Spooked - Burning Look

Episode Date: July 14, 2023

He’s a happy, all-American, baseball-loving kid. Then the fires start. Many thanks to storyteller for sharing his experiences! Original score by Yari Bundy, produced by Anne Ford, artwork by Teo Ducot Episodes drop weekly. Featuring brand new stories -- along with episodes previously available only by subscription. Listen for free wherever you get your podcasts! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

without words. Laopo. Labo. Labo. Lavo. Lappo. Lapper. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Sane. Okay, so, like a lot of folk, I love dim sum. Traditional Chinese small place of deliciousness, I love it. A while ago, perfect dim sum weather. Scoop up my kids,

head over to this fantastic spot not too far from my place. Of course, It's packed. That's part of the fun. Everybody has the same idea because not only is the food here tasty, the view overlooks the entire San Francisco Bay, Golden Gate Bridge, Marin, beautiful day. Gorgeous.

Happy families everywhere. We finally get a table and a small army of servers. Busting about, they start serving up to Shumai. The little my guy, the banana leaf, the dumplings, the turnip cake, broccoli with the oyster sauce and my favorite specialty of the house they're flaky, eggy, sweet custard tarts, yeah, boy,

I look up, grin at my kids, they grin right back at me. Then they both clap their hands over their ears, and they scream. Their faces distort in obvious pain, I jump up, but what, what,

what, what? Around us, everywhere in the restaurant, kids, babies, teenagers, screaming. I'm up my daughter's face. Darling, what's wrong? What's wrong? What's wrong? What's wrong? What's wrong? She opened her eyes, looks at me bewildered. You don't hear that?

Hear what? Hands pressed hard against the sides of her head. Hear that! And then, all over the restaurant, kids stopped screaming. Like turning off a light switch. There's this kind of residual whimpering.

bewildered parents examining their children's bodies. My own kids are incredulous. Pops! You didn't hear that? I'm looking around and the other mommies and daddies are shook, shaking their heads at me. They didn't hear anything either. Whatever it was, it happened out of frequency outside an adult range of perception. Flical angel of death, targeting only the youngest.

The rest of us unscathed. I don't know why. It took me this long. But since grabbing a hole of my kids confused in that restaurant, I've noticed, there are lots of things. Lots of things outside my range of awareness. Things I have no notion of. But things that are there.

Just the same. He's a minister these days. But the story is from time in his childhood, when he bumped against some mysterious powers, forces that didn't come with an instruction manual. The story starts just as his family is moving into a new house. It was so small. I mean, incredibly small.

There was no true dining room. The kitchen was the dining room, and it was like 10 foot by 10 foot. Our bedroom for my brother and I had a darkish stain. It was about the same. size of a basketball on the floor right in the middle of the room.

That just didn't seem right. Our acreage connected with a creek all the way back to the Des Moines River. We would go back there and spend hours having tremendous fun, play wiffle ball, having cows chase us,

jump the fences and things like that. From a five-year-old, perspective. This is awesomeness. I was the oldest. My brother's about a year and a half behind me, and then six years behind that was my younger sister. One day my brother and I had an argument, and my dad came in the room to talk to me and sent him out. I'm approaching the teen years, and I was whining about something. Why is it that my little brother get to do everything the same time I did. Why is it the same day I got to shoot the 10 gauge the same day he gets to shoot the 10 gauge? My dad was 6-4-275, could take the back end of a Volkswagen Beetle by the

bumper and take it off the ground. He didn't speak to me often. He just wasn't a jabber box. But when he spoke, I knew, listen. My dad, he said this between you and me, son. There's been worse things that happened in this room, you know. There was a murder in this room. A woman was murdered in this very room. It sure stopped any whining. I didn't ask, how do you know this, Dad? My reaction was, wow, that's serious.

I never would have thought that. I got it pretty good. It was a summer night, and I'm on my bed. My bed is pushed up to the windows. There's a gentle breeze outside, just that perfect summer breeze. It's the middle of the night, and the next thing I know, I am sitting straight up. And I'm pondering, why am I sitting up? I didn't know.

My brother, he's over there sawing logs. Then I felt a irresistible urge to look at the TV at the end of my bed. It was on a stand at the end of the bed. It's a strange feeling that's hard to put in words. But it's like, you better look, and you have to look, and you can't look away. Even though it's dark in the room, I still see a little reflection off the screen. Off to the right over my bedpost, a little white mist forms. Well, what is that?

It began to take shape. And then I could tell exactly what it was is the head of a young woman looking right at me. There was only a head. There was no body. She looked like a teenage girl. Dark black hair.

She has a very determined look. I would say serious look on her face. And then she started speaking. She said, I have to warn you. You're in danger. There has been a murder in this room. And there's going to be more bad things happen. You've got to take this warning.

You're in danger in this house. Whoa. What are you talking about? What type of danger? I had never experienced anything supernatural before. I don't know where she was from or who she was. But she showed up to definitively warn me. There was nothing dreamlike about it.

She's calm, but serious. I better listen. But things did not remain calm. The TV immediately caught on fire. A pop and a... And then a burst of flame that came out of the TV. Now I'm shocked, and now I'm in panic, and I freeze. I don't know what to do here.

But Dad will know what to do. So I start yelling, Dad, the TV is on fire. Dad, the TV is on fire. Beryling down, all I hear him coming. What's going on? And also the door just swings open. He goes on over to that TV. He pulls out the plug and lifts it up by the extension cord.

He zooms out of the room with his TV is on fire. Smoke is coming out of it. He goes out into the side yard and just throws the TV out there. I'm so shocked. I still don't know what to do. I'm just sitting in bed still, trying to absorb the reality of it all. The whole house is up now. Well, what happened?

Why did this happen? I mean, were you watching TV? I just was staring at it. It caught on fire. I was looking at it, and it caught on fire. I did not tell them about the talking head. I was fearful that they would think something is wrong. with me. After all the conversation, everything seems to be safe now. There wasn't a lot of talk

about it. That's the type of family that we were. It's not like it just completely left my mind, but there's a lot of stuff that we're doing. My dad's got work. We're going to have baseball the next day. I mean, I've got a big game coming up against my cousins here. We've got to win. Let's get back to sleep. Oh, it's like a couple weeks later, and I'm going into my sister's bedroom. There was a rocking chair in there. It was an old rocking chair, but very sturdy. I just loved how it felt.

I like to sit in daydream. So I just plopped in the chair. Then that feeling came over me just like I had in my. bedroom those days before, I felt an overwhelming urge to stare at a little white electric clock that was on her dresser. I didn't resist it. And the only thing I can see is the clock. The only thing I can hear is that tiny, tiny electric motor going around. Here I am again staring intently at an object. Why is this happening?

But before I can ponder it all too deeply, I hear little sparks, I hear sizzling. Smoke starts billowing out of the top of the clock. I'm frozen for a second, but I do remember what my dad did. So I grabbed this by the cord. I unplugged it, and I took it outside running with it on fire, smoke coming out of it, and I threw it out in the yard. My mom came running and wanted to know what had happened. I mean, there was smoke in the house. I said the clock caught on fire.

Well, what were you doing to the clock? I wasn't doing anything to the clock. I wasn't messing with it. I wasn't opening it. It just caught on fire. Well, it's a good thing that you were there at that time and caught it as it caught on fire. I think, well, that is a good thing. It did not catch on fire until I stared at it intensely. So am I really the savior of the house here or am I the cause of it? My dad checked the breaker box.

Do we have a short circuit here? There's a mouse eating. something. And he did not find any problems with the wiring. Nothing in the breaker box that showed signs of fire, no sign of a spark. Everything seemed to be working the way it was intended. Of course, I'm not giving my dad all the information. A couple of weeks later, I went into our living room. We have a color console, big old TV that's made in wood. And you got a remote control. It was a big deal. And it's at the end of the room. I was reading a magazine in there. It was a motorcycle magazine flipping through the pages, enjoying the solitude, and here comes that

feeling again. I had an irresistible urge again to stare. Everything else is disappearing, and the only thing I can do is look at that TV. But I've been through this. This time I started feeling more fear. Because I don't want this responsibility. I don't want this as a part of my life. I don't want this ability. I don't want anything to do with it.

And smoke started pouring out of the back of the TV. You see the poof go up, and it hit the ceiling. I ran over there and I unplug that TV. There's no way I'm moving that mom. monster out of there. It's still smoking. My mom comes in. Mom, the TV caught on fire. It's on fire in the inside. It's smoking. She has a look on her face of what in the world is happening. I decided to tell my mom about the staring. I didn't talk about the head, but I had to tell somebody because now a pattern is being established. She has a

look on her face of, it's kind of unbelievable. That's bizarre. What do you say to that type of look? I don't know. But to this day, I don't know. The only thing I know is that it's happened. After these events, I did find myself spending less time alone. I was afraid that if I was in a room by myself,

I'm going to have this urge to stare, and something else is going to catch on fire. The worst thing that could happen is that I didn't do the right thing if a fire did start and I lost my family. But I was fortunate that I had a summer of baseball and trying to make the All-Star team. My dad was going to be the coach of it. And then school was coming up too,

so we had to get ready for all that. Life just kind of took over. And the incident stopped. It didn't happen again. But there's always that little nagging thing in your mind. What if I have to stare again? It kind of never really goes away. It was about 15 years later.

I was on my motorcycle going down Cedar Avenue. I felt an urge to look at a streetlight. I looked at it It turned off I said that was weird But then I really put it to the test I was going down a hill on that same avenue This was an evening between 9 and 10

So there were not lights that I'm fighting or traffic I felt pretty much alone And I looked at a light And I said go out And it went out I looked at the second one it went out. I looked at the third one it went out. I felt goosebumps.

I felt the hair standing up. I was thinking, is there some relation to what occurred in my youth? Is this going to escalate? I am a minister. I don't want to lose credibility. I was done. I pulled over.

Checked all my headlights. Are they pointing? up at sensors and turning things off sporadically. There wasn't anything wrong. And you just walk around a bit thinking, am I insane? Am I insane? So then I actually decided to tell my wife about it. We were at a little strip mall and I could feel it coming on. I just feel like there's going to be something with the light. I said, watch Robin. So we went over under a light. I just put it. I just my hand up, the direction of the light. You know what?

It turned off. And she goes, ooh! She was freaked out. That was 26 or 27 years ago. I've pondered it. Don't have the answers. I don't have any urge. Man, I sure hope something new happens.

I've had enough. No one knows the secret things of God. As a minister, I understand. I'm just not going to get to know. there are simply things are going to be unexplained. So I know what happened

after our last interview, but for listeners who don't know, you and I said goodbye and then what? The recording man is looking at his equipment. There was a lit screen on it and it went just, it went out.

He goes, oh no. Here we go again, maybe. Any thanks to our anonymous storyteller for sharing his experience? But no thanks to whatever did that to the tape of our first interview. I did not appreciate it. Original score was by Yari Bundy. It was produced by Ann. Thanks for going beyond the veil with us.

But now I have a question for you. She's become something of a trope in crime movies and mystery novels. The police are stumped. They can't find the evildoer. So the hero. Against this better judgment, consults a person able to somehow, somehow glean a residue and energy from the few clues brought before her and then point the finger in the direction of who done it. So here's my request. If you are a law enforcement officer, an FBI investigator, a detective, someone in the world that makes use of a person who uses completely unorthodox methods for getting at the truth,

please tell me all about it. I promise I only reveal your story to the legions of spooksters walking the path of the shadow. Let me know spooked at snapjudgment.org because there is nothing better than a spook story from a spooked listener. It was brought to you

by the team that knows full well exactly what to do with the television explodes except of course for Mark Ristich. He just keeps pressing buttons on the remote. There's David Kim. Zoy Friigno, Anne Ford, Eric Yanez, Taylor de Kott, Marissa Dodge, Leon Morimoto, Miles Lassie, Yari Bundi, Doug Stewart, Paulina Creeke, Lizzie V. Pardu, Adikyu Matu, Lula Jemaya.

The spook theme song is by Pat Mussini Miller. My name is from Washington. And fire can destroy everything we hold dear. It can also provide heat and protection from the coldest. This winter, it can cook our food, light our way. We like to think, we can control it. Until we learn once again that certain things can never be controlled. We put shadow in the same box.

Imagine that the darkness can be contained, that our symbols, our sage, our amulets can shape our interactions with the darkness. And sometimes it lures us into believing we actually have power over it. This is just another trick, Arian. Be prepared. Your first line of defense? Never, ever, never, ever.