Listener Tales 114: Back to School Tales

Episode Overview

• Hosts Ash (dressed as Miss Trunchbull) and Alaina (dressed as Miss Frizzle) present a "Back to School" edition of Morbid: Listener Tales, featuring four first-person listener accounts of unsettling, paranormal, and terrifying experiences in schools and a college house, selected by staff member Deb.
• The episode contains zero cited scientific research and no disclosed outside sponsors or funding; 100% of the content consists of hosts' personal anecdotes, internal promotion for October ("Proctober") submissions, and listener stories accompanied by intermittent electronic spirit box communications from an entity the hosts call Nicholas.
• The narrative arc progresses from childhood experiences in a rural 1912 Tennessee schoolhouse and a teenage encounter with an axe-wielding man at an abandoned elementary school, to historical hauntings at an 1846 Virginia school for the deaf and blind, concluding with six creepy occurrences in a third-year college rental house.
• Listeners also share personal insights on mental health, illustrating how macabre media can counterintuitively serve as a behavioral reward system during severe postpartum depression and anxiety.

Key Concepts

• Architectural History and Paranormal Attribution: Older educational institutions often carry heavy histories of tragedy that shape how occupants interpret unexplained phenomena. In Tale 1, Shelby describes a 2-story, 1912 rural Tennessee schoolhouse with 20-foot ceilings and 2 opposing staircases that experienced 7 student deaths over 20 years (from motor vehicle accidents, cancer, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever). This history framed her fear of a restroom under the stairs (which she refused to enter after 2 visits caused panic and breathing struggles), a basketball moving to the center of an empty 1940s gym, and recurring dreams for 17 years after the building was torn down in 2008 following shady financial dealings.
• Skepticism and Natural Explanations in Ghost Stories: Even within terrifying accounts, both storytellers and hosts frequently hedge by noting mundane physical, mechanical, or social explanations. Shelby notes that although "some sources say it was the 20s" when her school was built, she insists "these sources lie" based on "1912" etched in stone; she also concedes a falling bust in a prop closet could have dropped naturally because the space was packed to the brim, even while questioning why a stuffed bear went off twice beforehand. Similarly, in Tale 4 (labeled "Tale 5"), Ash and Alaina hedge that an upside-down cross was almost certainly a college roommate prank, that falling LED strip lights likely had weak adhesive on old walls rather than a ghost, and that a PS4 turning on and off could be due to what the listener called "the house and outlets being old."
• Unintended Consequences in Threat Situations: In Tale 2, an anonymous listener's decision in 2016 to drink a milkshake despite being lactose intolerant caused severe stomach distress during a 45-minute drive with 5 friends (2 friends, their boyfriends, and her crush) from a town fair. Staying behind in the car as the "getaway driver" to avoid an embarrassing bathroom accident in front of her crush inadvertently saved her from being trapped inside an abandoned elementary school when an old man with an axe entered the building. Furthermore, the listener hedges on the man's true malice, noting, "He probably was just there to scare us away," especially since he turned off the running car's ignition and shut the open doors rather than attacking her under her blanket in the back bucket seats.
• Multisensory Perception of Paranormal Events: Tale 3, submitted by a teacher named "Emma" at a Staunton, Virginia school for the deaf and blind established in 1846 atop limestone caves with rushing water, highlights how different sensory modalities interact with an environment. Because "Main Hall" (erected in 1846) served as a Civil War hospital for Confederate and Union soldiers, students experienced hauntings through their specific heightened senses: blind students heard a 1-legged thump followed by 2 crutch creaks, deaf students felt floor vibrations, and a hard-of-hearing student heard the sounds before they collectively peeked out to see "Billy X," a Union soldier amputated below the right knee. Other phenomena at the school included 1 swing moving on windless nights, a spinning metal merry-go-round, stove burners turning on high to glow red-hot for 2 different intern groups and a student documentary crew, 2 dirty bare feet in a tattered white nightgown on the abandoned 2nd floor, a dropping marble heard by Emma to her right while all students were to her left in a 1950s dollhouse room, and "The Boy in Blue" from the early 1900s.
• Coincidental Environmental Synchronicities: Paranormal narratives often gain weight through real-time coincidences and shared recurring experiences. During the recording at 32:46, the studio spirit box (Nicholas) says, "He will touch you," which a producer points out at 42:06 foreshadowed the climax of Tale 3 read at 40:40, where a ghost boy physically taps a lost blind student on the 4th floor. In Tale 4, shared trauma and environmental anomalies converged in a college house previously rented by 5 football players: the listener saw a "Dark Cloud Man" in a bathroom mirror less than 4 feet from her bedroom while stone-cold sober, her boyfriend Aiden (who stayed over 3 to 4 nights a week) had a recurring nightmare of a 1-eyed figure behind a door that stopped for over 4 years after moving out, and less than 1 year after moving 4 blocks away, a car explosion on the opposite side of the house somehow caved in the 2nd-floor roof of her former bedroom (leading the listener to hedge, "I don't know a lot about house fires," before the house was demolished).

Quotes

• At 4:22 - "I went to a small private school in rural Tennessee. It was situated off a small two-lane road surrounded by cotton fields and no streetlights. Did I mention that there hasn't been a graduating class larger than 65?" - Alaina reading Shelby's letter, establishing the isolated setting of the 1912 schoolhouse where Shelby's own graduating class had 46 students (compared to Ash's husband Drew's class of 84).
• At 11:38 - "It kept repeating until I found a small stuffed bear holding a heart making the sound that was being crushed by a Greek-styled bust." - Alaina reading Shelby's account of being alone in 4th or 5th grade in the U-shaped gym closet (accessible only by bleachers or a 2x4 ladder) after hearing an identical muffled voice 2 times.
• At 19:55 - "I made Morbid my reward for doing a task. Washing bottles, Morbid. Showering, Morbid. Folding laundry, Morbid." - Ash reading an anonymous listener's explanation of how she overcame severe depression and anxiety at 2 months postpartum after discovering the podcast in October 2020 at 8.5 months pregnant, crediting this system 4 years and a 2nd baby later with saving her life.
• At 25:05 - "An old man carrying an axe wearing nothing but overalls and a ball cap was walking up to the car. The idiots who left me had left the doors open and the key in the ignition and the car on." - Ash reading the anonymous listener's story from 2016 about hiding in the car outside an abandoned school before calling "Sarah," "Anna," and finally reaching her date to warn the 5 friends inside.
• At 30:58 - "This is crucial information since during renovations they found tons of amputated leg and arm bones in a mass pile, and you know how ghosts feel about renovations." - Alaina reading Emma's letter explaining why the 1846 school for the deaf and blind, which served as a Civil War hospital, is heavily associated with paranormal activity.
• At 35:52 - "They saw a soldier dressed in his Union uniform. He was slowly crutching down the hall. His right leg was amputated below the knee and still bandaged and bloody." - Alaina reading Emma's description of "Billy X," the apparition tracked by blind, deaf, and hard-of-hearing students in Main Hall through sounds and floor vibrations.
• At 40:51 - "He grabbed the blind student by his shirt and led him down the hallway towards the—down the stairs and to the correct floor." - Alaina reading Emma's account of a lost blind student on the 4th storage floor being guided back to his classroom by an unseen young boy who vanished when the teacher and student immediately checked the hall, stairs, and 4th floor.
• At 48:18 - "As I did my thing, I looked forward and saw a whole-ass black shadow form walk into the room and stand in front of the mirror like it was looking at me." - Ash reading the fourth story (submitted by a listener who binged Listener Tales for 6 straight hours with her friend Meg, who is on Listener Tale 84) detailing the 3rd of 6 creepy occurrences in her college house featuring a condom-stained bathroom wall.
• At 57:08 - "What was really confusing was that my room was on the opposite side of the house from where the car was parked, and on the second floor, so how was that part of the house damaged so badly?" - Ash reading the final instance from the college house story, questioning the physics of the fire that destroyed the home less than 1 year after the tenants moved out.

Takeaways

• Pair mundane, overwhelming daily chores (such as washing bottles, showering, or folding laundry) with an immediate, low-effort audio reward like a favorite podcast to help manage executive dysfunction, anxiety, or postpartum depression.
• Secure your vehicle by turning off the ignition, removing the keys, and closing all doors when stopping at unfamiliar or abandoned locations at night, ensuring your mode of escape is protected and ready.
• Evaluate unexplained household occurrences—such as electronics turning on by themselves, falling wall decor, or moved objects—by checking for mundane causes like aging electrical outlets, failing adhesive on old walls, or roommate pranks before assuming a paranormal origin.
• Prioritize personal safety when witnessing suspicious individuals near your residence late at night (such as someone staring into a lit bedroom window from an alleyway) by leaving the area immediately rather than re-entering the house for non-essential items like a phone charger.
• Submit scary, Halloween-themed personal experiences for the podcast's October ("Proctober") episodes by sending an email with the specific subject line "Halloween Listener Tale".