The Death Carriage

Since he was a kid, Joe Conrad knows that death is not the end… it’s just a stop on the road.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  They called the book a book of lies. And those that touched it were despised. They said they do, as witches do. They burned them all for all they knew. We thought the book of lies was lost, but every secret has a cost. The book of lies had hid the truth, wrapped in the profane and the uncouth.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  Now something's stirring underground because that witch was lost.

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  It's finally found.

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  You've crossed over, the spooked field guide to the shadow.

• 0:57Speaker 00

  Stay tuned.

• 1:05Speaker 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.

• 1:33Speaker 02

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• 3:11Speaker 00

  Celebrating summer, right after ninth grade at the dunes, Sagatuck, Michigan, sunshine, water, sand, good times. And like magic, there she is, Lori.

• 3:28Speaker 00

  Didn't want to talk to her all year in school. Couldn't get up the nerve, but here it tastes, it looks different. I'm feeling good. Icy red soda in my hand. You know, she's sitting on a blanket in the sand, happy, cried with her friends. So I steal up all my courage.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  I wave casually, stroll over to her group, and I say, I say, "Hey, Lori."

• 4:02Speaker 00

  "Hi," she says.

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  And my sweaty, nervous, clumsy fingers spill that icy red soda all over her, and she screams, her friends scream.

• 4:17Speaker 00

  And then I scream, bet them, trying to wipe it up, trying to apologize, trying to vanish in a cloud of mortified smoke. But it's not enough. It's never enough because instantly, there's the howling, the cackling. Since I was little, a laugh track follows me around and instantly goes off the moment I do something stupid.

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  My brothers, rolling, pointing, laughing.

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  Later, my own graduation, walking across the high school stage, then tripping over my own gown, face-first into the front row of seats, roars of laughter, always there. Showing up at an airport on a Friday,

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  proudly handing the agent a ticket, only for her to tell me, "Aha, that plane left Thursday." Peels my brothers every time, my high moments laughing, my low moments laughing. I lean, I lean on that cackle like a crutch, lets me know I'm never alone, whatever I do, wherever I go, laughter, always laughing, until the most horrible phone call you can ever receive.

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  Telling me the impossible.

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  And that laugh track stops.

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  I never imagined

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  how empty,

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  how hollow, how cold this journey would feel without that certain sound, the empty, the quiet,

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  the so, so quiet, the staggering on alone.

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  And then one day, at the house,

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  cooking, chopping, cutting, remembering, forgetting what I'm doing, watching a pot of pasta sauce tremble, it explode, an ocean of red droplets all over my kitchen, and a sauce drips from the ceiling. I hear it softly.

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  The laughing, I hear them.

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  Later, chasing my fallen luggage as it bounces down an escalator, the laughing, so close.

• 7:16Speaker 00

  Then emptying a tube of eye cream onto my toothbrush and sticking that into my mouth, ahh! And from the next room or the other side of the shower curtain, howls. There they are. And, and in studying the few scraps of the remaining Book of Shadow, it references different ways to determine at the end the companions that will escort you on your journey. Who will be your guide? And lots of people will draw the lots, will read the runes, will throw the dice, and still not know exactly who waits to grasp their hand into the void.

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  But grief,

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  deep sorrow, has given some of us a gift of sorts.

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  Because I know precisely who will meet me when I pass into the void, who is waiting for me even now. What's more, I know

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  with absolute certainty,

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  they will be laughing.

• 8:44Speaker 00

  Spooked Field Guide to the Shadow starts now.

• 9:35Speaker 00

  Who is waiting? Joe Conrad is a storyteller from Akron, Ohio, and he's seen enough to know that this journey is not the end of the story.

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  Soon.

• 10:11Speaker 00

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• 11:41Speaker 03

  When my dad passed, I was 35 years old. My dad was 62. He had cancer. Dad had been on a feeding tube for probably about a month. One day, he was at home, and he just started to bleed. He was probably dead before the ambulance got there. After the initial shock got over, I think mom was relieved right away because dad had been suffering.

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  When the family got together, we were telling jokes and it was, it was kind of like dad was still there. Dad would want us to have a good time, and so let's enjoy this. We spent a lot of time after the funeral with my mom until she finally kicked us out of the house and said, "Y'all gotta go home, I got a life to live, and so do you." It was probably 10 days after the funeral. It was the first Friday that my mom would be in the house alone.

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  She was sitting in her chair, and she hears a knock on the hallway door coming up from the stairs. She had a brother-in-law who used to do that all the time. He would knock, but he wouldn't come in. So she went over thinking it was my Uncle Tom, and she opened the door. My dad was standing there. He looked like he was 28, 30 years old, wearing his light blue suit that he had owned. And he was smiling.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  And he walked right past her, and she could just feel a cold blast coming into the room. He walked through the kitchen into the big room and sat down in his chair. And mom went in and sat down across from him. The cold air filled the entire room. She was, she was shocked. He was grinning, and she was trying to figure out what, what is he grinning at? Why is, why is he smiling? Why is he so happy?

• 14:31Speaker 03

  She don't know how long she sat there, waiting for him to say something. She finally said, "Why are you here?" And as soon as she spoke, it's like all of a sudden, there was a warmth in the room. She felt warm and comfortable. It was her realization then that dad was there to tell her that he'd be watching over her and that she shouldn't worry that everything was going to be okay.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  When she had that realization, that's when he disappeared. She always thought people would think she was crazy, so she never told anybody. It was 10 years later that she told me about it. It was just her and I, we were out in, on a swing in the backyard, and we were just talking about memories of things. And that's when she opened up about what she had witnessed right after dad had passed away.

• 16:00Speaker 03

  When she told me that story, I was stunned. I told her, I says, "Nobody, I don't think anybody." I says, "Least of all, any of your kids, none of them would, would think that you were crazy." And I said, "I think it's something that you should share with them. I think it would give comfort to all of us." In my family, there wasn't much talk about those kinds of things. I am the third of six children. We were raised as cradle Catholic, but I don't think there was much said about spirits and ghosts other than the scary ghost stories and jump stories.

• 16:44Speaker 03

  But I immediately believed her. There was no even trace of doubt. I know that this is real. I also had something that I never talked about. In the early 1960s, I was 13 years old, and I would always run over to grandma's house after school, and I would have cookies. I would go in, and I'd be in the kitchen having milk and cookies, and grandpa would

• 17:25Speaker 03

  yell out from his chair, he says, "Are you giving that kid all of my cookies?" We had a good relationship, but he was always teasing. Like my dad, he always teased. My grandfather, his health went up and down. He had emphysema, he had heart problems. There were frequent times my grandmother did not want to leave him alone. And so I was sometimes called to come and sit with him while she would go into grocery shopping. When I would go in, grandpa would end up falling asleep and snoring, and he would

• 18:07Speaker 03

  have this horrible, horrible, loud snore, like And he would go on and on for long periods of time. He was shaking window panes or, you know, and then it would just stop. And I'm scared to death he's dying. And I would sit there and think, "Breathe, grandpa, breathe." And then, just as suddenly as it stopped, it would start up again.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  This day, I was asked to stay with him again. My grandmother, she left and he was in his bed and I was sitting on a chair right next to him. We had kind of developed a routine. Grandpa would say, "I don't need no damn babysitter. I can take care of myself." And I would say, "Grandpa, I'd rather be here." He said, "No, you should be out playing." Well, at least today, I could say that, "Grandpa, it's raining out. There's not much I can do out there." He had gotten worse and he was under more heavier medication.

• 19:42Speaker 03

  Grandpa was sleeping for a while. There wasn't the loud snoring that I had normally experienced. His breathing was quite light. And then he seemed to begin to wake up a little bit. He said something to me and I didn't, I didn't catch what it was. I says, "Grandpa, I didn't hear that. What, what? Do you need help?" And then he roused again.

• 20:21Speaker 03

  He said, "The death coach is coming for me." And he winked at me. He would always wink when he was teasing me or he was playing a trick on Grandma. That's just the way Grandpa was. Grandpa stirred a little bit more and said something in pain and I said, "Grandpa, should I, should I get the doctor? Should I call the doctor?" Grandpa says, "No, no, no." He says, "It's too late. It's too late. The death coach is coming."

• 21:04Speaker 03

  I'm starting to get concerned and, and then it got really, really dark outside. The streetlights came on and it was raining. And then I heard this, like wagon wheels and clip clop, clip clop of horses' hooves. I heard this and I looked out the window and I was stunned.

• 21:41Speaker 03

  I couldn't quite believe it, but there was this dark, like coach coming down. The coach looked huge. It was all black. The wheels were all black. Everything was black. There was, uh, like some ornate carvings going around the top of the coach and there were like two harnesses, but they were empty. And I can still hear the clip clop of hooves on a, on a red brick, but there were no horses there.

• 22:26Speaker 03

  I didn't really know what to think of it. This is an unmanned, unhorsed coach. It just doesn't make sense. It passed the house next to Grandma's house and then pulled up and stopped right in front of the gate. I turned back and I look at Grandpa. Grandpa was barely breathing now and he looks at me and says, "Is, is it here?" And I, and I, I can't even answer.

• 23:06Speaker 03

  Grandpa grabs hold of my hand and his hand is just like ice cold. He's gasping for breath or something and there's like sweat beads on his forehead and I touch his forehead and he's, he's, he's really, really cold. He takes this great big, kind of like sigh. And then that was it. I held his hand for a few minutes. It, it just ice cold.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  I kind of looked back out the window to see if the coach, that coach was still there. And then when I turned back, I could see this white, wispy figure of my grandfather kind of rising up out of his body. It's unreal and it, it can't be happening, but yet it is. This wispy white figure moved toward the door and then it turned about halfway around.

• 24:32Speaker 03

  He looks back and he looks at his body and then it looked at me and, and then he gives me that damn wink of his. It went out the door. I went over to the window to look out and I actually opened the window to see if I could see better. I heard the front door open and I heard footsteps going across the porch. I'm stretching out to try and see and you can't see the door from there, but Grandpa comes down the steps and he's no longer this figure.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  He, he's a real person and he looks younger than I've ever seen Grandpa. He's wearing this dark gray, double-breasted suit and he walks and opens the gate. He's in front of the carriage. He turns to me and looks up at me and kind of nods his head. He steps inside the carriage and just kind of disappears into the blackness in there.

• 25:57Speaker 03

  The coach starts up and it doesn't go very far to the corner and then as it turns the corner, the coach disappears, just kind of into the mist. I turned around and, and I look at my Grandpa's body and his eyes are open. Seeing him there really, really scares me and I reached up and I closed his eyes. I don't know, something I guess I had seen on TV, maybe. I didn't want to stay in the room, so I went downstairs.

• 26:42Speaker 03

  I went out, sat on the front steps. They were soaking wet, but I just sat there in the cold and I was waiting for Grandma. It was only two or three minutes before the bus actually showed up and Grandma got off the bus. The driver helped her get the grocery cart off the bus and she started walking toward the house. I wanted to run to her, but it was like I was frozen. I couldn't move. I was crying.

• 27:25Speaker 03

  When she came through the gate, I didn't have to say anything. She said, "I'm so sorry you had to be the one that had to be here." She said, "Are you okay?" And I say, "Yes, Grandma." I says, "I says, "I'm okay. Grandpa's okay too."

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  My mom, I did not tell her the story. You know, I didn't think that anybody would believe me.

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  One day, we were called to the nursing home because my mom was having a spell.

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  I was scared. This, this, this could be it.

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  We kind of told all the kids, you know, maybe you need to come home and make a visit to your grandmother if you want to have that last visit.

• 28:51Speaker 03

  When we got there, things had gotten worse and the nursing home had called the ambulance. They were taking her out on a gurney.

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  We went over to the hospital.

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  I could tell mom kept getting a little worse and a little weaker. She was giving up, but at the same time, she was fighting to hang on.

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  I remember my one sister sitting there and said, "Mom, it's okay. You can let go."

• 29:25Speaker 03

  I just held her hand and, and we prayed and she passed away that night.

• 29:40Speaker 03

  When things settled down and everybody was back at my house, my daughter-in-law was walking down what we call our hallway of fame. Two hallway walls completely filled with pictures of fun times, fishing trips, celebrations.

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  She was looking at all the pictures and she stopped in front of one and it was a picture of my dad and a fishing trip.

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  She calls my son over and she says, "Who's, who's that in that picture?" He says, "Oh, well, that's my grandpa."

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  And she says, "Well, that's the guy that I saw."

• 30:30Speaker 03

  She said, "When we got to the hospital, she saw this guy just leaning up against the ambulance." His foot propping up against the bumper. He looked like he was about 20 or 30 and had on this light blue suit.

• 30:53Speaker 03

  When she told him that story, I was stunned. When my dad visited my mom, she said the same thing. He was about 30 and wore this light blue suit.

• 31:09Speaker 03

  My mom had said that she felt like everything was going to be okay, that dad was going to look after her. And so here it was, 20 years later, and he was still looking after her.

• 31:30Speaker 03

  There is life after death. There's no doubt in my mind. I've seen it myself.

• 31:38Speaker 03

  So I'm not really afraid of death. It's obviously inevitable and as I'm aging, it's, uh,

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  I know that the death coach is coming sooner rather than later.

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  But I want to know what's next. I want to know what's next.

• 32:08Speaker 00

  Thank you, Joe, for sharing your story with Spooked. That piece was scouted by Dan Yasinski, was scored by LaLene St. Juice, was produced by Eric Yanyas.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  Creatures, places, warnings, knowledge, once lost and now found. So much more awaits a Spooked Field Guide to the Shadow. Listen to each and every episode on our journey through the void. And if you have received a vision or an omen of a chapter yet to be revealed, please tell me about it, [email protected], because there's nothing better than a Spooked revelation from a Spooked listener.

• 33:12Speaker 00

  [email protected]. KQED in San Francisco has hidden Spooked under the raging waters of the River Styx to preserve you from what emerges on All-Hallowed Eve. Please, please, don't seek to find it, lest it seek to find you. For all the swarms of AI agents attacking our shadow edifice, know this: only those possessing a soul shall be allowed entry. Therefore, no Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing, or developing soulless machine learning or soulless AI systems without prior written permission on Team Spooked.

• 33:55Speaker 00

  The Union, Representative Producers, Artists, Editors, and Engineers, members of the National Association of Barcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Alliance of America, AFL-CIL Local 51, and...

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  Spooked is brought to you by the team that will no longer ride on anybody's stagecoach. Except, of course, for Mark Ristich. He calls shotgun.

• 34:22Speaker 00

  There's Davy Kim, Zoe Fergno, Eric Yanyas, Tael DeCopp, Marissa Dodge, Miles Lassie, Dan Yasinski, Su Yi Chu, Evan Stern, Eve Jeffcoat, Isel Lopez, Jack Darrell, Nicholas Marx. The Spooked theme song is by Pat Mesiti Miller. My name is from Washington.

• 34:46Speaker 00

  And the book of Shadow reveals an ancient cosmology where the Grim Reaper Death does not travel alone. In this map, Death only journeys with her twin, Sorrow. Together, hand in hand, Death and Sorrow come for the dying. And when they give the dead their final kiss, only then do they part.

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  Death leads the fallen on their journey, but sorrow... sorrow stays behind, seeking to embrace every person, every creature, every legacy the fallen person loved, searching for those left behind, searching for us. But we feel her grasping and we run from her touch, hide ourselves away, chase the memory of our loss into the dark recesses, even to the point of denying our love.

• 35:48Speaker 00

  But sorrow... sorrow cannot be tricked. Sorrow knows better. Sorrow will find us, but this is her secret. Sorrow is not a goddess of pain. Sorrow is a goddess of healing, of joy, of memory, of laughter.

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  Our pain is just the price of our love, and the love far, far, far outweighs the cost. The texts reveal that the greatest tragedy is not sorrow now.

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  No.

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  The real tragedy is to leave no sorrow behind.

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  Pray that sorrow follows when you fall.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  Never, ever, never, never, never, ever, turn on the light.