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[SPEAKER_00]: Paranormal experiences don't really work to a time scale, and therefore we invite you to listen to a dark miniser.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Hello everyone and welcome to this week's Dark mini-sode.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, before we get into today's Dark mini-sode a quick reminder that you can help this show out just by subscribing to the show.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It costs you absolutely nothing, the device you're listening on right now, just hit subscribe and that really helps us with algorithms and all of that sort of thing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And of course in the show notes you can find out how to join our Patreon, where you can get these episodes early and add free

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[SPEAKER_00]: and even receive two additional shows each and every week of the year.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Four RTS on Patreon, one shows called Doc Bikes, which is a series of shorter submission sent in, grouped together for a 30 minute episode, and the other is a video and audio format of me breaking down former episodes.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But all of that, including how to submit your own experience, is in the show notes.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But right now, we need to crack on with today's

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, as you guys know, we like to move things around on the show, so although we have our season set out before we begin a season, if something arrives and we think it's amazing, now I want you to listen to it just as much as I've read it and found it fascinating, it gets in that season.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That's how we operate.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And this submission is one of those.

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[SPEAKER_00]: literally arriving in our mailbox last week and this experience comes to us from a listener named Sam who writes.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Hi there.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I've been listening to the podcast since I was pregnant, dropped up in bed with my headphones in because I couldn't sleep.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But never once did I think I'd be

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[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a wee boy who's just turned one, and I still live with my mum and dad in Bishop Briggs.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Not exactly the life I had planned the 16, but it's the one I've got, and it's a damn sight better than the one I've left.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'll give you the short version of that bit, because it's not really what the sea melts about.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Basically I was with someone for two years who made my life both very small and hell.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I got out with my son and basically nothing else, and my parents took us in without a second thought.

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[SPEAKER_00]: They are good people, properly good, not just good for performance sake.

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[SPEAKER_00]: My mom does more child mining than I'd like if I'm honest.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Some days I feel like I just hand her my son and walk out the door, but I get why.

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[SPEAKER_00]: When they took us in, they said two conditions.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Firstly, I finished my higher education, which I stopped when I was pregnant, and I also get a job.

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[SPEAKER_00]: At the time I thought it was harsh, I still think it is a bit harsh.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But I also know that they're doing it because they want me hard and duper bent, before life throws anything else of me, not because they don't want to help.

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[SPEAKER_00]: They've never once made me feel like a burden.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So, my education's back on, part-time, and four or five nights a week, I work as the evening manager S of a Starbucks drive through.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It turned new store.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It opened about six months ago, in one of those bits of Glasgow, their tad money thrown at it recently.

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[SPEAKER_00]: new flat to Jim, a fancy dog groomer's, all crammed in next to buildings that have clearly been standing there since God was a boy.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The unit were in as one of the old ones.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody ever told me what it used to be when I started.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly we were the first members of staff so I don't think anybody knew.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And again being honest I never thought to ask,

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[SPEAKER_00]: And in truth, that's a lot of these regenerated parts of Glasgow.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I do remember thinking it was an odd shape for a building, especially for a coffee shop.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Long narrow, with a ceiling in the back room where we keep the syrup since birth cooks.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But these new stores get squeezed into all sorts of old shells, so I never gave it a second thought.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I got the job out and out and month after I moved back in with Mum and Dad.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And at the time, it felt like a small miracle.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Evening manageress isn't glamorous.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But, as my dad says, being in 18-year-old manageress at anything is good to have a new CV, and it's steady.

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[SPEAKER_00]: If it's around my education and my mum can have my son bath and down before I'm even home.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I was proud of myself for about three weeks before any of this started.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But the first thing happened maybe six weeks in.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I was on my headset taking an order, and the customer was clear as a bell.

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[SPEAKER_00]: He asked for two fat whites and an Americano, their normal.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then halfway through repeating the order back, it goes fuzzy in my headset.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Not the connection cutting out fuzzy more like a radio station between stations, with

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[SPEAKER_00]: regular as a heartbeat.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This made me think it was interference.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then, just as quick, he came back crystal clear, we finished the order like nothing had happened, and I didn't even think much of it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't believe the headsets were brand new, the buildings are obviously old, and wires can do that things.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But then it happened again the following week.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Except this time, I could see the car enter the sort of semi-circular area and seen it was a woman, but she wasn't yet at the intercom when the static started.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I said hello as I saw her pull up to the intercom, and behind this static crackle there was a voice, a woman's voice, very faint, like she was talking from the next room with

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[SPEAKER_00]: I kept saying, I'm sorry, you're breaking up, can you repeat that?

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then, no static at all, and very loud, and very clear, right in my left ear, I hear, not, hello, not, excuse me, but, Sam, my name said the way somebody who knows you would say it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I actually froze for a second.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Then I thought, well, she must know me, maybe she's a regular.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So I said to be cheekly, hello?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Then a man's voice snapped back irritated.

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[SPEAKER_00]: One large latte, please.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Like I had kept him waiting.

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[SPEAKER_00]: When the car rolled up to the hatch, it was just him, one bloke on his own, no woman anywhere in that car.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So why had I seen a woman with my own two eyes?

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[SPEAKER_00]: And why did I hear a woman's voice?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Say my name as clear as a bell in my headset.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I told myself it was crossed wise, some electrical faults with the intercom picking up a neighbour and drive through a radio frequency or something.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't love that explanation, but it was the one I went with, because the alternative wasn't one I wanted to think about at ten o'clock at night with a baby at home needing me sane.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The bit that properly rattled me came a few weeks after.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I was closing up on my own, I do the whole routine most nights.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Lights off, alarm set, run out the door sharpish before the alarm starts beeping at me.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Then I pull the security shutters down over the front doors.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I always stand and listen for the shutter to fully lock into place before I then walk to my car.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's become a routine listening for those sounds of the shutter the sound of the alarm etc.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And it's strange how each of those noises kind of reduces my anxiety piece by piece until I find all sound that I know the alarm is set, which I hear from outside the shutter.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Well that night, the shutters had just come down and I had it lock in place.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I had the alarm do it's long beep to let me know it was set, and I turned to head off.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And out of the corner of my eye, through the slits in the shutter slats,

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[SPEAKER_00]: Every single light in that store was back on, every last one, and then not on a motion sensor.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'd manually switch them all off 90 seconds before.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There was no way I would have missed that.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now I didn't want to go back in on my own so I rang my power, Emma, and I said to her,

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[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't ask why, she just talked about regular things that were going on.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't listening much, and quickly just said, I, a few times as I ran round the shop, and made sure everything was finally shut, because I didn't want it to think I wasn't listening, I started talking myself.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Rubbish generally, just to keep her on the phone, what I was having a tea when I got back, something laughed about my wee boy that he done that morning.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Anything to keep my brain from spiraling to where it wanted to go, and I most certainly didn't.

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[SPEAKER_00]: She just made the odd, I, hmm, back at me whilst I worked.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Finally I was back out, I pulled that shirt down for a second time, and as I heard it lock, Emma suddenly said, what was that?

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[SPEAKER_00]: I said, oh, it was the sound of the shutter, as I walked to my car.

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[SPEAKER_00]: She went quiet for a second, and then said, okay, are you out your car yet?

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[SPEAKER_00]: I said, not yet.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I will be in a minute.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

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[SPEAKER_00]: And she said, it doesn't matter.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Just tell me when you're driving away.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That freaked me out.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So I hasten my pace, got in my car and started driving.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Once I was out of that whole plot, I said, so what was that about?

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[SPEAKER_00]: She said the whole time I'd been back inside, I'd been cutting in and out on her end.

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[SPEAKER_00]: small static blips every of the second.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then there was one long stretch of static right near the end, before the shuttle locked.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And in the middle of that static she said, she had, Emma, not me saying it, someone else.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But it was through static and that's why she said,

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[SPEAKER_00]: but it wasn't.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It was this voice in the gap where we weren't talking to each other.

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[SPEAKER_00]: While I did not sleep great after that one, I was debating sending this into you already, but the thing that made me pull the trigger and write this and send it to you was what happened at my first review.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It was with the regional manager.

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[SPEAKER_00]: She sat me down and she's fine, very business-like, not from the area.

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[SPEAKER_00]: and the first words out of her mouth made me go cold.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Before we'd even gone through my target, she was...

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[SPEAKER_00]: So, what's it like working in an old mug?

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[SPEAKER_00]: I said, sorry?

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[SPEAKER_00]: She looked a bit surprised, I didn't know.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And said something like, Surely you know that, your logo here on you?

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[SPEAKER_00]: I slowly nodded, but told her I had no idea.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I said it seemed far too wee to have been a mob, and she pointed at the far wall, the one that packs onto a hardware shop next door, and said that's not an original wall, you know.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That unit used to be connected through to this with a door, and the two made up the old morgue.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Then she gave this little shiver, laughed it off, and said, I couldn't do it myself, and when straight into the review, like she hadn't just dropped that on me.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That review was last week, and the truth is I'd already written half of this email in my head as I say before we even had that meeting.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The intercom the shutters Emma hearing her name in the static.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But that conversation was what made me think I need to send this to the dark paranormal.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly a lot of things felt like they made a horrible kind of sense.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't really have a tidy ending for you because I'm still there for a five night a week.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still doing my education in the spare hours and I'm still handing my son over to my mom much more than I like.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now nothing's happened in the last two weeks, but I'll be sure to let you know the next time something does, and I have a feeling it will.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Best wishes, sad.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Well Sam, thank you so very much for being our second mini-sode for season 25.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's very strange because obviously I am a paranormal fan and Fusey asked I listen to paranormal podcasts and before I became a podcaster I would hear from paranormal podcasters who do similar to what I do.

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[SPEAKER_00]: that it will be strange how certain topics would arrive in their mailbox in a sort of serendipitous way about something either in their life or to do with other emails.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And in truth, part of me did think that might be for show.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't bother me in the slightest because the experiences were always amazing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But I did think maybe this is just to get people involved more.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But having hosted this show now for 25 seasons, I can say it's a genuine phenomena.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes we will receive a series of emails about one topic after not receiving them for over a year, and three will arrive back to back.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It happened a few seasons ago.

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[SPEAKER_00]: However, what also happens which is very strange, is sometimes, as in with this one, hence why it jumped the queue

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[SPEAKER_00]: He's just a few days ago, I was talking with an artist friend of mine, and he's a very well-known artist within the region.

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[SPEAKER_00]: He originally done my very first podcast's logo, and he's like an illustrator, more than an artist, but I guess it's one of the same.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, his studio is in a gentrified part of Liverpool City Centre.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now this gentrified part is known as the Baltic Triangle.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And they used to be a huge site, well, it's basically the entire site of the former Cain's brewery.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And every part of that building and it's maybe several off-buildings have all been converted into different things, fast food markets, bars, etc.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like a little mini gentrified hub of an old location.

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[SPEAKER_00]: and we were talking literally days ago about how haunted these areas may be in that very area, and how after this building is stood literally abandoned for a few decades, how these things may now come to life.

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[SPEAKER_00]: After somebody has an idea to start their own business in this gentrified part of the town, and how spirits may sort of seep out of the walls.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Next thing, a few days later, Sam's email arrives in the inbox, and I took it as a sign.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I was looking for a mini-sode we had on planned, and this arrived, and it was so certain dipotus I sent the email to my friend.

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[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't initially click why I sent it, and I said we talked about this three days ago, and he sent back a shock emoji fix.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But Sam, and everyone listening, thank you for joining me on this amazing second mini