Spirit of the Mountain

In Yauco, the mountain is alive. It knows you. It is aware of you. And when you pass, it will not let you leave unforgotten.

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

• 0:06Glynn Washington?

  There's a cow on this can. The can's for the pup. I open the can, and the pup eats it up.

• 0:17Glynn Washington?

  The tin hides the truth of what lived and who died. My pup doesn't care.

• 0:24Glynn Washington?

  And I don't either.

• 0:28Glynn Washington?

  You've crossed over to Spooked.

• 0:32Glynn Washington?

  Stay tuned.

• 0:41Glynn Washington?

  Life is all about making decisions. Sometimes you make questionable ones, like buying a new TV that's too big for the wall because the electronics store employee was a little too good at their job. And sometimes you make great ones, like protecting your home and auto with Progressive. You get customized coverage options so you can be sure you have the right coverage for you, along with 24/7 claim support and great customer service. So when you think about it, that's like four great decisions that more than makes up for the TV debacle. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers, not available in all states.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Do you like scary stories? Think you've heard it all? Well, you've never heard it like this.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  Radio Rental is a horror podcast featuring true scary stories told by real people.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  He's tapping, tap, tap, tap. He's tapping on the door. He wants us to open the door.

• 1:43Speaker 03

  Then the nerlite turns on, and then the nerlite turns on in the shape of a triangle. And I'd say it's probably about the length of a school bus, you know, right above my head.

• 1:51Speaker 04

  She had long, ratted hair. She was wearing a dress. Her ribs were showing, her fingers were long. She looked shriveled, partially decayed.

• 2:02Speaker 05

  I'm starting to freak out a little bit. I'm pleading with them to just please let me out. These eyes started opening. They were pure white, and I lose it.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  Radio Rental returns October 23rd. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

• 2:32Glynn Washington?

  Okay. Sixth grade. Rule Michigan. Close to where we live, there's a livery stable. Where the rich folk keep their horses. They let me and some of my buddies come through and muck stables. Move feed, do chores, or whatever, for the exalted privilege of getting to be around horses.

• 2:55Glynn Washington?

  No, we can't ride the horses, at least, we better not get caught riding horses. Still. We get to tend the most beautiful animals that have ever breathed air, and there's one. Just not bay like from a story. Looks like. A Patronus, glorious. But. No one. Can get near her. She bites, she winnies, she kicks. We call her Demon. You can't even walk by her.

• 3:28Glynn Washington?

  Except for the owner's son Chad. The one that hisses at us to. Keep your head down, don't you look me in the eyes.

• 3:39Glynn Washington?

  The one always blinking.

• 3:42Glynn Washington?

  One day. My buddy steps too close to Demon's stall. She nips him on the shoulder, hard enough to draw blood. He screams bloody murder. Demon screams back. All the horses answer, the stable explodes into panemonium.

• 4:00Glynn Washington?

  The owner's son Chad. Pads through, walks right up to Demon, pushes his hand into her stall, places it on top of her head.

• 4:13Glynn Washington?

  Her crazed eyes still. She winnies. Presses into his fingers, nicker, snort.

• 4:23Glynn Washington?

  And she's silent.

• 4:26Glynn Washington?

  Every other horse grows silent as well, and I am in awe.

• 4:33Glynn Washington?

  I've never seen this kind of control, this type of certainty.

• 4:40Glynn Washington?

  It's magical.

• 4:44Glynn Washington?

  And I hate this guy.

• 4:48Glynn Washington?

  So much, I hate him, but... But he speaks horse.

• 4:55Glynn Washington?

  Like, no one that I've ever seen in life. So, I watch him, hoping...

• 5:02Glynn Washington?

  Hoping maybe someday...

• 5:07Glynn Washington?

  Maybe I can speak horse too.

• 5:12Glynn Washington?

  The owner, Chad's father, always laughs that he wants to train Demon not to bite. Says, "She'd be worth a million bucks!"

• 5:22Glynn Washington?

  I'm not getting anywhere near her. But I shadow Chad from a distance. He always has sugar cubes in his pockets. So, I make sure I have sugar cubes in my pockets. I always carries apples as a special treat. I start carrying apples and... One day, after someone else runs bleeding from the stable, I see Chad press sugar onto Demon's tongue.

• 5:52Glynn Washington?

  And it occurs to me...

• 5:55Glynn Washington?

  He never gives her treats when she doesn't bite.

• 6:00Glynn Washington?

  He only gives her treats when she does. The bigger the melee, the larger her reward.

• 6:07Glynn Washington?

  He looks over, sees me seeing him, and quickly... Quickly...

• 6:16Glynn Washington?

  Before he gets angry and they never let me back in here again...

• 6:25Glynn Washington?

  I turn my eyes...

• 6:28Glynn Washington?

  Down.

• 6:35Glynn Washington?

  Spook stars.

• 6:39Glynn Washington?

  Now.

• 7:10Glynn Washington?

  Why wouldn't animals, plants have a different way of knowing, a different relationship with the world? Seems exactly what you might expect, what's odd is, those rare moments when they let us see, what they see.

• 7:28Glynn Washington?

  Now, watching me Adam, as a kid, Adam used to travel a lot to Puerto Rico. To visit his family in Yauco, a town surrounded by mountains and jungles. And there, he would spend time with Papito, his great-grandfather.

• 7:46Glynn Washington?

  Everyone knew Papito in town, he was almost like the chief of the mountains. Everyone respected him, from his kids to his great-grandchildren, even the animals.

• 8:01Glynn Washington?

  Papito held all the knowledge of the Indian people.

• 8:05Glynn Washington?

  He would always tell Adam that the mountain is aware of things.

• 8:11Glynn Washington?

  Something that Adam was about to find out by himself.

• 8:18Glynn Washington?

  Soon.

• 9:04Speaker 06

  When I was about nine years old, I spent a whole lot of time in my papito's house, my great-grandfather's house.

• 9:15Speaker 06

  It sits on one of the many mountain tops of Yauco.

• 9:22Speaker 06

  It's on this little plateau that overlooks the cliff and the valley. And there's forest, forest, forest everywhere. It's like a jungle. It's very difficult to see a neighbor.

• 9:38Speaker 06

  The only other neighbors that were near were his brothers and sisters, who owned their own houses on this big property in the mountains that was all owned by my great-grandfather.

• 9:52Speaker 06

  So, one day I go up to papito's house, which is a walk from my grandmother's house. I love to hang out there because he had a bunch of interesting, random farm equipment and tons of farm animals, cows and horses, goats. But nearby, there was an enormous bull. And I was deathly frightened by this bull because it was enormous. It was huge, so much larger than me, huge horns.

• 10:25Speaker 06

  So, I was hanging out and playing in the front of his house. And this big bull came nearer to me.

• 10:36Speaker 06

  So I go to my papito and say, "I'm scared of the bull, and it's coming close."

• 10:46Speaker 06

  He laughed because he saw this city kid being scared of the bull that no one pays any attention to. The bull was walking away from the house. And Papito did this super powerful whistle.

• 11:07Speaker 06

  Like a 4th of July firework echoing through the mountains.

• 11:16Speaker 06

  And then the bull just stopped and started coming back towards us.

• 11:22Speaker 06

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

• 11:51Speaker 06

  And so he just grabbed me, picked me up, threw my leg over.

• 11:56Speaker 06

  The next thing I know, I'm riding on this enormous bull and holding on to the horns. And it was scary, but it was awesome and exciting.

• 12:07Speaker 06

  I felt much better because I saw that this thing did whatever he wanted it to do.

• 12:56Speaker 06

  One day, I'm in my Madrina's house, which was at the top highest peak of all of the hills that we lived on.

• 13:04Speaker 06

  I'm playing with my sister and my cousins. My madrina, my godmother, was taking care of Papito at the time. He was in his late 90s and he had severe sort of dementia.

• 13:22Speaker 06

  Papito is laying in my madrina's room, in her bed. And as we play during the day, I start to get the sense that something is happening.

• 13:36Speaker 06

  Everybody is gathering at my madrina's house.

• 13:40Speaker 06

  And more and more people keep showing up. People from the town, uncles, aunts, and a priest shows up.

• 13:49Speaker 06

  I peeked into the room and the room was filled with people.

• 13:56Speaker 06

  Papito is laying in the bed. He looked very small and skinny and pale. He looked gray almost.

• 14:09Speaker 06

  I started to feel uncomfortable. I didn't know what was going on. But I knew that I didn't want to be around at that moment.

• 14:21Speaker 06

  So I go to my abuela and I tell her how I feel. She told me that I could go back to her house, that the sun is just starting to set. If I leave now, I can make it before the sun fully sets. And that I could wait for them to be finished what they were doing.

• 14:48Speaker 06

  So I leave my madrina's house and I start on the path to my grandmother's house. I can hear the sounds that are fading away from the house. And it sounds like crying.

• 15:06Speaker 06

  And I'm thinking, oh, okay. Whatever it is that I didn't want to be around for is happening right now.

• 15:18Speaker 06

  I'm entering the lower part of the mountains, the beginning of the valley and the forest. And I realize that it's much darker than I thought it was gonna be. There is just so many trees, vegetation, tangly vines.

• 15:37Speaker 06

  I get to my grandmother's driveway, which is a long little road. And as I get there, I heard somewhere nearby a very strange sound, an animal sound.

• 16:00Speaker 06

  The first thing I thought of was a cow, because there's cows everywhere.

• 16:08Speaker 06

  And then a moment later, it screamed in a way that I've never heard a living thing scream before.

• 16:20Speaker 06

  It was almost like a human wail coming from an animal.

• 16:27Speaker 06

  I get this cold tingle-iness throughout my whole body, goosebumps going up my neck.

• 16:38Speaker 06

  I immediately just started to run towards my grandmother's house.

• 16:45Speaker 06

  As soon as I start running, I hear another

• 16:53Speaker 06

  and now I'm sure it's an animal.

• 16:56Speaker 06

  But it sounded like someone, a person, in pain.

• 17:04Speaker 06

  Then in the distance, a bunch of other animals start wailing.

• 17:11Speaker 06

  The pigs in the valley, the dogs that were randomly all over the mountainside,

• 17:18Speaker 06

  the cows and the horses and the bulls. Some of it sounded like it was the pigs near the slaughterhouse that were not even on our property.

• 17:27Speaker 06

  They were in agony, as if they were being killed.

• 17:34Speaker 06

  And then the night is just filled with these whales.

• 17:43Speaker 06

  It's an igniting of voices that keep coming out of the darkness because I can't see where they're coming from.

• 17:53Speaker 06

  And so I'm running, running, running to my grandmother's house. And this wailing seems like it's chasing me. Like it sounds like it's right in the back of my head, trying to grab at my ankles.

• 18:11Speaker 06

  Once I get to the top of the hill, I'm panting like a madman. I pass through the gates of my grandmother's house, slipping and sliding, run up to her patio, grab the door, yank it open and slam the door shut.

• 18:30Speaker 06

  I'm all alone. The wailing is still going strong and it feels like it's completely surrounding my grandmother's house.

• 18:43Speaker 06

  I run into the room where I was sleeping and I lay on the cot. I just started praying.

• 18:53Speaker 06

  I just wanted the time to pass, to wait for my grandmother to come back.

• 19:02Speaker 06

  Eventually, the animal noises finally died down. And shortly after that, my grandmother arrives.

• 19:15Speaker 06

  My grandmother comes up to me and asks me if I'm okay and I sort of stammer over my words. I told her that when I was coming back to the house, I heard the animals screaming. And my grandmother said, "Of course they're screaming. Of course they're upset." And I asked her, "Why are they so upset?" She said, "Because Papito died. Papito's gone now."

• 19:48Speaker 06

  At first, I'm confused. I didn't understand that. I said, "How could they know that he died?" And my grandmother said that all of the animals know these things. They sense his spirit.

• 20:02Speaker 06

  Papito was like their father, their master, their protector, everything to them, their chief. They could feel him leaving. They were sad and scared. So, of course, they know.

• 20:19Speaker 06

  That night, I was having a lot of trouble falling asleep. I was up thinking a bunch of things.

• 20:30Speaker 06

  How could animals know that Papito died?

• 20:35Speaker 06

  And I wondered, do animals have some sense that we don't have? Or do we have that sense?

• 20:46Speaker 06

  I was so restless that I got up. I opened up the main door very carefully and quietly, and then went outside into the night.

• 20:58Speaker 06

  There was a place in my grandmother's house that I really loved to go during the day. And it was in the rear of the house where there was a hammock hanging, and there was just like a cliffside, and it overlooked the valley.

• 21:13Speaker 06

  I went towards the edge of the cliff. I lay in the hammock in the darkness. I'm looking out over the valley, seeing the little bit of stars out there, and just the blackness of the mountain. I hear the crickets and the coquis, the little frogs, that make a very specific sound in Puerto Rico.

• 21:38Speaker 06

  And I hear an animal sound in the darkness.

• 21:49Speaker 06

  It wasn't a growl. It was more strange and scary than a growl. I don't know what it is, but it sounded scary. And it was coming from the darkness in front of me.

• 22:05Speaker 06

  The animal makes this sound a second time.

• 22:10Speaker 06

  It was a strange, hyena-like yipping excitement, but not a good excitement.

• 22:19Speaker 06

  It sounded very close, and it sounds like something that wanted to hurt me.

• 22:27Speaker 06

  I'm frozen, stiff. I can't move. I was just like a deer in headlights.

• 22:35Speaker 06

  The thought crossed my mind. Oh, my grandmother's gonna be so mad if I die. And immediately after, I hear

• 22:49Speaker 06

  this whistle like a firecracker in the darkness, in the valley. And that animal sound stopped.

• 23:05Speaker 06

  I'm feeling like I just got shocked by electricity. And I feel a sudden flush of relief.

• 23:16Speaker 06

  And in that moment, I knew, I knew it. I just somehow knew that Papito made that sound.

• 23:25Speaker 06

  Papito was there with me.

• 23:30Speaker 06

  Papito's spirit said goodbye to the animals and even stuck around long enough to protect me. And to say goodbye to me.

• 23:40Speaker 06

  I slowly get up and make my way into the house.

• 23:47Speaker 06

  And I'm thinking, there's something after death. I knew that death was something very, very powerful, very part of life. But Papito showed me that that death is not the end of our energy.

• 24:23Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, Adam, for sharing your story with us. Spooked. That original score was by Doug Stewart. It was produced by Eric Yanez.

• 24:53Glynn Washington?

  This episode is sponsored by Vinted. Imagine opening my closet, looking for a shirt, and I see that jacket. That jacket. That jacket I got for that party I never went to three years ago. That jacket, it's still there. It's still mocking me. Well, it was still there. Because then I stopped and I reached for my phone because Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app where you can sell clothes that you no longer wear. Listing on Vinted is quick and simple. Once an item sells, Vinted creates the prepaid shipping label for you. And Vinted has no seller fees, meaning you keep every dollar you earn.

• 25:36Glynn Washington?

  And I could get a little more room in my closet, you know, for that next jacket. Give your clothes a second life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free and start listing. No seller fees, so you keep everything you earn.

• 26:11Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so Providence, Rhode Island. Far away from the cobblestone touristy part, there sits a quiet building called Steerhouse. Nursing home into hospice, and in this place lived a cat.

• 26:32Glynn Washington?

  Not a purring cuddle machine, no Instagram cutie, no. This cat is cold-blooded. Name's Oscar. Gray, white, fur, green eyes. Oscar doesn't care about sitting in your lap. Oscar doesn't chase toys. Oscar doesn't even wanna be bothered with people much. Unless, and until, you are preparing for your final journey. And the first time this happens, no one really pays much attention. Oscar slips into the room of a woman who'd stopped speaking two days prior.

• 27:17Glynn Washington?

  Oscar jumps into her bed and this cantankerous feline actually curls up at her side. And just wait. Hours tick by and quiet is missed. The woman passes away. The attendants think, what a sweet moment. What a cosmic coincidence to have the cat as a comfort during her final moments. In another room, and another patient. Oscar disappears from his usual spot in the hallway and somehow winds up curled in a ball besides this man.

• 27:58Glynn Washington?

  Oscar lies still, eyes half-shut, tail tucked. And this man too passes into the beyond. And another person, and another, and again another still. And by the time we arrive at the strange coincidence number 25, people aren't saying that's weird anymore. No. Instead they say, "Call the family."

• 28:30Glynn Washington?

  Oscar's on the bed. No heartbeat monitors, no vital sign crashes, just a feline signal that the end is nigh.

• 28:44Glynn Washington?

  And Dr. David Dosa, he sees this and he's trying to make sense of it. He's a man of science, but Oscar's, Oscar's thrown off his game plan.

• 28:53Glynn Washington?

  They start tracking him. Oscar, he's right over and over and over again, more than 100 times, more than 100 people, and not just patients in decline.

• 29:06Glynn Washington?

  Sometimes Oscar curls up before anything looks different, before the nurses even notice.

• 29:18Glynn Washington?

  Eventually, they stop questioning. Instead, they start trusting.

• 29:25Glynn Washington?

  Families say that when Oscar enters the room, something changes. "It was eerie when daughter recalls."

• 29:34Glynn Washington?

  "He gave us time to say everything we needed." Another man, his eyes wet, voice cracking, remembers, "He wasn't there for us, he was there for her."

• 29:47Glynn Washington?

  "But he helped us understand what was happening."

• 29:52Glynn Washington?

  Oscar didn't howl. Oscar didn't demand, didn't console, he witnessed, still a shadow, when the breath slowed.

• 30:01Glynn Washington?

  And the room filled with that silence born of absence.

• 30:06Glynn Washington?

  And touched and moved, the good doctor wrote a book about what he saw called Making Rounds with Oscar.

• 30:14Glynn Washington?

  How do you explain what happened? Is it a trick?

• 30:19Glynn Washington?

  A gift? A miracle? Instincts?

• 30:24Glynn Washington?

  I don't know.

• 30:26Glynn Washington?

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

• 31:09Glynn Washington?

  Spooked is brought to you by the team that makes their own pet food for any animal in their care.

• 31:18Glynn Washington?

  Except for Mark Ristich, who always says, "If I can eat kibble, so can they." There's Davy Kim, Zoe Ferrigno, Ann Ford, Eric Yanis, Taylor Decott, Marissa Dodge, Miles Lassie, Doug Stewart, Elliot Lightfoot, Paulina Kriki, Juan Diego Beltran, Sasha Wilson, Dan Yashinsky. On Team Snap, the union representative producers, artists, editors, engineers, are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO Local 51. The Spook theme song is by Pat Masiety Miller. My name is John Washington.

• 32:03Glynn Washington?

  They say that time is just an illusion.

• 32:09Glynn Washington?

  Well, it's a pretty good illusion, right?

• 32:12Glynn Washington?

  It's a pretty good trick. Because time is relentless. Everything time given, time also snatches away. Nothing stays the same, even for a moment.

• 32:25Glynn Washington?

  The rules are harsh.

• 32:28Glynn Washington?

  Unforgiving, only forward, never back. No appeals, no regard, no backdoor, no secret hatch. All the money in the world can't buy a fast pass off this ride, right?

• 32:40Glynn Washington?

  Right?

• 32:44Glynn Washington?

  Well, I wonder, sometimes if what we experience is supernatural,

• 32:52Glynn Washington?

  is paranormal,

• 32:55Glynn Washington?

  is really just echoes

• 32:58Glynn Washington?

  of those that discovered an escape route, and those that decided that this moment was too important to abandon, and that part of them was going to stay right here, no matter what time, say it about it.

• 33:14Glynn Washington?

  And what is our responsibility

• 33:18Glynn Washington?

  to those lost echoes left behind? I don't have a magic formula.

• 33:28Glynn Washington?

  The best I know to do

• 33:31Glynn Washington?

  is to never, ever,

• 33:35Glynn Washington?

  never, never, ever

• 33:38Glynn Washington?

  turn out

• 33:41Glynn Washington?

  alive.