August 3, 2025 • 89 mins
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, welcome to Scary Stories and Rain.
I really hope you enjoyed this episode.
And don't forget you can subscribe to this podcast for
just 299 a month. You can get rid of all of the
irritating ads and be automatically entered to win a
Nintendo Switch to Mario Kart bundle.
Only 299 a month, no more ads. I have all the info you need in
(00:21):
the description to this episode.And one last thing, thank you so
much for being here. I really hope you enjoy.
During the summer of 2012, IA 9 year old boy was playing with my
friends at my local park. Being young and oblivious, I
(00:42):
didn't really notice anything unusual at first.
I kept playing until I noticed my best friend, who was one year
older than me and someone I looked up to staring at the tree
line with a pale wide eyed look of sheer terror.
He couldn't tear his gaze away from it, curious and fearful
about what could have caused such an intense reaction from
(01:04):
someone I knew to be so fearless.
I followed his eyes and tried tocatch his gaze.
As I looked over at the tree line, I slowly began to see a
woman. Her features were hard to make
out as the sun was shining directly behind the trees,
blinding me. But even with that, I could see
the way she was standing was surreal.
(01:26):
Her feet were crouched on the ground and she had her hands
pressed against her eyebrows like she was trying to make
binoculars with her hands. Peculiar as it was, my friend
and I decided to brush it off and continue playing.
At our young ages, we weren't really aware of the dangers of
the world, and we're more focused on enjoying our time
(01:47):
together before summer ended. A few hours later, around 10 or
11 PMI was lying in my bed when I heard an eerie sound coming
from my window. It wasn't the usual scraping
sound of keys on glass, but rather something like sharp
nails dragging back and forth across the window pane.
(02:08):
To understand how strange this was, you need to know that my
room was on the 2nd floor and mywindow was positioned high up
about 16 to 18 feet off the ground.
It was not a low hanging window,it was placed at the top of the
room to my right. So when I decided to push past
my fear and investigate the sound, I stood on top of my bed
(02:32):
and peeked out the window. To my absolute horror, I saw the
same woman from the park. Even though I hadn't had a
chance to get a good look at herfeatures before, it was
unmistakably her. Her unique posture and physique
made it clear she was gripping my window sill with her hands,
her cold dead eyes staring directly at me.
(02:55):
We locked eyes for what felt like 5 minutes, but in reality
it was probably only 5 seconds. Then, to my horror, the woman
broke the silence by scraping the window, not with her nails,
but by opening her mouth so wideI could see the back of her
throat. She then pressed her teeth to
(03:16):
the window pane and bit down as if trying to chew through it.
At that moment, to my absolute shock, the woman began to bang
her head against the glass over and over again.
That was all I needed to snap meout of my frozen terror.
I bolted out of my room and ran straight to my parents room.
(03:37):
As soon as I told my dad what I had seen, he sprang out of bed
grabbed a weapon from his night stand while my mom called the
police. My parents and I waited
anxiously for the police, and after what felt like an
eternity, they finally arrived. They searched the house and
found nothing except for the broken glass on the floor of my
(03:59):
bedroom. They were as confused as we
were. There were no traces of how
anyone could have climbed that high, and no footprints or
evidence were found anywhere around the house.
After that, my parents didn't allow me outside without a
guardian. Security cameras and an electric
(04:20):
fence were installed around our property.
To this day, my only question ishow could have someone climbed
that high and left no evidence whatsoever in?
Such a short. Span of time.
(04:47):
This story happened over the summer.
I had started seeing this guy I met through mutual friends and
we had been hitting it off for awhile.
I won't say exactly where for privacy, but one of our first
dates was a late night drive to a popular lake area in the
Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado.The first night we went we
enjoyed some green and spent time chatting under the
(05:10):
moonlight. A night full of romance,
conversation, and a little bit of passion.
After we left and went back to my place to watch Hulu.
He and I both have busy schedules, but we had another
whirlwind date to the same area about 3 weeks later.
The moon wasn't quite full, but that didn't stop us from
(05:31):
enjoying each other's company. Now for a bit of layout of the
land. This lake and park area has two
places where folks can park vehicles, one where you can pay
a sum of money to park while youenjoy the lake, or a dirt track
where folks usually go hiking. We were parked in my car on this
dirt lot trail both times. The second time we pulled up,
(05:53):
there was another car parked there.
It was past midnight and we assumed that whoever was in the
other car was likely doing what we were as well as what we were
about to start doing. We got out, smoked a little, and
even though I was having a good time, something felt off.
You know that feeling that someone's watching you?
(06:17):
Amplify that by 5 and that's what I was feeling.
I figured it was a mixture of exhaustion and a few hits off
the joint made me feel a little jumpy, so I didn't pay much
attention to that feeling, but Idid keep in mind to be aware of
my surroundings. After smoking, we climbed into
my backseat and started cuddlingand kissing.
(06:38):
I had the car running with the headlights on and just because I
was feeling a little anxious, I have the doors locked too.
As my date and I started gettinga little hot and heavy.
He began to lay me down on my back in the passenger seat as
our lips broke apart for a second.
I glanced out the windshield quickly and my blood ran cold.
(07:01):
I saw something dark behind a tree that was lit by my
headlights. I froze for a second and after a
pause, I saw something that has been seared in my mind
permanently. There was a shirtless old man
wearing torn up overalls with a scraggly beard peeking out from
behind that tree, almost like a kid peeking around a corner
(07:25):
during a game of hide and seek. It was almost as if he knew I
saw him because he quickly darted back behind the tree, but
I could still see the side of his leg from where I was
positioned. My date was still kissing my
neck and his head began to move back to my lips but I stopped
him and whispered, trying to remain as calm as possible with
(07:47):
the adrenaline rushing through me.
I wish I was making this up, butwe have to go right now.
There's a man behind that tree right there.
I motioned slowly with my head to where I had seen the man.
I don't know how long he's been there, I don't want to find out.
My date quickly darted his head to the side and whisper shouted.
(08:11):
No way. I instructed him to follow my
lead since we had locked the car.
I didn't want to exit the vehicle after seeing what I had
seen. As carefully as I could, I sort
of spider crawled over to my center console and settled into
the seat. My date followed suit,
accidentally bumping my head with his knee in the process.
(08:35):
I began the process of trying toget the car out of that bumpy
dirt lot as quickly as possible without bottoming out the car.
I white knuckled the steering wheel for the five mile drive
back into town. As soon as I was far enough away
to finally process what had happened, I became nauseous from
the fear. I also began to shake and my
(08:56):
date, being the absolute gentleman he is, calmly asked me
to pull over so that he could drive us back to my place
safely. As soon as we entered the doors
of my home, we began to debrief on what we possibly saw.
At first, I thought of the firstlogical explanation.
The other car that was there. Maybe the owner had to step out
(09:17):
to relieve himself or something.But this was past midnight in
Colorado in the mountains. Despite it being summer, those
mountains still get pretty chilly at night.
And it was definitely cold. Why would he be shirtless?
And why did he dart behind the tree only to peek out and watch
(09:38):
for as long as he did and then dart back behind it?
Was he watching us? Who was he?
My date from that night and I have still been going pretty
steady and we still try to figure out what it possibly
could have been even three months later.
If you're going for late night drives where you park, please
(10:00):
make sure you never go alone. Make sure someone has your
location. And always, and I really do mean
always, be aware of your surroundings.
I have lived in Colorado for themajority of my life,
encountering bears, mountain lions, and coyotes.
Heck, I was even chased by a bull when I was a teenager.
(10:23):
But none of those encounters compare to the sheer terror I
felt seeing that man after midnight.
(10:45):
Around the ages of 12 and 14, I would often sleep in my older
brother's room. I would set up my blanket and
pillow on the floor next to his bed and we would talk about
dreams and nightmares we had had, fictitious scenarios, and
other random topics that I have no recollection of now.
But after the conversation and laughter would end, I had to
(11:07):
deal with the part I dreaded most about sleeping in his room.
The awful silence in the oppressive darkness all around
me. I could have sworn I would
experience something paranormal almost every night in that room.
Whether it was lingering shadowsthat I may have very well been
imagining, strange noises, or the time I felt an all too real
(11:31):
sensation of something gripping my blanket.
That happened while we were still awake, and I remember
rushing my brother to turn the light on while I lay there in
absolute terror. However, in typical paranormal
fashion, nothing was there. But this one experience I had in
(11:52):
that room still freaks me out tothis day.
One day, as I usually did, I decided to sleep in his room.
The only thing I did differentlythat night was set up my
sleeping space on his recliner. We talked for a few hours past
midnight and finally we fell asleep.
Or rather, he fell asleep. To tell the truth, I was stuck
(12:17):
in my usual state of impending doom, but this time I think my
fear was justified. While I lay there reclined with
my arms on the armrests, trying my hardest to fall asleep, I
heard the worst thing my youngerself could ever hear, scratching
on the back of the chair. My eyes immediately darted to my
(12:40):
brother's bed, wanting to call out to him for help, to get
whatever this thing was behind the chair to leave, but nothing
came out of my mouth. I lay there motionless and
unable to speak, my heart pounding so hard that I could
feel it in my wrists. The scratching persisted, slow
and sinister. My young mind imagined A
(13:03):
horrifying dark creature with grey hands and long black
fingernails crouched behind the chair, purposely trying to scare
me. But another, more logical part
of my mind wondered if it was possibly a rat or some fabric in
the back of the chair ripping. But none of that made sense.
(13:25):
The scratching was too slow and controlled to be an animal or
something tearing. I ended up not saying anything
and just waited for the scratching to stop.
Eventually after what seemed like forever, it did.
But I knew better than to stay in that awful room straight out
(13:45):
of a horror film so I went back to my room.
When I told everyone about the incident in the morning I got a
bunch of comments like that's creepy or that's weird until it
was brushed off. My brother never minded hearing
things in his room. One time he heard an object fall
(14:06):
off his window sill in the middle of the night and instead
of getting freaked out like a normal person, he just thought
or whatever and went back to sleep.
Now, I am not that type of person.
Every paranormal experience I'vehad in that house is probably
going to stay ingrained in my mind for the rest of my life.
(14:40):
Walking to your mailbox to get the mail and mowing your lawn
are normal, trivial tasks that no one thinks much about.
But when someone is watching youdo those things, it's a
different story. For as long as my dad could
remember living there, every time he went outside to cut the
grass or do any other task, she would be watching him from
(15:03):
across the street in the scorching Texas heat.
Out there in her nightgown, no shade, no drink, just sitting
there. Her borderline emaciated figure
and lack of expression stood outas concerning to my dad, and
most times when he saw her, he would wave, but she never waved
(15:25):
back. My mom said that when she would
wave at the old woman, it would be returned, but for some reason
she never acknowledged my dad. One day while my dad was sitting
on the porch having a drink withhis friend, the woman was there,
quiet and motionless. A guy who lived with her
returned home from work and was assumed to be her son.
(15:49):
Tom parked his car in the driveway, got out and walked
right past her. What a jerk, my dad thought.
He didn't even say hi to her or offered to bring her a drink or
help her inside. He and his friend continued
their conversation and about 10 minutes later, Tom walked back
outside. Hey man, do you want a beer?
(16:12):
My dad called out. He knew Tom and though he was
frustrated with his actions or lack thereof toward his mother,
he thought he would invite him over and possibly ask him about
her. Tom said yes and walked across
the street to join them. After they chatted and got
comfortable, my dad decided to bring it up.
(16:34):
Is that your mom who sits in thechair outside?
Tom looked confused. What do you mean the old woman
who sits in that chair every day?
My dad said, waiting for him to catch on.
But he didn't. My dad then went on to describe
her appearance and informed Tom that he had been seeing her
(16:55):
daily. It was difficult to tell whether
Tom was shocked. Sad or scared, he then went on
to tell my dad that his mom had passed away a few years ago and
used to live in that house. The chair my dad said he saw her
sitting in was her favorite chair.
(17:16):
Tom brought my dad across the street to tell his girlfriend
about what he had seen and she was equally baffled.
But it gave them comfort knowingthat their mother was still
there with them. Ghosts and demons weren't of any
interest to my dad back in the day.
He never believed in them. He thought any sightings of
ghosts could be explained by logic and reason, and that the
(17:39):
people telling the stories were just straight up lying, probably
for attention. But this was one of the
experiences that made him question what he believed and
ponder the possibility of the spiritual realm of good and
evil. I've had nightmares for as long
(18:12):
as I can remember. It started with recurring dreams
about friendly childhood figureslike Snuffleupagus chasing me
and devouring me, and progressedto more realistic scenarios such
as being shot as I got older. I'm not bothered by my
nightmares anymore. I have unfortunately grown quite
accustomed to them. However, there is one nightmare
(18:35):
that has stuck with me for years, and it was unlike any
other scary dream I've had. Let me preface this by saying I
had recently visited the Museum of Shadows, a museum near my
hometown that showcases supposedly haunted artifacts
from around the world. I consider myself a bit of a
skeptic when it comes to ghosts,but I don't limit myself to what
(18:59):
could possibly exist and what could not.
Growing up in a religious household, I was raised in a
family that strongly believed indemons and possession.
I still admittedly believe in such things, which may have
influenced the experience I'm about to tell you, but I still
don't know if it was purely psychological.
(19:21):
In the museum, there's a basement filled with demonic
objects, items that allegedly contain spirits that have harmed
people. Being someone who loves thrills,
I excitedly explored this section, reading the stories and
seeing the things that supposedly caused so much harm
that a jar of holy water is keptat the entrance to bless those
(19:42):
who enter and protect them. I had rented one of those ghost
detectors that beeps when there's a fluctuation in energy,
which is often associated with ghosts.
I wasn't getting any response from my device, and when I did
it was usually because I was pointing it at spots where
electrical wires ran. However, when I stood in the
(20:03):
center of the basement, where nowalls or electrical wires were
present, I suddenly got a large response from the ghost
detector. I looked around to see what
could be causing it, holding thedevice up, down, and side to
side, checking for possible energy fluctuations.
I was then surrounded by a cold air that gave me goosebumps.
(20:25):
I looked up expecting to see an air vent, but there was none.
I stepped out of this one spot and immediately felt fine.
Experimentally, I held my hand out to see if the cold was
contained to that spot, and to my surprise, it was.
I looked down at the ground and suddenly noticed that the spot I
(20:46):
was standing on was marked with an X in duct tape.
After finishing up my museum experience, I decided to ask the
curator about the X on the floorto see what it meant.
Oh. She said this building is very
old, there might have been some tragic incidents long before we
moved in here. We mark areas like that to show
(21:08):
where someone has died accordingto the history of the building.
I was in disbelief and a bit shocked.
I did feel like it was a gimmickand I was unamused by this fact.
I thanked the curator for her explanation and left.
That night, as I was about to sleep, I started thinking about
my experience again. Had I really encountered a
(21:31):
ghost? A demon?
Or was it all circumstantial andpsychological?
I slept on it, trying to ignore the unease I felt.
When I finally fell asleep, I woke up in my dark room.
Confused, I looked around, wondering why the night had felt
so short. As a lucid dreamer, I preferred
(21:53):
my usual checks around the room to see if there were any
abnormalities that could confirmwhether I was asleep or not.
While I was performing my look around, I felt a shift on the
side of my bed, like a sudden pressure being applied.
I snapped my head to the side and there, crouching by my bed
was a decrepit lady. Her Bony hands were pressing
(22:16):
into my mattress. Her eyes were large and pure
white, her mouth locked in a grotesque grin with missing
teeth. Her hair was dark, scraggly and
falling out. Her skin was wrinkled, almost
corpse like, and devoid of color.
She knelt beside me, frozen in place, her hollow eyes seemingly
(22:39):
staring right through me. Count my fingers.
She croaked in a voice that was a strange mix of a whisper and a
groan. Terrified and confused, I looked
down at her fingers. Against my will, my index finger
began to touch each one of her cold, skeletal fingers, and I
(23:02):
counted aloud how many she had. 123, but she didn't have 10
fingers. Three.
I said, my voice shaky. You have three fingers.
(23:22):
With alarming speed, she whippedher hands behind her, hiding
them from view before rapidly returning them to the bed.
This time, more fingers were placed on the mattress, but not
all of them were hers. Some of the fingers looked like
they had been taken from anotherperson's body.
I couldn't tell. I started counting again. 1234.
(23:50):
In the corner of my vision, I saw her pluck one of the fingers
off the bed and hide it behind her back, as if to trick me.
I said nothing and continued counting 567, including the one
she had hidden behind her back without touching it.
(24:12):
Her face twisted into a horrifying frown, her mouth
opening wide, and she moved again, hiding her hands as she
shifted her fingers around. Then she placed a large sum of
fingers on the bed. Her grin returned.
Count my fingers. She rasped.
(24:34):
I started counting again, but now she was removing fingers
left and right, trying to get meto mess up just once.
I still have no clue what her plan was or who or what she is,
and I have no idea what would happen if I miscounted. 131415I
(24:57):
paused as I went to place my finger on the 16th finger.
She pulled it away before I could touch it.
Out of sheer panic. I blurted 17.
I said the wrong number. Her eyes widened with a hunger
that reminded me of a starving man looking at a hot meal.
Her grin stretched wider, if that was even possible.
(25:20):
Slowly, she lowered herself froma crouching position until she
was no longer visible, all the while maintaining direct eye
contact with me. I jolted up wide eyed, looking
around my room. I heard skittering noises.
It was pitch black and I couldn't see anything.
My hands fumble around the nightstand as I grabbed the Xbox
(25:42):
controller I kept there in case I needed to throw something.
It felt solid, real in my hands,too real to be a dream.
Suddenly, I felt her jump out onto the foot of my bed.
She began crawling toward me at a terrifying pace.
I was then startled awake, sitting up as fast as I could.
(26:04):
My room was dark and it looked exactly the same as it had in my
nightmare. I felt insane.
There was no way that had been real.
I pinched my arm. I was for sure awake this time,
but in my left hand I still gripped the black Xbox
controller. I couldn't explain it.
(26:28):
I am not someone who sleepwalks or does things like this in my
sleep. My only conclusion was that it
was a very vivid dream, but her face still haunts me and I can't
help but wonder, did a demon attach itself to me that night?
(26:59):
I'm a 21 year old female and this happened when I was around
14. I wish I had sent this story in
shortly after it happened so I could remember all the details
more vividly, but I'll recount it the best I can.
My best friend at the time, Courtney, and I were very into
the world of the paranormal and all things spooky.
(27:20):
We used to make Ouija boards outof paper, take them to our local
park and graveyard, and play with them frequently.
There are many stories I could tell about what happened during
those sessions, but I'll save that for another time.
Now, I am a firm believer that if you're calling out to the
spirit realm, even just in your bedroom during the daytime,
(27:42):
you're always leaving a door open and anything could come
through. I think that's what happened in
our case as we used to call out to things often, not just with
the Ouija board. For some context, let me tell
you about some other things thathappened around that time.
Courtney and I would have frequent sleepovers where we
(28:03):
would watch movies, eat snacks, and just hang out.
Nothing out of the ordinary would happen until we woke up in
the morning. We used to top and tail in a
single bed. For those unfamiliar with the
term, it's when two people sleepin the same bed but with their
heads on opposite ends. I have always been a super light
sleeper when sharing a bed with someone.
(28:26):
This is something that has continued into my adult life, so
every little move Courtney made I could feel and it would wake
me up briefly. After we had eaten all of our
snacks and watched some movies, we would get pretty tired and
decide to call it a night. As you can imagine, we would
leave behind bowls, cups and other things that we would clean
(28:46):
up in the morning, but when we woke up, everything in the room
would be in places that we hadn't left them.
I remember one time I had placedboth of my TV remotes on my desk
chair after turning the TV off and the large popcorn bowl we
had been using was on my desk along with the glasses that we
had been drinking from. But when we woke up, both TV
(29:09):
remotes along with the popcorn bowl were on the bed between US
and the glasses have been moved to my bedside table.
We have both sworn to this day that neither of us moved
anything around. This happened so frequently that
it got to the point where we hadto take pictures of the room
before and after we went to sleep to see if anything had
(29:30):
moved. I should mention that my house
isn't haunted, and this happenedto both at my place and at hers
when we stayed over at each other's houses.
Neither of us have ever been sleepwalkers, so the whole thing
was just bizarre. Another thing that happened
during one of our sleepovers wasthat we had just woken up in the
(29:50):
morning. By this point, Courtney had been
sleeping on a mattress on the floor to give us more space.
I was lying on my bed and she was on the floor.
Suddenly I felt a very distinct single fingertip harshly poked
me on my spine. It was so hard that it made me
jolt and startle verbally. You know that feeling when
(30:12):
someone comes up behind you and pokes their fingers into the
sides of your waist to tickle you?
It felt just like that. I laughed at first because I
100% assumed it was Courtney, but when I saw her very confused
expression when I asked if it was her, she swore she didn't do
it. By this point, I've been friends
(30:35):
with her for three or four yearsand I knew when she was lying.
I knew she was serious and I wasfreaked out to say the least.
Now, this last experience is theone I'm recounting in this post,
and it's by far the most bizarrething that's ever happened to
me. I still can't explain it to this
(30:55):
day. Courtney and I had agreed to
have yet another sleepover. This time though, her little
sisters weren't home for the weekend so we could use their
bunk beds for the night, which was the first time we've ever
done this. I should mention that around
this time we would often get boys phone numbers and message
(31:15):
them during our sleepovers. Like most teenage girls do.
We grabbed our snacks from the store and made it back to
Courtney's place. We decided to chill out for a
bit in her sister's room since that's where we would be
spending the night. We were both sitting on the
bottom bunk when we got a message on Courtney's phone from
an unknown number that simply said hey.
(31:38):
We looked at each other confusedand asked who's this?
The reply was the same who is this?
At first we assumed it was a boyor someone from our school
trying to mess with us but the messages started getting
stranger. They started saying things like
(31:59):
I know you, and again, we assumed it was someone messing
with us. We played along, amused, and
replied, OK, if you know me, what's my name?
The reply came back Courtney. At this point we didn't think it
was that strange. Maybe it was someone who knew
(32:19):
us. But then it got creepier.
The text started saying things like I see you and I can see you
right now. We got a little freaked out, but
we continued playing along thinking it was still a prank.
Courtney replied. If you can see me, then what am
(32:41):
I doing right now? The response?
Sitting on your sister's bed. That's when our blood ran cold.
How We both looked out the window to see if we could spot
anyone, but we saw nothing. We decided to shut the curtains
just in case. The messages kept getting
(33:03):
creepier, saying things like I know everything about you.
At this point we were getting really freaked out.
We decided to ask something no one would know, something
Courtney did not tell people just to rule out the possibility
of a prank. No one knew her middle name and
(33:25):
that's when she asked, what's mymiddle name?
The reply? CBN.
We were confused for a moment until my blood ran cold again.
Those were Courtney's initials, her first, middle and last name.
I remember we asked the number where are you?
(33:48):
It replied in the walls, which freaked us out even more.
There were other creepy things the messages said, but those are
the details I remember most vividly.
We were pretty freaked out at this point, so we began cross
checking all the numbers I had in my phone against this one
texting Courtney. After a while, we found a match.
(34:13):
It was Courtney's own phone number sending the messages.
We checked a dozen times just tomake sure we weren't going
crazy, but it was definitely hernumber.
The messages stopped after aboutan hour and it began responding
the way it normally does when you text your own number.
We sent hi and got a reply Hi wesent how are you and got the
(34:40):
reply how are you and so on. I have tried to search online to
see if anyone has had an experience like this but I have
found nothing. All I have come across is stuff
about people being able to hack your own number and send
messages from it, but even then you usually get spam text about
(35:00):
bills or someone has used your credit card.
And even if it was some weird hacker, how did they know where
we were, what we were wearing, and everything else about us?
The whole thing was just incredibly creepy.
I'm still searching for an explanation.
(35:31):
To provide some context, I was in my senior year of college.
It was a bit stressful all around.
In order to make some extra cashto fund my thesis project, I
decided to pick up a job at a nationwide retailer that sold
scented products, shower gels, candles, lotions, etcetera.
What was nice about this job wasthat I was able to quickly move
(35:54):
up from sales associates to key holder, essentially a manager on
duty within the year. This story takes place shortly
after that promotion. Another thing to note is that
the mall where I worked was an outdoor mall.
In order for employees to run trash or shipments, every store
had a back door that led to a private hallway which then led
(36:17):
to the outside. This way we didn't have to worry
about customers and it provided a quick path to wherever we
needed to go. So with that in mind, this was
one of the first nights I was not only in charge of the store
as the manager on duty, but I also had to close up, including
balancing the tills, preparing the store for tomorrow,
(36:39):
etcetera. My other closer had left at 9:30
PM and I was finishing up balancing the tills, checking
all the numbers and counting thecash since we were closed and
the doors were locked. I have my own music playing
softly from my phone because ourstereo system had broken earlier
that day. As I was walking back with the
(37:00):
money from the till to the safe,I began to hear a banging sound
coming from our back door, the one that only employees use,
which customers don't know about.
At first I figured it was someone from another store
probably trying to get in after closing time.
I thought that they would stop once they saw the label on the
door indicating it was our storeand not theirs.
(37:25):
Nope. The banging kept going for a
good 5 minutes. At first I didn't think much of
it, but when I looked through the peephole, I saw nothing.
And yet the banging continued. Then I started hearing a voice
from the other side of the door.Let me in, let me in.
(37:47):
It grew more and more annoyed with each repetition.
Since I was the only one in the store and I knew for sure it
wasn't the Co worker who had closed, I began to do what any
21 year old would do Panic. Should I call my store manager?
It was 10:00 PM at night and sheworked the day shift.
She was probably already in bed.Should I call the assistant
(38:10):
store manager? Unlikely.
She wasn't fond of me, and I doubted that she would answer.
Should I call the store supervisor, A friend of mine?
Yes. So I gave her a call, praying
that she would pick up. She didn't.
I called her two more times, hoping she would answer, but
(38:33):
nothing. I realized I still had to finish
any remaining closing duties, leave, lock the store, and walk
outside in the dark to my car inthe Kohl's parking lot.
About a 5 minute walk. Normally I wouldn't have cared,
but not tonight. When the banging finally
(38:53):
stopped, I poked my head out theback door to find no one.
Nobody was there. I started to wonder if all the
stress from college had been messing with my mind.
Since the person hadn't gotten into the store and I wasn't hurt
and it seemed like he was gone, I figured calling the cops
(39:13):
wouldn't do much. I did however call security to
ask for an escort to my car thatnight which was a bit of a
relief. Fast forward to the next day,
I'm telling my Co workers about my creepy closing the previous
night and we are all speculatingabout what it could have been.
Homeless person, drunk guy, etcetera.
(39:37):
Just then a man in a repairman type uniform walks into our
store asking for our boss. I go to get her and he proceeds
to tell her that he's here to fix our stereo.
Great. He also mentions off hand that
he tried to stop by the day before but he couldn't get in.
At first I thought oh that makessense, he wanted to fix it while
(40:00):
the store was closed and there were no customers so nothing
could be disturbed. But here's the thing, I had
worked the previous day. I never saw anyone come by to
fix anything. And the man talking to us that
day had a completely different voice from the guy I heard in
the back hallway last night, so there's no way it could have
(40:22):
been him trying to fix the stereo the day before.
He said that he was the only onescheduled to work on our store
so it wasn't like it was a Co worker of his.
That's when it hit me who was trying to get into my store last
night. I never did find out.
(40:55):
My family is from the rural townships of Ayrshire in western
Scotland. My grandfather moved his family
to Ontario, Canada in the mid 1960s when my mother was only a
baby. I was born and raised here, and
my mother often took my brother and me to visit our family
overseas to enjoy the ancient landscapes and rugged coastlines
(41:15):
of our ancestral lands that our family had been immersed in for
centuries, if not millennia. I fell in love with the whole
thing, the folklore, the old traditions, the cultural
differences and the connection to familial history that we
lacked back home. I had been brought up alongside
folk tales and retellings of oldkings, fairies and spirits
(41:38):
roaming the desolate fields and peat bogs of my ancestral
homelands from a young age. For the most part, I took
comfort in it. The far fetched and fantastical
mythology in familiar settings echoed a connection to a
timeless past that I've always found to be something of a
powerful emotional bond, something I could always count
(42:01):
on in my darkest hours and my fondest daydreams.
I always had a pretty wild imagination at the best of
times. I was prone to all sorts of
bursts of creative inspiration, music, drawing, painting and
making up little games in my head.
At the worst of times, I could be plagued with nightmares and
(42:23):
anxieties about waking life. I was afraid of the hazards of
the outside world, seen or unseen.
What could go wrong? What I didn't know, and in
particular, especially as the light scattered in the dimming
of twilight and LED into the dead of night, I was.
Afraid of ghosts? In a sense, I did it to myself.
(42:48):
I really enjoyed ghost stories, folk tales, and the like.
Anything old really. But with my overactive
imagination, such a young and fearful demeanor, I would
frequently spook myself. I often found myself dreading
the turning of a dark corner at night, or feeling as though I
was being watched through the cracks of the blinds that didn't
(43:11):
quite cover my windows. At night.
Before bed, I would watch television programs about ghost
stories and unexplainable accounts of all manner of
paranormal activities. Of course, being from the
background, I was, my favorite stories were about old
buildings, castles, and the hidden catacombs of Britain and
(43:34):
Europe. Anything that seemed outlandish
was right at home amidst the late night glow of the box TV in
the living room while I sat there snacking until the very
last minute I could get away with before being ushered up to
my room to go to sleep. Most nights were pretty
uneventful for me, but I've always been the sort of person
(43:54):
to wake up in the dead of night around 2:30 to 4:00 AM for
whatever reason, and usually I was able to drift off back to
sleep with relative ease. Whenever this happened.
On occasion I would wake up to afeeling of being watched, which
usually preceded a sense of dread or doom.
(44:14):
Like I was lying in bed, ever exposed to some sort of
inevitable terror, hidden just behind the closet door or on the
other side of the window, peering in through the cracks of
my blinds, or worse yet, right behind my back as I lay still on
my belly, shrouded by a thin blanket that somehow kept me
(44:36):
safe from harm. One summer, when I was 11 or 12,
I woke up in the middle of the night during a sweltering heat
wave. The hum of the air conditioner
loudly worked away through the humid and sticky July air, a
common sound at this hour, cut only by the odd flyby of
squeaking bats over the high treetops in the woods across
(44:59):
from my house. But when I awoke, I became aware
of absolute silence in my immediate surroundings.
No sound of crickets, no bat screeching, no rise and fall of
my family's breathing. The air conditioner had stopped.
I didn't think much of this at 1st, and for a while I just sat
(45:20):
in the silence and looked aroundmy room in an almost peaceful
state. For about 20 minutes I sat still
in the silence, just awake in thought.
The sort of liminal headspace where you aren't really thinking
about anything, but your mind istuned in and active nonetheless.
I began to think it was a littletoo quiet, almost like it was
(45:44):
unnatural. I tried to brush the feeling
off, but as I started to notice how out of place the lack of
sound was, I began to feel a building sense of dread, like it
was permeating my room through the walls.
At first it was only slight, as if I were just starting to spook
myself with my mind wandering, but eventually it became
(46:08):
uncomfortable. Off in the distance I heard some
sort of high pitched hum, but even from my upstairs bedroom I
could tell that it wasn't comingfrom the air conditioning units
or from anywhere on the property.
It seems to be coming from the other side of the empty field
that sat across the road betweenus and the forest.
(46:30):
I couldn't tell what it was, only where it was coming from.
It almost sounded like the whining cry of a horse, faint
and muted by the distance. It would start and fade back
into silence, then return again.I told myself it was just some
animal, maybe a screech owl or something I hadn't heard before.
(46:53):
As I listened, the sound became more frequent, and every time it
rang out over the hills, cuttingthrough the silence, it seems to
be getting louder, as if it weregetting closer.
The ongoing sense of dread surrounding me intensified
tenfold each time the sound got louder and more frequent.
(47:14):
As the pitch gained in volume and frequency, I noticed the
unmistakable sound of hooves trotting up to the house as if
on some cobblestone Rd. Old and unseen.
They slowly clip clopped up to what I perceived as the front of
our lot and seems to make their way up the driveway.
(47:35):
By this time the sound had become almost uniform and was no
longer coming and going. It ceased to be unknown to my
young mind and now sounded undeniably like the wailing of a
woman. Whoever it was sounded as if
they were coming right up to my window.
I could hear the breath of a stationary horse positioned
(47:56):
directly under my window, down where the driveway met the gates
to our side yard. I was absolutely petrified.
I shut my eyes almost immediately and rolled over
quickly, curling up and huddlingunderneath my bed sheets until
it was all over. It seemed like ages, but the
(48:18):
woman eventually stopped shrieking, but I didn't hear
anybody leave. I was still so scared, and I was
more afraid than I've ever been even to just move lest it be
some fatal miscalculation on my part.
The sense of dread was still there, but things seemed to
(48:38):
lessen to some degree. It wasn't so pervasive, and I no
longer felt my world was coming apart at it seems, but still, as
I lay curled up in the safe shroud of my thin bed sheets in
the summer heat, I could hear her.
At this point she seems to be murmuring softly crying from
(49:00):
down under my window. Curiosity eventually got the
better of me, and looking back, that same curiosity could very
well be the death of me one day.With care, I slowly swung myself
out of bed and softly crept low up to the window, peering out
from just above the sill to see down into the side yard where
(49:22):
our kitchen lights shone out onto the path and the gate that
led to the driveway. Down on the other side of the
gate, I could see the faint outline of a shrouded woman,
head bowed down, sobbing into her hands.
She was indeed atop a large Black Horse, and though I could
only see her silhouette, I couldtell she was wearing some sort
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of thin veil around her head anda laced overcoat or cloak.
Go away. I stammered out, terrified and
all the more surprised at my stupid choice to utter something
more than a staggered breath. Her sobbing immediately ceased
and I drew back away from the window, low back onto the floor,
(50:10):
afraid of what that might mean. I didn't hear anything at all
after this point. The gloomy feeling of dread was
still there. I almost jumped into my bed, and
I'm not sure how I did so without making so much as a
sound. Maybe she had some effect on
sound, I'm still not sure, even years later.
(50:32):
I lay stiff as a board with my head on my chest and my arms
over my head, eyes shut tightly,holding my breath, hoping that
she would just go. The sense of doom was so intense
by this point that if I thought it was unbearable before, now it
was almost hellish. She was watching me, I just knew
(50:55):
it. I don't know how, but she was.
After what felt like either a lifetime or 10 seconds, the
feeling lessened again and I could hear the soft sound of
hooves slowly heading away down the driveway into the distance.
But as I turned around to check,I looked over at my window to
(51:15):
see two bright and glowing eyes,blood red and shining with some
ungodly light, peering through the blinds and into my own eyes.
Locked gaze to gaze with something not of this world.
I couldn't move a muscle. My window was on the second
story. At this point I didn't know what
(51:36):
was happening and I was convinced this would be the last
thing I would see. As I lay there helpless, locked
eye to eye with this fiend, she began to shriek and howl at an
ungodly volume that seemed to take up every corner of my
bedroom and every inch of my soul.
(51:57):
As the dread intensified with the volume of the relentless
screaming and howling, the woman's jaw began to unhinge and
her sallow face contorted under the cover of her thin veil.
I started to black out and the last thing I remember about it
was her wrathful, hollow eyes. As the sound began to fade into
(52:19):
obscurity and I lost consciousness, I woke up to the
sun beaming through my windows, which my parents would often
open when they woke up to get usall up and keep us from sleeping
in. The sound of people mowing their
lawns outside the cicadas and the trees and the familiar buzz
of the air conditioning unit were all back and it was as if
(52:43):
nothing had even happened. The events of that night have a
huge effect on me as a child andeven today, decades later, it
still creeps me out to think about.
I never really did get an answeras to what happened or what I
saw, but in the days following Iconvinced myself that I had come
(53:04):
face to face with a banshee. I have since developed more of
an interest encrypted encountersand folklore from around the
world, digging up all sorts of accounts of otherworldly beings,
fairies, demons and the like. Fairly recently I started
revisiting some of my Scottish heritage and found something
(53:27):
within the folklore that matcheswhat I had seen to a pretty high
degree. With almost absolute certainty.
I'm convinced that what I saw was something called a kunyag.
It couldn't have been a traditional banshee.
According to folklore, only certain Irish families are
(53:47):
associated with the banshee, andafter all, nobody in my family
died or even came close to death.
And I'm obviously still here. However close the kunyag is to
the banshee, there are some key differences.
And the most common distinction is this.
Banshees aren't actually there to torment you.
(54:10):
You can even talk to them by most folkloric accounts, and
they will often respond with some message about a loved one
who is in danger or somebody youknow who has passed away.
Do not talk to the kun yag. My grandma was a simple woman, a
(54:43):
firm yet kind mother, a nurturing gardener, a passionate
Baker, and above all, a devout Christian.
Her identity revolved entirely around her faith.
Even her sense of humor was so plain that the plainness itself
was what made her funny. We had all had our quarrels with
(55:03):
her over staunch religiousness, but beneath it all we knew she
cared so much. She just couldn't bear the
thought of our poor souls being damned.
That was the world she lived in.But she was a loving grandma.
When I was young and sleeping ather house, I often was too
scared to sleep alone. I would come to her bed and tell
(55:25):
her that I was too scared. I was always terrified of being
alone in the dark. She had this Bible verse she
would sing Do not fear for I am with you Isaiah 4110.
She would wag her finger before tapping my heart to relay that
God would always be with me. Thanks a lot Grandma.
(55:49):
She would always sing Bible verses to us instead of sharing
her own thoughts. This one stuck with me though,
whether it actually made me feelbetter or I just realized that
was all grandma was going to do when I came to her.
Scared, I always went back to bed and eventually fell asleep.
Sadly, when I was 16 she passed away.
(56:12):
After the funeral, my extended family gathered at her house for
a long get together since we hardly saw each other.
Being one of the oldest kids, I found my place entertaining my
younger cousins, some of whom I had only seen a few times in my
life. We decided to play hide and
seek, and after being the designated seeker 5 or so times,
(56:34):
I said that it was their turn tofind me.
I snuck into her basement, whichwas cluttered with things she
had kept over the years. There was a bed frame and
mattress springs leaning againstone of the walls with various
frames, paintings, and other items stuffed between and around
it, so I crawled underneath it. It was dusty and filled with
(56:56):
cobwebs, but I knew the kids wouldn't find me so easily.
The basement had one light and it was underground with no
windows. No one really came down here
other than to grab a soda or icecream from the extra
refrigerator. So there I am, hiding in old
cobwebs, hearing my little cousins stomp around looking for
(57:18):
me. They came down to the basement
to look around and then speed off somewhere else.
After a while I started to move out a little and the bed frame
shifted, pinning me against the concrete wall a bit.
I start working my way out, but my feet are stuck in an awkward
position that I can't do anything about.
(57:39):
Just when I'm halfway emerged, someone opens the door and I
realized the kids have now foundme and the game's over.
Oh well, I'm ready to come out anyway, I think.
But then the light goes out and the door shuts.
One of the grown-ups must have figured the kids were finished
playing in the basement and didn't want them down there
(58:01):
anymore, so they turned off the light and shut the door.
Now it's pitch black. I am cramped against this wall.
I am not OK with this. I start struggling to move out
of the way and panic starts to set in.
I shout, Hey, I'm down here, butno one can hear me.
(58:23):
It was only probably 10 seconds of panicking in the darkness and
then I heard it. Do not fear, for I am with you.
Isaiah 4110. My blood freezes, I can't
breathe. I know what I heard, and I know
(58:43):
whose voice I heard it. I stood in absolute bewilderment
with the lower half of my body still pinned under the bed
frame. Grandma.
Silence. Only the silence that follows
after you hear the words of yourdead grandma while you're
trapped in the pitch black room blares in your head.
(59:06):
Alarm bells ringing. I panic.
I start shouting and shoving my way through the debris when
suddenly the door opens and the light flips on.
Little careful footsteps inch down the stairs.
Found you. It was one of the littlest of my
cousins, my niece Sarah, only about four or five years old.
(59:27):
Sweating, I relent. Oh.
God, you sure did great job, nowlet's get out of here.
I start up the stairs, but she'sat the bottom.
Staring into the cluttered room.I admit I was eager to forget
what had just happened down there, but as if that were ever
possible, it was about to be firmly cemented into my memory.
(59:49):
Come on Sarah, let's go upstairs.
I said in my best sweet uncle voice, still looking into the
dark corner of the basement. She started waving her hand.
Bye bye. I love you too, grandma.
My breath was pulled from my lungs, the hair on the back of
my neck stood on end, and littleSarah just carefully crawled
(01:00:13):
back up the stairs on all fours like kids do.
I took a moment, drew in one last breath of the dusty
basement air and said. Goodbye Grandma.
Before I followed her up the stairs.
Since then, I've wondered why only little Sarah came down to
(01:00:34):
get me and no one followed her. I've theorized maybe Grandma LED
her into the basement. I could have hurt myself in the
dark down there. I think Grandma would have been
worried. It's funny, that Bible verse
used to be what she would tell me so I wouldn't be scared, and
(01:00:55):
it ended up being the single most terrifying thing that I've
ever heard. Well, thanks for trying Grandma,
I love you too. Yeah.
(01:17:27):
Yeah. Yeah.
(01:23:19):
Yeah. Yeah.
(01:25:06):
Yeah. Yeah.
Hey, welcome to Scary Stories and Rain.
I really hope you enjoyed this episode.
And don't forget you can subscribe to this podcast for
just 299 a month. You can get rid of all of the
irritating ads and be automatically entered to win a
Nintendo Switch to Mario Kart bundle.
Only 299 a month, no more ads. I have all the info you need in
(00:21):
the description to this episode.And one last thing, thank you so
much for being here. I really hope you enjoy.
During the summer of 2012, IA 9 year old boy was playing with my
friends at my local park. Being young and oblivious, I
(00:42):
didn't really notice anything unusual at first.
I kept playing until I noticed my best friend, who was one year
older than me and someone I looked up to staring at the tree
line with a pale wide eyed look of sheer terror.
He couldn't tear his gaze away from it, curious and fearful
about what could have caused such an intense reaction from
(01:04):
someone I knew to be so fearless.
I followed his eyes and tried tocatch his gaze.
As I looked over at the tree line, I slowly began to see a
woman. Her features were hard to make
out as the sun was shining directly behind the trees,
blinding me. But even with that, I could see
the way she was standing was surreal.
(01:26):
Her feet were crouched on the ground and she had her hands
pressed against her eyebrows like she was trying to make
binoculars with her hands. Peculiar as it was, my friend
and I decided to brush it off and continue playing.
At our young ages, we weren't really aware of the dangers of
the world, and we're more focused on enjoying our time
(01:47):
together before summer ended. A few hours later, around 10 or
11 PMI was lying in my bed when I heard an eerie sound coming
from my window. It wasn't the usual scraping
sound of keys on glass, but rather something like sharp
nails dragging back and forth across the window pane.
(02:08):
To understand how strange this was, you need to know that my
room was on the 2nd floor and mywindow was positioned high up
about 16 to 18 feet off the ground.
It was not a low hanging window,it was placed at the top of the
room to my right. So when I decided to push past
my fear and investigate the sound, I stood on top of my bed
(02:32):
and peeked out the window. To my absolute horror, I saw the
same woman from the park. Even though I hadn't had a
chance to get a good look at herfeatures before, it was
unmistakably her. Her unique posture and physique
made it clear she was gripping my window sill with her hands,
her cold dead eyes staring directly at me.
(02:55):
We locked eyes for what felt like 5 minutes, but in reality
it was probably only 5 seconds. Then, to my horror, the woman
broke the silence by scraping the window, not with her nails,
but by opening her mouth so wideI could see the back of her
throat. She then pressed her teeth to
(03:16):
the window pane and bit down as if trying to chew through it.
At that moment, to my absolute shock, the woman began to bang
her head against the glass over and over again.
That was all I needed to snap meout of my frozen terror.
I bolted out of my room and ran straight to my parents room.
(03:37):
As soon as I told my dad what I had seen, he sprang out of bed
grabbed a weapon from his night stand while my mom called the
police. My parents and I waited
anxiously for the police, and after what felt like an
eternity, they finally arrived. They searched the house and
found nothing except for the broken glass on the floor of my
(03:59):
bedroom. They were as confused as we
were. There were no traces of how
anyone could have climbed that high, and no footprints or
evidence were found anywhere around the house.
After that, my parents didn't allow me outside without a
guardian. Security cameras and an electric
(04:20):
fence were installed around our property.
To this day, my only question ishow could have someone climbed
that high and left no evidence whatsoever in?
Such a short. Span of time.
(04:47):
This story happened over the summer.
I had started seeing this guy I met through mutual friends and
we had been hitting it off for awhile.
I won't say exactly where for privacy, but one of our first
dates was a late night drive to a popular lake area in the
Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado.The first night we went we
enjoyed some green and spent time chatting under the
(05:10):
moonlight. A night full of romance,
conversation, and a little bit of passion.
After we left and went back to my place to watch Hulu.
He and I both have busy schedules, but we had another
whirlwind date to the same area about 3 weeks later.
The moon wasn't quite full, but that didn't stop us from
(05:31):
enjoying each other's company. Now for a bit of layout of the
land. This lake and park area has two
places where folks can park vehicles, one where you can pay
a sum of money to park while youenjoy the lake, or a dirt track
where folks usually go hiking. We were parked in my car on this
dirt lot trail both times. The second time we pulled up,
(05:53):
there was another car parked there.
It was past midnight and we assumed that whoever was in the
other car was likely doing what we were as well as what we were
about to start doing. We got out, smoked a little, and
even though I was having a good time, something felt off.
You know that feeling that someone's watching you?
(06:17):
Amplify that by 5 and that's what I was feeling.
I figured it was a mixture of exhaustion and a few hits off
the joint made me feel a little jumpy, so I didn't pay much
attention to that feeling, but Idid keep in mind to be aware of
my surroundings. After smoking, we climbed into
my backseat and started cuddlingand kissing.
(06:38):
I had the car running with the headlights on and just because I
was feeling a little anxious, I have the doors locked too.
As my date and I started gettinga little hot and heavy.
He began to lay me down on my back in the passenger seat as
our lips broke apart for a second.
I glanced out the windshield quickly and my blood ran cold.
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I saw something dark behind a tree that was lit by my
headlights. I froze for a second and after a
pause, I saw something that has been seared in my mind
permanently. There was a shirtless old man
wearing torn up overalls with a scraggly beard peeking out from
behind that tree, almost like a kid peeking around a corner
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during a game of hide and seek. It was almost as if he knew I
saw him because he quickly darted back behind the tree, but
I could still see the side of his leg from where I was
positioned. My date was still kissing my
neck and his head began to move back to my lips but I stopped
him and whispered, trying to remain as calm as possible with
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the adrenaline rushing through me.
I wish I was making this up, butwe have to go right now.
There's a man behind that tree right there.
I motioned slowly with my head to where I had seen the man.
I don't know how long he's been there, I don't want to find out.
My date quickly darted his head to the side and whisper shouted.
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No way. I instructed him to follow my
lead since we had locked the car.
I didn't want to exit the vehicle after seeing what I had
seen. As carefully as I could, I sort
of spider crawled over to my center console and settled into
the seat. My date followed suit,
accidentally bumping my head with his knee in the process.
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I began the process of trying toget the car out of that bumpy
dirt lot as quickly as possible without bottoming out the car.
I white knuckled the steering wheel for the five mile drive
back into town. As soon as I was far enough away
to finally process what had happened, I became nauseous from
the fear. I also began to shake and my
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date, being the absolute gentleman he is, calmly asked me
to pull over so that he could drive us back to my place
safely. As soon as we entered the doors
of my home, we began to debrief on what we possibly saw.
At first, I thought of the firstlogical explanation.
The other car that was there. Maybe the owner had to step out
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to relieve himself or something.But this was past midnight in
Colorado in the mountains. Despite it being summer, those
mountains still get pretty chilly at night.
And it was definitely cold. Why would he be shirtless?
And why did he dart behind the tree only to peek out and watch
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for as long as he did and then dart back behind it?
Was he watching us? Who was he?
My date from that night and I have still been going pretty
steady and we still try to figure out what it possibly
could have been even three months later.
If you're going for late night drives where you park, please
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make sure you never go alone. Make sure someone has your
location. And always, and I really do mean
always, be aware of your surroundings.
I have lived in Colorado for themajority of my life,
encountering bears, mountain lions, and coyotes.
Heck, I was even chased by a bull when I was a teenager.
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But none of those encounters compare to the sheer terror I
felt seeing that man after midnight.
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Around the ages of 12 and 14, I would often sleep in my older
brother's room. I would set up my blanket and
pillow on the floor next to his bed and we would talk about
dreams and nightmares we had had, fictitious scenarios, and
other random topics that I have no recollection of now.
But after the conversation and laughter would end, I had to
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deal with the part I dreaded most about sleeping in his room.
The awful silence in the oppressive darkness all around
me. I could have sworn I would
experience something paranormal almost every night in that room.
Whether it was lingering shadowsthat I may have very well been
imagining, strange noises, or the time I felt an all too real
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sensation of something gripping my blanket.
That happened while we were still awake, and I remember
rushing my brother to turn the light on while I lay there in
absolute terror. However, in typical paranormal
fashion, nothing was there. But this one experience I had in
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that room still freaks me out tothis day.
One day, as I usually did, I decided to sleep in his room.
The only thing I did differentlythat night was set up my
sleeping space on his recliner. We talked for a few hours past
midnight and finally we fell asleep.
Or rather, he fell asleep. To tell the truth, I was stuck
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in my usual state of impending doom, but this time I think my
fear was justified. While I lay there reclined with
my arms on the armrests, trying my hardest to fall asleep, I
heard the worst thing my youngerself could ever hear, scratching
on the back of the chair. My eyes immediately darted to my
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brother's bed, wanting to call out to him for help, to get
whatever this thing was behind the chair to leave, but nothing
came out of my mouth. I lay there motionless and
unable to speak, my heart pounding so hard that I could
feel it in my wrists. The scratching persisted, slow
and sinister. My young mind imagined A
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horrifying dark creature with grey hands and long black
fingernails crouched behind the chair, purposely trying to scare
me. But another, more logical part
of my mind wondered if it was possibly a rat or some fabric in
the back of the chair ripping. But none of that made sense.
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The scratching was too slow and controlled to be an animal or
something tearing. I ended up not saying anything
and just waited for the scratching to stop.
Eventually after what seemed like forever, it did.
But I knew better than to stay in that awful room straight out
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of a horror film so I went back to my room.
When I told everyone about the incident in the morning I got a
bunch of comments like that's creepy or that's weird until it
was brushed off. My brother never minded hearing
things in his room. One time he heard an object fall
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off his window sill in the middle of the night and instead
of getting freaked out like a normal person, he just thought
or whatever and went back to sleep.
Now, I am not that type of person.
Every paranormal experience I'vehad in that house is probably
going to stay ingrained in my mind for the rest of my life.
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Walking to your mailbox to get the mail and mowing your lawn
are normal, trivial tasks that no one thinks much about.
But when someone is watching youdo those things, it's a
different story. For as long as my dad could
remember living there, every time he went outside to cut the
grass or do any other task, she would be watching him from
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across the street in the scorching Texas heat.
Out there in her nightgown, no shade, no drink, just sitting
there. Her borderline emaciated figure
and lack of expression stood outas concerning to my dad, and
most times when he saw her, he would wave, but she never waved
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back. My mom said that when she would
wave at the old woman, it would be returned, but for some reason
she never acknowledged my dad. One day while my dad was sitting
on the porch having a drink withhis friend, the woman was there,
quiet and motionless. A guy who lived with her
returned home from work and was assumed to be her son.
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Tom parked his car in the driveway, got out and walked
right past her. What a jerk, my dad thought.
He didn't even say hi to her or offered to bring her a drink or
help her inside. He and his friend continued
their conversation and about 10 minutes later, Tom walked back
outside. Hey man, do you want a beer?
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My dad called out. He knew Tom and though he was
frustrated with his actions or lack thereof toward his mother,
he thought he would invite him over and possibly ask him about
her. Tom said yes and walked across
the street to join them. After they chatted and got
comfortable, my dad decided to bring it up.
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Is that your mom who sits in thechair outside?
Tom looked confused. What do you mean the old woman
who sits in that chair every day?
My dad said, waiting for him to catch on.
But he didn't. My dad then went on to describe
her appearance and informed Tom that he had been seeing her
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daily. It was difficult to tell whether
Tom was shocked. Sad or scared, he then went on
to tell my dad that his mom had passed away a few years ago and
used to live in that house. The chair my dad said he saw her
sitting in was her favorite chair.
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Tom brought my dad across the street to tell his girlfriend
about what he had seen and she was equally baffled.
But it gave them comfort knowingthat their mother was still
there with them. Ghosts and demons weren't of any
interest to my dad back in the day.
He never believed in them. He thought any sightings of
ghosts could be explained by logic and reason, and that the
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people telling the stories were just straight up lying, probably
for attention. But this was one of the
experiences that made him question what he believed and
ponder the possibility of the spiritual realm of good and
evil. I've had nightmares for as long
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as I can remember. It started with recurring dreams
about friendly childhood figureslike Snuffleupagus chasing me
and devouring me, and progressedto more realistic scenarios such
as being shot as I got older. I'm not bothered by my
nightmares anymore. I have unfortunately grown quite
accustomed to them. However, there is one nightmare
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that has stuck with me for years, and it was unlike any
other scary dream I've had. Let me preface this by saying I
had recently visited the Museum of Shadows, a museum near my
hometown that showcases supposedly haunted artifacts
from around the world. I consider myself a bit of a
skeptic when it comes to ghosts,but I don't limit myself to what
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could possibly exist and what could not.
Growing up in a religious household, I was raised in a
family that strongly believed indemons and possession.
I still admittedly believe in such things, which may have
influenced the experience I'm about to tell you, but I still
don't know if it was purely psychological.
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In the museum, there's a basement filled with demonic
objects, items that allegedly contain spirits that have harmed
people. Being someone who loves thrills,
I excitedly explored this section, reading the stories and
seeing the things that supposedly caused so much harm
that a jar of holy water is keptat the entrance to bless those
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who enter and protect them. I had rented one of those ghost
detectors that beeps when there's a fluctuation in energy,
which is often associated with ghosts.
I wasn't getting any response from my device, and when I did
it was usually because I was pointing it at spots where
electrical wires ran. However, when I stood in the
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center of the basement, where nowalls or electrical wires were
present, I suddenly got a large response from the ghost
detector. I looked around to see what
could be causing it, holding thedevice up, down, and side to
side, checking for possible energy fluctuations.
I was then surrounded by a cold air that gave me goosebumps.
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I looked up expecting to see an air vent, but there was none.
I stepped out of this one spot and immediately felt fine.
Experimentally, I held my hand out to see if the cold was
contained to that spot, and to my surprise, it was.
I looked down at the ground and suddenly noticed that the spot I
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was standing on was marked with an X in duct tape.
After finishing up my museum experience, I decided to ask the
curator about the X on the floorto see what it meant.
Oh. She said this building is very
old, there might have been some tragic incidents long before we
moved in here. We mark areas like that to show
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where someone has died accordingto the history of the building.
I was in disbelief and a bit shocked.
I did feel like it was a gimmickand I was unamused by this fact.
I thanked the curator for her explanation and left.
That night, as I was about to sleep, I started thinking about
my experience again. Had I really encountered a
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ghost? A demon?
Or was it all circumstantial andpsychological?
I slept on it, trying to ignore the unease I felt.
When I finally fell asleep, I woke up in my dark room.
Confused, I looked around, wondering why the night had felt
so short. As a lucid dreamer, I preferred
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my usual checks around the room to see if there were any
abnormalities that could confirmwhether I was asleep or not.
While I was performing my look around, I felt a shift on the
side of my bed, like a sudden pressure being applied.
I snapped my head to the side and there, crouching by my bed
was a decrepit lady. Her Bony hands were pressing
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into my mattress. Her eyes were large and pure
white, her mouth locked in a grotesque grin with missing
teeth. Her hair was dark, scraggly and
falling out. Her skin was wrinkled, almost
corpse like, and devoid of color.
She knelt beside me, frozen in place, her hollow eyes seemingly
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staring right through me. Count my fingers.
She croaked in a voice that was a strange mix of a whisper and a
groan. Terrified and confused, I looked
down at her fingers. Against my will, my index finger
began to touch each one of her cold, skeletal fingers, and I
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counted aloud how many she had. 123, but she didn't have 10
fingers. Three.
I said, my voice shaky. You have three fingers.
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With alarming speed, she whippedher hands behind her, hiding
them from view before rapidly returning them to the bed.
This time, more fingers were placed on the mattress, but not
all of them were hers. Some of the fingers looked like
they had been taken from anotherperson's body.
I couldn't tell. I started counting again. 1234.
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In the corner of my vision, I saw her pluck one of the fingers
off the bed and hide it behind her back, as if to trick me.
I said nothing and continued counting 567, including the one
she had hidden behind her back without touching it.
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Her face twisted into a horrifying frown, her mouth
opening wide, and she moved again, hiding her hands as she
shifted her fingers around. Then she placed a large sum of
fingers on the bed. Her grin returned.
Count my fingers. She rasped.
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I started counting again, but now she was removing fingers
left and right, trying to get meto mess up just once.
I still have no clue what her plan was or who or what she is,
and I have no idea what would happen if I miscounted. 131415I
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paused as I went to place my finger on the 16th finger.
She pulled it away before I could touch it.
Out of sheer panic. I blurted 17.
I said the wrong number. Her eyes widened with a hunger
that reminded me of a starving man looking at a hot meal.
Her grin stretched wider, if that was even possible.
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Slowly, she lowered herself froma crouching position until she
was no longer visible, all the while maintaining direct eye
contact with me. I jolted up wide eyed, looking
around my room. I heard skittering noises.
It was pitch black and I couldn't see anything.
My hands fumble around the nightstand as I grabbed the Xbox
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controller I kept there in case I needed to throw something.
It felt solid, real in my hands,too real to be a dream.
Suddenly, I felt her jump out onto the foot of my bed.
She began crawling toward me at a terrifying pace.
I was then startled awake, sitting up as fast as I could.
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My room was dark and it looked exactly the same as it had in my
nightmare. I felt insane.
There was no way that had been real.
I pinched my arm. I was for sure awake this time,
but in my left hand I still gripped the black Xbox
controller. I couldn't explain it.
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I am not someone who sleepwalks or does things like this in my
sleep. My only conclusion was that it
was a very vivid dream, but her face still haunts me and I can't
help but wonder, did a demon attach itself to me that night?
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I'm a 21 year old female and this happened when I was around
14. I wish I had sent this story in
shortly after it happened so I could remember all the details
more vividly, but I'll recount it the best I can.
My best friend at the time, Courtney, and I were very into
the world of the paranormal and all things spooky.
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We used to make Ouija boards outof paper, take them to our local
park and graveyard, and play with them frequently.
There are many stories I could tell about what happened during
those sessions, but I'll save that for another time.
Now, I am a firm believer that if you're calling out to the
spirit realm, even just in your bedroom during the daytime,
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you're always leaving a door open and anything could come
through. I think that's what happened in
our case as we used to call out to things often, not just with
the Ouija board. For some context, let me tell
you about some other things thathappened around that time.
Courtney and I would have frequent sleepovers where we
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would watch movies, eat snacks, and just hang out.
Nothing out of the ordinary would happen until we woke up in
the morning. We used to top and tail in a
single bed. For those unfamiliar with the
term, it's when two people sleepin the same bed but with their
heads on opposite ends. I have always been a super light
sleeper when sharing a bed with someone.
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This is something that has continued into my adult life, so
every little move Courtney made I could feel and it would wake
me up briefly. After we had eaten all of our
snacks and watched some movies, we would get pretty tired and
decide to call it a night. As you can imagine, we would
leave behind bowls, cups and other things that we would clean
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up in the morning, but when we woke up, everything in the room
would be in places that we hadn't left them.
I remember one time I had placedboth of my TV remotes on my desk
chair after turning the TV off and the large popcorn bowl we
had been using was on my desk along with the glasses that we
had been drinking from. But when we woke up, both TV
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remotes along with the popcorn bowl were on the bed between US
and the glasses have been moved to my bedside table.
We have both sworn to this day that neither of us moved
anything around. This happened so frequently that
it got to the point where we hadto take pictures of the room
before and after we went to sleep to see if anything had
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moved. I should mention that my house
isn't haunted, and this happenedto both at my place and at hers
when we stayed over at each other's houses.
Neither of us have ever been sleepwalkers, so the whole thing
was just bizarre. Another thing that happened
during one of our sleepovers wasthat we had just woken up in the
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morning. By this point, Courtney had been
sleeping on a mattress on the floor to give us more space.
I was lying on my bed and she was on the floor.
Suddenly I felt a very distinct single fingertip harshly poked
me on my spine. It was so hard that it made me
jolt and startle verbally. You know that feeling when
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someone comes up behind you and pokes their fingers into the
sides of your waist to tickle you?
It felt just like that. I laughed at first because I
100% assumed it was Courtney, but when I saw her very confused
expression when I asked if it was her, she swore she didn't do
it. By this point, I've been friends
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with her for three or four yearsand I knew when she was lying.
I knew she was serious and I wasfreaked out to say the least.
Now, this last experience is theone I'm recounting in this post,
and it's by far the most bizarrething that's ever happened to
me. I still can't explain it to this
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day. Courtney and I had agreed to
have yet another sleepover. This time though, her little
sisters weren't home for the weekend so we could use their
bunk beds for the night, which was the first time we've ever
done this. I should mention that around
this time we would often get boys phone numbers and message
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them during our sleepovers. Like most teenage girls do.
We grabbed our snacks from the store and made it back to
Courtney's place. We decided to chill out for a
bit in her sister's room since that's where we would be
spending the night. We were both sitting on the
bottom bunk when we got a message on Courtney's phone from
an unknown number that simply said hey.
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We looked at each other confusedand asked who's this?
The reply was the same who is this?
At first we assumed it was a boyor someone from our school
trying to mess with us but the messages started getting
stranger. They started saying things like
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I know you, and again, we assumed it was someone messing
with us. We played along, amused, and
replied, OK, if you know me, what's my name?
The reply came back Courtney. At this point we didn't think it
was that strange. Maybe it was someone who knew
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us. But then it got creepier.
The text started saying things like I see you and I can see you
right now. We got a little freaked out, but
we continued playing along thinking it was still a prank.
Courtney replied. If you can see me, then what am
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I doing right now? The response?
Sitting on your sister's bed. That's when our blood ran cold.
How We both looked out the window to see if we could spot
anyone, but we saw nothing. We decided to shut the curtains
just in case. The messages kept getting
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creepier, saying things like I know everything about you.
At this point we were getting really freaked out.
We decided to ask something no one would know, something
Courtney did not tell people just to rule out the possibility
of a prank. No one knew her middle name and
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that's when she asked, what's mymiddle name?
The reply? CBN.
We were confused for a moment until my blood ran cold again.
Those were Courtney's initials, her first, middle and last name.
I remember we asked the number where are you?
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It replied in the walls, which freaked us out even more.
There were other creepy things the messages said, but those are
the details I remember most vividly.
We were pretty freaked out at this point, so we began cross
checking all the numbers I had in my phone against this one
texting Courtney. After a while, we found a match.
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It was Courtney's own phone number sending the messages.
We checked a dozen times just tomake sure we weren't going
crazy, but it was definitely hernumber.
The messages stopped after aboutan hour and it began responding
the way it normally does when you text your own number.
We sent hi and got a reply Hi wesent how are you and got the
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reply how are you and so on. I have tried to search online to
see if anyone has had an experience like this but I have
found nothing. All I have come across is stuff
about people being able to hack your own number and send
messages from it, but even then you usually get spam text about
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bills or someone has used your credit card.
And even if it was some weird hacker, how did they know where
we were, what we were wearing, and everything else about us?
The whole thing was just incredibly creepy.
I'm still searching for an explanation.
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To provide some context, I was in my senior year of college.
It was a bit stressful all around.
In order to make some extra cashto fund my thesis project, I
decided to pick up a job at a nationwide retailer that sold
scented products, shower gels, candles, lotions, etcetera.
What was nice about this job wasthat I was able to quickly move
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up from sales associates to key holder, essentially a manager on
duty within the year. This story takes place shortly
after that promotion. Another thing to note is that
the mall where I worked was an outdoor mall.
In order for employees to run trash or shipments, every store
had a back door that led to a private hallway which then led
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to the outside. This way we didn't have to worry
about customers and it provided a quick path to wherever we
needed to go. So with that in mind, this was
one of the first nights I was not only in charge of the store
as the manager on duty, but I also had to close up, including
balancing the tills, preparing the store for tomorrow,
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etcetera. My other closer had left at 9:30
PM and I was finishing up balancing the tills, checking
all the numbers and counting thecash since we were closed and
the doors were locked. I have my own music playing
softly from my phone because ourstereo system had broken earlier
that day. As I was walking back with the
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money from the till to the safe,I began to hear a banging sound
coming from our back door, the one that only employees use,
which customers don't know about.
At first I figured it was someone from another store
probably trying to get in after closing time.
I thought that they would stop once they saw the label on the
door indicating it was our storeand not theirs.
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Nope. The banging kept going for a
good 5 minutes. At first I didn't think much of
it, but when I looked through the peephole, I saw nothing.
And yet the banging continued. Then I started hearing a voice
from the other side of the door.Let me in, let me in.
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It grew more and more annoyed with each repetition.
Since I was the only one in the store and I knew for sure it
wasn't the Co worker who had closed, I began to do what any
21 year old would do Panic. Should I call my store manager?
It was 10:00 PM at night and sheworked the day shift.
She was probably already in bed.Should I call the assistant
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store manager? Unlikely.
She wasn't fond of me, and I doubted that she would answer.
Should I call the store supervisor, A friend of mine?
Yes. So I gave her a call, praying
that she would pick up. She didn't.
I called her two more times, hoping she would answer, but
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nothing. I realized I still had to finish
any remaining closing duties, leave, lock the store, and walk
outside in the dark to my car inthe Kohl's parking lot.
About a 5 minute walk. Normally I wouldn't have cared,
but not tonight. When the banging finally
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stopped, I poked my head out theback door to find no one.
Nobody was there. I started to wonder if all the
stress from college had been messing with my mind.
Since the person hadn't gotten into the store and I wasn't hurt
and it seemed like he was gone, I figured calling the cops
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wouldn't do much. I did however call security to
ask for an escort to my car thatnight which was a bit of a
relief. Fast forward to the next day,
I'm telling my Co workers about my creepy closing the previous
night and we are all speculatingabout what it could have been.
Homeless person, drunk guy, etcetera.
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Just then a man in a repairman type uniform walks into our
store asking for our boss. I go to get her and he proceeds
to tell her that he's here to fix our stereo.
Great. He also mentions off hand that
he tried to stop by the day before but he couldn't get in.
At first I thought oh that makessense, he wanted to fix it while
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the store was closed and there were no customers so nothing
could be disturbed. But here's the thing, I had
worked the previous day. I never saw anyone come by to
fix anything. And the man talking to us that
day had a completely different voice from the guy I heard in
the back hallway last night, so there's no way it could have
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been him trying to fix the stereo the day before.
He said that he was the only onescheduled to work on our store
so it wasn't like it was a Co worker of his.
That's when it hit me who was trying to get into my store last
night. I never did find out.
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My family is from the rural townships of Ayrshire in western
Scotland. My grandfather moved his family
to Ontario, Canada in the mid 1960s when my mother was only a
baby. I was born and raised here, and
my mother often took my brother and me to visit our family
overseas to enjoy the ancient landscapes and rugged coastlines
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of our ancestral lands that our family had been immersed in for
centuries, if not millennia. I fell in love with the whole
thing, the folklore, the old traditions, the cultural
differences and the connection to familial history that we
lacked back home. I had been brought up alongside
folk tales and retellings of oldkings, fairies and spirits
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roaming the desolate fields and peat bogs of my ancestral
homelands from a young age. For the most part, I took
comfort in it. The far fetched and fantastical
mythology in familiar settings echoed a connection to a
timeless past that I've always found to be something of a
powerful emotional bond, something I could always count
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on in my darkest hours and my fondest daydreams.
I always had a pretty wild imagination at the best of
times. I was prone to all sorts of
bursts of creative inspiration, music, drawing, painting and
making up little games in my head.
At the worst of times, I could be plagued with nightmares and
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anxieties about waking life. I was afraid of the hazards of
the outside world, seen or unseen.
What could go wrong? What I didn't know, and in
particular, especially as the light scattered in the dimming
of twilight and LED into the dead of night, I was.
Afraid of ghosts? In a sense, I did it to myself.
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I really enjoyed ghost stories, folk tales, and the like.
Anything old really. But with my overactive
imagination, such a young and fearful demeanor, I would
frequently spook myself. I often found myself dreading
the turning of a dark corner at night, or feeling as though I
was being watched through the cracks of the blinds that didn't
(43:11):
quite cover my windows. At night.
Before bed, I would watch television programs about ghost
stories and unexplainable accounts of all manner of
paranormal activities. Of course, being from the
background, I was, my favorite stories were about old
buildings, castles, and the hidden catacombs of Britain and
(43:34):
Europe. Anything that seemed outlandish
was right at home amidst the late night glow of the box TV in
the living room while I sat there snacking until the very
last minute I could get away with before being ushered up to
my room to go to sleep. Most nights were pretty
uneventful for me, but I've always been the sort of person
(43:54):
to wake up in the dead of night around 2:30 to 4:00 AM for
whatever reason, and usually I was able to drift off back to
sleep with relative ease. Whenever this happened.
On occasion I would wake up to afeeling of being watched, which
usually preceded a sense of dread or doom.
(44:14):
Like I was lying in bed, ever exposed to some sort of
inevitable terror, hidden just behind the closet door or on the
other side of the window, peering in through the cracks of
my blinds, or worse yet, right behind my back as I lay still on
my belly, shrouded by a thin blanket that somehow kept me
(44:36):
safe from harm. One summer, when I was 11 or 12,
I woke up in the middle of the night during a sweltering heat
wave. The hum of the air conditioner
loudly worked away through the humid and sticky July air, a
common sound at this hour, cut only by the odd flyby of
squeaking bats over the high treetops in the woods across
(44:59):
from my house. But when I awoke, I became aware
of absolute silence in my immediate surroundings.
No sound of crickets, no bat screeching, no rise and fall of
my family's breathing. The air conditioner had stopped.
I didn't think much of this at 1st, and for a while I just sat
(45:20):
in the silence and looked aroundmy room in an almost peaceful
state. For about 20 minutes I sat still
in the silence, just awake in thought.
The sort of liminal headspace where you aren't really thinking
about anything, but your mind istuned in and active nonetheless.
I began to think it was a littletoo quiet, almost like it was
(45:44):
unnatural. I tried to brush the feeling
off, but as I started to notice how out of place the lack of
sound was, I began to feel a building sense of dread, like it
was permeating my room through the walls.
At first it was only slight, as if I were just starting to spook
myself with my mind wandering, but eventually it became
(46:08):
uncomfortable. Off in the distance I heard some
sort of high pitched hum, but even from my upstairs bedroom I
could tell that it wasn't comingfrom the air conditioning units
or from anywhere on the property.
It seems to be coming from the other side of the empty field
that sat across the road betweenus and the forest.
(46:30):
I couldn't tell what it was, only where it was coming from.
It almost sounded like the whining cry of a horse, faint
and muted by the distance. It would start and fade back
into silence, then return again.I told myself it was just some
animal, maybe a screech owl or something I hadn't heard before.
(46:53):
As I listened, the sound became more frequent, and every time it
rang out over the hills, cuttingthrough the silence, it seems to
be getting louder, as if it weregetting closer.
The ongoing sense of dread surrounding me intensified
tenfold each time the sound got louder and more frequent.
(47:14):
As the pitch gained in volume and frequency, I noticed the
unmistakable sound of hooves trotting up to the house as if
on some cobblestone Rd. Old and unseen.
They slowly clip clopped up to what I perceived as the front of
our lot and seems to make their way up the driveway.
(47:35):
By this time the sound had become almost uniform and was no
longer coming and going. It ceased to be unknown to my
young mind and now sounded undeniably like the wailing of a
woman. Whoever it was sounded as if
they were coming right up to my window.
I could hear the breath of a stationary horse positioned
(47:56):
directly under my window, down where the driveway met the gates
to our side yard. I was absolutely petrified.
I shut my eyes almost immediately and rolled over
quickly, curling up and huddlingunderneath my bed sheets until
it was all over. It seemed like ages, but the
(48:18):
woman eventually stopped shrieking, but I didn't hear
anybody leave. I was still so scared, and I was
more afraid than I've ever been even to just move lest it be
some fatal miscalculation on my part.
The sense of dread was still there, but things seemed to
(48:38):
lessen to some degree. It wasn't so pervasive, and I no
longer felt my world was coming apart at it seems, but still, as
I lay curled up in the safe shroud of my thin bed sheets in
the summer heat, I could hear her.
At this point she seems to be murmuring softly crying from
(49:00):
down under my window. Curiosity eventually got the
better of me, and looking back, that same curiosity could very
well be the death of me one day.With care, I slowly swung myself
out of bed and softly crept low up to the window, peering out
from just above the sill to see down into the side yard where
(49:22):
our kitchen lights shone out onto the path and the gate that
led to the driveway. Down on the other side of the
gate, I could see the faint outline of a shrouded woman,
head bowed down, sobbing into her hands.
She was indeed atop a large Black Horse, and though I could
only see her silhouette, I couldtell she was wearing some sort
(49:46):
of thin veil around her head anda laced overcoat or cloak.
Go away. I stammered out, terrified and
all the more surprised at my stupid choice to utter something
more than a staggered breath. Her sobbing immediately ceased
and I drew back away from the window, low back onto the floor,
(50:10):
afraid of what that might mean. I didn't hear anything at all
after this point. The gloomy feeling of dread was
still there. I almost jumped into my bed, and
I'm not sure how I did so without making so much as a
sound. Maybe she had some effect on
sound, I'm still not sure, even years later.
(50:32):
I lay stiff as a board with my head on my chest and my arms
over my head, eyes shut tightly,holding my breath, hoping that
she would just go. The sense of doom was so intense
by this point that if I thought it was unbearable before, now it
was almost hellish. She was watching me, I just knew
(50:55):
it. I don't know how, but she was.
After what felt like either a lifetime or 10 seconds, the
feeling lessened again and I could hear the soft sound of
hooves slowly heading away down the driveway into the distance.
But as I turned around to check,I looked over at my window to
(51:15):
see two bright and glowing eyes,blood red and shining with some
ungodly light, peering through the blinds and into my own eyes.
Locked gaze to gaze with something not of this world.
I couldn't move a muscle. My window was on the second
story. At this point I didn't know what
(51:36):
was happening and I was convinced this would be the last
thing I would see. As I lay there helpless, locked
eye to eye with this fiend, she began to shriek and howl at an
ungodly volume that seemed to take up every corner of my
bedroom and every inch of my soul.
(51:57):
As the dread intensified with the volume of the relentless
screaming and howling, the woman's jaw began to unhinge and
her sallow face contorted under the cover of her thin veil.
I started to black out and the last thing I remember about it
was her wrathful, hollow eyes. As the sound began to fade into
(52:19):
obscurity and I lost consciousness, I woke up to the
sun beaming through my windows, which my parents would often
open when they woke up to get usall up and keep us from sleeping
in. The sound of people mowing their
lawns outside the cicadas and the trees and the familiar buzz
of the air conditioning unit were all back and it was as if
(52:43):
nothing had even happened. The events of that night have a
huge effect on me as a child andeven today, decades later, it
still creeps me out to think about.
I never really did get an answeras to what happened or what I
saw, but in the days following Iconvinced myself that I had come
(53:04):
face to face with a banshee. I have since developed more of
an interest encrypted encountersand folklore from around the
world, digging up all sorts of accounts of otherworldly beings,
fairies, demons and the like. Fairly recently I started
revisiting some of my Scottish heritage and found something
(53:27):
within the folklore that matcheswhat I had seen to a pretty high
degree. With almost absolute certainty.
I'm convinced that what I saw was something called a kunyag.
It couldn't have been a traditional banshee.
According to folklore, only certain Irish families are
(53:47):
associated with the banshee, andafter all, nobody in my family
died or even came close to death.
And I'm obviously still here. However close the kunyag is to
the banshee, there are some key differences.
And the most common distinction is this.
Banshees aren't actually there to torment you.
(54:10):
You can even talk to them by most folkloric accounts, and
they will often respond with some message about a loved one
who is in danger or somebody youknow who has passed away.
Do not talk to the kun yag. My grandma was a simple woman, a
(54:43):
firm yet kind mother, a nurturing gardener, a passionate
Baker, and above all, a devout Christian.
Her identity revolved entirely around her faith.
Even her sense of humor was so plain that the plainness itself
was what made her funny. We had all had our quarrels with
(55:03):
her over staunch religiousness, but beneath it all we knew she
cared so much. She just couldn't bear the
thought of our poor souls being damned.
That was the world she lived in.But she was a loving grandma.
When I was young and sleeping ather house, I often was too
scared to sleep alone. I would come to her bed and tell
(55:25):
her that I was too scared. I was always terrified of being
alone in the dark. She had this Bible verse she
would sing Do not fear for I am with you Isaiah 4110.
She would wag her finger before tapping my heart to relay that
God would always be with me. Thanks a lot Grandma.
(55:49):
She would always sing Bible verses to us instead of sharing
her own thoughts. This one stuck with me though,
whether it actually made me feelbetter or I just realized that
was all grandma was going to do when I came to her.
Scared, I always went back to bed and eventually fell asleep.
Sadly, when I was 16 she passed away.
(56:12):
After the funeral, my extended family gathered at her house for
a long get together since we hardly saw each other.
Being one of the oldest kids, I found my place entertaining my
younger cousins, some of whom I had only seen a few times in my
life. We decided to play hide and
seek, and after being the designated seeker 5 or so times,
(56:34):
I said that it was their turn tofind me.
I snuck into her basement, whichwas cluttered with things she
had kept over the years. There was a bed frame and
mattress springs leaning againstone of the walls with various
frames, paintings, and other items stuffed between and around
it, so I crawled underneath it. It was dusty and filled with
(56:56):
cobwebs, but I knew the kids wouldn't find me so easily.
The basement had one light and it was underground with no
windows. No one really came down here
other than to grab a soda or icecream from the extra
refrigerator. So there I am, hiding in old
cobwebs, hearing my little cousins stomp around looking for
(57:18):
me. They came down to the basement
to look around and then speed off somewhere else.
After a while I started to move out a little and the bed frame
shifted, pinning me against the concrete wall a bit.
I start working my way out, but my feet are stuck in an awkward
position that I can't do anything about.
(57:39):
Just when I'm halfway emerged, someone opens the door and I
realized the kids have now foundme and the game's over.
Oh well, I'm ready to come out anyway, I think.
But then the light goes out and the door shuts.
One of the grown-ups must have figured the kids were finished
playing in the basement and didn't want them down there
(58:01):
anymore, so they turned off the light and shut the door.
Now it's pitch black. I am cramped against this wall.
I am not OK with this. I start struggling to move out
of the way and panic starts to set in.
I shout, Hey, I'm down here, butno one can hear me.
(58:23):
It was only probably 10 seconds of panicking in the darkness and
then I heard it. Do not fear, for I am with you.
Isaiah 4110. My blood freezes, I can't
breathe. I know what I heard, and I know
(58:43):
whose voice I heard it. I stood in absolute bewilderment
with the lower half of my body still pinned under the bed
frame. Grandma.
Silence. Only the silence that follows
after you hear the words of yourdead grandma while you're
trapped in the pitch black room blares in your head.
(59:06):
Alarm bells ringing. I panic.
I start shouting and shoving my way through the debris when
suddenly the door opens and the light flips on.
Little careful footsteps inch down the stairs.
Found you. It was one of the littlest of my
cousins, my niece Sarah, only about four or five years old.
(59:27):
Sweating, I relent. Oh.
God, you sure did great job, nowlet's get out of here.
I start up the stairs, but she'sat the bottom.
Staring into the cluttered room.I admit I was eager to forget
what had just happened down there, but as if that were ever
possible, it was about to be firmly cemented into my memory.
(59:49):
Come on Sarah, let's go upstairs.
I said in my best sweet uncle voice, still looking into the
dark corner of the basement. She started waving her hand.
Bye bye. I love you too, grandma.
My breath was pulled from my lungs, the hair on the back of
my neck stood on end, and littleSarah just carefully crawled
(01:00:13):
back up the stairs on all fours like kids do.
I took a moment, drew in one last breath of the dusty
basement air and said. Goodbye Grandma.
Before I followed her up the stairs.
Since then, I've wondered why only little Sarah came down to
(01:00:34):
get me and no one followed her. I've theorized maybe Grandma LED
her into the basement. I could have hurt myself in the
dark down there. I think Grandma would have been
worried. It's funny, that Bible verse
used to be what she would tell me so I wouldn't be scared, and
(01:00:55):
it ended up being the single most terrifying thing that I've
ever heard. Well, thanks for trying Grandma,
I love you too. Yeah.
(01:17:27):
Yeah. Yeah.
(01:23:19):
Yeah. Yeah.
(01:25:06):
Yeah. Yeah.
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