Spooked - Creature Feature

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

Strange creatures don't just live under your bed. Oh no. In this Spooked episode, we dive deep into the waters of an Oregon lake & travel to the island of Montserrat to bring you tales of things that go bump in the night. STORIES Devil’s Lake Zack is visiting the Oregon Coast with family when he, his dad, and his uncle decide to head to nearby Devil’s Lake to do some fishing. When a creature with greenish blue skin jumps out of the water to grab him he begins to understand the true darkness of the lake. Thank you, Zach, for sharing your story with Spooked! Produced by Zoë Ferrigno, original score by Leon Morimoto The Ligaroo When Shirley Spycalla was a little girl, her family lived on the Caribbean island of Grenada, where she was always told to get home before dark. One day, she finds out why. Thank you, Shirley, for sharing your story with Spooked. Shirley now lives on the small and beautiful island of Montserrat, where she stays on eternal guard for shapeshifters. Produced by Anne Ford, original score by Doug Stuart Art by Teo Ducot Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

They say that the sins of the father will be visited upon the sons. I hope not. Because if it is true, my boy's in big trouble. When I spooked, stay. As a kid, my uncle came from the big city to stay with us briefly on our farm in rural Michigan. And at night, under star is so bright you could almost. read by him. He tells me stories about all sorts of things. He knows all sorts of things. Like about conversion vans or where to carry your extra cash and how a real man mixes his own cologne.

I listen because I'm a farm boy and I don't know farmer stuff. Look about chickens and goats and cows. And one evening on the way back from church, my uncle says he needs a new pair of boots. And we stopped by the Genesee Valley Mall in Flint, Michigan. Inside. Huge, brightly colored signs. See the missing link. Half man, half-man, half-beast, the real Bigfoot. A man, mid-sentence with round spectacles and a red-striped suit rumbles low and clear to a group of shoppers.

Perhaps, Yvabom of Snowman, the Yeti, or the last Neanderthal. See for yourself. Make your own. decision. And I know it's a long shot while I asked my pops, please, please, can we go see?

And just as my father is about to say, hell no, my uncle's like, let the little niggily take a peek. In the middle of the mall, there's just a trailer. A curtain entry and line of people snaking through the aisles waiting for the chance to see what's inside. Now, I spend whole parts of my summer

looking for big footprint. or Bigfoot tools or tufts of hair in the Michigan woods. And I haven't found any yet, but I know it's just a matter of time because if an ape can hide itself anywhere, it's here in these Michigan forests. And I'm excited. My uncle's excited. Maybe my dad. Maybe he's a little bit excited too.

And as we approach the curtain with our tickets, a man whispers to us. The please be quiet as possible. So in order to not damage the intent. of the specimen, take a good look, but don't linger. Give everybody their chance to see a piece of history. He pulls back the curtain, walk inside. Floor lights burn low. There is one room in the middle.

Rumbles a large, open, industrial freezer. Inside the freezer rests a man-sized block of solid ice and visible inside this block of ice. The figure. A hairy ape-like creature with its arm raised, partially obscuring its face. I've been down to look as close as I can, but the ice, the ice is not clear. It's clouded, like you can see something's in there, but not make it out entirely. And the lights are dim.

I stare at this frozen block from every angle I can amidst the rest of the spectators before the man ushers us back outside the trailer. Walking away from the spectacle toward our car in the parking lot, no one says anything for a while, nods his head. Hold you, proof squared. We saw it with our own eyes, the link between man and eight. Gets this starry look in his eyes. Mark my words, that's the scientific breakthrough of the century.

Look at my father. My father looks at me. I don't even have to say anything. Because I don't know about proof squared and conversion vans and how to mix my own cologne. I'm a farm boy. Farm boys work around animals. I just know that whatever that is up in that ice,

that ain't no animal. Certainly not an animal that ever wandered any woods. Ain't a person either. Later on, I tell my dad, Dad, you should get your money back. He looks at me, smiling. Why? You're still on the hunt for that big foot, ain't you?

Yeah. Did what you saw make you want to find him more? Like you want to find him less? More? Well, then, it seems to me, we got exactly what we paid for. And we take a little trip up the Oregon coast. For Zach, his dad and his uncle are planning a fishing trip at Devil's Lake.

And it turns out, they don't call it Devil's Lake for nothing. 4th July, my family from Missouri on my dad's side was coming to visit. We had rented this beach house for a week. My dad had rented a charter to go halibut fishing on the Oregon coast. That was like going to be the big highlight of. our week was the halibut fishing. I was born in Spina Bifida, and so I have to have the use of a wheelchair, but that didn't stop me from getting in the outdoors.

Growing up, my dad would take me fishing, you know, trout and bluegill, but this was going to be the big leagues. It was like a once-in-lifetime opportunity, so I was happy about that. We rented the beach house. We're getting all settled. First couple of days were really nice. and then we get the call from the charters that, oh, we can't take you out because the seas are looking really choppy.

I was feeling pretty bad about that. I, my dad and my uncle Wayne, we're like, well, it'd be a lost cause if we just, like, you know, didn't do any fishing. So we decided to, like, look at, like, lakes and stuff like that. We found this place called Devil's Lake. We thought, goodest place as any, let's go there. We woke up at, like, 5 o'clock, because fishing in the morning is the best

because that's when the fish are more active. They're waking up and they want their breakfast. We piled up into the truck. We're driving there. There was trees on all sides of us. It was just pure wilderness except for like the road in front of us. So we get there, probably around 5.30.

It was still dark. My uncle parks the truck. They unload me. They unload all the fishing gear. There's like a path. that leads to this dock. My dad and uncle sent me out on the dock right. They baited my hug.

Cast it out, gave me the pole, and they go back to get, like, you know, the other stuff, like the coolers and chairs for themselves. I'm sitting there on the dock, and I'm feeling uneasy. I mean, I can't see it in this water. It's like a dark gray. And I was feeling uneasy about that, and so I'm looking up the sky.

I'm thinking about, like, well, maybe I'll see an osprey or a hawk, or if I was lucky, a ball eagle, which is like one of my favorite animals. And then I feel a jerking sensation, and I get spun around like 180 degrees, and I got dumped out of my wheelchair. The chair was, like, pulled out from under me. I'm lying on my stomach,

and I heard the splash of my wheelchair hitting the water. I'm dazed. I'm, like, looking at the dock, like, what just happened? and then I felt like a pressure up at my thigh. I don't have much sensation in my legs, but I felt something grab my leg, and it was pulling me, and I'm being pulled off the dock.

I managed to flip myself over onto my back when I saw her. Just her head and her shoulders were out of the water. She had lips just like a human. She had a nose just like a human, but her eyes had a rectangular pupil that was like a golden color. Her skin was a modeled blueish gray green. Like somebody mixed a bunch of watercolor and splashed it onto her.

That's kind of what her coloring was like. She was covered in these sharp armored looking scales. She had these flowing seaweed like tendrils on top of her head. And they went slightly down to her shoulders. It looked like a woman's head of hair. I see this being, and she's holding on my leg. I seized up. She looks at me.

There was anger in that face. As soon as we locked eyes, she leapt out of the water, leaps on top of me. I just feel like raw, sheer panic. She had her mouth open. Her teeth, they had conical points. they weren't like super like sharp they looked more like they were for crushing I instinctively bring a right arm

under her throat she let out like the strangled hiss she was trying to bite down on me and then she got her claws under me they dug into my back screaming I'm thinking to myself I'm gonna die

all of a sudden I see my uncle above her he had like a look of panic on his face. He had this fishing club in his hand, and he just brought it down on the back of her neck. In a quick succession, just tap, pop. She was still holding on to me, but her grip had loosened on me. Immediately afterwards, my dad comes along, and he puts his boot in the side of her face, and she flinches again. Once she let go of me, my uncle grabbed me by the shirt, and he pulled me away. At that point, I was, like, so shocked that I was just staring up at the sky. I heard a splash, and I assumed

that was her going back into the water. But I did not want to look. I just had my eyes in the sky. My uncle had one side, and my dad, he had me on the other side, and they were carrying me towards the truck. Put me in the back seat. My dad got in the back seat with me. My uncle is driving.

My daddy's telling me, is I, it's going to be okay. We just got to get to a hospital. All I'm just thinking about is the stinging in my back. We got to the hospital. My uncle got out of the car. He runs in the emergency room, and a lot of these doctors and nurses, they came out. They get me into the wheelchair.

I'm leaning forward. I got people supporting me, so I don't fall out of the wheelchair. They're asking me, so you got to attack my mountain lion? I just went with it. I immediately nod. Like, yeah, yeah, I did. I assume my uncle didn't want to say what really happened,

so he just made up the mountain line story, and I went with that. I was in too much pain. I didn't argue the point, neither did my dad. They wheeled me into this room. They immediately went to work cleaning the wounds that added to the stinging sensation.

But at the same time, they got like a mask over me, and that filled me with anesthetic. And so that didn't even last like 10 seconds before I was out. So it was nighttime. Me and my dad are alone in the hospital. He was spending the night with me

watching over me as I recovered. The doctor said the lacerations weren't as deep as they had feared, but they had still wanted to keep me overnight for observation. I'm lying there. It started to sink in, like, I was kind of in disbelief, like, did that happen?

Was that real? And then I asked my dad, so what did you see? He described me that he and Uncle Wayne, after they had gotten me, set up on the dock. They went back to the truck, and they were getting the supplies out.

They just heard me screaming. He and Uncle Wayne just ran up to the dock. He saw the being. It was on top of me. It had me, like, in a hugging position. She had a torso, like a human, arms, legs, with like a six-foot tail. It was like an alligator's tail.

Its tail was swishing in the water behind it As it's trying to bite me He recalls kicking it And it like flinching when he kicked it And then it slid off from on top of me From the side of the dock and Just went back into the water I asked him

What do you think it was? He didn't have an answer for me After I was released I tried to forget about the whole thing I didn't tell my sisters or even my mother about this, I didn't think she would believe me. My dad knew what happened.

My uncle knew what happened. That was enough for us. Because you hear about this stuff getting out and, you know, people be made fun of and stuff like that. So why draw that type of attention to ourselves? But it's like something I couldn't really forget. It wasn't until 2021 that it started thinking, you know what?

I think it's time I share my story. If I get my story out, people can hear it, and maybe they can share some of their own experiences, and maybe I can have, like, some sort of closure. My dad, he did not approve. It kind of hurts. I mean, I'd like to have him support me, but, you know, he's going to do what he's going to do. My uncle, his advice to me was just to kind of move on from it. He thinks I should do my best to forget about the whole thing, but, you know, it's kind of hard to do.

Despite what happened, I still like the Oregon Coast. There's like a certain atmosphere about it. That just makes me feel good about going there. I've been fishing since that incident. I don't like to get too close to the water. You, Zach, for sharing your story with the spooked. The original score was by Leon Morimoto. It was produced by Zohan.

Zoe Frickno. Next up, when Shirley Spichala, this little girl, her family lived on the Caribbean island of Granada, and she was always told to get home before dark. And you're about to find out why. So I was coming from school one afternoon, about three o'clock. We lived about a two-mile walk from the convent. I attended. It seemed a long way because it was downhill and uphill. and then down. I had to wear a uniform every day, which was a navy blue pleated skirt and a white shirt tucked into the waistband

and a blue and silver tie. And then we had these small straw hats. I hated hats. There was a group of us walking and thus sort of dropped off as we passed their homes. So it was just me when we reached our neighborhood.

There were three men, local men, fixing potholes at the bottom of our driveway. They were leaning over because they had put gravel in the pothold. They were camping it down

with their shovels. I had to pass them to go up to the gate of the house. One of them stood up for more what he was doing to watch me pass by. He turned to look at me and follow me with his face, his head, his eyes. Follow me up the road.

The man was not smiling. His face was serious. His eyes were very red. I mean, I've seen people with red eyes because of smoking pot or lacking sleep or something. But this guy's... eyes were abnormally red. His whole eye was red. Not even blinking.

That spelt danger to me. I wasn't sure what he wanted. I just knew something was wrong with this man. I'd heard all these stories. The parents would tell us. It was important that we go back home before a night. Because these creatures would come for us, called Ligaroo, which is werewolf, shape-shifters.

When you meet these creatures on the road, they look like regular people, but we were warned not to say good night or good evening. First, let them speak first. If you spoke first and if they were not human, The person can change that shape entirely into a creature that can hurt you. So we have to be home before dark or else. I just took one quick glance at him and then I just raced off to the house.

When I came home after seeing the man, I wanted to tell my mother, but Doer was talking with my mother and Doer was crying. Doar was our nanny. Door was her surname, and she was very motherly. She'd make sure our school clothes were clean, and when we came home with a scratched knee or fell out of a tree, and we were hurting, she would hug us. I loved her.

We all did. I didn't know why she was crying. I was sad for her, but my mother was just laughing at Doher. and saying, oh, come on. So I just kept quiet, never said anything. I went and I did my homework. We had supper.

Afterwards, I asked my mother, why was door crying? She said, because she was afraid of some man coming to the kitchen. Our kitchen door was hinged in halves, two halves. and door kept the top half open. The bottom half was latched. The man, he'd come to the kitchen three times. The first time he asked for a slice of bread, which door gave to him,

he thanked her and walked away. The second time he'd knocked, asked, can she give him please a glass of water? She did that. He drank the water and thanked her and walked away. The third time, when he came, he asked for a match. I don't know why he would need a match unless he was smoker. The door went off, and when she came back with the match,

he had opened the bottom half of the door and had actually stepped into the kitchen. That scared her because he stopped. to stare with his red eyes. Such red eyes. I realized it's the same man. The same man I had seen fixing the road with the red eyes. Dorp felt something was wrong.

She didn't know what to do. She felt he would come back again, you see? She felt something with unfinished business. My mom thought she was just, you know, talking crap. So I didn't say anything. Daw was late in coming to work next morning. She always stayed in the servant's quarters.

She would come in in the morning at 6.30, 7 o'clock and prepare breakfast, set the table, etc. But she never showed up. My mother said, oh, she must have oversaw. slept. Shirley gone, wake her up. I went to the servants' quarters and I knocked loudly calling her name and there was no answer. There was a little hole in the door where my brother and I used to peep at her changing her clothes. You know, children do that. She was lying on the bed as if she was still sleeping. She was in her nightgown. I thought she was very pale.

She was almost as pale as the white sheets, and this is a brown-skinned woman. I ran back and told my mother, it looks as if she was sick. She asked my father to go and see what's wrong with door. After calling and knocking as well, my father used a master key, opened the door. I was peeping through the door when that was. Daddy went in. I saw blood in the crook of her arm. There were two holes out of which there was blood coming.

There were the size of two teeth. What had such big teeth that could dig two holes and suck her blood? My father said, oh my God, she's not well. Daddy took her immediately to the heart. hospital where she'd had to get a blood transfusion. Doe refused to stay in Grenada. No, no, no. I don't want to stay in this island, not one day more.

She was from Sinkets, and so Daddy arranged for her to go back to Send Kits. I was sorry, but I totally understood why she would want to leave Grenada. The next time I came from school, and every afternoon when I... I came from school, I made sure I looked wherever there was road work being done to see if the same man would be there. So I could rush past that I never saw him again. Only as I grew older, I realized that a shapeshifter is what attacked Doer. I heard my father telling my mother about the things that he encountered. with the local country people.

He was a magistrate in Grenada. It's similar to a judge, but a magistrate judge's minor cases, DUI theft. My father heard about these shapeshifters through the court cases that he judged over. He found that there was a lot of evil where people had made a pact with the devil

and been given certain abilities to turn themselves into a lizard or a bird or some other small creature where they could get into your house. They attack people not to kill them but to suck their blood. That seems to be their sustenance. The man was probably, I mean, none of us saw him change his shape. We presumed it was him. But whatever it was that was able to sneak into her locked room, attacked her.

I didn't know at the time because I was a child. But as an adult, I researched it and I found out. All I had to do was to pour line of. salt, sand, or rice across the door sill and across the window. And the entity would have to stop and they would have to count every grain of whatever it is. And daylight would come and meet them. If the sun comes up without them being back in their skin, they die. Years later, my husband and I opened a guest house in our home.

Everybody else wanted as much air as possible, all windows open, ceiling fans on. But every Caribbean person we've had stay with us have all closed their windows in tight, close all the louvers tight. When I ask, why you close up everything? like that. They said, oh, I want to keep bad spirits out. I was in my early 40s. I happened to see Dole sitting at the airport and sent kids. I said, Dor, is that you? Said, yeah, yes, Miss Shirley, call me Miss Shirley. I sat down with her and I said, Door, is it true what happened to you in Grenada? I just wanted a confirmation that I was not dreaming, that it actually happened.

She lifted her sleeve up and showed me she had the scars of two holes, the crook of her arm. And she nodded, she said yes. I did not ask Doar for any more details. I didn't want to talk about it anymore, because I would have been frightened all over again. When we're out at the evening, unless I absolutely am sure of the person,

I never talk to them first because you never know what they are. You Shirley, for sharing your story at the spooked, Shirley now lives on the small and beautiful island of Montserrat, where she stays an eternal guard for Shoeuvre. shapeshifters. The original score was by Doug Stewart was produced by Anne Ford. Born of fire. Some folks say the gin walk amongst us. Others claim the world is inhabited by Myriad Faye, Ferry, the fair folk. Near where I sit even now, people claim the Thunderbird still flies

to Pacific Northwest. People say a lot of things. But if you have firsthand knowledge, experience history with creatures of legend, then you better believe I want to know all about it. Secrets want to be free. Let us know. Spooked at snapjudgment.org because there's nothing better than a spook story from a spooked listener. Spooked at snapjudgment.org. And if you need that spook gear, I know you do.

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, stupendous sister podcast, Snap Judgment. It is storytelling with a beat. Book was created by the team that knows well and good, the difference between a Sasquatch and a Yeti. Except, of course, for Mark Ristich, they all taste good with barbecue sauce to him.

There's Davy Kim, Chris Hambrick, Leon Morimoto, Teo de Codd, Marisadege, Zoli Thriigno, Ann Ford, Eric Yanez, Tessa Paoli, Cody Harjo, Lola Abrarara, Miles Lassie, Yari Bundy, and Doug Stewart. The spook theme song is by Pat Masini Miller, my name's from Washington. And we expect their monsters that have powers we cannot comprehend. They can see further, they can run faster, they can jump higher, they have the temerity to actually hunt the apex predator. We are not accustomed to being stalked. So we take all of their qualities together and we label them supernatural. But in the end, there is just as much an aspect of nature as the mountains and the trees. We are all nature's children.

And we must all obey her edicts. That's why even the most grotesque monstrosities, they cringe from the simplest bomb of all. Because basic precautions are always the most effective. This is why I beg you, no matter what you do.