The Awakening
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Fires, car crashes, mysterious acquaintances from decades ago pop up and it's gotten so that lots of people, they think he's full of crap. They don't believe his little tales and I didn't believe his stories at first. But I like hearing them anyway. Every blue moon, we hang out. Once we go to shoot some pool, just chilling, a couple of brews, then just like in the movies,

A bar fight breaks out around us. He doesn't even blink, just misses the eight ball in the corner pocket as we scramble out, ducking punches, trying to find the exit outside. I'm tripping. That was crazy, yo! He's like, yeah. Another time, walking around Lake Merritt in Oakland, and this huge, gigantic wolf-dog thing comes bounding at a top speed, snarling like I made a pork chop. Damn! And right before, it tears a chunk out of my hind parts. It just...

Flaps down in front of my buddy. Who reaches down and scratches this monster between the ears. Dude, you know this dog? No, man, but we should probably try to figure out where he belongs. He takes off for a weekend trip. Ends up saving some random kid from drowning. It's always something. And that would be one thing if he ran around poking bears or juggling fireworks. But that's not what's going on. Around him...

The universe bends. And I want to say stop doing that. But I don't know what he's doing. And part of his magic seems to be that he always emerges unscathed. And that's great. I'm just not sure if that same magic applies to whoever's standing next to him. See, some people are sparks. The first ember of the inferno.

Otherwise, the mystery will remain silent because sometimes even magic needs a little push. And today, from KQED, Snap Judgment proudly presents The Awakening. Amazing stories from our evil twin spook, from people who can scarcely believe it happened themselves. My name is Dunn Washington, Spookstar. We begin with a wonder. The first story comes to us from the Caribbean island of Montserrat.

1995, a volcano erupted and destroyed the capital city. But many years before then, Michelle grew up on this island in her grandparents' house. And Michelle lived her own kind of disaster. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spooked. Spook. Spook. Spook. Spook. Spook. Spook. Spook. Spook. Spook. Spook. Spook. Spook. Spook. Spook. Sp

The house that I grew up in was called the Gearbox because it had been owned by a Mr. and Mrs. Gear. My grandparents were part of the upper class, so it was quite lavish. The house was filled with beautiful antique furniture, some of it 17th century. The dining room was massive.

It was an open plan between the dining room area and the drawing room area. So whenever they would have cocktail parties, everything was taken out and they would have just a huge room where people could dance and mingle. We had a chef, a housekeeper, a chauffeur and a gardener. When my grandparents would have cocktail parties,

They would be offered extra hours to help to cater, but none of them ever wanted to stay once it got dark. They always left long before dark. I never understood why. Soon after my mother, brother and I moved in with my grandparents, I was playing with my dolls. It was around maybe two o'clock in the afternoon. Nobody else was home except for our household staff.

And I heard a woman's voice calling me. She called my name very, very slowly with a very posh British accent. Michelle. Innocent sounding, sweet, lovely, almost playful. I dropped what I was doing and I went running straight to our cook to ask her, yes? She said, yes, what? I said, you called me just now. She said, no, I didn't.

So I went running to the housekeeper. She said the same thing. No, I didn't call you. I'm busy. Run along. Run along and play. And that was just the beginning. I would hear it so often, at least three, four times a week. Misha. That is what life was like back then in the gearbox. Strange things happened in that house and nobody spoke about it.

There were glass windows all around the house. The wind would come roaring down the hill straight through our house, through all the open windows, howling to the point where it sounds like a thousand women screaming. There would be the shadows of trees all along the wall, this wind howling. One night I woke up. I was on my way to the bathroom, which is down a long passage.

I had to pass by the drawing room and there were glass doors. I happened to glance to my right and the room was filled with all these different couples, eight to ten couples, all dancing and whirling around, all just gliding silently. No music, no nothing except the sound of the wind. I just stopped and I stared. I was in awe. It took my breath away.

because the women were so beautiful. They were all dressed in very old-fashioned clothes. Everything was muted, almost like one of these old-fashioned photographs that you see. I couldn't understand why there was no music or talking or laughing. I knew that there was something not quite right. I can't tell you how long I was there for. It seems as if I was there for hours. When I got tired, I just went to the bathroom.

When I came back from the bathroom, nobody. Just the sound of the wind. I never told my mom what I witnessed because I knew that I was not supposed to be out of bed at that hour. I never told my grandparents or my aunts and uncles. I never even told my brother. On another night, I went to use the bathroom again and I saw them again. This time, I opened the glass door. I wanted to see them clearer. Nobody turned to look at me. Nobody said anything.

They just kept dancing on. Then an older gentleman came up to me. He had grey hair and it was long and swept back. He had a moustache and a goatee kind of beard. And he was dressing up the same style as the men, very formal. He held his hand out to me. And I took his hand and he held out his other hand. Put my hand in his. They were very soft for a man's hands.

And then he lifted me so that my little feet were on top of his shoes. They were beautiful, black, shiny, well-polished. He put one arm around my waist and he had the other hand in his. And then he started whirling me around, in and out, all around the couples. I was laughing. I loved it. Little by little, I started to get tired.

And then I noticed his hands started to get cold and colder and colder until they were almost like ice. Until there was almost this frigid air coming off of him. I didn't like it. It was uncomfortable. It was making my hands cold. I just took my hands out of his. As I broke away from him and I turned, just out of my peripheral vision, for a second, I could still see them whirling around. And then I ran and I never looked back. And I just ran straight through glass doors.

I don't know for sure who he was, but I can only imagine that it was Mr. Gere. I had a lovely time dancing with all these strange people because it made me feel like an adult. And I fell asleep very, very happy. I knew this wasn't a dream because I saw it more than once.

I saw the other couples dancing several times after that night, but I never danced with Mr. Gere ever again because I didn't like his cold hands. My mother had a queen-size bed, and then my brother and I shared a twin bed. One night, there was a massive thunder and lightning storm. It woke my brother and I up. We got scared, and we jumped into bed with my mother. I fell asleep.

I had a dream that I was in a small wooden house. There was something chasing me. All I could hear was the sound of very heavy footsteps following me. I ran into this room. I scampered under the bed. I saw black boots came walking over to the bed and they just stood there. I was almost holding my breath and I was petrified.

But then the feet all of a sudden turned around and they just walked out of the door. I figured, okay, it's safe. All of a sudden, just as I was about to slide out from the bed, the entire bed was just lifted and thrown in the air. Then two hands were reaching down at me. That woke me up immediately. The minute I woke up, I was lying on my back,

There was thunder and lightning, heavy rain, wind howling. The windows were open just a little bit, but it was enough for there to be a breeze. I could feel the wind on my face. I could see my mother on my left side sleeping. I could see my brother on my right. I looked up directly above me. The first thing I saw was a figure floating against the ceiling. The first thing I saw was their shoes.

The exact same shoes that were in my dream. Black boots. The pants were flapping from the wind. My eyes traveled to the face. It was a man. He had long, stringy gray hair. One half of his face looked as if it had been melted. It was just completely melted. It's very similar to burn victims. I had never, ever seen someone burnt to that degree.

And on the other side, scowling, sneering, very, very cruel smile. And the second that my eyes saw his face, this thing launched itself at me. And the two hands circled my neck. And just as it started to squeeze, I screamed as loud as I could. And he was gone. Immediately, my brother woke up. My mother jumped up.

I was screaming and screaming and screaming. And then I started crying and I would not stop. I was hysterical. I couldn't even speak for quite a few minutes because I just could not get the words out. All I had a chance was to tell her about there was something up there. There was a man up there and he rushed down and he put his hands around me and his face. And, you know, but I was probably not making much sense.

I knew it was not Mr. Gere because I knew what Mr. Gere looked like and he did not look like this man. And also, Mr. Gere had never tried to hurt me when we danced together. My mom had to be up early and she just didn't have time for it. So she was like, no, no, no, it's just a dream, it's just a dream, nonsense. I was really, really upset for a very long time that my mom didn't believe me. From that night onwards, I grew to hate the sound of wind howling.

I was terrified of that house, especially when it got dark. I became so clingy. I had to be with somebody. And I never went to the bathroom once everybody was asleep. I always made sure I did what I had to do before I had to sleep. So how did you feel when you moved out of that house? Relieved. So happy. I was so happy. So happy to leave. Because I lived in a constant state of terror. But...

I still heard the voices calling. I still heard a voice calling my name. I was never afraid of that. Have you ever been back to the gearbox since then? Yes. My mother and I had to sing or perform at a recital, and our pianist...

He said that there's a beautiful grand piano and it's at the gearbox. And we had understood years before that they had renovated the gearbox into a music school. And so he said, I would like you all to come up there so that we can practice. And that was the first time in years that I had been back. But because I knew they had renovated it, I wasn't, I didn't feel anyway, completely renovated it.

And then what state is the gearbox in these days? It's probably buried under several feet of ash because that entire half of the island was completely destroyed and buried under several feet of ash because of the pyroclastic flows. So there's no trace of that house or anything around it. It's just rubble.

Oh no, ghosts don't care about geography, we're sure. But somewhere down there, underneath all that volcanic ash, Mr. Gear is still dancing, waiting for his partner. Big thanks to Michelle for sharing her story. Michelle still lives in Montserrat and she's got plenty more to say about the freaky things she's seen. So if you're ever on the island, stop by as long as you're ready to be spooked. The original score for that piece was by Doug Stewart.

It was produced by Ann Ford. Now, after a long slumber, when Snappy turns, a mountain wakes up. Stay tuned.

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Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the awakening episode.

Today we're featuring stories from our sister podcast, Spooked. Now, for our next story, I want you to meet Adam as a kid. Adam used to travel a lot to Puerto Rico to visit his family in Yalco, a town surrounded by mountains and jungles. And there he would spend time with Pepito, his great-grandfather. Everyone knew Pepito in town. He was almost like the chief of the mountains.

Everyone respected him, from his kids to his great-grandchildren, even the animals. Pepito held all the knowledge of the Taino people. He would always tell Adam the mountain is aware of things. And that was something that Adam was about to find out for himself.

When I was about nine years old, I spent a whole lot of time in my papito's house, my great-grandfather's house. It sits on one of the many mountaintops of Yauco. It's on this little plateau that overlooks the cliff and the valley. And there's forest, forest, forest everywhere. It's like a jungle. It's very difficult to see a neighbor here.

The only other neighbors that were near were his brothers and sisters who owned their own houses on this big property in the mountains that was all owned by my great-grandfather. So one day I go up to Papito's house, which is a walk from my grandmother's house. I love to hang out there because he had a bunch of interesting random farm equipment and tons of farm animals, cows and horses, goats, cows.

But nearby there was an enormous bull and I was deathly frightened by this bull because it was enormous. It was huge, so much larger than me, huge horns. So I was hanging out and playing in the front of his house and this big bull came nearer to me. So I go to my papito and say, I'm scared of the bull and it's coming close.

He laughed because he saw the city kid being scared of the bull that no one pays any attention to. The bull was walking away from the house and Papito did this super powerful whistle like a 4th of July firework echoing through the mountains. And then the bull just stopped and started coming back towards us.

That was really scary. I said, the last thing I wanted, I was like pulling away from him, but he wouldn't let me go. And the bull is just lumbering over very slowly. And then he says, no, no, no, no. That's all he said. He said, no, no, no, no. And then he grabbed the bull by the horns and he lowered it down into the ground and made it like bow its head and put its horns towards the ground. And so he just grabbed me, picked me up, threw my leg over,

The next thing I know, I'm riding on this enormous bull and holding on to the horns. And it was scary, but it was awesome and exciting. I felt much better because I saw that this thing did whatever he wanted it to do. One day, I'm in my madrina's house, which was at the top highest peak of all of the hills that we lived on. I'm playing with my sister and my cousins. My madrina, my godmother, was taking care of Papito at the time.

He was in his late 90s and he had severe sort of dementia. Papito is laying in my madrina's room in her bed. And as we play during the day, I start to get the sense that something is happening. Everybody is gathering at my madrina's house and more and more people keep showing up. People from the town, uncles, aunts, and a priest shows up.

I peeked into the room and the room was filled with people. Papito is laying in the bed. He looked very small and skinny and pale. He looked gray almost. I started to feel uncomfortable. I didn't know what was going on. But I knew that I didn't want to be around at that moment. So I go to my abuela and I tell her how I feel.

She told me that I could go back to her house, that the sun is just starting to set. If I leave now, I can make it before the sun fully sets and that I could wait for them to be finished what they were doing. So I leave my madrina's house and I start on the path to my grandmother's house. I can hear the sounds that are fading away from the house. And it sounds like crying. And I'm thinking, oh, okay, okay.

Whatever it is that I didn't want to be around for is happening right now. I'm entering the lower part of the mountains, the beginning of the valley, and the forest. And I realize that it's much darker than I thought it was going to be. There is just so many trees, vegetation, tangly vines. I get to my grandmother's driveway, which is a long little road. And as I get there, I heard somewhere nearby...

A very strange sound. An animal sound. The first thing I thought of was a cow. Because there's cows everywhere. And then a moment later, it screamed in a way that I've never heard a living thing scream before. It was almost like a human whale coming from an animal. I get this cold tingliness throughout my whole body.

Goosebumps going up my neck. I immediately just started to run towards my grandmother's house. As soon as I start running, I hear another, and now I'm sure it's an animal. But it sounded like someone, a person, in pain. Then in the distance, a bunch of other animals start wailing. The pigs in the valley, the dogs that were randomly all over the mountainside.

The cows and the horses and the bulls. Some of it sounded like it was the pigs near the slaughterhouse that were not even on our property. They were in agony as if they were being killed. And then the night is just filled with these wails. It's an igniting of voices that keep coming out of the darkness because I can't see where they're coming from. And so I'm running, running, running to my grandmother's house. And this wailing seems like it's chasing me.

Like it sounds like it's right in the back of my head trying to grab at my ankles. Once I get to the top of the hill, I'm panting like a madman. I pass through the gates of my grandmother's house, slipping and sliding, run up to her patio, grab the door, yank it open and slam the door shut. I'm all alone. The wailing is still going strong and it feels like it's completely surrounding my grandmother's house.

I run into the room where I was sleeping and I lay on the cot. I just started praying. I just wanted the time to pass to wait for my grandmother to come back. Eventually, the animal noises finally died down. And shortly after that, my grandmother arrives. My grandmother comes up to me and asks me if I'm okay. And I sort of stammer over my words.

I told her that when I was coming back to the house, I heard the animals screaming. And my grandmother said, of course they're screaming. Of course they're upset. And I asked her, why are they so upset? She said, because Papito died. Papito's gone now. At first, I'm confused. I didn't understand that. I said, how could they know that he died? And my grandmother said that all of the animals know these things. They sense his spirit.

Papito was like their father, their master, their protector, everything to them. Their chief. They could feel him leaving. They were sad and scared. So of course, they know. That night, I was having a lot of trouble falling asleep. I was up thinking a bunch of things. How could animals know that Papito died? And I wondered, do animals have some sense that we don't have? Or do we have that sense?

What happens next? What do you mean, what happens next? Only one way to find out. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. My name is from Washington. And when we last left, the animals of the mountain were mourning Pepito's death. Snap Judgment. That night, I was having a lot of trouble falling asleep. I was up thinking a bunch of things. How could animals know that Pepito died?

And I wondered, do animals have some sense that we don't have? Or do we have that sense? I was so restless that I got up. I opened up the main door very carefully and quietly and then went outside into the night. There was a place in my grandmother's house that I really loved to go during the day. And it was in the rear of the house where there was a hammock hanging and there was just like a cliffside and it overlooked the valley.

I went towards the edge of the cliff. I lay in the hammock in the darkness. I'm looking out over the valley, seeing the little bit of stars out there and just the blackness of the mountain. I hear the crickets and the coquilles, the little frogs that make a very specific sound in Puerto Rico. And I hear an animal sound in the darkness. It wasn't a growl.

It was more strange and scary than a growl. I don't know what it is, but it sounded scary. And it was coming from the darkness in front of me. The animal makes this sound a second time. It was a strange, hyena-like yipping excitement, but not a good excitement. It sounded very close, and it sounds like something that wanted to hurt me.

I'm frozen stiff. I can't move. I was just like a deer in headlights. The thought crossed my mind. Oh, my grandmother's gonna be so mad if I die. And immediately after, I hear this whistle like a firecracker in the darkness, in the valley. And that animal sound stopped. I'm feeling like I just got shocked by electricity. And I feel a sudden...

flush of relief. And in that moment, I knew, I knew it. I just somehow knew that Papito made that sound. Papito was there with me. Papito's spirit said goodbye to the animals and even stuck around long enough to protect me and to say goodbye to me. I slowly get up and make my way into the house. And I'm thinking, there's something after death. I knew that

Death was something very, very powerful, very part of life. But Papito showed me that that death is not the end of our energy. Thank you, Adam, for sharing your story of the spook. That original score was by Doug Stewart. It was produced by Eric Yanez. Remember, if you dig spook storytelling...

Subscribe to the Spooked Podcast. Don't miss a moment. And to see Spooked in a whole new way, go to the Spooked YouTube. Be afraid. Okay, so traveling to Rhode Island, far away from the cobblestone touristy part, there sits a quiet building called Steer House. A nursing home, it's a hospice, and in this place lived a cat. Not a purring cuddle machine, no Instagram cutie. No, this cat is cold-blooded.

names Oscar. Gray, white, fur, green eyes. Oscar doesn't care about sitting in your lap. Oscar doesn't chase toys. Oscar doesn't even want to be bothered with people much. Unless and until you are preparing for your final journey. And the first time this happens, no one really pays much attention. Oscar slips into the room of a woman who'd stopped speaking two days prior.

Oscar jumps into her bed and this cantankerous feline actually curls up at her side and just wait. Hours tick by and quiet as mist, the woman passes away. The attendants think what a sweet moment. What a cosmic coincidence to have the cat as a comfort during her final moments in another room and another patient.

Oscar disappears from his usual spot in the hallway and somehow winds up curled in a ball besides this man. Oscar lies still, eyes half shut, tail tucked, and this man too passes into the beyond. And another person, and another, and again another still, and by the time we arrive at the strange coincidence number 25, people aren't saying that's weird anymore. Instead they say call the family.

Oscar's on the bed. No heartbeat monitors, no vital sign crashes, just a feline signal that the end is nigh. And Dr. David Dosa, he sees this and he's trying to make sense of it. He's a man of science, but Oscar's, Oscar's throwing off his game plan. They start tracking him. Oscar, he's right over and over and over again, more than 100 times, more than 100 people, and not just patients in decline. Sometimes,

Oscar curls up before anything looks different, before the nurses even notice. Eventually, they stop questioning. Instead, they start trusting. Families say that when Oscar enters the room, something changes. It was eerie, one daughter recalls. He gave us time to say everything we needed. Another man, his eyes wet, voice cracking, remembers he wasn't there for us. He was there for her. But he helped us understand what was happening. Oscar didn't howl.

Oscar didn't demand, didn't console. He witnessed still a shadow when the breath slowed and the room filled with that silence born of absence. And touched and moved. The good doctor wrote a book about what he saw called Making Rhymes with Oscar. How do you explain what happened? Is it a trick? A gift? A miracle? Instincts? I don't know. But of course, I tell you this story to ask a favor. Because if you have a knowledge,

of a non-human neighbor. It seems to have a special connection to the inexplicable. Maybe even that special non-human neighbor living in your house that you put food in their bowl twice a day. Well, I'd sure love to know about it. Why? Because, dear friends, there is nothing better than a spook story from a spooked listener. Spooked at SnapJudgment.org. Spooked is brought to you

by the team that makes their own pet food for any animal in their care. Except for Mark Ristich, who always says, if I can eat kibble, so can they. There's David Kim, Zoe Ferrigno, Ann Ford, Eric Yanez, Taylor Ducat, Marissa Dodge, Miles Lassie, Doug Stewart, Elliot Lightfoot, Paulina Kriki, Juan Diego Beltran, Sasha Wilson, Dan Yashinsky, and Team Snap.

The union represented producers, artists, editors, engineers are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO Local 51. The spook theme song is by Pat Massidi-Miller. My name is from Washington. They say that time is just an illusion. Well, it's a pretty good illusion, right? It's a pretty good trick because time is relentless.

Everything time giveth, time also snatches away. Nothing stays the same even for a moment. The rules are harsh. Unforgiving only for, never back. No appeals, no regard. No backdoor, no secret hatch. All the money in the world can't buy a fast pass off this ride, right? Well, I wonder sometimes if what we experience as supernatural, as paranormal, is really just echoes of those that discover an escape route.

From those that decided that this moment was too important to abandon and that part of them was going to stay right here no matter what time set about. And what is our responsibility? To those lost echoes left behind, I don't have a magic formula. The best I know to do is to never ever, never, never, ever turn out the lights.