death Row is, and then the
inmate side, which is the showers. So you have to
(26:12):
go through the showers to get to the cells. Chelsea
and I wanted to get some pictures of the showers
and then hopefully down towards where the cells were, so
we separated from our little group and we're going through the showers.
Chelsea was like setting up to take a picture. But
when I step into the showers, I felt this really intense,
(26:38):
sharp pain on the right side of my back. It
was like this burning, stabbing sensation, and it knocks the
wind out of me. I dropped to my knees. I
can't breathe, I can't stand up, I can barely move.
(26:58):
It hit me so hard and so fast out of nowhere.
I was maybe three feet into the shower. I was
in shock on top of being in excruciating pain. I
can't even compare it to anything. I never felt something
(27:21):
so sharp and so sudden come over me like that.
I was sweaty, clammy and like a chill came over
my body. Chelsea came rushing over and she's like, are
you okay? She could instantly tell something was seriously wrong.
(27:43):
She was scared. She thought I really got hurt. She
was like, stand up, Come on, you can do it.
I'm gonna help you. Get up. You gotta get up
off your knees right now. Get up. Like yelling at
me and the tour guide noticed that we hadn't caught up
with in the group. She peeks her head around the
(28:04):
corner and said, just keep walking. At seventeen, I was like,
what is this lady's problem? Like I thought she was
yelling at me, thinking I was goofing off, and I
just remember looking at her and being like, I can't
stand up. I can't catch my breath. You've got to
be kidding me. And I was like I can't, and
(28:25):
she was like, no, trust me, just keep walking. I
could see that she was also panicked. Between the look
on her face and the way that she said it,
I knew I have to like get to her. She
knows something that I don't know, and that if I
(28:46):
just walked to her and I got myself out of
the spot that I was in, I was gonna be fine.
At that point, Chelsea basically lifts me to get me
back up onto my feet and we start walking towards
the tour guide. As we got closer and closer to her,
(29:07):
the better I felt. All of the pain started to
dissipate and the cold sweat started to disappear. When I
got to the tour guide, she was like, are you alright?
And I was like, I think so, And then she
said where was your pain? And I said it was
my right back, and she was kind of intrigued because
(29:31):
she had me tell her what it felt like. It
was the most intense pain I've ever felt in my life.
So she told me that when this was a functioning prison,
there was a guard that went in to check on
an inmate in the shower who said he did not
feel well, and when he did that, two other inmates
(29:55):
jumped this guard and stabbed him and he bled out,
and she goes, I don't want to freak you out,
but I've been doing this for ten years now, and
this is the third time that I've seen this reaction
in these showers. And I just remember looking her dead
(30:24):
in the face, saying, you're kidding me, and she was like, no,
literally two other people have dropped in that exact spot,
just like you did. And she said the guard died
from a stabbing to his right kidney. And then that's
when I looked at Chelsea and I'm like, you need
(30:46):
to look at my back right now. And I pulled
my shirt up and I was like, is there any
marks on me? I was having her check to make
sure that I did not actually get stabbed. She looks
and she's like, no, there's nothing. No bruises, no scratching,
no red marks, nothing on my back. Death Row was
(31:07):
like the first stop on our tour, so we still
had about forty five minutes left of that, but I
told Chelsea that I wanted to sit for the rest
of the trip until everybody met up with us to leave.
Don't get me wrong, I love everything odd and creepy
and strange, and Halloween's my favorite time of year, but
(31:29):
I don't want it to be in my everyday life.
I don't really know why it happened to me. I'm
now thirty two, I've had two children, and even having
children wasn't as intense as the pain that I felt
that day.
THERÉSA (31:56):
This one is extra unsettling. Haunting is generally a "look
don't touch" business, so anytime someone experiences physical pain, you
know it's serious. That being said, visiting death row of
an old prison when you know you're sensitive to the supernatural. Sorry,
that's kind of on you. Well, that's it for today, Hauntos.
(32:26):
If you've ever been shanked by a ghost, email us
at HauntingThePodcast@gmail.com and your story could be featured on an
upcoming episode. Until then, keep the portals open and the
veils thin, and we'll see you next time here in purgatory.
I said, see you next time here in purgatory. Len,
(32:48):
When I say purgatory, you say,
LEN (32:51):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (32:53):
"Limbo" Remember? Okay, you know we just talked about this.
You know, you of all people could use a vacation.
LEN (33:00):
[MUMBLES]
CREDITS (33:05):
If you have a haunting story to share, please email
us at HauntingThePodcast@gmail.com, and if you like what you hear,
please like and subscribe. You can also follow us on
social media by searching for Glass Podcasts or by visiting GlassPodcasts.com.
Haunting is a production of Glass Podcasts and partnership with
iHeart Podcast. Haunting is created and executive produced by Nancy Glass,
(33:26):
Andrea Gunning, Ben Fetterman, and Lauren Lapkus, and it is
hosted by Lauren Lapkus as their character Therésa. The show
is directed by Aleah Welsh and produced by Trey Morgan.
It is written by Aleah Welsh, with additional writing by
Nancy Glass, Trey Morgan, and Ben Fetterman. Additional production support
by Curry Richman and Todd Gans. Additional voice acting by
Trey Morgan as the character producer Len Walker. Editing and
(33:48):
sound designed by Matt Delvecchio and mixed by Dave Saia.
Operations and production support by Kristin Melchiorre. Haunting's theme and
original compositions work composed by Oliver Baines and Dorry Macaulay
of Noiser. Music Library provided by Mybe Music. Special thanks
to Speakeasy Sound Studios in Burbank, California. For more shows
from iHeart Podcast and Glass Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app,
(34:10):
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast
Good morning undead-heads. Or maybe it's not morning, as you know,
I have no idea what's what in here. But I
just got back from the most relaxing long weekend in
the Elysian Fields. I can already hear the AP English
nerds in the comments
of Greek mythology go when they die!" First of all,
I'm a hero to many, and secondly, it's open to tourists.
(00:42):
I lounged in the sun, explored the groves, and did
a booze cruise around the Isle of the Blessed, where
I met some really fun orbs on a bachelor party,
I'm pretty sure we saw John Lennon eating a pear.
People always say they come back from vacation feeling refreshed
and ready to get back to the grind. Well, I
(01:04):
couldn't disagree more. Coming back from vacation just reminds me
how much I'd rather still be on vacation. No, not
that I don't love talking to you guys. Sometimes it
just feels good to rot, you know? In the metaphorical sense.
In the literal sense, I can't recommend. Today's stories have
something in common. They're both from very supernaturally sensitive women.
(01:26):
Of course, everyone we have on the show is somewhat
open to the other side, but these two have what
my old psychic Monica would call "the gift." We'll start
with Elizabeth, whose demonic experience on frat row had nothing
to do with gravity bongs or holes punched in the drywall.
STORY A (01:45):
We have a prayer that's been passed down in our
family for a few generations. My mom taught it to
me when I was little. She was like, if you
get scared, you just need to say this prayer. It's
basically just praying for white light. But generally speaking, the
thing about demonic entities is that the shinier something is,
(02:09):
the more they want it. My name's Elizabeth, and I
learned that you don't fuck with the demon in the basement.
I've always had a sixth sense, if you will, or intuition.
The way that I can tell if maybe there's some
sort of spiritual energy going on is my ears will
(02:34):
pop like I'm on an airplane and typically don't unpop
for at least ten minutes. It's a genetic thing. People
in my mom's side of the family always tend to
have extra senses is the way I would describe it,
which is why my mom taught me this prayer. Put
(02:54):
me in a white light and protect me. Halloween weekend
is a very big deal in the town I went
to college, and there's decorations everywhere. They actually block off
the whole downtown and you just get to walk around
bar hop, do whatever. And there's also a lot
(03:16):
of parties in the neighborhood where all the students lived,
so you can just walk from party to party. That night,
the air it's crisp, it's a little cool. I chose
to wear black off the shoulder crop top, darker wash, highwaisted,
(03:37):
wide leg jeans, and then this new pair of platform heels.
Me and a group of my girlfriends decided to go
to a fraternity party off campus, and when we got there,
we noticed it was like weirdly quiet. People were just
(03:57):
sort of standing around with their beers talking. It was
supposed to be a big rager, but one of our
friends in the fraternity had fallen into the speaker and
broke it, so there was no music and everyone was
just kind of standing around brainstorming what to do next.
(04:20):
A group of our girlfriends wanted to go to the bars.
Another group wanted to go to another house party, but
me and my friend Stacy wanted to have a chilled night.
And that was when our friend Scott invited me and
Stacy back to his house to watch movies, hang out,
and just have a chilled nigh in. We go back
(04:42):
to Scott's house, which is an older home. I think
he told us one time it was built in the
thirties or something. When we got to the house, every
light was on, which I thought was strange because no
one was home, and I just noticed that the vibe
in the house fell off. It felt like a wave
(05:03):
of something came over me that was heavy. My ears
had popped and I couldn't hear. I remember asking for
gum hoping that if I chewed gum that that would
help it unpop and I'd be able to hear better.
I just kind of wrote it off, so I ignored
(05:25):
it and just figured I was in my head. We're
hanging out. We hadn't had anything to drink at that
point really. I had had a corona. We were like
mildly sipping on beer. The night winds down and Stacey
(05:46):
decides to meet up with one of her other guy friends.
She leaves and it's just me and Scott in the
living room hanging out talking. It got to be around
two thirty three in the morning. The college town where
(06:07):
we went to school is smaller. Once the bars close
at two, there's a very limited window to get an
uber or a lyft back to wherever you're staying for
the night, so there weren't any ubers or lyfts. I
was either going to have to walk home in the
dark by myself, which I didn't like. So Scott offered
(06:30):
that I could stay upstairs in his room and he
would sleep on the couch and I could go home
in the morning. He walked me to his room. It
was at the very right end of the hallway. I
took my shoes off, I put them at the foot
(06:50):
of the bed. I turned on the lamp, and he
just kind of made sure I was good and said
if I needed anything, I could come downstairs and get
him and he would just be on the couch. We
said good night, and he shut the door and I
laid down in the bed and I didn't feel sleepy
(07:15):
at all. I remember immediately feeling like something was really wrong.
My ears were popping number one and I was just
starting to get a sense that I wasn't alone up there.
I couldn't quite place my finger on it, but I
felt strange and watched. So I chose to sleep with
(07:39):
the lamp on. I just felt like I didn't want
to turn it off. The next thing that I remember,
I was conscious, but I was standing at the opposite
end of the hallway. I was looking into Scott's room.
(08:02):
The door was open, and I could see myself laying
on the bed. I could see my hair splayed out
behind me. I could see the crop top I was wearing.
I could see the jeans. I could even see, like
at the foot of the bed where I had sat down,
my shoes. It's jarring to feel conscious and you're not
(08:27):
in your body. It's the weirdest sensation I could ever imagine.
And then I realized there's something in the hallway watching
my body laying on the bed. It just looked evil
(08:48):
and dark. I mean it was literally as tall as
the door, with huge, broad shoulders that looked bumpy, lumpy,
bulky. It had what looked like ram's horns, and
it was so tall it looked like it couldn't fit
(09:10):
through the doorway without crouching its legs looked so muscular,
they looked like ropes that had been twisted together, or
tree roots. It had its hands just hanging by its sides,
and it was the deepest shade of black that I've
ever seen in my life. I knew this was not
(09:37):
just a dream. I felt like a sheep that had
broken off from the pack and a wolf was circling it.
It likes the fact that I wasn't aware that it
was watching me. That terrified me. Whatever it was wanted me,
(09:59):
is this thing trying to get into my body? What's
going on? I start freaking out and praying, put me in
a white light and protect me. Put me in a
white light and protect me. When I started praying p,
whatever this thing was in the doorway started to turn around.
(10:19):
Put me in a white light and protect me. But
once it started to turn around, I'm back in my body,
in bed, right where I was before, drenched in sweat,
and I'm just freezing cold, shivering, teeth chattering. I look
(10:42):
over to my right. The door to the bedroom that
Scott had shut was now wide open, and I could
see directly down the hallway to where I had just
been watching this all happen. I knew Scott had shut
the door before he went downstairs. At this point, it
(11:04):
must have been around four in the morning. I just
instinctively know I have to get away from here. My
fight or flight kicks in, so I thought I'll just
take my chances and run. I grabbed my shoes, grabbed
(11:25):
my purse, ran outside, and sprinted back to my dorm.
I ran home barefoot, holding my shoes and my purse.
I cut through people's yards, over uneven sidewalks. It's probably
a good four miles. I was terrified. My feet were bleeding.
(11:48):
I ran as fast as I could, but I didn't
even pay attention to how my feet felt. I was
just more scared than in pain. I ran home to
my dorm. I remember being terrified to get in the elevator.
I was so scared that it followed me and that
it was gonna mess with me.
The dorm was dark. My roommate was there with her
(12:13):
boyfriend he was visiting for the weekend. They were completely asleep.
I ran and I jumped into my bed, fully in
my clothes, covered in sweat. I just laid there with
the covers pulled up over my head, and I just
prayed put me in a white light and protect me.
(12:34):
I didn't look out from under the covers. I just
laid there and I repeated the prayer that my family
has passed down until the sun came up. The next day,
I didn't tell anybody what happened because I didn't really
want to talk about it or like give it any
(12:55):
more power. So I just went on about my life.
I never went back to the house, even when they
still lived there for the rest of the school year,
I never went back to that house.
I just refused. I would actually have to walk by
that house to go to work. I'd walk by it
on the way to other friends' houses. I would always
(13:18):
make it a point to keep my head down. I
wouldn't even look at it because I was terrified. I
could sense that something was like in the window watching me.
I didn't want to look up and see it, connect
with it and let it know that I knew it
was there, and then just shy of A year later,
(13:40):
Scott came over to our dorm and my friend Stacy
casually asks do you still live in that same house?
His face changed really suddenly. He said no, very abruptly.
(14:00):
He told us how he would be home alone and
hear something call his name from somewhere else in the house.
It would sound like one of his roommates, and then
he would go look around and would realize he was
the only one in the house. They would wake up
(14:20):
to all their kitchen cabinet doors being open. There would
be unexplained slamming and loud footsteps. This was also how
I found out that Scott never slept in his room
because he was convinced that something in his room was
(14:42):
messing was him. One of the roommates who slept down
the hall from Scott actually had drilled a dead bolt
lock into his door and then a chain lock. The
last thing he said was During Alumni weekend, they were
(15:03):
on their back porch grilling, and a group of older
men were walking down the street and one of the
men in this group introduced himself and he told them
how he used to live in that house. They invited
him in and offered him to go in and see
(15:23):
his old room, and he said, no, I don't want
to go in, and he wouldn't step on the porch either.
As the guy turns to leave, he says, it was
nice meeting you and by the way, don't fuck with
the demon in the basement. After living in that house,
(15:50):
Scott actually wound up leaving school and had to go
to therapy because of whatever it was that had been
taunting them and messing with them all that time. As
scary as it was, seeing that, I do feel like
I was deliberately shown that so that I knew to
get out of the situation. I'm very grateful for that.
(16:13):
It's my hope and prayer that whoever lives there now
has some sort of strong positive force in their life
and no interest or curiosity in the paranormal, and they
don't give it any power by trying to contact it.
THERÉSA (16:36):
Didn't love the sound of that! There's a saying we
have here, "soft white light. You're all right. Hoof or
horn is spirit scorned." Of course, it's not just hoof
or horn you need to watch out for. There's tall
and slender, glowing red eyes, bodies of shadow, what else? Smelly, chilly, shrieky, ceiling, leaky.
I'm missing some
LEN (16:57):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (16:58):
oh right, door slamming as you a bad sign. There's others.
I'll keep thinking on it. In the meantime. We've got
ads for you.
LEN (17:13):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (17:17):
Right, footsteps can be bad. Well, any kind of low growl,
I guess sounds in general. Eerie singing seems to be
a big pass-time for spirits.
LEN (17:25):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (17:29):
Len, you said "purgatory!" Back in the Elysian Fields. Anytime
someone says "purgatory" everyone responds, "Did someone say limbo?" and
they break out the limbo stick and pomegranate Bellinis. Pomegranates,
you know, "fruit of the dead".
LEN (17:44):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (17:46):
I guess you had to be there. You really should
go sometime, Len. They do Zumba classes every afternoon on
the Divine Plain. You would love it.
LEN (17:54):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (17:56):
Well, anyway, our next story comes to us from Ashley,
who's something of a spiritual Empath. You know, I'm sort
of empathic myself. I could always tell when someone felt
intimidated by me. It happened a lot, honestly. I just
have that effect on people. You know what, someone right
(18:16):
now is shrinking in my presence, Probably a listener maybe, Len
LEN (18:22):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (18:22):
Whoever you are, never let anyone dull your shine, not
even a perfect undead influencer with awesome skin if you
ignore the patches of decay. Okay? good.
STORY B (18:39):
I never really talk about what happened to me. Psychic
mediums were like, you're a clairsentient. You can't hear, you
can't see things, but you can feel things in places
that have had immense trauma or very strong emotions. But
this is the only two times in my life it
has ever happened. And they were in the span of
(19:01):
like a year. My name is Ashley, and I was
haunted while on a historical prison tour.
The first time it happened, we went to visit my
aunt in eastern Europe. We were there for two weeks total.
(19:21):
My parents are huge history buffs, so it was really
important to my mom that we go do a couple
of museum type stuff while we travel. We went to
a bunch of different places. Like we went to a
couple of the castles that are over there. She took
us to a bunch of different towns just to kind
of explore and broaden our horizons. While we were over there,
(19:43):
my aunt planned for us to check out one of
the prisons that they have there, and they've turned it
into a museum as well. We pull up, we park,
we go up to the gate and my aunt and
my mom and my brother they're all going inside, and
(20:06):
I'm only at the entrance, but my body will not
move past this point. I felt like my feet were
cemented to the ground. I could not go in, and
my mom thought I was being like a typical teenager
of like I don't want to do this, and I
(20:26):
was like, no, you don't understand, like I physically cannot
bring myself to go inside. I physically felt like I
could not breathe, like I could not get air in
my lungs while I was on the premise. The tour
guide comes over and she's like, are you okay? And
(20:47):
I said, I feel like this overwhelming sense of dread
and I can't physically bring my body past this gate,
But just give me a couple of minutes. I gotta
calm myself down. Finally, we go into the actual prison.
(21:11):
The tour guide walks me over to my aunt and
she goes, you can walk all the way through, and
then at the end it's going to lead you to
the museum. And like my mom had already gone in,
I wasn't even fully inside, and suddenly I just feel
like I can't breathe. The tour guide she's staring at me.
(21:37):
Her eyes are huge, and she's like, are you okay?
And I said, I can't explain it to you. I
feel like I'm choking. And she's like, there's nothing happening
to you so she kind of like walks me over
to the side, and my mom's like, what is going
on with you today? Are you sick?
(21:57):
I said, no, it's this place like I feel like
I'm suffocating. I still had the feeling all throughout the
time that I was on the grounds, and then when
we left and we got in the car, I felt
one hundred percent normal again.
(22:20):
The second time it happened to me, I was in
high school. I went to Shawnee High School in Medford,
New Jersey, and I took a photography class from my
sophomore year to my senior year, and in my junior year,
the teacher decided that we were going to start doing
field trips to different places in the area, and one
(22:41):
of the places that they decided to pick was Eastern
State Penitentiary. Eastern State Penitentiary is a very old prison
in the heart of Philadelphia. It hasn't been used in
many decades. That place is one hundred percent haunted. It's spooky,
(23:02):
but it is very cool. A lot of the prison
is kind of disheveled and broken, so it's got a
lot of very interesting areas to explore, not only like landscapes,
but also to focus on like the lighting aspect of it.
I was super excited and I was like one of
(23:24):
the first ones to sign up. The day of the trip,
we got on the buses, we got there. I think
there was like fifteen students. When we pulled up on
the buses, it kind of looked like a dungeon with
the old stone and the ivy and just very run down.
(23:49):
We were dropped off at the gates. We had about
three hours and they basically said, listen, you can explore
a little bit. Just obviously stay within the walls of
the penitentiary. You can do a guided tour, but it's
really up to everybody. Just meet back where the bus
is to go home. So me and my girlfriend Chelsea,
(24:14):
we are exploring, We're taking pictures. We got to see
all the cool spots like Al Capone's Cell. Al Capone's
Cell is very interesting, to say the least. It has
everything exactly the way that he left it on the
day that he was released. His furniture, there's rugs, there's lamps.
There's a radio, which, according to the Eastern State Penitentiary
(24:40):
tour guides, tends to go off out of nowhere and
it's not connected to anything. It doesn't have any type
of batteries, so shouldn't be doing that. I was really
hoping that the radio would go off while we were there,
but it didn't. It was Chelsea's idea to sign up
(25:02):
for a guided tour. She was like, the only way
we're going to be able to see certain areas of
the penitentiary is if we sign up, because like, Death
Row is not open to the public. You can't just
walk through it. It's like gated off. We were the
only two that were from the field trip on this
guided tour. There was maybe ten of us total. The
(25:27):
tour guide was a woman in her mid forties, and
of course, back when I was seventeen, I was like, ah,
this old lady. But no, she was very nice, very
put together, very soft spoken. She had been doing this
for about ten years, so she was very knowledgeable of
the entire penitentiary.
(25:51):
We start the tour. She's taking us towards Death Row,
which is very narrow when you first walk in. She explains,
there's two areas that you can explore in here. The
guard's side, which is the path that most guards took
to get into where death Row is, and then the
inmate side, which is the showers. So you have to
(26:12):
go through the showers to get to the cells. Chelsea
and I wanted to get some pictures of the showers
and then hopefully down towards where the cells were, so
we separated from our little group and we're going through the showers.
Chelsea was like setting up to take a picture. But
when I step into the showers, I felt this really intense,
(26:38):
sharp pain on the right side of my back. It
was like this burning, stabbing sensation, and it knocks the
wind out of me. I dropped to my knees. I
can't breathe, I can't stand up, I can barely move.
(26:58):
It hit me so hard and so fast out of nowhere.
I was maybe three feet into the shower. I was
in shock on top of being in excruciating pain. I
can't even compare it to anything. I never felt something
(27:21):
so sharp and so sudden come over me like that.
I was sweaty, clammy and like a chill came over
my body. Chelsea came rushing over and she's like, are
you okay? She could instantly tell something was seriously wrong.
(27:43):
She was scared. She thought I really got hurt. She
was like, stand up, Come on, you can do it.
I'm gonna help you. Get up. You gotta get up
off your knees right now. Get up. Like yelling at
me and the tour guide noticed that we hadn't caught up
with in the group. She peeks her head around the
(28:04):
corner and said, just keep walking. At seventeen, I was like,
what is this lady's problem? Like I thought she was
yelling at me, thinking I was goofing off, and I
just remember looking at her and being like, I can't
stand up. I can't catch my breath. You've got to
be kidding me. And I was like I can't, and
(28:25):
she was like, no, trust me, just keep walking. I
could see that she was also panicked. Between the look
on her face and the way that she said it,
I knew I have to like get to her. She
knows something that I don't know, and that if I
(28:46):
just walked to her and I got myself out of
the spot that I was in, I was gonna be fine.
At that point, Chelsea basically lifts me to get me
back up onto my feet and we start walking towards
the tour guide. As we got closer and closer to her,
(29:07):
the better I felt. All of the pain started to
dissipate and the cold sweat started to disappear. When I
got to the tour guide, she was like, are you alright?
And I was like, I think so, And then she
said where was your pain? And I said it was
my right back, and she was kind of intrigued because
(29:31):
she had me tell her what it felt like. It
was the most intense pain I've ever felt in my life.
So she told me that when this was a functioning prison,
there was a guard that went in to check on
an inmate in the shower who said he did not
feel well, and when he did that, two other inmates
(29:55):
jumped this guard and stabbed him and he bled out,
and she goes, I don't want to freak you out,
but I've been doing this for ten years now, and
this is the third time that I've seen this reaction
in these showers. And I just remember looking her dead
(30:24):
in the face, saying, you're kidding me, and she was like, no,
literally two other people have dropped in that exact spot,
just like you did. And she said the guard died
from a stabbing to his right kidney. And then that's
when I looked at Chelsea and I'm like, you need
(30:46):
to look at my back right now. And I pulled
my shirt up and I was like, is there any
marks on me? I was having her check to make
sure that I did not actually get stabbed. She looks
and she's like, no, there's nothing. No bruises, no scratching,
no red marks, nothing on my back. Death Row was
(31:07):
like the first stop on our tour, so we still
had about forty five minutes left of that, but I
told Chelsea that I wanted to sit for the rest
of the trip until everybody met up with us to leave.
Don't get me wrong, I love everything odd and creepy
and strange, and Halloween's my favorite time of year, but
(31:29):
I don't want it to be in my everyday life.
I don't really know why it happened to me. I'm
now thirty two, I've had two children, and even having
children wasn't as intense as the pain that I felt
that day.
THERÉSA (31:56):
This one is extra unsettling. Haunting is generally a "look
don't touch" business, so anytime someone experiences physical pain, you
know it's serious. That being said, visiting death row of
an old prison when you know you're sensitive to the supernatural. Sorry,
that's kind of on you. Well, that's it for today, Hauntos.
(32:26):
If you've ever been shanked by a ghost, email us
at HauntingThePodcast@gmail.com and your story could be featured on an
upcoming episode. Until then, keep the portals open and the
veils thin, and we'll see you next time here in purgatory.
I said, see you next time here in purgatory. Len,
(32:48):
When I say purgatory, you say,
LEN (32:51):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (32:53):
"Limbo" Remember? Okay, you know we just talked about this.
You know, you of all people could use a vacation.
LEN (33:00):
[MUMBLES]
CREDITS (33:05):
If you have a haunting story to share, please email
us at HauntingThePodcast@gmail.com, and if you like what you hear,
please like and subscribe. You can also follow us on
social media by searching for Glass Podcasts or by visiting GlassPodcasts.com.
Haunting is a production of Glass Podcasts and partnership with
iHeart Podcast. Haunting is created and executive produced by Nancy Glass,
(33:26):
Andrea Gunning, Ben Fetterman, and Lauren Lapkus, and it is
hosted by Lauren Lapkus as their character Therésa. The show
is directed by Aleah Welsh and produced by Trey Morgan.
It is written by Aleah Welsh, with additional writing by
Nancy Glass, Trey Morgan, and Ben Fetterman. Additional production support
by Curry Richman and Todd Gans. Additional voice acting by
Trey Morgan as the character producer Len Walker. Editing and
(33:48):
sound designed by Matt Delvecchio and mixed by Dave Saia.
Operations and production support by Kristin Melchiorre. Haunting's theme and
original compositions work composed by Oliver Baines and Dorry Macaulay
of Noiser. Music Library provided by Mybe Music. Special thanks
to Speakeasy Sound Studios in Burbank, California. For more shows
from iHeart Podcast and Glass Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app,
(34:10):
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast
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