The Girls | True Scary Ghost Stories | Ep #30

0:01 If you have a true strange story of the unexplained you'd like to hear read on the show, e-mail me madamstrangeways@gmail.com or visit madamstrangeways.com. I can't wait to read it. Welcome, strangers and strangelings and strange cetera to Madam Strangeways, where I, Madam Strangeways, narrate your true strange stories of the unexplained. And as always, solicited or not, usually not, I share my thoughts and observations and drag you down a slew of spooky rabbit holes kicking and screaming. Today I've got one new true strange story for you. But first, it's time to shine the strange spotlight on my Patreon patrons TJ Hotter, G Man Music Ted, and now Keith. Welcome Keith.

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1:40 And now on to our true strange story here on Madam Strange Ways. The Girls by Tori. I remember growing up in the 90s and there were times that my mom's sisters, who died in a fire before she was born, would visit our house. They had died in another house downtown, which is what caused my grandparents to purchase the land we own and build a house on it to start over.

2:43 I want to give their back story, although it does make it a bit spookier. Their names were Darlene and Karen. It was rare to hear anyone say their actual names because everyone referred to them as the girls. They died when they were very young. One was about 3 1/2 and the other was almost two years old. In November of 1946 my granny had gone outside to hang the laundry on the clothesline after she had put the girls down for a nap. She started smelling smoke and when she was trying to get into the house to get the girls she wasn't able to find them due to the thick smoke and passed out herself.

3:28 The town was small and a neighbor had called for help and the fire station responded quickly and put the fire out. They were able to get my granny out but were not able to find the girls either until they got the fire out. By the time they did find them they had hidden in a closet where they had died of smoke inhalation. When I was growing up my mum would tell me that her sisters or the girls were at our house and she would walk to the back part where our bedrooms were. I would try to follow sometimes out of curiosity, but I couldn't get more than a few feet inside the laundry room and never made it to the back hall or bedrooms.

4:20 I would get so cold that I couldn't move until I decided to turn around and go back to the front part of the house. I remember one time when I was probably about 11 or 12, so it would have been early 90s, I was going to my room in the back and took maybe two or three steps into the laundry room and couldn't move. I was so cold and so I turned to go back up front but something felt different and I couldn't move. I was home alone since my mom was next door at my uncle's house and I got scared.

5:04 I had always been able to walk out before I knew something was wrong and asked out loud if I needed to get Mama. Then I was able to walk away. I tried calling my uncle's house phone and no one answered so I figured they must be outside. So I ran over and told my mom she needed to come home because the girls were there. We went back to our house and I saw my mom walk all the way to the back and could hear her talking. She never saw or heard them, but she said they would give her goosebumps if the answer was yes. I remember her asking them if something was wrong, then she asked if it was her Mama, and then she asked if she was hurt. My granny was living in Taylor at the time, which was just over an hour drive from our house.

6:06 My mom tried to call my granny and there was no answer. She told me to stay home and keep calling my granny and then she went to her car, drove to my uncle's house next door and I saw them drive away. When my mom got home that evening, she told me that when they got to my granny's house, they saw her on the floor in the kitchen. They got inside and called 911 and had her taken to the hospital. The doctor told them that she had a hernia and would have died if they had waited much longer to get her to the hospital. She had an emergency surgery and smooth recovery, thankfully. I cannot explain how it worked, but any time there was something going on the girls would show up. My mom was the only one who talked to them. I know several people who would feel the cold in the back of the house, including myself, my friends, my uncles, and even my granny, but none of us could go back there. I don't know why they chose my mom since they would have been the oldest of my grandparents children and my mom was the youngest of a total of seven children and they never met. My mom wasn't even born until 1953. All I can say is I never

7:40 hesitated when I felt them again. If my mom was at work, I called her. We felt them several times over the years, but that was the only time they warned us about anything so serious. I was just thankful they did. Tori, that was so scary and also touching and also sweet. So Tori, thank you for allowing me to tell you and your family's story.

8:20 I appreciate you trusting me with it. Tori has also kindly given us more than one story. You may remember a previous Tori story in an earlier episode, How I Met Henry. Very foreboding, just the title alone foreboding. So go back and listen to that. I don't remember what number it is, but you know, there's not that many. So it's in the title, How I Met Henry. It's one of the two stories. So those poor girls just, you know, God huddled together in the closet. Like that's so sad. You know, I mean, like, at least they had each other. And then, you know, it sounds like it sounds like obviously they're still together and that, you know, this traumatic death, they're still together even in the afterlife.

9:07 But they're also looking out for your family, looking out for your mom. And, you know, I think you asked the question in the story, like, why did they choose your mom? Like she was the youngest of seven. She was born after they were, you know, dead already. Like why? Well, she's the baby of the family. They got to look out for the baby of the family and they got to look out for her. So I think that's sweet. I think it's specifically sweet that that they talk to her. It's it's stressful and it's scary, but it's also, you know, really helpful, it seems because wow, what if you hadn't decided to go to the laundry room when you did, you know, like, so are they constantly?

9:49 How do they know? Are they, Is this like a Santa Claus situation? They see you when you're sleeping. They know when you're awake. Like what? It's kind of scary, but also very, again, it's scary, but it's comforting. We'll say comforting. It's both of those things. Here's another thing that really stood out to me when you specifically ask, like, do I need to get my Mama? Like, Oh my God, that's so scary because you just knew like, you're like, OK, you don't talk to me, but something's wrong. Do I need to go get mom because you won't speak to me. You'll just scare me. Oh, it's so scary.

10:32 But I'm so glad that your mom was able to. First of all, I'm glad that your mom was open to it and then that your mom was able to, to get to your granny's house on time to help her out. Because, you know, like you said, if it had just been a little bit longer, that would have been a much different story. And so, so sad. But I'm, I'm so glad that that turned out good for your, for your granny in the end of that story. So if you're curious, for the listeners that are curious, Smithville, TX is where this is set. And it's, it's it's close to Austin, apparently Smithville. How did I not mention this when I told the story before, not this story when I told a, a previous Tory story. How did I not mention this?

11:18 Smithville apparently is where Hope floats. The movie Hope floats with Sandra Bullock was filmed. Love a good Sandy Bullock film. You know, especially practical magic, but still very interesting. Fun fact about Smithville, probably not related to the story, but just to I'm painting a picture. And while we're on the subject of things that are not technically related to the story, but have come up in my research of the story, which should really be the name of the podcast since we're talking about those things, this came up in my Googling. Here it is.

12:00 Smithville also earned the Guinness Book of World Records certification for. And I want you to guess, why don't you just take a moment, take a guess. What do you think Smithville, TX might have won a Guinness Book of World Records record for? OK, you got your guesses locked in. All right, vote now on your phones, okay? They won it for baking the world's largest gingerbread man. I'm tickled. It says the cookie. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, this should be my news. I'm sorry, let's start over.

12:41 The cookie creation, baked over hot coals during Smithville's annual Festival of Light celebration in 2006 weighed 13108 lbs, eight oz and was 20 feet tall. Not my gumdrop buttons. I don't think that was a very good. Not my gumdrop buttons. That might have been better. I don't really do that voice very often, but you're welcome. I just had to laugh because this is such a morbid and truly spooky story. And I'm sitting here, like steeped in it. And then as I'm Googling, it's like, oh, Smithville baked the world's largest gingerbread man. And also it's 20 feet tall.

13:25 It's like, did it need to be tall? I mean, I guess that is more impressive. But like, to me, I feel like they could have made it bigger if it didn't need to stand up. Like if they did it flat, I feel like it would still count anyway. OK, we're getting, I'm sorry, we're getting into the weeds. Probably also unrelated to the story is the gingerbread largest gingerbread man in 2006. Probably unrelated. OK, so we're going back to the girls. To the girls, which I like how it's just the girls. Like it's so ominous, the girls, which I think is fair because their names are Darlene and Karen. So I feel like the girls is definitely it has more gravitas, you might say. So coming back to the girls, you know, they were giving the entire time they were giving me the the image of the twins and the shining with their little frilly light blue dresses and holding hands and just staring ahead. So scary.

14:22 So, so, OK, so I was like, you know what? Let me go down this rabbit hole because, you know, of course I did. That's what I do. And if you're listening, then you, you don't hate it. So follow me down the rabbit hole. So I'm looking into The Shining and the twins and I thought, oh, they're twins for sure. They're twins. They look like twins. But so I'm looking and apparently the book Stephen King wrote, which because there's got to be someone listening that didn't realize it in the movie The Shining is based on the book The Shining written by Stephen King. So in the book, the girls were 10 and 8. So they're just sisters. They're not twins. But in the movie, Stanley Kubrick, the director changed them to twins, which is obviously scarier than just sisters.

15:13 So on On that note, I will say I hope that the girls, although they didn't appear to you, I hope they never appeared to anyone wearing scary matching dresses. And I also hope that they didn't conjure rivers of blood. So OK, sorry. So the girls. No, the twins, not the girls, the twins, the twins and The Shining. OK, so yeah, I ended up watching this really interesting analysis of the twins in The Shining on YouTube in preparation for this episode. I I can't help it. So in the comments, though, in the comments, people were arguing because of course they were, because is it ever really a comment section of people aren't arguing? So they were arguing and OK, pause people argue on in comment sections, but people really argue about The Shining and film analysis of The Shining.

16:05 I know film analysis in general people argue, but like The Shining people feel very strongly about and they've had a really long time to talk about it. And if you have not seen Room 237, the documentary about all of the explanations people have for The Shining, Oh my God, please go watch it. Well, first watch The Shining, actually watch it in whatever order you like. But the documentary is really fascinating. Anyway, I'm sorry, that was even further off of topic than I already was. So listen, listen, listen. Trust me, this is going to come back. So just trust the process. So I'm in the comments section of this film analysis of the twins in The Shining and people are going back and forth because they're saying like, were they twins or were they sisters? Because, you know, the in the book, they were sisters, but in the movie, they were played by actresses that were twins. And then someone is saying that like, OK, in the movie, you can clearly hear that this character says that the girls were 8 and 10, quote, UN quote, when they were murdered. But it's like, well, is that like a detail that Kubrick is instilling, trying to use to like instill feelings of confusion and unease in in the audience because that's something that he does in the rest of the movie? Or like, is it Kubrick playing into the theme of mirror images in the movie?

17:26 Like hence? And I'm going to be honest, I didn't realize this until I was kind of watching the film analysis. I've seen this movie a lot and I've seen a lot of theories about the movie. OK, maybe I'm just not that smart, but apparently mirror images is a theme in the movie. But that this is what made it Click to me. Is that like, oh, because Red Rum is murder backwards. OK. And there's like a mirror. OK, All right. I probably should have clocked that sooner. Anyway. So I had to solve the issue, though, because everyone is saying 8:00 and 10:00. And then someone said, well, maybe, maybe I just misheard. And it wasn't 8 and 10, maybe it was 8 or 10. So I go, I pull the script for the film, and the dialogue clearly says 8 or 10, not 8 and 10.

18:12 So would I have included that little tangent if I was not about to tell you what I'm about to tell you? Probably. OK, if I'm being real, probably. But listen to this when I was going back through Tori's earlier emails to find the name of the city. Smithville, TX. Her first story, like I said, How I Met Henry, literally has the words 8 to 10 in it, like quote, UN quote, the number 8 to the number 10. OK, it's not 8 or 10, it's not 8 and 10, but come on, that's weird. That's weird.

18:59 Like, right. That's so weird. Like I've never gone down that rabbit hole before with The Shining. And I've gone down some before. I've gone down more than a normal person has gone down in terms of The Shining. And I've never seen the discourse about 8:00 and 10:00, eight or ten. And then I go back and I look at Tori's first story, which Tori's first story story, which literally has the term 8 to 10. She's talking about feet, not the age of children. But how wild is that? Come on, that was weird. OK. And that's also kind of like a really perfect segue to one of the explanations that I have for this story. So I've talked in a previous episode and damned if I can remember which one.

19:48 I was even trying to find it. So if anyone knows which one I'm talking about, feel free e-mail me mattstrangeways@gmail.com or leave a comment on Spotify and let me know. I talked about this in a previous episode, but it's relevant here again. It's this concept called simulpathy, which is this term that is coined by Doctor Bernard D Beitman, a psychiatrist. And so in a nutshell, simulpathy is it's it's combining the words of like simultaneous and like sympathy, meaning like suffering together. And you mash those words together and basically what it means is like you are experiencing something that is telling you that a loved one is either in pain or has died.

20:35 And there's no way that you should know. You know, one of the examples that he shares is his own personal story, which I did share in that previous episode. So I won't read it exactly as he said it. But basically he was in his house and he was choking and he couldn't stop choking and he didn't understand what was happening. And then come to find he finds out later that his dad had died at that exact same moment. And it was due to, I don't remember the reason, but he, his, his throat filled with blood and he was choking. And then at the exact same time, his son is experiencing this unexplained choking experience like halfway across the country or fully across the country. Like how does that happen?

21:21 How does that happen? Like that's so scary. There's other anecdotes that are also scary. Also scary where this lady said she woke up 1 morning and was just like Oh my mother died. And then you know gets a call later saying oh your mother's died, your mother died. Or you know this man who had a dream one night and it was his brother like in a velvet lined coffin. And like he wakes up from the dream and like 5 minutes later his sibling calls to say passed away just like he thought in the dream. You know, crazy, crazy stuff. And it's just anecdotal. So like, you know, is it real? Did those things happen? You know, is some of this like, you know, down to memory and and you're misremembering and, you know, because I've talked before at length about how infallible memory is. But the story that Tori told, I don't think has anything to do with being confused and, you know, misremembering things because that it's just like that feels like a story that is like part of a family's lore.

22:26 You know, there's multiple people that can corroborate the story. Like there's the mom, there's the uncle, obviously grandma, you know, so I mean, she wasn't, they weren't all there to witness the girls, but obviously the girls is a known phenomena in the family. So OK, so really what I'm, I'm what I'm trying to get to is, yes, those are just anecdotes. But apparently Doctor Biteman was involved in a study that was called the Weird Coincidence Survey, which, OK, I mean, it is, it's true, I guess it does exactly what it says on the 10. And that was in 2009, and it had more than 2500 respondents. And so the people in this survey reported that they occasionally experienced the pain of a loved one at a distance, which is basically exactly what happened to Tori, except that the girls were the conduit there.

23:20 Like instead of Tori. Well, I mean, I guess Tori, I guess you did kind of have like a physical reaction, like a distress. You felt distress and you didn't know why. And then, you know, obviously in that case it was, you know, you did attribute it to the girls. But like, you know, there's, I mean, there's something there. This does sound very similar to what is it called semopathy. I keep saying semopathy. I had to re record a few times because I keep saying it wrong. So I'm sorry doctor Biteman, it just doesn't roll off the tongue. So this does kind of sound like semopathy. That's just so crazy. Like even you know what?

24:01 Here's what it is. Even if it was a coincidence, like, what are the odds? Like the coincidences that would need to be involved in like, you, OK, you got yourself scared. You thought maybe it's the girls. And then you go get your mom and then your mom calls Granny, and then Granny doesn't pick up. And then coincidentally, Granny's on the floor and she needs to go to the hospital immediately or she's not going to make it. Like, that's crazy. That's wild. I do not have a more naturalistic or mundane explanation for it. So I will land on this being mysterious.

24:43 It's mysterious. And like I said in the beginning, you know, it's scary but also really comforting. I do wonder, like, have the girls, do the girls still give messages and like, will they ever talk to you? It's kidding. I don't want to get too morbid, but you know, like, do they stay with the family? Is this going to be a generational situation? You know, I don't know. Let me know how you feel about it. Madam strangeways@gmail.com. I know you have my e-mail. I don't need to give it to you, but Tori, thank you again so much for trusting me to tell your story and your family story.

25:23 So thank you very much. You know, if you're back at that house anytime soon, tell the girls I said hey, I feel like they're earning their keep way more than usual. Ghosts. So good for the girls and if anyone listening has a similar story or they also have some kind of family lore that involves knowing when something is wrong with someone else in your family or a loved one, I want to hear about it. e-mail me at madamstrangeways@gmail.com. And remember, it doesn't have to be a really long form story, it can be a quick one. So thanks in advance for sharing with me. Thank you for joining me for more true strange stories of the unexplained, remember that you can feel afraid and not be in danger.

26:22 You're safe here in Strangeways space. Please follow the podcast, leave a rating on Spotify or Apple, or tell your friends and foes about the show. It would mean the world to me, the underworld, obviously. If that wasn't clear, Madam Strangeways is produced and narrated by me. madamstrangewaysthememusicisbymarina.ryan@marinamakes.co. Cover art is by Andrea Chiselle, rolled on at Cult of Teddy on Instagram. You can submit your own true strange story at madamstrangeways.com or send in your thoughts or theories on stories on the show to madamstrangeways@gmail.com. See you soon, she said ominously.