Otherworld - Episode 18: Meredith's House Part 2

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

Meredith continues her story from Episode 17, this time she finally discusses the event she originally emailed me about. Her cell phone began making calls and sending typing messages on its own. Eventually, it began happening to the phones of people close to her. All of this led up to a situation in a Best Buy parking lot where Meredith and Jordan spoke to something, seemingly supernatural, on her phone that specifically wanted to communicate with Jordan.  At the beginning of this episode, we are joined by Jacques Gonsoulin who tells us about his very extensive experience with the drug DXM. Jacques cohosts a podcast of his own called Seeking Derangements. Thank you Jacques for joining and making Meredith laugh it was very much needed.  To see photos related to this episode, click here Subscribe to Otherworld on Patreon for exclusive content and bonus interviews Check out our Merch Follow us on: Instagram, TikTok, Twitter  If you have experienced something paranormal or unexplained, email us your full story at [e-mail] Original Score in this episode by Juice Jackal. The song in the outro is "Forgotten Names" by The Reds, Pinks and Purples To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Otherworld. I'm your host, Jack Wagner. Previously, in Meredith's house, part one, we met Meredith and heard the very complicated story of her life that intertwines an extremely terrible home environment and the paranormal. If you haven't heard, you should definitely go back and listen to part one first before listening to this. Now, just to recap, back in high school, three of Meredith's friends played with a Ouija board one night, and the planchette ended up flying across the table towards a guy named me. Jordan. Later on is kind of a prank, the other two friends put that Ouija board in Jordan's trunk, but he never ended up finding it. Jordan and Meredith ended up dating later on in life. At the end of the last episode, Meredith had just finished describing a particularly terrible night where their mom basically tried to kill Meredith with a kitchen knife.

Meanwhile, in the other room, her sister Michael was tripping on a drug called DXX. And before everything started to go bad that night, she saw a shadow figure walk into the room, go over to the bed where she was laying, and enter her body. So, yeah, that's a lot. I know that's a lot. Me and Meredith, neither of us knew a lot about the drug DXM. It's basically cough syrup. So after she told me this story, I suggested on a whim. that we call up somebody I know who's done a bunch of it.

Now, I'm going to be honest with you. At no point did I think this person was going to be able to really give us anything scientific or useful in terms of DXM or the paranormal. I did, however, think that he would probably lighten the mood quite a bit, and I could tell you, Meredith definitely needed it. This was a very long story, she told me, and I think we all needed a break. So, we're going to pick up exactly where we left off last week.

me and Meredith are about to surprise call my friend and also Meredith's sister Michael. Welcome to part two of Meredith's house. You're listening to Otherworld. This might be a bad decision bringing in this guy. But he's also from the south. Perfect. Some people from the podcast might know who this is. Okay. I'm going to call her really fast. She went out rollerblading, but I think she's probably back now because we've been in the for a minute. That is very funny

because the person coming on here also, well, he roller skates, he doesn't roll her blade. That's what she's doing, actually, I think, yeah. She's roller skating? Yeah. My friend's going to freak out when he hears this. Like, honestly, what are the chances? Is there a connection between DXM use

and being an avid roller skater? I asked if she was going to be back soon and she's like, well, we're three miles into the skate and it's like a one-way thing, so she'd have to... She's skating? Like, currently? Skating? Yeah. How... Oh, this might ruin the episode, but it is crazy that we're having two DXM users that are both avid roller skaters join this call right now. Yeah, and I mean, if it ends up being, like, completely not.

I think it's worth trying because it would be funny if it works. Maybe people need a mood booster after this. Okay, he's coming. Okay, awesome. It's really funny. This is major wildcard situation. Jacques. Am I the major wildcard situation? You are the major wild card situation.

Wow. So this is Meredith. We are actually in the middle of doing a story on her that is way too long to explain, but DXM came up. You've done DXM. Is that correct? More than just done DXM,

it was the only drug I've ever been truly physically addicted to. It started off with one large, extra large like bulk size family bottle of vix that I drank in one sip I just guzzled it down and I tripped so hard I was like oh this is amazing I have to do this every day and so this started about for six months where I would go to Walgreens with an empty school bag completely empty and just start from the back of the Delsem row and push every single bottle to my bag. I got to the point where I was drinking 13 bottles of Delcum a day.

And about the third week of me doing DXM every day, I had such a bad reaction. I told my girlfriend at the time to pull over. And as she's pulling over, I just fall into a ditch. And I start vomiting so violently. And when I stand back up, she looks at me and she goes, and my eye had had a sub-congenital hemorrhage. So the answer is yes. You have done DXM before.

Too much. Okay. We now have Michael on the line to, hello. This is... Hi, how's it going? Hey. Hey, Michael, thanks for coming on. Basically, I'm wondering if you could tell us

what happened to you that night. And my goal here is to kind of out if we could decipher between what is a drug hallucination and what could have been something perhaps paranormal. So what do you remember? Yeah. So that night was, I guess I had taken like more than I'd ever taken that night. I was like, let me just like up my dose. I think I thought like everyone was asleep in the house. But I went, I basically almost went into like an unconscious state where I would wake up just kind of periodically. At one point, yeah, I like woke up out of kind of like that state. And I remember feeling like the room was really cold and I was just like really

had like a bad feeling. And like it snapped me out. I almost like sat up straight in my bed. And at that moment like I saw like a shape come across the room. It looked kind of like a like a shadow person. I think Meredith told you we've seen one before in our house. It looked kind of similar. But it like lay like in my chest. And then as soon as it like hit me and I felt it like go in my chest, I just felt like almost like I got knocked back out. And then I fell asleep for like a few more hours until that was when my mom busted in. And I think Maritz probably told you about like some of what happened after with her freak out. And your experience of doing DXM, does that like line up with doing DXM or does that seem like something else is going on?

I mean, to me that seems paranormal way more than it seems like visual hallucinations or some kind of. Because first of all, DXM is a disassociative. you might have quote unquote like trippy effects or whatever but it's a disassociative at the end of the day it's not a hallucinogen I have done 25 hits

of 2CI the research chemical at once and the amount of visuals I had were minimal how much did you take that night I honestly don't remember exactly I guess like my normal dose was around like 16 I was doing triple Cs

which highly recommend against if you do do DXM. But I think I took like 25 that night. So I didn't know if that was why I was, I ended up seeing that and why I was, because it was more visual than it usually was. Like he said, I didn't always get like really intense hallucinations.

So I don't know if it was because I was just taking more that night or yeah, but I had like a really creepy, creepy feeling too. Like that whole night just felt not good. From the trip standpoint, it started off like bad. Just the whole vibe was off, to be honest. It's the kind of drug that you take that you're either going to have a really good time or like the worst time you could ever possibly imagine.

But I mean, I did it every day for six months and thought it was like the greatest time. I did like it. You know, I usually didn't have issues. Yeah. I have a question. Does it usually cause you to like have a fever or like body temperature changes ever?

No. Never. have I experienced that. I did piss myself once from drinking a lot of it, but I was drinking too, so I don't know. I went to McDonald's and I opened three packs of the Mucinex DM pills. And I had already eaten two burgers for McDonald's. And then I had the large Coke. I opened all the pills on the counter and just started swallowing handfuls of them.

and it was like 40 or 50 degrees outside and I started biking around in shorts and a shirt and it started raining. I kept going and then I went to the Jewish graveyard at one point. I locked my bike up and I said, I'm going to start running.

And then I blacked out. And then when I came out of that, I woke up and I was standing in the middle of the Jewish graveyard pissing myself. and I had no idea why. Meredith, I'm so sorry for doing this to your story. No, this is amazing.

This is great. This is great. Okay. So as weird as all of this is, it does seem like, Jacques, you think that what she experienced sounds paranormal, not related to the drugs, even though a lot of strange things happen with the drugs. I know as a fact.

I could see by the way that, her expression or her face is not someone telling a drug story. I also don't think people usually see like fully flush kind of like entities. You might get some visuals, but it doesn't usually have the feeling that a whole person is in your room. Like I thought someone was like walking in my room. It was something to me at least. This has taken a very unexpected turn, wouldn't you say Meredith? For the listeners at home, I would like to point out that Jacques is.

is wearing a pink tie-dye carebear's sweatshirt. It's Lisa Frank, motherfucker. And Michael, it appears you're currently roller skating through the woods. Wait, you're roller skating? Oh, I thought this was already spoken about. Yeah, she called me while I was skating. So I'm kind of out of breath right now.

I'm a giant roller skating. Maybe you guys need to become friends after this, but I'm going to finish up the interview with Meredith. Thank you so much. jumping in. And Michael, I think I want to talk to you eventually later on. Okay, sounds good. Jock, thank you so much for joining. Thanks for having me. All right. See you guys. Bye. Okay, I did not expect that to happen at the end of this interview.

What do we... That is great. I really do feel like him and Michael would get along. Yeah, amazing. Almost seems dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. No? No?

What's talking? We're talking. Yeah, let us know when you're ready. Okay. Okay. So, yeah, my name is Michael. At the time that this all happened, I was doing DXM pretty regularly, pretty much like, I don't know. For probably like two years I was doing it like every other night, like just all the time I was doing DXM.

But the most I had done at that point was still like probably 16. Triple Cs is the form I was taking it in. And then this particular night, I decided I was going to, like, up the dose. It's hard to drift from me to remember some of this because I was kind of fucked up. But I remember just, like, kind of going in and out of consciousness. Like, I would be, like, kind of just laying there and, like, feeling like I was being transported to different areas. And then every now and then I would, like, kind of come back to the room. But, like, it didn't quite look like the room.

But one time when I, like, I woke up with this, like, really weird feeling. And I, like, sat straight up and had the same thing. since, like, somebody was in the room with me. And, uh, sorry, I'm a little nervous. And I also haven't talked about this in, like, so long. Like, she's probably talked about it more than me. Uh, so kind of just revisiting this whole time, it, like, feels fake to me because it was just such a weird time period.

Just between the drugs and, like, just the whole vibe of the house was, like, really weird. But yeah, so I suddenly remember just being, like, taken out of, like, that state I was in where I was kind of, like, half out of it and just, like, lurching out of bed and seeing, like, somebody, like, a figure coming through the door. and like the whole room just feeling like really like cold and weird and then like that figure coming and like laying like into my chest and the moment like it laid into my chest I just like felt like I got knocked like straight back out like of consciousness and then I just like went to sleep for the remainder of the night until my mom busted in the room and then she came in just like on some

like crazy shit and was already like she probably felt me and felt I guess I had like I was like had like a serious fever, but I wasn't really aware of that. So I just remember being like shaken out a bit by my mom and her saying like, you're on fire, like what's going on. And she looking like really scary. Like she was drunk. So of course her eyes were like super bloodshot. But I also remember her arms just looking like really flabby at the top and like looking like they got like really skinny towards the bottom and like really long and like stretching out towards me. And I just remember being, like, so scared, like, by her. Um, so she kind of just, like, running through the house, yelling, like, Michael's on fire and, like, kind of just acting,

like, possessed. You were just kind of laying there. Like, I know we talked a little bit. You were talking about me, yeah, like, talking about, like, what to do with me. Like, you were trying to get her to get off me because they were both kind of trying to, like, protect me, but my mom was making it worse. Yeah. And then I did walk in the kitchen at some point, because I remember you guys that were, like, in the middle of a fight. And, and, you were, like, in the middle of a fight. And then she had like a knife. I don't know how much you've told him of this. I did, yeah.

Yeah, I saw that while I was on DXM. I didn't remember you seeing it. No, I didn't. I remember her in the moment. That was, yeah. Right. And that was kind of like a blur, but I remember her, like, threatening to kill herself or, like, kill you.

Yeah, it was intense. She was at one point, like, banging it into the table, like, just hitting it over and over. We still have, like, marks on that table. at that old house, I'm sure, and saying, like, she was going to kill herself. Yeah. So I was mentioning, like, while I was tripping, like, the whole time the room was, like, kind of changing. And, like, every time I'd wake up, you'd be, like, a different kind of room. Like, so I was getting visuals, like, throughout the trip. But at the one time that I woke up and I had seen that

shape, the room looked normal. So I almost felt like I was coming out of it at that point. Like, when I jerked up, like, everything looked, like exactly like my room. It was, like, coming out of a dream. and I'm thinking I'm in the like, I'm sober now. Like, I'm back to reality. I'm out of the dream. But that's when, like, so the visuals are gone at that point. But then when the, like, but then I saw that shape. So it was like, yeah, it was just kind of weird that that was the only hallucination at that moment was the shadow figure.

Do you think the shadow figure was a drug hallucination or do you think you were seeing something else? I feel like I was saying something else. Like, I just talked to my other roommate right now and he has done DXM and he said the same thing. Like he's like you don't see like people. It's very much like things changing a little bit, not like something that's not there, you know. Yeah. What does it, how does it change? What does it look like?

Just like wobbly, like distorted type of stuff or? Yeah, it depends completely on dosage. So like if you're taking like a small dose, you won't get any visuals. But at the level that I was taking it, you will start to see like changes. But it'll be like at that point I was seeing like. my room. It did look like it was changing landscapes, but also you get a lot of like closed eye hallucinations. So a lot of the time you might think you're hallucinating. It's really like your eyes are closed. You know, I was half that night was just laying in one place. It's a kind of like

ketamine or something where you'll be like stationary and just like laying down the whole trip at a high dose. You can't walk or anything. So a lot of that time your eyes will be like closed and you are just having closed eye hallucinations. So usually it's not as vivid when you open your eyes. you'll see some distortions, like things looking a little, like, wavier than they normally would. Yeah, like, colors kind of bleeding together and lights looking really bright, but I've never seen, like, a person at all. Or, like, thought somebody was there when they weren't. It's not, yeah, usually capable of that.

I think that the most striking part about all this is that, you know, there's a paranormal podcast, of course. so we're over here talking about like whether or not you saw this shadow come into your room, but in the quote-unquote real world outside your room, there's something much scarier going on and very real, you know,

unquestionable with your mom. Right. She was behaving like she had taken something stronger than I had, but she was just on alcohol. What do you think about all of this now that we've talked to your sister and Jacques about the drug stuff? I feel a lot more creeped out about that specific element.

Because, yes, Michael had taken a larger amount than she had before. But I still don't think it's even close to the max dose. I could be wrong on that. You know, I'd have to look it up. But it's like you have Jacques over there saying that you don't get hallucinations. of that level, even on super high doses, like he was taking. And I think just the fact, like, it's so creepy to hear that she, like, sat up, the room looks normal.

And then she saw it. Like, that's just, yeah, I feel way more creeped out. I remember the next day, like, after it happened, we'd been up all night. We were on spring break at the time and just woke up in the morning and we're like, what was that? Like, we were, like, kind of, all right, moving past that. Like, I remember we went to, like, a spring break party at my friend's house and we're just like, we're not going to talk about this anymore.

Or like we kind of discussed it a little bit and then we're like, no, putting that in the in the vault. Like, let's not think about that. We were both just like very shaken and creeped out. We were still like laughing about it though. That's the thing. Like we had such a weird environment that we grew up in from like a family perspective. Like thank God we had each other because I can't imagine having to deal with something like that by myself. but like just being able to kind of be like, well, that was weird and move on.

Yeah. Shocking enough, we have still not talked about what you actually emailed me about. And so we should be circling back to you and your boyfriend Jordan have at this point moved out of the house into a trailer. Yeah. So we ended up moving into this new place. and it was like super peaceful um we didn't have any of the issues that we'd had before like I don't even think they had the bed shaking I'm not totally sure on that um but we definitely didn't like I don't know the vibe was just totally different and keep in mind this is my

first time kind of not living in a haunted house um so it was just I have even though I was like pretty stressed at the time. I had to like, I was going to school full time and I also had really bad insomnia and I was working like the worst call center job. I did like roadside dispatch so everybody who I talked to was like broken down on the side of the road and like pissed off. And so I was like getting up to go to 8 a.m. classes and then getting out of school and going immediately to this job until 1030 at night where I just took back-to-back phone calls from pissed off people and then had to go home and study and only got like maybe four hours of sleep. Like four hours of sleep a night was like good.

You know, I was like, okay, my brain will be functioning tomorrow. But despite all of that, I still have good memories of, I felt like I was in control of my life. You know what I mean? Like I wasn't in a bad environment. My sister had kind of mellowed out at that point, so I wasn't as worried for like safety. And it was like pretty nice. And we didn't have anything paranormal happen until the next thing, which was kind of the main story.

This is the one that I really typically don't tell anybody because people just don't, like they can believe. that a place, an old place could have ghosts or like they can believe that there might be a poltergeist, kind of, not a poltergeist activity. Like, these are things that you see in movies and you hear like, they're common ghost stories. But what happened next was just, I had never heard of anybody having anything like this. So it's one that I don't even tell people who I have known for years. It's something that I just typically don't bring up. Yeah, I've, I've frequented a lot of like forums and stuff where people can share their personal stories. And I've just never seen anybody mention anything similar. So my sister

messaged me. She texted me and was like, hey, our friend, Brittany, is freaking out. She doesn't know what to do. She had just had her first baby. So it was her first night home with the newborn and she was texting somebody and when she looked down at her phone, she hadn't like started typing it out yet, but when she looked down at her phone, she saw the words, fuck me, fuck me, typed into like the message bar and she was like, I didn't write that. So she was just scared. So she texts my sister. My sister's kind of relaying all of this to me. And I tried to call my sister. And I get in touch with her.

And I think I'd have to revisit the original. So I'd shared this story on Live Journal back in 2012 very shortly after it happened. And this happened a couple of times after the fact. But I think that my phone started calling her before I had actually hit button. So I get on the phone with her and we can't hear each other. Like I don't hear, I just have like static kind of. And so we hang up and I'm like, okay, calling isn't working. And we're talking about it over text and she was like, yeah, I couldn't hear you at all. There were really weird noises on the line. And I was like, like, what? She was like, it sounded like, metal scraping

on metal and just like very strange sounds. And I was like, what do you mean? And then I was like, my only point of reference, I don't know if you've played any of the Silent Hill games, but there's like weird in the soundtrack for it. I like the soundtrack a lot, but there's like strange, like, scraping noises. And I asked, like, what do you mean? Like, kind of joking, kind of, like, kidding around. Like, what do you mean, like, Silent Hill? And she said, like, dead serious. Like, yeah, exactly, like, Silent Hill. And so we were just kind of laughing about it, like, oh, weird. But throughout the rest of the night, we found out that our phones had been calling each other.

So when I woke up in the morning, I woke up at some point in the middle of the night and like saw my phone calling hers. But when I checked my call records in the morning, it had called her like 12 or 13 times. And her phone had been doing the same. So at this point I wasn't really freaked out. We were just like, what's going on? This is weird. I was like texting Jordan about it because he had been around in the morning whenever

my phone had been calling hers. But we were talking, I was going to text time, I think, about how hers had also been calling mine. And before I could call him, my phone started dialing him. So this is the first time that it had. Like, I hadn't selected him or anything in my phone. It was like when I thought about calling him. calling him, it called him. And it happened again as well. I went to go check my voicemail, but before I could actually dial, because it was like a little flip phone at the time you had to

call your voicemail in order to listen to it. So before I could think about calling it, it started calling it. And I was just like, okay, that could be like a coincidence, but I was starting to get a little bit more creeped out. And that's worth noting that you had a flip phone. I was going to ask you this is like not, there's no Siri involved or any voice commands or this is back in the day where like you would have had to, to type those texts, it would have taken you to press the button like four times, I assume. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Like, you know, A, B, C, D, like, what was that called?

Like, I don't know, the real old school where you're just doing it on the button pad. Yeah, exactly. And I, at one point, so after I called Jordan, it kept calling him. Or after like I thought about calling him and it called him, whatever, I'm disconnecting it because I'm like creeped out. And then it just like keeps calling him. And at one point I say out loud like, God, like stop it. And it stopped.

But it just kind of hovered over his name and the. contacts. It was like I could see Jordan highlighted in my contacts, but it didn't call him anymore. And so at this point, I'm like, okay, what's going on? And I'm thinking about the fact that this started with a phone as well, because Brittany's phone had had this like text written in that she swear she didn't do. And I guess it is a good point. She probably also had a flip phone. She might have had like a little keyboard, but it's still more like annoying to text somebody and more deliberate than it would be like you didn't have swipe texting or something or autocorrect where it could have filled that in by her just bumping a couple of buttons.

She would have had to type out, fuck me, fuck me, like letter by letter. And she swears she didn't type anything. She hadn't started writing the message yet. She like pulled it up to text somebody and then looked down and it was filled in. So I'm like, okay, this is, I'm creeped out. I go to school, I go to work. And the whole time my phone's just calling my sister and Jordan. And whenever I would like try to pick up the call or talk to somebody on the phone,

I could never hear anything. It was just like silent apart from some static. So whenever I got home after work and was talking to Jordan about it, I was just like, let's go get another phone. So it was a super cheap phone anyway, a little flip phone. So it wasn't like a big investment. I think that the phone, the new phone probably costing it like between $35 and $50. So it wasn't a big deal to get a new one.

I also had the flip phone, but I kind of wanted one with like the little keyboard. A little bit easier to text so that you don't have to hit, yeah, three, one to three hits per button. I could just do one hit per button. So we just decided to go get a phone that night. My phone had probably been calling someone like once every 30 minutes. It seemed to happen in clusters. But yeah, on average, it was probably once every 30 minutes. It was making outbound calls pretty often.

And yeah, my sister's phone was doing the same thing. Not as frequently, though. I don't think her phone was calling mine quite as much, but it was still happening. So Walmart's open 24-7, we decided to just go get a new phone that night. And while we were in the parking lot, we were kind of talking about how weird it was. And I was, like, thinking about how my sister had said that it sounded on her end, like, metal scraping. Like, she said it sounded scary, like, terrible. She was like, I have no idea what it was. It sounded really screwed up. So I decide to call Jordan's phone to see if I can hear on his side what it sounds like. So we have his phone on speakerphone and we're making the call through my phone. So when we first call, we can hear on his side. On his side,

something that sounds like intermittent barking noises, like a loud, like, brough, like that kind of, like just a weird, it's a weird sound. I didn't hear any of the scraping sounds that my sister described, but we can hear something. And it's like, you know, whenever something's super loud, there's a little bit of distortion, it sounded like that. Like, whatever it was was a little bit too loud for the phone to like, yeah, translate it accurately. It was like, loud. It was like, loud and weird. And we're like, okay, that's new. That's not what my sister said she was hearing.

So we start asking it questions. And in between the barking at this point, there's like a background noise that is vague. You can't, like, it's loud. It's not as loud as like the barking sounds. It's loud enough. you can hear it, but it doesn't sound like just like feedback or something. It sounds distinctly like somebody talking. And the voice is like pretty deep. So Jordan was like really antagonistic most of the time whenever it came to the paranormal stuff. I remember my sister actually reminded me of this

because he had told her about it, her and I both. Whenever he first started having issues with his bed shaking and, like, seeing shadows in his house, he was, like, mad that something was messing around with him and felt kind of like he wanted to challenge it. And he would, like, say stuff to it. Just, like, rude, like, what the fuck are you going to do about it? Like, that kind of thing, like, you're just a shadow, like, whatever. And one thing that we both remembered was that he said that at one point when the bed was shaking, he was like, why are you shaking my bed? Like, do you want to fuck me? Is it that you want to fuck me? And he just started jerking off while narrating what he was doing to it, like dirty talking basically to this entity while the bed was shaking. And that was just kind of the sort of person that he was.

Like he wasn't, he felt like I was trying to scare him. So in turn, he kind of wanted to try to scare it or make it uncomfortable. So we were like talking into the phone asking questions, like, who are you? What do you want? Like just stuff like that. But Jordan started being like really, yeah, antagonistic with it. And sorry. This part, I think that I just.

just get like, I feel like nobody's going to believe me. Like, that's just my default. Like, I told you, I don't tell these stories to people. This specific story, I mean, the other ones I've, like, I'll give someone like a little dose of the story, like here or there, like one incident. But this one, I've just basically, I don't tell anybody. But yeah, so we were asking questions. I said, like, hello, nothing happened. Jordan starts, yeah, saying, like, fuck you, what's up, you pussy? Like, that kind of thing. Like, being very antagonistic.

And when that happened, the bark started getting closer together, and the voice started getting, like, louder. Like, it sounded like somebody was yelling back at him. And we're just kind of looking at each other in disbelief. Like, what... Are we?

really like talking to something and the longer it goes on we're like okay we are but we didn't we disconnected so we could talk to each other about it so we hang up and we're just like what is going on like this is definitely something somebody that we're talking to um but we're still in disbelief about it it's just like I don't know um so we call it back again and whenever I talk to it, I get like, the bark starts happening almost in response to what I'm saying. Like, I'll say, who is this? And I'll hear like a barking sound. And it's like, again, it's really loud sounding. And it's just like this, like, r like that. Like, it sounds like some, not even like a person, really. It sounds like more animal than person. But whenever I say,

who do you want to talk to, it starts, like, yelling again. And this, like, this time it's really, like, I don't know, fast and intense. Like, it would be like, and we, again, we can't make out what it's saying, but it has that pattern of speech. And then I'd ask it another question, and I'd get, like, a single bark back. But if I said, who do you want to talk to? it would freak out again. And the same thing would happen when I would pass the phone to Jordan.

If Jordan talked to it, it would start doing this really intense, like, it's yelling. And so we hang up again and we're just like, definitely got to get rid of this phone. But we're just, we can't really wrap our minds around it. We're like, is this some kind of virus? Is this some kind of interference, like phone virus or interference? like, what are we talking to? And it's like we're laughing. Like, we're creeped out, but the whole situation is so absurd that we're just like laughing.

And so we call again. And this time we do the same thing. We're like trying to test it by doing like patterns. You know, like I'm asking it a series of questions that don't relate to Jordan. And then I'll ask it, do you want to talk to Jordan or who do you want to talk to? And each time we're doing this, it is reacting specifically to that question. And it does the same thing if Jordan starts talking into the phone. It immediately just flies off the handle and starts yelling.

And then after probably at least five minutes of doing this kind of thing, it's like it gets impatient with me. And this, like I get chills talking about this part. To this day, it starts barking again, but very, like, it sounds so angry. And it's just like over and over again, and there's banging at the same time. So you hear like, brough, bro, like just like intermittently. And you hear like this super loud. It sounds like somebody banging on metal, like slamming something into metal. And it's just like continuing like that, like this super loud, like beast like yelling

with what sounds like something like slamming on metal. And it doesn't, it does that anytime I'm talking. But if I give the phone back to Jordan, it starts yelling again. And it sounded like it was just like mad that I wasn't letting it talk to Jordan, that I was like asking it these questions and being kind of. of like, yeah, it wanted, we both got the sense that it specifically wanted to connect with Jordan. At some point, while it's doing this just like banging and like terrifying sounding barking, I disconnect. At this point, we are now scared. Before we were like, oh, this is weird, but we've both had

paranormal stuff happened to us, but at this point we're both freaked out. We're still kind of laughing because it's just, again, absurd, but we're like, this is messed up. This is, we were both really, like, shaken at this point. And we just kind of sit and debrief for a long time in the car. Like, we don't really want to, I don't know, it's hard to decide, like, okay, we have, this mystery here like what is this if i get a new phone then maybe we'll never find out you know um but at some point we have to like i can't have my at some point we decide to just go inside and get a new phone like we've called it enough times we felt like we both had confirmation that whatever was going on we were talking to something that was reacting like it could hear us

And it reacted like contextually, like appropriately for what was going on and consistently. So we felt like we had enough proof that we were talking to something or somebody. We both got the sense that we were talking to of something. I've ran it over in my mind so many times. Like, could this have been some kind of, yeah, weird text message-based virus? But even whenever I think about it that way, Who would think to do this specific kind of voice? Or it just seems so specific.

Like, if it was a prank, why would it only care? Like a virus or like a prank? Because it can't just be a virus. If it is a virus, it has to be something that's like connecting us to some actual, like, sentient third party, like a person on the other line who's talking to us. why would that person not want to like freak me out or like antagonize me? Why would it only want to antagonize Jordan?

It was so creepy. And as it escalated, like we became more and more convinced that it wasn't a person just because like the metal noises were so creepy. The like barking sounds, it sounded like a creature. Like it didn't sound like a person. The voice itself was deep. couldn't make out any actual words. I think out of all of the stuff that I've had happened, this one has bothered me the most. Like, whenever I think back on it, I can't match it up to any,

like I said earlier, I haven't experienced, I haven't talked to anybody who's had anything similar. Um, so you get a new phone. The SIM card doesn't. Are you okay? I could see you're like shaking. Yeah, I'm fine. It's, This isn't when I don't think that I've talked about out loud in a long time. And I think this story specifically, if we, like we talked about earlier, maybe there are things that feed on specific, like, negative energies. Jordan was an incredibly negative person. Like, I loved him. I wanted to be able to, like, support him.

But he'd had an extremely hard life. So it's like the same thing that brought us together. Like we'd both had really like hard, complicated lives. We'd both grown up really poor. We had a lot of common ground and kind of bonded over that. But at the same time, the way I handled it was just like with humor and positivity. Like otherwise I would have not made it. You know what I mean?

Like there's I was under so much stress. on top of the family stuff like I mentioned I couldn't even hardly sleep like that alone is torture like not being able to sleep reliably having nightmares and sleep paralysis every night but it was like even during the day my life was like a nightmare so it was all just if I hadn't had if I hadn't had kind of this I don't know attitude that things will get better and like I don't know. If I hadn't been hopeful, then I wouldn't have made it. I would have just given up. But he was like very bitter and very negative to like extreme degrees. So like that ended up breaking us apart. Just our reactions to the same kind of shared traumas that we had.

And yeah, if there's something that feeds on that kind of energy, I can completely see why it would seek out Jordan. And so the implication is just that there's like some other like realm of things that are trying to target humans already going through shitty stuff. That just creeps me out so bad. Like the idea that and at the same time it feels like it must have been at least kind of powerless if it had to try to get through a phone and scare us that way. versus like doing much in person. But yeah, I just... I mean... The more I think about it,

it's like the more upset I get versus, yeah, the opposite. Like, even if there is an explanation, explanation isn't a good one. You told me this a long time ago now, like hours before in the interview, but is that original Ouija board from years ago still in Jordan's trunk at this point

without him knowing? So he sold the car. But it was. was for a while. I think that it was, yeah, because I don't think, I feel like he would have mentioned that if he'd known that that happened and it never came up. He told me the Ouija board story, but he didn't say that his ex had put it in the trunk of his car. So whoever got that car, good luck. I don't know. Okay, we have to take a quick break, but we will be right back. I don't normally like speculator, try to add to the stories, but one thing that, I don't know if you've

heard episode 11, I believe, of this podcast with Sean Johns and Gina, but Gina, yeah, you're nodding yes. Gina made an offhand comment during the interview that just kind of stuck with me that I thought was really interesting and something I've never considered. I asked her why Ouija boards are so bad. And she listed off, you know, a lot of the obvious reasons, like you're calling out, you're like actively inviting the other side to talk to you. But then she also said,

I also think that the spirits have gotten used to using it. They've gotten used to using the board. It's convenient for them. Like they know how to use it now. Which is weird and really unsettled me. Like they're getting good at it. And it makes me think like, what if they're using phones? Yeah, exactly.

You know, it's like... Phones are kind of similar to a VG board. Like, it's got the, I don't know. It's got the letters there. Yeah. And it's, yeah, a communication device or, like, kind of a portal to another person. Like, yeah, yeah. And I think what happens to is that whenever I think about stuff like this,

I think, what if it happens again? And that idea just creeps me out so bad that I get, like, yeah, kind of scared. talking about it. And now I've put so much distance between that time of my life and my life currently that I just, for whatever reason, I don't think it could happen to me again. Like, I feel like I'm not this sort of person that something like that would want to. Um, like, I definitely won't be using a Ouija board anytime soon, like regardless of how I feel like even if I think it's not, I'm not a person anymore that it would target. But yeah, I feel like it's, yeah, it's a lot to, it's a lot to consider. And after I got the, um, the new phone though, I couldn't

use it immediately. The SIM card wasn't right. Like I had to get a new SIM card too or something. So I had my phone for another day or two. I did not do the thing again where I called Jordan's phone. I didn't. I was like, we're done with that. We already got all that we needed to know out of the conversations in the parking lot. But my mom had come to visit my house. I was talking to my mom again at this point after she had kicked me out. And I told her about it. And she was like, oh, that's funny. You know, like she didn't, again, she just had this kind of like attitude. Like, none of it's real. And if it is real, it doesn't matter that much. It's not that serious. but her phone started calling people too.

So her phone called her sister. Her sister's phone started calling people. Like my aunt's phone started calling people. As far as I know, none of them, none of them have mentioned to me that they got like the weird, like, text situation, like my friend who saw, fuck me, fuck me, written on her phone. But they did have the calls.

And like in my mind, that's almost like it's calling people to see if they'll call people to see if they can land on anyone else who has the energy that they're looking for. And when I think about this too, I think about how my friend, she'd just had a newborn. She'd just had something really positive happen in her life. And she'd had a really hard life. She was in an abusive relationship at the time. The guy who she was dating, the father of her kid, is now like he tried to kill his most recent. girlfriend and was like on the run for a while. His parent, his mom was a police officer. So

she ended up actually getting fired because she tried to like hide his location during the investigation and stuff. Like she was not in a good spot in her life, but now she has this newborn. So maybe it was hanging around. And then it tried to get the kind of energy. Like then she's got this baby and it's a positive turn in her life. And then it tries to like incite a reaction out of her to get that negative energy and didn't work. So it starts trying to get back to Jordan. Like I have no idea. But it does seem interesting that the two people who it really like tried to get a reaction out of like it yelling at Jordan on the phone or making me scary noises. And this other girl are both people who were in their, like, they were both in really bad places in their life

or had had that kind of negative energy. So, I mean, I think we got a little detoured, but what happened, you went and just got a new phone? Yeah, I got a new phone and it, like my mom's phone and my aunt's phone continued to do it for a little while. They continued to call each other, but my new phone. didn't. Was your new phone different?

It went back to normal. Did you say that your new phone had like a different type of keyboard? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, what kind? Just like, it was like the top half was a little screen and then the bottom half was all the letters of the alphabet. You know what I mean? Yeah, like a little keys.

Yeah, like a whole quirky keyboard. Yeah. That's very interesting. And you think your family members were also using flip phones? I don't think my mom was. My mom has always, like, she always has a nicer phone than me. Like, I think she got an iPhone pretty early on, honestly. Seems kind of like a theme going through this, doesn't it?

Yeah. Yeah, so after that, neither Jordan nor I had any more incidents. I will say that this whole experience got Jordan, like, super. into the occult. Like, instead of, like, being like, oh, that's messed up. I don't want anything to do with that. He leaned into it really, really heavy. Like, he wanted to contact things.

A couple years ago when I tried to track him down, I managed to find he was a tattoo artist, and I found his, like, current tattooing page and all of his own art that he was making was still extremely, like, occult-themed. So I feel like even all this time, later. He's still into it. I haven't been able to find him since. He never kept like an online presence unless he had to for work. So I haven't been able to find him. But yeah, that was the last,

I didn't end up reaching out to him. I chickened out. We, it ended really badly. And he ended up, like, he'd already kind of burnt a lot of bridges within the local community. So he ended up just leaving. Like he, nobody has heard from him since really. Like, like, a couple months after we broke up, he moved out west and, like, hasn't talked to anybody since then. So when did all of this paranormal stuff stop happening to you? And, like, where did your life go after getting rid of that phone and breaking up with Jordan? So I ended up moving back into, like I said, my mom had moved to Georgia, or like at least just spending most of the year in Georgia. So I ended up moving back into my,

family house. I did have a couple more incidents there, but they were like very benign things. They weren't like creepy. And I never got that same sense that the house, like the house didn't make the noises anymore. It was like everything could kind of, and I'm just connecting too that maybe that was because my mom left. Like now I'm thinking about it in my head and I'm like she had moved out and then the house wasn't haunted anymore. Like that, I'd never considered it like that before. Oh, so you moved back into the haunted house. Yeah, I did.

But it didn't feel the same. No. It was normal. Like, and before, like I said, my friends wouldn't want to come over. Like, they were freaked out. But we just didn't have any of that same stuff going on anymore. The vibe of the place, for lack of a better word, was just like, totally different.

Yeah, I don't know if I want to put the specific part in the podcast, because I feel like it really makes me sound crazy, but just so that you know, the stuff that started, and I don't know if you've had anyone else describe similar situations. I've looked it up. Tons of people seem to, but I had objects just, like, move around or go missing without, like, one of the incidents just to give you an idea was that I,

I took off a shirt while I was getting changed. I looked down. It was gone. I was like, okay, weird. A few hours later, my new boyfriend came over to the house and he was like, why is your shirt in the front yard? And I was like, it creeped me out really bad. But it didn't have that same quality of like being, I don't know. And that kind of stuff happened often.

So another time was like my keys went missing. and I had my mom driving me around places to work or whatever because my keys were gone. I couldn't drive my car. I was like, I don't want to buy new keys because I know they're going to show back up. And I went to bed and I was like, please. Like my mom had given me a deadline of the next day.

Like if my keys, if I didn't have them, she was like, you've got to get a new pair made. I'm done driving you around. And I was like, before I went to bed, I was like, please give me my keys back. I can't afford, like, I'm just talking to my room. Like, please get them back. I can't afford to buy new ones.

And I woke up and they were literally on my bed in front of my face. Like, they were the first thing that I saw when I opened my eyes. So there were little things like that, which to me felt like something was like messing with me, but in kind of a playful way. Like, at one point even, this is going to sound crazy, but it was like it helped me. So I had done a load of laundry. I went to go get it out of the washer. And I see that there's a cap with deterrent.

in it, like, upright on top of my wet clothes. And I'm like, what? And then I realized, like, oh, I didn't put any detergent in my clothes. Like, I hadn't added it like I usually would have. I was like, why is the cap in here? It was inside the washing machine. It was inside the washing machine on top, like perfectly upright on top of my washed clothes. So the only way it could have been in there is if somebody had opened it. the lid after the cycle was complete and put the laundry in there? Yes. And I was like, why is this happening? And then as I was like getting the clothes out, I realized that I had never even put any detergent in my clothes. So it was almost like telling me,

like, hey, you forgot to put detergent in. Here's some detergent. Like I ran my clothes again. I added the detergent that was in the cup and then I ran them again. But it was like little things like that all the time. It's, didn't feel threatening. You know what I mean? It was just like, well, that's weird, but whatever. The first time that it happened did creep me out because what happened, I was doing like a project for school. We had to like invent a company and make like an advertisement for it, like a poster. So I had like invented a company and made, I think it was my economics class. I'd made like a paper like cake and I was trying to tape it together and it's late. Like I just want to go to bed. I'm trying to finish up

this project and the tape that I was using to tape the paper together was gone. Like, I'd had it on the bed with me. I was making this project on my bed. And I unmade my whole bed thinking, like, maybe it got under the covers somehow. So I'm like, throw in the blankets around, whatever. I finally give up and just start using masking tape, like cutting little bits of masking tape to use instead of scotch tape. And while I'm doing that, I feel the roll of tape fall down beside me on the bed. Like, I feel something fall and, like, hit the bed. turn over and the role of tape is there. Like it, it, like, fell. And that was the first time that it happened. I would have been in 10th grade. And then it just continued, that kind of thing continued to happen after that. I just never felt it or saw it return. Like, I would just see the

item in a very, like, obvious place or, like, with my shirt where it ended up in the front yard. I feel like it was that house just had, like, some kind of portal or something. You know what I mean? Like it was just a place where different things could pass through or something. Like, I don't know. I feel like the house just had a particular energy and there were probably different things going on at the same time within the house. And that one, after my mom moved, that was the only thing that continued to happen. Man. Yeah, it's almost like, I really hate to speculate myself on the show, but it's almost like maybe

there was probably a lot of bad in there being attracted to your mom and Jordan and perhaps even what was going out with your sister, but like there might have been also something maybe good in there sort of looking out for you the whole time. And maybe that the good thing was also kind of lashing out at people that threatened you. Yeah, it does feel that way because like I said, if a friend would tell, like, would be like, oh, that doesn't happen. Then it would happen to them. It's almost like I'm bidding it to do that.

Like, I don't think it's me doing it, but it's like, maybe it's like wanting to, like, like you said, like protecting me or something, like being like, oh, you don't think that could happen? Well, here you go. It's just, yeah, weird that it specifically happened to skeptical people. But, yeah, that was the only thing that continued. nothing else paranormal has happened in my life. My life is very normal.

That never bothered me. Like, I never got creeped out by it. It was just kind of funny to me. Like, yeah. So I moved out. I feel really, like, I don't know, I feel like the odds we're against both myself and my sister, you know, but we're now.

we both moved out. We both have very normal lives now. She works at the same place I worked at for six years doing something different. Like I did like regulatory compliance and consumer protection stuff. But she works there. And we've just, yeah, we've completely separated ourselves almost from the rest of my chaotic family and have our own little just comfortable, easy life. Like most of the people in my family still have drug problems and stuff

and we're just hanging out. You know what I mean? We're just, everything's good. Right now I'm working a few different, like very easy-going part-time things. I work at a video game studio doing writing. I do some freelance copywriting. And I do like illustrations and art in my downtime.

And I've never, like, I remember very distinctly. And like when I was in ninth grade, we had a teacher want us to write about like our dream life. And everyone was giving like these big goals. And at that time, I wrote a paper that was just like, I don't want anything interesting in my life to happen. I want the most boring, simple life. at the time I wanted to be an art teacher. I was like, I just want to have a normal life, maybe a family, and I don't want anything interesting to happen to me again.

And I've come back around on that a little bit. I'd like some interesting stuff to happen, but only because I've created the boring life and I'm like ready to introduce interesting stuff back into it. But yeah, I feel like I've come, it took a long time. You know, it took a long time to get to that point. But I feel like, yeah, I was surprised. at how ready I was to talk about this.

I wouldn't have been able to even like five years ago, probably. All right. I want to thank Meredith one more time for telling us that story. And also, I want to reassure everybody at home. Meredith is doing great now. She's in a much better place. So is Michael. I got to know Meredith very well in the course of making this episode. And last time I talked to her, I believe she was finishing a hike in Oregon where she's on vacation.

So I know everybody is very concerned about her. I was too hearing that story, but she's doing good. So thank you one more time to Meredith, seriously, because that's just the type of story that I do this podcast for, sincerely. And that's because, you know, no matter what you think about the paranormal, in the case of Meredith and a lot of people, these things are simply intertwined to the story of their life. and omitting them would mean omitting some very real important moments of their lived experience.

So I'm just very glad to be creating a home for stories like this. So thank you so much to Meredith for telling me that story. I don't think she's told it to many people before, and I'm very glad she did. This has been Meredith's House Part 2. I'm your host, Jack Wagner, and you've been listening to Otherworld. The World is executive produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner. Our theme song is by Cobra Man. Original score of this episode by Juice Jackal.

The song you're hearing right now is Forgotten Names by the Reds, Pinks, and Purple's. Editing and Engineering by Theo Schaefer. The artwork for our show is by Coltessac Studios. Special thanks to Jacques Gonsolin for lending us as DXM knowledge. You can check out his podcast called Seeking Durangements if you want to hear more of those stories. This is an independent show, so please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five-star review, and telling your friends.

If you want to follow us on social media, we're at OtherworldPod on Instagram and Twitter. Finally, if you or somebody you know have experienced something paranormal, supernatural, or unexplained, you could send us the story at Stories at Otherworldpod.com. Thank you for listening.