APPALACHIA HAUNTINGS | True Stories Shadow People, Cryptids & Cursed Cabins (x303)

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something always lurking, something breathing down your back. SWS, flesh, pedestrians.

He was tall, sticky, pale, concerningly bony. He literally had no facial features. It was just blank skin. Today's theme is uh what lurks outside, specifically in one region, Appalachia. Yeah.

Very spooky.

Oh, we're so sad. Yes, our poor husbands. They have died

with disintegr

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so things change and shift and we buy a lot of things and we shift into vampires and werewolves. Ah,

on the full moon because this is two girls, one ghost.

Two girls, one ghost.

And we are your morning ladies. That is Karen. Hello. And I am Sabrina. And this is an encounters episode. And as you know, in October, we get a little weird. We get a little spooky. We get a little haunted. And so do you. So, well, you guys get haunted all the time.

It's not that doesn't change.

Not a seasonal thing. As if our podcast changes seasonally. We just add props.

We just add props and maybe characters. It's a different mindset.

It's a Yes.

Yes. We get become possessed.

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I should put my hands on the

Oh,

what if I just like whipped out a Ouija board right now.

Don't own believe you were possessed because that's not like you.

No. Something would be wrong.

Be very wrong. And we'd be on Tiffany Reese's podcast. Something was wrong.

Something was wrong. Hey,

it was the moment she pulled out a Ouija board and that was when I knew

her first season all based on possession.

Honestly, Tiffany, let's talk.

Idea idea. But okay, so today's theme for the encounters episode is uh what lurks outside. What lurks maybe perhaps specifically in one region that has been terrifying us and haunting us and all of your ears for the last year? Appalachia. Appalachia.

Appalachia. How dare she say it the way that the burn does. I'm melting.

I like how we went a full eight years saying

Appalachia.

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Appal. Yeah. Appal. Now I'm like, how do how did we say it? The Appalachian Mountains because that's how we pronounce it in the Northeast. But I think we got bullied into saying Appalachia. It took eight years for us to finally succumb to it.

And we seceded.

You guys won. We We samed. Lisa came.

Um, Appalachia.

Appalachia.

Can I fix your shaw? What about this? What if we start like that?

Oh my gosh. Yeah, [ __ ]

Sorry. Sorry. I don't know if

that looks good. This is definitely what they did.

They ran their little seance morning circle.

I boob thrusted.

Well, I will

unveil yourself.

Bring my veil up.

Oh, that's the vibes. Okay.

Okay. You

We found it. We found it. Great. This is

growing up deep in Appalachia

called Growing Up in Deep Appalachia.

Great. Perfect.

You have my permission to read all of the names. Did everyone else give permission?

I feel like if they don't say to change it or they don't personally change it, you're giving us permission.

Yeah. Okay. They write, "Enjoy my

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childhood drama."

LOL. Hello, my name is Megan. I grew up in a little town in West Virginia. We lived in a cheaply built one-story house with three bedrooms. I had heard from my mother that I'd always been an odd child. According to her, I would tell people that I could see their feelings.

Oh man, that's so weird.

The auras maybe and like the colors would change

and I would tell them what color it was.

Wow.

I was always overly empathetic and I had an uncommon understanding of death at a young age.

I have always felt more connected and sensitive to the unknown energies around us. I began to experience sleep paralysis at a very young age. And at about 10 years old, I would find myself frozen in bed in the middle of the night with the comforter pulled halfway over my face, leaving only my eyes exposed. Unfortunately, as a 10-year-old, I was unaware of the rule about mirrors in a bedroom. So, my vanity was placed directly against the wall at the foot of my bed. Oh my god, just a portal at the end of the bed.

You know, I've done that because

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aesthetically it looked pretty.

Yeah, right. Sometimes it's like portal that could enter the other realm and let in demons or funue.

Well, actually not funue.

It's just aesthetically pleasing,

but not maybe energetically pleasing.

Yes, exactly.

And in this mirror, I always saw her

in it,

staring right at me.

I couldn't close my eyes. I was forced to look at the black and gray shadow of this young girl with long black hair standing in the center of the mirror, looking right at me. in the mirror

all night long.

You legit had a portal in your face.

Yes. The only way that she went away was if I had passed out from exhaustion after hours of heart pounding fear.

So she never actually went away.

No. No, you just passed out.

Yeah.

Because I was kept up most nights, I started falling asleep in school and failing my classes.

The same thing would continue to happen for years, slowly evolving into a more interactive experience each time.

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Interactive is such a kind word to say that you were probably being more attacked.

And interactive usually implies like both ways.

Yeah, we like no like this is you're not an active participant or willing participant in this interaction.

This girl would come out of the mirror. She would kneel down at the foot of my bed with her greasy black hair over one eye and she had this menacing smile staring right at me through her brow. Her face was so close to the bed that I could hear the sounds of her sharp breaths against the blanket. The sound continues to haunt me to this day. Eventually, after begging to move the mirror, my grandfather helped me remove it entirely. But apparently, she didn't need a mirror anymore.

No, you She got in.

Yep. I mean, she was kneeling at the side of your bed.

She was already out.

Yeah. Maybe if you moved it when it was just her standing in the mirror looking at you, maybe. But

she got out. I knew she was still there,

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but this time I couldn't see her. I would go to sleep and instead of being woken up and forced to stare at her, it would begin before I fell asleep. I would lay down and my mom would stand at the doorway, reassuring me that the many dream catchers that I'd hung up would start working and then she would turn out the lights before closing the door and leaving. I would lay as still as possible and listen for any strange sounds as I squeezed my eyes shut. And then before I even had a chance to doze off, I felt it tugging slow. Inch by inch, the blanket moved to the foot of the bed, forcing me to keep pulling it back up.

It was subtle at first, but after a few months, I'd wake up and the blanket would be completely down by my waist. I'd be too frozen in fear to try to retrieve it. Every night until I grew up and moved out, I would have to tuck the blanket under the mattress to feel comfortable enough to get in bed. So, not only are we not safe outdoors, we're not safe indoors either.

No. Update. I am 26 now with two babies and a husband. We traveled back to our

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hometown last year and ended up having to sleep in my old childhood home in this very room.

And she probably was so excited to have you back.

Mhm. My husband had heard my money stories, but never really believed me until the first night in the house. Oh god.

We were laying in the old bedroom. Our two babies were sleeping between us. He sat up, looked at me without a word, and I asked, "You feel it, don't you?" And then we stayed on my parents living room floor for the rest of the trip. Lol. Jeez. I was so freaked out by my bedroom growing up that I convinced my little brother to switch with me at around 12 years old, making him, the 10-year-old, move into my bedroom. Poor guy. My thinking was his room would definitely be better than mine. All I'd heard my brother complain about was having nightmares and sleepwalking out of the house. Okay, so he he has some stuff, too. What? So, we moved all of our stuff to opposite rooms, and I was ready to sleep my first night in this new room. I laid in the bed. I tried to get comfortable, but I still had a sense of unease. Except in this room, it was

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more of a deep sadness that I was feeling. As I was trying to fall asleep, I started hearing a faint whining coming from the ceiling quarter in the dark room just above my head to the left. It sounded so close yet so far, as if we weren't in the same dimension. But maybe the veil was just thin enough enough for me to spot or hear this thing. And this sound did not stop for hours. I was once again frozen in fear and eventually I passed out from exhaustion. When I woke up, the sound was masked by birds outside the window and some morning traffic. I looked up in the corner where the sound came from and it was as if I could see the energy moving around like it was this glowing static. I left the room and I went to go tell my brother about my experience and he just looked at me and said, "You can hear her, too." So, he'd been experiencing the same. That's why he was probably like, "Hell yeah, I'll take a new room." And we never spoke of it again. I chose you never spoke of it again. I'd be like, "Okay, let's sit down and debrief and go through every experience we ever had."

I'd also be like, "Let's share a room."

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Which I did with my I don't know if Christian wanted to, but I moved in. He was like three when I moved into his room. I got my old room back and now that I think back to it, my brother always complained of not being able to fall asleep at night and feeling a deep sadness. His exhaustion ended up having some major effects on his life. I continued to deal with the horrible energy in my room for years to the point where oh, my family even raised money to help renovate my room in an effort to get me comfortable in there. So, we began repainting and getting new furniture and decorating it to my liking. We were in the middle of the process and I made temporary curtains by draping a throw blanket over the curtain rod until my grandma would finish making my new ones. And one night, my little cousin was sleeping over and we were about to go to bed. So, we made our way to the room and we changed into our pajamas and we stood in front of the dresser which was under the window and the makeshift curtain and I was pulling my shirt over my head when I saw

between the blanket and the window. The mesh screen on the outside started lifting up as if someone was trying to

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get in. I froze. I watched it jaggedly pull up on one side at a time. My cousin had spotted it, too. She was now frozen with me. I finally worked up the courage to tell her to run. Go get my mom. And she did. I grabbed the baseball bat next to my bed, and I pulled the blanket down, exposing the rest of the window to look for someone, probably running away. But there was no one. Just a mesh screen halfway lifted and a street lamp right outside illuminating the suburban street. Especially knowing that this is Appalachia.

Mhm.

That reminds me of so many stories we've heard of SWS/Pedestrians

trying to get in through the window.

Yep.

I ran to my mom. We called 911 thinking maybe it was an attempted breakin, but they did nothing.

They did nothing.

Man, that was kind of a similar story when I lived in LA. Every time I called. Yeah.

Literally was attempted kidnapping and they were like, "Okay, thanks."

Yeah.

Okay. I just something happened. basically escaped a car. But sure,

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a few weeks later, after gaining the courage to sleep in my room again, I was sleeping in my bed, and for some reason, I was facing the window, which still had the blanket for a curtain. I was woken up by a light flooding my bedroom around 3:00 a.m., of course.

So, I open my eyes and I'm instantly frozen by the sight. The blanket had suddenly fallen from the rod, which was weird because I had zip tied it in place and it had never fallen until now. It wasn't dangling on one side or drooping. No. The whole blanket was now on the floor as if it had been pulled down with force.

The fact that it was zip tied.

Mhm. Because of the street light right outside the window, I could clearly see the mesh screen was already more than halfway raised. And again, no one was there. Why does this feel like such a different energy?

Yeah. I don't think this is the girl.

No, cuz the girl's already inside.

Mhm. I had never been so terrified in my life. I couldn't physically bring myself to move. It felt like a half hour had passed before I even managed to move my legs. And then I ran to my mom. We once again called the police and then they came and searched for signs of anyone

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walking nearby, but they found nothing. No fingerprints on the windows, no shoe prints, nothing. They patrolled the neighborhood. They parked a cop car in front of our house all night to reassure us and make sure no one came back.

Mhm. The last part of the story gives me chills to this day.

More chills than we you've already given us.

I was in high school at this point and one day I sat at a new table for lunch. at this table sat one of the school's quote unquote weird girls who I actually loved. High schoolers are so judgy

who happened to be doing readings of people at the round lunch table where we sat.

Love her,

right? She's not weird, she's amazing.

Yeah. And weird is good. I sat and I listened to her go around to everyone and tell them if they had attachments or loved ones following them. And it was really interesting despite my skepticism. When she came to me, she skipped me and instead did my best friend who was sitting next to me. After finishing the last person, I asked, "What about me?" She took a deep breath to compose herself. "I don't really want

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to tell you," she said without making eye contact. But of course, everyone at the table is now insisting that she go on. I told her, "It's okay. You can say it." I reassured her. So, she took a long pause and asked me a question. "Do you have two closets in your bedroom?" My best friend looked at me knowing that in fact I do have two. This girl would never know that. I confirmed it to the table now filled with wide eyes. "Okay, are they right next to each other on the same wall though?" "And one is a double door closet, right?" she asked. My friend and I snapped our heads to me eyes in shock once again, wondering how she knew that. I told her yes, and I'm now shaking. She continued with a shudder and nauseated look on her face as if she was seeing an image in her mind's eye. And she said, "Well, it's in one of those two doors and it likes to crawl." Oh, why is that specific such a

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The entire table shuddered and let out squeals. But she was right. I had seen it myself. And she definitely liked to crawl from Megan.

Well, I don't like that she liked to crawl. No.

No.

Good old classic West Virginia filled with hauntings in and out.

Yeah. I I just don't like any of it. Right. It's so scary cuz it's like the hauntings are inside but they're also in a portal and then the portal gets closed but the hauntings are still there and then when you think you're escaping like something is trying to come in

which we have no answers to that.

No.

Neither does Megan which I'm so sorry.

But let us know if more things happened to you there.

Do you still live there? Do you want us to come investigate? No, she doesn't. Remember her husband and her kids? They went back and they stayed. Well, that means they still have access to the house.

They still have access to the house. Yeah. Okay. I wonder if her kids are going to experience anything.

Appalachia, demons & possession

Well, this listener, Isabella, experienced some things. I actually found this story when I was trying to pick stories for the demonic possession

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encounters that we recorded last week.

And this one has both. Appalachia, demons, possessions, all the good stuff. All my f All my favorite things. These are a few of my favorite Whoa. Why did I sing like that?

Favorite things.

These are a few of my favorite things. Okay. Hi, ladies. Recent listener here. To give you some context for the story, while I don't consider myself a witch, I am a strong sensitive. It's not something that I consider a strong part of my identity or everyday life, but it exists. Most of the women in my family have some type of skill, but mine is the strongest.

Hair flip. I am the sort of person who can walk through any antique store and sense the haunted object in the corner.

I don't actively practice, but since finding your podcast, I have been trying to pick up on the supernatural on command. And I'm getting much better

lately. Actually, you know how when I was at the antique store and I saw all of those dolls and I was like, "One of these is haunted."

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The one that you were like, "It's definitely her."

Yeah. I was checking my DMs yesterday and multiple people took like screenshots specifically of her out of the like eight dolls. I was like, "It's her." Am I tuning in? I think you are. Hair flip. Okay. Isabella says, "Lately, I've been scaring my sister with my spooky accurate questions about her day and trying to read her aura." So, anyway, here's a story that happened early this year. I am a senior university student in Winchester, Virginia. My university is about 45minute drive from the Appalachin Trail, meaning that she's probably in Appalachia. We are a historic colonial town and Winchester is not plagued by cryptids or violent supernatural beings. However, it is my personal belief that the ghosts of soldiers who occupied Winchester are still active soldiers. They will not let the cryptids near the city. I have no proof of this, but it's such an old town that it's nearly impossible that I haven't heard of any haunting in the four years I've lived

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here. So, this is the story about what I believe was a demonic presence that slipped through the town barrier. Oh, that's such a creepy way of saying it. I live in a dorm room solo. It's just me and my dog. I walk her to the back of the parking lot to use the bathroom multiple times a day, and I have done so for years with zero problems. Then, it was later in the afternoon one day. It was still bright outside when I took my dog outside. I'm standing there on the edge of the parking lot when I started to get the feeling that someone was behind me. I didn't think much of it at first considering it's a busy parking lot. But when I glanced over my shoulder, I quickly realized it was deserted. And it was then that I realized how quiet it was outside. No bugs, no birds singing, and that feeling that something was near was growing more and more intense. And then once that realization hit, I realized my sensitive abilities were giving me a warning. It was the feeling of something so strong I could feel dread wash over me like oil on my skin. Fear and darkness that I

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couldn't shake. It was so close it felt like it was just paces away from me. I mustered all the assertiveness I could and I turned on my heel to look at it. Sure, I couldn't see anything, but I knew it was there. It seemed shocking that I could sense it and I felt hesitant, but I yelled in a frustrated tone, "You are not welcome here. Leave now. Go away." And it was like I could sense it. take a step back, not used to being acknowledged or perceived. It stopped for a second, but then it reached out towards me. Before it could get close enough, I pulled my dog close to me and marched back to my room, trying to go as quickly as possible without looking like I was scared out of my mind, even though inside my head, I was. Soon, I reached my door, I locked it, and I ran to my jewelry cabinet. I put on every single lucky piece of jewelry and religious symbol I had. And for the next hour, I sat in bed staring at the door, trying to wipe away this feeling of demonic energy off of my skin because I knew it wanted me. I try not to think about the way that that thing's presence made me feel. But when it comes to mind, I can truly feel the vague

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remnants of that encounter creeping over my shoulder, like it's still there waiting.

Oh, I hate that.

Hope my story didn't scare you too much. And in case you're wondering, my dog seemed oblivious to the whole encounter. So great,

zero help. love your podcast

so much for trust your pets.

I know it's not after me. So

Isabella is so in tune that her dog's like, "Trust Isabella."

Yeah. Yeah.

You got this girl.

Keep doing what you're doing. Love your podcast from Isabella.

Oh my gosh. I don't like this. Like so far we've had two stories that really lean on the concept of like something following you, something always lurking, something breathing down your back.

Well, isn't that Appalachia? just that is the energy feeling there especially with the cryptids and the kind of ominous energy and yeah sure there's positive spirits and then there's the soldiers you know kind of throughout the whole Appalachin regions

which I like this theory that the soldiers of this town are still

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protecting the town in a way

but how can you protect everywhere but have you seen what the 911 call that's been released and is going around where there's this man who calls. I think he's like in Virginia or somewhere somewhere that like, you know, is right near wars and people like specifically dying. He calls and he's like, "Oh my god, I I just passed this man on the side of the road. He's looks like he's covered in blood. I think he's like in a uniform of some type." And he gives like direction of where exactly he was. And then as he's driving, he starts screaming, "Oh my god, oh my god, that's not human. That's not human." And the the person's like, "What's going on? What's going on, sir?" And he's like, "It's in my truck bed. It's in my truck bed." And he's like freaking out.

Oh my god. I thought you were You were going to say it disappeared, but no, it's now literally in Yes. I I'm not okay. I have chills, too. It's been circulating online and someone looked up the exact location and did some research

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into the history and right there there had been a a man who died during one of the wars and was shot in the head or like had some really traumatic injury that like would have placed him in uniform completely bloody. Yeah. And like he was crossing over a river and like the guy died right at the river and it's like the water adds power to the spirit realm and so people were like he's like this is the ghost like in the trunk bed is scary.

Yes. Yeah.

Cuz that feels active. That doesn't feel like

a residual energy.

I know it is really scary. I am curious how many calls there are like that that we just don't know about because

especially in a place like Gettysburg and I'm sure like the police get that a lot where they're like oh it's just a ghost you know.

Yeah.

But I imagine that people see spirits like that all the time.

All the time cuz even like my parents had worked with someone who like in their Ring cameras had

what?

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Oh yeah.

How do we get that footage? I want to see that.

I'll look through my text with my mom. She might actually have it. I feel like maybe she sent it to me.

You guys, I want all of your ring camera footage of ghosts.

Yeah, but it was like they they had the soldiers from the Revolutionary War just like captured like you could hear them. You could see them going across their

Please go to Gettysburg.

I would actually love to do that.

Okay.

I feel like there's no way we wouldn't get some sort of activity. Well, and also like no matter where you are in Gettysburg, like if you stay in a hotel that's like outside of like the Gettysburg field, like you probably still are getting stuff.

Yeah. To be planned one day in the future.

Merit

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wash like the pump foam and then

it also looks fancy. I feel like I'm really fancy now. It

right. And it makes you look like very I feel like clean girl chic.

Yeah.

Where I feel dewy.

And I feel like it has changed my life over the past week that I've been using it because before I was like I can't put the effort in and the time into getting ready. It feels too big of a task. And like you got here and I was like, "Oh, I got to go do my makeup." How long did it take me? I was down here in two minutes.

You were so fast.

The I'm obsessed with the blush because I put it on my eyes, I put it on my cheeks, and I put it on my lips. Like, that is so easy.

It's so versatile.

Thank you, Merritt, for existing.

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Appalachian cryptids can ride bikes?

All right, this next one is called Appalachic Cryptids Can Ride Bikes. Hey ladies,

it's like et home. Hey ladies, my name is Ry. They she I have a spooky story which I believe might be about a flesh pedestrian. Let me set the scene. I went to go hang out with my best friend, but was on my way back home. It's 2:00 a.m.ish at this point, and I have my dash cam on because it automatically turns on when I start my car. It was late January, upper east Tennessee/ Southwest Virginia area, so middle of nowhere, Appalachia, and it's cold as [ __ ] I'm on a back road. It's very hilly and curvy. I'm less than 5 minutes away from my house. I top a hill, definitely speeding because I was comfortable on the road. And as I'm about halfway back down the other side, I see a man or what I thought was a man on a bike. He's just sitting on it in

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the middle of the road, not moving. I obviously slam on my brakes and I slow down super fast so that I don't hit him. But I know the rules of after dark, so I make sure my doors are locked, my windows are rolled up. I'm going super slow, but I so vividly remember what this thing looked like, and it still haunts me almost two years later.

Oh no.

He was tall, sticky, pale, concerningly bony, and had very lanky extremities. He had on a thin black zip. Oh, we have a trash bag in our studio that something shifted in there. Which

why

that trash bag? Not to be gross, but like that trash bag has been in here for weeks.

And it's not like it's like studio trash. So, it's like unwrapping food or whatever. Yeah. It's just like packaging.

I did move it yesterday when we were reorganizing.

So, maybe there's just a little extra shifting. I'm not sure.

Something in the atmosphere made it shift. H.

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He had on a thin black zip-up jacket and shorts, but it was January, so that was crazy if you ask me. I was worried a little bit until I saw his face. Or maybe lack thereof, I suppose. He literally had no facial features. It was just blank skin covering the whole area. His neck snapped to quote unquote look at me, and I booked out of there as fast as I could. I got home. I've never ran in the house quicker. I made sure every window and door was locked. All curtains were closed. I got in my bed, I didn't sleep until the daylight. And when I got in the car the next day, I went to go look at the dash cam footage to make sure I wasn't crazy or hallucinating. And the camera got all of my drive except for the last 7 minutes. Convenient considering I saw him around four or five minutes away from my house.

Chills.

As far as I know, my camera has never done that before or since. I avoided that road for the next few days, but I had to go down it to get to my granny's house. And you guys will never believe

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me when I say this. No,

but the exact same bike was laying on the side of the road with no one around it.

So, that confirmed it for me. I hated everything about that night. My mom has since moved from that house, so I don't even live in the state of Tennessee anymore, but I will never ever forget that night. I have some other small things that happened to me because I did live in the middle of nowhere my entire life, but nothing compares to that night. Mr. Faceless Man will live rentree in my head forever and I truly hope to never cross paths with him again. Love you guys more than you know. Thanks for being the best. Until next time, Ry. I'm not okay. Because at first I was like, okay, maybe it's and this is still sad or this is more sad than it is scary, I guess. Maybe it's like a residual energy or like an entity. Someone who did tragically pass away on a road while biking, you know, it's like a spirit

that's stuck there in some way,

but then the way it snapped its head to Ry and then the bike being there like on

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the ground the next time,

it's yucky. It's icky. And the whole footage disappearing, the footage disappearing. It's like that that's just like so much proof. Like you can't even just Yeah,

it actually reminds me I I guess they were in other seasons of Wednesday, but you know at Nevermore Academy they will pan to like different students and there's like specific students that have no face. It's just skin. That's like what I was picturing this whole time.

But we also see a lot of or we hear we don't see fortunately, knock on wood, don't ever want to see,

we hear of entities like that where sometimes I think it's a spirit who just cannot fully form like what they looked like in life. But also you think of like Slender Man and like some of those dark entities that are faceless creatures and like geographically speaking. But it is weird like wearing clothes and riding a bike and just presenting in such a strange way.

It reminds me of from that show. It reminds me of that because the scary monsters in that show look like us

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until they don't.

Oh, it's such a creepy concept. It seems so scary when it's on screen, but it's even scarier when you realize like in just our inbox, there's a matching story for every single thing depicted. Yeah. On screen.

Appalachian air bnb that didn't want us there

Well, this is a story about a place that if you seem intrigued after the story, you can stay at because it's an Airbnb

and we read this story on a Patreon bonus episode back in August and I was like, it has stuck with me so much. And then our listener actually sent us the Airbnb listing. So I was like, "Oh, I'm going to read it on our main feed and include like actual photos to go along with the story."

Great.

Hold on to your butts. Okay,

holding. This is from a listener Natalie and it is called Appalachia Airbnb that didn't want us there. Hi Sabrina and Krin. I'm Natalie. Yes, you can use my name. I also shared this story on campfire stories. This happened about five or six

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years ago, and to this day, I still think about it, especially when I hear stories about haunted houses or the Appalachin region. So, my brother and I had just arrived in Ohio from Florida to visit our dad for winter break. He thought how fun it would be to go skiing or snowboarding. So, we made a trip to West Virginia. This drive was about 4 hours, and we found an Airbnb roughly 45 minutes from the ski resort. The house is old, built in the 1920s, according to my dad. But it wasn't just old. It had a feeling. The second we got there, something felt off. And when you look at the picture on Airbnb, and we won't post the Airbnb listing itself necessarily. I'm sure you can find it if you want, but we'll put some pictures. Yeah. Like the exterior of the house. There's just something about it.

It's like you want to say it looks like an ordinary house, but there is a feeling.

Yeah.

That it gut a little creepy. We entered through a side door that led straight into the kitchen. And the first thing I noticed was a narrow, almost sinister looking staircase leading upstairs. It

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was steep, shadowed, and even with the lights on, it made my skin crawl. The layout of the house was just weird. From the front door, you were met with the main staircase. To the right was a hallway that led into the kitchen, and beyond that, another staircase and a second door to the outside. The living room was to the left with a fireplace and a master bedroom attached to a bathroom. Everything smelt stale, like dust and something faintly rotten. Kind of like an old dirty vacuum.

I went upstairs with my brother to go check out the bedrooms. There were four total. Two doors on each side of a long, dimly lit hallway, and one door at the very end. When I tried to open the second door on the left, it wouldn't budge. Every other door opened easily, but that one was stuck, like it was locked. I assumed it was maybe a storage room for the Airbnb owner. But standing in front of it made me feel like something was watching me from the other side. Yeah. Then I noticed the upstairs bathroom door was wide open, revealing another staircase that let down into the kitchen. The whole layout really made no sense to me. That evening, we're in the living room watching Daredevil when my

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brother got up to use the bathroom. While he was gone, the fireplace made this deep, ragged breathing sound, slow and unnatural, like Darth Vader exhaling underwater. My dad and I just stared at each other. That was weird. We laughed it off. My brother came back and we told him and he just shrugged it off. That night, I didn't want to sleep alone, so I shared a room with my brother. I actually slept fine, but my dad didn't. The next morning, while we're getting ready to head to the slopes, my dad told us he had woken up in the middle of the night with this heavy feeling like something was watching him.

Then he heard dogs barking outside of his window, but when he looked, the street was completely empty. He laid back down and then he heard clapping. Loud rhythmic clapping like people were partying in his room. He sat up. It went silent.

It's so wild cuz it's just like multiple different

like the sounds feel so unrelated but it's just like something's putting on a performance and trying to get his attention. I'll try this now. I'll try this now. I'll try this.

After skiing, we came back to the house and decided to explore it properly in

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daylight. We started opening everything. Cabinets, closets, drawers. And then we got to that locked door again, but this time it opened. Inside it was pitch black. The air felt heavy and suffocating. And there was a single wooden chair sitting in the center of the room. The only light came from a dim red glow like an old radio or alarm clock. But the only thing is there were no electronics in there, just the chair.

Where was this light coming from? We all agreed, let's close this door. We slammed it shut and ran downstairs. Oh, I think it was just her and her brother who did that.

Okay. My dad didn't believe us at first, so he went upstairs to go try opening it. But now it was locked again. No matter how hard we tried, that door would not budge. So that night, my brother refused to share a room with me. So I went and shared the room with my dad. As we were laying there, he told me, "You might hear things, but don't be scared. It's Saturday night, probably just people outside." And at first it was quiet, but then I heard it faint barking. Then the clapping again, louder this time, echoing through the walls

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like there was a whole invisible crowd in the home. M

my dad sat up, looked out the window, and whispered, "Natalie, come here." I got up. He asked, "Do you see anything?" I looked. Nothing. There were no people, no movement. But this sound didn't stop. The clapping kept continuing.

It reminds me of the Tower of Terror, just like the party. My dad had had enough, so he grabbed his coat and said, "I'm going outside." The moment he stepped outside, everything stopped. The barking, the clapping, even the air felt like it was holding its breath. And then the bathroom door slams. I screamed, but I tried to reason with myself. Maybe it's just something with the air, like, you know, my dad coming inside closing the door caused the air to close the door here. But when he came back, I told him what happened. His face was pale. And he said, "I never touched that door." There was something in his voice that made my stomach drop. He woke my brother up, made us all pack our things, and at 4:00 a.m. we got the hell out of there. But before we left, we noticed something crazy. As we were walking in

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and out to grab our things and take them to the car, the crosses that had been hanging above the doorways when we arrived, they were now upside down.

We had not touched them. No one had. But somehow they were flipped.

We didn't say a word. We just left. I hate that cuz that's like the classic demonic mockery of

a symbol that you feel is there to protect you and then it's like protect who because I can manipulate this too. I want to see if there's a picture of the crosses in the Airbnb listing, which also makes you think about the people that own the Airbnb. Like, are they truly religious and that was just a part of their home and their decoration choice or was that there because of things that were experienced?

Okay. Well, this picture is really, really creepy. So, I think this is the room that they went into, and it has only a wooden chair. In the listing photos, it has like two twin beds with it, too. But I think maybe the beds weren't there in the moment. And look at what's on the wall with this chair.

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And the chair itself looks like it came from like a church.

Yeah.

It's given ominous vibes.

Yeah. It's It's a little creepy. It almost feels like if someone was trying to make a music video almost like mocking religion, they would choose

that

that as a decoration and backdrop.

Yeah. That story, it really sticks with me. Like I can't forget it. It's so creepy and there's so much to it and they all experience it and it's like even as a group like normally you feel safer when you have someone else with you but it didn't matter if her brother was with her if her dad was with like individually and together they're all experiencing stuff.

I want to see what the ratings it has five stars

for best haunted stay most activity.

We will return.

Wow.

Peaceful place apparently.

What what is happening?

Who's paying you to write these reviews?

I guess I'm conf like that seems weird. Not peaceful for Natalie. No. Anyway, yeah. How do you

SW & gov't secrets

want to end it?

Okay. Well, this isn't Appalachia, but

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this is related somewhat to the last story that I had because this is about a potential SW, a flesh pedestrian.

Great. And it just reminded me of we had a you just did a story from Campfire Stories. This isn't from someone that spoke about this on Campfire Stories, but one of our listeners who was on Campfire Stories, she lives in Utah and she's had so many experiences like like really really creepy stories where like their house was their property was like literally under attack and they went to all the ruins they had around to protect the property and they had all been smashed and broken. Like such an intense story. I hope that she writes this story into us so we can read it. Did I miss this one?

Yeah, it was such a good one. I'm so sorry you missed such a good one.

Damn.

But she was like, I'm moving in a few weeks from Utah to I think she was moving to like Kentucky or Virginia or something. So going from one place to another.

Yeah. She was like, I'm going from like SWS to Windy Boys. So with

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But this is SW. So a flash production and government secrets in rural Utah.

Great.

I love a government secret.

Yeah. Conspiracies. Hi ladies. I absolutely love your podcast and I've been aching to share this story with people who won't call me crazy. So to start, I would prefer that my name be left out of the story because I am semi-secive or sorry because of the semi-secive nature of this location.

Oh, I prefer I prefer that I am semi-secive.

Secretive.

I work for the government.

I am this location. So semi-secive nature of the location in which my story takes place. Okay.

Last summer I was looking for a job and it was my first summer away from home. I was looking for some character building and I took a job as part of a commission crew that worked for various government agencies. So BLM, National Forest. I was really anxious about the job search. So if someone was going to hire me, I was just going to take the job. I didn't know prior to my interview that I would be camping in some of the most rural

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areas of Utah for nearly 12 weeks. What? 12 weeks? Read the job description.

You are so brave. I was pretty nervous about that aspect when I learned

during my second hitch of the season, my group was assigned to an experimental range owned by the government. It was never quite clear that

What does that mean? An experimental range.

I don't know. What are they experimenting? Maybe this is the government secret.

Okay.

It was never quite clear what they were doing out there or why they were doing it. But after a short Google search of the area, I saw all of these conspiracy theories across online forums about many different things. People theorized that the range was built at top a UFO crash and the research they say that was going on to direct attention away from it.

So the first day we go out there, I was trying to hide how frightened I was of this place. The reality is I was going to live and work there for a month. So any way I could make myself feel

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comfortable with the area, I was going to do it.

Totally. The denial of how creepy this place actually was kept me sane the whole time that I was there.

I mean, you have to do whatever you have to do to survive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It started with the cabins we were to stay in. Each cabin looks like those abandoned places where people leave in a rush and leave everything behind. The cabinets were filled with ingredients and unwashed dishes from years ago. And there were items left from researchers who had stayed there over the years. There was one cabin that had a basement straight out of a found footage horror film. Yikes. I walked down there with a flashlight. I noticed a mop sink and inside the mopsink were hundreds of dead cockroaches.

They had come out of nearly every drain in the basement and just stayed there to die.

That is disgusting. And now like they're probably also like rotting.

Mhm.

A little further back, I noticed something that set my alarm off. There were four doors lining the back wall. As I opened each door, I noticed each one had the exact same thing. Inside, they

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each had a chair and a mattress. All these closet sized rooms had no lights, no ventilation, and locks on the outside.

I would be sleeping in this house for a month.

Do you sleep in one of those rooms?

I hope not. The work I was doing out there was very simple. I was there with three other people to restore a 100-year-old fence. There were miles and miles of this fencing and the temperatures out there reached 120 degrees at the hottest and the coolest parts of the day would be about 75 and that was the very coolest. I got sick of one of my co-workers pretty quickly because he was a bit of a princess and he had never really had any manual labor job before and he was pretty into his phone so he wasn't really happy with the whole thing. Sounds like the job description was not clear to anyone.

To anyone. Yeah.

He wasn't from the Southwest like the rest of the crew. And might I note that there were only four of us, including me. I grew up hearing all kinds of stories about flush pedestrians and learned very quickly to take those stories seriously.

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This coworker, let's just call him James, he thought that it was funny to say the name of this creature out loud. Yikes.

As loud as he could when we were out in the middle of nowhere working and minding our own business. He would whistle at night, taunt us with the threat of saying the Navajo name for this being. He didn't know how serious we were about it. There was one time when I had to hike away from the work truck in order to fix a super remote fence. And this was about an hour walk away from our only means of transportation. James decides to shout the Navajo name for a flesh pedestrian at the top of his lungs.

I wanted to punch that jackass so bad, dude. I probably would have. Me and the only other girl in my crew were pissed. Yeah, we have all been together without much sleep for too long and James is just putting us over the edge. So, we're arguing about how disrespectful it is. And in the heat of all of it, my supervisor tells us, "Shut up." and tells us to look. No more than 20 ft

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away is an antelope staring at us, unmoving for about 10 minutes, and then almost unprovoked, it ran out of sight with such speed. Each morning for about 4 days, we would see this antelope in the same spot by the gate in the range waiting for us.

Oh,

it would stay perfectly still until we passed in the work truck

lurking

and then it would run away as fast as it could.

Honestly, it feels like it's keeping an eye on them because it knows James is

naughty naughty boy. I don't really know if this kind of behavior is normal for the animal, but that detail is worth saying in my opinion.

Yeah. A few days after the antelopee incident, me and my supervisor wanted to explore something that we saw a few days prior when the workday was over. We drove out to a small canyon lined in volcanic rocks and it was super super cool and we wanted to explore it. We hiked through the canyon for about 30 minutes and by that point it was starting to get a little bit darker. So we decided, hey, let's turn around.

And just as we were about to reach the truck, we noticed a smell,

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a sweet rotting smell that cannot be mistaken for something else. It was decay. Something near us was dead and rotting. The smell makes us gag as we're searching for what this source could be. To our left, right next to the entrance of the canyon, is a gruesome sight. A completely skinned and bloated corpse of a cow is right next to us.

Baby.

In silence, we both marvel at the site. How do we both miss this on the way in? How did we not notice the smell? We both drove back to the cabins and agreed never to speak about this with the rest of the crew. We didn't want to scare them because this actually happened during our first week.

Oh, great start.

Thanks for seeing you on the other or thanks for seeing you on the other I cannot read today. Thanks and see you on the other side. We'll call this person A.

Well, if that's what happened in the first week, what happened in weeks two, three, and four, right?

And did James finally like behave himself?

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I don't know. James, I sorry. This is I would have been Lord of the Flies. You're gone, James. You're kicked out of the cabin.

I honestly

You're locked away in one of those four little creepy rooms.

Please never take a job where you're working with four people in the woods for 4 weeks because I think after week one, it would turn into Lord of the Flies with you there.

It would be solo. It would just be me. Not if if someone's doing that and taunting the paranormal, there's no way. I would have called and been like, "This guy can't be on the crew anymore. You have to fire him. he's gone.

If he learned his lesson, I hope he did.

I wish everything was just targeted at him and not the whole crew experiencing things. Like I at least it was mostly just a watching like observing them and keeping an eye on them cuz in my mind I'm like

it seems like a lot of these entities, yes, we don't know their intentions, but it does have this like watchful making sure to keep you in line situation in this story at least.

I don't know if James learned his lesson.

James, where are you? James, you need to grow up. Grow the [ __ ] up. I'm actually really mad at you.

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I love how we can say James's name but we can't say our listeners's name and it makes me so happy cuz we were just like outing James.

Yeah, James do better.

Maybe you hot and cranky and it was a manual labor job and you're probably very frustrated, but but some things are not to be [ __ ] with and you tried to [ __ ] with it. You put four people, including yourself, your lives at risk.

We're mad at you, James. Can you tell?

I am mad at you. You know, I do hope to never be in any situation similar to any of our listeners that from this episode because

as much as we love to talk about Appalachia and the outdoors, I think it comes from a I never want to experience it place. And I really hope none of you do either. But if you do, email us. Email us your stories. Whether they're about Appalachia, the outdoors, demons, ghosts, aliens, whatever it may be, please email them to us at two girls onego podcast@gmail.com. Shout out to our team Jamie and Emma. Thank you guys so much for your support

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and all that you do for Two Girls One Ghost. If you want episodes ad free and one week early, join us on Patreon. You get bonus episodes every month and really creepy campfire stories told by people who experience them themselves.

Yes. And so much more. So many cool things over there. So check us out over there and we will see you on the other side.

Very spooky.