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Know this, the person who says they don't believe is always, always the person that screams the loudest. From Snapchat to its underground lair, you're listening to Spooked. Stay tuned.

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My little brother is exactly one year younger than me. He always has been. My cousin and I are the same age. We go back to Granny's house And my cousin says At midnight Let's call Bloody Mary My brother says No, no, no, we can't And he looks at me for support Me, his older brother But I want to be cool like my cousin So I tell my brother to stop me And we laugh No He whispers that you can't You can't and I tell him at midnight we're going to see Bloody Mary leap out of the mirror and I tell him that if he doesn't help out I'm going to send Bloody Mary upstairs to his room while he sleeps.

No, no, no.

Then don't tell Granny because I knew he was going to tell Granny. He's got to come because we need three people to make it work, my cousin says. Look, I tell him, don't even worry All you have to do is be there I'm going to hold the candle, all right? You just got to hold my hand, all right? All right? And he nods And that night we wake Excited After my grandmother falls asleep after the six million dollar man after Hawaii Five-0 after the rat patrol it's time my brother starts with his keening son quit it quit my cousin lights the candle with granddaddy's lighter from the kitchen table we turn off every other light in the house and we file into the bathroom and line up in front of the mirror. We've only got 90 seconds on my brother's Casio watch. Shut up, shut up, shut up. 30 seconds. I can see my little brother squeezing his eyes shut, tight, tight, tight in the mirror. 10 seconds. Say it. Say it. We've got to say it together. Say it. Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary.

Bloody Mary.

And I don't see what happens next Just something in the mirror And my little brother screaming And my cousin screaming And I'm wondering What have we done When my grandmother first opened the door What I remember What I remember is the look my brother gives me. The look of betrayal. Of shock, of hurt. I'm supposed to be his big brother and I let something come out at him from this darkness. I don't know what sprang out of that mirror. I don't know what it did, but 30 years later I wish, with all my heart, I wish that I had said no My name is from Washington Some burdens are hard to put down Spooked starts now Sometimes on our show, you hear tales of people meeting the inexplicable in their own home, in the attic or under the bed. But this next tale, it happens to our storyteller when he was very, very far from home. It takes place in Baghdad, at a time when American troops were particularly unpopular in that city. A soldier named Dallas Sanchez has been deployed as part of a sniper kill team. Spooked.

Baghdad, um, Baghdad was insane. Baghdad was really intense. Baghdad was just a constant sensory overload Tons of extrajudicial killings You could not leave the fob without finding a dead body face down in a trash pile because there's no infrastructure So talk about the smell of the city It smelled like death It smelled like old death This was the end of 06 The war had been going on for three years

and we were in a really hot area of operations can you describe your where you lived normally was it did you have like a room were you in a tent like where are you living

it was so close to the green zone that it was a super super cush fob we actually have like barracks it's like a room maybe a 10 by 12 foot rectangle we decorated it I had my little bed actually had a Lou Reed live in Berlin poster when you're in the service not just downrange I think that those little living spaces it feels like a cocoon you know it feels like you're a little bit safer this was around christmas time uh in 06 and uh like the mission that we were out on was a concurrent skt so and what's an skt sorry skt or a small kill team or sniper kill team like the basic tactic would be we would leave the fob very very late at night in trucks roll around the neighborhood with the lights out for several hours the trucks would slow down to a crawl and we would try and like uh silently open the rear doors just a dismount from the truck without slamming anything or making any noise walk through the neighborhood as stealthily as you can. We reach, like, the target house. Basically, from there, you just break in and then set up a hide and just pull overwatch over the sector and just wait, basically, for someone to do something grimy, like digging a hole to bury an IED, and then we'd respond accordingly. Anyways, yeah, we would have probably at least six hours notice that we were going to be stepping off. on a mission were there particular things that you would fear like do you remember anything about

those moments but i can remember one time and it ended up becoming a pre-mission ritual because pelkey had a really great sound system and he'd be like dude we're about to get pumped up for this mission press play benny and the jets at 50 decibels just cranking that out benny and the jets became our anthem. You pack up like you're 120 pounds worth of kit and scramble to the top of the truck, get your weapon mounted. I was a gunner. I had my head up out the top, just scanning, scanning like a maniac. When you're moving across open ground while scanning, sweating profusely I mean like I know it's public radio so this analogy would probably never make it on air but it really is like just doing a fat rail to have eight guys moving in a file through a neighborhood it's the point of the mission where you're most exposed where you're most vulnerable you have to maintain almost complete silence because aside from the sound of the wind maybe some dogs barking there is no sound like so for 72 hours straight it's like basically like being in church because any sound could like compromise you and potentially get everybody that you love killed

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granger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park you're not managing one building you're managing all of them and to stay ahead you need to see through walls and around corners lights about to fail filters ready to clog h-back on its last leg if you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering, and 24-7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done.

okay at the moment that this story takes place how long had you been in country or how many

of these missions had you been on so this was probably the seventh or eighth mission that I'd been on. The mission started out typically, it felt completely the same as any other mission. So it's probably like around midnight or one or two o'clock in the morning. We approach the building and before I've even gotten like a chance to drop my ruck, like my best friend comes up to me and uh he just looks really shooken up and he's like dude there is something wrong here there's just something bizarre so immediately

Walking in this place, the first thing that I noticed was the sound. This dissonant noise. It sounded almost like a broken radio in a room down the hall. just completely atonal an entirely disquieting unwholesome sound it almost sounded like a congregation of whispers like thousands of voices trying to communicate something but in a completely nonsensical way And that really was the point where I felt like something was really different this time. I decided that I was going to look around some of the upper floors. So as I was walking around like that, the second story, I came into this one room that it was completely stripped bare, simple cement floor. I don't know what drew my attention to it, but I turned to face the interior wall and just saw that the wall was pockmarked with bullet holes, with rounds. So I was standing there looking at these pockmarked walls. It just seemed like something wasn't right, that these, they weren't typical. And my squad leader had showed me this like pencil trick. You can insert like a pencil into like small arms fire against a wall. It'll tell you like the direction that the fire had come from. So this being the second story, I put the pencil into the wall and it's parallel to the ground, just sticking in. Like it meant that those shots had been fired straight across. As soon as I stuck that pencil in, everything fell into place. This had to have been a kill room but they had to have lined people up in here and just executed them and i just felt a little heave in my stomach standing in a kill house instantly just felt like the walls just collapsed in on themselves felt really claustrophobic and i just needed to get the Out of the room, it seemed like there was a malign presence there that was trying to get somebody killed. And it was totally inexplicable.

You have to imagine that all of this is under the backdrop, under the soundtrack of this just discordant noise. Just this ever-present, aural presence?

this feeling that you were feeling what were all the guys feeling that and was that like a palpable

kind of like anxiety in the air there's like a there's an undercurrent of tension it wasn't like uh we all huddled together in a circle and are trading this back and forth it was people would pair off with their best friend and be like dude you would not believe what just happened. Nobody's going to talk about that because you're showing weakness. I think that if one person were to stand up and be like, guys, this is kind of scary, we would have ripped them apart. So we were left with all of this downtime. And so you have now like half a dozen 20 year old children and one of the number one pastimes on these skts is looting someone is like hey there's a storage unit down on the first floor and that immediately became something that all of us jumped onto because it it gives you a chance i guess like um to prove that you're not afraid to no ghost to prove that that you're not scared as soon as that call goes out like yeah no what yeah yeah hell yeah man i'll i'll root through these peoples that i have no business in it's almost like a an affront to whatever was there it was just like a a gated off uh unit uh on the

first floor and uh walked over there like a gated off room would that be right yeah basically like

a storage space i mean exactly like a storage space and then There's just a very simple, symmetrical wrought iron gate on front. Those wrought iron gates are so loud that three of us walked up and got really low to the ground and just grabbed the gate on the bottom and just lift a quarter inch and then quietly walk backwards so that the gate's not rubbing against the ground so that it wouldn't be loud at all. We had left the gate, like, propped all the way open. So I think about half a dozen of us go into this storage unit, upturned tables, chairs, clothing, decorations, silverware, all kinds of things. It smells like dust, old. and it's pitch black and the only light in this storage area is coming from our little red tack lights it's already like three layers of spooky like we couldn't even use our nods in this space our night vision goggles because it's so dark there's so little ambient light and nods are really for looting anyways because you know you really want to yeah there's an art to this deplorable practice the only sound is like a light rustling i'd picked my way probably two-thirds of the way back into the storage unit and i find this cardboard box with a couple of cheap little paintings in it one of just a like a pastoral landscape with a creek in it this is like oh these are going to look amazing in my room. Then I turned, after finding them immediately, I turned to my left to show off my bounty, was just met with pitch darkness, just blackness. There was no one else in the room. I was completely alone. And I didn't feel like I tunneled out on these paintings i mean this wasn't like the mona lisa it wasn't like i was you know just drinking in starry night with my eyes i was just like huh these are neat paintings hey check out the oh i'm alone makes no sense as to how six guys were able to creep out of a room you couldn't step on the floor because of all of this furniture all the crap immediately I feel like a leaden weight in my stomach I just steeled my nerves put my paintings tucked them under my arm

and started trying to quietly move towards that gate I'm climbing over this stuff meticulously but the entire time I just want to run by the time i got to the front gate i had really worked myself up into a froth i was really terrified i just wanted to get out of there as quickly as i could and i get up there to the gate and the gate is closed i get low and lift and start trying to push it open and it just feels like it's sealed like it's been, like, concreted in place, but I was not going to cry out. I stood there waiting for a solid two to three minutes, which probably doesn't sound like that long of a time, but when you're sealed in a foreign space with, like, pitch blackness behind you and the weight of the entire mission security hinging on you forcing this gate open it felt like an eternity there was like a fear welling up in me because there's so many different layers of danger to this locked behind a steel gate in an extremely dangerous area and being muzzled, like effectively muted. When we return, spooked, the Iron Gate continues. Stay tuned.

You

Dallas is part of an SKT, a small kill team in Baghdad. He's out in the middle of the night on a mission in an abandoned building. And to pass the time, he and some of the guys on his crew are looting the place. And suddenly, Dallas finds himself separated from his team and trapped behind an iron gate. Spooked.

the neighborhood where we were in baghdad aldora they're like a death squads basically roving the neighborhood and if they saw someone alone they just yoke them up take you to the nearest trash pile and put two rounds into the back of your head but i caved i broke i was like i don't care at this point i'm gonna gorilla grod this gate open i grabbed the gate with both hands and just shoved it as violently as i could and nothing it felt like shoving on a brick wall i remember shaking a little bit i turned my light off and i stood there like at the mouth of that gate so i could see into the opening of the courtyard where there's a little bit of moonlight casting a shadow so and that's the only light source at this moment i can remember consciously not wanting to look back i had like a sweat coming out of every pore in my body because you can't like pant you can't like like a dog be scared or whatever in in situations like that like silence is so important so it's like a controlled hyperventilation the fact that i'd lost my nerves such that i would compromise our SKT just speaks volumes about how terrified I was. I was the alternate gunner for our squad and I had the squad automatic weapon, the casualty causing weapon on the battlefield, rode between eight and a thousand rounds armed to the teeth against any physical threat but In this instance, it's completely worthless. I felt really powerless. Whatever was there, whatever was lingering in that space, just did not want us there. Especially with us down there, rooting through all of their stuff, it was just wrong. Whatever was there wanted all of us out. I stood there for maybe 30 seconds and I just gave up hope and just resigned myself to the fear. And the gate just drifted open. Just completely silently, just like on well-oiled hinges, the gate just drifts open right in front of me.

and i thought i had chills before i thought that i was scared before but in that moment it just i just could not explain what would cause that thing to drift open it just wanted us gone like at the end of the day when we went in there it's with a malicious intent like we're we're set up in the building just an invisible force waiting for someone to violate like the rules of engagement so that we could kill them so i came out of that gate in a mixture of rage and terror and immediately sought out like my best friend to just unload on him and i get to him and i was like in a whisper in in whisper mode like what the hell is wrong with you dude why would you do that but he had no idea what i was talking As far as he was concerned, we went in, checked it out, everybody came out, all in together, and that was it. At this point, I'd been in the building for maybe eight hours. I'm ready to go home now. This has not been a pleasant experience for me. for me. I imagine that for some people it would be really easy to dismiss this like as nerves or you know like the stress like of battle yeah trauma things like that but the thing to keep in mind about that is this was one of maybe 50 missions that I went out on but nothing ever like this nothing ever that came so close that was so blatant like a force so as the sun comes up the gun trucks pull up and we exit the building this is how just stupid you are at 20 years old those paintings they stayed in my rook i brought those things back so i'm back in my room in the barracks and uh take these things out and i'm like hey check out these cool paintings that i got and uh kagoni our platoon medic is in there and he's like i would very much like to have that and i'm like no way dude nope this is my decoration i went through the haunted house for this this is my prize i am keeping it thank you sir so kg leaves and uh sam comes in, one of our Terps, one of our interpreters, Sam. And I was like, what the hell is up with that place, dude? Like, it's really, really weird. And he's like, oh, yeah, like that place is

unclean. I was like, well, what do you mean? It's unclean. He's like, very many people died in that building so it's unclean and no one goes there and when he said that it really uh brought home to me what had happened and it's such a thing to admit it's like such such a bad thing but i picked up that painting And I was like, hey, do you guys know where Cagone went? And I found KG, and I was like, here, man, I know this is really special to you. I'd really like for you to have this. And I gave it away.

Did any part of you feel proud of this force or this spirit for fighting back in a way that had no military weakness?

That wouldn't come until way, way later. Now, looking back all of these years later, I have a lot of respect for whatever that thing was. It was able to scare me. I felt like anyways, like I got my comeuppance. Five months after this whole episode in May is when I got hit by a V-bed or car bomb. and uh even the fear was not as scary as that experience for the simple fact that i felt like if i caught around in the noodle i'd be dead if i got ripped apart by an explosion i'd be dead but whatever was inside of that structure it felt like if you were to die in its presence that it would have, like, a completely different set of consequences than if you were to die just out in sector somewhere. Like, you could become, like, trapped.

thank you dallas sanchez dallas also wanted to thank his family and suzanne for encouraging him to share his stories he's looking for a publisher dallas is a long time snap judgment listener we love it when listeners share their stories with us and if you too have an inexplicable tale to tell, make sure you drop us a line at spooked at stampjudgment.org.

now if you dig it and i know you dig it let somebody know spookpodcast.org as we count down to halloween be afraid the spooked ghost hunter crew includes mark listich eliza smith jody collie and jasmine aguilera original music for that story was by lila morimoto the piece was produced by anna sussman our theme song was created by pat mcd miller additional original music by pat mcd miller leon morimoto and rizzo gorio and if you like real stories from real people with no ghosts subscribe to the amazing snap judgment podcast and it goes without saying and let me say it anyway but friends if you're a find yourself trapped behind an iron gate with undead creatures closing in, please remember in this circumstance the best thing you can do is to never, ever never, never, ever, ever never turn out the lights.