Episode 102: Encounters of a Witch

[00:00:00] Odd Trails contains adult language and content. If you have a story to share, send it to stories at oddtrails.com. Enjoy the show! Forget facts, forget logic, forget everything that seems real. Just trust. Believe.

[00:00:57] In March of 2020, my wife and I were supposed to go to Romania. We had everything booked, but only a few days before we were supposed to fly out, Covid happened and there was talk of

[00:01:08] travel restrictions. We had to make the tough decision to not go to Romania. It was a dream trip for us, but had we gone, we definitely would have gotten stuck there. We could have gotten

[00:01:21] there, but not returned on schedule. We would have likely been stuck for a couple of months, at least. Instead, we booked a last-minute Airbnb in the North Carolina mountains. We are from North Carolina, so we wouldn't have to risk not being able to return home,

[00:01:39] and we love to hike in the mountains. We stayed at an old two-bedroom, two-bathroom farmhouse, surrounded by several acres of cows and tucked in between two hills, so you couldn't see any neighboring houses. The man who rented the old farmhouse was welcoming,

[00:01:56] and told us the home had belonged to his parents. His mother had moved out and left the house to him after his father passed inside the house. We stayed in the front bedroom with the connected bathroom.

[00:02:09] The other bedroom was at the back of the house, and the other bathroom was off of the dining room. The man gave us a tour of the land that went past the cow pasture and up a mountain. There

[00:02:20] was a natural spring, and he showed us how he used the spring to provide water to the old farmhouse. We went out during the day to hike, and returned to the rental in the evening.

[00:02:31] Everything was normal and quiet until our last night. It had stormed all evening. At times it was pouring buckets. We climbed in bed at around 10 o'clock and put on a podcast until we fell asleep

[00:02:46] about an hour later. I'm a light sleeper and had just dozed off when I heard heavy footsteps on the hardwood floor in the living room. I questioned if I could be dreaming, so I paused

[00:02:59] to listen for a moment. Just when I decided to pause and listen, my wife shot upright in bed. She latched onto my left arm tightly and gasped, someone's in the house.

[00:03:14] We had no weapons, all we had were our cell phones. We began to think of how we could protect ourselves, but still leave the bedroom to investigate. We knew there were knives in

[00:03:25] the kitchen, so we cracked open the bedroom door to look out. The immediate threat seemed to be gone, so I opened the door and crept into the kitchen to grab a butcher knife from the block.

[00:03:38] There were two entrances to the house. One was in the kitchen. We checked that one first. It was closed and locked. There were no signs of forced entry. We systematically walked into each room in a clockwise order.

[00:03:53] We searched the kitchen cabinets, inside the dryer, and behind the shower curtains. Each time we pulled back a curtain, we prayed we did not find an intruder. No one was under the dining room table. No one was behind the sofa.

[00:04:09] No one was in the other bedroom, under the bed, or in the closet. We didn't know what to think. Someone had walked loudly through the living room and dining room from the other bedroom toward the bathroom. It was almost a stomping sort of walk.

[00:04:26] We double checked that both entrances to the house were locked. They were. One thing we noticed was that the rain was still coming down hard, and all the floors inside were dry as bone. So no one came in from the outside,

[00:04:41] or they would have left wet footprints. We gathered all of our belongings and all the potential weapons in the house, like the block of knives from the kitchen, and barricaded ourselves in the bedroom. We left all the lights on in the house.

[00:04:56] We didn't sleep a wink the rest of the night. We were too on edge. So we sat on the bed and waited for daylight. Since an intruder didn't come from outside, we wondered if there could be a squatter in the house.

[00:05:10] Maybe in the attic. In the other bedroom there was one of those pull strings that brought down a set of wooden steps to get into the attic. We didn't go up there to find out. No one would have

[00:05:21] had time to pull down the wooden steps and scramble back up without us hearing or seeing something. We loaded up the car and got out of there as soon as it struck daylight.

[00:05:32] The last thing we did before we left the house was walk across the hardwood floors in the dining room and living room. My wife walked across in her sneakers. It only made a squeaking sound.

[00:05:44] She then asked if I could imitate the sound we heard since I weighed around 200 pounds. With my shoes it wasn't nearly loud enough. But when I walked across the floors barefoot, and as heavily as I could, the thumping sound was so similar it gave us chills.

[00:06:04] My wife contacted the renter the next day and asked if anyone had ever reported any strange noises or maybe a ghost sighting. He laughed good-naturedly but never answered the question. I don't think it was a coincidence that the Airbnb listing was removed a month later.

[00:06:23] We're not sure why the listing was so short-lived, but maybe others heard that ghost walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I lived in New Orleans for roughly 20 years. In that time,

[00:06:58] as you can imagine, I made tons of friends, many of whom became like family to me. One person, who we'll call Gracie, was quite the firecracker. She and her husband, we'll call Joe,

[00:07:12] were always out and about around Bourbon Street and the French Quarter. I would run into them often. Joe was a bit of a jealous type and was very quiet, so Gracie was always the one doing

[00:07:25] the talking. We were only acquaintances, and life went on. Now we all know New Orleans is haunted. I've always caught things out of the corner of my eye, felt spirits, saw shadows, and heard voices

[00:07:39] sometimes, so I'm pretty used to your average paranormal experience. During my travels to Tampa Bay to visit my mother, I saw a post on Facebook. Gracie's husband had passed away. Due to his

[00:07:54] jealousy and reclusive life, she didn't have many true friends. I decided that I would try to help her, and I went back to New Orleans. She called me her white knight. I helped to get her a bank

[00:08:08] account and assisted around the house a bit. She had been married since she was 16, and at 36, she hadn't faced such responsibilities. She had no idea what to do in life. About a month and a half went by. At this point, she was doing pretty well for a woman

[00:08:27] who had just lost her husband and suddenly had significant responsibilities. She was happy, healthy, and optimistic. Joe's ashes and the urn were delivered on a Thursday. I wasn't there when they were delivered, but when I got back to the house that night,

[00:08:46] I felt it. This extra chill in the room and an unmistakable change in Gracie's demeanor. She seemed okay, but got kind of quiet, insisting that she was fine. A couple of nights later, Gracie decided to head to bed, and I stayed up drinking beer and watching TV.

[00:09:09] Just after 3am, right on time if you know what I'm saying, out of the corner of my eye, I saw this very dark shadow in the hallway connecting the bathroom and bedroom to the

[00:09:22] rest of the house. I knew better than to try and look at it straight on, so I watched from the corner of my eye. It lurked in the hallway for a second or two, then drifted towards the

[00:09:35] bedroom where Gracie was sleeping. I remember thinking, well, Joe's back and he's pissed. I giggled to myself and continued watching TV. I saw shadows and sensed spirits all the time, so it didn't really phase me. About 20-30 seconds later, Gracie started coughing. At first,

[00:09:59] I didn't think anything of it, but then it went to the next level. She was heaving and gasping for breath, and then she seemed to catch her breath. I heard her faintly say, what the heck? She came

[00:10:16] out to the living room. I quickly asked, are you okay? She responded, as always, yeah, I'm fine. I then asked, bad dream? No, I just woke up coughing my brains out. After that night, Gracie turned into a different person. She became super sick,

[00:10:36] stopped eating, and kept drinking. She refused to sleep in the bedroom and would always just sit on the couch drinking her rum. I tried to get her up and managed to take her into town every

[00:10:51] once in a while. Everyone would say to me, what's up with Gracie? She doesn't look so good. She kept insisting that she was fine and still wouldn't eat. She did not look well.

[00:11:04] Then her landlord finally came to the end of his charity and gave her a deadline to leave the house. I helped her move further into the city, but our friendship had gotten thin. I was getting

[00:11:17] ready to hit the road again, very worried about her though. She insisted that I go on my way and that she would be fine. We made a deal that I would call her twice a week to check on her.

[00:11:29] I introduced her to my friend Leroy and said that if she doesn't answer twice in a row, I'm sending Leroy over to check on her and she won't stab him. Three weeks into our deal,

[00:11:43] she didn't answer me twice in a row so I called him. He went over to her apartment and the landlord informed him that EMS had taken her two weeks ago and that he hadn't heard from her since.

[00:11:55] Leroy informed me of this immediately. Right in the middle of the pandemic and the 2020 riots, I found myself on my way to New Orleans to try and find her. I finally found her,

[00:12:08] got a hold of her family, and her doctors told me that she had a stroke and was currently in a trapped end state. She's conscious but she can't move or communicate. She could blink and she could

[00:12:21] squeeze my hand a little. She stayed like this for four months. She was near death when the landlord called EMS. Just to think, she was a happy, healthy woman right up until Joe's ashes showed up

[00:12:36] and that shadow entered her room. She has since fully recovered and has remarried a very good friend of mine. She doesn't remember much from the whole ordeal. In fact, we had to explain to her

[00:12:51] that she had moved out of her house and into an apartment and I stayed with her in that new apartment for a week before she insisted that I get on my way. Did Joe do this? Either way,

[00:13:04] that night when the shadow entered Gracie's room, a woman's life was changed for the worse. Please be advised the following story contains descriptions of suicide. Between the ages of four and thirteen, I lived with my family in an old hotel pub called the

[00:13:45] Red Lion Hotel. It operated as a hotel pub in the 1850s to 1860s during the Victorian Gold Rush, which contributes to its long history. My family and I had many paranormal experiences in this house,

[00:14:01] mostly minor initially, but gradually worsening. When I was seven, I had my first major experience. I shared a bedroom with my younger brother, sleeping on the top bunk of a bunk bed. The whole house had very high ceilings. Our bedroom featured a wooden beam in the middle

[00:14:19] of the ceiling, an important detail for later. One night, I awoke to the sound of creaking. One night, I awoke to the sound of creaking. Initially, I thought, it's an old house, assuming it was just settling and tried to return to sleep. However, the creaking continued

[00:14:39] and seemed rhythmic, like a rope swing swaying back and forth. I felt dread and unease. Gathering courage, I rolled over to see the source of the sound. There was a man with a rope around his neck, hanging from the beam, swinging ever so slightly.

[00:14:58] He appeared more as a silhouette, so I couldn't discern details of his clothing or face, but he was unmistakably a man. Frozen in terror, I stared at the swinging man. As I watched, he stopped swinging and turned his head slowly to look at me.

[00:15:16] This gave me the courage to move, but instead of running, I rolled over and hid under my blanket. The creaking resumed and eventually stopped, but I didn't emerge from the covers until sunrise. I told my dad the next morning, and he looked confused but didn't say much.

[00:15:36] I initially thought he dismissed it, but a week later, he sat me down and explained that when he bought the house, he had heard stories about it but didn't take them seriously until my experience.

[00:15:50] He hadn't dismissed me. Instead, he looked into it because he vaguely recalled a story someone told him about a man who hung himself in the hotel. He went to the town hall and found an old

[00:16:02] newspaper article about a man in the 1850s who discovered his wife cheating on him with another man at the hotel. As revenge, the man snuck into their room and hung himself from the wooden beam.

[00:16:17] He wasn't found until his wife and the other man woke up the next morning. This story didn't alleviate my fear. I remained terrified to sleep in that room. Occasionally, I would awaken to the sound of creaking but never looked again.

[00:16:33] Not long after the first experience, because I was so scared to sleep in my room, I started sleeping on an air mattress in my sister's room. About a week into this arrangement, my sister woke me up by shaking me. She was staring at the windows and whispered,

[00:16:50] Outside the window stood another dark silhouette of a man, seemingly just looking into my sister's room. He wasn't alone. Next to him appeared to be a dog resembling a German Shepherd. Both had dull red lights where their eyes would be.

[00:17:11] We hid under the covers and after half an hour, my sister peeked out and assured me they were gone. We fell back asleep. Later, she woke me up again and in a panic, I looked out the window but saw

[00:17:26] nothing. Relieved, I turned to my sister only to realize she wasn't looking out the window but at the end of the bed. There was the silhouette of the man again, this time crouching at the bed's end, head just above the railing, staring at us.

[00:17:46] We hid under the covers once more and eventually slept. I never slept in my sister's room again though but over the years she said she saw the man and dog outside her window. I don't know if she told her parents because I never did.

[00:18:02] The last experience occurred when I was 13. My sister had a friend over and we were in the lounge room with my dad watching football on TV. My sister's friend brought out a Ouija board. Considering the stories she had heard, she thought it was a good idea.

[00:18:21] My sister was also keen but I was reluctant and our dad seemed very uncomfortable but didn't say anything. I also thought Ouija boards were nonsense so I eventually agreed to participate. The three of us placed our hands on the planchette and asked,

[00:18:40] are there any spirits with us? Nothing happened at first and we asked a few more times but eventually the planchette moved towards yes. At this point I still believed it was a joke, thinking my sister or her friend were messing with me.

[00:18:58] My sister then asked, what's your name? The planchette moved and spelled out Abby. They urged me to ask something. I rolled my eyes and asked, how did you die? In a painfully slow motion it spelled out wet. We were all very confused but at this point our

[00:19:20] dad was encouraging us to stop and say goodbye. My sister and her friend convinced him to let the mask just one more question. They asked for a sign and a few minutes passed but nothing happened.

[00:19:35] We were all silent looking around the room to see something out of the ordinary but nothing. My dad told us to say goodbye and as he said this there was a huge loud bang against the window directly behind him. The window cracked and my dad jumped from his

[00:19:54] seat and flipped his shit, yelling at us to say goodbye and once we did he took the board and threw it in the fireplace. We didn't really say anything mainly because we were scared of

[00:20:07] our father getting angrier. I found out years later from my dad that he may have also connected the spirit with a real life person. Again in the archives at town hall he found an article of a

[00:20:21] girl who had drowned in the dam next to our house in 1994 and that her name was Abigail. The next day after the Ouija board incident my dad organized a shaman to come and cleanse the house.

[00:20:36] We ended up moving eight months after the shaman visited and in those eight months nothing happened. Throughout my life I have had many paranormal experiences but they are all stories for another day. I'm a 23 year old woman from Canada. I started practicing witchcraft three or four years ago

[00:21:17] because I've always been interested and drawn towards anything paranormal from a very young age. My mom and grandmother have had their fair share of paranormal experiences and have seen ghosts especially my grandmother. From what I've been told our house is a place of transition for many

[00:21:38] spirits so it's not uncommon to hear strange noises or laughter or discussions in the dead of night. Luckily for us we rarely came across anything evil or ominous. At six years old I had my first

[00:21:54] encounter. I saw the spirit of my grandfather who had passed from stomach cancer a year prior. He seemed happy and healthy and he smiled tenderly at me. I immediately told my mom

[00:22:08] and that's when she was receptive just like her and her mother. Later that year I came across a very disturbing entity for the first time. It started as a dream but it transferred into reality.

[00:22:25] I dreamt that I was being chased around by an evil spirit and needed to find refuge as quickly as possible as it was out to get me. A very stressful dream as it is but when I woke up at

[00:22:39] 4 30 in the morning to go to work I felt strange. I felt unsafe watched. A tapping noise was coming from the kitchen it made me anxious. I was hesitant to get out of my room but I had no other choice.

[00:22:55] I had to bite the bullet and go to work. As soon as I exited my bedroom I felt as if someone was following me from only a couple of inches away. I quickly went to the kitchen to grab my lunch from

[00:23:08] the fridge as the tapping noise only got louder and louder. I rushed to put my shoes on and got out of that house. As soon as I exited my house I closed the front door and felt a bit better.

[00:23:22] I was worried for the rest of my family. Was my mind playing tricks on me or was my dream warning me of an evil entity that wanted to get closer? I'll never really know because when I came

[00:23:35] back from work that evening I saged the house with the windows open telling whatever it was to leave as it was not welcome there. I never dreamt of something similar since and hopefully never will

[00:23:50] because it was absolutely terrifying. The other story I want to talk about is something that scarred me and still makes me emotional to this day. As I mentioned at the beginning of this story

[00:24:04] I'm a witch. I've focused my practice on divination and palmistry but also helped a relative get rid of his sleep paralysis and recurring nightmares. I made him a dream catcher. I set a protective

[00:24:20] spell then gave it to him. He never got sleep paralysis again and only rarely has nightmares now. As for divination I frequently pull tarot cards to help myself when I encounter a problem

[00:24:35] or feel overly anxious about something in my life. This time though I did something that I had never done before and it was to ask what was in store for me for the upcoming weeks. To keep it short

[00:24:51] I pulled a total of three cards. The first two were warning me of an upcoming change, a big challenge that would be difficult to overcome, hinting that it would be the death

[00:25:02] of a relative. The third card did not reassure me at all. The meaning was somewhat similar but also mentioned that the prediction would gravitate toward death if it was paired with a specific card

[00:25:17] and guess what? I had pulled that card as my first. So I put away my deck and went about my day forgetting about it. Two weeks later I came home to the news that my brother's best friend's mother

[00:25:32] had passed from a brain tumor at 50 years old. I was very sad to hear this news and I offered my condolences to my brother's best friend. It was only a couple of days later that it hit me.

[00:25:45] I was talking with my mom about the last tarot card pull from two weeks ago and when I mentioned the prediction of death I froze. Tears started streaming down my face and I couldn't speak.

[00:25:58] My mom realized I had predicted the passing of this woman two weeks prior to the incident and she was speechless as well. I told my brother about it a couple of months later. It made me

[00:26:10] very emotional. To this day I'm hesitant to ask for future predictions but it is a gift that I fully accept and I am glad to be able to practice divination. My family owns a cabin in the mountains

[00:26:42] where we sometimes spend our holidays. When my grandfather was still alive he often spent his days there since the cabin was built by his grandfather. You can only get there by driving

[00:26:53] up a steep dirt road with many turns. I remember that I was always scared when we drove up that road because there were many bumps and even experienced drivers had to be careful driving up that road

[00:27:06] especially when it was dark. It would have been impossible for two cars to cross and as one got closer to the cabin the slope at the side of the road became more dangerous.

[00:27:17] In the end it was always worth it because we had the best view from the cabin. The air smells of pine needles and earth and for the most part there weren't any people, only the occasional hikers who were always very nice.

[00:27:32] So one day we were celebrating my mother's birthday with family back home, nowhere near this cabin. My whole family was there and we were talking about the cabin and mentioned that my grandfather

[00:27:44] was currently staying there. My uncle then told us about this dream he had about my grandfather accidentally driving off the road and his car falling down this steep slope into the trees. I think someone asked him what happened to my grandfather and my uncle answered that it was

[00:28:03] horrible seeing him sitting in his car clearly not alive anymore. I thought it was strange since I was always interested in dreams and as far as I know my uncle did not often remember his.

[00:28:17] However, it was just a dream after all and we continued to have a nice evening. Some days later we got news from some relatives who lived in the town below the cabin. Maybe you can guess what happened. My grandfather sadly died on my mother's birthday.

[00:28:35] This was the day after my uncle had this dream about his death. This could all be a coincidence but it is something I still remember years later because of how strangely accurate my uncle's dream was.

[00:29:00] I was hanging out at a friend's house about 10 years ago. It was a typical night over at her house. We had a fire going in her spacious backyard with a field of corn to the back of us.

[00:29:27] Her mother was hanging out with us which was nice because she was actually one of the coolest parents I had ever met. However, she had a severe case of lupus and she was rarely able to go into

[00:29:40] the sun because it would trigger an immune response. So, at night was the only time that she was able to come outside and hang with us. We were all sitting around the fire and doing

[00:29:51] typical things teenagers and parents who get a kick out of scaring their kids like to do. Sharing scary stories. I was a little spooked when the second or third round of stories came.

[00:30:03] So, when my friend's mom talked about seeing stuff in the sky, I was ready to leave. She told us that she had seen things in the sky at night and she was positive that they were UFOs. I had the chills

[00:30:17] but I didn't believe her. What happened next changed that. No sooner did she say that, and I'm not kidding, it was within 30 seconds, my friend's mother pointed and went, look. On the horizon over

[00:30:32] the cornfield, you could see a bright white light. She told us to get into the house. My friend's heavy footsteps could be heard as she sprinted inside but I was frozen in place until my

[00:30:46] friend's mother grabbed me by my collar and said, get in the house. There were no objections at that point. We made it into the house just in time as this thing came up to the house within seconds.

[00:31:00] Through a window, we saw this thing come to a dead stop from a great speed. It reminded me of the way ships jump out of light speed in sci-fi shows. The thing just hovered over the backyard for what felt

[00:31:15] like hours. Unfortunately, I couldn't make out any shapes or anything due to how bright the light was. The thing that is extremely peculiar about all of this is that the windows to my friend's house

[00:31:29] are covered up in a silver mylar type film to keep sunlight out due to my friend's mom having lupus. This light though, it was so bright that it shone through the protective film.

[00:31:45] I remember very specifically looking at my friend and her face being lit up like you were shining a flashlight on her. Then the craft shot off like a bullet and it was gone.

[00:31:59] This story is one that I worry people will question so as I stated previously, I never told people about it. The fear of being dismissed because I was a teenager when it happened or

[00:32:11] being seen as a loon was enough to keep the story under wraps. However, the reason I know that this isn't my imagination or some teenagers getting wrapped up in spooky stories is because my

[00:32:24] friend's mom also saw it. She saw it and was scared so she made me stay the night which I wasn't allowed to do because I was a boy and boys couldn't have sleepovers with girls. The last bit

[00:32:39] of evidence I needed was given to me the next day. My friend and I were up all night on her couch huddled together in fear. The morning came and we were still awake when her mother came out of her

[00:32:52] room. Her face, neck, and chest were so red she looked like she had been severely burned. She had inflammation from the immune response and it clicked in my head that it was from that light

[00:33:05] shining through the window. The light was so bright it triggered her lupus through the film on the windows. All of the doubt that had been running through my mind all night was erased

[00:33:18] when I saw this. I knew that there was no way anything from this earth could do what I had witnessed. Today, I still don't know exactly what it was but I don't think it was any craft that we have.

[00:33:31] I believe it had to come from somewhere else. My friend and I have been out of touch for a number of years so I don't really have anyone to talk to about this story. I do occasionally see my

[00:33:43] friend's mom working the night shift at the 24-hour store and she will ask me how I'm doing but we never talk about that night. To be honest, I don't think she wants to remember it and I would be lying if I said I didn't somewhat feel the same.

[00:34:24] Wow, that was by far the most convincing UFO encounter I've come across on the show. Yeah, during the last half Ivan really used his analytical brain to make sense of the encounter

[00:34:36] but all of his evidence pointed to a real sighting I think. The friend's mom making him stay the night, the effect that the light had on the mom's skin. There's no denying that something happened here.

[00:34:48] Yeah, I was personally drawn to the story myself because it was so familiar to my UFO encounter from years ago. I thought of that too. It was just a bright white light in the sky like Ivan's

[00:35:00] encounter, right? Yeah and it moved exactly the same way. It was defying all laws of gravity and propulsion. It just stopped right above my head and then just got sucked right back up into the sky.

[00:35:13] It was the same night as those mysterious handprints that appeared on the outside of my house by my bedroom window. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're still there actually. They're still there? Yeah. Wow, what do your parents think about that? I was actually recently at my mom's house for her

[00:35:29] birthday. When I was on my way out, we were standing by the car and just chatting for a bit. I pointed it out to them and my dad kind of laughed about it and just commented on how weird it was.

[00:35:40] Oh, what about the birthday girl? What did she have to say about it? Yeah, so my mom was actually visibly bothered by it. She tried to change the subject and didn't even want to continue

[00:35:51] looking at it. So I don't know. She's never really done that before. She's probably just upset because she thinks it's the interstellar version of ding dong ditch. You know, aliens travel millions of light years just to press their hands against our windows and jet off. Next time she

[00:36:09] should leave them some cookies and a warm glass of Dr. Pepper. Dr. Pepper, perfect. Classic. So I totally get that witches are just regular people who practice witchcraft, but when I read the title of Encounters of a Witch, I couldn't help but revert back to childhood Brando and

[00:36:28] immediately visualize some creepy old hag with green skin, a wart on her nose and a pointy hat like stirring a bubbling cauldron or something. Yeah, yeah. I think that most people that don't have experience with witchcraft like us probably have the same response. Right. I always think of

[00:36:46] this very specific witch. That's the exact same archetype. It's from this episode of Scooby Doo and Scrappy Doo. It's this spooky swamp witch. And while it's funny to watch now, it genuinely scared me as a kid for some reason. Yeah, I know exactly which which you're talking about,

[00:37:04] which which actually I actually liked Scooby Doo and Scrappy Doo more than the original. I just didn't care much for the laugh track in the original, but I mean, it's still a classic.

[00:37:13] It's fine. Yeah, you know, there might be a laugh track in Scooby Doo and Scrappy Doo. I can't remember it because it's been so long. I don't remember one. It's been a while. Yeah, it's been

[00:37:22] so long since I watched it. But I agree with you that laugh track was kind of distracting in the old one because it was so overdone. But I think that was kind of part of the charm and like,

[00:37:32] yeah, inside joke of the whole thing. It is charming. Yeah. So the story about the widow from Jason, that was really heartbreaking. But I'm glad that Gracie got her life back in order.

[00:37:45] Yeah, I know that we like to keep things lighthearted on the show and just add a little bit of humor and or amateur analysis. But sometimes we come across a submission like this. And this is

[00:37:57] no joking matter, people. Yeah, I definitely want to handle this story with care. But I do have to say it changed my mind about the idea of keeping somebody's ashes in my home. I like keeping ashes.

[00:38:11] They're kind of sacred to me. I totally understand scattering somebody's ashes if that's what they want. But even then, I'd be tempted to skim a little off the top and make a pendant or something.

[00:38:22] I don't know. Please tell me you haven't done that. No, but I actually had my grandpa's ashes mixed into the ink of one of my tattoos. He didn't have a preference of disposal. So I think

[00:38:33] that was fair game. Are you being serious? Yeah. Which tattoo? The pop, it says pops written in this cool 1920s circus font. Oh, that makes sense. It goes across my rib cage and yeah, his ashes are

[00:38:46] in there. He didn't like my other tattoos, but he hasn't cursed me or anything. So I think we're good. So we have to talk about this for a second. I didn't know this first of all. And second of all,

[00:38:56] they can do that. Like that's not some type that doesn't go against some type of sanitary problem or like health violation. Yeah, maybe it did. I don't know. I mean, for what it's worth that

[00:39:07] tattoo shop isn't around anymore, but I don't know. I also don't think it'd be very easy for the ash to break apart and totally dissolve into the ink. So it's probably more of like a novelty

[00:39:18] than anything else, but who knows? Maybe there's a little speck or a flake that's beneath my skin. I'm not sure. All right, man. I can't say I approve, but hey, more power to you. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:39:30] Well, that story reignited my interest about New Orleans or as some people like to call it, New Orleans. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not into the whole Mardi Gras thing, but I love checking out old cemeteries and there are like 40 historical ones over there. I have mixed feelings about

[00:39:50] ghost hunting at cemeteries though. It kind of seems like the equivalent of shaking somebody awake who's trying to sleep just to make some small talk. That's true. And if they're not sleeping, they're at least resting. That's too perfect. Remember in curb your enthusiasm,

[00:40:06] Larry has that family from New Orleans come to stay the night after the hurricane. Yeah, that's right. They were from New Orleans. I think I know what you're getting at though. Larry wants to talk to Auntie Ray, but Loretta keeps saying that he can't because she's resting.

[00:40:22] But she's not asleep. She's resting. Such a good show. Yeah. But anyway, I definitely think Joe's spirit showed up along with his ashes, almost like a haunted object or something like we've seen before on the show. And then the sudden change in Gracie's health and the shadow figure,

[00:40:41] his spirit was probably attached to Gracie too in some way. Yeah. It definitely looks like his jealousy continued even after his passing. Yeah. We've got ourselves a haunted let's not meet story, I guess you can say. Absolutely. Yeah, pretty much. Well,

[00:40:57] all this talk about cemeteries and ashes has me thinking, I don't think we've ever talked about what we want to happen to our bodies after we die. Have you given that much thought? Do you

[00:41:07] want to be inside a shoe box in a closet or have some Andy Tate mausoleum built out of gold? Up until reading that story, I was pretty dead set on being cremated because the money that you

[00:41:18] spend on your casket and the burial grounds and everything, it just seemed like such a burden to put on any family members that are still alive after my passing. And not only that, I feel like

[00:41:30] it's a waste of money, even if you pay for it yourself, I'd rather donate that thousand dollars or give it to somebody who needs it. I don't need a fancy headstone or an oak casket. You know,

[00:41:41] I don't really, I'm not into it. I will probably still go with cremation, but after reading that story, I definitely don't want anybody to take me home. Just spread my ashes on some playground

[00:41:54] somewhere and I'll haunt all the little kids. There you go. I like that. So what would you do? Well, when I was a kid, the idea of cremation scared the hell out of me, no pun intended, but

[00:42:05] now I definitely want to be cremated. There's this clown cookie jar in Pee Wee Herman's kitchen, rest in peace. And you can see it while he's sitting down before he takes two bites out of

[00:42:15] his breakfast. I found the original antique clown cookie jar on eBay a few times. So I think I'll probably have my ashes put in there or something. I don't have any comments on that. That's bizarre

[00:42:26] and cool. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Well, since we're talking about death and grandpas, I got to quickly acknowledge the story by Layla about the dream her uncle had. That story was eerily relatable in almost every way to me. How so? Well, a lot of the cabin stories

[00:42:44] remind me of my family's cabin that we have up in the Sierras. But this one was so spot on. I almost feel like I might be pranked by one of my family members, but I don't think that's actually,

[00:42:55] I know that's not the case. I talked to the author, but Layla's great-grandfather built that cabin, which my great-grandfather did too. And the description of the narrow one lane dirt road, the steep slope and their cabin having the best view along the long sketchy drive.

[00:43:13] So that's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. But not only that, my grandpa actually once fell asleep while driving on that road and he went off the road too. But luckily it wasn't a steep part. He just

[00:43:24] went straight into a tree at like 10 miles an hour. But yeah, he woke up and went about his day. Did he still drive after that? Of course. It was the nineties, baby.

[00:43:35] I love him for that. Anyways, thanks everybody for sending in your stories and thank you so much for listening this week. You have heard haunted Airbnb by Brit the widow that almost joined him by Jason

[00:43:47] the red lion hotel by Lenny encounters of a witch by my lean a dream about my grandpa's death by Layla. And finally my close encounter by Ivan. All of the stories you've heard this week were

[00:43:58] narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Make sure you send in your stories to stories at odd trails.com if you want to hear them on the show and make sure

[00:44:08] you sign up for our Patreon if you want to get ad free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bit rate for the best listening experience, you can head over to patreon.com forward slash odd

[00:44:17] trails to sign up and support the show today. Finally, don't forget to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts. Let's not meet a true horror podcast. Welcome to paradise that

[00:44:26] sucks and the old time radio cast all at cryptic county podcasts.com. See you guys next week. Everyone stay safe. Peace out.