The White Witch
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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 of Death, Creeps and Peepers. What the heck was that? Shifting it up. I don't even, what did you just? I just whispered so fast, welcome to Scared of Death, Creeps and Peepers. Welcome to Scared of Death, Creeps and Peepers. That was terrifying. Welcome to Scared of Death, Creeps and Peepers, Roberts and Annabelle's. I'm Dan. Well, hello, Dan. I'm Lulu Marie. Hello, Lulu Marie.

You are so weird. No announcements today.

No announcements today, except we just wanted to say happy Pride Month. We are recording in advance, as we always do. So today is actually June 1st. So we are entering one of the best months of the year, full of fun parades and parties. And so we just wanted to take a moment to say to all of our LGBTQIA plus fans and allies out there, we see you. We love you. We're super duper glad you're here. And we hope you have a great time celebrating Pride.

All your love, all month long. Exactly. We'll be doing the same. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

How many fan submission stories do you have this evening, Lulu Marie? Guess. I'm going to guess two. Oh my God, you're a genius. We should go to Vegas right now. What are the odds? The odds are in your favor. I have two stories. You are correct. My first story, you know, kind of explores maybe some work hazards that come with the paranormal. And my second story is...

I really love, and maybe it's because I've been on a bunch of tour buses, but I found a haunted tour bus. Oh, that's cool. Uh-huh. Yeah, I like that. My first story was mine from a ghost story subreddit full of nothing but supposedly true paranormal encounters. Reportedly a veteran, the poster claims to have seen his fair share of all the gruesome horrors mankind has to offer, but nothing he ever witnessed as a soldier before.

terrified him quite as much as the inexplicable thing he saw in Okinawa when he was just 10 years old. Okay. So that's number one. Number two is all about the lore that surrounds Edmonton, Canada's supposedly haunted Firkin's house.

Where the ghost of a child, a haunted doll, and more have supposedly been encountered on numerous occasions. Okay. So what, uh, what spoopy socks are you wearing this week's ritual? What he said, I think is, what spoopy socks are you wearing this week as usual? Yeah, very close, uh, for this week's ritual. Oh, this week's ritual. Woo, ta-da-da-da-da-da.

So strange and creepy you are. I have these super fun socks that a fan of ours, Nancy Pope, brought to our Nashville show. She hand crocheted these thigh-high, sexy black socks. That's awesome. Thank you, Nancy. And thanks for coming out to Dan's show there. It was so great to see you. Yep. Nice to meet you.

We have tweaked, so I'm just going to get going. Go for it, bro. We've tweaked this first story just a bit, as we often do to make it better suited for a listening audience rather than for a readership. Time now for the tale of the White Witch. In the early 1980s, I lived in Okinawa, Japan. My dad, who was a corporal for the U.S. Army at the time, thought that seeing the world would be an adventure that would help my brother and I become better men. I have to say, I think he was right.

Because I grew up on military bases all around the world and then joined the military myself when I got old enough, I've gotten to see cultures many people never get the chance to. I really am thankful for every experience that life has given me, even the scary ones. Weirdly enough, despite having been in more than a pretty few hostile combat zones now over the course of my own service, when I think about what was the scariest moment of my life, it was hands down when I was a kid living in Okinawa.

When we first moved to Japan, my father was adamant about us having a fully immersive experience. So he moved me, my mom and brother into a small cliffside neighborhood off base. We lived in a kominka, which is a sort of traditional Japanese style house. It has a red, it had a red tile roof and concrete floor and a little garden courtyard with a limestone barrier wall. I remember our neighbors telling us that the wall was meant to protect the house from both typhoons and wandering evil spirits.

I used to think they were lying to scare me, but now I'm not so sure. Our neighborhood was situated on top of an enormous hill. Our house was on the side of the hill that overlooked, I kid you not, a zoo. So random, but it was so cool. The downhill trek from our house to the zoo's monkey habitat was about a mile long, or at least it felt like it, and almost all jungle. So basically, it was heaven for a 10-year-old boy. Ignoring all the local warnings about venomous snakes and untripped landmines left over from World War II,

Me, my brother, and some other kids from the neighborhood would spend hours playing and tromping around in that little stretch of jungle, pretending to be Indiana Jones. None of the kids we played with could speak much English. And despite my mom's desperate attempts to make us learn, my brother and I couldn't speak much Japanese either. But that didn't matter. We communicated in other ways, and for the most part, understood each other perfectly well.

The houses on the other side of our neighborhood overlooked a sweeping valley, which sloped back up a little ways out to form another summit. On the other side of that summit was a scraggly cliff that dropped straight down into the shallow ocean below. I never really liked going over to that side of the neighborhood, because that valley belonged to the dead. It was a cemetery. Well, actually I shouldn't call it a cemetery. It was a burial ground, and it was covered in crypts. Grave burials don't happen very often in Okinawa. Instead, above-ground vaults are built.

In Japanese, these vaults are called turtleback tombs. That valley was not the only place that had turtleback tombs on Okinawa. Many of them are built into the sides of hills that make up the island, and oftentimes are built within residential neighborhoods, scattered in between houses. In Okinawa, death is seen as a part of life, not separate from it. So the people there like to keep their loved ones and ancestors close, even when they're dead.

The crypts are big, made of huge arcs of polished stone, set over a large square of that stone, which has a square insert cut into the middle of it for the coffin to be placed inside. Once inside, the square is inset with another piece of polished stone, leaving a kind of shelf on the outside so offerings can be made to lost loved ones. Yen, food, flowers, incense, incense, incense, not incest. Typically the kinds of offerings given.

Even though the crypts were pretty common everywhere on the island, the valley by our neighborhood was by far the biggest dedicated burial site. The entire valley and both hills are covered with countless vaults. And spider webbing in between them are stone pathways that are old and badly maintained. Now that I'm an adult, I think the culture around death in Okinawa, the idea that we should keep our departed loved ones close to us even after they're gone is really beautiful. But when I was a kid, I did not understand it at all. And I definitely did not appreciate its beauty.

In fact, I thought the whole thing was terrifying. It freaked me out to think I was constantly surrounded by dead people. Every time I passed by a tomb, I was sure a zombie was going to burst through the cement, tackle me, eat my face and brains, and then drag me back into the vault with it. Might sound funny now, but it certainly wasn't funny when that was truly what I worried about. Luckily for me, most of my friends lived on our side of the neighborhood, so we weren't around the valley of the dead people that much. The only time we went over to that side of the hill was to visit this nice elderly Japanese couple who spoke English.

The old woman wanted us to call her Mama-san. We loved her. She was so welcoming and generous, and very smart. Bit by bit, she had been teaching me and my brother Japanese, and we learned a lot more from her than we did in the actual language class our mom had enrolled us in. Mama-san kept a lush garden in her courtyard, and she would have me and my brother and the other kids help tend to the vegetables. I remember she always gave us green tea and chocolate banana cookies.

I really liked seeing Mama San, but I did not like her house. It was so close to the valley of the vaults that it was practically in it. In fact, the only way to get from our little neighborhood into the actual burial ground was a stone path located right outside Mama San's garden gate. The ancient pathway was made up of hundreds and hundreds of uneven steps, many of them broken or cracking. And on the parts of the hill where the incline was especially steep, the path weaved in and out of bushes and trees and crypts. I hated that path.

Early one evening mama-san asked me to come visit with her alone I remember her saying that she had something to show me and only me Because I was the oldest kid in the neighborhood and that was important for some reason Age and seniority seemed to matter over there a lot more than in the states Intrigued and a bit proud I agreed She took me to the back of her garden and sat me on a thick wooden bench that was carved with scenes of fishermen and men with swords She told me she had a story to tell but she had to do something before she could tell it

Mama-san then disappeared inside. I waited for her on the bench, fidgeting and trying not to look at the vaults below. She returned a few minutes later with a tray of hot green tea and sweet rice cakes. Sitting down next to me, she smiled and made some comment about the colors of the evening sky. After another short silence, Mama-san told me she had seen me, my brother, and some other kids daring each other to follow the stairway down into the vaults at night. My face immediately got hot. I knew exactly what she was talking about.

A couple nights earlier, a group of us kids had found ourselves at the entrance to the stone path near Mama-san's back gate. Through taunting gestures and disorderly charades, which was basically the bulk of how we always communicated, we were challenging each other to see who could make it the farthest down the dark steps before getting scared and running back up. I remember laughing along with the rest of the boys, but also feeling so scared I could puke. I was terrified of those dark steps and the darker vaults, and I didn't want to seem like a crybaby.

I made a feeble attempt to protest the game by pointing to Mama-san's house and then to my ears, trying to say that she was going to hear us. One of the other boys waved away my complaint and mimed being asleep, basically saying that the old lady was certain to be in bed by now. After that, one after the other, all the boys, including my younger brother, frantically ran down the steps, disappeared into the dark, then re-emerged a few seconds later, trying to look a lot less scared than they really were. No one made it very far before coming back.

Just as the other boys were telling me it was my turn to go, the sister of one of them appeared and started angrily whispering to him in Japanese. He groaned at her, gave us all an irritated wave goodbye, and then stomped off down the street. Before following him, she turned back to the rest of us and said something else in Japanese. By the look on her face and the way the other boys cowered, I was pretty sure she was making some sort of threat that if we didn't go home right now, we were going to be in big, big trouble.

I pretended to grumble about her ruining all of our fun, just like my friends were doing, but really I was so relieved I could cry. And that was when it happened. Before departing, I took one last look at the valley of the vaults and those horrible steps and I almost screamed. I saw a woman. Or rather, the ghost of a woman, I guess. She was standing by one of the tombs closest to us. She was misty or foggy and she glowed like moonlight through a cloud. Her arms were at her sides, slightly raised upwards.

She seemed to be looking for something, but she didn't seem to see us. Just as I was about to shriek, Zombie! My brother grabbed my hand and whispered, We gotta go! Panicked, I looked at him, then back at the dark crypt. She was gone. So I nodded to my little brother and started hurrying down the street, and I didn't let go of his hand until we got home. When Mama-san said she had seen us that night, I felt my stomach drop. In general, I've always hated getting in trouble more than most people, especially when I was a little kid.

And I hated the thought of someone being truly disappointed in me even more Especially someone I liked as much as my nice elderly neighbor She wanted to say that I should know better and repeated all the stuff I already knew about why the valley was not a safe place to go at night The snakes were venomous the stairs were hazardous and the cliff on the other side was steep and rocky As I listened to her with my head hung low another thought suddenly struck me if she had seen us Maybe she had seen that woman too. Maybe it wasn't all in my head

I sat up a little straighter and turned my head to look at Mama San. Her face didn't look angry or disappointed in me like I thought she would. She looked sad. I asked her about that woman. She took a deep sigh, and then she told me this story. She said that many years earlier during World War II, Americans were thought to be devils, monsters that would murder innocent citizens for no reason other than to kill someone.

That fear, she explained, was the product of wartime propaganda used to encourage young Japanese men to join the military and fight the evil Americans. And it worked. A lot of young men did sign up, but not all. Some refused. And with nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, some of those who would not fight, hundreds of Japanese citizens, men and women, young and old, they hurled themselves off of cliffs rather than face the brutal torture they expected at the hands of their enemy.

I felt so sad when I heard that. I knew about the war, but I didn't know about that. My eyes welled up with tears. Mama-san gently placed her hand on mine and told me that it was very sad, but it was in the past, a long time ago, and that while the past is something we must always remember so we never go back, we also don't need to continually grieve it. Looking out over the valley again, she went on with her story.

Back then, she said, when there was so much fear, there was a local woman who lived in a house not far from Mama San's, with her two young children, a baby girl, not a year old, and a boy of three. Her husband, a soldier, had died earlier in the war, and the local woman felt like she had little left to live for. She believed the Americans would soon invade their island and do unspeakable evil things to both her and her children, whom she loved so much. In order to save them and herself from that fate, the woman decided to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Pointing to where my friends and I had been standing just a few nights earlier, Mama San explained how the woman, with her two children asleep in her arms, descended those very steps, crossed the valley of the vaults, and just kept walking and walking until finally she walked off the edge of the cliff. But she didn't die. She survived the fall, just barely. She was in a coma for weeks. When she did regain consciousness, she was horrified to discover that she was now completely alone, her babies no longer in her arms.

They were in the Valley of the Vaults, because they had not survived the fall. Their little broken bodies had been laid to rest in an unmarked crypt that held many others. The woman then began to spend every day and every night wandering the burial ground, crying out for her children, the torment of her loss unbearable, until one day, she wandered right back up to the top of the cliff and threw herself off in the hope that she might find them where they could finally be reunited. But the woman supposedly never found her children, not even in death.

By this point in Mama-san's story, the sun had died completely. The crypts below and beyond us were drowned in inky blackness. Mama-san didn't speak for many minutes. I thought her story was over. I wanted to get up and leave, or get up and give her a hug, but I didn't do anything. I felt wrong to do anything but wait, so I just stayed put and looked down at my shoes. "The woman still wanders the cemetery," the old woman finally said, looking for her kids. You can hear her crying. And then she pointed down, and I didn't want to look, but I did.

Down the curved slope of the hill, down in all that darkness, there she was again. Just like the last time, she had a white shimmer or glow flickering around her. She was very tall, and her thin arms were raised up limply by her sides, almost like Jesus on the cross. And just like the last time, the shape of her resembled a living human woman, but not quite. It was off, unnatural. The way she moved, and she had started to move, was wrong.

She trembled, twitched, lurched, and swayed. Maybe she was floating, or maybe she was walking, I don't know, but she was getting closer, and she was crying. The sound was soft at first, but it grew louder and louder as the thing climbed higher and higher up the hill. I wanted to run away, but Mama-san held my hand tight, so tight it hurt. With her eyes still fixed on the apparition, the old woman whispered, "'She won't come up here. We're too far.' Her voice trailed off at the end, like she'd fallen into a daze."

But a moment or two later, she snapped out of it and abruptly turned to face me. The way she looked at me was so intense, it was almost menacing. I'd never seen her act like that before. It scared me almost as much as the ghost. But that is why you must never go down there after dark, because after dark, that place is hers. Mama-san went on to explain that some called the spirit the White Witch, but that name angered her. She was not a witch. She's a mother, and she's looking for her children, she said. The best thing to do is stay away from her, to let her be, and to pray for her.

My elderly friend said she often sat on her bench at night to see the apparition, but she never tried to speak to her, and she never trespassed across the boundary which separated them. Needless to say, I never went back down to that burial ground, not once. I still visited Mama-san, often, but I never went into her courtyard garden again, and she never asked me to. I did, however, visit Suicide Hill a year or two later, though they'd now changed the name to Peace Prayer Park out of respect for those who jumped off of the cliff.

I cried. I prayed for all the souls and for forgiveness. So many Japanese citizens spoke to us, welcoming us, telling us stories and sharing with us. I didn't feel worthy in my love for their country and the Japanese people was overwhelming. I'll never forget my time there. I'd like to go back to my old neighborhood in Okinawa one day to see my old friends who now have families just like me, to actually speak to them and not just mime like we used to.

But honestly, I'm still a bit afraid of that place. Because as much as I'd like to see my old friends, there was a chance that I would also see her wandering the crypts looking for her children it seems she'll never find. Yeek. I would be so freaking terrified if, like, I thought I saw something and then an adult pulled me aside and was like, oh yeah, not only are you seeing it, but, like, be careful. Here's the story. If you get close to her, you know, she might take you. And I do wonder, like, I wonder if we spent time

Looking up this white witch in Japan, you know, and given like all the various circumstances, if there would be any tales of children going missing, like going playing in the dark and going too far and crossing whatever this understood barrier is. Yeah, I didn't I didn't find anything. And yeah, who knows what the mama's on character, you know, like what she thought would happen. Yeah. What did you think that like the little boy would be killed or just like.

terrorized, like, you know, scared so bad it would just like mess him up. Sure. Or yeah, who knows? I do love other cultures' relationship with death. Just the peace around it. Not to say that they're not sad and not

Not to say that they don't grieve. It's just so different. It is much like more how I think about it of just, I think that's why I enjoy it. Cause I'm like, yeah, that's what I think about it. It's like just part of life. We don't have to, again, we can be sad, but like we don't have to get so bent about it. Like it's okay. It's just how it goes. The East, very, very different relationship than the West. Uh, because of, you know, there are different philosophies and religions than we have. Yeah. Uh, where, you know, here it's definitely, well, like Western, you know, uh,

religions, the sense that like the spirit moves on to either heaven or hell or some equivalent and is no longer like around us. Like, you know, some Christian denominations, very anti-ghost actually, where it's like, that's heretical, you know, to think that. Yeah. Where in the East, there's very common to have ancestor worship. Yep. Where, yeah, not only are they not, uh,

not only do they believe in ghosts, but they believe that like, you know, family members who are now ghosts are still very much with you and you should respect them and pay tributes to them. And I'll show some actual cool pictures in that regard. Oh yeah. Yeah. And the like Mexican cultures do that as well. Like that's a huge part of their, uh, belief system as well that they, you know, have altars and honor the dead and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if they do ancestor worship. I don't know. I didn't know about that. Uh,

They honor the dead in general. Yeah. But I don't know if they pay like tributes and stuff to their actual like grandfather. Well, that I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that like, you know, if we were like not white Americans and, you know, we had grown up in, you know, somewhere in Mexico and you died, then you would be, you know, I don't know. I don't know if it's like once a year or if it's all the time, but you would we would honor you without food for you, water for you, for your journey. Yeah. Cool.

I have some pictures. This first one taken by American military photographer unnamed near the end of World War II to document where soldiers had actually watched hundreds of Japanese in Okinawa hurl themselves off of that cliff. So crazy. I actually didn't know about that. Yeah, I remember it in a time suck. It came up, you know, I was talking about World War II. So I was familiar. But yeah. Yeah.

This is another photo taken by the army. Not sure why these old pics seem to offer the best view of this particular cliff. Sadly, there are numerous so-called suicide cliffs on various islands in the Pacific that are or were occupied by the Japanese in the final days of World War II. Hmm.

And then moving on to those tombs that they refer to as vaults, too. Here's a pic of a turtleback tomb in an urban area to show how, like, you know, the dead and the living just kind of side by side. There's houses right above these two tombs.

These ones you walk up into them. I mean, honestly, if you didn't tell me, I would actually assume that that was someone's house. Uh-huh. Yeah, they're very ornate and pretty good sized. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's like one for, you know, one family, one for another. I'm not totally sure. Yeah, but one per family kind of vibes? I think. It's almost like if you're not looking at the photos on our Instagram or Facebook, it's

It's almost like a small mausoleum. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like your family, maybe it's, and I don't know how many people you can put inside or how that works or when you marry, how it breaks off. But I mean, they're fairly sizable. I feel like you could get quite a few family members in there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, here's another one that's in another neighborhood. And this one looks like you go down a little bit.

to the tomb there at the bottom, the entrance. That's huge. Yeah. It almost looks like it has like a stadium seat. Yeah, yeah. And I didn't do a big like deep dive on it, but just a little cursory kind of dive into what these things are. It says, in Okinawa, Japan, these turtle-backed tombs are not just structures. They represent a deep cultural and philosophical belief about the afterlife and the cyclical nature of life. Their shape resembling a turtle shell or a woman's womb. Yeah.

Symbolizes a return to the source where individuals are believed to return to their mother's womb after death. Wow. Yeah, there's similar tombs in China and those are more based on like the turtle that has the world on its back. Uh-huh. Where in Okinawa, it's more like a womb, mother's womb. Very cool. And it says in Okinawa, where people believe in ancestor worship, the tomb is not only a place for rest, but also plays a part in the spiritual support of the living. Incidentally, it is often said that someone who has gotten sick or died did so because they didn't take adequate care of the family tomb. Hmm.

Or because they didn't hold a sufficient number of ceremonies to venerate their ancestors. Observed on a day in March of the lunar calendar, Shimi is a rite honoring ancestors at the family tomb. On Shimi, families and relatives will gather in front of the family tomb and dine together with boxed offerings of food, beer, and more for their ancestors. This event is held to worship and honor the ancestors by cleaning the tomb, burning incense, and having a pleasant time.

There used to be shimmy gatherings of more than 100 people, but lately its size has shrunk to just family and close relatives. That's so cool. I love the idea of like, I'm dead and gone, but you and the kids once a year get together and come to my grave and have a meal and, you know, burn some incense. That's beautiful. I should have grabbed another picture because I was like, dang it, I was looking for it. And I looked it up, but I don't know why I didn't think to add it.

But there was a cool picture I found of just like this family looks like they're smiling, laughing, and they're essentially just having a picnic at the family tomb with some other food set aside like for the dead loved ones. Yeah. Like so in a sense, they're all together again. I love that. Yeah, it actually is really cool. It's beautiful. Yeah, it is. Yeah. I also loved at the beginning of the story, the American boy just saying that

At the time, he didn't speak the language. And, like, kids are just so special that way where they don't need to speak the same language. Yep. You know? And they're just so patient and gentle with one another. And they're not trying to, like, solve a difficult mathematical equation, right? Right. Or have a big philosophical debate. Right. And they're not working on a project together, you know, like, building a bridge. You know, it's like... They're playing tag or something. Right. It's very low-key. But even still, I think we often see barriers in that way. Like, oh, you know, I can't communicate with that person because they're different from me. But really, like,

kids especially is just so beautiful kids are kids we just had lunch out today and we were just you know noticing like these kids and they're just all like playing and it's just so simple and it's so basic and there's no like what do you believe or who do you love or anything it's just like do you want to throw this rock yeah you know it is so beautiful because you know

All these things of like fear of the other, it's all learned. We're not born with any of that. No, no predispositions. So it is cool where, you know, some people as they get older, they're like, well, I don't like these people or I don't like those people. Sure. But like as a kid, you just want another kid to play with. You don't care what they look like or what they're into or what language they speak. As long as they, you know, play fair.

Yeah, exactly. And they don't throw the rock further than you can throw it because you don't want to lose. I mean, it's very simple, very basic. Yeah, I forgot about that actually with Kyler Monroe. You know, when they would come down to California a lot when they were little,

Uh, uh, you know, with you and also like when it was, you know, just the three of us, we'd go to parks a lot because we didn't have a yard. So I'm taking them to these parks all the time. And there's a different group of kids at that park every time. And they would just, you know, when they're like four or five, six, seven, they didn't care. They would just play with whoever. And I actually forgot that sometimes, you know, they were, they were playing with this group of Hispanic kids who didn't speak English or a group of Asian kids. I wasn't sure of the language who also didn't speak English. You know, there's so many tourists and different people living there. Yeah.

And they would just figure it out. Yep. Yep. It required zero intervention. Right. And in fact, if we got involved, we would make it complex. Yeah, exactly. We'd ruin it. Kids are so beautiful. You ready to leave a heavy tail in Japan for something a little lighter, but maybe a little creepier in Canada? Yeah, let's go.

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 our Patreon and get these episodes ad free. Get additional bonus episodes. Help us make donations to awesome charities and more. Do your summer plans include getting burned by your backyard barbecue? What? No? Well then, why would your plans include getting burned by your cell phone bill?

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Substance use disorder and addiction is so isolating. And so, as a Black woman in recovery, hope must be loud.

It grows louder when you ask for help and you're vulnerable. It is the thread that lets you know that no matter what happens, you will be okay. When we learn the power of hope, recovery is possible. Find out how at startwithhope.com. Brought to you by the National Council for Mental Well-Being, Shatterproof, and the Ad Council. Thanks for listening to our sponsor deals, Creeps and Peepers. Okay, if you've ever visited Fort Edmonton Park in Alberta, Canada,

You might remember the charming historical buildings that line the recreated streets, each lovingly restored, each with its own place in Edmonton's early history. But nestled there, looking almost too ordinary to be threatening, is a two-story cream-colored home with a wraparound porch, large front windows, and neatly painted trim. It's called the Firkin's House, and if local lore is to be believed, it might be one of the most haunted buildings in all of Alberta.

Time now for the tale of She Doesn't Want Me Here. The Firkins house wasn't always part of a museum park. It was originally built in 1911 by Ashley and Blanche Firkins, a well-to-do couple with two young daughters in Edmonton's Belgravia neighborhood. Ashley worked for the Canadian National Railway, and the home was elegant, well-crafted, and stood out as an example of Edwardian-era craftsman design. It was a home built to last for generations.

but the Firkins wouldn't stay long. By 1923, just a dozen years after the home's completion, they had already sold it and moved to California, abruptly. The reason? Unknown. Maybe they left for better economic opportunities. Maybe they left for warmer weather. Or maybe something scared them off. Some would whisper that something had shifted in the house over those 12 years, something Blanche couldn't explain but knew was wrong. A neighbor would later claim she began to sleep in the children's room with the door locked before they left.

She became afraid of the attic crawlspace as well. She constantly was wanting Ashley to make sure that nothing and no one was up there. Whatever the truth, following their departure, the house would change hands several times before it was eventually purchased by the Karpetz family in the 1960s. And it was with the Karpetz family that the first whispers of something strange began to become public knowledge. Sandy Jo Karpetz, who lived in the house for a few years as a little kid, later described it as beautiful but off.

She said it often felt like the house was alive and holding its breath, as if it were waiting for something. Various members of the Carpetts family claimed that footsteps would echo down the upstairs hallway late at night, that cupboards would open up on their own. While Sandy Jo said that nothing overtly terrifying happened to her during her time there, her mother, who had no interest in ghost stories, confided that more than once she'd felt someone's arms wrap around her from behind when no one was there.

She also claimed that she once saw a man standing silently in the kitchen, who then vanished into thin air as she stared directly at him. And then in the early 1990s, after the Carpet's family had moved out, decades after they had first moved in, Fort Edmonton Park acquired the home and relocated it. And immediately, claims of paranormal encounters increased dramatically, and the kind of activity allegedly witnessed was much more intense.

Before the house was even fully settled on what's often called 1905 Street in the park, a street meant to be a living history museum representing what Edmonton looked like in the early 20th century, workers began reporting strange occurrences. Staff immediately noticed during their restoration that tools would go missing and then reappear in locked cabinets. Some workers swore they heard children giggling upstairs when no one was around. One pane of glass shattered cleanly in its frame without anything touching it.

It became common for people to say that the house had a feeling, as if it was watching them. After the restoration was complete and tours began being given, one staff member, a woman named Kayla, swore she saw a little boy staring at her from the upstairs window as she walked the grounds one morning. She said he looked very out of place, too pale, wearing old-fashioned clothes such as a white shirt with red suspenders, and standing perfectly still, thinking he was part of a school tour and that he had wandered off into an off-limits area

She climbed the stairs to guide him back towards his teacher, but the room was empty. The window was latched shut from the inside, so he couldn't have climbed out of it when she began to walk up to find him, and he definitely wouldn't have been able to slip past her on his way down the stairs. She looked all around the room connected to the window she'd seen him looking out of, but he wasn't hiding anywhere, and also there had been no school tours that day. If that staff member thought she might have imagined him, she must have later accepted that she had indeed stared directly at a ghost, because that was only the first of many sightings.

Others soon reported witnessing the boy as well, always upstairs, always watching. He never moved, and he was never still there when they went upstairs to check. But one woman, right before she made it to the room he was seen in, swore she heard a boy's voice say, I'm still in trouble. Who is this ghost? Some claim that he's not a he, that he is the ghost of Carolyn Firkins, the young daughter who once lived in the house.

Others insist he's someone else entirely, possibly a child who died tragically in the home, though no official record supports that. But that hasn't stopped the stories. And then there's the doll. The haunted doll legend is one of the most enduring and disturbing stories connected to the Firkin's house. According to Fort Edmonton lore, a ventriloquist dummy was discovered in an attic steamer trunk found in the attic crawlspace during renovation.

Inside the trunk were a few dusty linens, a small book of pressed flowers, and this doll. No one could explain how it got there or who it might have once belonged to. It had wooden hands and feet, black painted hair, a jaw on a hinge, and glass eyes that never quite seemed to look in the same direction. It was dressed in a faded burgundy jacket with a satin bow tie in the name Finnegan stitched into its collar in crooked letters. Its mouth was cracked and disjointed. The paint on its face was chipped and peeling.

Staff nicknamed it Charlie. One summer, the doll was used as a display piece in the parlor. But almost immediately, things began to go wrong. Lights flickered. Furniture shifted when no one was looking. The upstairs door, normally sealed to keep visitors out, was found wide open several times. And always, Charlie had seemed to have moved in some way. Sometimes he'd be found sitting in a different position than he had been. Other times, his head would be turned.

One morning, he was found sitting in a rocking chair upstairs even though no staff member admitted to moving him there. Visitors began to comment on it, saying the doll made them feel uneasy, that his eyes followed them, that he seemed to move. Eventually, a staff member named Jordan, who worked a summer rotation, decided to lock Charlie back up in the attic. That very night, he claimed he was woken by a loud knocking on his dorm room door at his staff residence, followed by the sound of faint, high-pitched laughing. When he opened the door, he said he found the hallway to be empty.

But taped to his door, he claims was a photo that someone had taken of Charlie sitting in the rocking chair, his unnerving eyes staring directly into the camera. Jordan understandably freaked out and Charlie was allegedly removed from the house after that. Officially, he's now been lost in storage. Unofficially, some say no one wanted to be near him again and he was thrown away or perhaps even burned.

One of the eeriest repeated stories about the house, dating all the way back to the Carpetts family, is what locals call, and I guess I've touched on this, the hug from behind. Multiple people over the years, most of them women, have described feeling someone wrap their arms around them gently, tenderly from behind, always while they're in the kitchen. But when they turn around, no one's there. One tour guide said it happened while she was closing the curtains one late afternoon. She assumed it was a co-worker joking around until she turned and found herself completely alone.

But then she swore she heard the floorboards creak behind her as though someone was stepping away. Another guide later admitted she'd stopped working shifts in the Firkin's house entirely after experiencing the same thing, close to the same thing. But she said when it happened to her, the hug hurt. It was not gentle. Her ribs had felt compressed and her breath had caught in her throat. She thought she was having a panic attack until she saw the faint outline of two dusty handprints on the back of her blouse.

When she mentioned it to another guide, the woman turned pale and said she'd had nearly the exact same thing, minus the handprints, happen to her a year earlier to the day. There's a theory that this phantom hugger is the ghost of Blanche Firkins, Ashley's wife. But others aren't so sure because the embrace, again, is not always gentle. Some have said they felt their breath catch in their throat, like the arms were tightening. And once, according to a former night guard, a visitor on a ghost tour screamed and collapsed after she felt someone not only grab her but whisper in her ear.

There was no one near her at the time, and she wouldn't share what the voice said to her There's also the curious case of the basement that's no longer there, at least not in this plane of existence The Firkin's house original basement was removed during the home's relocation But that hasn't stopped people from claiming that they've heard things below the house, noises where no floor now exists Tour guides have reported hearing the sound of pacing footsteps beneath them on numerous occasions

Once during a private wedding shoot on the grounds, a photographer swore she heard the distinct creak of basement stairs and a muffled conversation beneath the floorboards. Maintenance staff were called in to investigate, and they found nothing. But the same photographer later claimed all her photos of the house that day came back with strange smears across the bottom half, like something had bled through the images. A few of them, she said, seemed to have faces in the blur. She claimed to have deleted the photos because something about them really bothered her.

one park guest claimed she looked down through a floor vent and saw light and movement what looked like a staircase disappearing into the dark but then when she blinked it was gone in 2011 a high school history teacher named paul took a group of students to fort edmonton park for a field trip one of his students jen described as a quiet artistic and usually skeptical of ghost stories kid asked to explore the firkins house on her own during the group's lunch break and paul agreed she was gone for roughly 20 minutes

When she came back, she was pale and visibly shaken. Didn't say a word. When Paul asked her if she was okay, she just nodded and said, I think someone still lives in that house. Late that night, Paul received a voicemail from Jen's mom. Jen hadn't been able to fall asleep. She was clearly upset, but refused to talk about exactly why, other than she saw something in the Firkin's house that scared her. She also asked her mom if they could get rid of the antique doll her grandmother had given her years ago, a doll that had always sat quietly in her bedroom. That night, Jen said it moved its head and smiled at her.

She never set foot in Fort Edmonton again. In 2017, a man identifying himself only as Rob claimed to have spent a night inside the house during a paranormal investigation. Rob said he wasn't a believer, that he volunteered for the group as a photographer, mostly as a favor to a friend. He brought thermal imaging gear, an infrared camera, and a regular DSLR. Most of the night was quiet. But around 2.15 a.m., while reviewing images in the parlor, Rob said he heard what sounded like a thump upstairs.

Thinking someone had broken protocol and gone exploring alone, he climbed the stairs to find them. The air grew colder the higher he got. And then he said he saw the doll, Charlie, sitting on a rocking chair facing the hallway. He said he'd just passed that room 20 minutes earlier and it had been empty. No one else claimed responsibility for putting the doll there. Rob took one picture, just one, because as soon as the flash went off, something or someone giggled behind him. Not a child, not a woman. It was deeper and mocking.

He turned and saw nothing but bolted back down the stairs. The group called it a night shortly after. When Rob uploaded the photos the next morning, that picture, the one he took of Charlie, was blank. All black. But every other image he had taken previously was fine. The next story comes from a former summer volunteer named Hannah, who agreed to share her story anonymously in a local paranormal blog in 2019. Hannah was assigned to the Firkin's house for most of the summer season. She loved old houses, loved the costumes, but the Firkin's house, she said, felt different.

like the walls were listening one day while tidying the upstairs bedroom hannah said she turned around and almost screamed when she saw a doll sitting on a chair behind her a doll she hadn't noticed when she walked by that same chair to enter the room it was of course charlie she stared at the doll for a long time then she heard footsteps coming up the stairs she walked past the chair past the doll to see who was coming up behind her since she thought she had the house to herself but there was no one then when she turned around and walked back into the room the doll was gone

She left the house as fast as her legs would carry her. That night, she said she dreamed of the boy others had seen in the window. In her dream, he was holding the doll, whispering to it. She doesn't want me here, he said. She said it's your turn. Hannah has no idea what that's supposed to mean. She asked to be assigned to a different area of the park the next day. One final encounter claim comes from a man named Steven, a seasonal night security guard who worked for the park until just recently.

He said he mostly worked rotating shifts during the winter and spring months when Fort Edmonton was mostly closed to the public. In 2021, during a late-night patrol, he claims he passed the Firkin's house and noticed something strange. The porch light was flickering. He chalked it up to wiring, made a note, and walked past. But then it happened again and again. Each time he looked up at the window, he thought he saw something moving just out of frame, a shadow pulling back.

Finally, one night he said that after he saw it, he approached the house. It was around 2 a.m. and he claimed he heard a tapping noise followed by a voice. Not loud, not aggressive, just a whisper. Stephen said he absolutely did not go inside to come play. And he never checked the house too closely on his nightly walks again after that. So what is going on inside the Firkin's house?

If you ever visit Fort Edmonton Park and you find yourself standing outside a cream-colored craftsman with lace curtains and a front door that creaks when it opens, look upstairs. Maybe you'll see a pale boy watching you from the second-story window. Give him or her a wave. Maybe they'll wave back. And maybe if you head inside and walk up the stairs, they'll be waiting for you and holding Charlie. Uh, don't wave. Are you insane?

Don't invite that into your life. Don't interact with it. No. Don't act like you see it. Just ignore it. Ignore it. Ignore it. No way. Mm-hmm. I forgot about the hug behind. Like that move that happens sometimes in haunted houses? Yeah. And then you said you talked about it before, and I was like, oh, yeah, we have talked about that. Mm-hmm. I said that during the story that we've talked about before? Yeah. You said that I might have touched on this before. Oh, I meant in the same story. Oh, oh, oh, oh. I do remember from other things, though. And maybe I mixed up with the hide behind.

Because that is an episode from early on. Yeah, that's an old one. Yeah, no, we definitely like, yeah, I can think of like haunted house stories, like poltergeist stories where there have been people like the feeling of being embraced. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, the dusty handprints, that would be, that's one step too far. Yeah. So you can like brush it off. If I was just thinking about how uncomfortable I'd be at our house if like, if I was like

If I was in the kitchen, you know, we don't live in a big house. So it's like, there's no, there's no you being in the house and me not knowing you're there. Yeah. Okay. So like we're at home together. I know you're there. Yeah. Uh, and I somehow you managed to sneak up behind me and hug me, but then you're not there. That would fuck me up for so long because our house is old and it creaks and like, I love you, but you're not, you're not, uh,

a soft walker. So I would hear you coming, you know? So, but like if somehow you managed to sneak up, but not really you. Yeah. I get this feeling of a hug from behind and it's not you. I am, we are moving so fucking fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Take all the equity. I don't care. Uh-huh. Whoa. I know there's, I was trying to think of like what's creepier, more disturbing, like an aggressive touch by some spirits, you know, like you get like pushed,

or smacked or something or like a caress, like a loving hug or I remember this from a few stories of like somebody getting their neck, feeling like somebody's stroking their neck. Yeah, like the back of your neck. Like a romantic type touch.

And that's almost more disturbing to me. It is because it, to me, at least right now, today, in this moment, that's the creepier thing. It's almost like it's trying to gain your trust. Uh-huh. It's more manipulative. Exactly. When it's sweeter and kinder, it feels like...

Yeah. And also, I think you're more likely to brush that off because you're like, oh, that was weird. Oh, must have just been my hair, the wind, whatever. You could come up with a million things. And I don't want it to like me. No. Especially not like really like me. But I don't want it to super hate me either. Yeah. I'm looking for neutrality. True, true. That's ideal.

Not many pictures, but a few. The first one, it is a very nondescript house. This is the Firkins house. Okay. Yep. Yep. Just a very, you know, plain house from 1911. And then this is the house being moved to its current location. That's always cool. It's so crazy that they can do that. Just put it on the back of a, like a flatbed type, you know, truck.

I mean, not like a pickup truck, like a big rig, but still. Just suddenly the thought of like an old Ford Ranger pulling a house down the road. I mean, extra crazy, like a little Ford Ranger. It's so freaking funny. And here is a young Sandy Jo Karpetz, the girl who grew up in the house. Okay. Watching her home being lifted off the ground. Little Sandy Jo.

is now a successful blogger. You can check out her fashion advice where we got this picture, travel tips and more. It's sandyjoe.com and it's J-O-E. Sandy Jo, not Sandy J-O. Okay. And her sister, interesting Katrink, runs the website thewitchery.ca selling all kinds of witchy things up in Canada like candles, spell books, jewelry, crystals, and more. I love it. Tell them we sent you. Yeah, so they leaned into the paranormal after spending part of their childhood in a haunted house. Yeah.

Well, at least her sister did. Yeah. The photographer guy that just like he wasn't into the spoopy paranormal. Oh, yeah. He just went with his friends. Uh-huh. When he said he heard the giggling behind him. Yeah. It made me so uncomfortable. I cannot help but like in a paranormal setting, kid giggling gets me every time. And there's a certain like the word giggle compared to like laugh. Yeah.

It has like a taunting connotation. It does. So it's like, that just makes me feel like, oh, there's, there's not only is there something here, it wants to fuck with me. Totally. Yeah. It's amused by me. And then of course, dolls. Dolls are so, so scary. You know, I wish there was a picture of Charlie. I'm good. Yeah. I really, really wanted to find one, but could not find one. Yeah. Yeah. It made me think about Annabelle, the doll. She's on a tour right now. And yeah.

I believe that like the rules were like, don't touch it and don't move it. And they're doing both. And so people are speculating all the chaos in New Orleans, like those inmates that escaped. Oh, yeah. It was like the doll, the inmates, and there was something else. I don't know if it's the flooding because there's just been like flash floods. But I mean, New Orleans weather is wildly temperamental. I feel like there was one other thing. And so people were like, OK, what do you think?

Like, do you think that Annabelle? Yeah. I think that it's insane that people are moving her around. I think it's a real bad idea. I know. It's so funny with, like, dolls. I mean, definitely in some moments I'm like, is there such a thing as a possessed doll? Like, I'll have moments of doubt for sure. One thousand percent. And, but like, you know, like sometimes I talk about, like, you know, would I want to have an intense paranormal experience where I see, like, you know, a ghost walk by or something? Yeah.

I don't know that I would actually ever want in my bravest moment to like be in a room with a doll and it's just me and the doll. Oh. And then all of a sudden I hear...

Like, you know, like see a little shadow, doll-sized, and I hear like little feet moving across the carpet, like that thing's running. And then we turn on light, and then the doll is now in a different space. And then no one's been in the room with me. That would really mess me up. More than seeing like a shadowy apparition, I think. Okay, what if you were in a room alone with a doll, and you just couldn't quite prove, but you were certain that its head had moved? Like forget about like a shadow and like such an obvious thing. I can handle that because it would scare me in the moment,

But I know myself and in time, I would convince myself it never happened. Okay. Okay. I'd be like, nope, I just got worked up. I definitely get like you too where I'm like, yeah, whatever doll. It's not that scary. But then it gets dark. It gets late. I see a picture of Annabelle and I'm like, that's fucking scary. Yeah. You know, like I'm not, when I'm thinking about like, oh, Mineral's little baby. I'm like, oh, whatever. It's fine. Right. You see a really creepy ass doll and it's like, no dolls are not okay. I know. Let's just, you know what? Let's start a petition to stop making dolls. Yeah.

I just put an end to this. No more dolls. No more dolls. It is funny that all that stuff, like, you know, we've done so many episodes now that I'm definitely more jaded than I was. We both are. Of course, we're going to be. How can you not be? How can you not be? But I have moments, and I don't know why, tonight is one of those moments where I just feel a little spooked. Oh, you feel a little icky? Yeah, or just like on edge. On edge, yeah. But like, you know, like I definitely don't want to see anything happen tonight.

Of all the nights, I don't want it tonight. If I get to pick, not right now. Not in the mood for it. I've been looking at this little doll the whole time you're talking about dolls and she kind of scares me. I know, we have a ton of dolls in our studio. I know, we have it in order. And creepy, intentionally very creepy dolls. I know, what were we thinking? That adds to the mood. All right, well, let's get through these two so we can get out of this creepy, creepy space. All right. Do you have your Layla, who's not really a doll? No. She's a lovely, squishy, sweetie little pie. All right, purple Layla, let's go.

Hello, Dan, the legendary man, the sucker of knowledge, and Lindsay, the Lucifina to his soul. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. At the time of this story, I was a young and spry 21-year-old. It was the beginning of my life, so to say. I had just begun to date my future wife, Elena Jo. She was a single mother to a beautiful four-year-old named Eleni. And with that said, I was also learning to be a more responsible, dependable man. I

I was a guy that would bounce around from grill cook jobs to oil technician or janitorial jobs. And now I needed something with more hours. Elena's brother-in-law hired me as a helper to do radon systems. Sean had just started his business and he only had two employees, myself and our wife's cousin, Brian. Brian, a tall, well-built Marine, was the lead of the crew. The man had seen some real shit go down during his time in the service. Our job was to rid customers' house of radon.

In order to do this, we found ourselves in the creepiest places of the house. Attics, basements, crawl spaces. And though most days were decent, you know, new builds that were fairly clean, other days were like hell, dealing with cat piss, mice shit, dead mice, snakes. You get it. One day, though, was truly hell. It was the end of January in Ohio. We had just had our first true snowfall of about six inches.

Brian and I arrived at work early, which was just Sean's garage. We knew we had an old house to take care of an hour and a half away in the middle of nowhere. We loaded our van and headed out. The drive there was treacherous enough going over back roads covered in snow, the van continually sliding. Brian, being the macho man he was, kept reassuring me he had it under control.

We arrived to the house about an hour late. We pulled up to a beautiful house, a ranch with a walkout basement, two pole barns in the back, and acres of fields and woods surrounding it. The notes on the work calendar told us no one was there, so we were to let ourselves in. Typically, we loved this note. No customers to bother us, no questions to be answered, no need to rush. It's the ideal situation. We knocked on the front door anyway, out of courtesy. Then, we tried to enter the front door, but it wouldn't unlock.

After an almost two-hour drive and a lot of coffee, I had to find a place to pee. I went around back and found a good spot. Finally, that sweet, sweet release. Bradley! Hearing my name made me jump and piss on my boots a little bit. We're going to have to use the basement door. It's the only one that'll open, said Brian. I rolled my eyes thinking, great, I have to lug all of our equipment down this icy hill and I pissed on my boot.

When I looked down, though, to zip up, I noticed a grave at the bottom of the tree I was beneath. I don't remember the full name, but I do remember the first name, John. It wasn't noticeable at first because it was covered in snow, and now my dumb ass just uncovered it by peeing on it.

Brian and I started unloading and getting to work. We hopped in the crawlspace and started stretching out the plastic. We had gotten a good amount down and were talking about getting this house done when we heard what sounded like something falling above our heads. We both assumed that the homeowners were now home. We climbed out of the crawlspace, dusted ourselves off, and proceeded to greet them. We walked up the basement stairs to the main level, but no one was there. Nothing was there.

No furniture, no house decor. The whole house was empty.

Then we noticed the front door that we were unable to unlock was now standing wide open. We searched the entire house, but there was no one, no cars, no other footprints in the snow. We decided it had to be snow sliding off the roof to the back balcony. We locked the front door and went back downstairs. As I climbed back into the crawl space, Brian went to grab his water from the van. I continued to attach the plastic to the crawl space. Now

Now this was a big crawlspace, at least 100 feet long by 60 feet wide. I was halfway done before I began wondering where Brian was. I saw movement outside the opening of the crawlspace and I army crawled to the opening ready to shit talk him.

But the man I saw there wasn't Brian. A man who looked disheveled was now going through our tools, picking them up and looking at them. "'Uh, can I help you?' I asked. "'No, no, I'm just making a list,' he said. "'Okay. Are you the homeowner?' I asked. "'I'm just looking,' he said very abruptly. "'Sir, put our tools down. If you're not the homeowner and you're not doing work on the house, you need to leave.'

The man threw our drill bits back into the tool bag and stormed off. Seconds later, Brian came back. Uh, did you see that weird dude? I asked. What weird dude? Brian asked. The asshole that came and was going to our tool bag? You literally just came in after he walked out the door. Dude, nobody walked out when I came in. Whoa, you got that crawl space covered quick. Way to go, dude, said Brian. Brian, I've been down here for 30 minutes. Of course it's halfway done. And yes, there was someone down here with me.

Bradley, I went to the van for two minutes and grabbed my water and came right back. Not believing him and thinking this was some sort of joke, I told him I just wanted to get the job done and go home. We started spreading out the last of the plastic just to discover another crawl space, this one just as big as the first. Great. Another hour added to the day, Brian said. We hadn't expected this, so we had to call the boss and let him know that there would be an additional charge for excessive materials needed. What the hell? My phone's dead.

I just had a full charge. You call Sean on your phone, Bradley. Annoyed, I dialed Sean, but it just kept ringing. Sean always answered his phone. And then my phone died. But we didn't think too much of it. We just put our phones on the charger and kept working. But then all of the batteries in our power tools died. And without batteries charging and us waiting for the boss's call, we decided to take a break. I had to pee anyways. Damn all that coffee.

We walked upstairs since the door to the basement and the main house was unlocked. Brian began walking around the house exploring. I ran to the nearest bathroom. Again, feeling so relieved, I began to look around midstream, admiring the remodel on the bathroom. I looked out the window and I noticed the grave from before when the toilet lid slammed shut on its own and piss began spraying all over me. I jumped and ran so fast that I forgot to zip my manhood back up. What the

Fuck, dude, Brian said as I ran out of the bathroom while trying to zip up my pants. Dude, something's going on here. I don't know what, but shit's not okay. With the bang we heard and the guy I saw and now the toilet seat just slammed down while I was pissing, I'm ready to call it a day.

Brian laughed at me. Dude, chill out. You probably just hit that one hitter one too many times this morning on the way here. Let's go outside and take a breather. I was skeptical, not about what I was seeing, but about his reassurance. I knew what I felt and what I saw. We walked to the van, and Brian, being the health nut, ate a granola bar, while I myself enjoyed a sweet, sweet drag off a Marlboro menthol. My nerves were struck, and I needed it.

As we were standing there having casual conversation, we heard this ting ting ting sound. I thought it was Brian beating a tool bit against the van or something, but neither of us had made the noise, both of us telling the other to stop dicking around. I flicked my cigarette and we headed back down to the basement. We had just about all of the crawl space covered when we heard something or someone stomping around upstairs.

This time Brian couldn't deny it. We looked at each other and started to crawl out of the underbelly of the house. I thought it was that weird guy again, and Brian would finally realize I had been telling the truth. But when we got upstairs, nothing. No one there, just an empty house with a locked front door wide open once again. I thought you locked this, Brian said. I did, bro. I fucking locked the door. I know I did. Brian rolled his eyes in disbelief.

Come on, dude. I just want to go home. He slammed the door shut, locked it, and headed back downstairs. I followed, irritated because I knew I had locked that door and because I knew something was not okay here. Our tool batteries were now charged, we had our nail gun ready, and then Brian's phone began to ring. Must be Sean, Brian said as he pulled out his phone. He didn't even check the name. He just answered. Hello? Hello? Hello?

Hello? And then my phone started to ring. I looked at my phone, but no call was actually coming in. I mean, it kept ringing, and then both of our phones died. Brian looked a bit frantic.

Yeah, we must be out too far. Let's get this crawlspace covered. You do the inside part of the system, I'll do the outside, then we can get out of here. Oh, sure, I thought. Make me stay in the house a hell. We'd been working for about 45 minutes, almost done sealing the crawlspace when we heard a few weird noises. And suddenly, Brian screamed, causing me to jump and hit my head on the floor truss above me. What the hell, man? What was that? I asked. Nothing. Nothing.

But I changed my mind. We will do all the systems together, inside and out. Uh, okay. But why the fuck did you scream like that? I asked. I'll tell you on the way home, he said. And then a rock flew through the air just inches from our faces. We sat there a bit in shock. Uh, time for a break? Brian asked. I said, yes, sir, and crawled out as fast as I could over bricks and under pipes and out the entrance of the crawlspace. I was basically out the door when I heard Brian screaming, wait, wait, wait, dude, wait for me!

from behind. He was so scared now that somehow it made me feel better. We walked to the van where I immediately lit a cigarette. Give me one, Brian said. You don't smoke. I do now. Give me one, he said.

We sat there and devised a plan to finish the job. In the midst of talking, we heard that same ting, ting, ting sound again. We finished the inside part of the house first, just so we didn't have to be stuck inside too much longer. Feeling at ease, we started the outside of the house, but it was dark out now. We were almost done when we heard footsteps walking in the snow around us. The crunching sound of snow. Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Brian and I looked at each other. He motioned for me to go one way and he'd go the other. We walked around the perimeter of the house, but of course we found nothing. We were so close to the finish line. We finished off the system and then we started the system up, setting the post mitigation test and packed up the van. I'm so glad this day is over, I said as Brian started up the van. Shifting the van into reverse, me too, Brian said. And then we started the van again.

and as we were backing up the van started to get stuck in the snow and the backup horn started to go haywire beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep it sounded almost demonic oh you might have to get out and push bradley the fuck i am brian i'm not getting out of this van besides you're a lot stronger than me i'll hit the gas you push

I, uh...

Well, I didn't want to freak you out, but I saw someone or something outside the crawlspace just staring at us. It was a black figure standing there and it was watching you.

We were pulling up into the garage. Dude, shut up. That ain't funny. I told him, I'm not playing, he said, followed by that ting, ting, ting sound again. We jumped out of the van and ran inside where my soon-to-be wife, her sister, and our boss sat waiting. Where have you guys been? What took you so long? We've been calling you all day. They all yelled at us all at once. Brian and I told them everything, and they seemed to believe us, but were definitely skeptical.

The next day, we'd gotten a few more inches of snow, and I woke up to a text from my boss saying, after yesterday's fiasco, you guys can just take a snow day. I was so happy for a moment, thankful to not have to get up right away. Then I noticed the top of my hand was sore when I clicked my phone to the lock screen. I turned my hand over and noticed a J scratched into the top of my hand. It wasn't there the night before, and my wife was just as baffled as I.

And then I remembered the name on the grave that I had pissed on, John. I have no doubt I had angered him and he wasn't going to let me forget it. Love you guys and your podcast. Always a loyal fan, Bradsworth. Damn, that was like a, it reminded me of like a poltergeist movie, but everything happened in a few hours.

You know, like instead of like, okay, like, you know, one day there's – he thinks he sees somebody. Another day there's like a tapping noise. Yeah. Electronic malfunctions, you know, like another day or maybe like it's escalating. This was just like this tsunami of like all this activity condensed into one day with the extra J scratched in like, you know, following the next day. Totally. And I love just picturing, you know, because we all –

have had to have some kind of service done on our homes, whether it's like you live in an apartment and a service person has had to come or you have the privilege of owning a home and somebody comes in to fix something. It's like it is generally two dudes. They're just like a specific look, right? It's like they look strong. It's like you're not thinking of like two guys that are going to be scared, you know, like this ex-Marine. I know I'm stereotyping, but there's a reason for the stereotype. Yeah.

Yeah. And he said well-built. Well-built Marine, yeah. And it's like you've got to lug all this heavy equipment. You've got a lot of things to do. Right? And so it's like – and also my opinion is that you can't be afraid to go into these creepy dark spaces. Right. If you're taking a job where you have to like lift a bunch of equipment or carry a bunch of equipment in and out of a place and your job is to like go into attics, go into basements of homes that are not yours –

generally that's going to attract the kind of person who feels like they can probably handle themselves if things go a little wonky. Right. And somebody who's not, someone who's not claustrophobic, like somebody who is not afraid of like a snake or a rat. I mean, there's certain kinds of qualifications. And so I have an image of these two guys in my head of just being these two like tough motherfuckers. Yeah. Just two people that if I saw them at a bar, I'd think I don't want to fuck with that kind of vibes. Right. Yeah. As opposed to other guys who you definitely fight.

Oh, there are so many guys I would fight in a bar. I just love that image of you just walking into a bar like, not those guys, but maybe them.

And, you know, an ex-Marine who has seen combat, it's like, this is wild that by the end you've got these two guys running out there just fucking scared. Get me home. Fuck this shit. It really added to the elements of the story. Yeah. And, uh, and what was it? Um, Bradley, uh, had a very distinct way of telling the story too, which is like the, the language he used really like painted a scene and stuff. And so it just felt, um,

Like immersive? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Very immersive and just very distinct. Yeah. It stood out. Yeah, to me too. I felt like, oh, this is like my brother telling me a story. Like you are not going to fucking believe what happened at work today. That's a great analogy. Yeah. I felt like Jason like telling us a story of like, oh my God. Yep. Because it's exactly how he would tell it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, get out.

That's crazy. That's awesome. Believe it. Yeah. So yeah, I love that. Yeah, me too. Uh-huh. And also, I forget, it just came to me now, but we have a fan who owns a radon testing company. We do. Yeah. Oh, man. They sent us a kid a long time ago. Yeah, and I cannot think. But if you're still listening, we're thinking of you. Yeah. We remember you. I think they're maybe in Colorado. Yes, I think that's correct. Maybe like a husband-wife team? I can't remember. Can't remember the specifics. Well, anyways, get your houses tested. Be safe. Okay, one more? Yeah, one more.

Yeah.

We've had some Hollywood celebrity types lease a bus just to avoid having to fly. We sign NDAs on a weekly basis, so I'm not at liberty to say exactly who our clientele is. A typical bus tour is set up with a bunkhouse section that sleeps 12, possibly a master suite in the back for the star, a bathroom, and frequently a shower. Nice. Home away from home.

As happens often, it takes two drivers to make good time getting across the country. A driver is limited to 10 hours driving, so often a co-driver is employed to cover longer distances without stopping. That's where I come in. On any given weekend, I'll fly out and catch up with a bus and help them get to where they need to be. There was a tour out gigging and doing the tour bus thing. It was a country band. Not that that matters, but that's the case.

The co-driver was coming to the end of his shift and had found a truck stop to fuel up at, grab a bite to eat, and swap out drivers. The truck stop shall remain nameless, but it happened to be in Mount Vernon, Illinois.

Usually, when a trained driver feels a bus come to a stop and hears the air parking brakes come on, they know the bus has stopped and they'll wake up and be ready to go to work pretty quickly. The co-driver had completely fueled the bus and went inside to use the bathroom. When he got back on the bus, the lead driver wasn't up or moving around yet. He grabbed his phone and called him in an attempt to give the other driver as much courtesy as possible, short of ripping his bunk curtain back and telling him to wake the hell up.

The call didn't rouse the sleeping driver. Finally, out of options, the co-driver went to the bunk and eased the curtain back only to find that his older co-worker had passed away somewhere in the night, somewhere out on the lonely highway. The appropriate authorities were called to the scene. Everyone involved was fairly shaken. And the driver, let's just call him Bill, eventually made it back to his family and his final destination. Or did he?

Buses in the fleet are all known by their last four digits in their vehicle identification number, and they all have reputations and personalities. Buses are a lot like living beings. The bus that Bill died on was 8362. Every mechanic in the fleet knows that bus. There are even clients that know that bus and won't lease it, even if it's the only one available. And here's part of the reason why.

The first time it happened, it was after a show, probably three or four in the morning. A crew member had gotten up and needed to go to the restroom. There's a lot of alcohol and drugs consumed on any given bus, so people aren't always in the best shape.

This crew member came into the front lounge to use the toilet, and before he got into the tiny bathroom and closed the door, he saw a guy sitting on the couch watching TV. He went in, done his business, and upon coming out, noticed the guy was gone. Thinking nothing of it, he went back to bed. The next day, the crew guy asked the lead driver if they had sent out a co-driver that maybe he wasn't aware of. The lead replied that no, a relief driver wasn't out with them. They wouldn't even have one out this time. Through

The crew guy was wondering what it was that he saw, and the lead asked him what the guy looked like. He gave a description and then added, and he had on a caterpillar hat, but it just had the stylized C on it. That particular hat isn't that common, and Bill always wore that hat.

The next time Bill was seen was later on in the year getting close to fall. A different band was on the bus and there was even a different driver. The lead driver, and the only driver on the bus, had stopped for fuel, coffee, and to use the facilities. A few band members woke up when the bus came to a stop and took advantage of the stop for a midnight snack

And also to take a dump. Listen, there's no nice way to say it. You can piss on the bus, but not take a crap. Nature of the beast. As one of the crew members got back on the bus, there was a driver sitting in the driver's seat he didn't recognize. Really thinking nothing of it, maybe it was the co-driver that had been sent out to help them. He spoke to the driver and then went back into the front lounge and closed the door.

Later, when everyone was back on and rolling down the road, the crew member wondered where the lead driver was. Usually, when drivers swap out, they go to their bunk pretty much right away because they're tired. He opened the door and stuck his head into the driver's area, and the buddy seat was unoccupied. Just the driver he had known this whole trip was behind the wheel, clocking off the miles. He asked the driver, where's the co-driver?

And...

And he was also filling out a paper logbook in one of those old folding aluminum clipboards like police officers used to carry. Paper logbooks haven't been used for quite some time. ELDs, or electronic logging devices, have been around for 10 years in the entertainer bus world. Trucks have had them longer. We were slower to swap over and resisted as long as we could. Seeing this guy getting his day started behind the wheel by updating his paper logbook, well, it just gives me the chills thinking about it.

The last time Bill was seen, the band and crew were easing through El Paso. Different band, different driver. The lead driver had stopped in El Paso at the airport to pick up the co-driver that he was going to need for the coming next few days. These guys had worked together before and were buddies. They sat up for a while, getting caught up, before the co-driver decided to find his bunk and get some sleep.

He asked the driver which one was the driver's bunk. It always changes depending on the tour manager, and he was told, first set of bunks, top bunk, passenger side. Now climbing into a top bunk is not fun, especially on a bus that's probably swaying down the road. And the bunk hallway is darkened so you can have a hard time seeing. The co-driver climbed up, pulled the curtain back to get in, and goddammit, there was somebody already in there. Confused.

Kind of pissed, he goes back up front, asks again which bunk he's supposed to take. Again, first set, top, passenger side. He goes back and climbs up and again, damn it, the other driver must be wrong. There's someone occupying the bunk. So now, gently and quietly, as to not wake anyone else asleep in their other bunks, he one at a time peeks through the curtains and checks if there's another bunk not being used. He checked all 11 of the others.

Without waking any occupants, he found 11 people asleep in the remaining sleeper berth. Now he's thinking that legally there can't be 14 people on this bus and that the company would never put themselves in jeopardy of getting a citation. So what's up? He pulled the curtain back on his bunk one last time to get a look at exactly who was there

But no one was in the bunk. The previously occupied bunk was now empty. And the driver hadn't left the bunkhouse this whole time. It wasn't like Sleeping Beauty had gotten up to use the bathroom. It's a small area. No one had left that bunk, and the curtain was still drawn. The driver said, fuck this, and decided to go back to the driver's area and talk to the other driver and maybe nap in the buddy seat.

Back up front, talking to his friend, the lead placed a phone call to one of the older drivers in the fleet. And this old guy had been a friend of Bill's. As the events unfolded, it came to light that on this bus, front, top, passenger was Bill's bunk. It's actually where he died. When questioned as to what the person in the bunk looked like, it was Bill to a T. He was laying there with his trademark caterpillar hat pulled down over his eyes.

The truck stop wasn't too far away. The lead pulled over for fuel. His co-driver got out and said to hell with it, and he quit right there. There was a ghost in the bunk he was supposed to be in. He had been at this career for a few years, but he'd never drive for this company again. He caught an Uber back to El Paso and flew home.

8362 is still in our fleet. As I sit here tonight running the shop, it's at the top of our board and it's known as a spare bus. If we get in a pinch, we'll use it. If a bus breaks down out on the road, we'll use it as a relief bus. But it's hard to lease out. Word gets out. Tour managers don't want it. Drivers don't want to drive it.

Wow.

I love that story just because, I mean, it took me back to like being on tour buses. Exactly. I know. I was there. Yeah, yeah. It was very well told and just the description, you know, very accurate. Yes. Number one rule of the tour bus. Oh, yeah. Do not. No number two is on the bus. Yeah. The number one rule is no number two. Yeah, exactly. Number one rule, number two. Yeah. Just because of the way their little sewer systems work. I mean, you technically can go, but there's always a risk that everybody's going to smell it. Yeah. And just be running down the road constantly stuck in your stink. Yeah. And that whole thing about the top bunk, they

They are such little tiny beds. They're so effing tiny. Yep. And I would sleep oftentimes on there. I'd be like in the top bunk is where I would end up because I'd be a low person on the totem pole. Yeah. And then getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and try not to wake other people up and not like put your hand in their bunk across to balance yourself.

It's like, and you're going down the freeway, you're moving. It is tricky. It is so tricky. And they're like, it's like little tiny, like, okay. Little pods you're in. Yeah, it's almost like a tanning bed, but honestly, I think it's smaller. Yeah, yeah. They're so tiny. It's like sleeping in a tanning bed. But I think I liked the top better than the bottom because the bottom, you could feel more. Oh, yeah, more moving of the bus? Uh-huh. Well, just more like the wheels. Like, actually, I think like in terms of swaying, you feel less up top because the top goes more, you know, like,

The bottoms felt more stable. But I will never forget on tour, there was this guy, Bruce. I will show you a picture of him when we're done. I will not show it on the show because I don't have his permission. Bruce was easily 6'5", 6'7", like a Norse-looking motherfucker. Sweetest guy ever. How he fucking fit in a bunk was beyond me. Oh, man. I cannot understand. Like a sardine, yeah. Yeah, and the tour that I was on,

And the buses that we were using, it didn't feel like there were any extra large bunks. And, like, maybe if you were going long enough or endeared yourself to a certain band or artist, they would, like, maybe make you a bigger one. Or, like, if you were building out a tour bus. But if you can only have – I didn't realize this. You can only have X amount of people on the bus. Yeah. I'm sure it's, like, a weight and safety concern. Oh, my gosh. And, like, for us, it was, like –

You had your bus bag and then you had all your other luggage. And so what they would say is like, okay, anything that you're going to need for the next three days, you bring it in your bus bag. Everything else, you will not see it, you know, until four days from now. So we get to the next spot. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, and you were just, so now you're in your bunk with your bag. Like, it's not just you and your bunk. It's like you, your computer, your chargers. Yeah. Spare clothes. Yeah. A couple of change of clothes, your toiletries. It's massive.

not ideal yeah but it's also so fun yeah it's an adventure uh-huh yeah and just like i remember like nights you know staying up kind of partying on the bus yeah oh god such a bad idea having beers and you know shots or whatever and dancing around and yeah just being goofy with the other you know acts and stuff and yeah yeah support yeah it's sort of like i guess like summer camp i mean i never went to summer camp as a kid but now that we host summer camp uh-huh it's just a couple of

It's like summer camp extended. You're on this bus. Like I was on a bus for like, I don't know, six months, you know, but, but you're with the same people every night. There are hookups. I mean, I was not, I don't know how people were hooking up on the bus, but it was wild. Like there's not enough room for that. Yeah. Tight quarters. Yeah. It wasn't me.

But yeah, it was so fun. Yeah. And then just – that's interesting too, just like a haunted house on wheels essentially. Yeah. Same thing. I don't know why that would be surprising to me at first. I was like, oh, that's weird, but it's actually not weird. Yeah. It's just like that was the space. I mean, it is like your house. It's where you sleep. It's where you eat. You spend all your time. And these drivers, a lot of them, it made me think of some of the drivers I worked with that were like career drivers. I cannot imagine. And they live on these buses. Yeah. Even though it's like not –

quote-unquote, their bus. They don't own it. It is like their home. Yeah, they take care of it. They're on top of the maintenance. It's very important. Yep, they spend more time there than they do anywhere else in their life. Yeah, there is... And so I guess that would make sense that that's where he would come back. He'd want to be in his bunk and want to be driving his bus. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's so...

If that's the career path that you find yourself, like, you know, a long-haul truck driver or, you know, tour buses, it's such a commitment because we need these drivers, right? Like, your Amazon packages or wherever.

You're whatever you're wherever you're ordering from. You need drivers. And if you go to concerts like you're also supporting a whole there's a whole back end of industry that you're supporting. You're not just supporting, you know, an artist. So it's just really incredible that somebody would commit their life to that. They might have a partner or children at home that they're missing a lot. The money can be really good. Yeah. And, you know, hard to transition.

out of that. Yep, and artists will have drivers on retainers. I've worked with a few artists in the past, a few big comics. That's what they did. They would have their driver because they don't want to

Just like as an artist, you don't want to be stuck with a support act that you don't like. Yeah, yeah. And now you're sharing your show with somebody you actually don't want to be around. You also, it's like when the show is over, you don't want to get on a bus with someone who annoys the shit out of you. And so when they would find somebody they really liked, they oftentimes would make them an offer of like, hey, you're going to only drive for me. And then you're going to be off these other weeks. But then when I'm on tour, you're on tour. Yeah. And actually the drivers...

They do more than the artist on tour in a sense because they have to go in advance of the artist to be there to be like the artist will fly to Miami. Yeah. The driver, wherever the bus is stored, has to drive there and meet them there and then drive. And sometimes the artist will fly again and the bus will drive off to drive. It's a crazy job. Yeah, it's crazy. It's really intense. And I never thought about anybody dying on those buses. Me either. It's no different than like people die on airplanes. Yeah. People die in transit.

to places all the time. Yep. But anyways, big shout out to anybody who is partnered with somebody who drives for a living or the drivers because truly, you're like our modern day railroad system. Like we just take it for granted that our shit shows up at our house. Absolutely. So thank you for driving over crazy mountain passes, good weather, bad weather. Like we live...

really close to a crazy mountain pass and every time we drive it, we think like, there's no, I hate doing it in an SUV, like a very safe, small vehicle. So, thank you for what you do. We're incredibly grateful and congratulations

And while we appreciate you and while I'm not a Swifty, I don't hate Taylor. It's just not my jam. She is known to take, she gave huge bonuses to all of her crew. So like, again, you know, artists you support, just remember like they're supporting other people's careers. And you know, when you hear about an artist that you like doing cool shit for their crew, it's even more encouraging and desirable to support their live performances because you know that it does actually trickle down to some degree. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Okay, that's my... I love it. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. I support it. You want to thank some Annabelles? I would love to. We will announce June's charity on next week's show, but in the meantime, we would like to thank the following Annabelles for their support for making all of this possible. Midori Akayama. This is my favorite one in ages. Wanda the Whimsical Cheese Witch. Okay, cheese witch it up. I fucking love that. Daxavan.

Jamie Ricker Chiodi, Brother Bard, Diana V, Dave Holmes, Passion Wolf, Lindsay Whitehurst, and Voodoo Gypsy. All right. Some good ones this week. Yeah, those are good. I would like to thank the following Annabelle's Lucifer Afternoon Star. Hell yeah. James Stubbs Jr., Jeff Vernon, Joe Trentley, Vanessa Perti,

Crystal Wallace, Sam Castles, Yahoo Yami, RT3K, and Dead Avatar. Funny. Okay, and I have just a few spoopy shout-outs.

To Kyle from Aspen, I love you, dumbass. Don't die on us this year. Kyle was recently in a car accident, but is doing okay. Good. To Priscilla from John, happy front butt escape day. Front butt escape day, yes. That's happy birthday in time set language. That's awesome. To Lexi from Lexi, happy 20th birthday to me. You have overcome so much mental grief to be here today. Here's to many more years. Yay. And that's our show.

personal tales of terror. Don't do that. Stop it. I hate that. Thanks for continuing to send in your personal tales of terror to My Story at Scared to Death Podcast. Stop! My Story at Scared to Death Podcast dot com. You can email us for everything else at info at Scared to Death Podcast dot com. Thanks to Logan Keith for scoring today's show. Thank you to Heather Rylander organizing the My Story emails to book editor Drew Etana polishing and preparing listener stories for book number six.

Thank you to Molly Box for finding the first story I shared this week, and I was able to find the second. We're on Facebook and Instagram, where we post pics that accompany episodes and more at Scared2DeathPodcast. We also have a private Facebook group called Creeps and Peepers, full of fellow horror lovers and moderated by the all-seeing eyes, who are fantastic. Enjoy your nightmares, Creeps and Peepers. Hope you're scared to death. Stop it. He said, hope you were scared to death. Bye. Bye.

Add magic productions.

Feel a little spooked. Oh, you feel a little icky? Yeah, or just like on edge. On edge, yeah. But like, you know, like I definitely don't want to see anything happen tonight.

Hey, creeps and peepers. It's Dan and Lindsay. Hi. Thank you so much for listening to Scared to Death each and every week. And if you want to hear new episodes ad-free and a whole week early, subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts. Or visit SiriusXM.com slash Podcast Plus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. Woo-hoo!