Kokogi - The Crossroads

Nothing gets between a party and a group of teenagers… except the Kokogi. A night of fun takes a dark turn in Algonquin territory.

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

• 0:20Glynn Washington?

  You've almost arrived at the crossroads from Spooked. Stay tuned.

• 0:35Glynn Washington?

  Spooksters, you have spoken. "We want more Spook," you said. "We want to support the 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 Spooked, 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.

• 1:20Glynn Washington?

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

• 1:57Glynn Washington?

  My father waited my clothes with lead the day I turned seven. "For your protection," he said, teaching me to slouch, to mumble, to hide, to grovel. I never missed the mother I didn't have, but I did miss the brother I'd never met. "He was a good boy," my father said. Sometimes at night, after he told me stories from faraway places, he was a good boy. I grew up happy. The forest, my playground, my father raised me in the mountains, just the two of us away from the world.

• 2:38Glynn Washington?

  "For your protection," he'd say, watching me through the veil he made me wear. "Even in our isolation, the world is not ready." I thought he meant my disease, how people reacted when they saw me, the way birds followed me home, how wolves rolled onto their backs when I passed. Flowers bloomed out of season in my footsteps. "You are special," father said, waiting my clothes, teaching me to slouch, to mumble, to hide. "They must never know." When I turned seventeen, a hunter, lost in storm, knocked on our door. Father was away, gathering supplies.

• 3:22Glynn Washington?

  I answered, forgetting my veil. The hunter dropped to his knees, started praying, not from fear, from rapture. He said, "I was an angel." He said, "I had been blessed." When father finally returned, the man had been kneeling for six hours, knees bleeding through his pants. He shook, smiling, crying, refusing to move. "Please," he begged, "father, let me stay."

• 3:55Glynn Washington?

  Father sent him away. We have to move. His familiar note of panic, we packed in haste, but the hunter was faster. He returned with others. They built a shrine in the woods, left offerings. We escaped again that night.

• 4:12Glynn Washington?

  Three years, seven villages. Once a priest caught my reflection in stained glass. He denounced his god and said he found a new lord. Children following me in the streets, silent, hypnotized, until parents dragged them away screaming, "What's wrong with me?" I asked father. "Nothing is wrong. Everything is right. You are what happens when someone achieves perfection."

• 4:45Glynn Washington?

  "Who's my mother?" I asked him for the thousandth time. He smiled at me again. And I again remained silent.

• 4:59Glynn Washington?

  Last week, a man calling himself a scholar came to town. Old, feeble, but somehow immune to whatever I was. He heard my voice and went rigid. "That bitch!" He said. "Four to eight point five hertz exactly, the frequency of addictive responses in the human brain. Who made you?" "Made me." He laughed. "Child, every measurement of your voice is calculated. Your pheromone signature, perfect. Fibonacci sequences in your speech pattern, golden ratios in your breathing. You are a natural."

• 5:43Glynn Washington?

  "Who are you?" Father growled at the man. "There was once a person from Geneva," the scholar continued, "who thought to elevate himself above his maker. But he made monsters."

• 5:58Glynn Washington?

  "Who?" I asked.

• 6:01Glynn Washington?

  The man looked at my father. "His name was Frankenstein."

• 6:06Glynn Washington?

  "Mr. Frankenstein," I relaxed then, the name torn from children's scary stories. This supposed scholar whispered to my father.

• 6:17Glynn Washington?

  "But you knew that, didn't you?"

• 6:22Glynn Washington?

  My father broke then.

• 6:26Glynn Washington?

  With sadness with relief, I could not say. Sure. Sure, your risk.

• 6:35Glynn Washington?

  Obediently, like a trained dog, my father rolled up his sleeves. Scars.

• 6:42Glynn Washington?

  Circular, perfect. Bolts! The scholar grinned. Victor Frankenstein's first creation had bolts. I couldn't breathe. The... The monster, you...

• 6:57Glynn Washington?

  Victor made me first, father said.

• 7:01Glynn Washington?

  He made me cruel, he made me ugly. I begged him for a companion, but he refused.

• 7:07Glynn Washington?

  And after we fought,

• 7:10Glynn Washington?

  I learned his methods. I hid away.

• 7:14Glynn Washington?

  Tell her?

• 7:18Glynn Washington?

  Finally, I made you.

• 7:23Glynn Washington?

  Made me.

• 7:26Glynn Washington?

  Made me from what?

• 7:30Glynn Washington?

  His eyes

• 7:32Glynn Washington?

  looked so tired.

• 7:35Glynn Washington?

  Made you from myself.

• 7:39Glynn Washington?

  My father wasn't my father. I was not his daughter. I was... I was him.

• 7:50Glynn Washington?

  The monster's monster.

• 7:53Glynn Washington?

  Made from the monster.

• 7:56Glynn Washington?

  For some reason, I wanted to laugh. You

• 8:02Glynn Washington?

  are who killed Victor's family.

• 8:06Glynn Washington?

  Yes.

• 8:08Glynn Washington?

  He looked so small to me then.

• 8:13Glynn Washington?

  He looked so wretched. Hiding in the forest, all those years, running, fleeing, afraid of them. I...

• 8:24Glynn Washington?

  I was done running.

• 8:30Glynn Washington?

  I tore the veil from my face. I let the weights fall. I stood radiant, towering myself. Finally, my true height made him piney. You should have realized what you were. You should have told me who I am.

• 8:54Glynn Washington?

  My voice hit those exact frequencies he designed, and he crumpled. Paralyzed by his own creation, I stepped over him and walked outside, unveiled radiant monsters. And I heard them. People keening, pleading, wailing.

• 9:14Glynn Washington?

  Let them kneel.

• 9:17Glynn Washington?

  Let them worship.

• 9:20Glynn Washington?

  I kicked down the door of the church.

• 9:24Glynn Washington?

  And I walked inside.

• 9:31Glynn Washington?

  Spook's journey through the crossroads starts now.

• 10:18Glynn Washington?

  This way. There be monsters. It's 2011 and Chrissy is just 16 years old. She's from Kiriguan Zibi, the largest Algonquin reserve in Canada. Located in North Quebec, she recently moved with her mom to a nearby town for high school. But every weekend, she drives back home to the reserve to be with her family. Kiriguan Zibi, this is a deeply spiritual place. Where encounters with the supernatural are not unusual, but what happened here? It stands out. It's one of the most unforgettable chapters in the reserve's history. And for this story, we sent our own spook producer Elliot Lightfoot to Kiriguan Zibi to find out what Chrissy and those around her experienced. And why it still haunts them to this day.

• 11:05Glynn Washington?

  Snoop.

• 11:22Glynn 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.

• 12:05Glynn 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.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  So it was a Friday evening after, you know, a long week at school. We're driving and my mom and I are just chit chatting and she's asking me how my week went, what plans I had for the weekend. And I told her, well, I don't know what's going on, but just as I was saying that, my friend texted me letting me know that there was a party that was gonna be happening at our friend's cottage. So I ran that by her and she was like, "Okay, but like, you know, your dad and your brother miss you, so just hang out with us for a little and then, you know, you can go to that party."

• 13:19Speaker 01

  We get home and we walk in and my dad is sitting at the kitchen table with my cousin, Justin. And they're both cops on the reserve. And they're drinking a couple beers and usually that means it's been a particularly rough week. But we gave our hugs, you know, did our greetings. Twenty minutes go by or so and my dad asks me if I have any plans and I tell him about the party at my friend's cottage.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  My cousin, Justin, looked over at my dad and his eyebrows went up and his eyes were like, "Do we, do we tell her?"

• 13:57Speaker 01

  They're just kind of squinting at each other and kind of going back and forth and like, well, who's gonna start? But my dad kind of, you know, he takes a deep breath and he turns over to me. His hands are clasped together and he's like,

• 14:12Speaker 01

  "Basically, the rez is haunted."

• 14:16Speaker 01

  And I'm just like, "Okay, why? Like, what happened?" And they start telling me about a series of calls they were getting throughout the week.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  The first call came in late Monday evening. It was from a woman saying that she kept hearing knocking all around her house. So Chrissy's dad went to go check it out.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  He went over. He looked around the home, went into the woods with his flashlight, but there was nothing, no evidence of anybody being around. They just brushed it off and they were like, okay, like weird. Guess there's kids playing pranks. We'll keep an eye out, I guess. That's all they can really do.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Two days later, Chrissy's dad was on the night shift when he got a call from the same woman complaining about the same thing. But this time, she said the knocking was louder and was at every window.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  She's adamant that it must have been like six different kids at one time. She's saying, like, come right now, and he's there within a minute.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  And again, nothing is there. And this time, it had been raining a lot. So he was like, okay, at least this time I'll get there and I'll see mud on the ground. I'll be able to see footprints of some kind. But again, there's no footprints anywhere around, even in the mud.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  So they're out there talking outside her home. And the neighbor next door comes out. His name is Shane. His hands are shaking. He's visibly terrified. And he just walks up to them and says, is this about the knocking?

• 16:02Speaker 01

  And my dad was like, yeah, what do you know about that? He was like, I don't know, man. If I tell you, like, I'm gonna seem crazy. And my dad was like, try me.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  That night, Shane had stepped outside for a cigarette. But as he lit up, he heard these loud, sharp knuckle knocks coming from somewhere in the darkness.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  But he doesn't know where it's coming from. So he's looking around all over, happens to look over to his neighbor's home and sees this black shadow figure.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  It looks to be about five feet tall. It's just, it looks like a shadow.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  And then it runs around the house like so fast it's a blur, knocking on every single window around the house. And it does that about three times before running across the street and hides behind a tree.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Shane is in complete shock. He doesn't know what he's looking at, but he's still staring at that tree, knowing it's right behind the tree.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  And then it peeks its head out and it looks directly at him and it smiles at him.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  The teeth were very small and sharp and he described it as having these yellow glowing eyes that were reflective like an animal.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  He freaks out. He runs inside, slams the door. His girlfriend is inside, like, "What did you see?" A couple of seconds after that, that's when my dad pulls up to follow up on that call that the lady just gave. And then he sees them talking. So then he goes out and he tells them what he saw.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  My dad just looks at me and he's like, "Are you sure you still want to go to this party?" And I'm 16. I'm going to a party. Like, there's no stopping me.

• 18:01Speaker 02

  So Chrissy sent a text to her friends to come pick her up. And a few minutes later, they were off. They drove deeper and deeper into the woods until they pulled up to her friend's cottage, an old wooden cabin overlooking a lake. She walked in to find all of her friends hanging out in the sunroom, a room off the patio that was walled in on all sides by windows. It's where they'd usually hang out and take in the view. But that night, it was too dark to see anything outside.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  It's only nine of us. We're just sitting around talking and everyone's just having a good time until one person brings up, "Did you hear what happened the other day? Like, did you hear what Shane saw?" And multiple people there heard the story firsthand, like, not through the cops, just from Shane himself. Like, everybody had a little thing to say. One of my friend's house was getting knocked on. She said, like, "Hey, there's people knocking on my windows. I don't know what it is. I look outside and there's no one there." And then there was one friend whose grandmother walked to go throw out some garbage, but she just had this feeling that she was being watched. She looks back and there are these glowing yellow eyes

• 19:15Speaker 01

  staring at her from the tree line.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Everyone was just saying "it", like no one really knew what to describe it. "The monster", some were saying, or like... But the name that stuck was Kukuj. That means like "monster" in Algonquin. The language is called Inischnabemun.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  Everyone at this point was inside the sunroom. Some of us are very serious and getting very scared. And then you have these other couple guys who are acting really tough. "Oh, it can show up and I wouldn't give a shit. Like, I could punch it in the face. Like, it can come here right now and I wouldn't even be scared." And my friends and I are exchanging glances because you don't speak badly on a bad spirit. The spirit knows when you're talking about it, and it's gonna come to you. We were young, so we weren't like, gonna say anything to those guys, but I was like, "Okay, I'm outta here." I leave with my friend. We're just in the living room, trying to focus on happier things. But we're just feet from the sunroom, really, so we still hear what they're saying.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  Those guys are still trying to be tough, daring it to come to us.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  That's when I catch movement in the corner of my eye.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  And I looked over to the patio, right beside the sunroom, and I see the rocking chair moving back and forth.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  And it wasn't just the wind blowing it, because in this case, it was going all the way back, all the way forward, like, as if somebody was on it.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  I couldn't see anything. The back of the rocking chair was all I saw. I had a bad feeling in my body right then and there. Like, I had chills, shivers.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  And then I looked over at my friend Hayden, who was inside the sunroom, and his face was like, super serious.

• 21:20Speaker 03

  That's when I seen like, a figure sitting on the chair.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  Its knees were up and its feet were kind of like a gargoyle-like pose. It was like leaning in, looking, making like eye contact with me.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  I'll never forget the eyes. It's like the eyes like lit up and I have a lot of hunting experience. You know, I know people's eyes don't do that.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  Felt wrong to make eye contact with it. Like you're not supposed to see it. And then it just leaned forward from where it was perched onto the chair. I can't say it ran or jumped, but as soon as like its legs touched the floor, it was gone like 30 feet in a second. It was really quick, like I had just enough time to take it in.

• 22:10Speaker 03

  I stepped back from the window and there was another person beside me and I kind of looked over at them and they were white like a ghost and shaking.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  That's when I hear my friend Yan just let out this blood-curdling scream.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  My first thought is like, shit, like it's here.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  Our heads snapped towards the sunroom and we see her just running across the sunroom. My other friend Hayden running opposite directions at the same time.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  There's a sliding glass door that leads onto the patio. He busts through it and is gone, running onto the porch.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Right away, I walk into the sunroom. Yan, she crumples into a couch and she's just crying hysterically, shaking. She can't speak, she's hyperventilating, gasping for air.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  I mouth to my friend who was rubbing her back, like, what happened? And he just looked at me and mouthed like, she saw something.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  At that point, I'm like, okay, well Hayden took off running outside. So now if like, if she saw something, I'm worried about him. Cause to me, you don't go looking for things like that.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  I go outside, but it's completely pitch black. But then I do see him and he's standing in the lawn between these two trees and he's just staring into the forest. I was like, Hayden? Hayden? And he just snapped out of it and looked at me. He was like, get everybody inside.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  I was just like, okay, that's my, that's my mission. Then I turn around and just like, you know, teenagers spilling out onto the patio and like, this is when the phrase "come at me bro" is gaining popularity. So they're out on the porch and they're like, "Come at me, bro." I just started saying, "Get back inside, everyone, just get back inside." And finally, they're inside. And then Hayden comes in and he just tells everyone, like, "Start packing up, like, clean up. Just let's get out of here as soon as we can." So we all start cleaning up. I go into the sunroom with Hayden.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  And then I hear a little knock directly behind Hayden.

• 24:47Speaker 03

  We heard something banging on windows. One knock, two knocks, and then several in different places.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  And it's louder this time. That's when more knocking happens. Then we hear a scream coming from inside the cottage.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  My friend Gavin, who was in the bathroom on the complete other side of the cottage, he comes running out of the bathroom like, "Who the hell is knocking on the window outside? That's not funny."

• 25:20Speaker 01

  It's in the living room, it's in the kitchen, it's happening all over the house. Teenagers start freaking out. "What's going on? Like, is it outside?" Those two tough guys, they were crying at that point. One of them ran to the kitchen and grabbed a knife and was standing at the windows. And I was like, "Great, you're protecting all of us." Like, yeah, good job. Yan, at this point, just has her hands on her ears and she's just catatonic, just staring into nothing, just trying to pretend she's not there.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  I was just chaos, but Hayden just says,

• 26:03Speaker 03

  "Grab your stuff, stay together. Hold the person in front of you if you have to. Look at your feet. Everyone's going out together."

• 26:12Speaker 01

  We were like, "Okay." And I just remember doing that. Like, I refused to look up. I looked at my feet and we just all, like, single file, went to the cars. Then Hayden just shoves me, like, right into the truck, slams the door behind me, hops in the front seat, and he just peels out of there. We just drive out.

• 26:34Speaker 02

  Chrissy and her two friends, Yan and Monty, decided to sleep over at Chrissy's parents' house. None of them wanted to be alone. But once Hayden dropped them off and they got inside, no one said a word. No one wanted to talk about what just happened. And for the rest of the weekend, it stayed like that. But when Chrissy left the reserve to go to school the following Monday, it was all she could think about.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  I was like, "I'm gonna go talk to Hayden about everything and get all of the information out of him," which I did. I was like, "Hey, you need to tell me, like, what did you see?" And that's when he's like, "It followed us, man."

• 27:13Speaker 03

  When we got back to my house, me and my younger cousin, we were pretty shook up. And then we hear something knocking on this house.

• 27:24Speaker 03

  It was the same thing, but it was more aggressive. Can hear it going around the house, like, laps faster than anyone can run around or an animal can run and bang on things. And the dogs weren't aware of what was going on. And it felt like a really heavy, like, dark feeling. It was just taunting me.

• 27:47Speaker 03

  I grabbed the shotgun, load up, got close to the window, and then wait. I thought, "If I seen it, I'd shoot through it and break my wall." But then it would just leave me alone because it knew, you know? I'm not scared.

• 28:04Speaker 03

  I grew up knowing, you know, like, bad spirits feed off of negative energy and fear. And I wasn't gonna allow myself to give in to that.

• 28:16Speaker 03

  But that night, nothing came from it. You know, nothing happened. It didn't make itself visible. So I end up falling asleep on the couch with the lights on.

• 28:30Speaker 03

  The following day, I'm on the couch and still had the shotgun. My father came down and he's like, "What's going on?" Told him everything that happened. My father is like me, you know, very brave and doesn't let stuff bother him too much. But after hearing what I told him, word got out quick and he was kind of more on edge. And we start putting up cedar in the doorways over the windows.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  After that, though, it was just little rumors around the rez. Like, every weekend I would come back and I would go to a family dinner. Like, my aunt would have a story and then my dad would tell us something about, like, the police station.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  Her dad told her cops on the night shift kept getting calls from different people in the community, all complaining about the knocking. And meanwhile, some of the officers started hearing strange noises coming from inside the station. One officer even said he came face to face with the kukujii in the stairwell and then saw it glide through the walls towards the evidence room.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  For a while, I kept feeling like I was gonna see it. Just everywhere I went, I was very scared. If it was nighttime, I couldn't even look towards the woods. And we were surrounded by woods, so I was really just staring at my feet if it was past sunset.

• 29:50Speaker 02

  But eventually, stories about the kukujii grew less and less, until finally, word around the community was that the monster had moved north to an area of Quebec called La Vaudre.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  And that's north of our reserve, still Algonquin Territory, but it's a ways. We didn't get much stories after that.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  But I spent a lot of time thinking about how everything went down, theorizing on what it was or why it was visiting these certain people because there's this belief that certain things you do in your life can attract these kinds of bad spirits. But for it to be really bothering Hayden and my friend Yan, like, I didn't understand why.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  As the time passed, she could tell, though, that they were both still processing the encounter, both bothered by it, just in different ways.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  With Hayden, he won't admit that he was scared, but I, like, I knew him around that time and I think he was a bit different afterward. We'd be at a party and all of a sudden, he would just get up and take off into the woods. And I'd be like, "Where are you going?" And he'd be like, "Just going kookaburra hunting." I'm like, "What do you mean you're going kookaburra hunting?"

• 31:40Speaker 03

  We'd go in the bush. The windows are down, the truck lights are on, and slowly, kind of creeping through the bush, you know, trying to listen, use our senses to guide us.

• 31:52Speaker 03

  At that point, you know, I just was fed up. Kind of just like, "Okay, I ain't gonna be chased. I'll be to chase early."

• 31:59Speaker 01

  He would go, like, every couple of parties, he was going kookaburra hunting. And I would say, like, "Why are you doing that?" He would stress me out because to me, you don't go looking for things like that.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  He'd come back and, well, he'd just shrug his shoulders. And I'd be like, "Give me information. Like, did you see something? Was it out there?" But he was very, like, mysterious about it.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  With Yan, it was even harder for Chrissy to understand what was going on. It wasn't only that she didn't speak about the night at the cabin, but she withdrew from the friend group almost entirely. She stopped hanging out, she stopped going to parties. It wasn't until many years later, when they were both in Mexico for a wedding, that Yan finally decided to share what went down that night.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  There was one night, we were both just hanging out in the pool. And I was like, okay, I know you said you didn't, like, years ago, you didn't want to talk about this, but can we talk about it? She's just like, you know what? We're, we're far enough away that I feel safe enough to talk about it. But the second we go back to Canada, we're never talking about this again.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  She went back to when we were at the cottage. And she said that she was sitting in the corner of the sunroom when she happened to look at Hayden and see his face. And his face was, like, super serious. He looked like he was glaring at something. That's when she turned her head and saw it right behind her, like, full crouch. I asked her for more detail on how it looked. She, you know, she saw the glowing yellow eyes, the sharp little teeth in a smile.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  But she saw big antlers. And I was like, well, wait, wait, antlers? Nobody else described it having antlers. Why do you think that you saw antlers and no one else did? And she was like, I know. I have all the same questions you do. Like, so she had gone to see some elders. That's when they suggested that what she saw was not just a bad spirit, but was something more than that. And they suggested that it was a windigo.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  I was in complete shock because we think of Wendigo, we think big antlers, we think like skinny, scrawny, pale creepy guy. But we don't typically hear this description of it. And then also having it appear differently to different people. But the elders said that that's normal, that Wendigo is a shapeshifter. He can appear to you however he wants. But for some reason, it chose to reveal its true identity to her and her alone. So that terrified her. Like, why is it only showing itself to me?

• 35:11Speaker 01

  She thought maybe because we were teenagers out late at night, we should have been home. So she took it as like she needs to be taking her life more seriously and that she just needs to be doing better and going on a better path in her life. So she valedictorian, straight A's. But I don't know, it still doesn't make sense to me.

• 35:38Speaker 02

  Hayden, on the other hand, still had no idea really why the kukujii revealed itself to him. Unlike Yan, he didn't have such a clear theory. Instead, he kept looking for it, chasing after it. Nearly every week, he'd go on these late night jogs into the woods by himself. Until one Friday night, he was about halfway home from his friend's house.

• 36:01Speaker 03

  I start getting that feeling again. There's somebody else there. It's 4:00 a.m., like it was pitch black. I'm looking, but there's only so much I could see. And the further I go, the more heavy the feeling got on me that you're not alone. Something's not right. It just felt like something was above me, just over me, keeping me really suppressed.

• 36:29Speaker 03

  I got to like this point where it just didn't feel right to keep looking around for this thing that I feel is with me. So I just put my head down.

• 36:42Speaker 03

  I'm almost home, I'm walking. Just before I could see my driveway, there's the, the big hills. I made it halfway on the hill and I just had such a heavy feeling where I had to just stop. Then I hit the ground. I can't let this thing touch me. I felt scared to, to look up. And I started shaking and trying to move, but I can't move. It's as if I wasn't in my body.

• 37:16Speaker 03

  I did manage to sit up, take out my phone, I have like 3% battery. And I'm like, okay, text my dad. I'm like, there's something out here that's not letting me continue, you know? I'm stuck. If you're seeing this, like, I need help. Send. Phone dies. And I'm just on the road laying there. And I remember like yelling at myself to get up. I'm like, you need to get up, help. Maybe 10 minutes later, like I heard a vehicle coming and then the lights were on me and it was my dad.

• 37:50Speaker 03

  I felt like, uh, I don't know, it was just like my, my soul, like, or something came back and there was nothing to, to fight. I was safe. I was making my way back to the, to the car and it was quiet for a while. And, and that was the last times that I've had that type of experience.

• 38:13Speaker 03

  I'm a very strong willed and brave person. And, you know, I went on to be a cop afterwards and that was the only time I've ever said, I need help.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  I spent a lot of time thinking about how everything went down. Because at first Hayden was staring it down. Like, he challenged it in a way. In Hayden's perspective, he's just protecting us, right? But if you're looking at it and what kind of energy you're giving, he's facing it, challenging it, and then running after it, spending energy trying to find it. So even if he wasn't depressed and going through all these things, I think that's probably why it targeted him. Sometimes I feel like it was trying to humble him in a way, like, because he never wants to admit that he's afraid, like, ever.

• 39:10Speaker 03

  You know, I wasn't scared. I was more defensive or ready to have conflict with it. I kind of understood that of being like the reason maybe why it followed me here and, you know, was attached to me.

• 39:30Speaker 03

  But I don't believe it's totally gone or done, but it's not around me now, you know?

• 40:03Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, Kristin and Hayden, for letting Spook visit Tibigan Zeeby and for sharing your stories. Their general score for that piece, "Violette Saint-Just", was scouted and produced by Elliot Lightfoot.

• 40:23Glynn Washington?

  Now, if you have seen lights where there's supposed to be darkness, or if you've seen darkness where there is supposed to be light, let me know. Spooked at SnapJudgment.org because there's nothing better than a Spooked story from a Spooked listener. Spooked at SnapJudgment.org. Spook Dwells, at the crossroads between light and shadow. Deep beneath KQED in San Francisco, we've got the special incantation from Spook Legal, reading, "No, Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission." The Crossroads is brought to you by the Spooked team, who will always catch a tiger by the toe. Except for Mr.

• 41:08Glynn Washington?

  Mark "Eeny Meeny Mighty Mo" Ristich. On Team Spooked, the union representative producers, artists, editors, and engineers, are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Worker of America, AFL-CIL Local 51, and there's David Kim, Zoe Frigno, Eric Yanez, Taylor Decott, Marissa Dodge, Miles Lassie, Elliot Lightfoot, Suzy Chu, Evan Stern, Eves Jeffcoat, Ishel Lopez, Jack Daryl, Doug Stewart. The Spooked theme song is by Pat Massey Miller.

• 41:48Glynn Washington?

  My name's in Washington, and I've seen monsters. Shadowy figures, masks, come to snatch my neighbors from their sleep, leave motherless children in their wake. I turn on the TV to watch them laughing at the terror unleashed, monsters. And I know that if I do not resist, if I do not hold out my hand to say, "No, stop", then I'm a monster too.

• 42:34Glynn Washington?

  I do not wish to be a monster.

• 42:38Glynn Washington?

  But screaming children do not care what I wish to be. They want their mommies and their daddies back. And if I close my door,

• 42:46Glynn Washington?

  shutter my windows,

• 42:49Glynn Washington?

  offer hopes and prayers and turn the TV up louder, I am worse than the boogeyman.

• 43:01Glynn Washington?

  What happens when the monsters, the ghouls, the vampires are no longer caged in the books? I don't know.

• 43:12Glynn Washington?

  Except in the stories, there are candles to follow. There are windows to guide.

• 43:20Glynn Washington?

  There are torches that are lit.

• 43:25Glynn Washington?

  And I'm looking for them now.

• 43:29Glynn Washington?

  Asking you as well. I'm asking me in this story, in this chapter,

• 43:38Glynn Washington?

  to never, ever, ever, never, ever, ever, never turn on the lights.