Spooked - Final Act

Episode Date: October 26, 2017

Stories: "Cowboy Whiteout" - A woman gets an unlikely savior when she’s lost in a snowstorm. "Flesh-Eating Bacteria" - A mortician-in-training has his worst shift yet. "Big Al" - A caregiver gets a visit from one of his late patients. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Really, the question is simple. Here it is. Are they here? And why do they stick around? From Snap Judgment's underground layer, you're listening to Spoot. Stay. It's been an interesting road.

And I'm wondering, just like you, is this the final chapter of Spooked? Or will we return? In a very small way, in a tiny way, It's the same question we've been asking from the very beginning. Is what we see all there is? Or is this just one layer? One lens of a larger, invisible reality.

Do we get a second chance to make it right? My name is Glenn Washington. Everyone's betting on something spooked. The final episode starts now. Now, I've heard this. I've heard some people driving. Some people driving listening to spook. They get so engaged.

They forget to make their turn. Of course, we understand. But have you ever gotten so lost in thought that you lose your way to come to save you? Our first story comes to us from the wilds of rural Montana. I was a EMT, which is the emergency medical technician in Dillon, Montana. This story takes place. on New Year's Eve, 1987. I was having dinner with my boyfriend at that time.

His name was Hank. And we were having New Year's Eve dinner. I was on call 24-7, and so I just wore a pager all the time. And I got a page, and the page said, Man Down in Alley. and so I immediately responded and I said I had to go on this call so I got to the young man he was about 14 years old

and he was having seizures the boy had freckles he was a red-headed green-eyed boy so we were trying to contain him enough to protect him but he was 14 he was a pretty good-sized boy, and it took a lot of the police, and these guys are big guys,

to control his bodies enough that we could strap him down. We transport him to the hospital, which was about three minutes away, and they immediately did blood tests, and they came back and told us that there was cocaine in his system, and they said there must have been something else in there, based it with something, and that they were going to keep him, you know, put him in ICU right away. And actually, as I'm thinking about this, I remember with that boy making eye contact with him

at one time, he knew he wasn't going to be okay. He knew. And yet we went for it anyway. We did everything to save that boy's life. Even though his body was still there, there was something missing. He wasn't dead. His body was alive, but his soul had already moved on. So I'm going to ask you just to imagine that it was New Year's Eve in your life, and you had just seen a young boy in Grandma's seizures, and then you find out that the reason this boy is so seriously ill is because he got some cocaine that was leased with something. Did you get mad? Especially if you knew that the man that possibly brought in the drugs was your boyfriend.

When I went home, I just couldn't sleep because I knew that Hank was bringing in drugs. And it was just so upsetting to me that perhaps that boy got one of his drugs. I went to bed for a little bit. It's about 3 o'clock in the morning. and I got in my car and that's one way that I can calm my little spirit is by going into nature, going for a drive. It's cold, it's dark,

and in Montana these old roads, I mean, they're just two-lane highways and I just headed to where I knew where it was always calming for me, which was Yellowstone Park, which was about three hours away. So it was a nice little, drive. I probably hit there maybe

5.30 in the morning or something. It was still dark. And I remember turning off. And then I just went, wow, this road doesn't seem like the same place that I usually go. It was cold.

It was very cold and there was probably about two and a half three feet of snow. I think the biggest thing I was thinking was I knew that they were bringing those drugs. in. And it made me very mad. And so my mind was really playing tapes of, if I did this, I could do this. If I did that, I could do this. I realized I was lost probably about an hour up the road.

And it was just, the wind was shaking the car when I was driving. It was just blowing so hard, this blizzard and it was like I knew I couldn't try and turn around because I would get stuck. And then I went, man, this is not good. As I'm driving, the snow is literally just coming over the car. It was so deep I was pushing through it and it was coming over the top of the car. And I reached down into my jockey box to see if I had any food and I had a half of piece of gum. And I didn't have any water. I didn't have any other food. I still had about a half tank of gas or so, and I decided that if I would stop and then just turn the engine off until I,

you know, got really cold and then I would start it up. I probably had enough gas for about six hours. I don't even know where I am, and there is so much snow, and the blizzard is happening. If this continues, my car will be completely covered. They won't find me. And I went, this is it. This is where I'm going to, this is where I'm going to die. And I just kept thinking about my daughter, Brandy. And then I heard a truck come up behind me.

And this guy pulls up, he's got this about it, I think it was about a 60 Ford pickup, blue and white. He had a cowboy hat on. He's got the guns in the back. I would say he was probably in his 50s. He was really tall. He had a brown hat, and his hair was kind of that dirty, blondie brown. It was all straggling.

He had a beard and blue jeans, and his face was full of wrinkles. And he just said, what in the hell are you doing out here? And started yelling at me, and I'm like, well, I don't really. really know what I'm doing out here. I think I told him, I think I'm lost, and he just kept asking me, who are you, who are you? And I was trying to tell him who I was, but he wouldn't listen to me. He just kept on, who are you, who are, what are you doing? What are you doing? And I really started getting scared because he was getting pretty loud, you know, and the rifles are in the truck. And he looked at my plates. He says, you're from Montana. He said, yeah. And he says, well, do you even

know where you are? And I said, yeah. And he says, well, do you even know where you are? He said, I have no clue. And he said, well, you're in Idaho. And he said, I'll follow you. And I'm going to show you how to get out of here. And so I got my car and I started driving. And there's still no road. And he was so close to me that I could see him.

He had green eyes. They were emerald green eyes. And he was right on my tail. And then he starts honking his horn, just laying on his horn. So I stopped. And then he walks up to my car. and he says, okay, down there you're going to see the telephone post. And I could see him in the distance.

And he says, just follow the fence line. And you could see a fence line down there. And he says, it'll get you to that town. And then he says, there's a gas station down there. Go to the house and lock on the door in the back of the gas station, and they'll help you. And I got in the car and I'm driving, and he's right on my bus. butt again. I was watching where I was going, but also watching him. And then he just vanished.

Just disappeared. And I thought, well, he must have taken a road or went off the road, you know, off somewhere. And so I stopped and I got out and then I backed up a little bit because it was like, where could he be gone? He just disappeared. There was no sign. And then I looked at. And then I looked at him. looked down and there was only one set of tracks. And they were my car tracks. There was no other car tracks. There were no truck tracks. This is weird.

Like, how could that have happened? Because I know he was there. I never touched him and he never touched me, but I could smell his breath. I, you know, I could feel the heat coming off of his body. so close to me. For him just to vanish like that, it was like, what could have that have been? I got chicken skin, you know, like, even though he was really angry, that man was really angry at me, there was a genuine caring about me. We were looking into his eyes and wondering, where did he come from?

And then I remembered that boy And he had the same kind of eyes They were green Although the little boy's eyes Were all bloodshot and stuff It was like the same eyes Same color eyes That emerald green

Oh my God, it was the spirit of that boy And I know that's who came I got back in my car after Checking out the car track thing and headed towards the telephone post. And I got to a little town called Du Bois, and I stopped and went to the house, knocked on the door.

They gave me some gas. And then I headed back to my brother's house where they were having a New Year's Day party. Understand, I do not like blood or death or the smells of blood and death. So surprisingly, one of the best people I know, He lives in a world where these things are commonplace. I have to ask you, please keep your hands inside this ride at all times.

Dear friend, Kyle Bowen, is about to take us to a place I'll bet you've never been before. Inside the embalming room. I was an apprentice embalmer. I lived in an apartment at the funeral home that was on the grounds of a large urban cemetery. When the sun sets and I locked the gates, I was the only living human there, and I loved it. At night it was my own personal park,

just me, the deer, and the dead. I have no idea if there are such a thing as ghosts, but I do know that the dead can possess you. Has the new apprentice and balmer, who had not yet finished mortuary college, I had done removals alone before, but this night was different, because this was the first time I had been cleared to embalm a body solo without a licensed embalmer directly supervising me.

I was excited and a little nervous about it. I was on call that night, and the nursing home I got called to at about 1 a.m. was the one you don't want to end up in. It reeked of despair, the aroma of sweats and cheap. disinfectant and urine. It was always too hot inside, always humid. There was an endless din of moans and groans and screams and incongruous mutterings from everywhere in the building.

The jaded staff used towels to tie the doors closed so that the inmates that were ambulatory could not escape and run into the night. The attendant untied the back door for me. He told me what room the box. body was in. And with that, his obligation to the dead man was over. He seemed relieved. I pushed my gurney up the hallway. The left rear wheel was squeaking a bit, but I could only barely hear it beneath the sounds of dying coming from the rooms. I arrived at room 127. I was looking for bed B. There were four occupants of the room, two asleep, one awake,

one dead. I located bed bee. I slid my gurney next to it and began the process of wrapping the body in a sheet. Sagging muscles hung from his arms. I guessed his age at about 87. There were a few sores on his body. I thought they were bed sores,

but I hadn't seen many dead bodies yet in my career. There was one on his upper left arm, about three inches in diameter. About a third of an inch deep. It was wet, and it seemed alive. It took great care and not touching it even with my gloved hands. It disappeared as I covered him with the sheet. I got onto the other side of the gurney,

reached over it, and began to slide the wrapped body from the bed to my gurney. He was screaming for days. It was the awake occupant of the run. room. His name, Donald, was written on masking tape over his bed. Yeah, I answered. He had surprised me, but I was trying to be professional even though I wasn't a professional yet. He kept screaming, it's eating me. It's eating me alive, over and over. Well, it's done now. I told him. Yeah, thank God. Now I can get some sleep.

I just nodded at Donald, rolled the loaded gurney back to the van, then drove to the funeral home. I would be doing my first solo embalming. I slid the dead man from the gurney to the stainless steel prep table, unwrapped the sheet, and began to remove his hospital gown.

But I stopped. There was that sore again. It looked bigger somehow. But that wasn't possible. Still, it seemed to be growing. Universal precautions. That is something they teach you in mortuary college. You always assume everybody has every disease,

and you protect yourself accordingly. The old embalmers tended to ignore that rule. I've seen them embalm wearing just gloves in an apron. I could do that too, except that's sore. It seemed evil, and it still seemed to be growing. It's eating me alive. He had screamed. I put on the protective gear,

and I embalmed the body. I was still afraid to touch the sore, even when I was double-gloved and completely encased in a protective suit, but I did cover it with cotton I had soaked in formaldehyde. And still, it seemed to be growing. I took one last look at the same thing. that evil sore, then covered the entire body in a sheet. My first solo embalming was done.

I was back in my apartment and back asleep within an hour. I didn't get back to the funeral home until about 6 p.m. My boss was eagerly awaiting me. Before I could even get out of my car, he asked, did I wear protective clothing last night when I embalmed the body? Yes. Why? Necrotizing.

Fasciolitis. Necro what? Flesh eating bacteria. Pamela's fainted. The body was at the coroner's office. The health department had shut down the nursing home. The patients were being sent to other facilities, some of them to isolation. It was a terrifying moment, but for me it was over. For others, it was just beginning. A week later, I got a call to coroner's office to pick up a body that had also been infected with flesh-eating bacteria. The patient's name was Donald. It was the Donald from the nursing home. The coroner's staff member that had picked up the body from the hospital told me to be careful.

Before the poor guy died, he was screaming. It's eating me alive. I'm so happy to say that Kyle Bowen did not succumb to flesh-eating bacteria. He's very much with us. Get ready to confront. everything you believe about life and death. For real, stay. We're going to close Spute with a story for one of our amazing listeners.

Before he went to medical school, Don Clark worked with developmentally delayed patients in a group home in Philly. That job opened his eyes and challenged everything he believed about living and die. I'm Donald Clark. I am a family doctor the year before I went to medical school. I was a house parent for three men who had been patients at a state institution for developmentally delayed people. So it was a three-story house. We had a very strict rule as well as for our own privacy that the guys would not be allowed to go on the third floor. That was our space.

Al was in his 30s and very soon after birth he was diagnosed with an extremely rare syndrome that leaves a person blind from birth and for reasons that aren't clear they usually die in their 30s. Al shuffled. You know, he was short, he was overweight, he shuffled and he would run his hand down the side of a wall. if he was indoors. You could always tell him when Al was coming. First time I met Al, he sidled up to me. He put his hand on my forearm,

then he found my elbow, and then he just went all the way up to my shoulder. He figured out pretty quick that I was a big guy. So when Al got frustrated, he would suddenly stop and freeze and then start to shake, and then he would just start lashing out. Prior to me coming,

he broke one of the other houseparents' arm. And he never attacked me. and I think this is why he and I were able to bond is because I wasn't scared of him. I got to be better at recognizing when he was starting to tense up. I think he, well, his life did calm down during that time we were in the house together. I went away for camping trip with some friends and I got home Sunday night. The other house parent told me that Al had died. It was in the evening.

The guys were in watching the TV. One of the other guys who was not verbal at all, but kept pointing at Al, and then he realized that Al was dead. It was not moving. I felt terrible that I just felt like I should have been there.

I just had that bond with him. And it was that night. I went to bed and I just lay there. just did not move. I was just lying and questioning whether or not I was really hearing what I thought I was hearing. I couldn't believe it. I can hear his walk, his breathing, his hand on the banister on one side and on the wall on the other.

I was incredulous. He comes in my room without pausing. He comes over to the bed and sits on the foot of the bed on the corner of the bed. He did not look like a ghost. There was no bed sheet. There was no, you know, that kind of being able to see through him partly or anything. He looked like Al. So I wasn't scared.

I just couldn't believe what was happening. So Al, when he was confused, he got a particular look on his face, and he would purse his lips and twist them in a particular way. And it was kind of cute. So Al is sitting there on the side of my bed, down there on the foot, and he has got that look on his face and he's thinking real hard about something first I said,

Al, what are you doing up here? You know you're not allowed on the third floor. He's thinking real hard, he's got his lips purse like that. And he finally says, and I said, yeah, Al, you are. And he thought some more. And then he said,

and I said, I'm sorry. But you can't stay here. You're going to have to leave. And he sat there and thought about that for a long time. And then he got up and shuffled out of the room. And his feet and his hands and his breathing went on down the hall and down the stairs. And he was gone. I got up and felt the corner of the bed to see if it was one.

warm or cold like a ghost is supposed to leave, you know, the cold and whatever. You know, I felt nothing unusual, either warmth or cold. I just could not believe it. I consider myself to be a rational person. I practice evidence-based medicine, and I believe in science, and I still don't believe that death is a two-way door. It's one way, and so I cannot explain any of this, and I can't reconcile it with any of my other beliefs.

This did happen and I've just had to say, okay, it happened. I do believe Al came to me because of our relationship and he trusted me. I wasn't there when he died and I felt bad about that. But, you know, he waited for me to find out what he was supposed to do. I wish I could have told him better. But, you know, I somehow feel that he's figured it out in his own way. because it was Al he just walked in

we talked and he walked out thanks for scaring we half to death spook listener Don Clark thanks as well to our favorite mortician Kyle Bowen who guided us inside his world Kyle is a real life graduate of the San Francisco College of Mortuary Science and his work as a mortician for over 15 years

he now writes and performs in Chico, California and love, big love. to Dr. Valerie Simonson for sharing her story about the spirit guide. You can find Valerie's story in the book, Trucker Ghost Stories. We'll have a link on our website. Spookpodcast.org. Episodes of Spook awaiting your attention right now. Download them all, collect the whole set before it is too late.

Spookpodcast.org. If you're feeling it, please support the program right now. at spookpodcast.org. That's the only way this kind of thing happens. Pastime to give credit where credit is due. The amazing. Snap Judgment team has pulled out all the stops

to take you on this walk through the dark side. I couldn't be prouder. Recognize, if you will, the executive producer, Mark Ristich. Snap Judgment, managing producer,

Anna to the Sussman, senior spook producer, Eliza Smith, special projects manager, Jody Colley, art direction by Teo DeCocke. Story production by the amazing Snap Judgment team of Liz Mack, Adisa Egan, Mark Ristich, Anna Sussman, Eliza Smith, Nancy Lopez, and Jasmine Aguilera.

To the Snap Judgment podcast, it's the best true life stories in all the land. Compiled just for you, get that subscription. Additional production unspooked by Jamie DeWolf, Anna Adderstein, and David Kim. The sound. The sound of this show. Lord, I'm scared my damn self.

Original music, all of it, composed and performed by Pat Massidi Miller, Leon Morimoto, Rinzo Giorio, and Davy Kim. Original theme song by Pat Massidi. While you still have a story you want to tell us, tell us, spookpodcast.org, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SpookPod. If you ever take a turn as a chief resident

at the emergency neurosurgery lab and cut into a patient skull to remove a triangle of bone only to see yellow eyes staring back at you where the brain should be Lord, note

that this may have been avoided if you had only agreed to never, ever, never, never, ever, never, ever,