Spooked - The Steakout

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

Things can seem to creep and lurk in the dark — especially when you’re on duty. STORIES Night Watch When Dave took on the graveyard shift at the station, he saw all kinds of stuff. But he never saw anything quite like this. Thank you, Dave, for sharing your story with the Spooked. Produced by Annie Nguyen, original score by Davey Kim Steakout Kevin joins the force and soon realizes that he can help everyone who crosses his path — whether they’re living or dead. In the interest of protecting his identity, we’re not using this storyteller's real name. Instead, we called him “Kevin.” Thank you, Kevin, for sharing your story with us! Produced by Annie Nguyen, original score by Leon Morimoto Artwork 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.

Some say that faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen. You're listening to Spooked. Stay tuned. Maybe it's because we didn't celebrate holidays as a child. I have a hard time accepting them now. Even as I see the table lane, family and friends laughing in front of the platters of food and the presents and the cheer, the kids squealing. The dogs barking. Ma'am, even in the midst of that joy, I feel a shadow waiting at the door, coming inside.

I want to protect these good people, my home from that dark thing, but that dark thing waits. Tint of the ornaments of them, Washington, amulets, and ornaments are the same thing. Spook starts. Dive in and believe me, I know you want to dive in. Know that both of our storytellers are public servants. And because of this, we're going to give them some anonymity. For a storyteller, I'm going to call him Dave. And when Dave took on the graveyard shift at the station,

Dave saw all kinds of stuff. But Dave never saw anything quite like this. About 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, myself and another officer was at the RTO desk. And we were talking story, and I hear a bird-troping noise coming from the bathroom. I happen to look up because we do have birds that do get into the station from time to time. I wonder if another pigeon got in, waiting for it to go flying around.

And as I'm looking in that direction, I see a gentleman walking from our back glass doors where it is a prohibited area for civilians. As he's approaching, I notice his hair is kind of grayish-brown, he has a beard, kind of a heavier-set gentleman wearing these purple-tinted glasses. medium height, probably about between 5, 10 and 6 feet, as I'm speaking out to him, asking him, sir, what are you doing? Excuse me, you can't come from that area. He kept on walking, looking straight ahead,

not noticing myself or the other officer that I'm with until he hit the wall, and it turned into like a heat wave, into it sparkles. That sounds really weird and disappeared. That's about the time I turned back. Did you see that? the person was with me said yes i did i'm getting the blank out of here as he exited the room i thought of maybe this is a a trick a joke maybe the person is hiding immediately i got out of my chair

around the desk jumped over the counter ran outside to try and find this individual i wanted to get to the bottom exactly what i just saw and come to find out i couldn't find this person at all So I go back downstairs. There was a retiree who was doing our paperwork and the on-duty desk sergeant. I tell them what happened, explain to them what the person looked like. There's a light gray t-shirt, dark gray pants, tan loafers. He had kind of a beard. It's kind of fashion glasses.

I call them fashion glasses because they're not really glasses used to see, but they're kind of that dark purple tint. A lot of guys used to wear at the time. So they said, yes, it's him. The name they mentioned is someone that I had heard of before. So I knew what had happened. I just never met the person. And they say it was an officer that retired that died at the desk. Massive heart attack.

Apparently the clothes that I had seen this person with was the exact clothes he was wearing when he passed away. That's how they knew was him. And recently another officer had seen him. And they had approached me about it and said, I saw him walking through. the station. And my theory is if a person dies suddenly like that, maybe they're stuck in a time loop and whenever that particular day, time, hour, month, whatever may be, is when they reappear

and go through the same path, steps, kind of like a broken record or a TV show that plays itself over and over and over and they can't get out of it until somebody helps them get to the next stage. That's what I see. your story with the spooked. The original score was by David Kim. The story was produced by Annie Nguyen. That is not it. No.

We're going to scream it into that good night, Spook Strong. We're going to speak to a true seer, a sensitive. And again, in the interest of protecting his identity, I'm not going to use this real name. Instead, I'm going to call our final storyteller, Kevin. I've got less than two years of experience. with the police department. I think it was probably the first vacation that I took since I had started. I'm in San Francisco on vacation with a girlfriend at the time.

I can't remember the name of the hotel we were staying at. But it was maybe about four or five blocks away from Union Square. So, you know, we arrive at the hotel and they gave us the room key. We go up to the room. It's a nice room, you know, posh, San Francisco. My first impression of the room is this is a nice room, but there's just something not right with the room. But, you know, we're on vacation, so we set our things down and spend most of the day outside. That's supposed to do on vacation, right?

So the first night, intermittently throughout the night, I'm smelling this cigar smoke. And I'm getting this weird vibe in the room. At first, I'm thinking it's because I'm staying in this unfamiliar place, but I'm getting a weird vibe. A couple nights passed by, and the girl, girlfriend at the time tells me, you know, I smell like a men's cologne in the room. And so I ask her about it. You know, what do you mean? Like men's cologne? She said, yeah, it's like not in the sheets or in the towels, but it's every once in a while she'll catch a waft of this men's cologne. So we made a little joke about, you know, that it's some male ghost that's following her around

wants me out of the picture. I'm just coming out of the shower and the bathroom steam had fogged up the mirror and so I wrote something like she's mine you can't have her so we turn in for the night and go to sleep and I'm a pretty heavy sleeper

normally when I wake up I wake up and I wake up groggy you know kind of takes me a while to get my senses but this time was different I woke up and it was in a flash like a snap of a finger I was out fully conscious fully aware

and I see a shape in the corner of the room it's a cloud. It's just hovering in the corner of the room near where the front door is. And it's bubbling. It was just churning in itself. And it seemed to be churning from the outside in.

And I noticed that the center of it was dark. I'm in disbelief. I don't know what it is. And at the same time, I'm feeling the pricklies. You know, I'm feeling the cold rush through me. And just the hypersenses or, you know, everything is alerted. And then all of a sudden this thing seems to turn its focus on me

And it starts to come into the room You know my girlfriend is sleeping next to me And so I start to lightly tap her and say hey wake up At first she doesn't respond And so this thing is slowly coming from the entry Now it's it passed the threshold And now it's inside the main room It's coming towards the bed

And so I continue to tap her hey wake up And she wakes up And she refuses She says, no, I'm not, I'm not going to look. I tell him, no, you got to look because I don't know if what I'm seeing is something. So she, no, she refuses, and so she starts to pray. It continues to move forward. And now the center had become just black, almost like an eye.

You know, and this thing now, it's staring straight at me. The action of it boiling is just, it's really moving now. It looks like a pot of hot water. that's boiling at its hottest temperature. It latches onto me. I can feel something grip me by the back of my head. And I can't look away. I can't move.

And it just grabs onto me. It felt like it's burning a hole in me. And so my girlfriend is next to me, and she's praying. Her father had told her, if you're ever in any trouble, pray to the Sifu, and he will protect you. And so slowly the cloud, began to fade, the dark center began to lighten, and the grip around my back of my head began to lessen.

And eventually the cloud backed away, it went back to the corner, and it disappeared up into the roof. Immediately we went down to the lobby and requested to be moved. The concierge had asked us, what room are you in? When we told the concierge our room number, she nodded almost in an understanding way,

and she told us, yeah, I'll get you a room as soon as possible. My girlfriend had prodded her, and she said, well, let's put it this way. We get complaints out of that room often. We stayed in San Francisco for a few more days, but my girlfriend had called her parents back home in Honolulu, and so they told her, you know, you need to perform a ritual. And they reassured us that it wouldn't be able to follow us over water. But they said that when we do arrive,

we have to walk over fire to further cleanse her. ourselves. We landed back in Honolulu. We went straight to my girlfriend's parents' house and we did a ritual with tea leaves and walking over fire and, you know, I thought that was the end of it. That night I had stayed at my parents' house, you know, I was tired, a jet lag. I fell asleep on their sofa and their living room. I woke up in an instant. I knew exactly where I was and I could feel that presence again. It was almost like a hot breath that just it just breathed down my neck and it just was this malicious

feeling and I feel that before I see it so I'm expecting this the exact same thing that I saw in San Francisco you know I looked around my my parents living room and I saw it come down their hallway but I'm surprised

when I see it and it has sharp edges on it now. And it's angerer than it was in San Francisco. Shot straight down the hallway, and it turned and it came straight at me. And it hit me in my chest and went right through my body. It just felt like I was getting an electrocutor. You know, here I am a grown man in my parents' living room,

and this thing attacks me, goes right through my body, and I lose all sense of control. When it passed through me, it just, it was a sensation like a, like a coldness, but like a buzz. Like my whole body was like just vibrating. And it actually made me, you know, I urinated, I peed myself and I lost all control of my body function. I like to say that that was the last time it made itself visible to me. but I felt its presence. Everywhere I went, I could sense where it was.

It followed me. You know, I could walk into a room and I would get that burning sensation on my neck, just constant, like a feeling of hate, just burning down on me. It would follow me, but it liked to stay in my house. It would wait for me at home. So my ritual would be I would get home from work.

I would conduct a search of my entire house. I'd go to my closet, open the closet, and I wouldn't see it there. But I would extend my hand and I would get the same electrical feeling that I got when it passed through my body. I felt like by knowing where it was at all times, at least I felt some comfort. and it would be like under the kitchen sink or it would be in the shower and then I would tell that you know I know you're here

I can feel your presence I want you to just stay there and don't bother me I felt like it wanted to prove a point that you know hey if I want to I can make myself known as long as I didn't outwardly disrespect it

it wasn't going to manifest itself again or try to attack me again. So it was a humbling experience for me, and I just kept that perspective. The entity eventually exited my life. I no longer feel its presence, but it kind of opened a doorway

so that I sense other things when I'm at work. I'm at this apartment, and the lady had just passed away, and now I'm taking custody of the dog. I don't want to, but it just goes with a job. So now I'm the one that is responsible for the dog. So I drop off the dog at the shelter, and then I go back out and really far in the back of my mind,

I can feel sadness following me. But I really don't know what to expect. So at the end of my shift, I go home to unwind, throw my leftovers in the microwave, and so I'm settling down in front of the TV, trying to wind down and get ready for bed after my shift. And I constantly can feel this presence in my apartment. And I can feel her behind me,

but I'm hoping that, you know, I don't have to confront her. And so I finished my dinner and I finally, you know, I need to get up and put my dishes in the sink and go to bed. So I get up off the sofa and I walk towards a kitchen and she's right there standing, you know, in my kitchen. And she's looking at me. And the thing, the strange thing is that she's wet. I don't know why she's wet.

Not wet from tears or sweat, but she's like she had been caught in the rain. She's wet and dripping. Selfishly, I want her to leave me alone. But obviously, she's trying to communicate something to me. So at this point, I'm just trying to provide her with what she wants, you know, reassuring her that your dog is going to be. going to be okay. Someone is going to adopt your dog. It's a cute little dog. No reason why no one would adopt and take care of him. She didn't move. She didn't talk. She didn't interact with me in any way.

But I felt like I was just giving her the information that she wanted. And then I went back and I sat on my sofa and just went about my business, turned my attention towards a TV. And I I watched TV for a little while. I looked back over towards my kitchen. She wasn't there anymore. I never seen her since. I mean, I don't think there's anyone that wants to go to work knowing that they're going to see spirits or sense.

It's a whole other challenge that I have to deal with that I could just easily not have, that it would probably be easier for me. There was a period when I was working, in the Kama Kyi area and we had a rash of bank robberies. I remember the robbery detail had told us, you know, you guys got eight hours,

you run with your leads. We want this guy in custody by the end of the night. So I got an impression. Like the only way I can describe it is it's a picture in my mind or a sense of something. It'll be a voice but not an audible voice. You know, it'll just be like a consciousness telling me something.

I don't talk about this because if I discuss this with my beat partners. They're just going to, you know, they, they form their own opinions, you know, but, you know, you can call it intuition, but it's not. It's more than an intuition, you know, so I had this impression, and it told me a food pantry. There was a food pantry in Waikiki on Coohillo Avenue, and it's a little market. So I got paired up with this senior officer. I got in his car, he drove, he told me, hey, I want to go back to the office to get some paperwork. And so I got this impression telling me,

no, don't listen to him, go to food pantry now. And, you know, it took everything I had to convince him because, you know, I was a rookie cop and he's a senior officer with a lot of respect in the department. And so it took me a while to convince him, you know, I don't think we should go back to the office, you know, as respectful as I could be. I think we should go into Wackie Key.

And I don't want to tell him food pantry, because he's going to look at me. You know, what are you talking about? Why food pantry? Right? And I don't have an explanation for it. So I kind of guide him and he finally concedes and we go into Waikiki and we park in front of the food pantry. And as soon as we park, that same impression, that voice that tells me he's going to be eating steaks and drinking beer.

And I'm trying to process this information. Meanwhile, I'm trying to catch this suspect, you know, but I'm thinking, what the heck is this? So we get out of the car and we start walking into the food pantry and I say, okay, so steaks and beer. So I go over to the meat department. I don't see him. You know, I have a likeness of him because I pulled the video from the bank. So on surveillance video, there's a clear image. So I know what he looks like.

Check the meat department. He's nowhere to be found. The voice said beer. So I go walk down the beer aisle. I told my partner to just stay by the door, you know, just secure the door. But he had come with me anyway. So he's wondering, why am I walking to the meat department? And now why am I walking to the beer aisle?

And sure enough, as soon as I turn the corner of the beer aisle, the suspect is there in the aisle. He's got a shopping car. And the only two things in his shopping car is a cold cut of steaks and a 12 pack of beer. And, you know, my partner looks at me and goes, is that him? I said, yeah, that's the guy, you know, and we apprehend him. And so the rest of the guy, you know, in the task force came rushing to the food pantry and they're looking at us like what the heck

you know you guys how did you guys find him so quickly and you know my partner looks at me as I don't know he told me food pantry and I and they're looking at me like well you know how did you what happened I don't know I just I don't know you know what to say I just had a sense as an officer you you tend to I don't want to speak for everyone but as an as a police officer or anyone who is a first responder, you tend to build up your defenses so that you aren't hurt by it. Because you see, you know, horrific things. You see people at their worst. I still have those defenses. And it's something that is essential to your survival, not only for your job, but for your own well-being. But then when I get those senses of those emotions, it just, it brings

it back to a whole other, you know, like back to a human level. where I can connect with that person. I'm in my patrol car and I'm doing my patrols and then over the radio I hear a call from the international airport that they lost track of an airplane coming inbound. While this is happening, we're starting to get calls over the radio. At this point, it sounds like the aircraft had crashed into the mountain.

So my partners and I, we meet at our office and we park our patrol cars and we switch out for our all-terrain vehicles. The terrain was really rough, so I had to ditch my ATV. I downed everything that I could took off all my gear so that I was lighter and faster, and I began running up the mountain. There was a team of firefighters that were on the ridge line next to me. We were running a parallel search. because we still wasn't exactly sure where the crash site was. I have a background in long distance running,

so I was able to get up the mountain faster than my partners. So I ended up being alone for most of the search and rescue effort. At some points, when I got to the upper parts of the mountain, I couldn't even see 20 feet in front of me. Visibility was horrible, but I started to smell the smoke. And as I got closer, I started to smell the electrical fire. I still couldn't see any smoke. I still couldn't see any fire.

But I could smell the burning of the electrical components and all the other plastic parts of the plane. I'm climbing up the mountain and I'm driven by this desire to complete this mission. And then all of a sudden I'm confronted with this overwhelming sense of sadness and loss. and a pit in my stomach starts to grow. And as I got closer, I started getting this sense. Just something was following me. And at that point, I got the sick feeling in my stomach

because now I know that I'm dealing with the death. As I'm getting up the mountain further, the clouds start to part, and now I can see the smoldering, and I can see the crash site. There's a voice that tells me, I'm not no longer thinking about the plane crash. I'm thinking about this person that just lost their life.

And here they are, they see me hiking up this mountain. Here's this spirit that doesn't know that he had passed. Maybe thought that he had survived the plane crash and was trying to walk out of the trail. I had passed him and then he decided to follow me. I still had parts of my uniform on to identify myself as an officer. And then, you know, I, I sense this overwhelming sense of confusion and loss. And I just say, you know, it's not your fault.

Just be at peace. And, you know, just follow your purpose. And that sense of confusion and that sense of loss, lessons, which allows me to refocus and continue, pick up the mission again, to try to locate the crash site. It's getting further and further away. I can feel it less and less and less. It followed me for a little while, but then eventually

it was making distance from me. I don't know if it stayed where it was and I continued to walk, so that's what created the distance, or it walked in the opposite direction, but as I approach the crash site, the closer I got, the less I felt of that younger male presence, then now I gear up again and I resume the police work. Because at that point, there's still lives that need to be considered. You know, not just for the, unfortunately, for those that perished in the crash, but for those that are responding that, you know, are trying to search and rescue. When I punch out and I go home, they follow me home.

You know, I bring them home with me. And when it's just me, that was fine because I had, you know, I could cope with it. I had skills that helped me manage it. Now I have a family, so it's different. You know, I have young children, so they're more impressionable. and I definitely want to protect them. I requested, you know, a transfer so that I could get off of patrol work. I mean, I'm no longer responding to people in crisis.

Right now, I just really am considerate about my kids. I just don't want them to be exposed. Maybe down the road, there might be a reason why I would want to open myself up again. I'm not sure what that would be. I'd have to take it, you know, as it comes. For sharing your story with this, the original score was by Leon Morimoto, was produced by Annie. And this path had many dark turns along the way, but you have made it to the end.

Understanding is your prize. If it feels like you've reached a new level, it's because you have. But the cup of knowledge is never full. The well of darkness runs deep. If you like your storytelling in the bright light of day, get the amazing, stupendous and incredible SnapJuptusment podcast. It's storytelling when Spook was created by the team that needs no lantern to navigate these dark woods.

If you see the figure waiting at the boat, please give a gold coin to Mark Ristich. Anna Sussman, our chief spookster, Eliza Smith, without whom this journey would be impossible. Chris Hamburg, Annie Nguyen, Nguyen, Nguyen, Marissa Dodge, Lauren Newson, Renzel Goria, Leon Lerimoie, Jacob Winick, Tiffany Delizza, Ann Ford, Eric Yanya, Son of Khan, Teo DeCotte.

The spooked theme song is by Pat McHenellar. My name is Don Washington. Some people believe, though, plenty, but they believe. I only ask that you believe just one thing. Just understand, appreciate, and believe that you should never. Never, never, never, never, ever, never, ever, ever.