Spooked - The Big Sleep

Episode Date: May 5, 2023

Jen wakes up in a strange hospital with mysterious caretakers. Her only way out? The shot. Thank you, Jen and Robin, for sharing your story with the Spooked! Produced by Zoë Ferrigno, original score by Leon Morimoto, artwork by Teo Ducot Spooked episodes now drop weekly on Fridays. 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.

Sleepy head, sleepy head, lying there upon your bed. Too bad you can't lift your head. Because then you'd see the knife. You listen to spooked. Stay. Okay, so I have a super woo-woo friend. It's all right. She knows she's our woo-woo.

And it's a group of us having dinner. Just catching up, normal talk great times. Then out of nowhere, she suggests. that she teach everyone to see each other's auras. What the hell? Immediately, I'm trying to back away to escape. You know, the beads, incense, and everything like that, it's not really any of my thing.

And now I'm supposed to see someone's aura? No thanks. And I'm not the only one groaning. Come on. It'll be fun. Come on! Finally, to make it stop, we all partner up. There's maybe eight of us.

I get paired with Goofy Jackson. She tells us to line up 10 feet across from each other. All right. Now, don't look at Jackson's nose. Look past his nose. Look past his ears. And when you see the light glowing around his head, don't look directly at it. Look past the light.

Okay. I look over at Jackson, his nose and his ears, him grinning back at me. And I don't see. Any light surrounding his head or whatever it is she's going on about. Whoever first detects the shimmering angelic rays radiating from their person, raise your hand. No one raises their hand? Of course they don't. My friend, she acts all disappointed in us.

Okay, well, who sees something darker? Silence. Here we go again. and just when I think we get to call it quits, Jackson says, I do. There's something all over his head, and it ain't angelic rage either. Now, everybody's got to turn to look at me.

Oh, I think I see it. Man, stop playing. Jackson, stop playing. And for the first time since I've known him, Goofy Jackson looks serious. Everyone's trying to get a peek to see what he sees, and I'm like, whatever, man. Whatever. My friend who started this nonsense gives me the mysterious concern gaze.

Eventually I leave, and I never think of it again. At least, I'd like to say that I never think of it again. Because, oh, there's a void. I know there's a darkness. I know this, but... For the life of me, I didn't think anyone else could see it. Spook starts from Jen. And when this story begins, Jen has just woken up in the hospital.

And Jen. This isn't the first time I'd woken up in a hospital and hadn't known what had happened. I have a few health conditions that have necessitated many operations. So when I woke up, I thought, okay, I'm in a hospital. Here we go again. There I am looking around my new hospital room, waiting for someone to tell me why I'm there. When two people walk in, a man and woman, I'm going to say, mid-40s, both of them, they were both wearing matching burgundy-colored scrubs.

They introduced themselves as my nurse practitioners. One's name was Frank. He was holding a chart. He had short-crossed. black hair. The closest person I could think of that he looked like was Jethro Bowdeen from the Beverly Hillbillies. And his counterpart's name was Elizabetha,

which was shorted to Liz. She had long brown hair, a couple of spit curls at her temples. She had a stethoscope around her neck and a very serious face. He was very smiley. and she was extremely serious. She pulls up a chair.

He sat down next to me on the bed. I presumed it was to film me on what was going on. But just as they were about to start telling me things, I glanced out the window, and I noticed there were mountains in the background. I live in the valley, so we're surrounded by mountains, but they look just a tick different. They looked just slightly more arid.

And I said, oh, wow, this looks like New Mexico. My favorite writers from New Mexico. Edward Abbey, who wrote Desert Solitaire. And Frank said, wait, Desert Solitaire, that's one of my favorite books, too. After that, we hit the ground running. We started talking about our very favorite books. And I'm thinking, well, this is more intense patient on nurse interaction that I've ever had. But it's cool, you know, because these people are really nice.

So as I'm chatting with my two lovely nurses, Elizabeth and Frank, I could hear the sound of a voice right outside my room. It's about 11 o'clock in the morning, mid-October, and the sun not shining and a look of hard, wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing a powder blue suit, a dark blue shirt, tie, and display paint. And I said, uh, can you be quiet from, who's that? Is that? That's my husband. I was neat, clean, shaved, and sober. And I didn't care who knew it. I was like everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. And Elizabeth said, oh yeah. Robin is reading to a patient in the hall. And I thought to myself, well, that's my husband. He would find a lonely patient to read to.

So after I have a chat with Frank and Liz, and I know that Robin's there, I start to get kind of tired. I said, very nice to meet you both, but would you mind awfully if I got some sleep now? And they politely laughed, and I immediately went to sleep. The next thing I know after my nice long nap was my two favorite nurses are walking into the room. They put the blood pressure cuff on my arm. They stuck the thermometer in my mouth. Someone peaked in my ears. They asked the usual questions. How'd you sleep? Are you in any pain?

Can we get anything for you? And how do you feel? I, I had to admit, I felt wonderful. I figured maybe they had given me some really good drugs the night before to help me sleep or to enhance my mood. And I'm about to say, hey, listen, why am I here? I feel great. But before I could even get the question out of my mouth, all of a sudden, Elizabeth said, well, it's time for our nightly ritual. And she goes back on the hall.

And she wheels in the dinner tray. But there isn't dinner on it. But instead of a dish of food was a bottle of tequila and three shot glasses. They pulled the little bedside table up next to me and they said, okay, we have a tradition in our hospital. Every night we pour our patients a shot of tequila. It's an homage to the spirits of the hospital. I thought, well, okay.

This is unusual. But they're really nice. Robin's here somewhere. I'm just going to go with this. So we all threw back a shot. They bid me good night and they do the shades and they shut off the lights and they closed the door and they left. As I was drifting off to sleep, it occurred to me, okay, I still don't know why I'm here. But I know nurses.

And the typical MO for a nurse is, to distract you, especially if it's bad news. If you're smart, you just let yourself be distracted. You'll get the bad news soon enough. So I thought, I'm really tired, so I'm just going to go to sleep now. So I wake up the next day in this lovely hospital, and to my surprise, Give me the money. Robin is still reading in the hall.

The motor of the grave Plymouth throbbed under her voice in the rain. And I'm thinking, why? Wow, I guess he's reading the entire novel. I wonder why he hasn't come in to see me yet. Beloc's green tinge tower was far above us, serene and withdrawn from the dark. But there was another sound kind of underneath his voice, which was a sort of a rhythmic, whooshing sound. I decided it must be the wind.

So I looked out the window, and I can't see any sign of wind. But I still hear this odd, windy, rhythmic wishing sound. And then all of a sudden, I'm in darkness. And I wasn't in a bed anymore. I was floating. It was as though I were in an ocean of darkness. It's terrifying. I had no idea where I was, what was happening, why it was happening,

or what I was supposed to do about it. And then, Jen, Jen, open your eyes. Someone's calling my name. The voice I am hearing is a demanding male voice. It was not a voice that I recognized. It wasn't Frank's voice, and it wasn't Robin's voice. I only knew it was loud, insistent, and authoritative. Jen, open your eyes, open your eyes.

I try like hell to open my eyes, but I can't. Jen, open your eyes. It was horrible. And then all of a sudden, the lights came back on. I wasn't in darkness anymore. I'm back in my bed. Frank and Elizabeth are pulled up in their chairs talking to me next to the bed. I look at their faces.

They didn't react. It seemed like they didn't even know I'd been gone. I was quite shaken up, but I figured it was kind of like a brain fart. It was just a beat of. Oh, I was swimming in darkness for a second there, but now I'm back. Hoof, that was unfun. Hope that doesn't happen again. But if they're not reacting to it, it must be a weird blip on the radar screen,

and I'm safe and everything's golden. We start chatting. We're talking books like I like to do. I could hear Robin's voice again. A bang clicked open, then shot. She let a spent breath die on her lips. she leaned towards me. I'm leaving, copper.

I'm the way out. It's beginning to feel a little weird that he's still out there reading to this patient who I've not met. And I said, listen, why isn't Robin coming in here? They said, I'm sure he'll be in shortly, Jen.

Don't worry about him. He's fine. And I said, listen, you guys, I got to go find Robin. It's very nice. reading to someone, but I'm going to go get him. And they exchanged this alarmed look. And they said, me, you know, why don't you just wait?

Kind of got the drift. They didn't want me to get up. They didn't want me to go out to go find him. But it's time to see Robin. So I started to get up, and just as I was doing that, my body started to vanish beneath my eyes. My feet disappeared. and then it moved up my legs,

and then my shins were invisible, and then my knees, and then my thighs. I started slapping at myself saying, oh my God, oh my God, you guys, I'm despairing, do something. It wasn't that I was invisible. I was dissolving. I was fading away. When I started slapping at my legs, what had been my legs,

I was slapping the mattress. Liz said to Frank, Frank, you've got to give Jen the shot. He looked at Liz and he said, Liz, you know I'm not supposed to do that. You know I'm not supposed to get involved. He was shaking his head, no. I said, Frank, whatever this shot is, you have got to give me this shot. My husband and I have plans.

We're going to travel. We're going to do fun stuff. We just recently retired. Liz was shouting at Frank to give me the shot. I was begging him to give me the shot. The next thing I know, literally, it was like a blink. I'm in a different room. Oh boy.

No Frank. No Liz. What's more? I'm not sitting up. I'm laying down. I look down. There's compression boots on my feet. There are IVs in both my arms.

I had a catheter. But the good news was I wasn't in any. pain because I was so sedated. I couldn't move. And then finally, finally, finally, my husband walks in the room. I couldn't believe it. It's like, oh man, I've been waiting for you. And he said, honey, you've had a stroke.

You've been in a coma. Friday morning. I'm in San Diego, visiting a friend, working at Comic-Con. And I get this call out of the blue, a number I've never seen. before. Turns out to be a doctor at St. Joe's. He tells me that Jen had had a cerebral hemorrhage. I'm in shock. I start walking towards the parking structure. You know, people are getting their Comic-com booze together and prepping for customers. And I'm in this totally different world. I start to put it together what I've got to do to get home, get to the hospital. I talk with the

nurses and the doctors as I'm driving as fast as I can. But, you know, there's a distance to cover. When I arrived at the hospital, Jennifer was in a coma. Lots of machines are hooked up to her, making all sorts of sounds, taking readings, clicking, beeping. The ventilator was making this very loud noise. The doctor introduces myself to me, and he gives me the odds of her survival. 25%.

I hear that news, and I feel the world dropping away. Jennifer and I used to read to each other. One of the things we kind of loved was the old detective novels. One of our favorites was The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. I started reading The Big Sleep to her and I brought the book back every day because I knew that as we got deeper into the story, she might remember more and more of it and enjoy it. It would kind of bring her back.

You know, you never know what's going to be. to get through, right? So I'm in the waiting room and the nurse comes to me and says, good news. We're moving her out of the ICU. She's awake. Being in the hospital those first few days was really hard. All I wanted was sleep. I was so tired. It was painful. My brains were so scrambled. I knew my own name. I knew Robin. But I remember nothing from the day of the stroke. They finally had removed the rubber tube down my nose, which was feeding me. That was highly unpleasant. They were hounding me to eat.

They had threatened to stick the tube down my nose again, so I was really trying. One day, I was by myself and I was sitting up in bed, trying to eat this ghastly food. Suddenly I heard a knock at the door. Oh, my God. Oh, there's Frank. He was a real person. He was as solid as anybody you see on the street. He said, oh, hi, Jen. I'm not supposed to be here.

But I just wanted to check and see how you were doing. I said, oh, no, Frank. I'm so glad to hear. Robin's on his way in. He looked alarmed. He said, Robin's coming? I got to go. And he was gone.

He just zoomed away. It was literally two or three seconds. later, Robin walked in the door. And I said, oh, Robin, Frank was just here. I haven't told you about him, but you got to go catch him. And Robin just looked at me like, what?

And he said, honey, I know everyone who takes care of you. There's no Frank. I said, yes, sir, he was just here. If you go, now you can catch him. So he dutifully walked down the hall. I'm puzzled.

I haven't seen it at the doorway. But what would it be nice, so I'll go look for Frank in the hallway. I don't see anybody. I go back into the room and tell Jen I hadn't seen Frank. I realized, oh, oh, okay. I was in a coma. There's no nurse named Frank that takes care of me on the staff.

But, uh, fuck. I'm never going to see him again. It was so disappointing. It was a real sense of loss. Like someone just died. So it took me two months to get out of the hospital. And they released me into rehab where I had to go to learn how to walk and talk and eat and use my left hand, all those things that we take for granted. I turned into a detective because it's really, really weird to lose a...

almost a month of your life. When I did get out of the hospital, I went back and I got all my records. Two months in the hospital, added up to 4,000 pages. And I read all the notes and stuff. Unbeknownst to Robin, and definitely me, because I was in a coma, I almost died several times. At one point, I stopped breathing. My very strong feeling is that it was when I was when I was.

stopped breathing that I started to disappear. I was in this place kind of hovering between life and death. I think I was supposed to die. I think my number was supposed to be up and Frank and Liz interceded. When I was saying, give me the shot, whatever it is, well, I never realized I was actually not bargaining to not be invisible. I was bargaining to not die. There hasn't been a day I haven't thought about this since it. happened. I miss Frank and Liz. I think about them every day. If I were to say who Frank and Elizabetha were, I would say they were some kind of guardians. They were the watchers in the in-between place. I think that they really are not supposed to interfere. But in the end, I guess I did get that shot because I'm back here. You Jen and Robin were sharing your story with

the spook spooksters. Jen and Robin, they're just like you. Spook listeners. We love hearing from spook listeners, and if you have a story to tell, tell us. Spook. Snap Judgment at ORG. The original score that stories by Leon Morimoto

was produced by Zoe Furigno. Do you have a connection with another person that cannot be explained? Do you see who someone else's eyes? Can you feel the burden someone else carries, your twin, your cousin, your friend, even your enemy.

Do you share a bomb that defies the laws of what is supposed to be? Maybe you don't feel you can tell anyone because no one will understand. Well, tell me, I want to know. Spooked at snapjudgment.org because there is nothing better than a spook story from a spooked listener. Spook at snapjudgment.org. And the best way, To signal not just the dark side with the spook community in the know is by sporting the spook t-shirt of your very own.

Nothing sexy in all the land available right now at Snap Judgment. That ORG. If you like your storytelling, under the bright light of day, get the amazing stupendous podcast, sister podcast. It's called Snap Judgment, and it is storytelling. Who was created of a team that knows exactly where they are when they wake up in the morning. Except of course with Mark Ristich, you might have to give him a few guesses.

There's Davy Kim, Chris Hambrick, Lauren Newsom, Leon Morimoto, Taylor DeCott, Marissa Dodge, Zoli Faridno, Ann Ford, Greta Weber, Eric Yanez, Tessa Paoli, Cody Harjo, Lola Abrera, Doug Stewart, Miles Lassie, and Yari Bundy. Spook theme song is by Pat Masini Miller. My name is from Washington. And just like we love to make pretend that life is fair, we also love to imagine that the same rules apply no matter where you are, no matter who is there, no matter the hour of the day, the time of year.

And it is not how the shadow operates, because sometimes the impenetrable barrier between here and there, between what is lost, and would as soon to be lost, diminishes to smoke. granting the other side more power and you can't predict the win, the where, the why, and the how. All you can do is to look it in the face when it comes and that, that is why I always advise those I care about.

Forever, never, ever, ever.