The Watcher - Classic

There are times when you are supposedly all alone. And then you see her, him or it out of the corner of your eye... watching.

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

• 0:01Glynn Washington?

  There are times when you're supposedly all alone. When you feel someone, something watching you. You see her, him, it out of the corner of your eye. You hear whispers, the almost voices, and you try to believe that you're imagining the whole thing. But what if you're not?

• 0:30Glynn Washington?

  We're going in search of the other side. Stay true.

• 0:39Glynn Washington?

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• 1:22Glynn 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 spook, 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.

• 2:06Glynn Washington?

  If you've got questions, I've got answers. Maybe. And we're just getting started. Spook says, "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.

• 2:40Glynn Washington?

  When I was 10 years old, I read a book, a very famous story that Harry Houdini and his wife, they made a pact, whichever one of them passed away first, let the other know. Some way, somehow, if there is life after death. And so I told my brother, only one year difference between us. The neighbors called us Irish twins. I told him the story and we made the same vow that Houdini did. And over the years, as we grew older, this pact turned from a conversation among boys into a promise between men.

• 3:20Glynn Washington?

  Bruh, remember, I know somehow, some way, whoever goes first has to let the other know.

• 3:30Glynn Washington?

  Then he grew sick, started to remember things that never happened. Dark things, angry things. No, I never stole from you, brother. How would I hide your child from you, brother? I have no hidden plans, brother. Brother, please get better. Please get better.

• 3:58Glynn Washington?

  And one day, he did get better. As if the fog lifted, he looked at me, smiled like old times. Man, I've been saying some crazy stuff, right?

• 4:15Glynn Washington?

  Dude, it was like someone. Something else took over. I saw another me. And another you. Like, I was here and there at the same time. He said, "Remember? Remember our promise, aight?"

• 4:34Speaker 01

  "Yeah, I remember."

• 4:36Glynn Washington?

  "Well, aight then. Aight then."

• 4:42Glynn Washington?

  We laughed together. It'd been so long since we laughed, but we laughed.

• 4:50Glynn Washington?

  A week later, I picked up my phone and heard my sister screaming. Then I heard myself screaming. I knew he had passed, felt myself falling, curled into a fetal position on the ground, praying that the universe was a liar. Silently, reaching for my other self, my twin, touching nothing.

• 5:25Glynn Washington?

  I don't recall months. I don't remember the funeral. I don't remember collecting his things. I don't remember any of it. And only later, when I saw my shadow waving back at me, of its own accord, did I remember our promise.

• 5:49Glynn Washington?

  "Brother? Is that you? Brother."

• 6:00Glynn Washington?

  Later, at the San Francisco Powell Street Bart Station, riding up the escalator, I saw a dude with dreads just like his, wearing an army jacket just like his, right down to the Grand Valley State Laker patch on the left shoulder, like his. "What?" Then my brother turned around and smiled, before he vanished. "Brother."

• 6:34Glynn Washington?

  I almost peed myself.

• 6:37Glynn Washington?

  And you think, you think I am seeing my own sorrow. And I understand that, but you're wrong.

• 6:47Glynn Washington?

  I've seen him.

• 6:51Glynn Washington?

  And I want to know about this veil, about this ribbon between here and there, between us and them, between the lost and the living.

• 7:03Glynn Washington?

  You see, mysteries abound. Things go bump in the night, and the only way I know to navigate this road

• 7:14Glynn Washington?

  is to ask people their stories. Is it scary sometimes? Do I get scared? I do.

• 7:23Glynn Washington?

  But I know this. He promised.

• 7:28Glynn Washington?

  And my brother always kept his promises.

• 7:34Glynn Washington?

  And that's why Snap Judgment proudly presents Spooked. Amazing stories from real people crashing against the unknown.

• 8:02Glynn Washington?

  My name is Glynn Washington. Question everything. The Spooked Podcast starts now.

• 8:21Glynn Washington?

  Imagine it's the middle of the night. You're not even 15 years old. You're home alone with your little brother, waiting for your mom to come home. Waiting and waiting to hear her car pull into the driveway. And you're wondering, what if she doesn't make it?

• 8:56Speaker 01

  She had a night shift job in Salt Lake, which was about 70 miles south of where we lived, soldering electrical components. I think she was actually working on missiles. I think she was, Sperry Rand, had a defense contract from the federal government. So when Mom went back to work, my older brother Kent had been babysitting us, but he had been drafted and was in Vietnam at the time. So after he left and went into the service, it was pretty much just Rod and I and my younger brother Rod. And I was mostly in charge at that time. So, yeah, when I got off the bus every day,

• 9:40Speaker 01

  there was nobody there. We're responsible for making dinner, cleaning up, taking care of ourselves, getting ourselves to bed, and usually up again the next morning because mother would come home and she'd be sleeping. So, yeah, that was the way it was. Remember, this is the 50s and a Mormon community. Nobody, nobody that I knew of was getting divorced at the time. And it did, it made me different because I was the one that was coming home to a house without a mother in it.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  So one night, I'm sleeping, and I'm suddenly awakened. And I sit up in my bed, and I look around the room, and I try and figure out what it was that woke me up. And I'm thinking it was some kind of sound. And for some reason, my attention goes to my bedroom closet, where I can see that my old tap shoebox has fallen from the shelf above the hangers. And I thought that was quite strange, but nonetheless, I went over and I picked the box up and put the black patent leather shoes back into it, put the lid back on to it. And then, of course, I went back and got into bed. But I couldn't lay down.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  I just, really just sat there under the covers waiting because I was feeling like I was supposed to be up for some reason. And I knew something was gonna happen. I can't explain it except that I felt like I was waiting on something bad. And I would've gone and told mom if she'd been there, but of course she was at work. And so I was in charge. And I was very well aware that whatever was going to occur was gonna be in my lap.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  And then, I heard the thud. And then I heard another thud, and another thud.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  I knew they were coming from my left side as I was positioned in my bed looking out my window. And that would've meant that they would've had to have been coming either from our garage or the Ward's place on the other side of it.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  The Ward's place was right next door to us. Bud, like that.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  I remember hearing that sound, you know, as it diffused out over our orchards to the west. Then I heard another one. And then I thought, "Well, I better get up and check the rest of the house out because I'm in charge now."

• 12:19Speaker 01

  I felt a real deep concern. So I go, and I check out the locks on both the front and back doors at first. Then I go into the kitchen and I turn on the light above the sink. So I'm standing at our porcelain sink, and it has windows all the way around it. I just stood there for a while and just like anchored almost, as if I was supposed to just be in that spot.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  It did seem at that point that something bad had taken hold of the night.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  My first fear was for my mother. She had to drive that 70-mile drive, you know, all the way home in the dark. And she was always complaining about how tired out her eyes were after staring eight hours into a magnifying glass. How tough it was to keep from falling asleep on that drive home. And I told God, would he please protect her and our black Chevy? Protect me from becoming an orphan. It was more just sort of maybe a dread. My breathing alters a little bit. I prayed off the dread of a call from the police.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  Right then, sirens. Sirens come streaming down Highway 89 and four. Patrol cars screech to a halt in the Ward's driveway next door. And, well, all I can think about is Donnie, the one with the wild reputation. But I can't understand why it would take so many cops to arrest one guy. The policeman gets out, they hide behind the doors of their cars, the sheriff gets out the megaphone. It was just like in the movies. And he started, he first called for Mr. Ward to come out of the house. And then he called for Mrs. Ward. And then he called for Donnie.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  But nobody came out. What I saw was a policeman. I saw him come out of the house and he was headed in our direction. And this really worried me. I remember watching him walk over their lawn, cross our double driveway, and then he selected the cement path that led to our front door. I went and turned on the porch light, I turned on the foyer light, and I opened the door, and there were two people standing there. It was him and a woman.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Now, I assumed she was a plainclothed policewoman, because she wasn't in uniform, but nonetheless, she was with him. I told him, "My mom wasn't at home," you know, hoping that that'd make him go away. But he said, "No," he still wanted to come in, and I let him, because he was holding a baby. He came into the foyer, and she followed him in, and then left us. And I had the notion she had just gone into our kitchen.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  But anyway, I didn't have too much time to process it, because the policeman was trying to inform me what had occurred next door. Some people had been shot. One of them was this baby's mother. She was dead, and so was the baby's father. The kid was about three months old, and I could see blood on her pajamas.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  He said they were waiting for the relatives, some relatives, to come and get her, but they were coming from a ways away. It would take them a while. They happened to be short on personnel. They needed everybody over at the ward's house. So they didn't really have anyone to watch the child. He said he'd seen the kitchen light on. He'd seen me standing in front of the kitchen sink, and he wondered if I would take her in.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  I don't even remember saying yes before he ditched her with me and gave me her bottle, and I noticed it was only half-full, and wondering what I was gonna do if they didn't get there in time. I was wondering if the kid came with diapers. I was thinking I might have to go swipe one off one of my old baby dolls.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  And that caused me to think about this woman that had gone into the kitchen. I had never seen her leave. When I walked into the kitchen, I did see her. But I could see through her. And that's when, and that's when I understood

• 17:20Speaker 01

  the woman wasn't with the cop. She was with the baby.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  She's very, very shook up. And she is standing in the corner.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  She was apologizing, that was the first thing. She was apologizing for being there. But she also told me that she was gonna be there for a brief time. This was the baby's mother. My curiosity more or less kicks in at that point, and I don't really feel a sense of fear. So then I told her that I knew she was there, and that it was okay.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  And after that, she seemed to relax a little bit. She relaxed, actually, a lot. Because, it wasn't because I gave her permission to be there, it was because we could communicate. And that seemed to be a tremendous relief to her.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  So after establishing the identity, I got all practical. I realized I wasn't gonna be able to hold that baby all night, that I was gonna have to go make it a bed.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  She falls us into the living room. Then she walked right across that living room to the opposite side, and stood in front of those plate glass windows. And I remember looking out those windows, and seeing those stars shining over those huge rocky mountains. And she would stand there the rest of the night.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  She was focused on me and the baby. And there didn't seem like a lot of time to be fearful, because I felt that she was there for a reason.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  I don't know, I think she was communicating her thoughts to me, because I felt a lot of emotion. And I felt her concern about what had just happened. And I knew she was troubled, because she didn't know who I was, or if she could trust me with her child. And I wanted to alleviate her concern, so I told her, "Hey, don't worry. I babysit all my nephews and nieces, and I've got 11 of them." And then I told her how sorry I was that she had just died.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Maybe it was my own fears that were feeding into things. I mean, I had just prayed off not becoming an orphan myself, and there I am, holding one. But I suddenly felt the pain of a mother and a child divided.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  I was sad. I was very, very sad.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  Then I felt her disappointment. And then I felt her hope. She really hoped that her child would be able to hear the story and not let it ruin the rest of her life.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Our relationship was quite practical, it seems. But most of the time, yeah, I held her really close, next to my chest. I was quite protective of her. I just rocked her, kept her safe. It was really important for me that she felt safe, because she kind of wasn't. The baby was really quite a good baby. I only remember her waking up once and crying, and then she slept the rest of the time. So, you know, I've often wondered if her mother's presence, if the child felt her mother's presence.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  And I think that was the whole point of her being there. She was sticking around until she was sure that the baby was in the right hands.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Well, I remember when Mom got home and pulled into the driveway, I was at the, you know, I was at the door waiting to tell her what had happened.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  And it was probably about an hour or 45 minutes after she arrived home that they, the relatives, came and picked her up. They were very kind to me, and like I say, very appreciative. There wasn't a big transaction. We gave them the baby, and it seemed like they were off. As soon as the relatives had departed and the baby was gone, so was she. So I'm sure that she went with the child.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  And by then, we had learned what had happened. This young woman had been having an affair with Donnie. And she had just asked her husband for divorce so that she and Donnie could carry forth their lives together. And her husband was a Brigham City policeman. And after his shift, he had gotten drunk and then drove down to our little town to settle the score. He shot Donnie. And then he shot the mother. And she was holding the baby. They were standing in the kitchen. And she was holding the baby at the time. And the baby fell with her to the floor, which of course explained the blood on the pajamas.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  And then the shooter turned the gun on himself. So the thuds that echoed over our peaceful orchards had been bullets.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  This sort of thing just didn't happen in our part of town. And it had given me some celebrity to have it happen right next door. So the next day, when I returned to school, I was the center of attention because everybody wanted to hear this story. It had made the Box Elder Journal by then. And I told them about the policeman. I told them about the gunshots and the baby. But I left out the ghost.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  Why didn't you want to tell them?

• 23:26Speaker 01

  At 12, you crave ordinary. I didn't want to be seen as unusual or different. And the other part of that is, this was a private, a very powerful experience that I was hesitant to share.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  It was mine.

• 24:43Glynn Washington?

  From the creators of Snap Judgment, welcome back to Spooked. Now, I'm pretty sure it was Mulder or maybe Scully who once said that running parallel to our existence is the world of beasts, of others, of the dead. That it's right there, right here, next to us, all the time. And yet occasionally, these two overlapping worlds collide.

• 25:18Speaker 02

  It was quiet and calm and you could see all the birds, you could hear the frogs. It was just beautiful. It's wherever I went when I just needed some time to be by myself or just to think clearly for a while. And I ran into one person ever, a lady walking her dog, and I'm pretty sure I scared the life out of her that there was another person in the park that day.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  So I remember I had been on the phone with my then-boyfriend and I don't remember what we talked about, but I remember he said something that made me think he was a chauvinistic, not-nice person. And I remember yelling at him and telling him that if he knew anything about me, he knew exactly where I was gonna go. And I hung up the phone and got in my car.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  I drove off to the park. The sun was already kinda down behind the tree line, but it wasn't dark yet. And I pulled into the parking lot and I thought it was weird that there was two cars there. And you know how police cars will sit side by side so they can talk out their driver window? It was like that. So they were talking to each other.

• 26:31Speaker 02

  And when I got out, I remember the man in the truck just staring at me in this horrible way, like, you know, when someone just looks at you like they're looking through you like you don't exist or don't matter?

• 26:50Speaker 02

  This is weird. No one's ever here. It's late. Why are these two men here? And, and then I thought, ah, they're, they're leaving. I don't care. I have my own problems to deal with. I'm, I'm going. And I only took my keys with me because I don't want to have a big clunky purse banging around with me.

• 27:13Speaker 02

  So I headed across the field. I didn't look back at the parking lot. To get into the woods, you really had to cross through the field to find an opening because there's no trails. It's kind of just have to know where there's places you can cut in without going through thorn bushes and getting torn apart. I headed into the woods where the opening was and I started to walk towards that little spot in the creek. And I, I was taking my time because I was calming down and I was just listening to the birds and sounds and just calming. Like, that's all I was thinking about, you know, the argument I just had and what I wanted to do and should we break up? And all those stupid things that go through your head. And, and then I started realizing it got really quiet.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Like, I didn't hear the birds anymore. I didn't hear the squirrels bouncing around the leaves. And then I heard something big moving through the woods.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  And I, I was thinking in my head, I'm like, maybe it's a dog.

• 28:14Speaker 02

  And then I heard the voices. And the first voice is a male's voice and he said, "I know I saw her going this way. She couldn't have gotten that far."

• 28:28Speaker 02

  And then the second voice comes and it's quieter. And it says, "Shh, she'll hear you."

• 28:39Speaker 02

  Okay, so there's two men in the woods now and they must be looking for something, obviously. They're, they're looking for something. And I kept thinking, it must be a dog. They're looking for their dog. That makes sense, of course. They must have lost their dog and they're driving around looking for it. And then I thought, "They wouldn't be being quiet. They wouldn't try to sneak up on it. They'd be whistling. They'd be calling." And I, I stood there frozen because that's the kind of person I am. I'm the deer that stands in front of your car staring into your headlights and doesn't move.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  And I could still hear them coming closer to me through the woods. I could hear the trees, the snapping of twigs as they were walking and leaves crunching. I don't even know how long I stood there, but I was completely frozen, waiting for them to get to me.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  And then, I heard the other voice.

• 29:38Speaker 02

  It was distorted like, like if you heard somebody talking through a closed door, or talking underwater, like you could hear, you could understand kinda what they were saying, but the voice wasn't right. It wasn't in my head because it had like a volume and a pitch that changed that my thoughts don't do. Maybe other people's thoughts change in volume when they get upset, but mine are very monotone. So, I could almost feel where the voice was coming from. Like if someone yells, you can kinda feel where they're standing at, like where the sound comes from. And it was, it was behind me and a little above, like, like it was taller than me.

• 30:21Speaker 02

  It just said, "Go to the river, now."

• 30:28Speaker 02

  And I don't know if I was more scared of the fact that there's some disembodied voice talking to me, or maybe there's a person behind me now, and there's two men coming towards me in the woods. I don't know which scared me more. I mean, I guess I listened to the voice because, I don't know, I didn't really have other options.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  I took off towards the river, and I was making a ton of noise, because I was just running as fast as I could. And the voice came back right away and said, "No, quietly, quietly." And it almost, almost like it hissed at me when it said it. "Quietly."

• 31:07Speaker 02

  And I got to where the river was and where this little embankment was, and I just jumped down it instead of climbing down like I should have. I ended up cutting my legs up in the process. And I squished myself against the embankment and squeezed down into the smallest, tightest little ball I possibly could. And the voice just kept saying really quietly, "Stay."

• 31:31Speaker 02

  And I just sat there, hoping that whoever else was in the woods was just gonna leave and that I wasn't having some kind of breakdown.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  And I kept hearing them moving through the woods and getting closer and closer. And then I could tell they had split off because one sound was going further away and one was coming much closer. And as I sat there, that voice just kept telling me, "Stay, stay." And quiet, over and over again. Like it was almost trying to comfort me.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  I could hear what sounded to me like someone was right above me. And I knew if I leaned out, if someone was up there, they'd be able to see me. And I couldn't help myself. I had to look to see if something was there. So I just tilted my head up just a tiny bit. And I could see the tips of these construction boots hanging over the edge of the embankment. And then I could see, hanging down next to them, this dirty, old rope just swinging there.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  And I don't even know if I even thought anything at that point. Like I was just so scared. I just tilted my head back down and just tried to not breathe.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  It felt like hours, but I know it couldn't have been that long. But it just seemed forever. And even then, like the voice even was completely silent. Like there was nothing but me hearing this man breathing above me. And I guess he didn't look down because he started to walk away at some point.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  And that voice came back and it kept telling me to wait. And I, I didn't want to. I wanted to go so bad. And I just said, "Well, I'm already hearing voices. I have people in the woods with a rope, looking for something, which I assume is me at this point, and I might as well just listen." So I waited and I waited.

• 33:41Speaker 02

  And finally, the voice said, "Go now, to the field, go."

• 33:47Speaker 02

  And it was screaming at me so loud. I jumped just from how loud it was. And I climbed up the embankment and I ran through the woods. And I didn't care about being quiet. I'm torn up by thorn bushes and tree branches and everything. And I got out to the field. And I'm far, far, far away from the cars and from the street. And at this point, the sun's starting to go down. It's getting dark. And I could see the parking lot, but it was so far away. And I knew there was limited chance that anybody on the street could see me. And I'm running and I start hearing footsteps, running. And I mean, the field's loud, so I can hear them. And they're, first they're farther away, but they're much faster than I am. So much faster than I am. And they're barreling down on me at this point.

• 34:34Speaker 02

  And the only thing I have is my car keys. And I'm like, "You know what? I'm not going down like this." So I put the car keys and I did what my dad always used to tell me to have the keys between each one of your knuckles. And I had my fist all balled up and I'm like, "I'm gonna at least see this person. I'm not gonna just let them take me." And I spun around with the keys in my fist. The footsteps are right on top of me.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  And there was nothing.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  Nothing. I fully expected to see at least one of the men there.

• 35:06Speaker 02

  But it was silent. No more footsteps, no anything. And the only thing I could think was, "The footsteps must have belonged to the voice somehow."

• 35:20Speaker 02

  And then I hear the voice again, just screaming at the top of its lungs, that I need to run right now. And I immediately hear the footsteps again. So I'm looking as I'm running now, but I can't see anything. And the footsteps are literally in pace with me now, like, like something is running next to me through the field. I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, I don't, I have no idea. Is this how people die? Like, I mean, I have like a thousand crazy thoughts running through my head because none of this makes any sense. Finally, I break out of the field. I get in my car. Got my keys in the ignition as fast as I could. And I see both the cars that had been running that were leaving are now parked in different places with nobody in them.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  I had like cuts and scrapes from, you know, the embankment and climbing back up all the rocks and, and running through the thorn bushes. And I definitely remember my tires making squealy sounds as I backed up way faster than I should have. And I, I just sped out of there and I refused to look behind me in the rearview mirror. I just kept picturing, like in every bad scary movie, there's that person that you see in the rearview mirror. And I'm like, I'm not going to have an image of them haunt me. No, no, I don't ever wish to hear it again because I assume if I do, I'm in a really bad place. I assume if I ever hear it again, something really terrible was happening. I mean, don't get me wrong.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  If there hadn't been a voice, I probably wouldn't be talking to you. I would probably be a missing persons case somewhere in somebody's drawer. I can only assume it meant good things. I mean, it got me out of there.

• 37:24Glynn Washington?

  Those are the stories we have for you. We want to hear the stories that you've got for us. Please let us know your story. Record it onto your phone device thingy and send it to [email protected]. Big love to our guests this week Janet Larkin. Thank you for taking care of the baby. Janet's book is Surrounded by Ghosts. And thanks so much to Shelley Shafrin for sharing your story with Spooked. Shelley has not heard that voice since this recording. We'll have links to more information about those stories at spookpodcast.org.

• 38:08Glynn Washington?

  This episode was produced by the Ghostbusters at Snap Judgment. With special thanks to Mark Ristich, Anna Sussman, Eliza Smith, Nancy Tiber Lopez, and Jody Colley.

• 38:24Glynn Washington?

  Original music by Pat Masidi Miller, Leon Morimoto, and Renzo Gorio. And especially, if you're afraid, huddled in the corner, waiting for the ghouls to kick open the door, always remember and don't forget to never, ever, never turn out the lights.