Skinwalker - Classic

Lee’s great grandfather, his grandfather, and his father have all seen him: the shapeshifter. They know this man has the power to curse them, to hurt them. Lee wonders: is this man coming for him too?

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Glynn Washington?

  Once upon a midnight scary, demons, ghouls, ghosts and fairies gathered round the sacred tree. I saw them, and they saw me. At first, I thought to steal their rights. Then learned, I was their sacrifice.

• 0:25Glynn Washington?

  You've passed over to Spooked. Stay tuned.

• 0:35Glynn Washington?

  Spooksters, you have spoken. "We want more Spook," you said. "We want the support to show," you said. "And, can we please, for the love of all that is holy, please get rid of those ads." Well, prayers answered. Spooked Plus has risen. Ad-free Spooked, the entire library, no interruptions. Just you and whatever's lurking in the shadows. Exclusive bonus stories every month. Fresh nightmares you won't hear anywhere else. The Spooked Plus community, listen together. Chat in real time because no one should face the darkest alone. And, and, ask me anything for yours truly.

• 1:20Glynn Washington?

  If you've got questions, I've got answers. Maybe. And we're just getting started. Spooksters, we are a small team chasing down the big mystery. Your support keeps this flame burning, so come on in. The door is open. Spooked.supercast.com. That's Spooked.supercast.com. Spooked Plus. Don't turn out the lights.

• 1:56Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so I'm 12 years old. Sit next to my little brother in church. The pastor works himself up to a head of steam, wipes away the mop of his brown blondish hair, waves his hand in front of the congregation. "Brother, brother, you think you know the story of the flood? Well, today, I'm gonna tell you the secret history, the truth that's been hidden from you." I'm thinking, "Secret history, huh?" Well, the Lord sees the evil doers inhabiting his land, and he tells Noah the only good man he can find to build him an ark. Noah obeys. Takes Noah 100 years of hard labor, but he does it.

• 2:40Glynn Washington?

  At God's command, all the animals in all the world start filing into the boat, two by two. They sonder, slither, crawl, hop, and pass, right past all the wickedness, onto this strange vessel, erected miles from any water. And Noah, with his three sons and their wives, follow the animals inside. And the Lord pulls shut the door behind them. And then, finally, brother, the rains come. For 40 days and 40 nights, the skies open up, washing away every single soul whose evil heart hath offended the Lord Almighty.

• 3:22Glynn Washington?

  And Noah's ark floats above their wretched corpses, a cleansing of sin, brother. Grant Noah and his children the chance for a new Eden after sailing for a full year. They walk off the ark unto a reborn world, untainted, unsullied. Noah dances in joy at the good Lord's grace, whooping and hollering, before collapsing into a deep slum.

• 3:54Glynn Washington?

  But then brother, brethren, the unthinkable happens. Horror of horrors in his sleep. This good man is defiled, violated, sodomized by one of his own sons. And sin reenters the world. Enraged, the Lord Almighty, he smites Noah's offending son Ham with a curse. Brethren, a curse, a curse so powerful, we still see the stain, the mark, burn into the skin of Ham's descendants today. Do you wonder where Negroite skin came from, brethren? From that evil deed perpetrated by Noah's own child.

• 4:37Glynn Washington?

  Make no mistake, from that day forward, he and all his children, and all his children's children, the African race, were cursed by the very hand of God. I look down at my skin, and I don't feel cursed. I feel angry, I feel furious, certain that either he's lying about that book, or that book is full of lies. Either or. Cursed? I know the beauty of my grandmother's unlined ebony skin.

• 5:21Glynn Washington?

  I sit hours under the summertime sun, hoping to darken my tone to match hers. Cursed? And I wonder, as I snatch my little brother's hand and pull him down the aisle, out of the door, past the people pretending very, very hard not to see us, I wonder, why are they so afraid? My name is Lynn Washington. Lies are curses, and curses are lies. Spook Starts.

• 6:27Glynn Washington?

  Now, so here's the deal. When we started making Spook those many years ago, I wanted to find one certain kind of story. I wanted to tell you about skinwalkers, indigenous warlocks, witches, shapeshifters. I've heard whispers around campfires, around back rooms, dark conversation. And I told my producers, "We've got to nail this down. We have to." But sometimes, these stories are hard to find. We scoured the country, the globe, our community, the internets, and it seemed like we'd never find someone willing to tell us their story. Because sometimes just speaking about this kind of magic,

• 7:12Glynn Washington?

  this sacred mystery, it's forbidden. And that's why I am so excited to introduce you to our storyteller, Lee. You probably want to hold on to a loved one's hand right about now.

• 7:30Glynn Washington?

  Spooked.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  So she would tell us stories that it scared the crap out of us, to be honest.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  There'd be a fire going.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  We'd turn the TV off. And of course, we're already full from dinner, and we're having other snacks.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  As any native would say, their grandmother makes the best fried bread.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  Well, guess what? My grandmother did make the best fried bread.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  And I would ask her to tell us true ghost stories.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  And her reply is, "They're all true."

• 8:31Speaker 01

  When I asked about more of what a skinwalker was, my grandma would tell me stories of my grandfather. One in particular was when he was out in the mountains,

• 8:44Speaker 01

  up in the hills not too far from where we were currently at that time.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  My great-grandfather, he was a sheep herder. And there was always somebody that was willing to buy that wool. It was a way to survive, a way to live. At this time, he did have issue with one of his neighbors down the way.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  I don't know how it started, but there were sheep that were either missing or that were killed. And my great-grandfather would take his sheep out to the mountains to graze.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  And it was evening, he was getting ready to head home. Something caught his attention.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  It was a noise, almost like a drumbeat.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Somebody chanting or singing.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  And so he crawled up over this hill, and he was able to see that there was a fire.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  And he saw one person sitting next to the fire. My grandfather recognized him right away.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  A neighbor down the road.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  I think there were accusations of stealing sheep. And things like that.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  I think as he went over the ridge and he saw his neighbor naked, sitting around a fire, I don't know if he understood the words that were being said, but he knew in his head that it was, it was bad.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  And no, it wasn't, it was not a common sight to see that.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  But he knew that his neighbor was what we call a witch.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Although my grandfather never saw him shape-shift, he never saw anything, he was supernatural, you would say.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  He knew that his neighbor was involved in that black magic.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  How he came up with that conclusion, I don't know, but in his head, his neighbor had something to do with his sheep.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  He left pretty quick, hoping that he wasn't seen.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  He was worried that his neighbor would maybe get to him first somehow. So he was scared. He was scared because he knew the, the power or the abilities that his neighbor had.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  But I guess he felt empowered because he had that knowledge of what he was doing. He could later on confront him, which he did.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  And so my grandfather approached this neighbor and he said to him, "I know what you do." And as he did that, his neighbor's eyes just grew, just huge.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  He was scared because he knew that my grandfather knew that he was involved in black magic.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  And so, his neighbor was very surprised, very scared, because it is said that if somebody knows who you are, they've also known what you've done. Because in order to be a skinwalker, apparently, you have to kill somebody close to you.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  This neighbor asked my grandfather, begged my grandfather, "Please, don't tell anybody. I will give you sheep. I will give you this. I will give you what I have."

• 13:33Speaker 01

  My grandfather, I just, I don't know why he made this decision, but he told people.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  He told neighbors. He told his wife, my grandma. He told people in the community. And according to my grandmother, that neighbor, he got very sick right after that. And he ended up passing away.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Well, I think every culture has what they consider the boogeyman.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  I would hear different things from different people, but one thing that was always consistent was that they are real.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  And that there were people that used black magic. And for me,

• 14:27Speaker 01

  that was scarier than a ghost. Because ghosts, I was always told, couldn't hurt me. Whereas a skinwalker could actually physically hurt you.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  After dinner, we're pulling our mattresses out. We would lay and have our mattresses set up on trampoline and make it as comfortable as possible because you're gonna be out there all night. Although it was summertime, it would get cold sometimes, so you made sure you had your blanket or your sleeping bag.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  And you're just laying there and it's silent. There's no traffic, there's no train, there's no airplane that you hear.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Just the big black sky and tons of stars, more stars I've seen in my entire life.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  It's a perfect scene, perfect spot to tell ghost stories. My dad would come out and he'd lay down with us. My dad told us about one of his experiences that happened to him when he was 19 years old. And he was in the Midwest, actually. It was not even on a reservation. He was serving a church mission and he was there in the wintertime, in the snow.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  My dad goes on to tell the story that he was driving from one town to another and his companion, his partner, was asleep. And it was actually in the middle of the day. He said it was cold, it was gloomy, and as he was driving, he recalls having this feeling of just fear and dread that something was wrong.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  At that moment, he said from the right side of the road, he saw a man jump over the fence on the side of the road and run right to the middle of the road.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  My dad slammed on the brake, slid,

• 17:09Speaker 01

  stopped right where this man was.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  And this man, who he describes as being covered in fur, and he put his hands right on the hood and looked at my dad right in the eyes.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  And my dad said that he looked very sad, very tired.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  He just, in the moments of looking eye to eye, he could tell that that man was not a normal man.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  The man, after looking at my dad in the eye, ran away, jumped over the fence, and took off again.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  And he didn't know what to think of that, but he said it really messed him up because it wasn't just some bum that was in the middle of the road.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  He said they were in the middle of nowhere.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  So my dad finishes telling us about his experience. And of course, we're scared because

• 18:24Speaker 01

  my dad telling us, we believe every word that he says. And we ask, is there anything else? Has anything... have you seen anything else? And so he goes into telling his dad's story, grandpa's story.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  He goes on to tell us that

• 18:49Speaker 01

  our grandpa, when he was younger,

• 18:53Speaker 01

  probably his early teens, when he's about to

• 18:58Speaker 01

  perform a ceremony, a ritual, a rite of passage for a young man to become a man.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  My grandfather was outside of what we call a kiva, made out of adobe. And it has a big ladder coming out of the top where you enter and exit. And he was going to perform this ceremony in there. But for some reason, he was outside of it.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  All of a sudden, he feels this same feeling that my dad describes to us.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  This overwhelming sense of fear and dread.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  And he didn't know what it was, but he felt this feeling that something was wrong.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  And that's where this man just came out of nowhere.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  Who was dressed in hides.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Animal fur.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  He approached my grandfather. And this man was tall. He was very dark.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  His hair was very messed up. He was dirty. But what he describes, that

• 20:42Speaker 01

  I still think about when he tells me this, is the man's eyes and his face.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  How, just looking at him, you could tell this man was miserable. He was sad. He said something in my grandpa's language about wanting to die.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  They exchanged looks and my grandfather left. He ran away. I don't know what happened after that, neither does my dad.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  But it did change my grandfather, because he knew that person was, in his words, he was evil. And he felt like he was a witch. And he felt that he needed to get out of there as soon as possible.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  What scares me the most about hearing my grandpa's story

• 21:49Speaker 01

  is my dad, is his belief that it was not just somebody that looked like the man that he saw, but that my dad, in his head, he believes that it was the same person.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  But how was that possible, from somebody from the early 1900s to meet my dad across the country in the 70s? He told us that story because he wondered if something like that would happen to us.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  What I've always been told is stay clear of them. Meaning, don't try to conjure them or call them by whistling at night. Don't walk alone at night on the reservation. Don't drive at night alone on the reservation. Because if you do, a skinwalker will make itself known. It'll chase you. It'll follow you home.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  Stay as far as you can away from anybody that you think may be working in black magic.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  A couple summers later, I was 14 years old. This summer I spent with my grandma, helping her around the yard, planting things, watering her plants.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Ernie would be the one working the hardest. He was a neighbor, and when I say a neighbor, he lived about three, four, or five miles away. My grandma would always pay him to do things around the house.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  Grandma would call out, "Hey, can you take Ernie home?" And of course, I didn't have a license, I didn't have a permit. However, I did have experience. So I step inside and I grab the keys.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Load it up. My dog jumps in back with Ernie in the bed of the truck. My brother's right there in the front seat with me.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Off we went.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Take him home.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  So it was getting dark, it wasn't dark yet, but the sun was gonna be setting soon.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  So we dropped him off.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  I take a different route home, one that would be faster. And we're on the dirt road, very covered in washboards. I mean, nobody really maintained those roads. But, perfect weather, 75 degrees, just enjoying the evening, windows rolled down.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Put my hand out and enjoying the air, you know how you're driving and you put your hand out the window? And just the wind in your hair, grandma's old truck.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  Listening to the only radio station that comes in from Holbrook, Arizona. And a lot of times it'd be playing oldies. My brother was next to me. He was just enjoying the same thing as well. My dog in the back. Although it was the most traveled road in that area, there was nobody else out. And as we were driving, I recall seeing something on the side of the road that caught my attention.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Possibly a sheep. Because I don't think there's a lot of different sheep, a lot of free roaming. It's better to be safe than sorry and slow down and not hit a sheep. And so I do slow down.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  All of a sudden, I feel this feeling of dread. It just...

• 26:14Speaker 01

  I don't know how else to explain it. Just dark, empty feeling that something was wrong.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  When I look in the mirror, I see what I thought was a sheep.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  So it was like, almost like uncurling, crouching, stretch out and just stand up straight.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  It was tall and it was very thin. And it had long arms, it had long legs.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  It had fur on its shoulder, had fur on its arms, had fur on its legs.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  And I see whatever this was running towards us, just running towards the truck.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  And I'm already going 30 miles an hour.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  And I see its arms swinging, its long arms and long legs, taking big strides.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  At this point, I was speeding up.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  I was going to the point where I was like 65 miles an hour on a dirt washboard road. So I was fishtailing. And this thing is keeping up.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  This thing is, has the pace so, so strong, so long that it's able to keep up. And I was thinking that because I could see it come into view every once in a while because I was fishtailing trying to keep control of the truck.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  I've never been so scared in my life where so many things go in through my head. I'm thinking, is this real? I'm thinking, is this really happening? Is this, is this thing gonna kill us?

• 28:37Speaker 01

  My dog was barking. I've never heard my dog bark that way. The way that the pitch in his, in his bark. I, I could tell he was scared or he was angry. He was, he was everything.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  My brother also is crying and he's saying, "It's coming up on your side." I looked in the mirror and it was very close.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  And I didn't know what was gonna happen.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  I sped up and I went as fast as I could in that old truck.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  At that moment, we were going around a bend. Car was coming towards us and had his lights on.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  As we passed each other, I felt this just instant relief, like phew.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  Like I could breathe again.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Like whatever was chasing us was gone. I don't know if it was, if it hid. I don't know if it went to go chase after the other vehicle. I have no idea. I just know that I didn't see it in my mirror. And I felt just this, this relief that it was gone. And I was still speeding towards Grandma's house because I knew I'd had to get home. I couldn't be out there. There was, whatever was out there was out there still.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  We drove back to my grandma's house as fast as we could. And I told my brother, as soon as we park, you run out and get into the house.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Jump out, slam the door shut, pass the porch, into the house. And so we all got inside and slammed the door shut, locked it.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Made sure it was locked, double checked it, closed the windows.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  And as we get back, my grandmother there, she's tending to the fire. She saw how scared we were. And she said, what's, what's wrong? What happened?

• 31:13Speaker 01

  We told her briefly what had happened. And Grandma said, yeah, stuff like that happens around here.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  My brother and I looked at each other like, "Oh my gosh, this is real." So all those stories that we heard growing up of the boogeyman or skinwalkers, for us, it became a reality.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  And it messed me up for a bit. I'll be honest. I was scared to go back out there and see grandma. I was so scared to just step foot outside at night.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  We used to sleep on a trampoline at night with the dogs out there. Those days were over.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  It was four or five years later, my dad came home. I'm already in bed. I am laying down, but my room is next to the living room.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  So I hear everything.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  And something was wrong.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  He was talking to my mom.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  And crying.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  And telling her about what had happened to him as he was coming back from Phoenix.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  That he was driving on Interstate 17 between Phoenix and Flagstaff. And it was right when he got into the pine tree, so he had made it up higher altitude.

• 33:11Speaker 01

  And he saw on his right side, up on a little ledge or a hill, the same man that he saw when he was a missionary.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  He said it almost made him crash. And he described him as being the exact same. And being able to see him with enough light in his headlights to know that.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Wearing the same animal skins or hides. Having no shoes. Being tall, dark, and dirty.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  But one thing he did mention, he mentioned those eyes again. He mentioned how tired they looked and how sad they looked.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  And that's how he knew it was the same person, by looking in his eyes. And to hear your dad crying in another room.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  It scared me.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  I didn't go out there. I didn't know what to do. It was a new experience, hearing my dad cry. And thinking how your dad is this big, tough guy. Has gone through a lot. You don't ever see him cry. And for him to be crying. I didn't want to see that. I didn't know how to react to it. I don't know what I could do to help him. So I just stayed there in my room.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  I wonder if it is the same person.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  If it is the same thing.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  If what I saw.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  What my dad saw, twice. And what my grandpa saw.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  I wonder if it's the same person.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  There's a trend here. Not a good one.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  And I have three sons. I wonder if, or when, they'll have their experience.

• 35:44Glynn Washington?

  Big thanks and big love to our storyteller, Lee. And thanks to your granny, and your grandfather, and your dad, and your great-grandfather for sharing your stories with us, too. Stay safe out there. Drop us a line if anybody ever comes back. The original score for that story was by Leon Morimoto. It was produced by Annie Nguyen.

• 36:21Glynn Washington?

  Yes, yes, yes, you've heard some other folk. But if you have a personal story that spooked you, where you touched a force, a power, a being that was not supposed to be there, where you had a relationship with the mystery, send us your story. [email protected]. There is nothing better than a spook story from a spooked listener. But don't tell me you saw a ghost. Everybody saw a ghost. Yet if you have a real story, let us know. [email protected]. And if you like your storytelling in the bright light of day, subscribe to the amazing Snap Judgment Podcast because it might just change your life.

• 37:16Glynn Washington?

  Spook was brought to you by the amazing team that never assumes a shape that is not their own, except, of course, from Mark Listich. Mark has many, many forms. There's Anna Sussman, our chief spookster. There's Eliza Smith, Chris Hambrick, Annie Nguyen, Lauren Newsom, Leon Morimoto, Lenzel Goria, Teo DeCock, Marissa Dodge, Aliyah Yates, Zoe Fergino, Greta Weber, Jacob Winnick, Sana Khan, Tiffany Deliza, Anne Ford, Fernando Hernandez, and Flo Wiley. The spook theme song is by Pat Massey Miller. My name is Glynn Washington. Follow me on the Twitter, the Instagram for a whole different type of story.

• 37:57Glynn Washington?

  And yes, evil comes in different shapes and sizes. There is no foolproof method for keeping the dark side at bay, but you don't need to throw out the welcome mat either.

• 38:10Glynn Washington?

  My advice, my recommendation is simple. Goes like this here. Never, ever, never, ever, never, never, ever, never, ever, turn out the lights.