40 Days

A man in a dark suit with red suitcases shows up just as the door to the spirit realm is closing.

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

• 0:08Glynn Washington?

  My Bonnie fled over the ocean. I followed them out to the sea. My Bonnie ran fast when they saw me. Dear Bonnie, oh, why would it be? My Bonnie thought I wouldn't notice. My Bonnie was wrong, as you see. Now Bonnie lies under the ocean and I swam alone by the sea.

• 0:37Glynn Washington?

  Listen to Spooked, stay tuned.

• 0:47Glynn Washington?

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• 1:29Speaker 01

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

• 1:37Speaker 01

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

• 1:42Speaker 02

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

• 1:49Speaker 03

  Then the mirror light turns on, and then the mirror light 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.

• 1:57Speaker 04

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

• 2:08Speaker 03

  I'm starting to freak out a little bit. I'm pleading with them to just please let me out.

• 2:14Speaker 05

  Dee's eyes started opening. They were pure white, and I lose it. Radio Rental returns October 23rd. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

• 2:38Glynn Washington?

  I've never met my grandfather. And I don't know much about him, except that after he was killed, it turned out that his family, his wife, my grandmother, his daughter, my mother and her eight siblings, this family was not his only family. There's another secret family with numerous children and kinfolk as well. A secret family that a surprising number of people somehow knew all about. And as a child, I learned, I was taught, this other family, that those people were bad people, to be hated, to be feared,

• 3:20Glynn Washington?

  because every branch of the tree touched by sin bears the taint of that sin. Illegitimate heirs to my grandfather's sterling legacy. Usurpers. And I saw them, the other kids sometimes, blinking angry eyes at me as I stared right back over at them. All of us with the same roundy heads, the same slope of the nostrils, the same gap between their front teeth as there is between mine, the same red running through our veins. And it's all well and good to hate the neighbors down the street, the people in some other country that speak another language,

• 4:03Glynn Washington?

  maybe the people that dress in different clothes, those that worship another god. But as a child, I learned that the cleanest, the brightest, the fiercest type of hate, that we say that. For family.

• 5:33Glynn Washington?

  Now, Lord Lee, she grew up without her parents around. They said she lived in her grandmother's house in the Philippines, in a village, just a few hours from Manila. But Lord Lee, she was never alone. Soot.

• 6:25Speaker 06

  There were more than a dozen people living in my grandma's house. My grandparents, my aunt, an uncle or two, me, my brother, my sister, four of my cousins hung around at my grandma's house with us. And we were all about the same age. So it was great. We'd just play all day, all night, a lot of running around and screaming and yelling until it's time to have dinner. The house was two bedrooms, one bath, and then a kitchen slash dining room and one really big living area. And there's a window that overlooks the front yard. It's a garden with benches, and that's where we usually hung out after school. You know, it's nice and shady out there. A lot of cats would hang out because

• 7:10Speaker 06

  we usually throw out scraps to feed the strays.

• 7:15Speaker 06

  That's also where all the pitas, that's auntie in Tagalog, that's where all the pitas from the neighborhood would come over and gossip with my grandma in the afternoons when it's too hot to do anything. They were all tight. They pretty much grew up together.

• 7:36Speaker 06

  One day, we were all hanging out in the front yard. Kids were just playing around and all the aunties were just gossiping with grandma. My grandma suddenly pops up with, "The last two nights, I've had a really, really odd dream.

• 7:54Speaker 06

  I keep dreaming that onte, my uncle, was standing here in the front yard and I was looking out the window. And he was looking up at me and he kept saying,

• 8:07Speaker 06

  'Mom, I'm coming home soon. Don't forget to throw a really big party for me.'"

• 8:16Speaker 06

  It was odd because my grandma, she's a good Roman Catholic. When aunties would talk about weird superstitions that they had, my grandma would be the first to poo-poo that sort of thing.

• 8:28Speaker 06

  She said, instead of feeling happy in her dream, she just felt really uneasy and she couldn't pinpoint why. The neighborhood aunties were all, "Well, what was weird? Did you notice anything? What was going on?"

• 8:48Speaker 06

  And grandma says, "Well, number one, he was wearing a suit. Wearing a suit with a red tie. He was really dressed up. I mean, he doesn't own a suit.

• 8:59Speaker 06

  Also, he was surrounded by all of this luggage and it was red luggage and they all had fancy wheels on it and he doesn't own anything that fancy."

• 9:10Speaker 06

  So of course, all the aunties were like, "Oh, that's not a big deal, you know? He's coming back home in a couple of months for Christmas and he's going to stay for three months. That's probably what you're dreaming about. You're just excited." My grandma's like, "Eh, I don't like it. I didn't like it at all."

• 9:26Speaker 06

  I didn't know my uncle all that well. The most interaction that I would have with him is when he would come back for vacations. He was my cousin's dad, and that was pretty much it.

• 9:38Speaker 06

  All I thought was, wow, creepy dream, that's so cool. I'm gonna tell my friends about it at school tomorrow. But otherwise, it was just random talk.

• 9:51Speaker 06

  A little less than a week after, I was in the kitchen snacking and chit-chatting with my cousins. And we just hear Grandma yelling. Something bad had just happened, and it was probably our fault. So we very reluctantly get up and go to the living room where my Grandma was.

• 10:14Speaker 06

  And she's standing there, hands on her hips. And she jabs her finger and points to the ground, saying, "Look at this. What did you do? Were you running around again?" And she's pointing at my uncle's framed high school graduation photo, which is lying face down on the floor. Grandma thought that because we were running around, being rambunctious, somehow we had knocked this photo off a wall. She was worried that the glass could have shattered. What was weird about it was that the wire that is used to hang the photo was actually twisted around the nail.

• 10:57Speaker 06

  It was impossible for that photo to have fallen off without pulling the nail out. It was like somebody took it from the wall, unhooked it, and then placed it on the floor face down. And we're like, Grandma, we didn't do that.

• 11:13Speaker 06

  But my Grandma was like, okay, I'm gonna move the photos from the wall. Because obviously, these children cannot control themselves. And I'm gonna put it in this shelf.

• 11:25Speaker 06

  So she arranged the photos kind of towards the back, and then put chachkis in front of it. So it was safe.

• 11:33Speaker 06

  We ended up getting banished from the house for the rest of the afternoon.

• 11:44Glynn Washington?

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• 12:26Glynn Washington?

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• 12:51Speaker 06

  Later in the afternoon, we were outside playing marbles. And again, we heard this howling from my grandma.

• 13:02Speaker 06

  "Get up here!"

• 13:05Speaker 06

  So we're trawling up the stairs and we go to the living room where this big bookshelf was placed.

• 13:13Speaker 06

  And in front of it was a picture frame.

• 13:18Speaker 06

  My uncle's photo, face down on the floor again.

• 13:24Speaker 06

  And everything else was perfectly arranged on the shelf. And my grandma's like, "Who did this?" Her tone was different. It wasn't like 100% mad. This was more like 70% mad and 30% something else. Like nervousness or uncertainty. She wanted one of us to say, "Sorry Grandma, I did that." But none of us did that.

• 13:54Speaker 06

  At this point, my grandmother was just like, "Okay, fine. Just go. Just go." Even us kids, we were thinking, "Something creepy is going on. Something is wrong." You know, there is something very off. But we didn't want to talk too much about it because these are my cousin's dad. I would be like, "I'm just not going to think about it."

• 14:19Speaker 06

  So around this time, weird things were happening at my Aunt Virgie's house. Aunt Virgie is the aunt that is the wife of my uncle that my grandma had been dreaming about. My cousin Christopher, he just kind of pipes up. It just smells weird in the house. It smells like church during Lent, when it's filled to the brim with flowers and all these burning cheap candles, a kind of overwhelming blanket of smell.

• 14:53Speaker 06

  We don't like it. We're going to stay at grandma's because at least it doesn't smell like a church.

• 14:59Speaker 06

  I was kind of irritated because we had to share this tiny little room with four more kids. The three smallest kids shared the bed and we all had to sleep on hardwood floors. All I wanted them was them to go home. It was very uncomfortable. A week later, my cousins and I were just hanging out in the living room watching TV. The adults were out in the front yard chit-chatting.

• 15:25Speaker 06

  And suddenly, in the middle of Sesame Street,

• 15:30Speaker 06

  we just hear my grandma wailing.

• 15:35Speaker 06

  So of course, all of us went running for the window and all we saw was all of our neighbor aunties huddled around my grandma. My grandma is just on the ground crying. My Aunt Olivia was there, talking to these two foreigners.

• 15:54Speaker 06

  One was some blond guy and the other was a dark-haired dude, obviously not Filipino. And they were wearing suits and she was talking to them in English. Her voice was pitched really high. I don't know what she was saying. The blond dude was holding on to my aunt's hands. And you could see that my aunt was like shaking her hand up and down, so trying to shake off the blond guy's grip. All of us kids were just standing there overlooking all this, frozen. I never thought for a second I should go down there and find out what's going on.

• 16:34Speaker 06

  It was just too horrifying to see my grandma lose her control completely like that. To see my aunt so disturbed. Aunt Olivia shoot us kids into the bedroom. But as soon as that door closed, we all were plastered against the door with our ears against it because we wanted to know what had happened. All the adults, all my uncles, my aunts, a couple of neighbors, my grandma's friends, grandfather, we were all in the living room talking about what had happened that afternoon. My uncle had passed away two weeks before.

• 17:19Speaker 06

  He had passed away in his sleep. He had a huge heart attack and just never woke up. The two guys were representatives of the oil and gas company that my uncle worked for. They were saying that they would take care of all arrangements to ship his body back to the Philippines. It was just terrible. You never want to think that somebody died in your family. Three days after the representatives came, Aunt Olivia had gone to Manila to pick up the body and his personal effects. And the luggage was brought to my deceased uncle's house. Aunt Olivia came over to grandma's house, you know, just having dinner with the rest

• 18:04Speaker 06

  of us. I'm sitting there picking up my fish and she told my grandma it was the red luggage that you dreamed about. It was a red canvas with wheels. It was just dead silence for a couple of seconds. I'm sitting there with fish halfway to my mouth. And I'm looking at my aunt like, are you serious? Oh, my God. My grandmother just kind of nodded her head like, okay, there's something really weird going on here, but we are not going to talk about it.

• 18:43Speaker 06

  The body was driven to my deceased uncle's house. They were gonna have a five-day wake. There was gonna be breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There was gonna be karaoke. There was gonna be gambling.

• 18:58Speaker 06

  The first day of the wake arrives.

• 19:02Speaker 06

  It was very chaotic. It felt like the entire town was there. I am dead certain that there were people who showed up for that wake that didn't even know our family. I just remember the massive amounts of food that was constantly being brought out to feed all these people.

• 19:22Speaker 06

  I noticed there's just flowers everywhere. The smell is just so cloyingly sweet. And then, just feeling all this hot air, because we had fans running to try to keep the room cool, keep air circulating. But it was just circulating more hot flower smell, more hot candle smell.

• 19:44Speaker 06

  We had to walk down the middle of the living room to get to the casket.

• 19:53Speaker 06

  The top of the casket is glass, so you can see him from the waist up. I was the oldest, so I had to be the first one to go amongst all the cousins and my siblings. Not going up there to pay my respects was not an option. There would have been a spanking. I walked up there, and I'm standing there really trying not to just...

• 20:18Speaker 06

  try not to shudder. I'd never seen a dead body before.

• 20:23Speaker 06

  He was dressed really nice, in a nice gray suit with a red tie, exactly how my grandma had described her dream.

• 20:32Speaker 06

  I saw this trail of something from his eye down his temple towards his ear. It looked like it was a tear trail. It looked like he cried.

• 20:46Speaker 06

  When I saw that, all the hairs on my body just went straight up. It absolutely creeped me out, 100%.

• 20:56Speaker 06

  After that first night, my siblings and I were not expected to show up at the wake anymore. We were just hanging out at my grandma's house. It was close to dinner. And my little sister was like, "Sis, I'm hungry. Can we eat dinner now?" So we go into the kitchen. The door leading out to the yard is wide open because it's hot. When I walked in there, I was thinking, "Oh, weird. There are no cats." Usually, we have all these strays coming in, hoping for a handout. My grandma's kitchen has this antique table and chairs that are of carved wood, and they're incredibly heavy. My sister could not physically pull in her chair herself.

• 21:41Speaker 06

  So she sits on the chair, and I push it in for her. I dish out dinner, put her plate down in front of her. I sit at the head of the table, so there's an empty chair between us. My sister and I were not talking. We were focused on just eating. And then, suddenly, that empty chair between us starts rattling. It's not like a nice, gentle rocking. It was like somebody had grabbed the back of that chair and was shaking it back and forth. And then, forward and back.

• 22:23Speaker 06

  It was a violent shaking. My heart is thudding so hard. It's up my throat. I can hear it in my eardrums. My sister and I were looking at this chair, just in shock. I tell her, "Daphne, please stop doing that." And she looks at me, and her eyes are huge. She says, "I didn't do that. I'm not... That's not me. That's not me." I can feel all this blood rushing to my face and rushing back down. I duck my head under the table. My sister's feet are tucked under her.

• 23:07Speaker 06

  And this chair is just rattling on its own.

• 23:26Speaker 06

  It felt like it was going on for minutes, but I'm sure it was just seconds. And it rattles a couple more times while I've got my head out there.

• 23:36Speaker 06

  And then it stops with a thump. Like somebody lifted it up and then thumped it back down.

• 23:44Speaker 06

  We were out of that kitchen so fast. We're in the living room and I'm crying. My sister's crying. I was just so scared.

• 23:57Speaker 06

  I knew this was my uncle doing this. Who else would it be? The wake was going on. And per Filipino beliefs, when a person passed away, they had 40 days and 40 nights to say goodbye to whoever they want to say goodbye to before they move on. Sometimes they visit you in a dream. Sometimes things fall for no reason, lights go on and off.

• 24:22Speaker 06

  Sometimes, I guess, they decide that they're gonna rattle a chair for you because that's what's available.

• 24:31Speaker 06

  It's probably a week after the funeral. My uncle was actually blessed and buried. I felt okay enough to tell my grandma about my uncle visiting Daphne and I in the kitchen. She was just very matter of fact about it. That's your uncle. He should say hello. Don't be scared. It's because your mom was his favorite sibling. He just wanted to make sure that he said goodbye to you guys. He says, "You're important."

• 25:02Speaker 06

  And I'm like, "Did I have to say goodbye that way?"

• 25:13Speaker 06

  I left the Philippines when I was 11. I moved to the States to be with my mom. I had asked my mom, "Please, when you pass away, do not visit me. Maybe visit me in a dream, but don't make yourself felt physically." I don't want any of that, Mom. She's like, "Okay, okay." And we just kind of giggle. Then I'm like, "But when I pass away, I'm gonna haunt every single one of you. I am gonna scare the heck out of you." Why not? I mean, it's had to happen to me. But no, seriously, though, I feel like sometimes there's expectations, right? And I think even after I pass,

• 25:58Speaker 06

  I will still feel personally responsible and obligated to do my duty as a nice Filipino person to go ahead and haunt my family members, even after death. You're expected to show up. By golly, you will show up.

• 26:23Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, Laura Lee, for sharing your story at The Spook. That piece was scored by Doug Stewart. It was produced by Ann Ford.

• 26:45Glynn Washington?

  Now, you know someone who routinely interacts with creatures that some might call fairy? Fae? sprites, we folks, others? A story that you don't know who to tell? Or maybe you're that person yourself with this story. Tell me, because I want to hear it. [email protected], because there is nothing better than a spook story for a spook listener. [email protected]. We all know the best way to ward off evil spirits is by sporting spook gear. It's available right now, right now, at stampjudgment.org.

• 27:25Glynn Washington?

  And remember, if you like your storytelling under the bright light of day, get the amazing, stupendous sister podcast and Snap Judgment: Storytelling with a Beat.

• 27:49Glynn Washington?

  Spooked is created by the team that does not scare easy. Except of course for Mark Ristich. He screamed like a schoolboy when I pulled the old slide the nose off the face trick. There's David Kim, Chris Handbrick, Lauren Newsome, Leon Morimoto, Theo Decot, Marissa Dodge, Zoe Frigino, Anne Forre, Greta Weber, Eric Ganes, Tessa Paoli, Cody Harjo, Lola Abraera, Doug Stewart, and Miles Lassie. The Spook theme song is by Pat Massey Miller. My name's in Washington and I find that the thing about premonitions is most of the time, you're already in the mix when the warning comes down. Unhelpful at best.

• 28:33Glynn Washington?

  So walking the dark path, I prefer to offer useful advice instead. Stick to the tried and true, the vetted and the tested. Believe me, when I say the one thing that can save you, when nothing else will, is simply to remember to never, ever, never, ever, never, ever, ever, never, ever. Turn out the lights.