Unholy Water - Classic

Ever feel like there is something in the water? Something sinister, something dark, something more powerful than you?

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

• 0:01Glynn Washington?

  Did you ever feel like there's something in the water? Something sinister, dark, something powerful? Well, all I can do is tell you what happened to me.

• 0:17Glynn Washington?

  From Snap Judgment's Underground Layer, you're listening to Spooked.

• 0:23Glynn Washington?

  Stay tuned.

• 0:33Glynn Washington?

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

• 0:41Glynn Washington?

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

• 0:46Speaker 01

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

• 0:53Speaker 02

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

• 1:02Speaker 03

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

• 1:13Speaker 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.

• 1:25Glynn Washington?

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

• 1:36Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so I want to tell you a story back from when I believed. It's a story I think about often, often. And before you ask, yes, it's all true. My name is Ben Washington, and Spook starts now.

• 2:07Glynn Washington?

  So we, my father, my mother, my little brother, and I, we stand on our newly purchased patch of Michigan farmland. The double-wide trailer home waits, still wrapped in plastic, a pair of boots sticking out from under it. The boots are moving because the man ain't dead. He shouts out that he's almost finished, putting the last touches on the plumbing. Wiry, sunburnt farmers standing around, some spit into Pepsi cans, others blink back at their new black neighbors. Then the man with the clipboard tells my pops, "First things first, Bill.

• 2:49Glynn Washington?

  First things first, most important thing, more important than power, more important than sewers, water." He waves a few slow-motion insects away with his clipboard. It's too hot even for mosquitoes. See, you're not just gonna last out here without something to drink. It ain't like down there in your big city. There is no system to hook into here, see? So I take a delivery of calling Charlie here to dig you a well. Pinch-looking character nods his greeting. Of course, you'll make arrangements with Charlie directly, but Charlie's a fair man. My father looks at clipboard man hard. Took all we had to get this trailer here. Supposed to be all-inclusive.

• 3:34Glynn Washington?

  Charlie smiles tight. Clipboard man smiles tight, too. They all switch to speaking low voices. Farmers lean, first on one leg, then on the other. Finally, Charlie reaches out his hand. My father looks at the hand for a long while. I see him calculating, calculating, calculating, before he sticks out his brown hand to grasp Charlie's white one. Charlie shakes, nods, then turns around and starts unloading equipment from the back of his pickup truck. Charlie speaks in a voice loud enough for everybody to hear.

• 4:17Glynn Washington?

  I only drill where you tell me to drill. So if you don't tell me where to drill, I don't drill. You point me where you think the water is. And I think what he's saying is that every time he digs a hole, he gets paid, whether he hits water or not. The farmers, they start shouting advice like they're on The Price is Right. Do it over there by the willow. Drill close to the trailer. Shit, they can't move the trailer. Have them drill where all them cattails are springing up. That's where the water is. Pops doesn't even look at my mother when he points to an indentation in the ground. Right there.

• 5:02Glynn Washington?

  Drill right there. Charlie sets up his drilling equipment, a squat antique contraption. He flips, nods, and sets weights before sticking a long metal rod into the top, turns a hand crank on the side several times, and machine rumbles away, huffs, and sets in to pushing the rod inch by inch into the Michigan dirt. Farmers socialize under the engine noise. Charlie watches his drill like a mother. One hand on top of the machine, other hand pressed to the ground, making sure nothing breaks, nothing pops, nothing shatters, nothing bings. Not too fast, girl.

• 5:47Glynn Washington?

  Not too fast now. Machine pushes the tube straight down, deep, deep, deep, deep, slow, slow, slow. Finally, there's no more pipe left. Everyone waits for Charlie. Charlie checks and rechecks. Then he shakes his head. Nothing. And if you know him, you can see that tickle of panic start to creep into my father's face. Again, the farmers start in with the advice. Right there in the depression, follow the root system, it knows. My father, more careful this time, points to a different patch of ground. My mother bows her head in prayer.

• 6:32Glynn Washington?

  Charlie moves his equipment, starts drilling again. We wait. Then once more, Charlie shakes his head. He drills a third time, and for the third time, he hits dirt. Our new neighbors mill around with an oh, no look, understanding the fix we're in. This next drilling may be our last chance. Then a gray hair says, "It's past time to go get Kriegel. Get Kriegel." And a scent fans back through the farmers, "Kriegel, Kriegel, go get Kriegel." One goes off in a truck, and not 15 minutes later, an older farmhand, faded denim overalls,

• 7:17Glynn Washington?

  prances out of the passenger door like he's the master of ceremonies. Some people clap. This Kriegel is a man sporting a John Deere cap like everybody else, but he's got a swagger step like nobody else. Lean forward. I hear y'all need a well witchin'. Well witchin? I remember Exodus 22:16 from Bible study. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." But instead of a sermon, Pops sets his face, walks over to Kriegel, kind of nods when he thinks my mother is turned away.

• 8:01Glynn Washington?

  Well, that ain't no problem, no problem at all. Kriegel hops over to a willow tree, takes out a pocket knife, and cuts himself a sapling shaped like the letter Y, and stripping bark off each tip of his stick. He grins like he's holding back a secret. You know what? It was a colored who taught me this, so I'm doing this one free of charge. Farmers laugh. Kriegel skips around the trailer, each hand gripping part of the Y-shaped stick, one end sticking out in front of him. Kriegel points it right, points it left, points it right. Hey, water, water, come here, water. Hey, water, come here, water. Hey, water, here, water. Hey, come here, water. Where's water? Where's water?

• 8:46Glynn Washington?

  Where's water? Waves the stick around like it's sniffing something to bark at. And I'm thinking maybe he drank something beside water on the way over. I look over at my dad, knowing that he's about to blow. How dare this crazy person act a fool in the middle of our seriousness? What is that now, water? Hey there, water, water, water, cold water, cold water, cold water. Hey, water, water, water, hey, water. The stick leaps straight down to the ground like an invisible hand grabbed hold of it.

• 9:19Glynn Washington?

  Gotcha. There's your water right there. It's so fast. The stick moves so fast. I saw it, but it's a trick. I can do some tricks. It's a good trick, but it's a trick. It's something with his hands. I know he's got to do something with his hands to make a stick jump like that. Kriegel looks at me, looking at him, and he laughs. Come here. He sets the stick in each of my hands, and I'm scared because I don't want to know real magic. Real magic is of the devil, but I have to know how he made that stick dance.

• 9:59Glynn Washington?

  And I understand that my mom and my dad, they're gonna stop me, but they stand frozen, stuck, allowing the white folk free rein over our new property. Kriegel shows me how to hold the stick in front of my body, waist-high. Just like that. He walks with his hips out front in a copy, moving like he does. We'll see. Some folks got it, some folks don't. I think maybe now he'll whisper the trick in my ear when no one's looking, so I hold the stick tight, tight, tight, tight in both of my fists.

• 10:39Glynn Washington?

  I feel silly and grin back at the farmers, but I hear a hum. The stick feels like it's almost shivering, trembling. I hold it tighter. Here, water, water. The stick twitches alive, whipping, riding like Satan's own tail, sends a charge through my arms and plunges towards the ground so fast. The bark strips off in my hand. I fight the stick pulling back as it stretches for the earth with tussle, and I let it leap to the ground, and it lies there, waiting. You're a natural.

• 11:22Glynn Washington?

  Rising blood, the farmers cheers. My rolling insides buzz together in my ears. What just happened? No way did this just happen? I snatch the stick up again and start from behind the trailer. It comes to life at once, riding like a snake, pulling me back toward the same spot, then leaping out of my hand. Look at that boy! My father turns his back. My mother continues mouthing prayers. My brother leans away from where I stand. Charlie sets his equipment. And this time, the drill tube slides into the ground like oil.

• 12:06Glynn Washington?

  The engine barely strained. Easy, easy, easy, deep, deep, deep, deep.

• 12:36Glynn Washington?

  Everyone looks to see, except Kriegel, who lays on his back, grimming up at the clear blue sky, not a care in the world. Then, water. Cold, clean, delicious water bubbles from the drill, just like Kriegel said. The farmers holler and reach to touch Kriegel like he's the new pope.

• 12:59Speaker 03

  Happy to help, folks. Happy to help a new family, no matter what color they are.

• 13:06Glynn Washington?

  Charlie sets a pump over the well, hooks it up to the trailer, and we run inside and push up the handle on the new kitchen sink. The pipe burbles, spits air, then water rushes through our fingers. My brother laughs, but my mother recoils. Mama. She doesn't look at me. Mama. Now, there won't be electricity for another day or so. Flipboard man says, but you'll manage. Neighborhood ladies, they bring us casseroles. You people eat regular food, isn't that right?

• 13:49Glynn Washington?

  My mother thanks them all as they get back into cars and trucks to leave us alone in her trailer in the woods. My father inspects each room, knocks on the walls, complains about the shoddy nature of the fake wood paddling and the way workmen left mud all over his brand-new trailer carpet. But I can tell he's almost happy. He doesn't say anything about it, neither do I. As the sun goes down, we sit in the dark, try to eat something called tuna fish casserole with creamed corn. I don't say anything, because I'm older. My little brother whines. My mother says, "We have much to be thankful for."

• 14:31Glynn Washington?

  And she appreciates the nice white ladies and promises to go shopping for real food tomorrow. In the bathroom, I brush my teeth in the dark with toothpaste and the brand-new water. My little brother and I crawl into the same bed. I think about magic and whether I'm a witch now. I fall asleep. I wake in terror, feel the entire trailer shaking, hear sobbing. I wonder if I'm having another one of those dreams. Then my brother grips my arm next to me, and I know it's real. I want to be the big brother, to fight the monster, but I'm too scared to move.

• 15:16Glynn Washington?

  Our bedroom door glides open, seemingly of its own accord. A whisper. "Get up." We cling to each other tighter, trying to peer through the dark. "Get up!" In the moonlight, my father lurches wild-eyed, his face twisted, panicked. We jump, run after him into the black through the door, him bumping blind, staggering, hands outstretched in the dark. Through the living room shadow, I see my mother already bent over the couch in prayer. Satan came to me in the nighttime, boys. I saw him look at me dead in the eye. He told me, "Since we drank his water, we're never gonna see God's sunshine again, never

• 16:01Glynn Washington?

  gonna see it." My skin burns, hellfire hot. I know it's my fault. We have to pray, boys. We have to pray right now. We have to pray and make the devil a liar. I have to make this right. I drop to my knees next to my mother, who still won't turn toward me. "Please, Lord, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Lord. Please let my family see the sunshine again. Don't trap them, Lord." The cries, pleas, the moans of my family wail like an evil wind through the living room, breaking in rhythm to my own. My brother wraps his arm around my neck, tight, tight, like he knows who's to blame and doesn't care. He shout, "You can't have my brother, devil!" And I sob. I'm so ashamed.

• 16:46Glynn Washington?

  Please have mercy. Hours pass. I drift in and out of acidity, my face sticky with tears and snot. The darkness trembles. Then through our living room window, rays of orange and red stretch through the silhouetted treetops. Together, we stop and watch glory color the Michigan sky. Then we reach for each other. My father, my mother, my brother, all of us weeping, laughing, holy, victorious.

• 17:25Glynn Washington?

  We shake our fists at the sky, rebuking Satan in Jesus' name, and shout praise. My mother sings, "Walk with Thee," in a loud, pure voice, and we all join in. I am weak, but Thou art strong. Jesus keep me from all wrong. I'll be satisfied as long as I walk. Let me walk close to Thee.

• 18:06Glynn Washington?

  We are chosen, blessed, nestled in the embrace of my family. I am thankful to know that our God loves us so much that He would even sanctify the devil's water. So here's the setup. Three college women go camping in New Mexico to relax, right? Relax? Well, it's not going to be a relaxing type of trip. Spooked.

• 18:47Speaker 03

  The original plan for the vacation was to take a long weekend to the Manby Hot Springs, right on the bank of the Rio Grande Gorge. We decided to set up camp before it got too dark. The springs were really quite hot, and it was very pleasant. Each one of the pools had a few people already in there, and as we got in, more and more

• 19:26Speaker 03

  people started leaving until we were pretty much the only ones in there. There was one other person, a man who was down there with his dog. He looked like a mountaineer. He was wearing a long, brownish-gray coat and some hefty boots. We were in the pool and not wearing many clothes at all, and I almost kind of got the feeling he was just waiting for us to get out. The look on his face was almost vacant, like he was asking questions but not really paying

• 20:08Speaker 03

  attention to the answers. The dog kept walking around and around the hot spring, but the dog was acting peculiar in the way that, as it was walking around, to each one of us, it would kind of rub up against us. It wouldn't be showing affection. It didn't feel like an affectionate nuzzle. The man pulled a bandana or handkerchief out of the inside of his coat, and with that, he rubbed the length of the dog's side, and then he put it back inside of his jacket.

• 20:44Speaker 03

  And he looked at us and he said, "See you later, girls."

• 21:02Glynn Washington?

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• 21:57Speaker 03

  Once he was out of earshot, my friend said that dog was trained to pick up our scent.

• 22:04Speaker 03

  My mind was saying, he's planning on coming back. We have our tent here. It's clear that we're spending the night. There's one trail out of here that leads to our car, which is now an almost empty parking lot. Like, there was nowhere we could go. Either he was gonna be up there, waiting for us if we left, or he was gonna come back down at some point in the night. And panic was starting to set in.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  I was going through my bag to put on my warm clothes, and I grabbed the knife. At that moment, one of us noticed a beam from a flashlight was bouncing back down the trail. And we really just looked at each other, didn't say a word, and all three of us just started running. The Rio Grande Gorge is 90 miles, and there's no crossing of the river. There's no bridges. There's no foot crossings. There's no places where you can jump across rocks or anything. So we started climbing up the side of the bank walls. This is really dangerous terrain.

• 23:18Speaker 03

  My hands are just digging into cactus needles and pulling on any type of shrub or branch I can grab onto.

• 23:29Speaker 03

  Felt like we got up the side of that mountain with unbelievable speed. My two friends were scared and anxious, and I also was. And so I said, "It's really good that we just did that. We're here. It's okay. We just need to rest, catch our breath." Right when I was doing that, we heard the dog barking. We looked in the direction of the dog barking, and we saw the flashlight beam coming towards us. We just took off, running.

• 24:06Speaker 03

  It was in the middle of the national forest land, and we could see some lights from the city in the very, very far distance. It looked like it was a house. Somebody said that would be the help that we could get. So we just started running to the light. Going up and down these hills, I would just sprint up to the top of the hill, and then I would just roll down to the bottom. It felt like a quicker way to get to the bottom of the hill. I just felt like rubber.

• 24:48Speaker 03

  Very, very limp rubber in all of my limbs. My heart was pumping. My lungs just felt like they were bleeding. My breath, it just burnt every breath. Incredibly, incredibly exhausting. I'd turn around, and, you know, sometimes I'd see a flashlight, sometimes I wouldn't, but I could always hear that dog barking. It just was a consistent bark that never really seemed to get any closer. And it began to feel like my heartbeat. The dog still had our scent wherever we would go. So I had my pocket knife in my breast pocket,

• 25:29Speaker 03

  and I just kept thinking, the dog would be the first thing to get to me. All I could think is I would just take my pocket knife, and I would just stab the dog in its eyeball. I was thinking to myself, if the man caught up, my option would be to do the same to him, to slit his throat. You know, in movies, when people, they're running, or they're being chased, or they're in these life-threatening situations, and they just stop because they're exhausted. I always thought that was ridiculous. I always thought that when you're in that situation, you will always have reserves,

• 26:09Speaker 03

  that there will always be something more in you, and more in me, to push me through and survive. And I remember thinking that, but I was wrong. It's really, really hard to keep going.

• 26:25Speaker 03

  It was probably a good hill or two behind my other friends, who were moving a lot quicker than I was. And my good friend and roommate, she would look back and very frantically and desperately whisper and encourage me on, and say, "You can keep going. We just need to keep running." I didn't think I was gonna live.

• 26:50Speaker 03

  I pulled my friend back to have her give my goodbyes.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  I said, "Tell my parents and my brothers that I love them."

• 27:07Speaker 03

  She said, "You can tell them yourself. It's gonna be fine. We just need to keep running. You're gonna be fine. We're just gonna keep running."

• 27:16Speaker 03

  And that's when she grabbed onto my arm. And for most of the rest of the run, she was either holding my hand, holding my arm, or really close to me.

• 27:29Speaker 03

  We did get there, and the three of us were all just sobbing in exhaustion and fear. We were pounding on the door, and the owners came down. They asked what we needed. They got us water. We were just trying to process what had just happened.

• 27:51Speaker 03

  While we were doing that, the man paused and was staring out the window. He closed the curtains. He said, "Everyone, like, get down on the ground." He told us that when he had looked out the window, he had seen a car that had its high beams on, that just was pretty erratically just driving in circles, and driving, backing up, moving forward in all directions with the high beams on.

• 28:29Speaker 03

  There was somebody out there who was looking for something.

• 28:34Speaker 03

  He said, "Call the police, like, right now, and the three of you, tell me exactly what just happened out there."

• 28:43Speaker 03

  The next morning, one policeman picked us up and drove us to where we left the car. And then he walked down with us, down the switchback trail, to where our tent was. Circling the tent was a set of male footprints.

• 29:04Speaker 03

  At that point in time, I didn't camp for a while. I didn't want to hike for a while. I had fear by myself. I had fear with female friends.

• 29:15Speaker 03

  Now, this is ruining my relationship with the wilderness. A close friend of mine suggested that I talk with the tarot card reader to get a different perspective.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  I was open-minded, but with a healthy amount of skepticism. We just had our own quiet place at this park along the creek. I was really holding my cards close to my chest and really not exposing too much. And so when she, out of the blue, said New Mexico, that really was the shift.

• 29:55Speaker 03

  I told her a short version of the story, my experience of it. And she said, "If the dog wanted to reach you, it would have. But what it did instead was warn you about the man, and keep you on the go, and keep you alert to what you needed to do to stay safe." I remember at first, I go, "Well, I don't know. Not really."

• 30:26Speaker 03

  But then I sat with that, and I thought about it. And the dog, at any point, could have caught up with me. There's no doubt about it. There's no way that dog, you know, was slower than I was. It could have caught up with me, but it never did.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  It was something that I think I had subconsciously acknowledged. You know, like, I just never, it was the one piece I could never understand. Why did the dog never catch up?

• 31:07Glynn Washington?

  Big thanks to Brio Kane for sharing her story of Spook. On the next Spook, a group of kids meet a spirit through a Ouija board who says she's offering assistance. Be afraid.

• 31:21Glynn Washington?

  Look at the stories we have for you, but you want to hear the stories you have for us. Hit us on the Spook line. Let us know your story. Record onto your phone, device, thing, and send it to spookpodcast.org.

• 31:39Glynn Washington?

  Our Monster Mash team includes Mark Ristich, Eliza Smith, Liz Mack, Anna Sussman, Jasmine Aguilera, Tail the Cotton, Jody Colley. Original music by Pat Masielli Miller, Leon Morimoto, and Renzo Goryo.

• 31:57Glynn Washington?

  That Spook beam music was by Pat Masielli Miller.

• 32:04Glynn Washington?

  Make no mistake, mysterious forces are at work. Be afraid. Spookpodcast.org. Hit me on the Twitter, the Instagram, the Facebook, SpookPod. Don't forget, the Gullens are made of clay. Ghosts reside in two places at once. Demons always have tales. And angels, well, angels don't come here anymore.

• 32:35Glynn Washington?

  That's why my strong advice to you, and to the people you care about, is to never, ever, never, ever, never, never, ever turn out the lights.