Night Dancers

In a quiet Ugandan village, Jocelyn waits for her older siblings to sneak back from a forbidden disco, only to hear a sinister night dancer casting enchantments outside her home. When illness strikes her brother, Jocelyn’s family decides to take matters into their own hands.

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

• 0:03Glynn Washington?

  Patty cake, patty cake. The baker ran. After Jack found his wife with the baker man. And all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put the baker back together again. Spooked. Right after this very short break. Stay tuned.

• 0:30Glynn Washington?

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• 1:12Speaker 01

  Do you like scary stories? Think you've heard it all? Well, you've never heard it like this. Radio Rental is a horror podcast featuring true scary stories told by real people.

• 1:25Speaker 02

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

• 1:32Speaker 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.

• 1:40Speaker 04

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

• 1:51Speaker 05

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

• 2:04Speaker 06

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

• 2:17Glynn Washington?

  My grandfather was soft. He'd get real mad cuz I broke the lamp. Cuz I set fire to the porch with the magnifying glass. And this Saturday afternoon, he catches me throwing rocks at neighbors' windows. "Boy, have you lost your mind? Go get me my belt so I can beat your behind for you." I laugh, run to his closet, find his thick, old leather belt with the notches, the big buckle. Hand it to him, smile on my face, here it is. He snatches it up, I bend over, raises the belt over his head for the blow.

• 3:02Glynn Washington?

  Then granddaddy is teary-eyed.

• 3:07Glynn Washington?

  "All right now, I'm gonna give you one more chance to do right, you hear me?" "Yes, sir." "Don't let me have to tell you again." Please, my granddaddy ain't gonna hit me with no belt. I run right back to doing bad stuff with it quickness. But then, a few minutes later, I sense my grandmother's footfalls on the back porch. And granny, granny don't play. I hear that soft, icy voice, her whisper voice, and I know good times is over. "Boy, Ms. Wilson from next door told me she saw you throwing rocks at a window." "Throwing rocks at windows?

• 3:50Glynn Washington?

  Now I want you to go to that tree, right there. And I want you to get me a switch, and it better be a thick one so I can beat your behind." "But, but, but, but, but, granddaddy, granddaddy already gave me a licking. He whipped me real good with his belt."

• 4:06Glynn Washington?

  Granny's all suspicious. "Louis, Louis."

• 4:12Glynn Washington?

  Granddaddy stomps up from the basement. "Louis, you beat this boy's behind for that window." I look at granddaddy, granddaddy looks at me. "Please, please, please, please, please." Moment of truth, life or death, everything's on the line.

• 4:30Glynn Washington?

  Yep, I tore his raggedy behind up. He ain't never throwing rocks no more, I know that.

• 4:37Glynn Washington?

  Hmm. He better not. Spare. Relief washes over me. All these many years later, I remember that twinkle in my grandfather's eye when he looks at me. It's our little secret.

• 4:56Glynn Washington?

  And I can't believe it took me this long to understand that she knew.

• 5:04Glynn Washington?

  She knew full well he didn't hit me. Couldn't hit me, wouldn't hit me, it's not his nature. My state of execution wasn't her gift to me, nah. No.

• 5:24Glynn Washington?

  It was her gift.

• 5:28Glynn Washington?

  To him.

• 5:32Glynn Washington?

  Spook starts.

• 5:35Glynn Washington?

  Now.

• 6:06Glynn Washington?

  Now. Sometimes the shadow passes you by and sometimes it does not.

• 6:16Glynn Washington?

  We begin in Uganda, only a few dozen miles from the big city of Kampala, there lies a village. In that village, there was a particular legend. From a storyteller Jocelyn, that legend became very, very real.

• 6:35Glynn Washington?

  Spooked.

• 6:46Speaker 07

  It is a big village, not very far from the city.

• 6:53Speaker 07

  The houses, they are mud houses. We usually have a main house, which is the big house. Then for the boys that have grown and have married, they build their houses around the main house. In the compound, we have dogs, we have cats, we have chicken, we have goat. Besides that, we have this garden where we plant spinach.

• 7:24Speaker 07

  Joslin grew up in the village as the youngest of twenty children. Her family's house was small, with one bedroom for the boys, another for the girls, and a third for her dad and step-mum. Her own mother wasn't around. My father cared for us. He would provide for us. He was loving, but it was hard love.

• 7:56Speaker 07

  I remember my brother, he says, "I am tired of school." When he said that, my father, he tells him, "Now that you're tired, I'm also tired of you in my house. Leave. Go and look for a way to stay. I can't have uneducated people in my house. You do what he says, or you go."

• 8:21Speaker 07

  Joslin and her siblings obeyed their father, mostly.

• 8:29Speaker 07

  Every once in a while, they found some trouble to get into, especially around the holidays, when Joslin was a teenager.

• 8:39Speaker 07

  It was Christmas time. My three brothers told me they were going out for disco. They were not supposed to go because discos was for spoiled people. So, yeah, they were sneaking out. They tell you, "Joslin, we are going out. You stay up and open for us. Do not sleep." Because our doors were wooden doors with a bolt. Knocking would wake up dad. When they come, they tap on the bedroom window. Then they promise you something they are going to buy for you, and you don't tell on them after.

• 9:26Speaker 07

  So I had to sit on my bed and wait all night long.

• 9:35Speaker 07

  I was sitting, waiting.

• 9:40Speaker 07

  Then I heard footsteps.

• 9:44Speaker 07

  I thought it were my brothers that had come. So I sat and waited for them to knock on the window.

• 9:57Speaker 07

  But they were singing as they move around the house.

• 10:03Speaker 07

  I don't know what they are singing. And you know when someone is dancing, the sounds they make?

• 10:11Speaker 07

  That is when I realized it was a night dancer, singing enchantments to get people sick.

• 10:42Glynn Washington?

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• 12:08Glynn Washington?

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• 12:42Glynn Washington?

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• 13:12Speaker 07

  In certain parts of Uganda, some people believe in a phenomenon called night dancing. A night dancer is an ordinary person who's been possessed by bad spirits. The spirits make the person do whatever they want, horrible things like dig up corpses and eat their flesh. But the most common thing the spirit makes a night dancer do is take off their clothes and dance naked outside their neighbors' homes after dark. While they dance, the spirits make them cast magic spells on their neighbors, spells so powerful that they can cause physical illness.

• 13:54Speaker 07

  I was scared. I'd heard about them from my citizen brothers. I didn't go to the window. I got off the bed. I sat down on the floor. I kind of froze.

• 14:10Speaker 07

  I hear them pass the door. They go around, then they come and pass again. Then they go around like that for like 15 minutes.

• 14:21Speaker 07

  Then it stops.

• 14:27Speaker 07

  They've gone to another house. But I kept thinking, maybe he's coming back. So I stayed in one position for over 30 minutes.

• 14:39Speaker 07

  Then my brothers tap on the bedroom window.

• 14:44Speaker 07

  The way they tap, no, it is them.

• 14:48Speaker 07

  I told my brother, the night dancer has passed. I think tomorrow I'm going to fall ill.

• 14:56Speaker 07

  Then he said, you can't fall ill if the possession was not for you. It could have been for someone else. We see tomorrow.

• 15:10Speaker 07

  The morning, my sister is the one that fell ill.

• 15:15Speaker 07

  She got a high fever, then then throw up.

• 15:21Speaker 07

  Joslin's sister got better eventually.

• 15:25Speaker 07

  But every four nights or so, the night dancer came back, always after dark.

• 15:33Speaker 07

  Joslin and her family were too scared to go outside and see who was putting the curse on them. They had heard that bad things happen to people who confront night dancers.

• 15:45Speaker 07

  You might become one yourself.

• 15:52Speaker 07

  One night months later, Joslin heard a sound outside. But this time, the sound was different, and it was coming from above her head.

• 16:05Speaker 07

  I wake my sister, I'm like, someone is sweeping on the roof.

• 16:11Speaker 07

  They make that sound of shh, shh, shh. Leaves were falling off on the ground outside.

• 16:21Speaker 07

  When she told me that is the night dancer.

• 16:27Speaker 07

  I was like, how do they even get up there? What if they fall inside?

• 16:35Speaker 07

  We were all scared. We thought we were going to come face to face with a night dancer.

• 16:42Speaker 07

  What would you do? Would you run?

• 16:46Speaker 07

  He swept and swept and swept and swept. Shh, shh, shh.

• 16:58Speaker 07

  I just sat and held my head until when it stopped.

• 17:08Speaker 07

  The next morning, I asked my father, why would someone sweep our roof?

• 17:16Speaker 07

  He told me, when they sweep the roof, the illness is a serious. The spirit, it wants to take blood.

• 17:28Speaker 07

  That same morning, Joslin's brother, Elvin... Started having trouble breathing. Elvis had asthma, so the family was used to his attacks. But this time was different.

• 17:43Speaker 07

  His temperature was high and he was feverish and all that. He stayed sick for over a week. By the time they came to take him to the hospital, he died in the house. We lost him unfortunately.

• 18:02Speaker 07

  Everyone in the family was devastated, especially Joslin's father.

• 18:11Speaker 07

  He loved my brother. He was his favorite. He kept saying, "This can't be. I have to know the person that took my son."

• 18:22Speaker 07

  So he set out on a mission. He kept saying he's going to look for that night dancer. We have to know who it is. Other people started giving him advice. The advice he got? If you're going to confront a night dancer, get a mortar and pistol and keep watch.

• 18:47Speaker 07

  When the night dancer comes, you hit the mortar with a pellet. The person is going to freeze until the next day. They don't talk, they don't move. They stay in the same position until morning. You also have to hold on it in the same position until morning.

• 19:09Speaker 07

  You don't remove your hands and no one else is supposed to come and help you. When you do that, the night dancer stays outside until other people wake up.

• 19:21Speaker 07

  We all see him, you know who it is. Then he leaves our village.

• 19:35Speaker 07

  So he got the motor and the petrol. My stepmother, she kept telling him, "Don't do it. We're all against it." Because you would not know whether it will go well or bad. But he tells you, "I have to catch him. If I hear him, I'll come out of my bedroom and do the thing."

• 19:59Speaker 07

  We went to sleep. We left him sitting in the living room. He had a chair that he would sit and stay there and then sleep off. So we were optimistic, it is never going to happen. He will sleep there in the chair, and it will pass.

• 20:23Speaker 07

  In the morning, when we wake up, we find him still in the chair.

• 20:30Speaker 07

  We all sat down and looked at him. I greeted him, he was not answering me. He was just there, quiet.

• 20:41Speaker 07

  I'm like, "What happened, what happened?"

• 20:44Speaker 07

  Then my sister tells me, "He was paralyzed. None of his body parts were moving.

• 20:53Speaker 07

  No words were coming out of him."

• 20:58Speaker 07

  I was like, "This cannot be possible."

• 21:03Speaker 07

  We knew what had happened.

• 21:07Speaker 07

  The night dancer had him, and he cast a spell on him.

• 21:13Speaker 07

  The night dancer was stronger than him.

• 21:18Speaker 07

  Then my uncles came in. I remember my uncle kept saying, "If you could tell us who did this, we're sure you saw the face."

• 21:32Speaker 07

  But he could not say anything.

• 21:38Speaker 07

  There was nothing like a doctor.

• 21:42Speaker 07

  They took him in the family shrine. The next morning, you ask Mama, is Daddy okay? And she's like, no, nothing has changed.

• 21:56Speaker 07

  That was in February, March, April, May, June, July. Nothing kept changing.

• 22:06Speaker 07

  Now, the night dancer kept coming, but no one was willing to to go and face him, seeing what had happened.

• 22:47Speaker 07

  I was at school. My brother came and picked me up around lunchtime.

• 22:53Speaker 07

  He's kind of a playful guy, but he was not in his usual playful mode.

• 23:01Speaker 07

  I asked him, what is happening? He tells me, get in the car. Then he tells me, Tata has passed on.

• 23:13Speaker 07

  I just kept quiet and tears started coming from my eyes.

• 23:22Speaker 07

  When someone dies in the village, people gather very fast. So when I go to home, everyone is outside.

• 23:32Speaker 07

  Some woman asked, who is she? They told her, she's one of the orphans. They are calling me an orphan already.

• 23:46Speaker 07

  I was just crying.

• 23:50Speaker 07

  In my mind, I'm like, this night dancer did this.

• 23:58Speaker 07

  her father privately. He had been an important man, a clan leader, and the whole village came to his funeral. Joslin and her family were expected to greet them all.

• 24:11Speaker 07

  We have a family graveyard. It is just right behind the main house. That is where we buried him. The next day,

• 24:23Speaker 07

  I was with my other two sisters to go and welcome the people. There were about five hundred people.

• 24:32Speaker 07

  At the moment of the burial, I had hatred in me for the people that were around me. Because when a person dies because of a night dancer, the night dancer also has to come and bury. He has to be on that burial. All the spirit of that dead person is going to come for him. The night dancer responsible for his death was with us that very night.

• 25:07Speaker 07

  That was the most stressful part, I think, of my life.

• 25:13Speaker 07

  They say it is a spirit, they are not responsible for the things happening to them. I'm like, but how can a spirit make you enjoy someone's pain? I think that was the time I cried most.

• 25:28Speaker 07

  Then they did the final rituals for him.

• 25:35Speaker 07

  After her father's death, Joslin had had enough. She decided to escape the night dancer by moving to the big city.

• 25:45Speaker 07

  I had a brother who was in Kampala. I told him, I want to leave this village because it kept eating me up how someone can kill you and come and be with your people. They greet you, they talk to you. But then in your head, you're like, these people are evil.

• 26:08Speaker 07

  So, since that time, I've not slept there again.

• 26:13Speaker 07

  I have a son. When I go to the village, I'm kind of protective. I only want him to mingle with my family. I just tell him, "Stay here."

• 26:41Glynn Washington?

  Thank you so much, Jocelyn, for sharing your story. A heart goes out to your family. Now, this story was narrated by Lulu Jamima, was scored by Clay Xavier, and was produced by Ann Ford.

• 26:59Glynn Washington?

  Now then, I don't know if you've noticed, but there's an awakening happening right now. Things that people were reluctant to utter just a few years ago, a few months ago, are now finding a receptive audience. Like, we're starting to collectively realize that there exists far more than meets the eye.

• 27:23Glynn Washington?

  And if you have a story, an encounter, an ability that you think the world needs to know about, you are right. The world does need to know. We need to know. Let me know, [email protected], because there's nothing better than a spooked story from a spooked listener.

• 27:44Glynn Washington?

  We want to hear it, we want to share it with the spooked world. Spooked is brought to you by the team that loves to first warm their hands by the fire.

• 27:54Glynn Washington?

  Except for Mark Ristich, he likes to first warm his other side. Now, there's Davy Kim, Zoe Fergino, Ann Ford, Eric Yanias, Taylor Decot, Marissa Dodge, Miles Lassie, Doug Stewart, Paulina Kriki, Elizabeth Z. Pardue, Ditya Matu, Lulu Jamima. The Spook theme song is by Pat Masidi Miller. My name is Kam Washington. And I went to yoga class. And the beautiful yoga instructor told me to stand up straight, then reach down, without bending my knees, and put my hands under my feet. What?

• 28:36Glynn Washington?

  I'm lucky to touch my knees, much less my toes. And I felt hot shame as everyone looked at me and laughed. But I tried. And I tried again the next day, and the next, and I noticed something. My toes aren't getting any closer now. But I look around, and no one's laughing. Not my beautiful teacher, not the beautiful people know they're smiling. They never laugh. This is all in my head. Like when I stop drinking for a while, and I think people will see and point and ask me what's wrong, what's going on, but people don't care.

• 29:21Glynn Washington?

  And if they do, they don't call me out. They give me love, like the monster opened its maw and it grins. Blessings sometimes wear shadow as their disguise, and I wonder how many I've missed, how many blessings I've rejected because of my fear. I cannot afford to waste blessings anymore. So, my strategy going forward, from here on out, I will never, ever, ever, never, never, ever, never, ever, never, ever, turn out the lights.