Spooked - Boxes

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

Ghosts come and go as they please. Sometimes they stick around. Often, you’re stuck with them whether you like it or not… unless you do something to get them out.StoriesThe GearboxWhen Michelle moves into The Gearbox, she’s just a little girl. But the ghosts don’t care.Thanks to Michelle for sharing her story with us!Produced by Anne Ford, original score by Doug Stuart, artwork by Teo Ducot.Box of MarblesWhen Ryan moves into an SRO in San Francisco, he can’t imagine how his luck can get any worse. Then the knocking starts.Thank you, Ryan, for sharing your story with Spooked.Produced by Anne Ford, original score by Dirk Schwarzhoff. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I peeped inside the coffin to see what I could see. Then what was in the coffin, it peeped right back at me. Listen to spooked. Say two. Okay, so I have a friend who always has the most wacky, ridiculous stories. Stories where, okay, look, something like this might happen once, but it seems like every time he checks the mail, or picks up a box of cereal, something crazy happens.

Car crashes, mysterious acquaintances from decades ago pop up, and it's gotten so that lots of people, they think he's full of crap. You know, believe his little tales, and I didn't believe his stories at first. But I like hearing him anyway. Every blue moon, we hang out. Once we go to shoot some pool, just chilling, a couple of bruise. Then just like in the movies, A bar fight breaks out around us.

He doesn't even blink, just misses the eight ball in the corner pocket as we scramble out. Ducking punches, trying to find the exit outside. I'm tripping. That was crazy, yo! He's like, yeah. The time walking around Lake Merritt in Oakland, and this huge, gigantic wolf-dogan thing comes bounding at us top speed, snarling like I made a park chop. God damn!

And right before, it tears a chunk out of my hind parts. It just flaps down in front of my buddy, who reaches down and scratches this monster between the ears. Dude, you know this dog? No man, but we should probably try to figure out where he belongs. He takes out for a weekend trip, ends up saving some random kid from drowning. It's always... And that would be one thing if he ran around poking bears or juggling. and fireworks, but that's not what's going on.

On him, the universe bends. And I want to say stop doing that, but I don't know what he's doing. And part of his magic seems to be that he always emerges unscathed. And that's great. I'm just not sure if that same magic applies to whoever's standing next to him. So it starts.

From the Caribbean island of Montserrat. In 1995, a volcano erupted on Montserrat and destroyed its capital city. But many years before that, Michelle was growing up on the island. In her grandparents' house, Michelle. Michelle was living through her own kind of disaster. The house that I grew up in was called the Gearbox

because it had been owned by a Mr. and Mrs. Gear. My grandparents were part of the upper class, so it was quite lavish. The house was filled with beautiful antique furniture, some of it 17th century. The dining room was massive. It was an open plan between the dining room area and the drawing room area. So whenever they would have cocktail parties, everything was taken out, and they would have just a huge room where people could dance and mingle.

We had a chef, a housekeeper, a chauffeur and a gardener. When my grandparents would have cocktail parties, they would be offered extra hours to help to cater, but none of them ever wanted to stay once it got dark. They always left long before dark. I never understood why. Soon after my mother, brother and I moved down. with my grandparents. I was playing with my dolls.

It was around maybe two o'clock in the afternoon. Nobody else was home except for our household staff. And I heard a woman's voice calling me. She called my name very, very slowly, with a very posh British accent. Miesha. Innocent sounding, sweet, lovely, almost playful.

I dropped what I was doing and I went running straight to our cook to ask her, yes? She said, yes, what? I said, you called me just now? She said, no, I didn't. So I went running to the housekeeper. She said the same thing. No, I didn't call you.

I'm busy. Run on, run on play. And that was just the beginning. I would hear it so often. least three, four times a week. Me, that is what life was like back then in the gearbox.

Strange things happened in that house and nobody spoke about it. There were glass windows all around the house. The wind would come roaring down the hills straight through our house, through all the open windows, howling to the point where it sounds like a thousand women screaming.

there would be the shadows of trees all along, the wall, this wind howling. One night, I woke up. I was on my way to the bathroom, which is down a long passage. I had to pass by the drawing room, and there were glass doors. I happened to glance to my right, and the room was filled with all these different couples, eight to ten couples all dancing and whirling around all just gliding silently no music no nothing except the sound of the wind

I just stopped and I stared I was in awe it took my breath away because the women was so beautiful they were all dressed in very old-fashioned clothes everything was muted almost like one of these old-fashioned photographs that you see. I couldn't understand why there was no music or talking or laughing.

I knew that there was something not quite right. I can't tell you how long I was there for. It seems as if I was there for hours. When I got tired, I just went to the bathroom. When I came back from the bathroom, nobody. just the sound of the wind. I never told my mom what I witnessed

because I knew that I was not supposed to be out of bed at that hour. I never told my grandparents or my aunts and uncles. I never even told my brother. On another night, I went to use the bathroom again and I saw them again. This time, I opened the glass door. They wanted to see them clearer. Nobody turned to look at me.

Nobody said anything. They just kept dancing. Then an older gentleman came up to me. He had grey hair and it was long and swept back. He had a moustache and a goatee kind of beard and he was dressing up the same style as the men very formal. He held his hand out to me. And I took his hand and he held out his other hand, put my hand in his. They were very soft for a man's hands. And then he lifted me so that my little feet were on top of his shoes. They were beautiful, black, shiny, well-polished. He put one arm around my waist, and he had the other hand in his. And then he started whirling me around, in and out, all around the couples. I was laughing.

I loved it. Little by little, I started to get tired. and then I noticed his hands started to get cold and colder and colder until they were almost like ice until there was almost this frigid air coming off of him. I didn't like it. It was uncomfortable. He was making my hands cold.

I just took my hands out of his. As I broke away from him and I turned just out of my peripheral vision for a second, I could still see them whirling around. And then I ran and I never looked back. And I just ran. straight through grass stores. I don't know for sure who he was, but I can only imagine that it was Mr. Gere.

I had a lovely time dancing with all these strange people because it made me feel like an adult, and I fell asleep very, very happy. I knew this wasn't a dream, because I saw it more than once. I saw the other couples dancing several times after that night, But I never danced with Mr. Gear ever again because I didn't like his cold hands. My mother had a queen-sized bed, and then my brother and I shared a twin bed.

One night, there was massive thunder and lightning storm. It woke my brother and I up. We got scared, and we jumped into bed with my mother. I fell asleep. I had a dream that I was in a small wooden house. there was something chasing me. All I could hear was the sound of very heavy footsteps following me. I ran into this room.

I scamp it on the bed. I saw it with black boots, came walking over to the bed, and they just stood there. I was almost holding my breath, and I was petrified. But then, the feet all of a sudden turned around, and they just walked out of the door. I figured, okay,

it's safe. All of a sudden, just as I was about to slide out from the bed, the entire bed was just lifted and thrown in the air. Then two hands were reaching down at me. That woke me up immediately. The minute I woke up, I was lying on my back. There was thunder and lightning, heavy rain, wind howling. The windows were open.

just a little bit, but it was enough for there to be a breeze. I could feel the wind on my face. I could see my mother on my left side, sleeping, I could see my brother on my right. I looked up directly above me.

The first thing I saw was a figure floating against the ceiling. The first thing I saw was their shoes. The exact same shoes. that were in my dream, black boots. The pants were flapping from the wind.

My eyes traveled to the face. It was a man. He had long, stringy gray hair. One half of his face looked as if it had been melted. It was just completely melted. It was very similar to burn victims. I had never, ever seen someone burnt to that degree. and on the other side

scowling, sneering, very, very cruel smile. And the second of my eyes saw his face, this thing launched itself at me and the two hands circled my neck. And just as it started to squeeze, I screamed as loud as I could

and he was gone. Immediately, My brother woke up, my mother jumped up. What, what's going? How's going? And I was screaming and screaming and screaming. And then I started crying and I would not stop. I was hysterical.

I couldn't even speak for quite a few minutes because I just could not get the words out. All I had a chance was to tell her about there was something up there, there was a man up there, and he rushed down, and he put his hands around me and his face. But I was probably not making much sense. I knew it was not Mr. Gere because I knew what Mr. Gere looked like, and he did not look like this man.

And also, Mr. Gere had never tried to hurt me when we danced together. My mom had to be up early, and she just didn't have time for it. So she was like, no, no, no, no, it's just a dream, it's just a dream. Nonsense. I was really, really upset for a very long time that my mom didn't believe me.

From that night onwards, I grew to hate the sound of wind, howling. I was terrified of, of that house, especially when it got dark. I became so clingy. I had to be with somebody. And I never went to the bathroom once everybody was asleep.

I always made sure I did what I had to do before I had to sleep. So how did you feel when you moved out of that house? Relieved. So happy. I was so happy. So happy to leave. Because I lived in a constant state of terror. But I still heard the voice is calling.

I still heard a voice calling my name. I was never afraid of that. Have you ever been back to the gearbox since then? Yes. My mother and I had to sing or perform at a recital. And our pianist, he said that it is a beautiful grand piano. and it's at the gearbox. And we had understood years before

that they had renovated the gearbox into a music school. And so he said, I would like you all to come up there so that we can practice. And that was the first time in years that I had been back. But because I knew they had renovated it, I wasn't, I didn't feel anyway, completely renovated. And then what state is the gearbox in these days? It's probably buried under several feet of ash

because that entire half of the island was completely destroyed and buried under several feet of ash because of the pyroclastic clothes. So there's no trace of that house or anything around it. Just rubble. Those don't care about geography. We're sure. But somewhere down there underneath all, all that volcanic ash, Mr. Gear is still dancing, waiting for his partner.

Big thanks to Michelle for sharing her story. Michelle still lives on Montserrat and she's got plenty more to say about the freaky things she's seen. So if you're ever on the island, stop by as long as you're ready. The original score for that piece by Doug Stewart. It was produced by Anne Ford. Some people are attractors, events, even people. A few years ago, Ryan Andrews, he was down on his luck, and that's when the weird stuff started happening.

Fortunately for Ryan, a San Francisco legend was around to help him out. I had broken my back, and it was a pretty rough injury. I had sciatic nerve damage in my right leg. whole right side. A lot of muscle spasms and involuntary muscle movement. So it kind of left me in limbo as far as employment and a place to live. I had the chance to stay in an SRO. Single room occupancy. It's a hotel room for long-term stays of a month or more. I had never stayed in an SRO. I was just thankful I wasn't sleeping in my vehicle. The SRO I went to was an old hotel that went back over a hundred years,

three or four stories, probably 20 units in it, kind of place that you would find people passed out in the hallway and not really want to bother them. When I went up to the front desk, there was a gentleman that was the manager. You pay for the room, I think, At the time, it was $160 or something like that for the week. My room was on the second floor.

The building itself had this weird feeling to it. It felt like there was a lot of past energy built up, and you were walking into its world. There wasn't much room in the room. Everything is just big enough. Like the sink is a triangle sink. that fits into a corner. You put a bed in there and just enough room to turn around.

Shortly after I had checked in and was getting settled in, I was watching TV. It was about 8 or 9 o'clock in the evening. And I heard this knocking on the door. There was no urgency to the knocking. I thought it was somebody who was looking for somebody that was staying in the room previously. It's a pretty small room,

so all you had to do is turn around and open the door, and there was no one there. I looked down the hallway, and there was no one there. I thought that's pretty fast. To get down the hallway or get into another room

without me seeing, that was my first heads up that there was something strange in the building. The second night, I'd shut off the lights. I had just laid down in bed, and all of a sudden there was knocking at the door.

I wasn't expecting anybody. And again, there was nobody at the door. It was really unnerving. But, you know, it's also a old building. So maybe it was upstairs, or maybe it was the guy in the next room banging on something. I don't know. I went back to sleep.

The third night, I had been out with friends of mine. I came back to the room, and I just went straight to sleep. I was pretty tired. I woke up somewhere around 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. The first thing I can remember was this shaking. It kind of felt like I was having a muscle spasm. As I'm becoming more awake, I realize the metal-framed twin bed that I was in was banging against the wall. Swaying around.

It was like the whole room was rolling. I'm thinking, oh my gosh, we're having an earthquake. At the same time, there was somebody pounding on the door just bang, bang, bang, bang. Like the building was on fire. I didn't know what was happening. And then I feel two hands. Grab my ankles. I felt the fingers around my ankles.

Pull me out of bed. As soon as my butt hit the floor, I was standing up. I thought there was someone in my room, and I was ready to fight. I flip on the light, and I open the door, and there's nobody at the door, and I'm standing in my room, and there's nothing happening. I looked down and I had a glass of water sitting on my nightstand. There wasn't any water spilled, so we couldn't have been having an earthquake. But there's dents from the knobs at the top of the bed frame that had dented into the plaster walls.

I was shaken to my core at the point that wasn't benign. that wasn't just somebody walking the hallway or something like that. That was personal. I was trying to get my attention. It put its hands on me. Back to sleep. I mean, I was working 12-hour days. I wanted sleep more than I wanted answers.

I woke up and went to work in the morning. I didn't say anything to the manager because I had to be to work really early. I needed the money. You know, I was saving up for an apartment. After work, I don't want to go back to this room. I went out to this bar called the Phoenix Bar on Valencia Street. It's a nice, quiet place where you can go in and maybe have a good conversation with somebody else,

but watch some sports too. I think it was about 10, 10.30. The bartenders were doing her rounds to start closing up the bar. I'm sitting there just watching a game drinking my pint, and a guy wearing a hoodie and his hands in his front pockets comes walking out from where the restroom was. He's walking towards me,

and I can't really even see his face because his hood's pulled down so far. He's walking right along the back of the bar stools, probably about 10 feet away from me, and he goes to lean in to ask the bartender for something. I saw this guy just disappear. I went to the bartender and said, where did that guy go? And she said, what guy? I said, the guy that leaned in and asked for something.

And she said, I don't know what you're talking about. I was in disbelief at what I had just seen. Before going into that hotel, none of that kind of thing had happened. What is this building up to? I don't know. I didn't know, but it gave me the feeling like I was playing in the middle of a freeway, and it was only a matter of time before something bad was going to happen. It's a little disheartening because I was really trying hard.

I was pushing hard to rebuild my life again, and I felt like there were horses that were trying to prevent me from doing that. San Francisco can be very difficult. There's a lot of runaways that come here, A lot of people that don't necessarily want to remember where they came from. I really don't have a spiritual leader who is there for guidance. So that's why I asked my friend Virginia. She was kind of like a mother, but a lot of people might know her as the tamale lady.

She was a quintessential part of San Francisco for a really long time. She had coolers that she would wheel around. on a cart that were full of tamales. A dollar tamale or a $2.2 tamale was pretty hot stuff. Home cook food, you know. I would always buy her tamales because I loved them. That was kind of the way we became friends. She was more than happy to lend you some solid advice if you asked for it.

By going to her, I was hoping to better understand what it was that I was experiencing. We had known each other for probably about 10 years at that point. I went to go see her at a bar that I liked to go to called Zekegeist. I just went up and said, Virginia, I'm really having a problem. I'm experiencing things that are kind of on another realm. I described the guy that I had seen, and she said, Was there anything bright about them? Was there anything that illuminated from them?

I said, no. If anything, it was kind of the opposite. It seemed like it was dark. She said, what you're dealing with is something that's really bad. She knew it was a ghost. She said, when you go home tonight, somebody's going to give you something. and I need you to put this underneath your bed.

It will keep those spirits from bothering you. When she told me that, I took it with a grain of salt like, yeah, right, whatever. That's not very helpful. None of this is making any sense. I'm walking down the street, Dreden going back to the room because I didn't want to. I come up to this traffic signal,

and there's this lady that's walking across the street. short little lady with a lot of clothes on her. She had a sweater and a scarf and a bonnet or something on her head. She's wandering across the street. I'm waiting for the signal, and she runs right into me. I turn around and I go, excuse me. She thrusts this box into my hands. It's a plexiglassed glass box.

probably a foot by a foot that has a bunch of marbles in it. They weren't marbles that you played with when you were a kid. They had tiger stripes and stuff. They were all solid marbles, probably over 100. My first thought was, I've never seen anything like this in my whole life. The bottom was a mirror that reflected the marbles back up, So it looks like there's more marbles than what's actually in the case. There was no opening in the box.

No way to get the marbles in or the marbles out. She said, put this underneath your bed and I'll leave you alone. She said it really forcefully. Like I was bothering her. I just said, okay, what else do you say to somebody? Now I have this plexiglass box that was full of, of a bunch of different colored marbles. I didn't have a feeling of relief.

I didn't have a feeling of joy that I had found something that was gonna fix it. But I took it home and put it underneath the bed. I went to sleep and nobody knocked on my door that night. The next morning it was like waking up in an old country house with the window open. And the breeze is blowing in, and it just smells so fresh and sweet. It was like a whole new fresh breath of air.

I got up and got ready for work and thought, hey, maybe I'm having a good day. The manager was in his front area, and he said, what happened? I can feel it. Something's happening. And I just went to work, and I had a good day at work. Everything was like normal. A couple days after, I ran into Virginia and told her about the experience. I asked why the Marbles would help.

And she told me it was to distract spirits. It confuses them, gives them something to do rather than bother you. I was like, well, okay. Two or three days after I put the box in there, I found an apartment and moved out. I left the box of marbles underneath the bed. I felt like it was specific to that location, to those spirits. As I was leaving, I had to get my deposit back from the manager. I said, there's a box of marbles in that room.

Leave it in that room. He said, why? I said ghosts. And he goes, oh, that's what the feeling was. and I said, yeah, I made them go away. And I left. Left it in a better place than what I found it. Ryan, for sharing your story to spout.

Now, Virginia Ramos, the tamale lady, has since passed away, but we're sure she is still listening and lending a hand from the other side. The original score for that piece by Dirk Swartzoff was produced by Anne Ford. believe that we have explored this earth and uncovered all of her mysteries, that hidden secrets of the stuff of myth and legend well.

Not so fast. Because here it's spooked. We're hunting for monsters. And understand, this show is about relationships. It's about connections. So I'm asking if you have a relationship with the creature, the providence far different from our

own. If you have such a thing, I'd love to hear all about. it. Millions of spook listeners would love to hear about it as well. Spooked at Snapjudgment.org because there's nothing better

than a spook story from a spook listener. Spooked at snapjudgment.org. And if you need that spook gear, know the t-shirt of your dreams is available right now at snapjudgment.org and remember

if you like your storytelling under the bright light of day, get the amazing stupendious sister podcast called Snap Judgment. It is storytelling. The book was created of a team that always locks up the house each and every night before bed, except of course, for Mark Ristich.

His door is wide open. There's Davy Kim, Chris Hanrick, Leon Morimoto, Teo de Cotte, Marissa Dodge, Zoe Frigno, Ann Ford, Eric Janyes, Tessapaioli, Cody Harjo. Lola Abrera, Miles Lassie, Yari Bundy, Doug Stewart. The spook theme song is by Pat Massini Miller. My name is from Washington, and we like to pretend that life is fair.

That everyone plays by the same rules when life tells us all the time that she plays favorites. Riches, beauty, genius, power are unevenly distributed commodities. Some she smiles upon. Others she does not. and it's the winners of this lottery that tell you things are the way they should be that they deserve their ill-gotten gains while you, you just need to work a little bit harder. And perhaps they even believe their own lies. And maybe that's why they're so surprised that in certain rounds, in certain paths, that different rules apply. The guardians here care not for your goals or your learning or your expectations.

Everything on this path is a glimpse into another plane, another world. Where privilege cannot protect you, where beauty cannot protect you, where power cannot protect you. Few things will protect you. But one thing we all have access to is a simple piece of advice that goes like this. never ever never ever never never never never never never never never never never ever ever ever ever