The Face That Was Not Hers
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Whether thou art a ghost that hath come from the earth, or a phantom of night that hath no hollow, or one that lieth dead in the desert, or a ghost unburied, or a demon, or a ghoul, whatever thou be until thou art removed, thou shalt find here no water to drink. Thou shalt not stretch forth thy hand to our own. Into our house enter thou not. Through our fence break through thou not.

We are protected, though we may be frightened. Our life you may not steal, though we may be scared to death. Welcome to Scared to Death, Creeps, Peepers, Roberts, and Annabelles. I'm Dan. Hello, Dan. I'm Lindsay. Hello, Lindsay. Hello. Hello.

Lindsay has one quick announcement about our annual scholarship and then we will get into horror stories. Yes, and we are off to the races. Okay, guys, so by the time you're hearing this, the Cummins Family Scholarship is now open for applications. This year, we will be awarding

Well, not we, but we'll be working with the Scholarship Foundation to award four $5,000 scholarships, which is so exciting. Always so proud of this project. We're continuing to work with Scholarship America to make sure that the process is smooth and fair. We don't even read the applications. It all goes through. Yeah, no bias. Exactly. It goes through a third party, but we fund it. And the only way that we're able to fund that is through the support of our patrons. So big kudos to all of you who make this possible. Yeah.

If you are looking for some financial aid for your furthering education, you can go to badmagicproductions.com, click the Bad Magic Family tab at the top right, and then choose the scholarship when that next set of options pops up. And then the application process is there, and it's easy.

It's quite self-explanatory. Keep in mind that the application process does close on April 22nd. So you do have a little bit of time, but you have some legwork that you have to do. So don't procrastinate. Do it now. Get going. And this year, first time ever, now our fans in Canada can apply. So we have found a way to expand the scholarships to the United States and Canada. Awesome. Yay, education. Yay.

Okay. Are you are you? Oh, I was jumping ahead. Sorry. I'm a little spacey. I got just like a little bit of a head cold. Yeah. So if I'm a little off today, that is why. But overall, don't feel too bad. What true horror claims have you chosen for us this week from those sent in to my story at scared to death podcast dot com? Well, Daniel, I have two very fun stories this week.

I mean, fun, because I think it's fun to tell horror stories. The first one takes us down to Florida, and we will be digging into a claim about the Devil's Armchair. Now, I was certain. Now, you've kind of made the face. I mean, I'm like, that sounds familiar. But I searched in our inventory, you know, the list that we work off of that you keep track of the stories, and I couldn't find Devil's Armchair or the name of this city name.

anywhere on your list. So I don't think we've been there before. There's a lot of like, you know, Devil's Gate, Devil's Lake, you know, Devil's Road. There's a lot of devil stuff. Absolutely. So we'll do that first with a fan. And then our second entity, our second story, I think that

I'm sharing a tale of a new entity being described as a burnt white ashy creature with golden eyes. Golden eyes. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. Like, you know, yeah. So I don't want to say more. Okay. Say less, Lindsay. Say less.

My first of two supposedly true paranormal tales comes from India. A man shares the story of his grandmother's paranormal affliction. And I won't say more and risk giving anything away. In my second tale, I'm going to share almost 250 years of history and also haunted lore that surrounds Lampok.

or Lompoc, there we go. Lompoc, California's La Purisma Spanish Mission. Okay. Yeah, I watched a whole video of people from Lompoc joking about how it does not bother them for people to say Lompoc, which it clearly does. And that was in my head and I panicked at the last second. I'm like, wait a minute.

What was the thing they don't want? Lompoc or Lompoc? Oh, no. Because is it spelled like Lompoc? It's L-O-M-P-O-C. And I guess almost kind of like people in Spokane get irritated when people are like Spokane. Sure. Because it's spelled Spokane. Yeah. I guess, you know, Lompoc, just like everybody from, it's not from the area. If they don't know somebody or look something up, they almost always say Lompoc.

Okay. It's become a sore spot. I totally get it. When I lived in LA, you know, it's like lived off of Wilshire. Uh-huh. Wilshire. And people would like, who weren't from there would say like, Wilshire. I'm like, Wilshire. They're like, uh. Uh, spelled Wilshire. I don't think so. Ha, ha, ha, ha.

Are you socked up for this week? Oh, yeah. Check out these amazing socks from our friend Megan, who's this incredibly talented, beautiful witch of a woman. I mean, truly like a practicing witch. She's so deep in that space. I love it. And she is an incredible graphic artist. Yeah, she is. She is so fucking awesome. In my next life, I'm going to be her. But she went to Iceland. I think it was last summer.

her? Maybe she did some camping out there. I can't remember the specifics, but she sent me these Sigil Iceland socks. So I love them. Thanks, Meg. And yeah, happy trails. Megan Hutchison and it's black M underscore art. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And hopefully, hopefully

Hopefully get to see Meg sometime this year. Yeah, yeah. And check out her stuff. Very cool. Very cool illustrations. And she's just a good spooky person. She's just fucking cool. She is cool. She's really cool. Okay. So today's first story comes from the archives of a once popular online discussion forum for people who have experienced the paranormal. The poster chose to remain anonymous but did identify himself as a middle-aged male adult from India.

Time now for the tale of The Face That Was Not Hers. This is the first story I've shared. To whoever may be reading it, I would like you to know that you can trust me when I say it is 100% true. If you feel you cannot trust me, that is fine as well. I understand I cannot force anyone to believe something that they did not witness with their own eyes. Either way, I know that this story is still true.

I am from the state of West Bengal. Specifically, I am from the district of South Dinnapur. It is a beautiful place that I deeply love. My family has lived there for many generations. My grandfather was the municipal chairman of our town during the late 19th century. However, he was assassinated when I was very young, leaving my grandmother alone in a palatial house she once shared with him. This story is about my grandmother, but before I skip to the main content, there are a few things I would like to acknowledge.

The first is that I grew up surrounded by occultism. Occultism and magical practices, many do not know, are exceptionally prevalent in West Bengali. Since I was a very young child, I have been assisting with and witnessing serious practices like home purification, psychic healing, and exorcisms. Though my family does not practice black magic, as most Indians do not, I have also always been aware of its existence and the horrors it can cause.

Many of my forefathers on both the paternal and maternal side were killed by black magic, including my grandfather who was assassinated. It has been predicted that I too will die by the same fate. My place, date and time of death were foretold when I was born. But the story is not about me. It is, as I have said, about my grandmother. My grandmother was Brahmin. Back then in West Bengal, Brahmins were known as the highest jati or caste of people.

they looked down upon all those in the lower castes. My grandmother was a very orthodox Brahmin and therefore very racially discriminatory. She, like most people in her social class, refused to come into contact with people who were not Brahmin. After my grandfather died, it was evident that my grandmother would require a servant to help her and do the things my grandfather used to. However, as both tradition and my grandmother required, she could only be attended to by a fellow Brahmin.

My father searched everywhere but could not find a Brahmin servant who was available for work. So he decided to simply help my grandmother himself. For two years, my father went to her house every day to help keep her company, cook her food and do the household chores. Her house was only about one and a half kilometers away from ours. So it was easy going to and from. At this time, I was five or six years old and very cheerful and very active. I often accompanied him on these visits.

One day, my father and I were in my grandmother's kitchen cooking some mutton biryani while she rested in the sitting room. She had just returned from her daughter, my aunt's, home in Burhampur, and said she was very tired. What was strange, however, was that to me she did not seem merely fatigued. She seemed empty. She was so stoic and undemonstrative and did not want to talk. She barely even acknowledged that we were there. That was not like my grandmother at all.

You see, my grandmother was once a famous Kirtan, a Kirtan singer. Kirtan is a call and response form of music in which all those present share together the story of deities. The leader, who my grandmother was, recites the great names and legends of the deities and the audience repeats them back to her. It is a lively spiritual affair and the leader is a lively spiritual force of energy.

As a Kirtan singer, my grandmother danced explosively and expressed her spirit, often entering the emotive state of Bhavas, which would affect all those around her. She was like that even when she wasn't performing. She was outgoing and vivacious and always eager to join in conversation with those around her, even in the darkest of times. To see her like a statue was very concerning to both me and my father, so he went over to her to ask what was wrong.

Without looking at my father, she insisted that she was simply tired from her travels and waved him away. It was then that he noticed something on her wrist. It was an amulet. In a flat voice, she explained that it was gifted to her by her son-in-law's sister, who she met while traveling. My father nodded and returned to the kitchen, and no one thought any more of the amulet for many weeks. For the next month, my grandmother remained in an impassive, silent, and almost frozen state. My older relatives began to fear for her health.

Thinking she might have a disease of the mind or body or that old age had finally reached her us young children in the family However thought something was very different because we saw something very different We thought nothing of my grandmother's medical afflictions or alien body. We thought only of her face because it was not hers You could only see the difference if she looked at you dead in the eye. It was shifting very slightly almost imperceptibly

It was like the flesh under her skin was trying to rearrange itself without you noticing. But we noticed. We saw it. We saw it squirming on the inside. We saw it twisting and shaping her face from the inside out. I remember it reminded me of my mother's swollen belly when she was pregnant with my sister. How we could see the baby's foot or forehead pushing up against it. We could see her writhe underneath my mother's skin.

Much in the same way, we could see something writhe under the skin of my grandmother's face. We tried telling the adults, my cousins and I, but they did not listen. They admonished us for disrespect and told us to stop telling tales. They explained that they knew grandmother looked different, but that was only because she was old and sick, but she was still grandmother. I remember crying out that someone had stolen her face, but that only got me into even more trouble.

Over time, my grandmother's condition and behavior grew more alarming. She became cruel and mocking, and commanded those around her like strangers. Her voice changed, too. It was always changing. Sometimes she spoke in a very quiet whisper, like she was asleep. Other times her voice was oily, and her words would slither off her tongue like she was a snake. I remember thinking, that must be what the voice of a Naga, the half-human, half-cobra being from the netherworld, must sound like.

There were times also when her voice was very distorted and very deep. I remember a young relative, who was two or three, remarking to his mother that my grandmother's voice sounded like a man's. The child was very promptly disciplined for his rudeness, but I agreed with him. But it didn't only sound like a man, it sounded like a man who was very far away, or perhaps already dead. Her health was declining rapidly, but the doctors could find no cause.

They advised only that if she complains of pain to give her medicine and to make sure she was never alone in case she should fall or hurt herself. My father started sleeping at my grandmother's house to keep an eye on her throughout the nights. That was when he began seeing what the children did, the face that was not hers. Every morning my grandmother demanded my father go to the market to get her a fresh fish to eat, and every morning he did what she had asked.

But when he would return to the house and try to cook the fish, my grandmother would become enraged and say terrible things. My father only told me what terrible things once I became a man. He said if he tried to cook the fish, she would scream and accuse him of peeling off its scales to eat in his bedroom when he was alone. She would laugh at my father and say the fish reminded her of him as a newborn. Slippery, white-bellied, and foul-smelling.

She would say that whatever he does to the fish, if he guts it, fillets it, cuts off its head, removes its innards, salts it in brine, boils it or eats it, she will go back in time and do the same to his infant body. My father grew worried, more worried about his mother. He was of course upset by her actions, but as a good son, he still did what she instructed and stopped trying to cook the fish for her. Instead, he left it in the dry pantry just as she asked.

and each night, as he witnessed, my grandma would rise from her bed, enter the kitchen, remove the raw fish from the pantry, eat it with her fingers, and leave the carcass on the table. And the night my father witnessed something else very strange as well, but at the time he did not understand. In the backyard there was a very tall palm tree. Every night my father would be awoken by the screams of what he thought were animals that had moved into the tree.

The moment he got out of his bed, the sound of screaming would stop, and the sound of footsteps began, the sound of my grandmother walking into the kitchen to eat the fish. Every morning my father would find less and less flesh left on the bones of the carcass, and eventually fewer and fewer bones as well. That was when he decided to call upon the local elders. I was not present there with the elders, and I was never informed how they came to the conclusion which they did. But after one day and one night spent with my grandmother, they judged her to be possessed.

A local oja, a traditional Bengali exorcist, from the next village over was summoned. He arrived the following day at the break of dawn to examine my grandmother. When he reached the house, he found my grandmother was on the roof, walking slowly back and forth across the length of it. It took a group of neighbors and relatives to get her back down. To this day, no one knows how she got up to the roof, as it is inaccessible without a ladder. When she was safely back inside, the oja asked everybody, including my father and the elders.

to leave the house so he may look upon the afflicted alone. After a few hours, they reunited, and the charm doctor announced that an unearthly face had consumed my grandmother's, and that an exorcism must be performed. He said he would return to the house that evening, and he instructed my father to make sure my grandmother keeps a fast until the exorcism is complete, and that none should enter the house while the exorcism is being performed. My father agreed. What happened next was narrated to us by my grandmother herself after she recovered.

She did not know what happened during the exorcism. All she could remember was the sound of a thousand burning men coming from just outside the house and that she was terrified of entering the prayer room at the beginning of the night. The next thing she remembered was banging her head against the door of the prayer room. It was dawn. She backed away from the door and looked around, confused about where she was and how she got there. But when she looked upon the oja standing against the other wall, she suddenly understood it all. She opened her mouth to say thank you, but no words came out.

All that was heard was a bloody scream coming from the top of the palm tree just outside the window. When that scream subsided, her voice returned. She wept in the arms of the oja, who told her, Your face is yours again. As the oja later explained to my father, my grandmother was the victim of a black magic brought upon her through the amulet she had been gifted in Burhampur. During the banishment ritual, the exorcist had discovered that the amulet was charged with the power of a pisach.

who sought to eat the pure soul of my grandmother and inhabit her flesh. Pisachas are, as I understand, very similar to a Christian demon or a vampire. They are a monstrous, vile, flesh-eating race of demon, a manifestation of evil. The ritual used against my grandmother is unfortunately a common one amongst black magic tantrics. This is because it gives the tantric control of the person the demon is possessing, because they are also in control of the demon itself.

The Oja also explained that the screaming that my father and grandmother heard coming from the palm tree was in fact the pisach. This makes very much sense, as it is an ancient Indian belief that palm trees and other similar plants like banyans, tamarins, and wild tamarisk provide a perfect shelter for evil spirits. It has been widely observed in Bengal that such plants are the natural preference for ghosts and beings of the netherworld.

The first thing my father did the morning after the exorcism, after greeting his mother, who was still weeping with joy to be freed from the demon, was to burn and smash the amulet in the backyard. He and the other locals present all claimed that when it was engulfed in flames, the talisman gave off a most horrible smell, which they instantly recognized as the smell of burning human flesh. Though it might be odd for someone in your country to be able to identify the scent of human flesh on fire, it is not odd where I am from.

This is because in the Hindu funeral ritual, the eldest men of the family and sometimes the women attend the burning of the deceased body. We do this to honor them and witness the release of their soul from their flesh. Now the question you might be asking is, why? Why did this happen to my grandmother? Well, the very sad but true answer is money. As I stated earlier, my grandfather was a municipal chairman of our town, which is much like a mayor. It is a prestigious and well-paid position.

Before that, he worked as a leader of a local chapter of one of the national political parties, which also paid well. Additionally, my grandfather was also the sole descendant of a royal family from Bangladesh. So when he died, the money he left my grandmother made her quite rich. And when she was to die, that money was to be distributed amongst her four surviving children, to her son, who was my father, and also to her three daughters.

It was well known to everyone in the family, except for my grandmother, that one of her daughters coveted her money the most. That was her eldest daughter, the one who lived in Burhampur, the one my grandmother visited right before she became afflicted, the one who her sister-in-law gave her the black magic amulet in the first place. My father quickly came to the conclusion that his sister orchestrated the black magic scheme so that she might inherit the money sooner rather than later. My grandmother refused to believe this.

She believed that her daughter's sister-in-law gave her the cursed amulet by way of accident, and that neither woman intended to harm her in any way. She believed they simply messed with something, or came into possession of something, they did not understand. Though the exorcism was successful, about three months later my grandmother fell ill again. This time it truly was a purely medical affliction. She needed a doctor, not an exorcist.

Claiming that the medical treatment available in our town was inferior, my grandmother's eldest daughter promptly and forcefully took her away from West Bengal. My grandmother allowed this to happen because she truly believed her daughter did not mean her harm. My grandmother died a month after she arrived in Burhampur. She did not live long enough for us to ever see her again, but she did live long enough to make one final adjustment to her will.

Instead of even distribution amongst her beneficiaries, my grandmother left her eldest daughter almost half of her fortune, as well as her palatial home in West Bengal. My father and one of his other sisters attempted to dispute the legality of the new will, but their only evidence was the amulet, and even the district courts would not accept black magic as legal proof of wrongdoing. Because I was just a child, I did not attend my grandmother's cremation ceremony. However, my father did.

And when I became a man, he told me something I have never been able to forget. While the priest was setting alight my grandmother's body, my father glanced at his eldest sister and he nearly screamed. He told me he saw something was writhing beneath her skin. Something was trying her face on for size. And whatever that something was, it was looking and smiling at him. Yikes. It's a family curse, maybe.

Yeah, more that like black magic. What is that thing called? I have to look it up. I've never heard of it. Yeah, Pisach. Pisach? Yeah, Pisach. I thought you were trying to say like Pisach, which is something else.

But I couldn't tell you what. It's just like a word that I'm like, I know I know that word, but where do I know it from? Yeah, I like hearing about like different entities I was not familiar with before. Yes, absolutely. How creepy to think that something can take over your body and wear your face. Because I think that in American culture, when we think of possessions, generally we think of like

you know, Catholicism. We think of the devil taking over your body. We think of you strapped down to a bed as your exercise. Where in this situation, it's like, she's just living life. She just seems a little ill or a little off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think of it as like a, as looking at you and seeing something going on underneath your skin. I think of it as more mental than something that is apparently wrong with your mental state as opposed to something that's wrong with your physical state. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I mean, with, you know,

Christian exorcisms, if the person has been possessed for a while, their physicality starts to change a lot. They tend to become like... Very thin, dehydrated. Sure, but not like this. Yeah, yeah. This is all different. Yeah, and I just like how, you know, various cultures have their own versions of demonic possession. Absolutely. Yes, yes. I was very proud of myself for solving this case before you said it. I was like, when you said the amulet and that it was her...

Sister-in-law, yeah. Yeah, because she said her son-in-law's sister early on the way it was explained. It's always so hard to explain who those people are in life, you know, when you're telling a story. It's like, oh, well, my husband's sister's husband's sister. You know, like, what? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And the rhythm, I mean, you know, English is not his first language, you know, clearly. And so like the rhythm in which he wrote. Oh, no, I thought it was fine to follow. No problem. Yeah, I had to speak. It was a little tricky because my brain wants to speak in a certain rhythm. Uh-huh. And it was hard not to add certain words in the sentences. Yeah. And yeah, I found it a little bit more confusing. I had to like reread it a few times. Like, wait, what?

Okay. Sure, sure. But anyways, yeah, so I like very quickly, I was like, oh, I know who did this. Yeah. Yeah. I was really proud of myself for getting to the bottom of that very quickly. And isn't it crazy? It's like always about money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so are there any photos to go along with this story? Yes. Okay, I got several here, actually nine of them. Oh, wow. Okay. This first one, a Hindu Shiva temple in South Dhinapur, district of West Bengal, just to show like a...

Some of the old buildings in this area from their religion. Yeah, very interesting. I mean, that looks very decrepit. Uh-huh, it looks ancient. Yeah. Oh, okay, this is helpful. This is different. This is a palatial home in South Dinnapur. Perhaps the one that the grandma lived in. Okay. It's just very cool, like the architecture around here. Uh-huh, yeah. I don't know what I was expecting, but that wasn't it. And then this is...

Dakshineshwar Kali Temple in West Bengal. God, I want to go to India so badly. I know. It's just the architecture and everything. Just like, yeah, the whole look, just the look of everything. It's like another planet. Yeah. So different than the West. Exactly. And so when I think about it or when I look at it, I'm like, my brain can't quite compute how it's real. I obviously know that it is. Yeah. But I just kind of look at it and think like, huh, what would it feel like to stand in front of something that looks like that? Yeah. Yeah.

This picture, this is the Pisachas devouring corpses in the Alu Vihar cave temple in Sri Lanka. Okay.

Yeah, so these little demon guys. They're described, just for an easy Wikipedia thing, flesh-eating demons in Indian religions appearing in Hindu and Buddhist mythologies. Pisachas, malevolent being often referred to as the very manifestation of evil. Okay, yeah. Well, they're really creepy. Yeah. Actually, that would be a great Halloween costume. I mean, it would take too much explanation, but just as like a creepy mask or what have you, that would be really good.

This is just some more of the Passaccia's impaling people on some kind of spiky tree inside of that. Oh, my gosh. It's hard anyway, but with a head cold, I'm like, my God. Alu V'her. Alu V'her temple. And then this next one, Passaccia's slicing someone in half, kind of like Terrifier style. Just right. Yeah.

From the crotch to the neck. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Holding that guy's leg and just like cutting down, starting with the crotch. I'm sitting cross-legged. I'm just squeezing together. And this is that city, Bramapur. Yeah, Bramapur. Big old like, I guess, pond. Maybe a man-made pond in the center there. Some kind of water fountain.

I'm not trying to like down. It's okay. I got you. I'm not trying to downplay what it looks like, but immediately I was like, is that in Vegas? It reminds me of like, you know, the like Bellagio or, you know, these like in a much grander scale, but a contained man-made water feature. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This next one, a photo used in an article titled the origin of black magic and its practices via the times of India.

And then one more, it's just ridiculous. This is an Etsy ad for a black magic custom spell. Get out of here. You can contact this person and have custom spells made.

Uh, no. Free, I like, it says, uh, black magic custom spell. And then in smaller letters, same day cast, fast results, free recast, video proof. Uh-huh. Yeah. I'm not zooming with that person. Also, anybody who really practices black magic. Right. I don't think they would do that. They're not going to be selling it. No, they're not going to sell it on Etsy. And isn't it in that instance, I thought magic was then supposed to be spelled with a K.

uh no uh that uh i can't think again my brain is like operating at 20 but but magic with the k is like sex magic alistair crowley it's like a different kind of a not eastern but like western esoteric like occultism oh okay well i'll have to look that up to put that in my brain yeah i was really proud of myself as you were telling this story um and you were talking about the brahmin i was like yes i know what the brahmin are because one of my favorite books is siddhartha and the

Like, everyone should read Siddhartha. I don't know it. It's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful book. Is it like an ancient book? A modern novel? I have no idea when it was written. But it just... For me, my interpretation of it was just about, like, shedding the need for material possessions. Like, what really matters in life. Rising above different... Like, how we allow...

materialism to put us into class societies and... So it's not like a novel. It's like a way of life. Yes. Yeah, that's a good way to explain it. I need to go back and read it again. It's been a while, but it's very good. And then Molly, who found this story, she added this...

She wanted me to ask you some questions. That'll be funny. I agree. And just for the creeps and peepers listening, she found a list of questions to ask yourself if you think you might be the victim of black magic. Okay. And there was this article in the Times of India. And according to the author, Jirog Daruwala, who's a celebrity astrologer there, if you answer yes to any of these questions, then you probably are a victim of black magic. Okay. Okay. So here we go, creeps, peepers, and Lindy.

Are you or your family a victim of recurring accidents? Well, we have been in two car accidents already this year, so... Okay. Wow. Question one. You're already a black magic victim. Next question. Do you feel you are being surrounded by bad luck all the time? No. Are you feeling mentally and emotionally controlled by another entity all the time? No. Are you losing out on jobs, occupation, or business very often? Well, yes, but I can tell you why.

Do you think you are harming yourself physically, mentally, or financially? Does working out too much count? No. It's probably a no. Probably no. Do you have constant feelings of unhappiness? No. Do you experience frequent financial losses? No.

I mean, nothing like of note. No. Okay. Are you losing enthusiasm for life and often think of giving up on family? Are you just asking me if I'm depressed? That's what this feels like. I know. That's what these questions are. This feels like an intake. Right? And there's one more. Is your relationship failing even after trying too hard? Oh, my God. No. Okay.

Okay. Well, then, well, to any of them. So because you are the victim of recurring accidents recently, you are probably the victim of black magic. Okay. But I love these. This reminds me of like certain astrology things where,

It's almost everyone is going to answer yes to at least one of these questions or like a maybe yes. Yeah, I know. I'm like, well, yeah, like we all are experiencing financial struggles right now. Have you looked at the economy? Yeah. Well, if it's black. Oh, my God. That's what they're doing at the White House. You guys is a black magic. If you if you need help from this black magic, just contact G-Rog Daruwala.

And for a small fee, I bet he'll fix it. 100%. Yeah. 100%. Okay. Are you ready to leave Blackmagic, Northwest, Northeast India and head to Southern California? Oh, yes. I am. Before we move on to more scares, we need to take a quick in-between story sponsor break. If you don't want to hear these ads, please sign up to be a Robert or Annabelle on Patreon to get all these episodes ad-free, additional bonus episodes, and more.

It really does take a village, you know? I could

see you going through it, Dan. And I did my best to show up for you and give you what I thought you needed. But you know, watching your partner struggle is a real challenge. You want to fix it all for them, but that's also not helpful. Thankfully, I have my own therapist to lean on as well. Between your therapist and my therapist, we found our way through a really hard year and we came out better on the other side.

Even though it can be hard to ask for help, it's essential. None of us can do this life thing totally alone. Each of us needs a community, a support system to help us in hard times. No matter what your community looks like, a group of friends or a single therapist, you have the access to the help and support you might be looking for.

Build your support system with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash scaredtodeath to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash scaredtodeath. This message is sponsored by Greenlight. Do you remember the first time you became aware of money? Was it when you were little and you asked your parents for a toy that they said was too expensive? Or maybe it was the first time you had to fill up your own tank with gas.

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Thanks for listening to our sponsor deals, creeps and peepers. Over two centuries ago, Spanish Franciscans began to build California missions as part of the Spanish Empire's efforts to convert the area's indigenous people into the official state religion and culture, and thus strengthen an expansion of the colonial powers territory in the New World.

In total, 21 missions were built in California between 1769 and 1833. And inside the missions, indigenous peoples were pressured into receiving religious indoctrination and were moved into the towns surrounding the missions once their new education was complete and they had renounced or let go of most of their own beliefs and traditions. While living inside these missions, indigenous people were expected to perform such labor as fieldwork, cooking, carpentry, building, and leatherworking.

As these missions grew and Europeans encroached further and further into their territory, the indigenous peoples of America's West Coast lost more and more of their lands, their cultures, their languages, and their lives. One of these missions was La Purisima, the La Purisima Mission. In English, its full name is the Mission of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary.

Located in modern-day Lompoc, La Purisima was established on December 8, 1787, on the day of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and presiding over its opening was Father Fermin Lassun, a Franciscan missionary and the founder of nine out of the 21 missions, including La Purisima. La Purisima was built on land that belonged to the Chumash people, or Chumash.

By 1804, over 1,500 Chumash had been forcibly removed from their land around the mission and were working at La Purisima as essentially slave labor, forced to help construct various buildings, practice agriculture, and raise livestock. Life inside and around the mission was terrible for the Chumash, and thousands died from either diseases spread by the Spaniards or of mistreatment by their hands. The original mission complex was destroyed by an earthquake, December 12, 1812.

A new mission was built a few miles northeast across the Santa Ynez River, adjacent to El Camino Real, the road that connected all the California missions. The Chumash were now forced to rebuild the mission to be more earthquake-resistant and to be bigger. A sprawling mission complex now had residences, a blacksmith shop, a garden, and a water system with an aqueduct and underground piping.

After the Mexican War of Independence ended in 1821, California became part of Mexico, and now indigenous people were promised Mexican citizenship. But that process would be slow and tensions between the Chumash and their new government would grow. In February of 1824, a Chumash worker was brutally whipped at Mission Santa Inez, which sparked a revolt that spread to the other missions.

Several hundred Chumash would end up occupying La Purisima during this revolt until Mexican soldiers recaptured the mission on March 17th, killing 16 of the rebels and wounding many others. In 1833, the Mexican government passed a law that secularized the missions, and some of the land that once made up La Purisima was now given back to the Chumash in 1845. The remainder of La Purisima, including the buildings, were purchased by a man named Jonathan Temple, then later sold to another man named Ramon Malo.

After Malo died, the mission lands went through several owners over the following few decades and gradually fell into disrepair. In 1874, some of the property was returned to the Catholic Church, and then the Union Oil Company purchased other portions of the former mission in 1903 and deeded parcels to Santa Barbara County in 1933. Despite all this parceling and transferring of ownership, the original mission complex remained intact.

And now today, the mission, properly restored, is part of the La Purisima Mission State Historic Park, the only example in the entire state of California of a complete Spanish Catholic mission complex. And the entire complex is believed to be haunted. Time now for the tale of the ghosts of La Purisima. Many believe La Purisima is haunted by spirits from the past.

Park rangers, tour guides, and tourists alike have all reported classic paranormal encounters, such as hearing disembodied whispers, unexplained footsteps, and doors slamming shut on their own. They've also claimed to have witnessed strange, sentient-seeming shadows in corridors, and to have felt inexplicably cold pockets of air. There have even been a few more intense reports of visitors catching a glimpse of an apparition of a ghostly, weeping woman near the Mission Cemetery.

an apparition who disappears into thin air shortly after being spotted. The main source of the paranormal activity is believed to be the spirits of some of the Chumash people who were tormented and who died on the grounds. This is seemingly supported by stories of distant flutes heard playing, the exact kind of flutes once used by the Chumash. Several years back, park guide Bill Henry spoke to the Lompoc Record about his own paranormal experiences in the park.

Once, he said, while dressed as a soldier from the 1824 revolt, he felt a force shove him from behind and knock him down to the ground. He wondered if his costume had perhaps been a bit too realistic, and some spirit thought he was one of their oppressors. Henry said on another occasion he and his granddaughter, or he had his granddaughter with him, while opening up the park early one morning, and both of them heard sounds that he described as death chants. The sounds frightened his granddaughter so badly she refused to return to the park.

On a third occasion, Henry said he clearly saw three young girls who looked to him to be Chumash sitting inside the complex's old barracks where unmarried soldiers once bunked. But when he went inside the building, they had disappeared. Another park guide, Dee Lonan, also spoke to the Lompoc record and said she had seen an infamous resident ghost known for messing with the covers on the beds inside some locked former living quarters. Lonan recalled, quote,

Richard L. Sennett, author of the 1986 book Ghosts of the Haunted Coast, said,

once led a team of psychic researchers on a park visit to the mission grounds, and he claimed that the researchers felt intense cold spots inside the mission church as well as a feeling of general unease throughout the property. After that tour, Sennett met a man who was a former guide and member of the Civilian Conservation Corps team who worked on restoring the park in the 1940s. That man told him that he and other workers unearthed four or five child-sized skeletons underneath the tile floors of the church.

How disturbing is that? What happened to those kids and why were they buried there? Were the priests covering up some kind of abuse? Sennett said that he and the man did a walkthrough of the church following this disclosure and he realized that the psychic researchers he had led around the grounds previously had felt cold spots exactly above where the skeletons of those children had been found. This convinced him that the spirits of those children or at least some kind of residual energy attached to those children and their deaths lingers to this day.

and he's not alone regarding that belief. The history of La Purisima has been marked by many tragedies that primarily affected the Chumash people, and many believe they've left a lingering negative energy throughout the mission grounds. A powerful reminder of so much pain and suffering endured by hundreds, if not thousands, of people who lived around La Purisima for centuries before the Spaniards arrived and brought so much pain and death.

I mean, yeah. Like, of course it's going to be haunted. Uh-huh. There's no shock there. Yeah. Not for me. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ugh. Those child-size tiles, like, ugh. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like, the skeletons found underneath the floor. Mm-hmm. Where the cold spots have been felt. Under the tiles, yeah. Ugh. Yeah. I got some photos. Okay. Okay. This first one, a photo just of the mission grounds on a nice sunny day. Well, some clouds in the sky, but nice and sunny. I was like, look how blue it is. Mm-hmm.

And then it's been beautifully restored. Beautiful. Yeah, this is the interior of the church or the chapel.

And then this next one, this is the barracks. You can see like the number of little cots and stuff there where multiple people could sleep in that room. Yeah, like little recreation. Exactly. And I just thought this was cool. I'm not sure which room this is. I think it might be the blacksmith shop. Okay. But I'm not sure what that mechanism is in the background. But just, yeah. Yeah, that wheel sort of thing. I actually, okay. For anybody who makes pasta, it looks like a giant...

uh, pasta drying rack. And what I'm going to guess is they used it to like dry meats or, Oh yeah. Maybe that's where like cool something, you know, cool something or like, as you were saying with blacksmith or maybe, um,

They were making candles. Like you have to like dip it a bunch and then hang it. Oh. And then you would cut the part that's like hanging over. That would be your wick. You would cut it in half and then trim it down. Yeah. Their website has a whole bunch of like the website for the park. Yeah. Has a whole bunch of really cool photos. Yeah. And has descriptions for none of them. They have this huge photo carousel without a single description. That's so helpful. I know.

But yeah, cool photo, whatever it is. Yeah, yeah. When we lived in LA, before I knew you, my mom and I went to Santa Barbara for a weekend one time when she came to visit me. We went to the mission there and it's so beautiful. Oh, that's cool. Really, really pretty. There's a mission not far from us.

Cataldo. Cataldo, yeah. Yep. One of the, some of the first Europeans in this area. Uh-huh. Yeah. And they've done a really good job with preserving and restoring that one as well. Oh, cool. I think it's very cool. Okay. Well, are you ready to just relax your head cold brain and let me read stories to you? I know. It's such a funny thing where it's like, I can talk, I can, I can read, like I can do like a single task without distractions, but any kind of like interaction, I'm just like, wait, what?

I just feel like I'm in such a fog. Yeah. But I'm ready. I'm ready to listen. Yes, no worries. Okay, well, here. Oh, who's your Layla? I just got the purple one still. Okay, great. All right, let's dive in. Hey, guys. I've blown through every episode of Scared to Death, and now I'm moving on to Time Suck. Thank you. This is the story of being plagued by the demon Belial. It is 100% true. I have the scars to prove it.

I was raised in a Christian home as a young boy. At the age of 10, I was given up to the state by my mother who was quickly losing her battle with cancer. My father was never in the picture, and that's all I'll say about him. I was in the custody of the state via a Methodist children's home for over eight years.

The trauma from both the mental and physical and sexual abuse I endured would forever leave a scar. At 34 years old, I have found some peace, though. I am now a pagan. I believe in the power of magic as it saved my life. When I turned 18, I was released into the world with a small amount of money and a good luck from the state. I began my journey to find out who I really was.

I was a traveling, homeless kid jumping from couch to couch wherever a new friend would let me stay. Eventually, my journey led me to a man named Steve who changed my life. Steve was one of those Satanists who believed he had the power to conjure demons. Me, with my Christian background, was intimidated and excited and profoundly skeptical. I said, you're full of shit, man. And he said, watch me.

3 a.m., October 30th, 2004. I'll never forget it. He came to get me around 2.30 a.m. It's time. Follow me, Steve said. We went to his place, grabbed some candles, and then we were on our way to the Forbidden Cemetery. Usually, on October 30th to the 31st, the city of Casadega, Florida, keeps a tight watch on the cemetery as it's home to a local legend, the Devil's Armchair.

The town of Casadega is mostly comprised of psychics, mediums, and witches. The air is extra thick there, the feeling of spirits watching you even at high noon. We arrived at the cemetery and crawled under a chain link fence. As I did, I unknowingly placed my hand on a shattered beer bottle. My pinky finger sliced open, giving me a cut so deep I lost all feeling in my pinky to this day.

In the moment, though, nothing was going to stop us. We ducked and dodged up the hill until we reached a waist-high fence that protected the devil's armchair. We snuck in and Steve began. He created a salted circle and placed five candles around it. He ordered me to sit down and hold on to your ass. Steve began reading from a book that he had carried with him. Well, I guess it was more of a spiral notebook that he wrote in.

He had whispered gibberish for a good four minutes when the temperature dropped around us drastically. I felt pins and needles all over my body. Strong was the scent of dust and wet dirt washing over me. Steve loudly said, Approach! And I watched as a shadow darted back and forth from tombstone to tombstone before stopping directly in front of us.

My feet started to burn and the candles went dark. I panicked and I bolted from the ritual. I ran out of the cemetery, jumped over a fence, passed Steve's truck and ran straight out of Casadega. I found a payphone and I called a friend to come get me. Once at their house, I bandaged myself and went to bed without saying much. The next day, I called my mother, who was currently in remission, and told her what had happened.

Over the next few months, it was the small things that began to catch my attention. I'd see shadows or hear dull whispers. Progressively, the voices grew more and more clear. They told me how worthless I was, how my childhood was my fault and was reason enough for me to end my life, or that people in my life were trying to plot against me. I truly thought I was losing it. The paranoia was next level.

My depression dragged me down so far that I grew physically weak, the feeling of a 100-pound weight on me at all times. This cruelty lasted for three years.

As if seeing shadows in clear daylight or battling my mental health struggles or even seeing random large handprints in random places all around my home wasn't enough, I started to have a very specific dream. A dream that occurred every night for three years. It would start with all my loved ones standing around me in a circle. They all had their backs to me. The sound of a whistling kettle combined with a scream filled my dream.

My loved ones would slowly turn around to face me, revealing a blank face as they raised their finger to point at me. With each person who turned to face me, the noise only grew louder. These people would then raise their hands above their heads as my body started to float up in the air. The higher they raised their hands, the louder the noise grew, the higher I flew up and away from them, all while begging for help.

As the noise grew to a deafening sound and I was floating 50 feet above them, a voice exclaimed, come to me! And then I'd fall from the sky, waking up in bed, sweating and crying. On occasion, I'd find deep bleeding scratches on my body upon waking up. Again, this went on for three years.

My mental health grew worse. My mother, who'd been battling cancer for 13 years, died by suicide. I was lost. I was an alcoholic. I was done with life. I put a gun in my mouth, but was too scared to pull the trigger. Eventually, I moved to Georgia where I met my wife. At the time, she was part of a coven. I shared with her what had been going on through the last three years, and she wanted to help me find answers.

I met the leader of her coven, and after a brief introduction, I started to tell her what I had been going through. I confided in her that I had started to see a being that had the yellow eyes of a mangy cat, the nostrils of a viper, and the teeth and claws that would put a tiger to shame. Sitting there with a lit cigarette hanging from her hand, she said one word, Belial. She offered her help in ridding me of this awful demon."

"'That October, the air was chilled "'the night the coven was set to complete a banishing spell. "'It was dark outside, so the sky— "'yet the sky was a stunning navy-blue backdrop "'for the bright stars that speckled it. "'The fire was a brighter orange "'than I had ever seen before in any fire.'

We were rooted on the damp grass and it soothed my feet. And for a brief moment during the ceremony, I saw nothing but black followed by nothing but white. And then it was over. Since that night, the whispers have stopped. I no longer feel the weight on my body. I no longer lash out in angry bursts. And as low as I feel sometimes, it's never that kind of low.

The three scratch mark scars I have on my thighs from the dreams and my numb pinky finger will forever remind me to never invite something in that you aren't ready and willing to handle. Love the show. Keep it going. Dean. Oof. Man, thanks, Dean. I'm so sorry that you suffered that abuse. Oh, man, just all the family tragedy. My God. Yeah, such a heavy...

Heavy life. Yeah. Yeah. Belial. I didn't want to like distract you and do this. Look, open my laptop while you were talking about. I know that's like a major where they call it a major demon. Uh huh. Yeah. I looked into him too as well. And I don't think I have that specific page open in my browser anymore. But yeah, it's B-E-L-I-A-L, right? B-E-L-I-A-L.

Stand by, stand by, stand by. A ton of different spellings for this thing. B-E-L-I-A-L, yes. Yeah. Belial. Hebrew word used to characterize the wicked or wickedness. Etymology of the word often understood as lacking worth, without, like without value. It would make sense that Belial, if that's...

Like the energy that Belial brings forward or maybe is attracted to, that it would attach itself to Dean because he was probably so susceptible, right? His mom had passed. He was already depressed. I'm sorry. His mom was ill. Yeah. And he had been handed over to the state. He experienced so much abuse and tragedy. Like his self-worth would very likely be quite challenged. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, okay. Yeah. It's referenced as being like an angel possibly in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but maybe a demon. And then I think I heard of this thing in the, it's the 17th century grimoire, The Lesser Key of Solomon. It's like a book on demonology essentially. Yes. And then also in Anton LaVey's The Satanic Bible. Ah. I may have heard it there as well.

Yeah, but a crazy story, but very cool that Dean was able to find some relief from this demon and, you know, join his... I guess he probably didn't join his wife's coven, but became a part of it. Became associated with it, but that, you know, she was able to help him find peace and remove this attachment. And that guy, Steve...

I think I know the answer to this question, but if somebody of any name, but especially, okay, just whatever. Some guy named Steve. Some guy named Bob. Some guy named Bob, Steve, whatever. Dan. Dan tells you like, hey, I can conjure demons. Come to the cemetery with me at 3 a.m.,

Is there any circumstances in which you go? Only if it's you. Okay, if it's me. And then I'll be laughing at you the whole time. Okay. Yeah, you wouldn't believe that I could do it. Oh, honey, you can't. You can't conjure demons. I love you very much. At any age when you were younger, would you have been, like, goth enough to, like, go to the cemetery at 3 a.m. to watch a demon conjuring? No, because I... Well, A, I was never goth. I was punk. Get it right? It's very different. No, I mean, I...

I definitely tried on a lot of hats, I think, as we all do at that time of our life, right? You know, so even like in my like punk phase, it wasn't like hardcore punk, like, like other actual punks would have been like, get the fuck out of here, poser. You know, like I was just trying on a hat. I was examining different identities, but there wasn't one that like I really, I, you know, committed to. Yeah. So no. No.

Yeah, I was trying to think if I would. I guess maybe, you know, there was a phase of my life where I was very deeply involved in my youth group at my church. So maybe in a rebellion against that, I could have considered it. Yeah. But how...

I feel like, I feel like, I mean, the power balance is obviously different with like men and women. Cause like, uh, like you're oftentimes is, is, is a man you're not as worried about being overpowered by somebody remotely. And so I'm trying to think of like, there would have been a point in my life if some random goth girl was like, come with me to the cemetery at 3am, watch me conjure a demon. Would I have done it? Maybe if she was hot enough.

I mean, maybe, but I wouldn't, but I, but it's so funny. There's a part of me that thinks like, God, get out of here. Like the Steve guy, whoever, like you're so full of shit. There's no way. But there's another part of me that's pretty creeped out that like, that like, if I actually thought,

on any level they might be able to do it. A part of me would want to see something like that. It'd be so crazy to actually witness it. Yeah. But another part of me wants no part of that. I don't know. Like it's such a weird feeling. Like I, that stuff does scare me. At this age, I wouldn't even be afraid to go and see something. I would be afraid to go and not see something, but have something that I cannot see happen.

Meaning an attachment. You know, maybe this person is not to be trusted. Maybe they put a curse on me. They're like, it's, they're pretending to conjure something, but really what they're doing is they're,

you know, placing a curse on me. Like, which is, which is another kind of belief in like the paranormal. Yeah. So yeah. So you'd be worried about like an actual curse. Yeah. That's today in this life, in this moment. I always say this, like ask me next week. It always just depends on like my current state of, of feeling. I've been getting, I've been getting more scared about this stuff lately and I don't know why I've been tilting more and like less skeptical. I mean, I think since the car crash, you've, you've definitely like, Oh, maybe, you know, yeah. Yeah.

I think your mortality, you know, also like we're getting older. So I think, you know, as you inch, not that we're going to die soon, but I mean, we could, sure. Anybody could. But, you know, as we begin the back halves of our lives or whatever, as we, you know, we just went to a friend's 50th birthday. It's like, that's still quite young, but it's marks maybe the halfway point or over halfway. Exactly. It just depends on how long you live. And so I think your relationship with death and what you're willing to do

with. Yeah, maybe to shift. Yeah. I, uh, I'm also feeling spooked just before you tell this last story. Um, so don't forget to share this, but, uh, I was in the same room in our studio here two days ago recording nightmare fuel and it would have been, it would have been Moloch's packed to satanic panic whenever that I

I think it'll come out before this episode, actually. So I'm recording that and I'm, you know, we're getting ready to head out of town. Actually, a lot of you guys know Chad Daniels, the comic. We're getting ready to fly out to his 50th birthday the next day, just a quick flight. And I'm trying to rush, not rush, but like, you know, stay focused and get this thing done. Yeah, you're trying to finish your to-do list before we leave town for a day. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Otherwise, I might have paused it and be like, you know what? I'm going to come back to this tomorrow morning because I'm getting kind of creeped out. Yeah. But I'm in here in the studio by myself. And it wasn't that late, but it was like 8 p.m., a couple hours after sunset around here. And we have these – when we were doing the video and we had Tyler here, he put these –

I don't even know what this stuff's called. It's like a very thin black aluminum that you put over these studio lights to kind of direct the light into the area you want it to go. I know. If we have any, like, grips or electrics or anybody that works on sets, it's like I... I've seen this stuff a whole bunch of times. Oh, my God. And I know what it's called because I told him about it and Tyler was like, what? Oh, yeah, from all your production experience. Yeah, and now it completely escapes me. And it's crazy. So they've been... But they've been...

uh, you know, left as they have been for, I don't know, two years now or whatever. We never touched them. And, but they're directly, one of them is directly over the top of my head. And, uh,

It was just weird timing that this would happen. I went in. I would have noticed this thing hanging down because I would have felt it before the story if that would have happened. Right. So the way I record these nightmare fuel stories, I turn off all the lights. The only light in the room is my computer. I don't even have my phone with me. So I have no access to a light unless I walk across the room. So I'm in complete darkness other than the light from my computer screen.

And recording just by myself. And I'm talking about demonic shit in this story. And I'm saying these things. I remember being a little nervous where I'm like reading this demonic invocation spell in Latin, kind of freaking myself out. I think that you should change them so they're not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I like the reality of it, but I'm, so I'm yelling all this, you know, demonic shit by myself in here. And I hear like the soft scraping of like metal, like this weird, like metal scraping sound. I'm like, what the fuck?

And I kind of like pause really quick and just, and I feel something. It felt like someone with a finger taps me on the head as I'm hearing this metal sound. And I about jumped out of my skin. Did you scream? Oh yeah. I was like, oh, and I like, I like by myself here. And then I just like, was the recording still going? Oh yeah. Oh, so Logan gets to hear this happen. Oh yeah. Logan. Oh, this is going to be great. And then I was like, oh my God, oh my God. And then, and then I felt something above me and I'm like, what the fuck?

fuck, what the fuck? And walk across the room and then turn on the light and I saw like this huge section of that metal slowly slipped down. It was hanging by a piece of like gaffer's tape and was just dangling right above my head and just bouncing on my head. I'm like, what are the odds that that would happen mid-recording? I need...

Can you make a note? We need to ask Logan to separate out that audio. Oh, yeah. It would be so funny to play. We could just play it on a bonus episode or something, but just like, God, that is hilarious. Okay, yeah. That's really funny. Okay, do you feel better now that you got that out? I do. I do. Thank you. You're welcome. So I have one more story. Okay. All right.

Dan and Lindsay. Scared to death has brought back many memories I have tried my whole life to forget. I cannot seem to shake them as every episode I listen to, I wait for someone else to describe the same monster that followed me for years. The first sighting. This sighting begins in the small town of McClennie, Florida. Rural, yes, but becoming more city-like as the years passed.

It was a scorching hot Florida summer day, the middle of the day, broad daylight. I was maybe 10 or 11, walking around my neighborhood. It was an empty subdivision that had just begun developing a year prior. There were many empty lots and empty new homes all over the subdivision.

While walking around the neighborhood with two of my friends, we talked about boys and video games and what we thought the next school year would be like and so on. You know, usual girl stuff. As we were walking to my house, I glanced at the empty house right next to mine. Something had caught my eye. Something was reflecting the sunlight from the window.

At first, I thought it was just the window itself, but as I looked away, I heard three distinct taps on the window. I felt frozen in my tracks as complete terror filled my body. My heart raced and my breath caught in my throat.

My eyes met those of a hooded figure who stood on the other side of the window, holding a rusty butcher-like knife to the window. It was pointing the knife at me and then tapping the glass window. Clack, clack, clack. Methodical. Menacing. Slow. I stood there staring at this creature as my two friends stood in my driveway waiting for me. They called out to me, telling me to hurry up.

They sounded distant, as if they were hundreds of yards away. I could only really hear the knife tapping the window, clack, clack, as it grew louder and louder and echoed in my brain. I could make out bright gold eyes peering out from the darkness of the hooded being in the house. They were almost glowing.

Something whispered behind me. I snapped out of the trance I was in and turned to run to my house. But as I did, my body collided with a solid force. It was like a tree had suddenly been planted in my direct path. I stood there in horror as the creature from the window now stood in front of me. I could see its face clear as day. Skinny, sunken, ashy white skin, like it had been burned and then painted white.

There were bizarre tribal markings over the skin that wasn't covered by the cloak, and those gold glowing eyes were piercing through me. Pin prickles covered my body, and once again, I was in a trance. I couldn't speak. I couldn't move. I could hardly breathe. The creature's right hand raised to my throat the blade of that butcher knife at my neck.

It felt like an eternity standing there staring into this creature's eyes scared nearly to death. A low growl came from every direction as if the creature were all around me and it smelled oh god did it smell it was worse than death and I felt so weak.

My friends began to scream for my mother as I stood there transfixed on the creature. And then I heard my mother scream, get away from my daughter! As she bursted out of the house. And just like that, it was over. He was gone. I ran to my mother's arms as I sobbed and she wrapped me in safety. I replayed the entire encounter to her and my friends. My mother lost her shit when she noticed little drops of blood on my neck.

She lifted my chin and began to pray in tongues over me. Terrified by my mom's sudden onset of the Holy Spirit, I began to cry. My mother led me to a mirror where I noted a thin cut where the creature had been holding that rusty knife to my neck. It was very shallow, like a paper cut. I hadn't even felt it happen.

My mom and friends shared what they saw. They said it looked like a man wearing a cloak that dragged on the ground. We talked about what it could mean and to my dismay how long I had until it would possibly return. My mother terrified me further by suggesting that it might have been trying to kill me or hurt me.

The following Sunday, we set out for church. I hoped my mom wouldn't say anything, but to my horror, she had told several other mothers about the incident. We then discovered that several other kids had seen that same creature. Other kids described it precisely as I had seen it, with the only difference being that for most, the creature was not holding a knife and it didn't have a cloak, but instead was naked and had a long disfigured body and smelled horribly.

The second sighting.

When you descended the stairs, you cannot go left or straight. You can only go right. There was a large living room-esque area there. Then a door led to a massive, creepy laundry room that I could not stand to ever be in. It always felt so much colder than the rest of the house in there. Another door led to a small room that had an en suite half bath. My youngest sister, Jessica, took the largest portion of the basement. The

My other little sister, Raina, slept with me in the far back room, far away from the creepiness of the laundry room, where we thought we were safe. Then one night, Raina and I were settling down for the night. Raina was closest to the light switch, so she flipped them off and then ran to her bed. We chatted for a few minutes as we started to drift off to sleep.

In the top left corner of our room, I suddenly saw two dim gold balls floating. I asked Reina ever so quietly as terror filled my body, ''Do you see that?''

"'See what?' she replied. "'In the upper top corner, those—' And then I stopped talking as the body of those floating gold balls began to appear. "'Turn on the light!' I whispered so quietly my sister couldn't even hear me, though we were just feet apart. "'You're scaring me, Lexi!' she said."

The creature's body was climbing on the ceiling, hands and feet stuck to the ceiling as its head contorted to look at me. The creature grew in size and then jumped from the ceiling onto my bed. What the fuck is that? My sister screamed as she heard it thump onto my bed. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. I wanted to do anything except sit there and stare. But that's all I could do. The smell of death filled the room as the creature's face came within inches of mine.

In the moonlight, I could make out that burnt, ashy white flesh in the tribal tattoos I had seen years ago. My body began to shake in terror. The creature cocked its head while staring at me as if to say, You're interesting. What are you? Like a dog does when it hears a funny word or sound. Oh my god, Lexi! What the fuck is that thing? Mom!

My sister cried out. The creature moved closer. I screamed as loud as I possibly could. Turn on the light now, Raina!

Raina, the trooper that she is, made her way to the light switch. I could hear her crying as she did. Raina turned the light on and as she did, the creature whipped its head around to stare at her and then it disappeared. However, the smell of death and the coldness that befell the room did not dissipate. Raina and I sat on her bed, bawling our eyes out until we fell asleep. The next morning, we crept to my side of the room and saw that there were tears in my bedsheets where the creature had been. The third sighting.

Fast forward, I'm now 20 years old and one of my friends from the first sighting, Kathy, calls me in the middle of the night sobbing, her voice trembling, Lexi, you will never believe what happened to my son and I last night.

The fear in her voice alone sent chills down my spine. Kathy continued, it was about three in the morning and I went to feed my son a bottle. He was crying so loud and so hard. When I went into his room, I couldn't move fast enough. There was something in his crib with him. She began crying more. Lexi, this thing had my son. It wouldn't let him go, Lexi.

I replied with rapid fire question. What the fuck? What did it look like? Have you called your mom? The pastor? Do you need me to send you some sage to burn? She described the creature as being the same size as her five month old son. It was white, but burnt, had tribal markings all over its body and had gold glowing eyes.

It kept saying, he is mine. This is mine, she told me. The hair on my neck stood up. I was cold and terrified. As calmly as possible, I asked Kathy if the creature left behind any markings on her son or the bed. Yes, she said. There are two small scratches on his ankle that the creature was holding. I tried to comfort her and told her I would visit later in the day, that we would make some calls and cleanse her home.

When I arrived, Kathy's mother and our pastor were already there. Kathy and I walked into her bedroom and shut the door to privately discuss the details of what had happened. We began discussing if she had seen or heard anything weird in the past few weeks. She had recently moved into this house. It's been peaceful, Kathy shared. But then her face went from solemn to terror-stricken. She was staring at something behind me.

That all-encompassing growl I had heard ten years prior filled the room. I turned around and was met with those gold glowing eyes, and I heard myself whimper. The growl grew in intensity. The bedroom was so cold, and I was locked in a trance once more, unable to breathe or move or speak.

The growl grew to a deafening decibel. Its face began to close in on mine when I heard a loud crash. Our pastor and Kathy's mother burst into the room, and the creature vanished. The pastor began blessing the home immediately.

I sat quietly with Kathy, who was comforting her son. Our pastor and Kathy's mom told us we had been in her bedroom for nearly two hours before they had heard the growling and rushed in. For us, it felt like we'd only been in there a few minutes before the creature showed up. Kathy and I spent that night in her living room with her son, replaying the events of the day over and over.

To end on a positive note, Kathy and everyone else mentioned in the story are all okay. And no one has mentioned the gold-eyed creature since. Your forever loving and loyal suckling, Lexi. Thank you, Lexi.

And good job, Lulu, on the vocal performance on that one. Oh, thanks. Yeah, I thought you were killing it. Oh, thanks. Yeah, you're really acting out those characters. That was great. I was connected to the story. It really bothered me. Yeah, yeah. That was a really, really good performance.

Yeah. Yeah, that was just a creepy, creepy, very specific-looking little creature. Yeah, it doesn't sound familiar to me. Tribal markings and gold eyes and ashy, burnt-looking skin. No, do you remember really early on we had a burnt creature? Yes, one of my stories? I think so, yeah. Like in a road, maybe, somewhere in Los Angeles? I don't know if it was in Los... I don't remember the Los Angeles part, but I remember there was one where there was some guy who died in a fire, then his...

ghost was terrorizing this kid would show up as like a burnt figure. Yeah. Maybe you told that story first and then somebody told me, like shared a story that I shared. Maybe, yeah. For some reason, I have like, unbeknownst to me, whether I've ever told this story, but our diehard fans will know, did I ever tell a story about somebody dying on a motorcycle on Pico Boulevard and they saw like an ashy creature? This is a very like, I have no control over what is filling my head right now, but that's what I've got.

All right. But yeah, like crazy. I don't recall ever hearing this creature, like ashy creatures or a white creature, but so specific with the like weird tribal markings. And to see it three times and then seems like what I take away from this, Lexi, is that once the pastor performed the blessing, it's gone away. So maybe all along, all she needed was...

some sort of blessing to release this. Yeah. Yeah, seeing something physical like that, like, okay, if you're going to see something paranormal, seeing something that actually, like,

is like a, appears to be a flesh and blood creature. Yeah. So much creepier and intense to me than if you saw like something, you know, transparent or like a. Totally. You know, like some, some spirit that's very ethereal and, you know, like a shadowy shape. I mean, that would be intense too. Yeah. If you saw like a shadow walking through your living room. Oh my God. Yeah. But if I'm picturing a shadow or like Gollum with tribal markings all over him walking through the living room, I'm still going to pick the shadow. Yeah.

Totally. I was thinking about like Monroe and her friends when she when Lexi was talking early on about like, you know, me and my friends were just like walking through the neighborhood. Yeah. And, you know, as a parent, if you're just like looking out the window and you see your kiddo and two of their friends walking down the street and then all of a sudden you see some bizarre cloaked family.

figure standing between your daughter or your child and their friends, and then there's like blood on your child's neck, I would lose my ever-loving shit. I don't even know how I would let my child out of my sight ever again. I'm going to be like, no more walks for you. Sorry. That would just change. Okay. If you were like a very skeptical person before, I mean, I doesn't sound like Lexi's mom was necessarily, you know, a very religious person, like not as skeptical. Totally. But if you were a very skeptical person,

And then you saw something concrete like that with other people around. Oh my God. It just, you're changed forever. You're like a completely different person. Yeah.

Gotta be. I mean, if you're not. It's going to change your worldview. Like, how could it not? How could it not? How could it not? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. All right, Sickie, let's get you out of here. Let's do some shout-outs and wrap it up and keep this one tight. Yeah. Hopefully, the next one wasn't too bad. And the next one, I'll be back to normal. I thought you did an excellent job. Okay, good. Can I thank the Annabelles first? I would love you to. I'd like to thank the following Annabelles for supporting us here. Ashley Berry, Gerilyn Masker,

Probably just some guy. I like that one. I like probably. Jane Leninger, Riley Vassarella, Julia Lyons, Donna Pastor Orlando, or it could be Donna Pastor Orlando. I wonder if that got messed up and it's supposed to be Pastor Donna in Orlando.

Yeah, because I feel like you just called her like pork tacos. Like El Pastor. Donna El Pastor Orlando. I don't know. Definitely someone named Donna in Florida. And she loves El Pastor tacos. Perfect. We find out she's vegan. Hot Pan Dan. Okay. That's the story there.

Derek Almazan and Miyuki. Miyuki. Cool name. I would like to thank the following Annabelles for their continued love and support on Patreon, making this year's scholarship possible. So thank you for helping us do that and give back to our community. Katie Brush Brevig, Sheena Aquino, Matt, Bethann, Sarah Stewart, Taylor Higgins, Matthew David Aguilera, David Ruggs,

Ooh. Okay. David Fessenden. Fessenden. Okay. Caleb Smith. I immediately made it into Fassbender, which I know is not even fucking close. Oh, yeah. It's Michael Fassbender's long-lost brother, David. David Fessenden. I just... I'm sorry, David. Your name is really fun to say, and I want to keep changing it into other fun things. Mr. F. Oh, dear. Okay. Okay.

Lastly, a few spoopy shout-outs. To Marvin from Patricia, happy birthday, baby brother. Battling fear and the unknown together for over 35 years. I love you. Isn't that cute? To Emma from your little sister, Aaliyah, congrats on graduating as a badass animator. Wow. Yeah, you're super awesome, and I am so proud of you. To...

Well, this is going to sound funny when I say it, but it'll make sense. To my fellow federal employees from Alex, remember that your value does not decrease based on someone's inability to see your worth. Stay strong and stay spoopy. Love that. Love that.

To Christy and Ronnie from DCAT, happy 15th anniversary. Ah, that's great. And that's our show. And that is our show. Thank you for continuing to send in your personal tales of terror to mystory at scaredtodeathpodcast.com. You can email us for everything else at info at scaredtodeathpodcast.com. Thank you to Logan Keith scoring today's show. Thanks to Heather Rylander for organizing the My Story emails. To book editor Drew Etana for polishing and preparing listener stories for book number six.

Thank you to Elon Musk for fucking nothing. Thank you to Molly Chainbox for finding the first story I told this week and to Olivia Lee for finding the second. We're on Facebook and Instagram where we post pics that accompany episodes and more at scared to death podcasts. We also have a private Facebook group, creeps and peepers full of fellow horror lovers. Big thank you to the all seeing eyes, the creeps and peepers moderators. Thanks for making our online community such a fun and welcoming place for so many. Enjoy your nightmares, creeps and peepers. Hope you were scared to death. Bye. Bye.

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