Spooked - Something In The Walls

Episode Date: September 20, 2018

The Visage: A man is hired to do remodel work on a notorious haunted house. But something inside the house doesn’t want anything to change. Decorations:  Paintings start appearing on the walls. Dark, odd, and disturbed. All Nic knows is, something sinister is at work. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. Step Judgements' underground layer, you're listening to Spooked. Stay tuned. Ten years ago today, the middle of the night, suddenly, instantly, electrically awake, I didn't rise up. I didn't open my eyes. I did not move because whatever was watching me, darkness. I didn't want it to know that I was ready.

Starts. I really wanted to quit. Like really, really, really wanted to quit. Because you got to make that money, all right? That's the situation our next guest finds himself in, but it's much, much worse. So I got a call from a guy to ask me to go help with a drywall job and chills. Okay, so while I'm working in this house as a drywaller, from the first, day I was in this house, I'd be hearing, I'd be working upstairs, I'd be hearing somebody with a heavy

pair of boots, like a full grown adult, walking up the stairs, these old creaky wooden stairs. I'd be working around the stairwell on the walls, on the ceiling above the stairwell, and I hear these foot stops coming up the stairs, and I'm looking, it's right there right by me, but there's nobody there. Nobody. I'm alone for this job most of the time. There was one day where the guy who called me, he showed up. We were working the upstairs stairwell.

And he's got a stretch plank, stretched out on a ladder, over the top of the stairwell even. And it's this aluminum stretch plank. He's standing on this, I'm standing on the wall next to it, and we're both coating the ceiling and the walls and stuff with our drywall mud. And we hear the footsteps coming up. And I told him, I say, see, this is what I'm talking about. You hear these footsteps every day.

He's like, oh, come on, man. He's not believing it, yet he's hearing it. He looks over at me, and I'm looking at him. I'm telling you, dude, and as I'm talking to him, out of nowhere, the stretch plank he's standing on kind of jumps up in the air a little bit. Like somebody just hit it from underneath. He jumped off of that thing.

He jumped down, he's scared. He goes out the window. I went out at the damn window because he did, and we're sitting on the little bit of a roof outside of this window looking at each other like, what the hell is that? And I'm like, I told you there's some crazy crap in this freaking house. You got me stuck on this stupid job. I don't want to do this no more.

This is insane. So we're sitting out there and we're kind of looking in a window and like, man, there's hoping nothing comes out. We don't want to see anything come in the window. And I'm like, yeah, let's get out of here. We're done. and we jump off of this roof onto the ground it was probably maybe a 10-foot drop or something

it wasn't that bad the next day I show up at the house and I'm waiting for him outside because I didn't want to go in by myself and he calls me and of course he wasn't going to make it asked me please I will pay you more money

to hurry up and get that house done get in and get out of there I was like oh man I have five kids this is how I feed my family take care of my family put food on the table. I have to do this job. I can't leave the house. I'm there until it's done. One morning when I had pulled into the house, into the driveway to start for the day, whatever,

the neighbor was outside. Then we started talking, I told him about the heavy boot steps on the stairs. And then it's when he told me, you know, it was probably the guy who hung himself. You're hearing his feet bouncing off the wall. That's what you're hearing. here and he said in the mid-80s the man who lived in that house had hung himself he knew of activities in the house there's some sort of ghost activities going on in that house and that's why he said that's why people don't stay in that house nobody stays in the house for more than a year at a time and it's been completely remodeled on the inside he said at least three times already but the last family who lived in there they left everything and one of the days to follow

I was getting closer to finishing the job I was at the bottom of the stairwell and I felt something was nearby a presence or whatever I looked up the stairwell and I seemed like it looked like fingers there were fingers from a hand coming through the wooden banisters

coming out into the stairwell and then there was a second one it was a second hand and I didn't know what to do I was starting to freeze they were humaneish hands. They were kind of transparent. But then after the two hands came out,

then a forehead, and then slowly the side view of a face, it was like pulling itself through the banister above the stairwell, and then it kind of stopped pulling itself forward where it had its head far enough out into the stairwell. This thing is turning down and looking at me. And I am kind of.

completely frozen. I didn't know what to do. I'm just terrified. I'm looking up at it. It's a human head. It was a decaying looking face on this thing, though. It was just the grossest, scariest thing I've ever seen. It had me locked by the eyes, and when it actually moved, it moved its head. I felt I got 10 years older instantly. I was just shutting down and giving up. I was just so, so scared. Freaking out, I don't know what to do. I'm reaching for stuff. I find my drywall hatchet.

It was hooked in my drywall pouch. And I pulled it out and I throw it at this thing. Damaging what I had just done up there, but I don't care. And this thing, it disappeared. I had to get out of there. I had to go. I finished up what I was paid to do I manned up through it

I did it I was a warrior I packed my gear I got in my truck down the road I went and I never looked back the history of the house from what I was told by the neighbor as families they buy the house or they run the house or whatever nobody had stayed there for for more than a year

that's why I got called in to help us just to do an interior cosmetics is what that basically was to help for the selling point of the house or whatever for the next person to come in to give them the bright paint the new light fixtures is like wow this is cozy

good luck with that just wait I actually heard a man had bought the house and do I have a moral obligation to tell him about this I spoke with the man though but I feel guilty because I didn't.

I couldn't. I just couldn't do it. Thanks to Daniel Joseph for sharing your story with Spooked. And when we return, Nick, he finds a perfect dream house, right? Right? Because this ain't the home improvement channel.

This is Spook, son. Stay. Do you ever stumble across an opportunity that seems too perfect? Like, someone left it there just for you? You take it. But you wonder in the back of it.

your mind why you should be so lucky. Well, maybe you're not so lucky after all. And this is the situation our friend Nick found himself in when he moved into a special place. Our house here is a hundred-year-old house. Back behind this field down a long gravel road, it's a beautiful place. Growing up close to this area, we've always come here to exploring the woods and float down the river and go fishing. So when I moved here, it meant a lot to me that I had.

I had my own piece of it. It's like everything I've always wanted. I never thought anything bad could happen to us here. This all started when I'd gotten home from work one night. You know, I walk down the hall to the table to put my stuff down. I turned the lights on. Right by the table was this painting hanging on the wall that wasn't there when I left that morning. As soon as I saw it, I called my girlfriend Mary.

There was a little boy and girl in a room. In the back of the picture, there were two baby dolls, and whoever left the painting had circled the baby dolls in red ink, which really spooked me out. I couldn't be more confused. I started thinking to myself, how long had this been here? You know, we kind of just let it go, though. Five or six weeks after the first painting, the second painting showed up in the wall. It was a pencil drawing of this man about to commit suicide. But instead of a gun, this guy was holding a pressurized tennis ball can to his head, as if he was going to kill himself with a can of tennis balls.

It was absolutely terrifying. Then it just kept happening. It kept happening. There wasn't any rhyme or reason to when they would show up. We go through a week or two without getting any, and we'd think that it was all over, and then boom. There would be a painting. Sitting on the piano or sitting in the bathroom, hanging on the wall. There would be a painting. And the pictures just kept getting creepier and creepier and creepier.

There are lots of paintings of children. Tibetan monks. Creepy landscapes. Elderly people holding hands walking through the woods. The one painting that really stuck out to me, it was like a collage that somebody had made. This painting was a picture of an English bulldog, and he was wearing a military jacket. And underneath of this picture was this message. This house used to be mine, and I'm going to get it back.

That one picture really scared me because it seemed a little angry. So there was a couple of theories. One of the first people that we reached out to was Nick's brother, Dave. Nick and Mary approached me about some bizarre paintings. He had no idea what we were talking about. And then as the pictures kept coming in, we kept laying them out and trying to see if there are any commonalities. Somebody was maybe trying to tell us a broader story. You know, we live in a really old town.

A lot of random deaths seem to happen around here. The house sits on land where a really big battle happened in the Revolutionary War. The past few years, there's been two neighbors who have committed suicide. I thought that the house could be haunted. I thought that people who had lived here long before I did not want us to be happy here. It had been going on for months, months. There would be nights I wouldn't sleep over at the house. And even when I did sleep here, there would be a lot of nights where I would not get any sleep at all,

Maybe this is a night where somebody comes into the house and I catch them. But then what? I seriously considered moving out of this house. And then one day it just stopped. So we're out with Nick's family. We were at a really nice steakhouse, eating some prime rib, some great mashed potatoes, drinking some wine. My mom turns to my brother, Dave, and says, have you done any more decorating? I locked eyes with her.

She had this look in her face like, oh, I just said something I shouldn't have. And once I read her face, I knew exactly what she was talking about. He was behind the paintings the whole time. I just saw, like, all the pieces of Nick's head come together, like, slowly but shortly. He looks to me, he goes, was that you? Was that you? Was that you? Right, he just starts screaming in the middle of this restaurant full of people.

It was just the most fantastic moment I've ever seen. The whole family was in on it. Everybody was in on it except for Nick and I. It was so not funny. I was so pissed. I still don't think this is funny. No, no, no. He loves it.

He loves it. I got a ton of free decorations. If anything, I did him a favor. His house looks better. Looks better after I decorated than before. Bad Man Day. Better watch you back. Don't think a moment's going to go by.

that your brother's not plotting revenge. Here at Spook, we strongly discouraged ghost pranks because afterlife is no laughing matter. Would you dig it? Because this super tiny Spook Squad project only works if you make it work.

Let somebody know on the social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, spookpod.org. All new spook episodes each and every week as we march toward Halloween. If you did, amazing storytelling,

of a non-haunted variety. Check out the incredible Snap Judgment podcast, cinema of sound, storytelling with the beat to snapjudgment.org. Spooked is brought to you by the letters Mark Ristich. Anna Sussman, John Fasiel, Eliza Smith, Jodi Kali, and Tail de Kott.

Our original theme music is by Pat Massidi-Miller. Original music, composition, performances, and soundscaping by Leon Morimoto and Pat Massidi-Miller. If the walls tell you to go ahead and turn out the light, please, No, that's just what the dark side wants.

Don't play into their hands. Always remember, never forget. To follow this simple rule, never, never, never, ever, never, ever.