Spooked - Planes, Trains, and Ghostmobiles

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

Who says that a ghost can’t help you get from point A to point B?STORIES Ghost Ride the WhipJoey and his dad take a car ride that they will never, ever, ever forget.Big love to Joey for sharing his story with the Spooked! If you want to hear more from Joey, check out his podcast, Trailer Trashing.Produced by Alyia Yates, original score by Shane BinghamBike AngelIt’s the middle of the night in Ciudad Neza, Mexico. Nayma is coming home from a party, and she’s all alone. How will she get home safe?Thank you, Nayma, for sharing your story with us! Produced by Fernando Hernandez, original score by Renzo GorrioTranslation by Fernando Hernandez and Adreanna RodriguezArtwork 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.

Humpty Dumpty sat on his throne. Humpty Dumpty sat all alone. The ladies were missing and so were the men so no one said nothing to Humpty again. You're listening to Spooked. Stay tuned. Ten years old, I'm in the church. We finished singing the hymn. Then Pastor Sykes walks over to the podium.

Pastor Sykes, he says, Brother, brethren, I know a family, a good Christian family. And this family, they're driving across country in their station wagon, moving to the dad's new job and blessed with a promotion he has. And brethren, they're driving. Alongside him, a man, riding the motorcycle, waves for them to pull over. And the father slows the car down to the side of the road,

wondering what's going on? Man, the motorcycle, coasts right up to the driver's window, leans over and tells him, don't y'all keep going down this road? Especially don't you cross that bridge. Whether something happened? The motorcycle man smiles and says, Not yet.

Then revs his bike and drives back the way he came. And now the father, he thinks about it. Craziest thing, brethren, craziest thing, finally, he decides to turn that car around. Look for another room. And right as he pulls away, brethren, the family, they hear a giant roar. They turn to see the entire bridge, the one they were supposed to be on. Crumble!

Crumble on itself and fall down into the chasm, down into the river. And they're shaking, stunned, they're shook. And finally, they drive. away from the calamity and silence until a little one, Ronnie. Oh, Ronnie, just four years old, pops up. Mama, he

says, Mama, what does A-N-G-E-L spell? Why? Well, that spells Angel. Little Ronnie, why he asked? Because, Mama, that's what the

motorcycle's license plate said. And I watch. as the congregation shakes their head in amazement. Amen. Some folk whisper, praise God, praise God. Now, I'm not saying Pastor Sykes is a liar. But I don't believe in Little Ronnie. I don't believe in this bridge.

And I certainly don't believe in this motorcycle man. I didn't believe it back then. And I don't believe it now. Now, I don't believe it, but all these years later, I still think about it. I think about it almost every single day. I wonder, I wonder if there are invisible strings. I wonder, does someone ever put their finger on the cosmic scale? I wonder, what turns an invisible force into something you can see?

And in the end, I'm not making. I'm not mad at Pastor Sykes. I'm not mad at little Ronnie. Perhaps I wonder if... Maybe, just maybe, if I'm too cynical, too skeptical, too broken, too guarded. I'd ever see a license plate. My name is from Washington. Spook starts. Now, next step for traveling all the way to the Garden State to New Jersey. Joey Rinaldi. Joey's but six years old. He's. His auntie, she's coming over for dinner, and all Joey wants to do is shoot some hoops in the driveway. But Joey's got to stick around and be polite.

So I'm ready for a very boring night. The second I met her, I got the classic, oh, you don't remember, but I know you. I met you when you were just a baby. And I'm like, well, don't remember you, so don't care. Right after dinner ends, I'm going to get some ice cream, some cookies. And then right before the dessert comes out, my aunt has this very serious look on her face. And she looks at my dad and she says to him,

Ellis, it happened again. I've been getting visitors. And my dad just like, at the edge of his seat, is like, who was it this time? And then she looks at my parents and says, is it okay? Can I tell your kids? And they're like, yeah, sure, I don't care.

She looks at us and goes, kids. Since I was a little baby, ghosts come to me. Sometimes they just come over to just, they like being around me. They tell me messages. Now my aunt has officially become the most interesting person I've ever met. I am now at the end of my seat asking her a million questions. I'm asking, tell me every ghost you ever met. Who's the coolest one? Who's the scariest one? Or any famous people, ghosts, visit you. So I'm so excited I'm like, tell me about the ghost

And I didn't know any of this Because I just thought Ghost lived in haunted houses Gooby-Doo in the game goes And she's like, that's not true at all Ghost can be anywhere It's like the reverse of finding out Santa Claus is fake

It's like I'm finding out That this crazy shit is real I'm just like freaked out right now As cool and as awesome And amazing as my aunt's Ghost stories are. All the cookies and ice cream have been eaten, and I no longer can stay at the table.

So my brothers and I are looking at each other, and we're like, let's go outside and play basketball and get away from the Boren Coffee Talk. It's nighttime, and we have these, like, shitty outside lights that can just light up where the basketball hoop is, just enough. I have a little hoop. My brothers have the big hoop. I'm shooting. They're shooting.

We're having a great time. And we're still a little scared and nervous because we just got told some crazy ghost stories from my ad. It was just this, like, weird feeling in the air. As I'm thinking about all of this, I see lights. So I crossed the giant white fence to see a car coming up the driveway. And my driveway is so, it's such a big hill. It's such a ginormous long hill from the bottom to top of my house. So when a car came up, you just saw lights forever and ever.

It's like the lights never stop. The car comes up and I hear car doors open and I hear footsteps outside. So I opened the gate and I see this car with bright lights and there was a man standing right there in front of the fence looking at me. And this guy was like the most generic 70-year-old white guy ever. If you ever close your eyes and picture like an old white white white guy. white-haired white man who has wrinkly, wrinkly skin wearing, like, LL Bean catalog clothes. That's him. So this old Mr. Roper looking guy is now asking me questions.

He's like, is there a party here? I'm like, there's no party. He goes, well, do you live at this address? And now he's asking questions that sound familiar to what my mom used to describe as questions strangers would ask. He seemed off. He seemed not good. He seemed like somebody that I need to alert a parent about.

So I'm like, sir, stay here. And before I can even go and get my parents, they were ahead of the game. They were like, young man, show us to your parents. We have questions. And I'm like, well, that's exactly what I'm going to do. So we're on the same team, old man. My dad comes out and apparently the guy is looking for a party at my house. I'm thinking like, why would you come?

I think there's a 40 at my house crazy. My dad investigates a situation, and he realizes that the address that he wants to go to is my address, but just the last part of it is different. Like, we were on Edward Drive. I think he needed to go to Edward Avenue. And my dad explains that it's on the other side of town,

and I see in the car there's other old people. And as my dad's talking to them, it's clear that these old people are going to get lost. It's miraculous that they even found my address. Then the guy, he drops the knowledge that, like, it's his daughter's house, and he can't miss his daughter's party. And then my dad deals back because he's like, oh, if it's your daughter's party, you got to make it.

My dad goes, I'll drive and you ask and follow us. And we decide that it would be better if this guy comes in our car with us. My brother Frank, he's very gunhole. I'm going to sit in the front seat. So my dad is like, Joey, get in the back seat with this old man we never met before. And we start driving. There's something off about the clown car, old people following us. There was something off about this man.

And my dad is like, you know, trying to bet the guy. He's trying to ask him questions. And the guy's not really a talkative guy. All he really talked about was how he needs. to see his daughter and that they were looking forward to seeing his daughter at this party. That was his story and he was sticking to it the whole entire car ride. And we eventually show up to where dad just was. But it's curious because there's no loud house, there's no brightly lit house.

I know what a party looks like. I know there's a balloon on a mailbox. There's normally some sort of like Motown music playing. My dad's like, well, it could be a bit. basement party. Maybe they're on the basement, you know. Like, we're not going to, like, get out of the car or anything because, like, we're just need to go on a merry way. So the old man gets out to, like, signal the car behind us, the clown car of all people.

And as we go to signal behind them, they don't stop. They just, like, speed drive past us, like, like, boom, broom, like 100 miles per hour. They're just driving by into, like, the dust of the night. My dad's like, I'm just going to knock on the door. And I get out of the call at my brother, we knock on the door. And this lady who's like, probably my mom's age, opens the door. And she just looks very confused, almost like more confused than when all the old people showed up at my house asking about a party. Hi, I know you're having a party tonight.

She's immediately cuts them off because there's no party happening tonight. What are you talking about? My dad's like, well, I hate the burger to you, lady, but there's a clown car of old people looking for you, and they're probably going to come back soon enough. And we got your dad, and your dad said, this is your house, and that he wanted to come to your party. And the lady almost looks sad and tells us that her dad's dead.

And then we turn around, the guy is nowhere to be found. The guy is not there. My first thought was he has probably found the car and is with them, but I look around. And this road has like a dead end, cul-de-sac. We would have seen or heard if the car drove by. But the car never comes back around. And now she's like, now you got to leave. So the lady closes the door on us, and she doesn't want to talk to us anymore.

Now I'm looking in the bushes. I'm like, is this guy hiding? What's happening? And after like three minutes. minutes of looking around my dad, my brother, and me could not find this old man. It kind of feels like maybe these old people were never there at all. My dad tried thinking about it for like two seconds, and then he just was like, it's not a problem anymore. We did the Samaritan thing.

Let's just get in the car, go back home, and just hope that the old people find wherever we're looking for. Kind of a long drive back. there's a feeling in the car. It feels spooky. It feels scary. It feels something that I've never felt before. But whatever I was feeling, I knew it was collective with everybody in the car.

My brother and my dad had to be feeling this freakiness too. We get back to my house and we tell my aunt and my mom and my siblings what happened. And my aunt looks at us and goes, I'm so sorry, but me being here must have attracted ghosts. and now everyone's freaked out. My aunt leaves that night, it's too scary to go to sleep alone. My sister and my other brother

who didn't even come on the car ride are afraid too. And I think we sleep all together for like two weeks straight. That night, my dad and my brother and I, we kind of went on our own Scooby-Doo mystery. But unlike Scooby-Doo and Shaggy, I don't think we solved anything.

I like to think that a car of old people was a delivery service. And every drop-off they make is an old person that has unresolved issue. And maybe that guy had an unresolved issue with his daughter and needed to be dropped off at his daughter's house. And then after they left us, they drove off from the night to something else. Maybe they dropped the next guy off at his favorite old dive bar and so we can reconcile with his old bartender he had a fight with about a bar tab or something. I don't know.

But I like to think it's like an Uber pool for ghosts with unresolved issues. Thank you, Joey, for getting in that car. You are braver than I'll ever be in spooksters. If you want to hear more from Joey, know this. He's got a podcast. It's called Trailer Trashing. That's trailer trashing. We're going to have a link to his show on the Spoot Luminary page.

The original score for this story was by Shane Bingham. The story was produced by Elia Yates. Now, it's middle of the night in Cudadneza in Mexico. And Naima, Naima is coming home from a party. And Naima is all alone. My security, no me import about much, really. My physical safety wasn't something that I was really thinking about when I was out partying.

That night, my friend had told me, I think it's going to be easier for you to come and crash at my place after the party. But the party went longer than I thought it would, so when I arrived at my friend's place, he wasn't there. I think it was around three in the morning. My friend goes to work super early. this was the worst moment to be alone. And I thought, what do I do now?

Because I had run out of money and the metro had already closed. My parents live like half an hour away from my friend's house. I decided to walk to a busier street in the hopes of getting a bus or a taxi there, but after midnight, pretty much everything is dead.

No more buses, no taxis, no one on the streets. When I got to the big street, I didn't want to walk anymore, so I stayed on the corner. And it was very cold. I was wearing a skirt, stockings, and a super thin jacket. My plan was to wait there for a taxi. No, I think that I was either like 10 minutes went by. I was still standing on that corner when suddenly I heard the sound of a bicycle approaching.

And it was strange because who rides a bike at 3 in the morning? The man on the bike passed by, looked at me, and kept going. But then he turned around and stopped in front of me. He was wearing a thin, white jacket and looked small and scrawny. The first thing I felt when he approached me was defensive. I mean, getting approached by a man in the middle of the night on an empty street. in Cidaneza is not something that makes you feel safe. He told me, you know, if you're waiting for a taxi or a bus,

nothing's going to come because it's too late. And then he asked, where are you going? And I said, well, just a few blocks this way. I was trying not to share too many details. And he said, well, if you want, I can give you a ride. I'm headed in the same direction. I'm around 5'4. This guy looks small, even on his bicycle.

Getting on his bike didn't sound like a good idea. But he insisted, he said, it's okay, hop on, no problem. I'm going in the same direction as you. He basically convinced me that this was my only choice. I'm not riding in a stranger's car, but this was kind of different because the offer came from someone riding a bicycle. My logic was, he can't grab me while he's peddling and watching the road at the same time. So I told him, okay, I'll hop on.

So I got on the back of his bike. It was pretty uncomfortable stepping onto the pegs because I would. wearing heels. When I put my hands on his shoulders, I noticed he felt cold for someone who had been riding a bicycle for a while. He wasn't sweaty either. And he started pedaling effortlessly.

He tried to start a conversation, but I couldn't hear him very well. I don't remember what he was saying to me, but his tone wasn't scolding or passive, When people talk to me in that tone, I get mad and defensive right away. His was more empathetic. It was a fast, smooth, and effortless ride for him, as if he wasn't carrying my weight. It usually takes a 40-minute car ride from the corner where I met the cyclist to my parents' home.

But I think it took us only 15 minutes. I was planning on telling him to drop me at some corner and walk from there so he wouldn't know where I lived. But he was like, no, don't worry, I'll take you to the door or wherever you're going. And so he took me to my parents' doorstep. I wasn't carrying any money with me to pay him for the ride. So I told him, hey, wait for me here. I'll go inside and get you some cash. He said, no, no, don't worry.

Money is worthless for me. I thought, okay, hippie, but I said thank you. Then he started to leave. I walked towards the door, pulled out my keys, and tried to open the door, but I couldn't. When he saw me struggling, he came back. He said, let me help you, and he took the keys and opened the door effortlessly. He unlocked the doorknop as I pushed the door. And the moment I was about to step in the door, my mom came out of the house.

She was mad and yelling. Hey, I heard someone messing with the door, and I looked through the window and saw that it was used, so I came to open the door. And I was like, yeah, I couldn't open the door, but this dude that I was with opened it for me. But when my mom and I looked behind me, he was gone, nowhere to be seen. But I just shrugged it off because all I really wanted to do was sleep. The next morning, my mom was getting on my case about me being alone in the street at night. She was like, you came all the way home by yourself. But I told her, no, Mom, I came here on a bicycle with a friend.

He even opened the door for me. That's not true, she said. I looked through the window and I only saw you. I even forgot about the kind stranger who gave her a ride home until one night the memory came back to her. So she jumped on Twitter and told the story in a thread it went viral, but she still felt uncertain about something. I made a Twitter poll asking people who they thought the person who gave me the ride was. Option A was ghost, B, Angel, or C, I've been dead for seven months. The one that I got the most votes was be an angel.

And then I was asking, what was the difference between an angel and a ghost? Because I didn't know what it was. The folks who tweeted at me explained that a ghost is someone who was alive and then died. The angel is like a magical entity. A few months later, I looked for a cross or a little. a ghost bike to see if someone had died in that area but found nothing.

But I did decide to stop partying and drinking. I don't think he saved me, but I think he did me a favor. Thank you, Naima, for sharing your story of the spoof. We are so glad to hear you are staying safe. The original score for that story was by Renzel Goryo. It comes to us and is produced by our spooked correspondent, Fernando Hernandez. This dark path has no beginning and we are nowhere near the end. More stories you want, so more stories, my friends, you shall have.

If you have a story that spook you, a personal story, let us know. Send us your story that's spooked. At snapjgment.org, there is nothing better than a spook story from a spook listener. And if you like your storytelling, away from the high. Hot breath to the dark night. Try our sister podcast, Snap Judgment. It might just change your life. Pook was brought to you by the team that never sits in the back seat.

That's right. None of us ever feel comfortable back there. Except, of course, for Mr. Mark Ristich. As Anna Sussman, our chief spookster is Eliza Smith, Chris Hamburg, Annie New Inn, Cotton, Russo Dodge, Elia Yates, Zoe Ferigno, Greta Weber, Jacob Winick, Sonokhan, Tiffany Delisa, and for Fernando Hernandez and Flo Wiley. The spook theme songs by Pat McNeely Miller.

My name's been Washington. And maybe you're headed out of town. This is a trip to see some family or something like that, and you're sleeping in an unfamiliar bed. You might be tempted to suppose what this new place, new rules must apply. We'll think again wherever you are. And wherever you go, always,

always remember never never never never never never never never