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[00:04] Sometimes, the first sign that something is wrong isn't what you see. It's how the animals behave. A cat that won't leave a doorway, a dog that refuses to come when you call, a silence that settles in before something terrible happens. And by the time you realize what they are trying to warn you about, you could already be dead. I'm Blair Bathory and welcome to the Something Scary podcast. Thanks for joining us as we descend into the darkness together. So, want to hear something scary? Your pets are trying to warn you. Sometimes, the scariest part isn't realizing someone followed you. It's realizing they kept appearing in places they were never supposed to be, like in this experience shared by Midnight. It's been a few years since this happened, but I still think about it sometimes. I feel like it's important to say out loud because I've wondered if I handled it in the right way. And maybe it'll help someone else trust their instincts a little quicker than I did. This was the summer before my senior year of high school. I had a volunteer job at an animal hospital off the freeway in my town. Getting there meant taking two buses, then another two to get home. It was a long commute, but I didn't mind it. I loved the shelter. I loved the routine of it. There was this one dog I got attached to pretty quickly, a walker hound I named Sherlock Hounds. He had this calm, observant energy, like he was always watching everything without being stressed by it. He'd follow me with his eyes every time I walked past his kennel, and he'd howl when I left the aisle. I found out he was getting adopted and I remembered being weirdly emotional about it, even though I was happy for him. The day he was supposed to leave is the day everything happened. I got on my first bus like normal. Nothing felt off at first. Then an older man got back off immediately, and I remember thinking it was strange but not important. Right before the bus pulled away, he got back on. He didn't sit near me. He stayed a few seats back. I told myself it didn't mean anything. People get on and off buses all the time. But when I got off at the transit center, he got off too. That's when I stopped brushing it off. The walk from there to the shelter was about 15 minutes. I started noticing things I normally wouldn't. Reflections in my phone screen, the distance between footsteps, how quiet everything suddenly felt in a way I hadn't noticed before. When I turned a corner, I saw him behind me again. Same distance, not rushing, just there. I walked faster. By the time I reached the shelter, there was already a long line outside for adoption day. I tried to tell myself it made sense. Maybe he was there for that too. Maybe I was just being paranoid. But he didn't get in line. He stayed a few feet behind me instead. That's when I called my boyfriend. I kept my voice normal, but I texted him what was happening. He stayed on the phone with me the entire time. Just having someone there made it easier to walk inside when the shelter opened. Once I got inside, I tried to forget about it. For a while, I almost did. I helped with customers, walked dogs, did my usual tasks. Hours passed and I started convincing myself I had overreacted. Then I walked past the kennel hallway window and stopped. He was inside, standing in the hallway, not walking, not looking lost, just standing there like he belonged. I backed away immediately and went to find a staff member I trusted. When I told her, her face changed right away. She told me to stay out of sight while she checked. A few minutes later, she came back and said she had seen him leave the building. So I tried to breathe again. I went on my lunch break, tried to reset my head, and got something from the vending machine. I remember thinking maybe it really was nothing, until she pulled me aside again. She said he had come out of the bathroom. That's where everything shifted, because that meant he hadn't only been outside, and he hadn't just come in once. He was moving through the shelter while I was working, while I was walking past him without knowing. It stopped being maybe I'm overreacting after that. It became something else entirely. Staff started moving me around quietly after that, keeping me out of public areas while they figured out what to do. I ended up in one of the small animal viewing rooms, the ones with big glass windows, where families can see the cats and kittens. At some point, I stood up to stretch, and when I looked out the window, he was at the vending machines across the parking lot, just standing there, like he had never left. I dropped down immediately so he couldn't see me, my heart just completely sinking. A staff member eventually came in and noticed I was hiding, and that's when things really started moving fast. People started coordinating. I got moved again, then again. Then police arrived and searched the building. I remember hearing over the radio that they had found him. He was hiding in the bathroom, and I remember just stopping when I heard that, because suddenly it wasn't a question anymore of whether I was imagining things or overreacting or being paranoid. He had been inside the entire time, moving through the shelter while I was there, while I was working, while I was trying to convince myself everything was fine. After that, everything blurred. Staff talking, doors opening and closing, someone telling me to call family. When I finally left, I still kept checking everything outside. Like my body didn't believe it was over yet. And then, as we drove away, I saw him walking down the sidewalk, the same direction I had come from that morning. I had to ask them not to slow down. What stayed with me most wasn't even just him. It was that earlier that day, Sherlock got adopted. I saw him leave with his new family while I was still trying to figure out if it was safe or not. I didn't get to say goodbye. And after that day, I didn't get to go back to the shelter. I was too scared to take the bus again in case he was still out there somewhere. Even now, I don't know what part of it sits with me more. That he followed me or how long I told myself he wasn't really there. There's something deeply unsettling about this one. The idea that someone doesn't just follow you, but keeps reappearing in places that should have been safe. It makes you wonder how many times fear shows up quietly before we can finally call it what it is. So when does coincidence stop being coincidence? And if you know someone else who loves horror as much as you do, share our podcasts and help us spread the scares. Rate, comment, review, and let us know what you think. Don't forget to subscribe or follow us wherever you're listening so you don't miss a single haunting episode. Sometimes what you think you saw in the dark isn't what stays with you. It's what you're still not sure you didn't see. Like in this account shared by Zoe. Growing up, my family was notorious for picking up stray cats that lived in our landlord's barn or came from the Amish families that lived near us in the country. We just got new kittens, so naturally me and my sister had many responsibilities when it came to taking care of them. We lived in a backroads area near a highway, the fields surrounding our home and our landlord's place broken only by stretches of forest and the occasional creek cutting through the grass like a scar. Right next to our house was the barn and a fenced-in cattle area that always looked bigger at night than it did during the day. We were warned not to go into the barn. So, of course, we did. That's where we found the kittens. Hidden deep in a throw of hay like they had been placed there on purpose. Small Maine coon mixes barely old enough to open their eyes fully. We brought them back to the house after deciding there was no mother around and we did what we thought was right. Fed them and kept them warm. We gave them flea collars like we were suddenly experts. The house itself didn't help the feeling that something was bad and could have happened here before. Old wood, narrow hallways, a basement my dad refused to let us near because of snakes and flooding, and random sounds at night that always seemed just a little too intentional to be house settling. Sometimes it sounded like a music box playing somewhere deep in the walls, like an ice cream truck echoing through the halls at 9pm when everything else was already asleep. But this isn't really about the house. One night in the summer of 2013, I went outside before my usual bedtime to let the kittens do their business, so they wouldn't make a mess inside while everyone was asleep. I was six, so everything felt like a task I was secretly trusted with. I remember holding the flashlight my dad gave me pretty tightly, sweeping it across the yard in slow, uneven movements. The air was warm, but the wind kept cutting through it. That strange Missouri summer mix where it never fully settled. Out past the porch light, toward the hay bales, I remember thinking about asking my sister if we could do what we called hay bale parkour the next day. That was when I saw something moving in the grass. Small at first, low, I lifted the flashlight and froze for a second. A raccoon, I remember actually feeling relieved, like my body unclenched before I even realized I was scared. I turned the flashlight off and used the porch light glow to guide the kittens back inside. Once they were settled, I probably should have gone back to bed, but I didn't. I stayed out a little longer. Just until bedtime, I told myself. I walked over to the tree where my swing hung and sat down, pushing lightly against the ground with my bare feet. The wind moved through the fields in slow waves. I remember thinking about that raccoon again, wondering where it had gone. That's when I heard it. At first, it didn't really register as anything specific, just sound. Something between crunching and snapping, like dry wood being crushed slowly over and over again. Then something lower underneath it, a noise that didn't feel like it belonged to anything I knew. Not growling, just more like something trying not to be heard while it was already too late. I stood up. The sound was coming from the hay bales. I didn't turn the flashlight on right away. I don't know why. It just felt like if I did, whatever was there was also going to notice me at the same time. So I walked closer at first, slow steps in the grass, then gravel under my feet. Five feet away from the driveway, I could see the hay bales clearly under the dim barn light. Something was on top of them. At first, my brain tried to make it normal. A deer maybe? A person bent over? Something that made sense if I didn't think too hard about it. But it wasn't making sense. It was too thin and out of place, like the shape of a body. But missing the parts your mind expects to see, its limbs hung too long when it shifted, not broken, just unfamiliar in how they moved. It was feeding on something. That much I understood immediately. And there was a tearing sound every so often, then silence, then chewing again. Slow, patient. I remember stepping just a little closer without meaning to. That's when it lifted its head. I didn't see a face clearly. Not really the way you'd expect, just enough shape to know it was looking in my direction without fully turning. And in that moment, I realized I wasn't supposed to be quiet. I was supposed to already be gone. Something small and dark dropped from its hands onto the hay. A shape, a tail, striped, a raccoon. The same one, I'm sure of it. But even then, something didn't feel right about that either. Because the way it was being held, the way it had been opened, didn't match with what I had seen earlier. It was like it had been taken apart too carefully, like something had been studying it. I don't really remember deciding to run. I just remembered running, back to the porch, back inside. Locking the door like that would matter more than it did. My dad came out of the back room when he heard me. Zoe Lane, what is wrong with you? I couldn't even explain it properly. I just kept saying there was something outside, something by the hail bays. He grabbed his rifle. I remember begging him not to go. I remember the way my voice didn't sound like mine. He didn't answer me, just stepped outside into the dark and left me there. I don't know how long he was gone, maybe 10 minutes, maybe more. When he came back in, his expression hadn't really changed much. There's nothing out there, he said. Go to bed. Like it was nothing, like I was nothing. The next morning, I didn't even wait. I ran straight outside. The hay bales were still there. Everything looked exactly like it had the night before, except for the ground underneath them. There was a dark patch in the dirt, dried, old looking already, like it had been there longer than it should have been. I didn't tell my dad. I knew what he would say, that I was imagining things, that I was scared of the dark, that it was a raccoon and nothing more. So I'd stopped talking about it, but I didn't stop thinking about it. Years later, when I went through that phase where everyone was trying Ouija boards and watching paranormal shows at 2 a.m., I started looking it up again. Just out of curiosity at first, something about the shape stuck with me. The way it didn't feel fully animal. The way it looked like it understood I was there. I found stories eventually, not just one. Too many to ignore completely. Things people described in forest, near fields, always at the edges of places like ours. They used different names depending on where you looked. Wendigo, Skinwalker. Things that weren't really meant to be seen clearly. But none of them matched exactly what I saw. Not fully. Not enough to make it make sense. That's what bothers me the most. Because every time I think back to it now, I remember something I didn't understand at six years old. It wasn't just looking at me. It was pausing. Like it was deciding something. Like it had already seen me before, and was trying to remember where. I can't tell you exactly what happened there that night, but I can tell you it never left her. Whether it was something real, something misremembered, or something her mind filled in to make sense of the dark. That part has never been clear. But I have to ask you, what do you think she saw? Drop your thoughts in the comments and let us know. You can send us your own spooky encounter or untold true crime stories at somethingscaryatsnarl.com. And now it's time for Something From Our Listeners, and this week, I wanted to share an email. Hi, my name is Sir Naree. I have been listening to your podcast for a few years now and absolutely love your stories and have been wanting to share this one for a while now. It's my favorite encounter I've had. Since I was little, I've always been able to see and speak to spirits and almost constantly have one or more following me around who usually leaves after a little while. Right now, it's a girl a bit older than me. I'm 14. There's this one I have seen only twice though. I don't know anything about her other than that she is one of very few spirits that don't make me feel comfortable. And the most clear I've seen one ever. The first time I saw her, I'm not exactly sure how old I was, but I was at most seven. I lived in California and was walking over to my parents' room to look for them. I got to the doorway and there's an old lady standing on my mom's side of the bed on the other side of the room. So the bed is hiding her, hips down. She is much taller than my mom who's about five five. She has a long off-white nightgown with a few stains. Her hair is slightly wavy, but mostly straight and very frizzy. And it's gray about between her waist and bottom of her shoulder. She was extremely skinny, like just skin and bone, but her skin still had most of its color. She was not transparent. She was entirely solid, and I am pretty sure her eyes were blue, but her face always looks slightly blurred. But everything else was perfectly visible. The next time I saw her was many, many years later and much more recent. I think I was 11 and 12, and when I had newly moved to San Antonio, Texas, I walked into my parents' room to grab my mom's phone for her, and the lady was on the other side of the bed again, my dad's side this time, and the bed still covered her hips down, so I couldn't see much. I sadly didn't get a chance to talk to her, but maybe if I see her again, I will. Thank you so much for reading my story. I absolutely loved your podcast. They have taught me about so many different legends. Sometimes the quietest rooms aren't empty. Your eyes just don't let you see what's there. Like in this true story about a special cat based out of Providence, Rhode Island, written by Sarah Lukasiewicz. They started saying it like it was a joke at first. Animals always know first. It came up in the break room sometimes, half laughing, half not. Something to say when the hallway felt too quiet. Or when another room needed fresh sheets before sunrise and nobody wanted to be the one to explain why. At Steer House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, people learned quickly how to talk around things. Not about them. Around them. And then there was Oscar. No one really agrees on when he arrived. He was just there one day. A small gray and white cat moving through the dementia unit like he had already known the place. Like he had been there longer than the staff had. He didn't act like he belonged to anyone. He just moved. And then he would stop. That was the first thing people noticed. Oscar in the hallway, slowing down. Not fully stopping at first. Just his tiny hesitation like he was deciding something nobody else could hear. Nurses picked up on it before they knew why. You start noticing weird things in places like this. Small things, because big things are usually already too late. The air would feel heavy around them. Not colder. Not warmer. Just thinner. Like something stepped back. Then he would sit, always facing a door. And after a while, someone would open it. Inside was usually someone who, earlier that day, wasn't going anywhere soon. That's how they'd say it. Not stable exactly. Just not this. Oscar would go in anyway. Climb onto the bed. Curl up like he had lived there. Stay. At first, families liked it. Staff liked it too. It gave them something soft to say in rooms that weren't soft at all. He likes them. He's keeping them company. But then the pattern stopped feeling comforting. Because when Oscar stayed, the room changed. Not all at once. Not in a way you could point to and say this. It was quieter than that. The monitor sounded too steady. People stopped talking without deciding to. Even the hallway outside felt like it got further away. And then it would happen. Room after room, night after night. Oscar would leave after like it was finished. Like that was just what the room was for. At some point, people stopped saying comforting. They started saying selection. There was a nurse named Marla who started writing it down. Not officially. Not anything she'd show anyone. Just a notebook folded into her pocket with dates and times she didn't really want to remember later. Oscar enters. Oscar stays. Then something happens. Over and over. At first she told herself it was a coincidence. You have to. Otherwise, you can't work there. But the pattern didn't loosen. It tightened. Like it was getting more confident. Like Oscar wasn't guessing anymore. Like he was confirming something. That was the part that stuck with her. Not that it happened, but how certain it felt. Then came room 19. Oscar stopped in the hallway and didn't move. That sounds simple. It wasn't. He just sat there like the decision had already been made somewhere else. Inside was Harold, elderly, in the dementia unit. No changes that day. No alarms. No reason for anyone to think differently about him than they had yesterday. Nothing about him stood out. Which in that place, usually meant everything was fine. But Oscar didn't move. Hours passed. Shift changed. Lights dimmed. The hallway got quieter like it was watching too. Steff walked around him instead of past him. Nobody said it out loud, but everyone started checking the door more than they needed to. Like they were waiting for permission for something. But nothing happened. No call. No rush. No quiet ending that usually slipped in without warning. Morning came. Harold was still alive. Still breathing. Still there. And Oscar was still outside the door. That was the first time the pattern didn't complete, and nobody knew what to do with that. On the third night, Oscar finally moved. He went inside and curled up against Harold's chest like he had been waiting for something to let him in. Everyone expected it then. They stood outside the room longer than they should have. Nobody left immediately. Nobody warned to be not there when it happened. But nothing happened. No drop. No silent shift. No ending. Harold just slept. Then he woke up and asked for water like he had been asleep a long time instead of whatever else he had been bracing for. The next morning, he asked where he was. A few days later, he was talking in full sentences again. No fragments. Not confusion. Clear, ordinary sentences like something had come back online that everyone assumed was gone. Within a week, he was moved out of the dementia unit. Oscar didn't follow. He stayed in room 19. Even after it was cleaned, even after there was nothing left in it that should have mattered. He just stayed there, sitting, like he was waiting for something to finish explaining itself. That's when Marla stopped trusting what she thought she was tracking. Because Oscar wasn't predicting death. He wasn't reacting to dying. He was reacting to something before that. Not absence, like she first thought. Something worse than absence. Being not looked at anymore. Not medically, not physically, just… No one coming in and saying your name. No one checking again. No one staying long enough to interrupt whatever was happening quietly in between. And Harold? Harold only came back because something broke the pattern. Because someone stayed longer than usual. Because someone didn't leave him alone in it. And after that, things changed at Steer House in ways nobody announced. People stayed in rooms longer. Talked more than necessary. Checked out patients twice instead of once. Not because they were told to. Because they didn't want to be wrong about what alone meant anymore. And Oscar kept walking. Still stopping at doors. Still sitting in hallways like he was listening for something under the noise. Still curling up beside people who might slip away. Or might not. Most nights, the pattern held. But not all. And on nights it didn't, Oscar left first. Like he already knew it wasn't going to finish there. Like something else in the building had already picked up the thread. And even after he was gone down the hall, people still felt it. That pause. That waiting. Outside rooms that had been quiet for too long. Not because something was happening inside. But because no one had gone in to interrupt it. And Oscar never chose death. He chose the moment just before a person stopped being someone anyone came back for. Sometimes, long after the building went quiet, staff would swear they could still feel him outside certain doors. Not moving. Not deciding. Just waiting to see if anyone else would. It's wild but not unbelievable that a cat became known for something no one at Steer House could fully explain. He seemed to know with unsettling accuracy when a patient was nearing their final moments. But what started as a strange pattern turned into something far more disturbing the longer people paid attention. If you had to live with that kind of awareness, where being chosen meant something was ending, would you still trust what you think you're seeing? Has anyone else ever had a terrifying encounter involving something supernatural? We'd love to hear your stories, so tell us by sending us an email at somethingscaryatsnarl.com. And don't forget to subscribe on YouTube at Snarled so you never miss a single episode creeping your way. And as we gear up for spooking season, trust me, you won't want to miss a thing. As always, thanks for listening and sweet screams. This week's podcast stories were edited by Sarah Lukaszewicz, narration by Blair Bathory, produce edited and mixed by FitzHarris, executive produced by Gail Gilman, music by Sapphire Sandalo and Calvin Linderman. If you have a story you'd like to submit, send me an email at somethingscaryatsnarl.com. Don't forget to watch the video version of Something Scary over at youtube.com/snarled. And if you'd like to support the show and everything we do at Snarled, join our Patreon at patreon.com/snarled.