WEBVTT
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hi everyone, it's Kev with a quick apology just to say today's episode 5 seemed to have been the encounters episode re-oploaded again so you're about to hear episode 5 and apologies for my soft brain.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The Reservant sounds that we hear so often that we barely give them a second thought.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Be it a floorboard creaking in the night, distant footsteps of somebody we know,
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[SPEAKER_00]: may be most ordinary of all and knock on the door.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But what if something as innocents as that could become the most terrifying sound you'll ever hear?
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[SPEAKER_00]: What if without even realizing it a simple instinctive response could change the course of your life forever?
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[SPEAKER_00]: this week's experience, ticked us to a place where people arrive, hoping to leave their darkest days behind them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A place of healing, a second chance, and of desperately needing new beginnings.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But as I'll listen to discovers, not everything that waits in the darkness is interested in our well-being.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes, the things we should fear the most are those that force their way into our lives, but those we are unwittingly inviting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So wherever you are, settle in for this one.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If you can, do your best to not be interrupted.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Give this as much attention as you can possibly do.
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[SPEAKER_00]: so you can truly get the most out of this, and by most I mean fear, of course.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe think twice before answering that knock on the door, on both our season midpoint, and our Halloween edition, of the dark, paranormal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome everyone to Episode 5 Season 26 of the Dark Paranormal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: As is on new outlook, no baked in ad at the star from me, one quick mention that the story submission link to have your story told on the dark paranormal is in the show note, as is the link to get your free week to join the best Paranormal community online.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And access 300-plus hours of listener experience is only heard by our Patreons, more of which I'll explain at the end, but just as we began, some 250 episodes ago, we again begin to dive straight in, so please, lower the lights, make yourself comfortable and most importantly,
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[SPEAKER_00]: leave your disbelief at the door.
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[SPEAKER_00]: As we all learn about Neil's experience, tormented by the dead, disbelieved by the living.
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[SPEAKER_00]: High-Cath, my name's Neil.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Some of this happened in a rehab, so bear with me because it doesn't
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[SPEAKER_00]: When you've been in a residential rehab for a fortnight, you know the nightstaff the way you'd know, a lot ya.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Through the night they knock, and then they say your name.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nightstaff kneel, just checking.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They open the door about a hands-width, a torch flashes across the bed and goes off again, and then the door shuts.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I actually began looking forward to it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When you can't sleep, it's nice to be counted.
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[SPEAKER_00]: As it's policy, it happens every single night.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Anok on its own will wake people up, but when people are coming off things, some of them, I could hear wake-ups swinging.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But, me before rehab.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I fit a fixed heating.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I did a full time for 20 years out of a van, mainly schools, village halls, etc.
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[SPEAKER_00]: By the end I was getting through a bottle of whiskey on most nights.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I never once drank at work.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That was true.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Up until the day I signed off a boiler on a Monday, around 10 30 AM, and didn't have much on for the rest of the day.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So figured I'd just pop the off-license.
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[SPEAKER_00]: By midday, I drank half of the bottle of whiskey.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I then signed off another boiler.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In two days later, the family called me to say their carbon monoxide detector was constantly going off.
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[SPEAKER_00]: that day I was sober and I returned, and as I entered the room, I could hear a hissing sound.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That hissing sound would have been there when I fixed and signed off the boiler's safe.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now a heating engineer that contrasts his ears has got nothing, and I still wouldn't say I had a
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[SPEAKER_00]: I said I was just going through a bad patch.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I fully expected her to give me down the banks and start absolutely tearing me to shreds.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But she just slowly nodded along.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Which should have been a clue.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When I say me and Sean are close, I mean exceptionally close.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's one year difference between us and we were brought up in a rather abusive household.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She has a key to my house, one Tuesday she let herself in, unbeknown to me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And she'd already packed me a bag.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She took me by the arm, walked me out to her car, and put me in it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was laughing, saying, where are we going?
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[SPEAKER_00]: She said, somewhere, but wouldn't say well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, she's done this with me before, and we've ended up just me, her, and her son, at some lovely caravan on the coast.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Not this time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: 20 minutes down the road, she told me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A rehab center.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was already booked.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They were already waiting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I told her immediately to turn the car around.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Then I told her I'd jump out of the car there and then and God I meant it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I had the door handle in my hand and we were doing 60 miles an hour.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't speed up, she didn't slow down, she just started crying.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And if there's one thing that breaks me, it's seeing Zhang crying.
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[SPEAKER_00]: so I let go of the handle, and I listen to what you had to say.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All of it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: By the time we reached the hills, I'd stopped arguing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was nodding like a dog and just listening.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She drove me over the border, and then signed me into a rehab center in mid Wales.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It
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[SPEAKER_00]: but it had long-tiled corridors.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They, which I had no idea of, and was a bit taken aback by, take your phone a few at 10 o'clock.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They lock it in the office.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There were 22 rooms, and I was there for 28 days.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The first week is just fog.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Roundabout, day 10, my ears came back.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was like somebody had lifted a pillow
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[SPEAKER_00]: I could even hear the lad in the next room breathing through his mouth of a night.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Bethan, my key worker, said, draw the common when you've stopped drinking, but I wasn't doing too well physically, shaking, sweating, not sleeping, vomiting, I was in utter total withdrawal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then there was Ray.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Ray was late 50s, and a big soft man in a grey cardigan with hands like shovels.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But he'd never look at you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If you said, good morning, he'd look at your face for a split second, but the rest of the time his eyes just went past your shoulder, and stayed there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it was enough to make me turn around.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I did it twice in the first week, only to see the back wall both times.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a glass-fronted board on the first floor landing wall at the top of the stairs.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's the old seven spells.
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[SPEAKER_00]: 20 odd little brass bells on curl springs, each with a room number painted underneath, all peeled off.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was back in the day you could pull a cord and a maid would come.
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[SPEAKER_00]: beneath it was a norm chair with a blanket of a warm arm, and that was where Ray spent his nights, sat, not necessarily sleeping.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently he'd had in so many a few years, according to Bethan, and she also said they allowed him to try and sleep in the chair.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In my second week, Bethan asked if I'd like to do something with my hands, and I said I'd bleed the
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[SPEAKER_00]: While I was up the steps I looked at the bellboard, I noticed all the cords on that board had been cut off at the skirting, probably years before.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing in that house could make even one ring.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The Friday of that week we were in group.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Bethan was running it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Calam was talking about his dad, I was looking at Ray because he was the only person not looking at Calam.
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[SPEAKER_00]: After a bit, I realized I wasn't looking at Ray at all.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was looking at the wall behind this chair, for a very specific reason.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There was a woman standing there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Small, 70 or over, in a quilted coat the color of weak tea,
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[SPEAKER_00]: She had one hand on the pack of raised chair.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Handacles were swollen like warm boots and the wedding green she had on, looked like it had been on her fingers so long, skin had grown up around the edges.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And she wasn't looking at the group.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was looking down at the top of raised head, from maybe half a foot away.
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[SPEAKER_00]: With nothing at all, expression wise on her face.
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[SPEAKER_00]: the way you check on a child whilst asleep.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's the best description I can give you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'll also say, at no point, was I thinking this was paranormal in any way.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I genuinely believed I'd just not seen this woman.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I took her for somebody's mother or a volunteer.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I lent him to Calam, and whispered, who's that woman behind Ray?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Calam looked at me, looked at Ray, and then said to me, what woman?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I smiled at him thinking he was taking the mix so I looked back, and she was still there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Ray turned his head, and he looked right at me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Then he turned round fully to look at the woman I'd been looking at.
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[SPEAKER_00]: he looked right at her.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The right height, the right spot, I was convinced he could see what I could see.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Then he turned and looked back directly at me, and a space looked as if he'd been told something about me, that he'd rather not have known.
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[SPEAKER_00]: After group I told Beth and about the woman, and she told me the only people in that room had been the twelve
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the only older person who almost fitted the description was a woman called Maureen, the cook.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Who sometimes comes up in her coat for a cigarette?
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[SPEAKER_00]: She lent in and told me Maureen was in her 60s and wouldn't be seen dead and acquitted anything.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't argue I'd done the shakes and the sweat in the first week and I'd come out the other side.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You land quickly and there, there are two others arguing, is likely the one who's ill, so I land to keep my mouth shut when somebody questioned what I'd seen.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A day or two later after grew, I was heading to the communal toilet.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Ray was walking the other way towards me, but his head wasn't down as usual.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He was staring right at me again.
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[SPEAKER_00]: and he was also walking directly toward me so I had to stop to try and go around.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He put his hand on my chest, lent in to my ear, and whispered,
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[SPEAKER_00]: He then lent back, removed his hand, and in his normal voice, said, Neil, I think you're a good person, and I am so, so sorry, that you can see her.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I nodded, I think, and as he stood staring at me still, as I walked around, I didn't go to the toilet, I headed straight for Bethan's office.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She said she'd heard from other residents about Ray doing similar things, however.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She said it was around night two or three.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why man had come on day eleven, she had no idea.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She said Ray was a very kind man with some beliefs that weren't hers to share.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She confirmed the night staff would always say your name so he wasn't wrong about that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Then she said what they all say.
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[SPEAKER_00]: that early recovery can bring up all sorts, and that I'd had 20 years with the volume turned down, so to speak, and now it was turned up, which was fair, but didn't explain the woman in the coat.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That night I just couldn't sleep, and the checks happened at 10 o'clock at night, and also at 2 o'clock in the morning, and then at 6, basically every four hours
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[SPEAKER_00]: and around half-two, I had Kasia, one of the staff.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She whispered, obviously in case I'm asleep, night staff kneel, just checking.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I saw the torch flash up towards my face and closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep.
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[SPEAKER_00]: 10 minutes later, a bell rang.
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[SPEAKER_00]: fading after a few seconds.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I found my body go rigid, about two seconds after that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I heard a knock.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't a knuckle it was small, hard, like the edge of a ring on wood.
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[SPEAKER_00]: two taps.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Then nothing for a count of maybe ten.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Then three.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But this was on a door further down the corridor.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Every tap exactly the same weight, which I don't think any hand can naturally do.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I listened intently for what I expected to be maybe four taps, but that wasn't the sound I heard.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This was slip at some tiles.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Ray is quick for a big man, and I already knew how he sounded when walking.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I heard his low voice mutters something at my door, but I couldn't make the words out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Then nothing
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[SPEAKER_00]: Every night was the same after that, just after two the staff would check, ten minutes later, a bell would ring for about four to ten seconds, and raise slippers a few seconds after.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I had him go to a different door each night, and then I'd hear, knock, always waiting until
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[SPEAKER_00]: On the Monday I asked Kalim, if he'd had the bell on the landing at night.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Goes off most nights, he said.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was the pipes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I asked if he'd ever had a knock.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He said now, I believed him.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You'd have to be laying awake with the ears that I'd gained the month before, after my
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[SPEAKER_00]: on the 10th night, a Monday.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The door was mine again.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This time, four taps.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I looked the window in the door, and Ray was there, but I didn't hear him approach.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In his low voice,
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[SPEAKER_00]: Neil, it's racing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Don't say anything.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Just lie there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He was at that door for about 10 minutes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He continued talking, saying he was here and I was all right and it was nearly done.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He was just rambling.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was the first time in years anyone had spoken to me as if they were frightened for me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I said nothing, but I was terrified.
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[SPEAKER_00]: My mouth wanted to answer, but on around minute nine I noticed I had the corner of the pillow between my teeth.
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[SPEAKER_00]: On my final week the doctor offered me something to sleep, I declined.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't swapping one bottle for another.
19:28.094 --> 19:41.686
[SPEAKER_00]: On the 3rd day after noon, Beth and took me to one side, fully aware of my concerns with Rey, and told me kind of on the side that Rey had finally agreed to medication.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She said they'd been trying to get him to try this particular thing for a year, and I was pleased too, I'd like to have that noted.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That Thursday night I think I'd had maybe 9 hours sleep in 6 days, and at some point I just went.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember falling asleep.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All I do know is the next thing was the bell, and four taps on my door.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I was on my side facing it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And my mouth said,
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've thought about that word more than any word I've ever said.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't really even a word, it was just what my mouth does on autopilot when somebody knocks.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We've all done it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Half a sleep or thinking about something and you hear a knock and you automatically snap out of whatever you're thinking of or you're sleep and say, yeah?
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[SPEAKER_00]: then I noticed what I wasn't hearing, slippers.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I looked at the window of my door fully expecting grey to be on the other side, but he wasn't.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What happened instead was for more taps on the inside of the door.
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[SPEAKER_00]: that same ring on wood, the same weight.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You can hear which side of a thing sounds on.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And whatever it was had come in.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then one of the most bizarre things of the whole experience happened, I heard something that I didn't hear.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But in my mind I could hear knocks around the room,
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[SPEAKER_00]: As if whatever this thing was was moving around the room slowly and then knocking on the wall on my headboard on the ceiling on the floor.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And all this time that bell was going, it should have died in four seconds, it didn't.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was still going 10 seconds in, 20.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I lay there counting the nox counting the seconds, and you a spring shouldn't do that to spring can't do that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Next door I heard, calmed, fump the wall twice, and he muttered something and it stopped dead, all of it, but then my door slowly opened.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Night staff kneel, are you alright?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Casio.
22:31.856 --> 22:36.580
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd heard the bell from the office, which she said she'd never had before.
22:37.361 --> 22:38.321
[SPEAKER_00]: So she'd came up.
22:39.482 --> 22:41.624
[SPEAKER_00]: She opened the door, the usual hands with.
22:42.405 --> 22:45.327
[SPEAKER_00]: She shone a torch right on me and I said I was fine.
22:46.468 --> 22:52.473
[SPEAKER_00]: Then she sniffed and said, if you got sweets in here, you know the rule about food in your room.
22:53.674 --> 22:54.434
[SPEAKER_00]: I shook my head.
22:56.868 --> 23:01.351
[SPEAKER_00]: That smells like palm of eye, let you know those old lady's sweets.
23:02.652 --> 23:04.813
[SPEAKER_00]: Then she kind of shrugged and shut the door.
23:06.434 --> 23:08.996
[SPEAKER_00]: I lay with my eyes open until it got light.
23:10.437 --> 23:12.078
[SPEAKER_00]: Ray came to breakfast last.
23:12.898 --> 23:20.083
[SPEAKER_00]: He looked like a man who'd been pulled out of a pond, and judging by the comments from Kazia, who was just finishing her shift and
23:23.743 --> 23:28.007
[SPEAKER_00]: Ray had been out like a light from his new medication all night.
23:29.028 --> 23:38.937
[SPEAKER_00]: He sat down opposite me and looked for the first time a breakfast at least, directly at my face, not past it.
23:40.078 --> 23:46.825
[SPEAKER_00]: Then his eyes moved to my left shoulder and he looked up about a foot behind it.
23:47.848 --> 23:53.129
[SPEAKER_00]: His eyes stayed there, he put his cup down, his eyes filled up.
23:54.269 --> 24:03.111
[SPEAKER_00]: And the ate of full breakfast, the first one I'd seen him eat or finish at least, but he cried the whole way through.
24:05.071 --> 24:12.973
[SPEAKER_00]: I was so put off by raise actions I think I had maybe one bite of toast and a coffee and I left.
24:17.861 --> 24:20.563
[SPEAKER_00]: and Ray was in bed by nine every night.
24:22.244 --> 24:31.849
[SPEAKER_00]: Although I was terrified every night, I was also sober, and by inquisitive side, started to get the better of me.
24:33.170 --> 24:39.614
[SPEAKER_00]: So I asked Beth and if I could sit in the chair for the last three nights, and she said yes.
24:41.655 --> 24:44.817
[SPEAKER_00]: The bell still went every night around half past two.
24:47.222 --> 24:51.443
[SPEAKER_00]: and I'd hear a knock, always on somebody else's door.
24:52.143 --> 24:52.763
[SPEAKER_00]: Never mind.
24:54.003 --> 24:57.944
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter how many times I heard that knock I was terrified.
24:59.125 --> 25:04.266
[SPEAKER_00]: About four new people had joined that I noticed the knock was on one of their doors.
25:05.446 --> 25:15.068
[SPEAKER_00]: I was compelled to go along the corridor in my socks, trying peek into their room through the glass, and I found myself whispering
25:16.337 --> 25:17.738
[SPEAKER_00]: don't answer.
25:19.698 --> 25:28.922
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody inside the room answered back, which I kind of predicted, but I also hoped with all my heart that they heard me.
25:30.562 --> 25:40.946
[SPEAKER_00]: I left on the Monday, and there's a book on the table in the hall and when you finish you sign it, and everyone who's about to staff for, even some of the people who are in
25:44.919 --> 25:58.309
[SPEAKER_00]: As I signed it, Ray took my hand in both of his, and clapped it in a slow way, with a very remorseful face and said, I'm so sorry.
25:59.490 --> 26:03.593
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he said it again, I'm so, so sorry.
26:05.114 --> 26:06.916
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone thought it was a lovely moment.
26:07.725 --> 26:20.591
[SPEAKER_00]: He wouldn't let go, though, and in the end, Shaan, who'd come to pick me up, put her hand on his arm, very gently, and said to me, come on Neil, whilst giving grey the obvious look.
26:22.132 --> 26:26.854
[SPEAKER_00]: I live in a terrace in Heraphid now, it's one of ten houses in a row.
26:27.954 --> 26:29.235
[SPEAKER_00]: The walls are rather thin.
26:30.515 --> 26:35.738
[SPEAKER_00]: The very first night, home, I woke up five past three for no reason and just lay there.
26:37.066 --> 26:40.348
[SPEAKER_00]: and then I heard four taps on the wall.
26:41.708 --> 26:45.530
[SPEAKER_00]: Ten seconds later, four more on the floor.
26:47.091 --> 26:54.234
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course there's no bellboard in my house to ring, there's nobody to put their mouth to the wood and tell me not to answer.
26:55.554 --> 27:00.717
[SPEAKER_00]: After three consecutive nights I put my phone on the side and I recorded a whole night.
27:06.385 --> 27:10.007
[SPEAKER_00]: and the tempest three, my breathing speed up.
27:10.947 --> 27:15.489
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason being, I had knocking around my room.
27:16.430 --> 27:19.831
[SPEAKER_00]: On the recording, there's nothing.
27:19.891 --> 27:23.313
[SPEAKER_00]: I've replayed that recording so many times I couldn't tell you.
27:24.413 --> 27:31.076
[SPEAKER_00]: As for the woman I haven't seen her since, I could see her behind Ray, but
27:35.768 --> 27:38.931
[SPEAKER_00]: and I don't sit in the chair that isn't against the wall.
27:40.192 --> 27:46.837
[SPEAKER_00]: When I do, I can tell through my hearing that something is behind me.
27:48.498 --> 27:55.704
[SPEAKER_00]: I lost the school contract that October, I was alone in the plant room with the boiler panel off when four knocks came on the door.
27:56.765 --> 27:58.587
[SPEAKER_00]: 10 seconds later, four more.
27:59.733 --> 28:02.856
[SPEAKER_00]: I walked out and left the panel off on my tool bag on the floor.
28:04.117 --> 28:09.701
[SPEAKER_00]: The head rang that evening, very kind, wanting to know if everything was okay at home.
28:10.982 --> 28:16.327
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm seven months sober when I write this and there isn't a sentence that makes anyone believe it.
28:17.248 --> 28:24.554
[SPEAKER_00]: The version people believe is the one where I've started drinking again, so mostly I just let them think that.
28:26.055 --> 28:33.761
[SPEAKER_00]: I've not been inside Chant House for the last few months, as she has a little son, Stephen, who's four.
28:35.062 --> 28:37.324
[SPEAKER_00]: A four-year-old will answer a knock.
28:38.085 --> 28:38.645
[SPEAKER_00]: They all do.
28:39.366 --> 28:40.387
[SPEAKER_00]: It's how they brought up.
28:41.648 --> 28:44.690
[SPEAKER_00]: I know which door in that house is the little ones.
28:45.811 --> 28:50.395
[SPEAKER_00]: And I fear if I'm under that roof, at Tempest 3 in the morning,
28:51.553 --> 28:58.941
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the one, she, or eight, will go to, so I can't not go.
29:01.003 --> 29:07.170
[SPEAKER_00]: Kav, I'm genuinely sending you this as I'm at a bit of a loss, because here's the thing.
29:09.032 --> 29:10.073
[SPEAKER_00]: Because here's the thing.
29:11.064 --> 29:15.308
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a new neighbor and elderly gent in his late 80s.
29:16.529 --> 29:22.314
[SPEAKER_00]: He receives full-time care in the home, and despite his age he has excellent hearing.
29:23.014 --> 29:32.002
[SPEAKER_00]: I know his bedroom is not adjacent to mine, and I genuinely feel he doesn't have long left, just an observation.
29:33.495 --> 29:43.144
[SPEAKER_00]: But when I've put these things together, part of me has thought, if I should move into the room, at the back of the house adjacent to his bedroom.
29:44.325 --> 29:51.811
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that because I'm aware the knocks, may cause him to say hello, or what, or
30:02.246 --> 30:07.809
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't believe in God, but if there is one may He forgive me for even thinking these things.
30:09.530 --> 30:14.212
[SPEAKER_00]: I could really do with some advice from someone who knows anything about what I should do.
30:15.193 --> 30:24.698
[SPEAKER_00]: Please don't recommend priests, as I say, I don't believe in God, and I am at least aware from listening to the show, an element of belief will be required.
30:25.618 --> 30:28.080
[SPEAKER_00]: and I'm afraid that none existed.
30:29.341 --> 30:34.264
[SPEAKER_00]: But please, if anyone has a suggestion, please let Kev know.
30:35.865 --> 30:37.646
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for reading this Kev.
30:37.666 --> 30:39.568
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope to hear from you or someone soon.
30:40.368 --> 30:40.708
[SPEAKER_00]: Neil.
30:43.330 --> 30:50.195
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Neil, thank you so much for giving us our midpoint and Halloween episode.
30:51.383 --> 30:59.545
[SPEAKER_00]: We've had, I believe, two other experiences where this sort of phenomena has taken place.
31:00.366 --> 31:07.948
[SPEAKER_00]: As in, the passing of what you could argue would be a kind of hitchhiker spirit from one human to another.
31:09.213 --> 31:28.562
[SPEAKER_00]: And although I sincerely don't blame you for being literally at your witend, I'm wanting to be rid of this thing, this entity, whatever the terminology should be for this type of spirit, but I would also remind you of the remorse you saw in Ray's face.
31:29.862 --> 31:33.384
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, personally, I have to be honest and say.
31:34.597 --> 31:36.797
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not too sure what's more terrifying.
31:37.738 --> 31:46.839
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea of whatever this sort of spirit should be named, or the idea a human could knowingly pass it on to another human.
31:47.660 --> 31:52.881
[SPEAKER_00]: That said, I've not had the torture of having to live with this, to droot.
31:53.921 --> 31:59.862
[SPEAKER_00]: So if any of you guys out there do have a suggestion for Neil, we'd both love to hear it.
32:01.482 --> 32:23.340
[SPEAKER_00]: In the meantime, don't forget you can submit your own experience in the link in the show notes and you can also sign up for a free week of our Patreon where you'll get access to over 300 hours of experiences that have only previously been heard by our Patreons, and given it's Halloween now is the perfect time to claim that free week.
32:24.241 --> 32:26.843
[SPEAKER_00]: But enjoy however you're going to spend
32:28.264 --> 32:31.906
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're listening to this after the event, I hope you had a good one.
32:32.566 --> 32:34.747
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's Halloween all year round for us, so.
32:35.527 --> 32:38.448
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll speak to you next week until then, remember.
32:39.169 --> 32:45.651
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're discussing the paranormal, always try to leave some of your disbelief at the door.
32:46.652 --> 32:47.892
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll speak to you next time.
32:48.673 --> 32:52.054
[SPEAKER_00]: Right here, on the dark, paranormal.
00:00.331 --> 00:13.479
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi everyone, it's Kev with a quick apology just to say today's episode 5 seemed to have been the encounters episode re-oploaded again so you're about to hear episode 5 and apologies for my soft brain.
00:14.340 --> 00:20.083
[SPEAKER_00]: The Reservant sounds that we hear so often that we barely give them a second thought.
00:21.084 --> 00:26.067
[SPEAKER_00]: Be it a floorboard creaking in the night, distant footsteps of somebody we know,
00:29.018 --> 00:31.941
[SPEAKER_00]: may be most ordinary of all and knock on the door.
00:33.082 --> 00:40.950
[SPEAKER_00]: But what if something as innocents as that could become the most terrifying sound you'll ever hear?
00:42.151 --> 00:50.620
[SPEAKER_00]: What if without even realizing it a simple instinctive response could change the course of your life forever?
00:52.120 --> 00:59.182
[SPEAKER_00]: this week's experience, ticked us to a place where people arrive, hoping to leave their darkest days behind them.
01:00.303 --> 01:06.425
[SPEAKER_00]: A place of healing, a second chance, and of desperately needing new beginnings.
01:07.545 --> 01:15.088
[SPEAKER_00]: But as I'll listen to discovers, not everything that waits in the darkness is interested in our well-being.
01:16.127 --> 01:26.110
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes, the things we should fear the most are those that force their way into our lives, but those we are unwittingly inviting.
01:27.270 --> 01:30.411
[SPEAKER_00]: So wherever you are, settle in for this one.
01:30.971 --> 01:33.812
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can, do your best to not be interrupted.
01:34.672 --> 01:37.673
[SPEAKER_00]: Give this as much attention as you can possibly do.
01:38.870 --> 01:44.736
[SPEAKER_00]: so you can truly get the most out of this, and by most I mean fear, of course.
01:45.637 --> 01:56.007
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe think twice before answering that knock on the door, on both our season midpoint, and our Halloween edition, of the dark, paranormal.
02:21.209 --> 02:27.192
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome everyone to Episode 5 Season 26 of the Dark Paranormal.
02:28.092 --> 02:46.540
[SPEAKER_00]: As is on new outlook, no baked in ad at the star from me, one quick mention that the story submission link to have your story told on the dark paranormal is in the show note, as is the link to get your free week to join the best Paranormal community online.
02:47.436 --> 03:14.891
[SPEAKER_00]: And access 300-plus hours of listener experience is only heard by our Patreons, more of which I'll explain at the end, but just as we began, some 250 episodes ago, we again begin to dive straight in, so please, lower the lights, make yourself comfortable and most importantly,
03:15.715 --> 03:17.957
[SPEAKER_00]: leave your disbelief at the door.
03:19.097 --> 03:29.224
[SPEAKER_00]: As we all learn about Neil's experience, tormented by the dead, disbelieved by the living.
03:32.806 --> 03:34.928
[SPEAKER_00]: High-Cath, my name's Neil.
03:36.008 --> 03:40.851
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of this happened in a rehab, so bear with me because it doesn't
03:42.953 --> 03:50.596
[SPEAKER_00]: When you've been in a residential rehab for a fortnight, you know the nightstaff the way you'd know, a lot ya.
03:51.996 --> 03:55.137
[SPEAKER_00]: Through the night they knock, and then they say your name.
03:56.138 --> 03:58.219
[SPEAKER_00]: Nightstaff kneel, just checking.
03:59.379 --> 04:06.542
[SPEAKER_00]: They open the door about a hands-width, a torch flashes across the bed and goes off again, and then the door shuts.
04:08.102 --> 04:10.163
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually began looking forward to it.
04:11.215 --> 04:13.657
[SPEAKER_00]: When you can't sleep, it's nice to be counted.
04:14.938 --> 04:17.361
[SPEAKER_00]: As it's policy, it happens every single night.
04:18.181 --> 04:27.270
[SPEAKER_00]: Anok on its own will wake people up, but when people are coming off things, some of them, I could hear wake-ups swinging.
04:28.651 --> 04:30.833
[SPEAKER_00]: But, me before rehab.
04:31.966 --> 04:33.367
[SPEAKER_00]: I fit a fixed heating.
04:34.547 --> 04:40.411
[SPEAKER_00]: I did a full time for 20 years out of a van, mainly schools, village halls, etc.
04:41.411 --> 04:45.293
[SPEAKER_00]: By the end I was getting through a bottle of whiskey on most nights.
04:46.494 --> 04:48.555
[SPEAKER_00]: I never once drank at work.
04:49.736 --> 04:50.616
[SPEAKER_00]: That was true.
04:51.416 --> 04:59.761
[SPEAKER_00]: Up until the day I signed off a boiler on a Monday, around 10 30 AM, and didn't have much on for the rest of the day.
05:01.265 --> 05:03.546
[SPEAKER_00]: So figured I'd just pop the off-license.
05:04.806 --> 05:09.307
[SPEAKER_00]: By midday, I drank half of the bottle of whiskey.
05:09.327 --> 05:10.728
[SPEAKER_00]: I then signed off another boiler.
05:11.968 --> 05:18.850
[SPEAKER_00]: In two days later, the family called me to say their carbon monoxide detector was constantly going off.
05:19.882 --> 05:27.223
[SPEAKER_00]: that day I was sober and I returned, and as I entered the room, I could hear a hissing sound.
05:27.863 --> 05:33.424
[SPEAKER_00]: That hissing sound would have been there when I fixed and signed off the boiler's safe.
05:34.265 --> 05:41.166
[SPEAKER_00]: Now a heating engineer that contrasts his ears has got nothing, and I still wouldn't say I had a
05:47.925 --> 05:50.347
[SPEAKER_00]: I said I was just going through a bad patch.
05:51.428 --> 05:57.372
[SPEAKER_00]: I fully expected her to give me down the banks and start absolutely tearing me to shreds.
05:58.613 --> 06:00.975
[SPEAKER_00]: But she just slowly nodded along.
06:02.036 --> 06:03.517
[SPEAKER_00]: Which should have been a clue.
06:04.357 --> 06:09.021
[SPEAKER_00]: When I say me and Sean are close, I mean exceptionally close.
06:09.781 --> 06:14.665
[SPEAKER_00]: There's one year difference between us and we were brought up in a rather abusive household.
06:18.027 --> 06:24.749
[SPEAKER_00]: She has a key to my house, one Tuesday she let herself in, unbeknown to me.
06:26.129 --> 06:28.009
[SPEAKER_00]: And she'd already packed me a bag.
06:29.149 --> 06:32.470
[SPEAKER_00]: She took me by the arm, walked me out to her car, and put me in it.
06:33.550 --> 06:36.571
[SPEAKER_00]: I was laughing, saying, where are we going?
06:37.531 --> 06:39.992
[SPEAKER_00]: She said, somewhere, but wouldn't say well.
06:41.128 --> 06:49.990
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, she's done this with me before, and we've ended up just me, her, and her son, at some lovely caravan on the coast.
06:51.170 --> 06:52.231
[SPEAKER_00]: Not this time.
06:53.731 --> 06:56.092
[SPEAKER_00]: 20 minutes down the road, she told me.
06:57.292 --> 06:58.232
[SPEAKER_00]: A rehab center.
06:59.052 --> 06:59.932
[SPEAKER_00]: It was already booked.
07:00.553 --> 07:02.013
[SPEAKER_00]: They were already waiting.
07:03.571 --> 07:06.613
[SPEAKER_00]: I told her immediately to turn the car around.
07:07.714 --> 07:12.156
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I told her I'd jump out of the car there and then and God I meant it.
07:13.157 --> 07:16.939
[SPEAKER_00]: I had the door handle in my hand and we were doing 60 miles an hour.
07:18.440 --> 07:23.203
[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't speed up, she didn't slow down, she just started crying.
07:24.483 --> 07:28.606
[SPEAKER_00]: And if there's one thing that breaks me, it's seeing Zhang crying.
07:29.765 --> 07:33.766
[SPEAKER_00]: so I let go of the handle, and I listen to what you had to say.
07:34.527 --> 07:34.887
[SPEAKER_00]: All of it.
07:36.007 --> 07:39.529
[SPEAKER_00]: By the time we reached the hills, I'd stopped arguing.
07:40.529 --> 07:42.830
[SPEAKER_00]: I was nodding like a dog and just listening.
07:44.110 --> 07:49.572
[SPEAKER_00]: She drove me over the border, and then signed me into a rehab center in mid Wales.
07:51.233 --> 07:51.273
[SPEAKER_00]: It
07:58.440 --> 08:00.461
[SPEAKER_00]: but it had long-tiled corridors.
08:01.582 --> 08:08.386
[SPEAKER_00]: They, which I had no idea of, and was a bit taken aback by, take your phone a few at 10 o'clock.
08:09.026 --> 08:10.147
[SPEAKER_00]: They lock it in the office.
08:11.628 --> 08:15.830
[SPEAKER_00]: There were 22 rooms, and I was there for 28 days.
08:17.271 --> 08:18.692
[SPEAKER_00]: The first week is just fog.
08:19.853 --> 08:23.015
[SPEAKER_00]: Roundabout, day 10, my ears came back.
08:23.895 --> 08:25.856
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like somebody had lifted a pillow
08:28.004 --> 08:32.065
[SPEAKER_00]: I could even hear the lad in the next room breathing through his mouth of a night.
08:33.446 --> 08:49.851
[SPEAKER_00]: Bethan, my key worker, said, draw the common when you've stopped drinking, but I wasn't doing too well physically, shaking, sweating, not sleeping, vomiting, I was in utter total withdrawal.
08:51.272 --> 08:52.372
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there was Ray.
08:53.603 --> 08:59.908
[SPEAKER_00]: Ray was late 50s, and a big soft man in a grey cardigan with hands like shovels.
09:01.029 --> 09:02.250
[SPEAKER_00]: But he'd never look at you.
09:03.510 --> 09:13.918
[SPEAKER_00]: If you said, good morning, he'd look at your face for a split second, but the rest of the time his eyes just went past your shoulder, and stayed there.
09:15.079 --> 09:17.321
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was enough to make me turn around.
09:18.201 --> 09:23.044
[SPEAKER_00]: I did it twice in the first week, only to see the back wall both times.
09:24.204 --> 09:29.607
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a glass-fronted board on the first floor landing wall at the top of the stairs.
09:30.648 --> 09:32.389
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the old seven spells.
09:33.590 --> 09:40.453
[SPEAKER_00]: 20 odd little brass bells on curl springs, each with a room number painted underneath, all peeled off.
09:41.854 --> 09:45.096
[SPEAKER_00]: It was back in the day you could pull a cord and a maid would come.
09:46.305 --> 09:56.687
[SPEAKER_00]: beneath it was a norm chair with a blanket of a warm arm, and that was where Ray spent his nights, sat, not necessarily sleeping.
09:57.908 --> 10:07.150
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently he'd had in so many a few years, according to Bethan, and she also said they allowed him to try and sleep in the chair.
10:08.330 --> 10:14.972
[SPEAKER_00]: In my second week, Bethan asked if I'd like to do something with my hands, and I said I'd bleed the
10:17.311 --> 10:26.236
[SPEAKER_00]: While I was up the steps I looked at the bellboard, I noticed all the cords on that board had been cut off at the skirting, probably years before.
10:27.296 --> 10:29.857
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing in that house could make even one ring.
10:30.958 --> 10:33.179
[SPEAKER_00]: The Friday of that week we were in group.
10:33.959 --> 10:35.080
[SPEAKER_00]: Bethan was running it.
10:36.041 --> 10:42.664
[SPEAKER_00]: Calam was talking about his dad, I was looking at Ray because he was the only person not looking at Calam.
10:43.842 --> 10:48.024
[SPEAKER_00]: After a bit, I realized I wasn't looking at Ray at all.
10:49.525 --> 10:55.787
[SPEAKER_00]: I was looking at the wall behind this chair, for a very specific reason.
10:57.468 --> 10:59.769
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a woman standing there.
11:01.010 --> 11:06.252
[SPEAKER_00]: Small, 70 or over, in a quilted coat the color of weak tea,
11:12.836 --> 11:15.397
[SPEAKER_00]: She had one hand on the pack of raised chair.
11:16.078 --> 11:25.503
[SPEAKER_00]: Handacles were swollen like warm boots and the wedding green she had on, looked like it had been on her fingers so long, skin had grown up around the edges.
11:26.263 --> 11:27.784
[SPEAKER_00]: And she wasn't looking at the group.
11:28.865 --> 11:35.529
[SPEAKER_00]: She was looking down at the top of raised head, from maybe half a foot away.
11:36.589 --> 11:39.431
[SPEAKER_00]: With nothing at all, expression wise on her face.
11:40.680 --> 11:43.162
[SPEAKER_00]: the way you check on a child whilst asleep.
11:43.923 --> 11:45.985
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the best description I can give you.
11:46.866 --> 11:52.411
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll also say, at no point, was I thinking this was paranormal in any way.
11:53.232 --> 11:57.135
[SPEAKER_00]: I genuinely believed I'd just not seen this woman.
11:57.155 --> 11:59.578
[SPEAKER_00]: I took her for somebody's mother or a volunteer.
12:00.727 --> 12:05.288
[SPEAKER_00]: I lent him to Calam, and whispered, who's that woman behind Ray?
12:06.688 --> 12:11.729
[SPEAKER_00]: Calam looked at me, looked at Ray, and then said to me, what woman?
12:12.770 --> 12:18.731
[SPEAKER_00]: I smiled at him thinking he was taking the mix so I looked back, and she was still there.
12:20.071 --> 12:23.432
[SPEAKER_00]: Ray turned his head, and he looked right at me.
12:24.432 --> 12:27.853
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he turned round fully to look at the woman I'd been looking at.
12:29.260 --> 12:30.841
[SPEAKER_00]: he looked right at her.
12:31.982 --> 12:36.825
[SPEAKER_00]: The right height, the right spot, I was convinced he could see what I could see.
12:38.046 --> 12:47.493
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he turned and looked back directly at me, and a space looked as if he'd been told something about me, that he'd rather not have known.
12:48.774 --> 12:55.679
[SPEAKER_00]: After group I told Beth and about the woman, and she told me the only people in that room had been the twelve
12:57.930 --> 13:04.572
[SPEAKER_00]: And the only older person who almost fitted the description was a woman called Maureen, the cook.
13:05.452 --> 13:08.053
[SPEAKER_00]: Who sometimes comes up in her coat for a cigarette?
13:09.213 --> 13:16.095
[SPEAKER_00]: She lent in and told me Maureen was in her 60s and wouldn't be seen dead and acquitted anything.
13:17.616 --> 13:23.358
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't argue I'd done the shakes and the sweat in the first week and I'd come out the other side.
13:28.032 --> 13:38.856
[SPEAKER_00]: You land quickly and there, there are two others arguing, is likely the one who's ill, so I land to keep my mouth shut when somebody questioned what I'd seen.
13:39.937 --> 13:44.839
[SPEAKER_00]: A day or two later after grew, I was heading to the communal toilet.
13:45.619 --> 13:51.581
[SPEAKER_00]: Ray was walking the other way towards me, but his head wasn't down as usual.
13:52.422 --> 13:55.163
[SPEAKER_00]: He was staring right at me again.
13:56.095 --> 14:02.359
[SPEAKER_00]: and he was also walking directly toward me so I had to stop to try and go around.
14:03.759 --> 14:08.622
[SPEAKER_00]: He put his hand on my chest, lent in to my ear, and whispered,
14:23.784 --> 14:38.467
[SPEAKER_00]: He then lent back, removed his hand, and in his normal voice, said, Neil, I think you're a good person, and I am so, so sorry, that you can see her.
14:40.108 --> 14:50.930
[SPEAKER_00]: I nodded, I think, and as he stood staring at me still, as I walked around, I didn't go to the toilet, I headed straight for Bethan's office.
14:52.340 --> 14:56.844
[SPEAKER_00]: She said she'd heard from other residents about Ray doing similar things, however.
14:57.424 --> 14:59.686
[SPEAKER_00]: She said it was around night two or three.
15:00.807 --> 15:04.149
[SPEAKER_00]: Why man had come on day eleven, she had no idea.
15:05.470 --> 15:10.974
[SPEAKER_00]: She said Ray was a very kind man with some beliefs that weren't hers to share.
15:11.895 --> 15:16.159
[SPEAKER_00]: She confirmed the night staff would always say your name so he wasn't wrong about that.
15:17.219 --> 15:18.881
[SPEAKER_00]: Then she said what they all say.
15:19.674 --> 15:34.717
[SPEAKER_00]: that early recovery can bring up all sorts, and that I'd had 20 years with the volume turned down, so to speak, and now it was turned up, which was fair, but didn't explain the woman in the coat.
15:36.237 --> 15:47.559
[SPEAKER_00]: That night I just couldn't sleep, and the checks happened at 10 o'clock at night, and also at 2 o'clock in the morning, and then at 6, basically every four hours
15:49.377 --> 15:53.181
[SPEAKER_00]: and around half-two, I had Kasia, one of the staff.
15:54.382 --> 15:59.366
[SPEAKER_00]: She whispered, obviously in case I'm asleep, night staff kneel, just checking.
16:00.067 --> 16:06.713
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw the torch flash up towards my face and closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep.
16:06.733 --> 16:09.736
[SPEAKER_00]: 10 minutes later, a bell rang.
16:11.115 --> 16:12.556
[SPEAKER_00]: fading after a few seconds.
16:13.616 --> 16:17.979
[SPEAKER_00]: I found my body go rigid, about two seconds after that.
16:19.440 --> 16:20.260
[SPEAKER_00]: I heard a knock.
16:26.504 --> 16:32.087
[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't a knuckle it was small, hard, like the edge of a ring on wood.
16:33.306 --> 16:34.087
[SPEAKER_00]: two taps.
16:35.028 --> 16:37.409
[SPEAKER_00]: Then nothing for a count of maybe ten.
16:38.971 --> 16:39.731
[SPEAKER_00]: Then three.
16:40.492 --> 16:43.795
[SPEAKER_00]: But this was on a door further down the corridor.
16:45.016 --> 16:50.981
[SPEAKER_00]: Every tap exactly the same weight, which I don't think any hand can naturally do.
16:52.525 --> 17:00.128
[SPEAKER_00]: I listened intently for what I expected to be maybe four taps, but that wasn't the sound I heard.
17:01.028 --> 17:03.489
[SPEAKER_00]: This was slip at some tiles.
17:04.369 --> 17:08.930
[SPEAKER_00]: Ray is quick for a big man, and I already knew how he sounded when walking.
17:09.691 --> 17:15.332
[SPEAKER_00]: I heard his low voice mutters something at my door, but I couldn't make the words out.
17:16.393 --> 17:16.953
[SPEAKER_00]: Then nothing
17:20.160 --> 17:36.072
[SPEAKER_00]: Every night was the same after that, just after two the staff would check, ten minutes later, a bell would ring for about four to ten seconds, and raise slippers a few seconds after.
17:37.353 --> 17:44.538
[SPEAKER_00]: I had him go to a different door each night, and then I'd hear, knock, always waiting until
17:47.222 --> 17:52.064
[SPEAKER_00]: On the Monday I asked Kalim, if he'd had the bell on the landing at night.
17:53.304 --> 17:55.265
[SPEAKER_00]: Goes off most nights, he said.
17:56.105 --> 17:57.166
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was the pipes.
17:58.946 --> 18:00.807
[SPEAKER_00]: I asked if he'd ever had a knock.
18:02.008 --> 18:04.148
[SPEAKER_00]: He said now, I believed him.
18:05.429 --> 18:11.151
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd have to be laying awake with the ears that I'd gained the month before, after my
18:15.521 --> 18:17.823
[SPEAKER_00]: on the 10th night, a Monday.
18:19.063 --> 18:21.245
[SPEAKER_00]: The door was mine again.
18:22.906 --> 18:24.887
[SPEAKER_00]: This time, four taps.
18:26.108 --> 18:33.013
[SPEAKER_00]: I looked the window in the door, and Ray was there, but I didn't hear him approach.
18:34.053 --> 18:35.094
[SPEAKER_00]: In his low voice,
18:39.447 --> 18:41.548
[SPEAKER_00]: Neil, it's racing.
18:42.568 --> 18:44.569
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't say anything.
18:45.569 --> 18:46.950
[SPEAKER_00]: Just lie there.
18:48.110 --> 18:49.911
[SPEAKER_00]: He was at that door for about 10 minutes.
18:50.751 --> 18:55.953
[SPEAKER_00]: He continued talking, saying he was here and I was all right and it was nearly done.
18:56.574 --> 18:57.594
[SPEAKER_00]: He was just rambling.
18:58.735 --> 19:04.857
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the first time in years anyone had spoken to me as if they were frightened for me.
19:06.568 --> 19:09.910
[SPEAKER_00]: I said nothing, but I was terrified.
19:10.470 --> 19:17.514
[SPEAKER_00]: My mouth wanted to answer, but on around minute nine I noticed I had the corner of the pillow between my teeth.
19:19.195 --> 19:23.958
[SPEAKER_00]: On my final week the doctor offered me something to sleep, I declined.
19:24.679 --> 19:26.860
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't swapping one bottle for another.
19:28.094 --> 19:41.686
[SPEAKER_00]: On the 3rd day after noon, Beth and took me to one side, fully aware of my concerns with Rey, and told me kind of on the side that Rey had finally agreed to medication.
19:42.667 --> 19:50.114
[SPEAKER_00]: She said they'd been trying to get him to try this particular thing for a year, and I was pleased too, I'd like to have that noted.
19:51.553 --> 19:58.960
[SPEAKER_00]: That Thursday night I think I'd had maybe 9 hours sleep in 6 days, and at some point I just went.
19:59.760 --> 20:01.362
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember falling asleep.
20:02.503 --> 20:09.209
[SPEAKER_00]: All I do know is the next thing was the bell, and four taps on my door.
20:10.510 --> 20:12.472
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was on my side facing it.
20:13.753 --> 20:15.094
[SPEAKER_00]: And my mouth said,
20:18.585 --> 20:23.786
[SPEAKER_00]: I've thought about that word more than any word I've ever said.
20:25.407 --> 20:32.128
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't really even a word, it was just what my mouth does on autopilot when somebody knocks.
20:32.908 --> 20:33.649
[SPEAKER_00]: We've all done it.
20:34.489 --> 20:43.311
[SPEAKER_00]: Half a sleep or thinking about something and you hear a knock and you automatically snap out of whatever you're thinking of or you're sleep and say, yeah?
20:48.847 --> 20:53.669
[SPEAKER_00]: then I noticed what I wasn't hearing, slippers.
20:55.370 --> 21:01.853
[SPEAKER_00]: I looked at the window of my door fully expecting grey to be on the other side, but he wasn't.
21:02.993 --> 21:11.157
[SPEAKER_00]: What happened instead was for more taps on the inside of the door.
21:12.762 --> 21:15.743
[SPEAKER_00]: that same ring on wood, the same weight.
21:16.503 --> 21:19.064
[SPEAKER_00]: You can hear which side of a thing sounds on.
21:19.804 --> 21:23.825
[SPEAKER_00]: And whatever it was had come in.
21:25.406 --> 21:32.488
[SPEAKER_00]: And then one of the most bizarre things of the whole experience happened, I heard something that I didn't hear.
21:33.728 --> 21:38.370
[SPEAKER_00]: But in my mind I could hear knocks around the room,
21:39.486 --> 21:50.429
[SPEAKER_00]: As if whatever this thing was was moving around the room slowly and then knocking on the wall on my headboard on the ceiling on the floor.
21:52.569 --> 21:59.331
[SPEAKER_00]: And all this time that bell was going, it should have died in four seconds, it didn't.
22:00.071 --> 22:02.452
[SPEAKER_00]: It was still going 10 seconds in, 20.
22:04.127 --> 22:11.533
[SPEAKER_00]: I lay there counting the nox counting the seconds, and you a spring shouldn't do that to spring can't do that.
22:13.014 --> 22:25.144
[SPEAKER_00]: Next door I heard, calmed, fump the wall twice, and he muttered something and it stopped dead, all of it, but then my door slowly opened.
22:26.905 --> 22:29.167
[SPEAKER_00]: Night staff kneel, are you alright?
22:30.375 --> 22:30.795
[SPEAKER_00]: Casio.
22:31.856 --> 22:36.580
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd heard the bell from the office, which she said she'd never had before.
22:37.361 --> 22:38.321
[SPEAKER_00]: So she'd came up.
22:39.482 --> 22:41.624
[SPEAKER_00]: She opened the door, the usual hands with.
22:42.405 --> 22:45.327
[SPEAKER_00]: She shone a torch right on me and I said I was fine.
22:46.468 --> 22:52.473
[SPEAKER_00]: Then she sniffed and said, if you got sweets in here, you know the rule about food in your room.
22:53.674 --> 22:54.434
[SPEAKER_00]: I shook my head.
22:56.868 --> 23:01.351
[SPEAKER_00]: That smells like palm of eye, let you know those old lady's sweets.
23:02.652 --> 23:04.813
[SPEAKER_00]: Then she kind of shrugged and shut the door.
23:06.434 --> 23:08.996
[SPEAKER_00]: I lay with my eyes open until it got light.
23:10.437 --> 23:12.078
[SPEAKER_00]: Ray came to breakfast last.
23:12.898 --> 23:20.083
[SPEAKER_00]: He looked like a man who'd been pulled out of a pond, and judging by the comments from Kazia, who was just finishing her shift and
23:23.743 --> 23:28.007
[SPEAKER_00]: Ray had been out like a light from his new medication all night.
23:29.028 --> 23:38.937
[SPEAKER_00]: He sat down opposite me and looked for the first time a breakfast at least, directly at my face, not past it.
23:40.078 --> 23:46.825
[SPEAKER_00]: Then his eyes moved to my left shoulder and he looked up about a foot behind it.
23:47.848 --> 23:53.129
[SPEAKER_00]: His eyes stayed there, he put his cup down, his eyes filled up.
23:54.269 --> 24:03.111
[SPEAKER_00]: And the ate of full breakfast, the first one I'd seen him eat or finish at least, but he cried the whole way through.
24:05.071 --> 24:12.973
[SPEAKER_00]: I was so put off by raise actions I think I had maybe one bite of toast and a coffee and I left.
24:17.861 --> 24:20.563
[SPEAKER_00]: and Ray was in bed by nine every night.
24:22.244 --> 24:31.849
[SPEAKER_00]: Although I was terrified every night, I was also sober, and by inquisitive side, started to get the better of me.
24:33.170 --> 24:39.614
[SPEAKER_00]: So I asked Beth and if I could sit in the chair for the last three nights, and she said yes.
24:41.655 --> 24:44.817
[SPEAKER_00]: The bell still went every night around half past two.
24:47.222 --> 24:51.443
[SPEAKER_00]: and I'd hear a knock, always on somebody else's door.
24:52.143 --> 24:52.763
[SPEAKER_00]: Never mind.
24:54.003 --> 24:57.944
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter how many times I heard that knock I was terrified.
24:59.125 --> 25:04.266
[SPEAKER_00]: About four new people had joined that I noticed the knock was on one of their doors.
25:05.446 --> 25:15.068
[SPEAKER_00]: I was compelled to go along the corridor in my socks, trying peek into their room through the glass, and I found myself whispering
25:16.337 --> 25:17.738
[SPEAKER_00]: don't answer.
25:19.698 --> 25:28.922
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody inside the room answered back, which I kind of predicted, but I also hoped with all my heart that they heard me.
25:30.562 --> 25:40.946
[SPEAKER_00]: I left on the Monday, and there's a book on the table in the hall and when you finish you sign it, and everyone who's about to staff for, even some of the people who are in
25:44.919 --> 25:58.309
[SPEAKER_00]: As I signed it, Ray took my hand in both of his, and clapped it in a slow way, with a very remorseful face and said, I'm so sorry.
25:59.490 --> 26:03.593
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he said it again, I'm so, so sorry.
26:05.114 --> 26:06.916
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone thought it was a lovely moment.
26:07.725 --> 26:20.591
[SPEAKER_00]: He wouldn't let go, though, and in the end, Shaan, who'd come to pick me up, put her hand on his arm, very gently, and said to me, come on Neil, whilst giving grey the obvious look.
26:22.132 --> 26:26.854
[SPEAKER_00]: I live in a terrace in Heraphid now, it's one of ten houses in a row.
26:27.954 --> 26:29.235
[SPEAKER_00]: The walls are rather thin.
26:30.515 --> 26:35.738
[SPEAKER_00]: The very first night, home, I woke up five past three for no reason and just lay there.
26:37.066 --> 26:40.348
[SPEAKER_00]: and then I heard four taps on the wall.
26:41.708 --> 26:45.530
[SPEAKER_00]: Ten seconds later, four more on the floor.
26:47.091 --> 26:54.234
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course there's no bellboard in my house to ring, there's nobody to put their mouth to the wood and tell me not to answer.
26:55.554 --> 27:00.717
[SPEAKER_00]: After three consecutive nights I put my phone on the side and I recorded a whole night.
27:06.385 --> 27:10.007
[SPEAKER_00]: and the tempest three, my breathing speed up.
27:10.947 --> 27:15.489
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason being, I had knocking around my room.
27:16.430 --> 27:19.831
[SPEAKER_00]: On the recording, there's nothing.
27:19.891 --> 27:23.313
[SPEAKER_00]: I've replayed that recording so many times I couldn't tell you.
27:24.413 --> 27:31.076
[SPEAKER_00]: As for the woman I haven't seen her since, I could see her behind Ray, but
27:35.768 --> 27:38.931
[SPEAKER_00]: and I don't sit in the chair that isn't against the wall.
27:40.192 --> 27:46.837
[SPEAKER_00]: When I do, I can tell through my hearing that something is behind me.
27:48.498 --> 27:55.704
[SPEAKER_00]: I lost the school contract that October, I was alone in the plant room with the boiler panel off when four knocks came on the door.
27:56.765 --> 27:58.587
[SPEAKER_00]: 10 seconds later, four more.
27:59.733 --> 28:02.856
[SPEAKER_00]: I walked out and left the panel off on my tool bag on the floor.
28:04.117 --> 28:09.701
[SPEAKER_00]: The head rang that evening, very kind, wanting to know if everything was okay at home.
28:10.982 --> 28:16.327
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm seven months sober when I write this and there isn't a sentence that makes anyone believe it.
28:17.248 --> 28:24.554
[SPEAKER_00]: The version people believe is the one where I've started drinking again, so mostly I just let them think that.
28:26.055 --> 28:33.761
[SPEAKER_00]: I've not been inside Chant House for the last few months, as she has a little son, Stephen, who's four.
28:35.062 --> 28:37.324
[SPEAKER_00]: A four-year-old will answer a knock.
28:38.085 --> 28:38.645
[SPEAKER_00]: They all do.
28:39.366 --> 28:40.387
[SPEAKER_00]: It's how they brought up.
28:41.648 --> 28:44.690
[SPEAKER_00]: I know which door in that house is the little ones.
28:45.811 --> 28:50.395
[SPEAKER_00]: And I fear if I'm under that roof, at Tempest 3 in the morning,
28:51.553 --> 28:58.941
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the one, she, or eight, will go to, so I can't not go.
29:01.003 --> 29:07.170
[SPEAKER_00]: Kav, I'm genuinely sending you this as I'm at a bit of a loss, because here's the thing.
29:09.032 --> 29:10.073
[SPEAKER_00]: Because here's the thing.
29:11.064 --> 29:15.308
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a new neighbor and elderly gent in his late 80s.
29:16.529 --> 29:22.314
[SPEAKER_00]: He receives full-time care in the home, and despite his age he has excellent hearing.
29:23.014 --> 29:32.002
[SPEAKER_00]: I know his bedroom is not adjacent to mine, and I genuinely feel he doesn't have long left, just an observation.
29:33.495 --> 29:43.144
[SPEAKER_00]: But when I've put these things together, part of me has thought, if I should move into the room, at the back of the house adjacent to his bedroom.
29:44.325 --> 29:51.811
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that because I'm aware the knocks, may cause him to say hello, or what, or
30:02.246 --> 30:07.809
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't believe in God, but if there is one may He forgive me for even thinking these things.
30:09.530 --> 30:14.212
[SPEAKER_00]: I could really do with some advice from someone who knows anything about what I should do.
30:15.193 --> 30:24.698
[SPEAKER_00]: Please don't recommend priests, as I say, I don't believe in God, and I am at least aware from listening to the show, an element of belief will be required.
30:25.618 --> 30:28.080
[SPEAKER_00]: and I'm afraid that none existed.
30:29.341 --> 30:34.264
[SPEAKER_00]: But please, if anyone has a suggestion, please let Kev know.
30:35.865 --> 30:37.646
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for reading this Kev.
30:37.666 --> 30:39.568
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope to hear from you or someone soon.
30:40.368 --> 30:40.708
[SPEAKER_00]: Neil.
30:43.330 --> 30:50.195
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Neil, thank you so much for giving us our midpoint and Halloween episode.
30:51.383 --> 30:59.545
[SPEAKER_00]: We've had, I believe, two other experiences where this sort of phenomena has taken place.
31:00.366 --> 31:07.948
[SPEAKER_00]: As in, the passing of what you could argue would be a kind of hitchhiker spirit from one human to another.
31:09.213 --> 31:28.562
[SPEAKER_00]: And although I sincerely don't blame you for being literally at your witend, I'm wanting to be rid of this thing, this entity, whatever the terminology should be for this type of spirit, but I would also remind you of the remorse you saw in Ray's face.
31:29.862 --> 31:33.384
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, personally, I have to be honest and say.
31:34.597 --> 31:36.797
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not too sure what's more terrifying.
31:37.738 --> 31:46.839
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea of whatever this sort of spirit should be named, or the idea a human could knowingly pass it on to another human.
31:47.660 --> 31:52.881
[SPEAKER_00]: That said, I've not had the torture of having to live with this, to droot.
31:53.921 --> 31:59.862
[SPEAKER_00]: So if any of you guys out there do have a suggestion for Neil, we'd both love to hear it.
32:01.482 --> 32:23.340
[SPEAKER_00]: In the meantime, don't forget you can submit your own experience in the link in the show notes and you can also sign up for a free week of our Patreon where you'll get access to over 300 hours of experiences that have only previously been heard by our Patreons, and given it's Halloween now is the perfect time to claim that free week.
32:24.241 --> 32:26.843
[SPEAKER_00]: But enjoy however you're going to spend
32:28.264 --> 32:31.906
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're listening to this after the event, I hope you had a good one.
32:32.566 --> 32:34.747
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's Halloween all year round for us, so.
32:35.527 --> 32:38.448
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll speak to you next week until then, remember.
32:39.169 --> 32:45.651
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're discussing the paranormal, always try to leave some of your disbelief at the door.
32:46.652 --> 32:47.892
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll speak to you next time.
32:48.673 --> 32:52.054
[SPEAKER_00]: Right here, on the dark, paranormal.
