[MUSIC] >> Something's creeping this I know. The book of shadow tells me so. I am weak and it is strong. It cares not for right or wrong. Yes, it can see me. Yes, it can hear me. It hates me dearly. The book, it told me so. You thrust over, spooked, field guide to the shadow. Stay tuned. [MUSIC] Welcome to Spooked's Field Guide to the Shadow. This is the second of our two-part series, The Shadow Guests. When I was watching it in last time, we met Angelo and we had early 30s, three kids living on the Blackfoot Reservation in Angelo as a brand new job at the funeral home transporting the dead. When night driving home from work, Angelo comes upon a terrible car wreck, twisted metal emergency lights chaos, and just a little further down the road. He sees someone walking, his old friend Jason Angelo pulls over, Jason gets in, says he's going through something. He says he needs somewhere to stay. Just for a few nights, Angelo says of course, come home, stay with us, but immediately something feels wrong. Jason is usually loud, usually funny, boisterous, but now he's quiet, he's distant. Like some part of him is somewhere else, and that same night, Angelo gets called back into work, his boss needs him to retrieve the body, and bring it to the funeral home. On the drive back, the body bag keeps coming and done, slamming against the back of Angelo's seat again and again, Angelo finally gets the body inside into the cooler. He closes the door, and he is knocking from the inside, knock, Angelo tears off towards home, but whatever started that night does not stay at the funeral parlor. Over the next few days, with Jason still sleeping in the guest room, things get worse and worse until finally, Leanne screams, Angelo runs to the bedroom window and outside in the darkness, a horde of faceless shadow figures gathered around their home. Angelo, Leanne, the three kids, all of them huddled together inside one bedroom, watching the shadows outside, trying to decide what they will do now. And I let Angelo take it from here, spooked. And then we heard three loud bangs on the back door, and it was just about two feet away from me, and I jumped, she opened the door and looked out, but do it, there was nothing. It's just an eerie silence. The little ones, they come running and screaming into our room. They were screaming and jumping up and down, and they cried, and they were pointing down the hallway. Olivia, she's laid out a blood-carrying scream, and all that come out of her mouth was daddy, daddy. And that's when our night of terror began. The little ones, they come running and screaming into our room, and my son, Ruben, he said, "Dad, that. Somebody was at the door trying to take my sister outside crying as he was playing towards the door." I said, "Oh, did you see, Ruben? It looked like. Was it a man? Was it a woman? Was it Jason?" Ruben said, "No, it was an uncle, Jason. It didn't look like him." "Yeah," she'd spoke up and said, "Angelo, you need to do something." That's when I decided I was going to go over there and see what was going on. I went to my room to get my flashlight in my hand, and I said, "No, you and the kid stayed in the living room." I locked the door and I pushed the dresser against the back door, because I didn't want anything getting in, harming my family. At that point, I ran out to get Jason, but he was already outside, he made him outside, he had a look like a two-wife, wearing his hand, but he was kind of excited. It was like, "This is more, I know, you know." He said, "Look, I've seen somebody looking in your kitchen window and trying to get in your house." "You're not going to believe this, but when I got close enough to smack him with my stick, he just vanished into thin air." I said, "Well, that someone just tried to take my baby." I asked Jason to stand guard by my trainer and watch over my wife and my children, and he said, "Where are you going, Angela?" I said, "Over to the big trailer." I said, "I got closer to the big trailer, I could hear voices, but I couldn't hear the actual conversations." I said, "The closer I got, the louder it sounded," I just turned my ear to the door before I walked in there, and I was listening, it sounded like a room full of people all talking at once, like mumbled and jumbled. I began to insert the key into the door, and I started opening it as fast as I could, expecting people to be in there. All I heard was the low hum of the refrigerator. I stepped inside, and I hit the light switch on, but they didn't turn on, and that's when I reached the middle of the room, the door slams up behind me. I pointed my flashlight toward the hallway, as I was walking that way, I looked out the window and straight over into our trailer, and in my bedroom I seen the most ugly feature in my eyes on. You remind me of a gunny sack over somebody's head, and it was like skin, wrinkled, and ugly. It slowly turned to look out the window and at me. Didn't have no eyes, they were just like black sockets and nothing else. At that point I broke out into sweat, and I felt like I was going to throw up. It was as if I was watching myself, telling myself, "Come on, move, move your family's in there with that thing over there," and I opened my mouth, but nothing. I tried to show it to Jason, but my whole body seemed to just shut down. I felt like my feet were part of the floor. When I slowly started squeezing my fists, trying to move, I couldn't move anything else, but my fingers, boom, somehow I was able to fire the pistol that was in my hand. I missed my foot back about two or three inches, and when it went boom, it was like whatever that kind of thing of spell he had on me broke. I ran back to our trailer, and I was over there pounding on the front door, screaming on the end to open it up. I have the key. She knew it was me when I said that, she opened the door, and Rubin was standing behind him crying, but I didn't see my baby Angie. I didn't see her in a living room or in that little kitchen, you know. The aunt said that she didn't know where she was. Maybe she didn't put her down when they were holding the door. I started calling her, I said, "Angela, baby, come here, where are you at?" I was walking to the kitchen, and that's where I was seeing Jason. He was walking down the hallway, he was carrying Angela. In my wife, she tried to take Angela from Jason, she was saying, "Come on, come here baby, Mommy's here, Mommy's got you, but Angela, she wouldn't let go of Jason." She had her arm around his neck, and she wouldn't let him go. We all went back into the living room to try and pull ourselves together. In the end, I made eye contact with one another, and she indicated for me to look at a raw wire. Sadie. I noticed that she was sitting there, her upper lip was curled, and like the snarl looking and directly at Jason.
When I seen Sadie Dewey, she looked at him. It made me turn my attention to Jason. I mean, I was afraid seeing him holding my baby, you know, I wondered how did you get in here, Jason. I know I locked the front door. Remember pushing that dresser against the back door? You know, these guys wouldn't let me in and how did he get in? I was, you know, holding my baby. Even though he was my good friend, you know, I was thinking all kinds of things. I know you love kids, love people. But at that moment, I even started to think that he was, when I was in there, you know, trying to take my kids. I turned to Jason and I said, "How's he getting here, Jason?" He didn't respond, you know, he didn't answer me. And I raised my voice a little bit. I said, "Jason, how'd you get in here?" And at the same time, I caught that revolver in my hand. He said, "I thought I'd seen somebody in your back room." But I couldn't get in there. So I crawled in your window. And as soon as I got in the window, I seen baby grow and grabbed her and that's when we met in the hallway. I thought to myself, "Wait." The window was like about six, seven feet up from the ground and it was like this big. One by two, maybe? Well, the heart was pounding. But all of a sudden, we heard what sounded like someone was running on top of the trailer. Footsteps running across her and everyone was crying and shouting at the same time. At that point, I have to confess that I never felt, you know, so helpless in all my life. And I just, I want to cry out for my dad. I want to scream for him to help me. My mom, you know, somebody I could rent to, who protects me. I know I had to try and do something to calm the kids down and the first thing I thought about was, "Where's this mug?" Leon said, "Are you going to smudge again?" And I don't think that it's going to work. I mean, times have been using that stuff. I said, "Nian, I'm scared." I remember telling me, "I said, "Nian, I'm scared. I'm scared. You get this." Thinking like a child, I just shouted out. It just came out, "Call the cops." And Jason looked at me and said, "Are you serious?" You'll think, "Well, great, see." Nian was raised in the Christian faith. And she started praying and she was rebuking this thing and commanding it back to how, back to whoever it came from. I just had to just take a deep breath and just take the wordy. So I just commanded it to go. And I just began to pray. And it suddenly became quiet again. The end of the kids, they were still praying and she looked up. I mean, she gave me a look that was asking me, "What are we going to do?" I said that, "We should go spend the night in Brownian." And she agreed. Jason went out first, followed by the end of the kids and our four dogs, they even formed like an escorting around us with me and Sadie were bringing up the rear. Once I got the kid safe in a car, Jason stopped and he looked at me with kind of an odd look on his face. He said, "And so I get." "I can't go with you guys." "What? What do you mean you can't go with this conversation?" "I can't leave you out here, not after this one happened." "What if it comes back?" "The level with me, man. What's going on with you, man?" But once again, he said, "It's not that I don't want to talk about it. I just can't right now." You just want to understand, "Look, if it makes you feel better, I'll lock myself in my room." The kids were all crying. So we just continued on to Brownian. We checked into the Whirburnt Lodge. I put the kids to bed and then I was pacing the floor and I just couldn't sleep. I just kept thinking about Jason. I was worried about my friend being out there all night, alone, something. Just kept telling me to go back and insist that he either comes with us or that he goes home. [Music] [Music] [Music] I woke up next morning and the little ones seemed to be there. They're playful selves, you know? They're playing around and living as she was still asleep. And I got to pay quickly got dressed and drove back to the house and the land out there. I parked the car and I got out and I started yelling for Jason. I knocked on the door and there was no answer. I called his name and I knocked him a little harder and I started raising my voice. Jason, are you in there? Jason! There was no answer. And then I dug in my pockets to grab my keys for this room. I opened a door and I found Jason laying there on his bed. I told him, "Jason, we need to talk buddy, come on man." He didn't argue, he just slowly got up and we walked over to the big trailer and we sat at one of the tables and I told him I said, "Okay Jason, you need to spill the beans." All he did was just, he just talked about his family. He talked about Kim, he talked about his wife Jason, how much you love them and he was worried about them in their future. At some point I said, "I need to know what you did Jason." You know, like kind of off. He looked at me and he was like his eyes were baking. There was nothing there. He said, "I never heard anybody if that's what you're worried about." I said, "Everybody is worried about you Jason. Everybody, I'm worried about you. Don't you want to be with your family? Don't you love them?" He answered, "Yes, I love them." I told him, "Well, come on then I'll bring you home now." Then he said, "Home?" He said it a couple times home. I was on my knees, I was baking him, you know. "Come on, please Jason, come on. Let's go." Finally he said, "Oh Kim, it's cool." I went away back to Browning, I told Jason I said, "Well, I need to make one stop before I take your home Jason." I was going to pull off at the funeral home just to touch the base with Mike for a minute. We pulled into the parking lot and for the funeral home. The passenger decided to guard his bag and walked up to me and put his arms around me. Thank you for everything, Angela. I think I'll walk, coming from here. I hugged him and I waited for him. I waited for him to walk quite a way. And I was standing there and he just, he didn't even look back. And I was thinking, you know, I was wishing him the best in my mind. I went into office, I called out Mike and he said, "Is that you, Angela?" I went back in the kitchen and I found him. He had a cup of coffee. He was tuned under Dona. He looked at me and he pointed towards the cooler and he said, "We got another guest." He told me to give me a hand. As we were walking to the cooler room, he said, "Do you remember that wreck here in town?" But no agency rose. I told him I said, "I did, I actually came up on it." He said, "Well, the guy that we picked up from the hospital, the body that I brought in that night before." He was the driver. He wrecked hitting this guy. He used to run and hit the guy we have now. Now we walked into the back room and laying on that slab. It was, it was Jason. And he was laying there. He was laying on that slab.
This lab, you have no clothes on, just a sheet from the air down here, Mike was working on him. I don't even wear it. I mean, everything is one blank, that's actually I remember, he's looking at him laying there and that was it. I won't jump next to the hospital, they said it has never sprained down, but I told Leanne, I'm going down to the funeral, Mike looked at me and he said, okay, he's actually just coming hungry, you know, he asked me, he just, you still want to be to pulverize here, so we burned him up to the community center, and we're here in Browning, we'll bring him there, and that's where we have our wakes. I sat there for, I think it was three nights, I had his wake for three nights, but every night I sat there waiting for him to move. I sat there all night, just looking at him, I remember looking at him in his coffin, he just looked like he was sleeping, I'm like, I don't like a peaceful sleep, but I just wanted him to move from Leanne to talk to me, you know, I was like, hey, I'm getting wetty and worse, I'm, you know, but a small table by the coffin there, and he had a big old round bowl full of cigarettes, if I go over there and look at Jason, can you have a glass of smoke, buddy, you want to come? I don't even know just a coffin, come on, go, let's go have a smoke. Under 4th day, they buried him. So, at Jason's funeral, I took Mike, I said, I'm going to quit, and I'll stay on until you get help, and you know, I think I'm not quit. My mom was really good to get answers from like this, you know, because she was really wise. So two days later, or a day after, I think, I drove out there and I walked in and my facial expression told her everything. She started what she was doing, she turned her cooking down, she was untiring her apron, she took it off and she sat down. She said, there's something that I need to tell you. Last night, I had a dream, I see a new and a dream. She said, you were helping a man, you stayed at your house, I don't know who he was, but you in the end, he knew you guys, and you guys were helping him. She said, but he made my dream, everything wasn't right at your place, I sat there and I was like this, it was my mouth wide open because I didn't know what to think of. Who was she talking about, who was this kind of dream, you know, it was a Jason, she said, she don't know, I can't tell you, she said, I don't know why you went through it, my voice she said, but I know it happens for a purpose, everything it would go through, it's for a purpose. You're there to help, so you were helping somebody, so maybe you're protecting your friend, Jason. But I still don't understand it, anything, the questions that I had, like, was it me protecting him from nothing, other than him protecting us, I don't know, and I was protecting him from what, what was that thing that being spirit that followed me home from that freedom, could that be the same guy that ate him? The man said, there's evil from ancient days that still wronged this earth. He said, evil looks for something that it can capture or steal or get a hold of, even after we're gone. So maybe it took the driver and grabbed his soul, if you will, and that don't think I could think of it. It wasn't until way later that I really felt a sense in actually helping him. I don't know, I just felt that whatever it was, I think it was there after Jason, after he sold me, maybe? I guess I'm always going to wonder why, why, yeah, how, how is it all possible? I mean, now I'm full of questions too, you know, why me? Yeah, that's something I can't know, but he did, he'd come to me, my friend, and I'm glad he did. Now, in just a moment, we step into the very beginning of time, and enter Adam and Eve's Garden of Eden. You've heard the story of the two sons, Kane and Abel. Yes, Kane kills his brother, but you've never been told why. Until now, the second son, a missing chapter torn from the Book of Shadow finally found. And this time, the murderer speaks. Stay tuned. We were close. Close as only twins can be close. Me, the older, the stronger the protector, even his children, him leaping, me catching him. A father told me that he was my responsibility and as it was in our youth, so remains. And a vigilant when I wake on this day, I know he has gone. I even know where he has run. As children, he begged our mother to tell us again and again of the Garden, the two trees, the place which she is forbidden to return. I know this is where he has gone, but how? How could this be possible? I race after him through the brambles, the Hawthorne, to the gate, where the golden flaming swords sweep the air, stopping the path of Amy who crossed there. My father kneels. Pitiful. On the ground, peering into the Garden, looking past the sword, into his own past, into his stories, into that place on the other side of the blade where he passed countless days once. We offer big entry, he says, then turn from my gaze. And just like that, I understand that this is a lie. Or at least not the truth, and I have been foolish. So foolish. This is your fault, he says. Your brother is your charge. I want to scream at him to rage, to choke, to kick. I know his jealousy then. His hatred, I always understood that I was not the favorite, but I never imagined. I was despised. Still. Still, still. I must fetch my brother. I turn, stand directly in front of the gate, stealing myself, as my brother must have done just a few moments before. Why? What is he searching for? I clenched my fist and stepped toward the spinning, flaming sword. It stops quivering in the air, deciding, weighing, judging, then blazing against the light of the sun. The sword allows me to pass. Our fire.
mother is forbidden entry. But we, my brother and I, are not. I walk through the gate as if into someone else's memory and hear my father screaming behind me, and crossing over and hailing the first intoxicating threat I understand deep in my essence that at least in this, he told the truth. Every story he ever told us, water that tastes of moon rise, fruit still bright with the blush of creation, every creature saved one, singing, this Eden, this radius, this place is made of the beginning. Our place is but shadow. And after inhaling, blurring, staggering, I know that if the sword ever forbids my return here, just like our father, I too will go mad. And despite this riot of smells and colors and cause, I know I sense exactly which way my twin has run and I run after through the song and the color, hoping I am not too late, when from the canopy an enormous gleaming ruby and emerald serpent, uncoil, falls, lifts stairs. I ask her what I already know. Where did my brother run? She swathes her head from side to side into the trap. She says, it seeks to trap him. Her eyes flash golden, no, foolish boy. It seeks to trap you. Liar. I think I have no time for riddles, so push past her, chasing my brother's laugh. How long I cannot say him just out of reach on the other side of the glade. The other side of the tree, the other side of the stream, me fearing that he will finally do what our parents could not and bear. I step into a field. I have visited a million times in dream. Two trees, one charred, shriveled, twisted, the other majestic lush, multicolored branches stretching for the sun at the top, golden berries and climbing, laughing as when we were children, my brother, myself. He shouts, come, come and eat and we will both be as gods. Stop. But already I know he leaves I can't stop. I try again as he reaches for two clusters of the golden fruit, one for him and one for me. He scrambles down, delighted, do not and even as I almost reach him, grinning. He holds his gift out to me and presses the remaining fruit into his own mouth. No. He closes his eyes as if to savor the taste. No. And then he falls. And once again, I catch him. The grin leaks from his face. He looks up at me, first with surprise, then with shock. And finally, with horror, it's heavy. He says, looking past me, I feel everything and everything. Everything, every single thing in shadow is broken. Because we are made of each other. He doesn't have to say more. I feel the crush of it. The weight of a thousand shells, a thousand broken creations, collapsing on my brother as we both scream and scream and scream when he finally looks at me. He whispers simply, I cannot. But this place, this fruit will not let me pass, he says. Here, this Eden, this place made of joy and light is eternal suffering for him. Please, he whimpers. Take me back. As he cannot even lift his head from the weight, I carry my brother leagues through the thromb of joy and life and song and promise back to the date and there, the flaming sword slices the air leading back to the shadow, the broken place, the crying place. If I pass through, it will forbid my return forever. Just as I did to my father, the Adam, I cannot. I lay him down, brother and whisper, go. He whimpers, the crush is too much for him to do anything but suffer, blind. I beg him, go. He curls into a ball. Once more, I taste the slightest fraction of his torment. For a moment, I too am blind. I too am burning and finally, I scoop him into my arms again. I carry him before the spinning, flaming sword and bow my head. It stops. He has attained this time. As if asking me, if I know what I do, if I know the cost, I look back as every scent and voice and light of the garden sings, stay. My brother's head balls back in my arms, stay. And I remember the serpent said, "This trap was never set for him. It was set for me. I carry my brother, past the sword, back into shadow. And then I see him. My father, the Adam, waiting, smiling, welcoming. Then he sees. First, my brother's face, and finally, my. No. He whales. What did you do?" I walk past him, carrying my brother up the hill to the brook, to the place we played as children, where once he had jumped and I had caught, hoping against fear that now, here, all will be restored, like it was when we were young. I lay him down once more next to the rock, where once we had shared our thoughts, speaking without need for words, there I let myself see him. Feel him. Please, brother, he whispers. Please. Please. No. I say. Do you remember when I left from that tree he asked in my mind? Do you remember who caught me? This broken face twist into a smile. I cannot. I answered back to him. Please. I raised the rock that we once used for a table. Heavy. Please. So heavy. Please. I bring the rock down on my brother's smile, again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again. For just as it has been since the beginning, I am my brother's keeper. Now then, as we labor to decipher fragments of the Book of Shadow, I ask your help, and I'll speak plainly. Have you ever lived someone else's life? Do you have someone else's memories? Some of us are skills, some of us are knowledge, because a part of you inhabit a totally different geography. Or do you know someone who does? If so, please, please tell me about it.
and write the next chapter,
[email protected] Because there's nothing better than a spook story from a spook listener. The journey to the spook guidebook to the shadow runs through the mist of time with scraps of a pirus and fragments of scrollwork meticulously reconstructed under the harvest moon by secret practitioners of the lost arts. Please, please, don't seek to find it. Let's it seek to find you. KQD in San Francisco has sealed the entrance, tell the monsters that no snap studio's content may be used for training, testing their developing machine learning or AI systems through a prior written permission, on team spooked. The union representative producers, artists, editors, and engineers are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, communications workers of America, AFL, SAO, local 51, AN, who's brought to you by the team that often picks up strangers from the side of the road. Except for Mark Ristich, he is the stranger on the side of the road. There's David Kim, Zoe Fregno, Eric Yanyes, Elliot Lightfoot, Taylor DeCott, Merissa Dodge, Miles Lassie, Doug Stewart, Nicholas Marks, Casey Georgie, Elton Takayama, John, Bridget Armstrong, Chris Frick, Ashley DeColinene, the Spook theme song is by Pat Masidio Miller, Monning's from Washington, and the book of Shadows specifically notes the stranger is the gate. The Greeks warned that gods sometimes travel wearing human faces. Even the Bible commands us to welcome the stranger because some have entertained angels without knowing it. And the old Irish stories when nights grow long at the boundary between this road and the next where it's then. People left an empty chair beside the fire because the dead get cold as well. Perhaps that's why the oldest rules of hospitality were so serious. Feed the stranger, give them a place by the fire, let them rest, you never know who your guest is, but my grandmother, she told me something else. She said the fallen don't always stay put. They're down in the low country. They knew that some of them were hanks. So folk painted porch ceilings blue, the color of protection, doors blue, windows blue, because a house has opening, she said, and not everything wandering through the night ought to be invited inside. So how do we know, friend from foe, sinner from saint, our stood at the door, hand on the knob, peering out into the gloom, someone knocking. The old stories tell us to welcome the stranger. The old mornings, the man that we beware. Never, ever, never, never, ever, never, never, ever, never, ever, ever, turn out the lights. [BLANK_AUDIO]
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