The Fog - Classic

Blair can’t see his hands in front of his face. He can’t see the ground beneath his feet. He’s not in the dark: he’s in a thick cloud of fog. And then a stranger’s voice emerges from the mist, guiding him… can he trust her?

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

• 0:04Speaker 00

  Doctors fall throughout the land. The midnight hour is close at hand. You're listening to Spooked. Stay tuned.

• 0:19Speaker 00

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

• 0:27Speaker 00

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

• 0:32Speaker 01

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

• 0:39Speaker 02

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

• 0:47Speaker 03

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

• 0:59Speaker 04

  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.

• 1:11Speaker 00

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

• 1:26Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so I'm claustrophobic. Have been since I was teeny tiny. Tight spaces for me are the stuff of nightmare, which is why on a recent trip to Vietnam with my family, I keep refusing our guide when he invites me to explore the caves to see for myself where the Vietcong hid, where they lived, where they fought during the Vietnam War. Or, as he calls it, the War of American Aggression.

• 2:02Glynn Washington?

  I tell this nice man, this smiling man, I tell him that as a corn-fed Michigander, there is no way, no power, on God's green earth that is gonna squeeze me into a tiny, underground, hand-dug sliver of a cave constructed for someone half my size, no way.

• 2:27Glynn Washington?

  Then my boy, my son, he says, "He'll do it."

• 2:34Glynn Washington?

  And look at he split. He hops down into the hole of the earth and he disappears. Pride, shame, pride, and I think, wow, wow, if he can do it, I think, how bad can it really be?

• 2:51Glynn Washington?

  So I crawl down after him, trying to follow him down this tiny space bent over, hands forward, hands forward, "Boy!"

• 3:02Glynn Washington?

  I make the first turn, pitch blackness, black like there has never been light, black like there is no such thing as light. The dirt walls of this tomb, they press on my shoulders from each side and I can't even scream.

• 3:26Glynn Washington?

  I can't move, I can't breathe, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't. On my knees, I flee, crawling backwards, backwards.

• 3:42Glynn Washington?

  And out into the open air, open sky, tourists taking pictures, kids eating popsicles, a beautiful sunny day. I look around and a hundred feet away, my boy pops out from underneath the ground laughing, laughing, "Dad!"

• 4:02Speaker 06

  It's great, right? Right?

• 4:17Glynn Washington?

  My name is from Washington. I'm saying this right now, begging to whomever might be listening. When my time comes, scatter my ashes. Shoot me into space. Do whatever you have to do, but please, please, please, please, don't bury me underground.

• 4:41Glynn Washington?

  Do this.

• 4:44Glynn Washington?

  Now.

• 5:17Glynn Washington?

  Now, today we're going down under to Australia, the original upside-down cake. We're going to a tiny rural town called Youngabara. It's inland, it's chilly, it's foggy, and our storyteller Blair, he'd go there with his parents on vacation. They'd stay in an old cabin surrounded by bushland, red earth, towering eucalyptus trees. And out in the wilderness, behind their cabin, there was an old farmhouse. And the locals said it's one of the very first buildings built in Youngabara. But I'm gonna let Blair tell you more about that. Spooked.

• 6:05Speaker 06

  The farmhouse, it was about 500, 600 metres away from the cavern that we stayed in.

• 6:14Speaker 06

  It was a lot older, it had paint peeling off it, the corrugated tin roof was rusting, all the steps were rotten, and it was in a desolate state. The driveway leading up to both of the houses, it went in a zigzag, zigzag direction, going up and up, and along the side of it, there was a cliff with a pond at the bottom, only a small cliff.

• 6:43Speaker 06

  It was a normal trip, it was one of the usual ones it would take. I was about 13 at the time, so I was a bit older.

• 6:52Speaker 06

  That night, I was with my friend Alex and his sister Olivia. They were my childhood friends, they lived there full-time, and I was just at their house in town. We were playing video games, you know, playing some board games. I think we had a pretty big game of Monopoly that night.

• 7:17Speaker 06

  It was getting late, it was about 11.30, and I decided I'd better get back to the cavern. I'm sure my parents were worrying about me. So I was walking along the streets of Youngerborough, and I made my way back to the cavern. It was cold, I was really cold, and I only had like a really thin jumper on, so I was like shivering a lot. I thought to myself, I should have gotten a bigger jumper, or I should have left earlier. It was my fault, and I should have done something beforehand and thought about it a bit more. But I was cold and I was walking along, the town was dead quiet, there was no traffic, and I managed to work my way through the little streets of the town to finally find

• 8:02Speaker 06

  the driveway, the start of this somewhat steep incline of a zigzag dirt road back to the cavern.

• 8:14Speaker 06

  But at the foot of the entrance was the driveway.

• 8:22Speaker 06

  It had no streetlights. It was pitch black. It looked ominous.

• 8:29Speaker 06

  Youngerborough is one of the only few places in northern Queensland that gets fog because it gets cold that winter. So when the fog, very light fog at first, started to roll in, it started to scare me. I started to think something was going to happen or something's going on. So it started to form all around the street and that's when the lights became a bit dimmer from the streetlights from the main road.

• 9:17Speaker 06

  And that's when the heavier fog came in. Then it started to get really, really heavy.

• 9:29Speaker 06

  I could no longer see my feet below me and alls I could see in front of me was white. Like there was, I was in the middle of what seemed like a cloud and I just could not see anything. There was, I couldn't see the streetlights and that's when, it's when the heavier fog, fog that I've, like I've never seen.

• 9:55Speaker 06

  And I, and I thought to myself, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I felt, I felt stuck. My torch was useless. It was, there was nothing that it was doing. It was definitely not giving me any headway in front of me. I could, the fog was just so thick that it, I just couldn't see. I was stunned. Like I was, I was frozen for the first time.

• 10:21Speaker 06

  I could try and find my way behind me and go, maybe go back to Olivia's and Alex's place, but there were so many corners and so many streets that I couldn't really do that. That didn't seem feasible. But yet, to try and get up my driveway, there was that small cliff with a pond at the bottom. And it was definitely high enough for you to fall in and really hurt yourself. So my first thought was to actually just sit down where I was and do the right thing and just wait it out.

• 11:19Speaker 06

  It was very surreal, like for the options, because I had none.

• 11:29Speaker 06

  I sat down very briefly.

• 11:34Speaker 06

  And that's, that's when I saw that little flickering amber light in the distance.

• 11:45Speaker 06

  It was a flame. So it was an old style, like kerosene or gasoline lantern in the distance. So I saw it start to come down the driveway. And it made it to about halfway on the driveway. It was my mum.

• 12:10Speaker 06

  I heard her say, "Son, is that you? Come here out of the fog. Just follow my light."

• 12:24Speaker 06

  I breathed a sigh of relief. I honestly thought, cool, I'm out of here, you know, I'm going back home and it's all good.

• 12:34Speaker 06

  If I walk very slowly, I can just follow the light and I can follow my mum's voice and work my way up the zigzag of the driveway.

• 12:52Speaker 06

  So I was walking very slowly, each step, each step, one by one, and the land would move at the same pace that I was kind of moving.

• 13:08Speaker 06

  It took about two, three minutes to get up the driveway and I saw her walk up some steps because it went higher, it leveled up. And when I saw the light climb up the steps, I stopped. I stopped and thought, oh, the house is right there.

• 13:35Speaker 06

  And I heard a creaky door, like a very old rusted door, open. And I followed her light.

• 13:45Speaker 06

  But then, when it went inside the house, after the door had opened, it went out.

• 13:59Speaker 06

  So I called out, I said, "Mum, can you turn the light back on? I'm not at the cabin yet, you know, I'm not at the house. Can you turn it back on?" Dead silence. Alls I could hear was like crickets chirping and frogs, you know, it was just dead. So I followed in the direction path of where I saw the light and that's when I hit the wooden guardrail. I was like, okay, I'm back at the house, until I got onto the doorstep and realised I definitely wasn't.

• 14:34Speaker 06

  So what was in front of me was that old, desolate, abandoned farmhouse that was next to the cabin. Instantly, my knees just fell weak. Like, I felt like I was about to fall over. Like, my legs couldn't support me anymore. This light had made me follow it to this abandoned farmhouse. Then a voice that no longer sounded like my mum, and instead it had a very British accent.

• 15:11Speaker 06

  She said, "Nasty weather out there, hm?"

• 15:16Speaker 06

  It was like a mother's voice, had a very strong British accent. Beforehand, she had an Australian accent. She sounded like my mum. And then it turned into a very old-style British accent. And it was very, it was young. She wasn't old, it wasn't croaky. It was a very clean, smooth sentence.

• 15:42Speaker 06

  And I realised that it was not my mum. This voice had transferred somehow from my mum's voice to this other person's voice. And it was coming from inside the house. The door of the house was open and it was creaking in the wind. I saw no one in the house. There was no lights in the house. And I was stuck. I was frozen to the ground. I could not move. This is something that's trying to lure me and get me. That's what I thought. I just thought it was trying to get me.

• 16:19Speaker 06

  I thought to myself, you know, I could either turn around and go back into the field and try and find my house, because it was to the right of me. So I thought maybe if I ran to the right, I could somehow find my house. Or I could go inside the house I was at. And that option was ruled out straight away. I knew I wasn't going to set a foot inside that house that I was standing on.

• 16:53Speaker 06

  So I thought, okay, I'm going to leave. So I ran down the steps and as I was running, I heard that British accent yell at me going, "Where are you going, my son? Come back here." Like in a demanding voice. It was very, it was very demanding. It was just, "Son, where are you going? Come back here." Like she was yelling and I didn't, I didn't look back. I just ran.

• 17:25Speaker 06

  I ran for it and I was running to the right and I just, I, I fell over. I, I, something hit my foot and all up my knee and it was a huge rock. I thought it was just a huge rock I had ran into and I fell flat onto my face and got cuts all up my hand.

• 17:49Speaker 06

  And I realised, I turned around and it wasn't a rock, but it was a tombstone.

• 17:59Speaker 06

  I, I couldn't see much on the tombstone. It was only a little, I think it said something about a mother and father on there. And I saw that, turned around, saw that tombstone and I screamed, I absolutely screamed. So I got up and that's when six little amber lights that looked similar to the one I saw beforehand, started to surround me and they were slowly, slowly in a circle shape, just coming together, closing me in in the middle. I saw a gap between two of them and ran for it. So I sprinted through the gap of one of these lights,

• 18:42Speaker 06

  running again, not looking back again, just looking in front of me.

• 18:50Speaker 06

  And that's when I ran into a wall and blacked out.

• 19:00Speaker 06

  And I remember my dad, he came over. Apparently he heard something smack into the wall. So he came over, he got me, picked me up and he just took me inside. I don't remember going to sleep, I don't remember going into the bedroom that I had. I just, I think I just passed out from exhaustion or from just fear.

• 19:28Speaker 06

  I knew the next morning we were leaving early because that was our last night there. So I woke up and I didn't quite remember what happened yet. So I thought, oh, I better get ready, we better get going. And that's when, you know, my mum and dad said that we're gonna spend like an extra half a day here. That's when I realised that something had happened last night and it was not good at all.

• 19:55Speaker 06

  My dad, he heard the loud smack because I smacked onto the wall that was directly adjacent to my parents' bedroom. So he heard me just thumping into the wall. And he heard that thump and he went out and to see what it was. And he saw me there on the ground, so he picked me up and put me back inside. He told me that he saw one little gasoline kerosene light out in the distance near the farmhouse. So he saw one of the things that I saw.

• 20:50Speaker 06

  Alex and Olivia, they both came over that morning. And we went out onto the patio and we sat out there. And I could just see the old desolate other farmhouse in the distance.

• 21:10Speaker 06

  And they told me about, like, I told them what happened. And that's when, you know, both Olivia and Alex started to tell me. They said that it was one of the first buildings built. And in the early 20th century, Anne was a mum who lived there. She had a son. And one night during winter, her son was downtown and he was playing with some friends. Around 10 o'clock, I think Olivia said. And he realised that it was getting late and so did Anne. Anne started to worry because it was getting late. So she actually got up and went near the driveway.

• 21:54Speaker 06

  And that's when her son was like, okay, well, I'm gonna go home. So he started to go home and he got to the driveway. And that's apparently when heavy fog came in. Now, Anne had a kerosene lamp and she was carrying it. And she heard footsteps. She didn't see her son. She apparently heard footsteps. So she said, "Son, is that you? Follow my light and my voice."

• 22:23Speaker 06

  And that's what I heard. And so her son tried to follow the light and Anne's voice. So Anne managed to walk all the way back to her house. And she turned on her house's light and there was still all just heavy fog. And that's when she realised that her son wasn't there with her. Like, she was by herself.

• 22:52Speaker 06

  So she ran back out there with the kerosene lamp going, you know, son, where are you? Where are you? Come here out of the fog. And there was no reply. She sat down and she didn't know what to do. She honestly had no clue what to do. Now, the next morning, she got up. She went looking, she went searching, she went looking downtown. She went up and down everywhere, searching for her son. It wasn't until she was walking back to her house that she found him at the bottom of the pond. Gone, just passed away from falling down the cliff and hitting his head.

• 23:35Speaker 06

  So Olivia told me that Anne was the thing that I heard. And that kerosene lamp was hers. And she was stuck in like a loop, doing that, searching for her son. So she thought that I was her son. She mistakes them, whether or not it's a mistake or she knows and she's trying to trap someone. That's what I don't know. But she definitely thought I was her son. And what I tripped on, that would have been the son's grave.

• 24:23Speaker 06

  When they told me that, I realised that I was lucky. My first thought was that I am never, ever stepping back there. I'm never, ever going back and I still haven't, and I'm not going to for as long as I live. Because I realised how lucky I was. She was definitely trying to get me to come into the house. Like I felt like she was trying to get me to go inside. But what she would have done after that, I don't really know. I don't want to know. When this happened, it felt like Anne, or whatever it was, was trying to reach out to me. It wasn't just something that happened.

• 25:05Speaker 06

  It's like she was trying to reach out and just lure me. Like she had a will to do that. But I did feel sorry for her because it's it's just sad that she lost a son. That was probably the worst moment of her life. And that's where she's stuck in that loop. It probably is her hell.

• 25:37Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, Blair, for finding your way out of the fog and bringing back such a story. I'm gonna tell you this, listeners. If a voice ever called to me from deep in the darkness, it's gonna have to mind its own business. That story comes to us from our own Spook correspondent, Greta Weber. The original score for that story was by Lauren Newsom.

• 26:12Glynn Washington?

  Spooksters. If you think it's over, you couldn't be more wrong. Be afraid, be terrified, beware. And remember, if you like your storytelling in the light of day, get the amazing, stupendous and incredible Snap Judgment Podcast: Storytelling with a Beat. Spook was created by the team that never gets lost in the fog. And if you hear someone whispering in your ear in the dark of night, you can be certain that it's probably Mr. Mark Ristich, maybe Anna Sussman. Our chief spookster is Alyssa Smith, Chris Hambrick, Anuwin, Elia Yates, Zoe Fridno, Lauren Newsom, Leon Morimoto, Ringzo Gorial, Jacob Winnick, Teo Decot, Marissa Dodge, Greta Weber, Sena Khan,

• 26:57Glynn Washington?

  Tiffany Galiza, Anne Ford, Fernando Hernandez are your guides through this forest. And yes, the voice from the deep fog may wail with advice, threats, pleas, on how you should handle your own lights, which ignoring. Put sand in your ears. Cut your ears off if you have to. Do whatever it is you have to do. But never, ever, never, ever, ever,

• 27:29Glynn Washington?

  turn on the lights.