Island Ride

There’s a jumbie in a jalopy and the spirits are flowing during happy hour on St. Thomas. Plus, young Lopaka meets a mysterious girl hanging by an abandoned pickup in Maui.

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

• 0:12Glynn Washington?

  Dream came to me one day and asked if I would walk her land.

• 0:18Glynn Washington?

  I followed her through fields of light and then reached for her hand. Dream's grip turned hard, then cold and fast, I looked to see her stare. But death turned back to grin at me. She trapped me in her snare.

• 0:41Glynn Washington?

  We crossed over Spoot. Steady. To.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  Why have so many crop circles appeared around Britain? How did thousands of people demonstrate powers of telepathy? Can the dead suck the life from the living? Join me, Tim Harford, for a trip into the paranormal throughout Halloween month on Cautionary Tales. Listen to Cautionary Tales on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:32Glynn Washington?

  Now, the very day, on the morning of the day, I turned 16 years old. I get my driver's licence, right? And immediately, jump into my rust bucket Mustang, hit the gas, freedom, joy.

• 1:49Glynn Washington?

  Till a few minutes later,

• 1:52Glynn Washington?

  I'm on the side of the road, my hood popped open, cursing at my car, "Come on, come on."

• 1:59Glynn Washington?

  I live on one side of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and a lot of my friends, they live on the other side. Almost every day, I roar off, hoping, praying that my car will get me there without breaking down. Not speeding crazy, but not just a safety driver either.

• 2:19Glynn Washington?

  There's one spot, a sudden bend in the road where, if you aren't careful, if you aren't super careful, 10 miles an hour careful, you can't make the bend, you'll find yourself in the other lane, facing oncoming traffic, and I know this curve well.

• 2:36Glynn Washington?

  Driving countless times, and every single time, I end up in that other lane, but every single time,

• 2:45Glynn Washington?

  I get lucky, knowing they're coming the other way.

• 2:52Glynn Washington?

  One night, right before the bend, my jalopy loses power, dang it, force me to slow down. When I see the light of a pickup truck, barreling through the lane where I would have been, I laugh. Pat my Mustang on her steering wheel, "Thanks." Tell myself not to be so stupid, then speed through the same way the next day. The next week, the week after that, every single time, like a ridiculous game of Russian roulette, and one night,

• 3:31Glynn Washington?

  Toons blast and gas pedal pressed to the floor, I'm speeding through the bend, and I see flashing police lights.

• 3:42Glynn Washington?

  The whole road closed both directions, and I'm trembling.

• 3:48Glynn Washington?

  Cold waves of what if I can sense can feel that

• 3:53Glynn Washington?

  someone else,

• 3:56Glynn Washington?

  someone else ran my odds, only they didn't get so lucky.

• 4:03Glynn Washington?

  My car didn't just break down that night before, she saved me.

• 4:10Glynn Washington?

  And I feel like she knew.

• 4:14Glynn Washington?

  She knew, my old Mustang knew, that somebody had to be sacrificed there.

• 4:23Glynn Washington?

  And she did everything she could to make sure that somebody

• 4:30Glynn Washington?

  was not me.

• 4:36Glynn Washington?

  Spookstars.

• 4:39Glynn Washington?

  Now.

• 5:26Glynn Washington?

  Okay, we're gonna take a totally different type of ride. It's Greg's 23rd birthday. He's flying on a one-way ticket to paradise. The beautiful island of St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, needing to escape from back home.

• 5:45Glynn Washington?

  He jumps on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity from a friend, only to discover that island life is not all palm trees and coconuts.

• 5:58Glynn Washington?

  Spook.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  When I arrived in St. Thomas, I was, well, you walk out on that tarmac off the plane for the first time, and you just get smacked with the heat and the humidity. But I was also smacked with the beauty.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  There's a lot more mountainous than I expected for an island. So green too, and so much open space, some of the most beautiful water and white sand beaches that I've ever seen, never experienced in my entire life.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  So after I got off the plane, I got in a cab and I went to the bar where my buddy was working. I was immediately just bombarded by mosquitoes and nosem's and was getting eaten alive.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  Bartender put some gin on a bar towel, and he's like, "Here." I'm like, "What am I supposed to do with that?" He's like, "Just rub it all over yourself, it's basically bug spray." And so I did, and the bugs generally went away, and I was like, "You know what? I'm gonna like living here, this is gonna be a very different experience."

• 7:52Speaker 02

  So when I wasn't working some random job, I was hanging out a lot at Duffy's Love Shack. I knew at one point that they were looking for help, and I got a job being a server at Duffy's. It was this tiki bar built in a parking lot. It's literally a shack, completely open air, with an indoor space and a whole bunch of outdoor space. And then from there, it's a plaza with a whole bunch of different businesses, including a bar, a surf shop, and a pharmacy. They had a ladies' night on Wednesday nights, that is absolutely wild. There was like tattoos, fake tattoos being given behind the bar by the bartenders. They got songs that go with certain drinks, everything comes in like a shark cup, or a mermaid cup, or a whale, or,

• 8:37Speaker 02

  and their little souvenir cups that people can take with them. It was just a wacky, islandy environment that, that was a good place to spend time.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  It had been a few weeks and I was really getting the hang of being a server. Then there was this one night.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  I was out having a quick smoke break in between service. I'm just kinda keeping an eye on the general comings and goings of the parking lot of the plaza of the bar. Watching the night turn into the night. And that's when I see this car pull up.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  It was an older, you know, four-door sedan, black, a little rusty, a little beat up. It just kinda looked like another, another old, used island car. The driver of the car, he was a relatively older gentleman. He was dressed in what looked like kitchen garb, like he was a chef or like a dishwasher or a porter of some kind. And he parked the car, turned it off, and casually walked off to wherever he was going.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  I saw the bar restaurant, the tables starting to fill up. And I went back to my section, started bringing people volcanoes and shark tanks and all the other goofy drinks they had. We were right in the heart of our busy time of the night.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  I'm at a table going through drinks, serving a guy a burger. And I start hearing murmuring, going through all these tables in the parking lot. And somebody pulls me aside and points at this car and says, "Hey, there's smoke coming out of that thing."

• 10:28Speaker 02

  I turn my head and I start walking a little bit closer to the cars. And I see there is definitely smoke coming out of the hood of this car.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  I was like, "Wait a minute, I, I know that car. I saw that car park earlier when I was out by the dumpster." I look back at the bartenders, some of them start walking out from behind the bar. And slowly but surely, we all just kind of turn our focus on this smoking car. I had a car that, when I parked it, smoke would just come out of the hood for a while after. And people would always be like, "Oh, your car's on fire." And I'd be like, "No, it's just missing the converter. It's fine. Just give it a little while, it'll be fine." So, to be honest, it wasn't super surprising to me that this was going on. Until the smoke turned into fire.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  And it was small flames from the hood, and then bigger flames from the hood. Until they're about a foot or so coming out of the hood, this car, all the way around. And I'm thinking, "Oh shit, we really have a problem because that is not supposed to be happening." The head bartender is the first one to act. He grabs the fire extinguisher and starts walking towards the car slowly because we're not exactly sure what's gonna happen next.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  While the whole scene's going on, it didn't even occur to me that we had this 80s playlist that we tend to run at the bar. Until a customer pulled me aside and said, "Just so you know, when that car caught on fire, you guys are playing the Ghostbusters theme song at the exact same time." And I was like, "That is such a weird coincidence."

• 12:28Glynn Washington?

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• 13:10Glynn Washington?

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• 13:50Speaker 02

  The closer we get to the car, we are for certain that there's nobody inside this thing. We're looking through the windows. The door happens to be unlocked and we're able to open it. And we started looking in the car. There's no keys in the ignition.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  One of the staff members takes the risk and very, very cautiously clicks the little switch and gets the hood open of the car. The flames just burst out.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  It just felt like a giant fireball was going off in front of me. The bartender that had the fire extinguisher turns it on and starts trying to spray the fire down as fast as possible.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  They're actually starting to go down slowly. And I'm thinking, "This actually might be over pretty soon."

• 14:36Speaker 02

  And then we hear

• 14:42Speaker 02

  the car has turned itself on. It's like somebody turned the key to the ignition.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  We all jump back for a minute. Okay, this car is not just on fire, not just empty. Somehow its engine's on, almost like the car could have even been possessed.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  I think everybody had gotten out of their seats. Some people were yelling instructions or ideas or laughing about the scene. If anybody was still sitting at a table expecting like a burger or a frozen margarita, they weren't gonna get it.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  And then the engine revs, real loud, like somebody just slammed their foot on the gas pedal.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  The car starts to shake, vibrate, the flames start to be bigger. I'm starting to get really, really scared now. I have no idea what I'm watching.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  Then the car shifts into reverse, the reverse lights even come on in the back. The car starts backing up, slowly, but it starts backing up. And it's backing up right towards the bathrooms in the smoking area where I was earlier in the day.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  I run over to the bathroom doors and start knocking on it, making sure there's nobody in there and yelling that, "Hey, if you're inside here, you gotta get out right now, otherwise you might get hit by a car." Car's backing up, maybe only six, seven feet away from hitting the bar. And then it just stops.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  Okay, that's weird, but it stopped. Good.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  And then all of a sudden, it shifts into forward. And it starts driving towards the surf shop in front of it, towards a very large window right in front of it.

• 16:43Speaker 02

  And I'm freaking out that it still might explode. That's when in my head, I'm like, "It is definitely time to call the fire department."

• 16:52Speaker 02

  I run back to the bar. And the bartender that's still back there is on the phone with the fire department, so they had the right idea.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  And then he just puts the phone down. And I say, "What did they say?" He looks at me and says, "They didn't believe me, and they hung up."

• 17:13Speaker 02

  And I'm like, "Shit, we are really on our own with this."

• 17:21Speaker 02

  The car seems to have its sights set on the surf shop now. And it starts moving faster and faster towards the surf shop. And it gets to that cement block, the thing that stops a car when you're trying to park it. Hits that, and it almost seems to get upset that it can't get over.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  So it starts spinning its wheels faster and faster, going against this block.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  Finally, it goes into almost full gear, like someone literally put their foot on the ground with that gas pedal. It goes over the hump, and it's about to go straight into that surf shop window.

• 18:01Speaker 02

  Oh my God, we have a real big problem on our hands.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  It's maybe only about six, seven feet away at this point. Now I'm getting really scared because this car could go through that window, could hurt a couple of friends and a lot of people in that shop.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  And all of a sudden, it hits this pillar.

• 18:25Speaker 02

  The pillar is part of these arches that go in between each business that lead to the front door. So now it's trying to drive forward, but it can't because of the pillar. And then it shifted back into reverse and tried to reverse back over the cement block that it hopped over. And it couldn't do that either, so it kept shifting back and forth, shifting back and forth, spinning its wheels like crazy.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  And it seems to be getting angrier and angrier by the second. It's almost like a bully that got put in a headlock by the kid he was picking on the whole time.

• 18:58Speaker 02

  Finally, after spinning its wheels and making its best effort to get loose, the car seemed to give up. The wheels stopped spinning, the engine turned off, and the flames that had been going so strong for so long heated out, piece by piece, flame by flame.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  We're all feeling relief. People start going back to their tables. Service resumes. The night just kind of turns back into the night.

• 19:30Speaker 02

  The fire department finally shows up. Truck comes pulling up, lights flashing. Turns out the bartender had called them a second time while we were dealing with the car driving, and they decided to actually listen. Well, better late than never.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Unfortunately, the more we tell them, the less they want to believe us. You can see the look on their faces like, these guys maybe been drinking on the job or something else is going on here. I don't necessarily blame them.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  A few of us walk the firefighters over to the car to inspect the damage. So they call a tow truck. And as they're looking at the car, and the smoke starts again.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  And then

• 20:19Speaker 02

  it turns itself back on.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  Me and everyone else jumps back again.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  They're sitting there like, yeah, see, see? We told you something happened here, like, look, there's smoke. Sure enough, then there's fire again.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  The firefighters finally believe us. They're pointing, they're screaming at each other. These grown men start running back to the truck.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  Some don't come back out. They're pointing the car far away, yelling that it's a jumbi.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  A jumbi is an island spirit of sorts.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  They're as stunned as we were when we first saw this happen, but now we're kind of like, we're pros at this. The ones that are still willing to be involved are grabbing every sharp object, every blade. They surround the car. They get into that hood. They just start chopping away every wire, every line. They cut all electricity they possibly can to the engine. Anything they can cut, they cut.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  After all their hard work, the car finally stops. No more wheels spinning, no more engine running. The car's dead. The problem's taken care of.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  They're shook up, we're shook up, but we're all kind of, I mean, us as staff members and the customers are kind of laughing about it at this point, right? This is just such a ridiculous scene, like, what the heck happened here?

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Firefighters kind of finish up their business. I go back to my business, start handling tables. The night once again starts back up. Drinks are being served, food's going out, laughs, shots, the whole nine yards. And then eventually, tow truck shows up. They start hooking up the car. Everything's going smoothly. And all of a sudden, the engine revs again.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  And we all lose our minds. People jump up from their seats, some people run away from the car, some people run towards the car, firefighters are scattered around everywhere. No one really knows what to do. It is absolute madness. There's smoke coming up, there's sparks coming out.

• 22:40Speaker 02

  The fire department jumps on this, and it's about four or five of them go over, try to kill this engine for good. They bring more tools out, gets the engine out of the car. They rip it out and they throw it into the parking lot. It skids across the parking lot in little ways.

• 22:57Speaker 02

  And the fire goes out, the car stops, the car's dead.

• 23:03Speaker 02

  Everyone's just feeling some relief with this car being done. Tow truck is hooked up to the car, and they tow it away. And the night is back to a normal night.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  About forty-five minutes to an hour go by. I'm back dealing with the table, and I'm looking down at the edge of the parking lot, and I see this gentleman walking up.

• 23:32Speaker 02

  And I kind of do a double take, and I look at the gentleman again, and I tell my table, I say, hold on a second. That's the guy that owns the car. I recognize him, and he looked like he was coming off a shift. He looked a little bit tired, still wearing the same clothing, a little bit dirtier now, and he's standing in the parking lot by where his car definitely used to be.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  And so I went up to my manager, I'm like, Bob, that's the guy that owns the car. Somebody needs to go talk to him and tell him what happened, and he's not going to believe us, but we got to go talk to him. So the manager pulls him aside, along with the police and the fire department, and they have a conversation about what happened to the car.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  You could see a wave of anger and confusion starting to wash over his face, because I know he doesn't believe what they're telling him. He's saying, oh, I've had that car my whole life, I've had the car for a long time, it's always treated me well. And they're trying to talk to him, they're trying to talk him down. He's getting a little bit angrier and angrier. So they take him, they put him in the cruiser, not to arrest him, but just to let him like have time to have a breather, to calm down, and then take him away to most likely go see what's left of his car. And so they drive off, service ends at Duffy's. The night's over for most people, but it definitely not for me, because after seeing something like that, I need a drink.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  Went across the street to another bar, ran into some friends. I'm sitting there drinking a Presidente. They're throwing out theories about maybe this is what happened, or it definitely didn't happen at all, or you were drunk, or something like that. And I'd be like, okay, you think so? Let's go take a quick walk over to Duffy's. And we'd walk over, and I'd take him to that pillar, and I'd point down, right in front of the surf shop, and there's a chunk of the concrete knocked off, you can see a piece of like rebar or whatever was below it, sticking out.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  That's the one little, that little corner is what saved a surf shop from being destroyed from a building catching on fire and from whatever else that car wanted to do that night. And I'd show it to them, they'd be like, oh, you're actually telling the truth about this, aren't you? And I'm like, yeah, I really, really am.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  That car was alive. That car had intention, if only for an hour or so. That car was possessed.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  I don't even believe it, but that's exactly what happened.

• 26:28Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, Greg, for sharing your story. The next time we're on St. Thomas, please remind me to take the bus. Original score for that piece was by Doug Stewart. Was produced by Paulina Kriki.

• 27:08Glynn Washington?

  Now, longtime Spooksters know our next storyteller, Lupaka Kapunui. Lupaka has the gift, he communicates with the other side, but it wasn't always so. Today, we're going back in time to 1971, Honolulu. Lupaka is just nine years old, and his adoptive mother has told him to pack a bag, because they're taking a little trip to Maui.

• 27:38Glynn Washington?

  And we've saved you the very best seat in the house. Soot, live.

• 28:10Speaker 03

  It's 1971, I'm nine years old.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  My adopted mother has told me to pack a bag, because we're going on a little trip to the island of Maui.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  I'm thrilled and excited because it's the first time I'm gonna get to meet my adopted mother's side of the family, specifically her niece Sally.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  We get to the airport, the cab picks us up. My adopted mother gives the driver a piece of paper with the address on it.

• 28:53Speaker 03

  On the right, beautiful ocean, windswept crests, rolling one into the other.

• 29:01Speaker 03

  Fine misty rains, which leave a sheen on your skin.

• 29:07Speaker 03

  And on the left, the beautiful verdant green area of Maui. So breathtaking.

• 29:16Speaker 03

  It takes your breath away.

• 29:19Speaker 03

  And then, the stark nothingness of her brand-new neighborhood. We pull up, and it's a brand-new house. It's colored gray with white trimming.

• 29:34Speaker 03

  Grass growing all over the yard.

• 29:37Speaker 03

  And in the left corner, a Ford F-150 truck.

• 29:42Speaker 03

  Grass growing around it.

• 29:45Speaker 03

  And the hood is sort of faded because it's been sitting in the sun for so long.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  As is tradition in Hawaii, when you go to someone's house, you call out first, like this: "Hui! Hui!" And if they want you to come in, they'll reply: "Hui! Aloha, come, come, come inside, ekomo mai." But there's no reply. So my adopted mom, she does it again. "Hui! Hui!"

• 30:21Speaker 03

  It's Sally's daughter Annie that answers. "Aloha, aloha, come inside, come, come, come. My mom's inside, come."

• 30:32Speaker 03

  That's not the protocol. It's not the custom, so going inside feels kind of strange.

• 30:42Speaker 03

  Sally's husband Roland is there to greet us. Youngish Filipino man, says hello to my mom, tussles my hair. And the second Sally enters the living room,

• 30:55Speaker 03

  he sort of shrinks. And he says, "Well, uh, I better go make the lunch." And he walks into the kitchen.

• 31:05Speaker 03

  Sally herself is kind of tall, big-boned, imposing. Portuguese woman. Very beautiful. Long red curly hair, big beautiful smile. And she says to my mom: "Hi, Auntie." My mom says, "Hi." Then Sally says, "How are you?" "I'm fine, good to see you." "Good to see you too." And there's this tension between them. It's not something I can put my finger on, but there's something going on. It makes me uncomfortable.

• 31:43Speaker 03

  My mom looks at me and she says: "Well, go play with your cousins." I said, "Wait, wait. Um, how long are we gonna be here?" And she says: "As long as it takes. Go play with your cousins." So I go into the living room, my cousin Annie, and her brother Paul, who's about a little bit younger than me. And he runs upstairs. He gets out the Evel Knievel gyroscope motorcycle toy. He brings it downstairs. We make Hot Wheel tracks, doing daring jumps. Every time the daring jump is successful, we're screaming, yelling, jumping up and down, stomping our feet on the floor.

• 32:23Speaker 03

  Sally comes out of the kitchen.

• 32:26Speaker 03

  Big imposing figure swings open the door and looks at us and says: "Kawasabuka!" Which means "be quiet." "Shut up."

• 32:35Speaker 03

  She sends us outside. And I'm thrilled and astounded at how big the yard actually is. There's two swing sets, one jungle gym. And far-left corner, that trunk. Paul brought out the Evel Knievel toys, so we're playing, we're having fun. And as soon as it gets dark, my mom comes out and comes to get me. "It's time to go." Even though I'm having fun all day, I'm kind of tired. I want to go back.

• 33:08Speaker 03

  On the ride back to the hotel,

• 33:11Speaker 03

  my mom is just looking out the window from the cab. She's got this big wrinkle in the middle of her forehead, and her teeth are clenched. She's thinking about something.

• 33:23Speaker 03

  She's somewhere else, but she's thinking about something.

• 33:30Speaker 03

  The next day, we go back.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  My cousin Paul is sitting on the fence. Got a bag of sandwiches. I got the drinks. And so I'm walking toward him to go sit on the fence. But I look in the left corner of the yard, and I see sitting on the hood of that Ford F-150 truck, this local Japanese girl.

• 33:53Speaker 03

  She's about 11 or 12 years old.

• 33:58Speaker 03

  White shirt design on it.

• 34:01Speaker 03

  Gray sweater. Shorts down to the knees, cut off. And she's wearing what we call in Hawaii, the chowong rice bowl haircut. And she's just looking down like this, looking at her hands, her feet, maybe the grass. Not really looking up at anyone. So I thought, maybe she's one of the neighbor's daughters, one of the kids. So I don't say anything to Annie or Paul about it. And we go.

• 34:32Speaker 03

  As we're leaving, I'm going into that kitchen through the sliding glass door. I look back, and she's still sitting there.

• 34:45Speaker 03

  Every day that I go there,

• 34:48Speaker 03

  that girl's sitting on that trunk. She usually shows up about a little after lunch. And she's always doing the same thing, minding her own business, looking down at her hands, not really at anyone. And I've been there for a week already. And it's wearing on me because we've run out of games to play, run out of things to talk about. So I walk over to her.

• 35:16Speaker 03

  I'm gonna find out who she is, strike up a conversation. As I get closer to her, I notice her hair smells like Wella Balsam shampoo.

• 35:29Speaker 03

  And I say to her: "How come you're on this truck every day? Are you one of the neighbor's kids? Are you somebody's daughter?" Without looking up at me, she goes like this, just looking down at her hands, sitting on the truck, looking at her feet. She says:

• 35:48Speaker 03

  "I'm stuck to this truck.

• 35:53Speaker 03

  It killed me. I can't go anywhere. I'm stuck

• 36:04Speaker 03

  here."

• 36:09Speaker 03

  And I thought she was being dramatic.

• 36:14Speaker 03

  I thought she was just saying something to be controversial. That's what I thought.

• 36:23Speaker 03

  But then, finally, she looked at me like this, and she said:

• 36:31Speaker 03

  Do the grownups, the adults, ever tell you what they're talking about?

• 36:43Speaker 03

  I thought to myself, "This girl is weird."

• 36:48Speaker 03

  "Why would she say something like that?" And behind me, I hear the sliding glass door open, and it's Uncle Roland. "Okay, that's it. That's it. Come on, let's go." And it's as I'm walking in, again, through the sliding glass door, I glance back at the girl, sitting on the truck, and I notice she's starting to disappear.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  She's starting to dim out, like a light.

• 37:26Speaker 03

  And she gets dimmer, and dimmer, and dimmer.

• 37:37Speaker 03

  I'm so scared, I bit my tongue.

• 37:42Speaker 03

  I can feel the blood in my mouth. My feet are numb. I'm stuck to the spot, looking at the place where the girl just was.

• 37:57Speaker 03

  And behind me, I hear my Auntie Sally and my mom. "Auntie, thank you so much." My mom said, "Don't worry, it's something that had to be done."

• 38:11Speaker 03

  That tension between them, that energy,

• 38:17Speaker 03

  it was gone, completely gone.

• 38:22Speaker 03

  Just like that girl. No trace, no evidence that she'd ever been there, just gone.

• 38:31Speaker 03

  And I say goodbye to my cousins. On the ride back to the hotel, there's no conversation, no questions from me. Because I'm still trying to deal with what I just saw, what I just heard. And I keep hearing it again and again from that girl.

• 38:52Speaker 03

  "I'm stuck to this truck."

• 38:56Speaker 03

  "It killed me."

• 38:59Speaker 03

  "I can't go anywhere." "I'm stuck here."

• 39:10Speaker 03

  It's not until we're on the plane ride back to Honolulu that my adopted mom says to me, "The whole reason we're there for a week, her spending time, most days in the kitchen with Roland and Sally, is because one day Roland was rushing home from work. As he took the corner coming up the street where the house was, he didn't see the local Japanese girl walking in the middle of the street, and he hit her. Hit her head on, killed her, instantly."

• 39:45Speaker 03

  The authorities deemed it an accident. But Roland was so traumatized by what happened, he never drove that car again. What he did is parked it in the left corner of the yard and left it there.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  My fists are clenched tight, fingernails digging into the flesh of my hand.

• 40:13Speaker 03

  My heart is breaking.

• 40:17Speaker 03

  Because that girl, that girl will never grow up. That girl will never marry. She'll never have kids.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  Can't go back to her school to see her friends, ever again.

• 40:36Speaker 03

  My mom said the whole reason she was there for that amount of time is because she was performing an exorcism. Because she said when that girl wasn't stuck to that truck,

• 40:49Speaker 03

  she was stuck to Roland, sitting on his shoulders. To the point where his neck was sore, his shoulders ached, he couldn't stand upright.

• 41:02Speaker 03

  It's why Sally called my mom, because it was serious enough for her to go to Maui and help.

• 41:14Speaker 03

  It turns out, my adopted mother was trained as a Portuguese fetzer.

• 41:21Speaker 03

  A fetzer is like a healer, a matchmaker, and for lack of a better term, a witch doctor. And sometimes people came for her to get help, but mostly for exorcisms. I didn't know if she could do that. But as a nine-year-old boy, something like this is a movie, where at the end, everybody rides off into the sunsets, credits rolling, house lights come on, you go home. But my movie didn't end. Because after that, I thought I saw that girl's spirit sitting on the hood of every truck, every car, every vehicle that passed by or parked.

• 42:03Speaker 03

  And sure, the exorcism was over, the girl wasn't sitting on Roland's shoulders anymore, certainly not on that truck. And in my nine-year-old brain, I thought to myself, "What if that girl came home with me?" We're around the same age. We probably like the same things, we probably watch the same TV shows, listen to the same music.

• 42:28Speaker 03

  But the difference between her and me

• 42:32Speaker 03

  is that I got to go home with my mother.

• 42:39Speaker 03

  She did not.

• 42:43Speaker 03

  She could not. She would not.

• 42:50Speaker 03

  Ever.

• 43:04Glynn Washington?

  This story was told at Spooked Live at the haunted, beautiful Paramount Theater in downtown Oakland, California, in front of an amazing crowd of Spooksters. The original score was performed and composed by Clay Xavier and Simon Kaiser-Petti, engineered by Miles Lassie. And big thank you to Lapaka for once again taking us with you on a journey to the other side in Spooksters. If you want to hear more stories from Lapaka or learn about his Hawaiian ghost tours, check out our show notes.

• 43:50Glynn Washington?

  Now, our quest continues, and I have a question for you. Have you ever experienced a miracle? An honest, no doubt, absolute, ironclad miracle? Or do you know someone whose presence seems to coax these miracles into existence? If so, I would love to hear about it. Let us know, [email protected]. Because there's nothing better than a Spook story from a Spooked listener.

• 44:25Glynn Washington?

  [email protected]. The Spooked underground catacombs lie on the shadow side of KQED in San Francisco? Please tell the robots that absolutely no Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission on Team Spooked. The union representatives, producers, artists, editors, and engineers are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Works of America, AFL-CIA Local 51. And Spooked is brought to you by the team that always checks the weather before venturing outside. Except for Mr. Mark Ristich, rain, sleet, or snow, he's the shorts guy.

• 45:12Glynn Washington?

  And there's David Kim, Zoe Fergino, Eric Yanez, Taylor Decot, Marissa Dodge, Miles Lassie, Su Yichu, Evan Stern, Eve Jeffco, Isel Lopez, Jack Darrell, Doug Stewart, Nicholas Marks. The Spook theme song is by Pat Massey Miller. My name is Glynn Washington,

• 45:38Glynn Washington?

  and I love the open road. I love driving. Get a tank of gas, some tunes, some snacks, maybe even my dog. Wow. Heaven.

• 45:51Glynn Washington?

  Don't really need much of a destination. I live close enough to Highway 1, and cruising down the road next to the ocean? It's glorious. I get giddy. I didn't grow up here. It's still new to me. And I think what I love most is the possibility

• 46:10Glynn Washington?

  that I can drive anywhere, do anything. At least, it feels that way when I'm behind the wheel.

• 46:20Glynn Washington?

  And I consider that recently, I had to have that talk with someone. Someone dear to me. Tell them that for their safety and the safety of people around them, that

• 46:37Glynn Washington?

  I need to take their car keys.

• 46:41Glynn Washington?

  And yes, it was the right thing to do, for sure, but

• 46:46Glynn Washington?

  I don't know if I fully considered what it means here to say, "You can't do this thing that I can still do because you're not just taking away a car. You're closing a possibility.

• 47:02Glynn Washington?

  All the freedom that I feel behind the wheel, you can't have this anymore."

• 47:09Glynn Washington?

  Now I get to decide like a jailer that you now

• 47:15Glynn Washington?

  must inhabit a much smaller, more constrained world, and I do it, fully convinced that it's for your own good.

• 47:28Glynn Washington?

  Nothing stings like somebody taking upon themselves to do something for your own good.

• 47:35Glynn Washington?

  I try to remember this now because someday,

• 47:41Glynn Washington?

  someday far too soon, I know, someone talking gently with a painted-on smile

• 47:51Glynn Washington?

  gonna come from my T's as well, for my own good

• 47:58Glynn Washington?

  never, ever, never, ever, never, ever

• 48:07Glynn Washington?

  turn out the last.