I'm Not Your Brother

Luis lives with his mom in La Huerta, a quiet village near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. One night he hears a voice calling his name... and it's very familiar.

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

• 0:08Glynn Washington?

  I am my brother's keeper. That's what I vowed to be, but while I watched my brother, Shadow, watch for me. You've crossed over, he's spooked. Stay tuned.

• 0:35Speaker 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.

• 1:09Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so what I did was wrong. And I'm not proud of this, right? Actually, you know what? I'm kind of proud of this because in high school, this was an odd day. A very odd day because I get home from school and instead of the usual chaos, the craziness, there's no mom, there's no dad, no sisters, no hangers-on. The house is quiet, tranquil. I go downstairs to the bedroom I share with my brother and there he is, napping peacefully on the lower bunk bed after what I assume was a long day. Do I leave him be and quietly exit the room?

• 1:54Glynn Washington?

  No. Now, this is wholly impossible. I am the older brother and this is both an opportunity and a responsibility. I take it very seriously. No, instead, I push my awake face right next to his sleeping one, less than an inch away from his ear. I take a deep breath.

• 2:25Glynn Washington?

  Then I shout at the top of my lungs, "Get up! Get up!" His head pops up and slams against the upper bone. "Get up," I said. Murderous rage. "What is your problem?" "Y-you don't understand." I tell him, "Jesus has returned." "Huh? Jesus, fool. Jesus was here. Mom and dad took off with him. The rapture's happening right now." Horror on his face. "What? Jesus?" Ain't much time. I told Jesus, "You'd meet him at the 7-Eleven, but you gotta go now. Huh? Go! Quick as you can." No time to argue. He leaps out of the bedroom, up into the garage, jumps on his bike, and starts pedaling away with a speed. "Hurry! Hurry!"

• 3:10Glynn Washington?

  So then, it makes me a snag. Peanut butter and jelly, watch a little TV, chilling. My mom, dad, baby brother, sister, return from the grocery store. Mom starts cooking. I help my sister with her homework. Then mama's like, "Where's your brother at? It's almost time to eat." Hmm.

• 3:36Glynn Washington?

  Midway through dinner, he comes in, boiling with anger, with fury, with shame. "Where you been?" Mama asks. Now, he can't really say nothing, 'cause he ain't a snitch, right?

• 3:53Glynn Washington?

  So he mumbles at my parents, hisses at me, and heads off to plot his revenge.

• 4:02Glynn Washington?

  I think about this, often.

• 4:06Glynn Washington?

  My brother with his bicycle, how scared and afraid he must have been, waiting alone at the 7-Eleven for any sign of his savior. No Snickers bars, no Steels, just standing by the slurkey machine under the fluorescent lights, knowing the world had come to an end, hoping Jesus would not forget him like our pastor promised.

• 4:33Glynn Washington?

  I think about this, that frightened boy, and I laugh myself wretched, just like older brothers everywhere.

• 4:57Glynn Washington?

  Spook Starts.

• 5:03Glynn Washington?

  Now.

• 5:44Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so picture this. You're just 12 years old. Living with your moms in a big house in a small village near Puerto Vallarta. You're both sleeping. And you're definitely not expecting any guests tonight, but... Well.

• 6:00Glynn Washington?

  Fernando Hernandez brings us the story of Luis Peña. Spooked.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  It's almost 3:30 in the morning. And Luis Peña is in his bed, sleeping.

• 6:31Speaker 03

  The only thing you would get to listen to is crickets in nature or wind.

• 6:40Speaker 03

  I'm pleasantly sleeping. And then I hear my brother Álvaro calling me. "Mega, Mega, wake up. Wake up, please."

• 6:52Speaker 03

  Against my wheel, I wake up and I see him right there. It's his voice, his thin, tall silhouette. He's just there, laying on the doorframe as he usually does.

• 7:10Speaker 03

  I'm like, "What's going on? What do you want?" He's like, "What are you doing?" And I tell him, "Well, I was asleep until you woke me up, you asshole."

• 7:27Speaker 02

  Oh, to have a big brother. But yeah, Luis's brother, Álvaro, was infamous for dropping by in the middle of the night. But the thing is, Álvaro was not supposed to be home that particular night.

• 7:42Speaker 03

  And I tell him, "I thought you were gonna be waiting for Michaela in the bus station to go and pick her up. So what are you doing here?" And he says, "I'm not your brother."

• 7:56Speaker 03

  And then I just have this freaky moment of realization. And I start shaking and I'm even afraid to ask him, "So who are you?" And the only thing he does is laughing.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  He started disappearing by his waist.

• 8:24Speaker 03

  And then boom, he's all gone. He just vanished completely.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  I stopped breathing. It took me two, three seconds to just come back to myself.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  Luis cubiert su cabeza con un almohadón y espera hasta que su mamá se despierte a las 6 de la mañana.

• 8:49Speaker 03

  Ella va a mi habitación. Ella me ve allí, estancado y llorando. Y me preguntó: "Miho, ¿qué está pasando? ¿Estás bien?"

• 9:03Speaker 03

  Y yo dije: "Había este espíritu que pretendía ser mi hermano." Ella solo dijo: "Estás tan relajado." "No, no, no, no. Cálmate. Fue un sueño, fue un sueño. Estabas a la mitad de dormir. No era un fantasma. Así que vete a dormir y va a estar bien."

• 9:26Speaker 02

  Luego, dos semanas después, de nuevo a las 6 de la mañana, su mamá entra a su habitación. Pero esta vez, ella es la que está estancada.

• 9:37Speaker 03

  Y ella dice: "Miho, ¡despierta, despierta!" Y yo dije: "¿Qué está pasando?" Y ella dijo: "Vi a él. Vi a él. Así como dijo, como el silbato de tu hermano. Y tenía la misma voz. Y me dijo: "Por favor, ven. Quiero mostrarte algo." Así que simplemente lo seguí.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  La mamá de Luis siguió este silbato a la cocina, su corazón poniéndose en su pecho. Pero en un vistazo de un ojo, ya había ido. Ya estaba afuera, caminando por el patio trasero.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  Ella dijo: "Y luego vi a él seguir caminando y de repente desapareció en las sombras."

• 10:54Speaker 03

  And as my mom keeps telling me this story, I was kinda drowning in emotions because it was a combination of shock and at the same time, joy because I was not the only one experiencing it.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Luis's mom knew they had to do something. So soon after this night, they went to a church. After mass, she pulled the priest aside for a hushed conversation, while Luis waited nervously outside.

• 11:29Speaker 03

  What this priest told my mom is that there's this demon or entity that usually picks the weakest person or the weakest soul in a family and that's the person they impersonate because they want to take their place in that family.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  But this explanation wasn't what she wanted to hear. So she got a second opinion from a spiritist that lived nearby.

• 12:00Speaker 03

  And funny enough, he tells my mom the same thing that the priest told her. He told her that usually this person is the one who always gets in trouble. And he was right, because that's my brother. He's a troublemaker. He's usually picking on classmates, even picking on teachers. As for me, he's always bullying me. He's always picking on me or giving me nicknames like "mega."

• 12:32Speaker 03

  So what the priest and the spiritist told my mom is that we had to close all of the windows and alternative exits in my house, light up everything with candles, but also adding salt, salt puffs that led the ghost or the entity to the exit, to the main door of the house, and asking this entity politely to leave.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  So that's what they do. A couple of days later, Luis and his mom gathered candles and proceeded with this cleansing ritual. But they decide not to tell any of this to Álvaro. Why make him worry?

• 13:15Speaker 03

  We had to open all of the windows and all of the doors. They were at least twenty, thirty candles all around the house. Because they had to lead to whatever window or door we had. As soon as we started lighting up the candles, we had to start praying. And we said, "We are showing you the way to leave our house, because this is not your house."

• 13:44Speaker 03

  It was somehow a beautiful spiritual ritual, but at the same time, it was creepy.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  One night, I had this very light sleep.

• 14:00Speaker 03

  I hear a voice, "Mega, mega, wake up, wake up. You're gonna be running late and the teacher is gonna be picking on you."

• 14:10Speaker 03

  When I hear that, I think, "He's back, he's trying to pull at my nerves." And I got the goosebumps.

• 14:20Speaker 03

  Maybe the ritual didn't work.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  Luis couldn't shake the feeling that this thing was back. He told his mom the next day, and she too had enough. It wasn't long before she made up her mind. The whole family, including Álvaro, was moving to Puerto Vallarta to get away from this house.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  When we finally moved to Puerto Vallarta, I felt happy. My brother now seems to be more connected to my mom. He was making more money, he was having new stuff to do.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  Things seemed to be going well for the family. No unwanted nighttime visitor. But after a year of peace, Luis learns that his dad, after many years in the US, was moving back to Mexico, back into the house in La Huerta.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  Álvaro is most excited to hear of this homecoming.

• 15:21Speaker 03

  My brother had always been a daddy's boy, so as soon as he hears the news, he wants to go back to La Huerta with my dad.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  So they live together for a few months, like three months, and everything seems to be fine.

• 15:38Speaker 02

  At this point, Luis still hasn't seen his dad since he moved back. But that all changed on December 24.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  It's early morning. Luis is at home with his mom when he hears a knock at the front door.

• 15:56Speaker 03

  I open the door and I see him there.

• 16:00Speaker 03

  Now he has these gray hairs and very, very thick eyebrows that you see in people when they start to get older. He's also so surprised to see me because now I'm a big boy. And he tells me right away, "You grew up a lot. Now I'm six foot two." We were talking for just a while, you know, about school and friends. And funny enough, 10, 15 minutes later, he asked me, "Hey, son,

• 16:34Speaker 03

  when you were living in La Huerta, did you ever see or hear anything odd or weird?"

• 16:47Speaker 03

  I ask him back, "What do you mean by odd or weird?" So he tells me, "Well, one night it was 6:00 a.m. and I heard someone knocking at the door and calling me, 'Allo, wake up, wake up.' And you know, I thought it was your brother because he was calling me 'Allo.' You're the only people that call me 'Allo.'

• 17:12Speaker 03

  So my dad says, "What happened, son?"

• 17:16Speaker 03

  He looks back to the door and that's where this silhouette of my brother is, in the dark, calling him.

• 17:26Speaker 03

  So he asked him, "Are you okay, son?" And he goes, "Oh, yes, I'm, I'm okay, but I want to show you something. Come with me." So that's what my dad did. He started following the silhouette until the exit of the house.

• 17:45Speaker 03

  And somehow, he sees that this silhouette just disappeared.

• 17:56Speaker 03

  My dad then went to my brother's room and he saw him sleeping. But then, he saw this silhouette behind the window. And this thing was just pointing at my brother while he was asleep. This entity looks just like my brother, so my dad is seeing my brother twice.

• 18:26Speaker 03

  That's the point where my dad thinks, "What the fuck is going on?" He thinks that that thing pointing at my brother is going to kill him. So he runs towards my brother and starts shaking him. And he's like, "Mijo, mijo, mijo." He's crying. And then my brother, all confused, just wakes up. He's like, "What's going on?" And my dad told him, "Oh, my God, I just saw this thing, this silhouette that looks like you, he sounds like you. Are you okay?"

• 19:06Speaker 03

  So my brother just answers, "Oh, I mean, yeah, Nacho and my mom have been telling me that there is this ghost that pretends to be me, but I've never seen him."

• 19:22Speaker 03

  I tell him, "Yes, yes, that's exactly what we've been through." So, because all of this happened, I felt a little relief because not only was me and my mom, it was my dad. My dad asked me, "Why did you never tell me any of that?" And I told him, "Well, you were not living with us and you were not even in the country, actually." And my brother seemed to be doing just fine.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Hearing that Luis and his mom had seen this doppelganger was enough for Luis's dad. He immediately decided to leave La Huerta for good.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  He preferred to rent a house downtown because of how worried he was about my brother and his soul and this thing showing up. So he decided to leave that house behind.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  Yet still, the identity of this thing still haunted Luis. So the next time he visited his grandpa, who had spent his entire life in La Huerta, Luis shared everything that had happened to him and the family.

• 21:12Speaker 03

  I remember he was laying and hanging on a hammock he used to have in his porch.

• 21:20Speaker 03

  And I started telling him, "There was this entity that pretended to be my brother." "I see my grandpa's face and he's just closing his eyes." And he starts telling me, "You know, there used to be this guy called Mr. Santiago Garcia."

• 21:42Speaker 03

  I'm just like, "Who?" He said Santiago Garcia used to be the previous owner of the house. He used to be really tall, like 6'5", very, very thin, and also very sarcastic and annoying. And in many ways, he looked and sounded like your brother.

• 22:11Speaker 03

  Now I had new questions. I thought this was just a spirit impersonating my brother. And then I asked him, "So what happened to him?"

• 22:25Speaker 02

  Luis's grandpa told him the story of a tragic night back in the 1970s that started out as a New Year's celebration.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  On New Year's Eve, when the bells ring, Mr. Santiago Garcia wanted to fire some shots from his favorite gun. That's usually the tradition in some places in Mexico. But he couldn't find his gun. And what his wife told him was that Mr. Angel, one of his neighbors, had stolen the gun.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  So for New Year's Eve, everyone gathers in the main plaza. Everyone's there, and Mr. Santiago sees that Mr. Angel pulls out a gun. He thinks that's his gun. It is identical. When he sees him firing it, he's just raging. So maybe because of the alcohol, he decided to shoot him in front of everyone else in the main plaza.

• 23:33Speaker 03

  After realizing what he just did, he tried to escape. And the whole community wanted to get him because he had just killed a neighbor.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  They chased him and killed him right there, right in his house.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  After Santiago Garcia was killed, his house remained vacant for years until Luis's grandpa bought it. Then he gave it to Luis's father, who tore the old house down and rebuilt a new home on the same forsaken land.

• 24:12Speaker 03

  After hearing the whole story, I felt shocked. My reaction was disbelief. I was telling my grandpa that this entity was always guiding my parents somewhere and that we thought that maybe he was guiding us to some sort of treasure or buried belongings. And my grandpa said, "Even if there was anything buried in there, no one should just discover it because you don't know what you could unleash. There are just some things that are meant to remain hidden."

• 24:56Speaker 02

  Luis says that they have never tried to connect with Mr. Santiago. Even after Dad moved out, they never disturbed the land, never searched for hidden treasures. The land holds dark memories the family would rather forget.

• 25:15Speaker 03

  A year ago, we celebrated my brother's birthday and he seemed so happy. He just couldn't hide his smile when he was blowing up the candles. My brother tells the story of how everyone in the family saw a ghost that pretended to be him. And he says, "You know, my dad was getting all paranoid and odd things started happening to me. So everyone was freaking out and I just remained so calmly." Till this day, he takes it as a joke, obviously because he didn't go through the stress we had.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  I can't believe how you can be so concerned about someone and he's not concerned at all about himself. I mean, I love him. I'm still gonna be here for him. But he's not gonna change. What are we gonna do?

• 26:24Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, Luis, for sharing your story with Spooked. If you'd like to hear a Spanish version of this story, produced by Fernando Hernandez for his podcast, Esto No Es Radio, you can find the link in our show notes. The original score for this story is by Dirk Swartzoff. It was produced by Fernando Hernandez.

• 26:53Glynn Washington?

  Please understand, we here at Spooked are trained professionals equipped to seek voices in the night. So if you have a story that you want to share, but are afraid of any potential unforeseen consequences, not to fear. Let me know. [email protected] Because there's nothing better than a Spooked story from a Spooked listener. The entry to Spooked Studios is a quantum state that blinks in and out of existence, under and above KQED in San Francisco. Don't seek to find it, let's get seek to find you. We've got the special incantation from Spook Legal, reading that no Snap Studios content may be used for training,

• 27:37Glynn Washington?

  testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. Spooked is brought to you by the team that eats vegetarian several times a week. Except for Mark Ristich, who eats vegetarians several times a week. On Team Spooked, the union represented producers, artists, engineers, are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIL Local 51, and there's David Kim, Zoe Frigno, Eric Ganes, Teal Decot, Marissa Dodge, Miles Lassie, Su Yichu, Evan Stern, Eves Jeffco, Ischa Lopez, Jack Darrow, and Doug Stewart.

• 28:21Glynn Washington?

  The Spooked theme song is by Pat McSedee Miller. My name is Glynn Washington. And Jim Rohn, the American entrepreneur, said something like, "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with." And I consider this, do I credit the people who embrace me? Or do I shame them?

• 28:45Glynn Washington?

  Chris Rock said something like, "If ten regular guys hang out with one Nazi, you've got eleven Nazis." Because you've become who you stand next to. You've become who you allow to stand next to you. Your circle of associates is a signal, it's a sign, a warning, an invitation, and it's interesting then to watch so many of us express allegiance to the very worst amongst us, sporting signals, identifiers, sigils that say, "I am on the side of the monster." "I am Team Dark Mask in the night." We wear the raiment, we wave the flags,

• 29:29Glynn Washington?

  and twist every slight against the monster into an attack against ourselves. Instead of becoming our brother's keeper, our neighbor's keeper, we become a monster's keeper. All of this suggests that if you are the five people you spend the most time with, choose wisely. And never, ever, ever, never, never, ever, ever, ever turn out the lights.