The Kids Are Not Alright

Bloodsucking Freaks, Basement Dwellers and a Scare B&B story that will FREAK you out, plus 2 more haunting tales on Episode #21: THE KIDS ARE NOT ALRIGHT. Live stories told by children or about creepy children at Sasha Graham's Ghost Stories by the Fire Crowd Sourced Story Sharing Events.

Story#1: BASEMENT DWELLERS by Thea Miller

Story #2: SCARE B&B by MM Devoe

Story #3: SLEEP NO MORE by Alejandro

Story #4: BLOODSUCKING FREAKS by Sophia

Story #5: HELP! THERE'S A FROG IN MY THROAT by Kira

Program Notes and Info:

Sasha Graham’s Ghost Stories by the Fire is a midnight radio show airing on WHNY Western Catskill Radio 93.6FM.

Episode #21 was recorded live at the Barrow's Intense Tasting Room, Industry City in Brooklyn, NY.

“Lovely,” the Sasha Graham’s Ghost Stories by the Fire theme song, was created by the Adams Family for their film 2019 The Deeper You Dig. This horror flick will haunt you long after it ends!
Watch The Deeper You Dig now, free on Tubi:
https://tubitv.com/movies/567731/the-deeper-you-dig

Want to submit a Ghost Story and maybe be featured on the pod?

Go to sashagraham.com

Fill out the contact form and put GHOST STORY in the subject line.

Host, Writer & Creator: Sasha Graham
Audio Engineer: Bill Brady

Sasha Graham collects Ghost Stories at her live, crowd-sourced, spooky storytelling events around the country and broadcasts these spooky tales from the old fire tower on Tannery Road in Wands Hollow, a small farming community located upstate in Sullivan County, NY.

Sasha Graham is an award-winning metaphysical author of over 12 books and tarot decks whose work has been translated into more than 10 languages. Sasha Graham teaches tarot around the world and is also an indie horror film actress. 

Visit Sasha Graham's website.

Transcript

00;00;00;28 - 00;00;09;28
Lovely
Yeah. But, you know, it's it's. Come on.

00;00;10;01 - 00;00;22;24
Unknown
You come to me when I'm lonely. I take your hand and we go home.

00;00;22;26 - 00;00;29;16
Lovely
You cover me with your love. We. Hello.

00;00;29;19 - 00;01;02;28
Sasha Graham
And welcome to Sasha Graham's ghost stories by the fire season two. I'm your host, Sasha Graham. I'm broadcasting from a new home n NY Western Catskill Radio 93.6 on your FM dial. It's just after midnight. All the children should be asleep, but I'm hoping you'll grab a flashlight and hide under the covers with me. Because I've been out in the wild collecting our stories just for you.

00;01;03;01 - 00;01;31;22
Sasha Graham
I'm inviting you to listen along with me as I broadcast from the fire tower in Once Hollow, New York. So for you locals listening in, skies are clear and calm tonight. We are on the cusp of a full moon. There's so much snow on the ground. It's reflecting the moonlight. It's almost as bright as day. The moon gets blamed for making folks a little more kooky than they already are.

00;01;31;25 - 00;02;08;14
Sasha Graham
But I only say a full moon. Eve is the most powerful moon, especially for making magic. But that might just be the witch in me. Speaking of witches, ghosts, and supernatural creatures. Tonight I am bringing you haunting stories from and about the most terrifying thing on the planet. Children, it can be terrifying to be a kid, as I'm sure you will remember, but oftentimes it's a different kind of creepy.

00;02;08;16 - 00;02;47;04
Sasha Graham
To be near them even when they are your own. Welcome to episode 21. The kids are not all right. Damien Carolan, Regan, Danny Gage. Their names haunt your nightmares. Why is it that small children, toddlers and tweens can be darn scary? The answer might be that they are still deeply connected to the other side. That mysterious place where we all came from before we were born.

00;02;47;07 - 00;03;23;22
Sasha Graham
Maybe it's because for a three year old, an adult is as real as a ghost. Or maybe it's just that children deeply walk and explore the world around them. They see and feel what adults have long since forgotten. Our first storyteller was 17 years old when they took the Ghost Story stage on October 1st, 2022. They recount a true story of sharing space with a specter in their Victorian home in Brooklyn, New York.

00;03;23;24 - 00;03;41;14
Sasha Graham
All of tonight's stories were recorded at the Barrow's Intense Tasting Room in Industry City, NYC. Now here's Thea miller with basement dwellers.

00;03;41;16 - 00;04;05;05
Thea Miller
I live in a Halloween house. What I mean by that is that there are always leaves yellowed and browned, laying on the lawn like bodies, peaks reaching out in rigor mortis, chilled to the scrawny bones even in August. What I mean by that is that the only people to walk down my street all the way to the end, where the train blows the wind through the trees like a whisper in a red tipped ear, are those with glazed over eyes and dogs who sense things they can't.

00;04;05;08 - 00;04;25;00
Thea Miller
What I mean by that is that I grew up saying hello to the Victorian girl in the basement, and avoiding eye contact with the two men in the corner of the first floor landing. The basement is the hub of my house, this activity. I would love to say that my childhood was a harrowing tale of learning to live alongside what I was afraid of, but there was rarely ever any fear.

00;04;25;02 - 00;04;47;05
Thea Miller
It wasn't the people in the basement I was afraid of. The girl who I named Sarah kept me safe. And once I left the basement, this coldness of being unprotected would fall to my shoulders like a head from a neck. She was only a few years younger than I am now, maybe 13 or 14, and she had a tragic air about her in the back of the basement, all the way to the left, where I always got a feeling like I was being chased.

00;04;47;05 - 00;05;11;06
Thea Miller
There was what could only be described as a pit. It's just like this rectangular hole in the concrete a few feet wide, where all the pipes lay exposed, and as a child it and told me I'd walk over to it. Heart pounding, glancing over my shoulder and stand at the edge. I was an impulsive kid, one who got her head stomped on quite a few times, and our ribs kicked in because I'd lay on the floor and jump from the jungle gym.

00;05;11;09 - 00;05;34;02
Thea Miller
And yet I never climbed down into the hole in the basement. To this day, I don't know why, because it's definitely something I would have done. But even then, when I was far too young to know about these things, long before I gained my obsession with horror movies, I could see it afoot. Slipping over a concrete edge, brown hair splaying out a splatter of blood on the pipes, and my friend Sarah at the bottom.

00;05;34;05 - 00;05;52;08
Thea Miller
I don't know what it was that kept me standing on the edge. That stops me from walking to the pit even now. Maybe it's her. Maybe one of those days I did slip. Maybe one of these days I will. Maybe Sarah wasn't a friend, but a prophecy. I do know that to this day, when I go down to do my laundry, I say hello to Sarah.

00;05;52;10 - 00;06;07;07
Thea Miller
I apologize for intruding on her space, because if she can't leave, she might as well have some privacy. And I stay on the right side of the basement.

00;06;07;09 - 00;06;41;17
Sasha Graham
This story is beautiful, not only because it's admirable to be so self-aware at age 17, but because this poses one of the scariest questions of all. What keeps any of us from going over the edge? The Pit in Fear's basement reflects a metaphorical truth, one we've all felt from time to time. What is there really keeping us safe from falling into the abyss?

00;06;41;20 - 00;07;16;17
Sasha Graham
How many of us have skirted the boundaries of madness in our own mind? And these tangible and intangible lines are sometimes so close to us we can feel the breath of dark possibility, breathing on our cheeks. Perhaps the child's axiom of if I can't see the scary thing it can't see me is a bit of self-preservation we all use to keep ourselves from slipping over the edge.

00;07;16;19 - 00;07;51;26
Sasha Graham
Our second story teller, shares one of the most horrifying tales I have ever heard. MDiv is an author, public speaker, and the founder of Pen Parents, a literary nonprofit she founded in 2014 to help foster creativity and writers who have children. She shares a spooky baby monitor story. And trust me, it isn't a tale you'll soon forget. My story is riddled with curse words, and rightfully so, so skip ahead.

00;07;51;29 - 00;08;02;12
Sasha Graham
If swearing is bothersome to you, first you'll hear me bringing her to the stage and then you'll hear more of a whiff scare.

00;08;02;14 - 00;08;09;20
Sasha Graham
Be and be.

00;08;09;22 - 00;08;18;12
Sasha Graham
Medieval. In addition to having, I think, probably the most glamorous and exciting name here tonight, M.M. DeVoe writes.

00;08;18;18 - 00;08;20;03
MM Devoe
In her interest.

00;08;20;05 - 00;08;41;09
Sasha Graham
Of fiction and poetry. Her work is included in the 2019 anthology, Twisted Book of Shadows, which has won a Shirley Jackson Award. That is no small feat. Darling, will you come and take the stage and regale us with a spooky story?

00;08;41;11 - 00;09;05;13
MM Devoe
Hi. I have never done this before, and I am very awkward and sorry. So, I am going to tell a story about my son, who is 21. He is very weird. He has a bizarre sense of humor or laughs at all kinds of stupid things that boys laugh at. I don't even know he's weird. Whatever. Anyway, so this is about when he was little.

00;09;05;16 - 00;09;29;03
MM Devoe
When he was really little. Before his sister was born. My husband and I used to go all the time to Bob's. And of course, because we're weird, we go to the Haunted Bob's because that's more interesting. So I was one time we were up in the Catskills and we found this one weirdo bnb before Airbnb, because I keep saying Airbnb, but it's like BNB.

00;09;29;05 - 00;09;54;18
MM Devoe
And we went in and of course it had a super weird dude who ran it, who wanted to talk and had all the tchotchkes in every single possible cover. You know, you've vanities and, and what was weird about this one was that when, when we brought my kid in, he really freaked out. Like he started screaming and crying.

00;09;54;20 - 00;10;18;02
MM Devoe
And he is. I mean, if you know him, he's, like, funny and and laughs at shit. Like, he's like a cheerful dude. And he freaked the fuck out. He was like, And he wouldn't do anything. He wouldn't say anything. And my husband's kind of uptight. So we went to dinner in the BNB and it was a very fancy with the crystal and the things, and the kid was crying and screaming.

00;10;18;04 - 00;10;38;27
MM Devoe
So my, you know, my husband was like, okay, take the kid upstairs, put him to bed. I'm like, it's too early. We did the mom thing of the dad thing with like, should we? Shouldn't we? But I went up and I put him to bed and I read him like 5000 stories, and he was not happy. And said, this is a bad place, mom.

00;10;38;27 - 00;11;06;01
MM Devoe
We have to go. And I was like, no, I mean, he's three, right? I'm like, no, because it's Catskills and there's nowhere we are here. This is where we're staying. And okay, fine, whatever. Eventually I remember stories singing songs and stories from the bed, and I don't know if there's parents out here, but you bring, like, these, like, they're walkie talkies, their baby monitors.

00;11;06;01 - 00;11;24;23
MM Devoe
Right? So. And you use them until they're, like, 25, right. And, and so we had those two baby monitors. I set it up and I go downstairs to the bar where my husband is like on his second drink, and I'm like, dammit, give me my wine. And so I have my glass of wine and we sit down and the on baby monitor and we're talking and like, okay, winding down from stupid drive.

00;11;24;23 - 00;11;28;23
MM Devoe
Couldn't find the place like the stupid.

00;11;28;26 - 00;11;47;25
MM Devoe
And the baby. It's. He starts laughing like fucking laughing. And it's like, okay, that's just weird. Like he's supposed to be sleeping. And so we have an argument about whether or not I should go up because I'm like, well, he's laughing, so he's fine. Let's leave him. I want my wine. And my husband's like, no, we need to go up because he's not sleeping.

00;11;47;25 - 00;12;15;20
MM Devoe
Or wouldn't it be so fun? So I go upstairs. And I open the door and he's on the bed, and he is, like, rigid. Like little rigid kid smiling at the ceiling. And I'm like, what for? This happening? And I yeah, I walk up to him and he's just not even moving. And I'm like, I get, are you okay?

00;12;15;23 - 00;12;20;25
MM Devoe
And he goes.

00;12;20;27 - 00;12;25;10
MM Devoe
It's under the bed. It's under the bed, it's under the bed.

00;12;25;11 - 00;12;37;28
MM Devoe
It's on the back of the bed. And I was like, Holy shit. I so I'm like, okay, okay. So so I look under the bed because.

00;12;38;01 - 00;12;43;29
MM Devoe
And my kid is under the bed.

00;12;44;02 - 00;13;02;22
MM Devoe
So now I have a dilemma because I am down on the floor under the bed, and it's one of those fucking big queen sized beds with four posters. And I'm like, okay, you're going to be okay. And he's like scared and crying and he's like tears, like quiet. And he's like.

00;13;02;25 - 00;13;10;25
MM Devoe
There's somebody in the bed.

00;13;10;27 - 00;13;33;18
MM Devoe
So. I try to see him and I stand up and the bed is empty, and my husband comes in and he's like, what the fuck is going on? And I'm like, wow, I kind of break the spell. Like, what the fuck? And.

00;13;33;21 - 00;13;42;09
MM Devoe
My kid crawls out from under the bed and he seems fine.

00;13;42;11 - 00;13;56;00
MM Devoe
Except he laughs a little bit too much at a little bit too weird things. And that's my story, and I'm sick of it.

00;13;56;02 - 00;14;18;27
Sasha Graham
I wonder if that B and B is in my neck of the Catskills. I only want to know so I can avoid it. Our next storyteller shares an experience he had as a small child in his own crib. I often tempt audience members with drink tickets to get them to come to the stage, as you hear me do.

00;14;18;27 - 00;14;43;18
Sasha Graham
In the next story, Alejandro tells his tale and then you'll hear me return to the stage and share a spooky snippet of something he reminded me of. Now here's Alejandro with sleep No More. Welcome, Alejandro, everybody. Alejandro, that you have to tell your story first before you get your drink.

00;14;43;20 - 00;15;25;02
Alejandro
You know how, you know how you never have memories from when you were a baby or very young? I actually have one very vivid memory of when I was still in the crypt, and I was living in Bogota, Colombia, at the time. And I remember this being recurrent where, like I was laying in my crib and I would slowly start to levitate and come out of the crib and be placed gently on the floor in front of the crib.

00;15;25;04 - 00;15;51;29
Alejandro
And as a child, my reaction. I was like, God damn it! Like I'd get up and climb up the crib and try to fall asleep again and shortly enough, the whole experience would happen again. We're like, I'd be lifted up and be placed on the floor. To this day, I have no idea what that is. It could have been a ghost lifting me up.

00;15;52;01 - 00;16;03;19
Alejandro
It's either an astral, projection or an actual ghost was picking me up and placing me on the floor. Thank you for shit.

00;16;03;25 - 00;16;29;29
Sasha Graham
My sister. The exact same thing she swears to this day mean she's, She's a counselor to an alcohol and drug rehab place. Not super woowoo, but she swears to high heaven that when she was about six years old, she flew down the stairs and she says, I know it wasn't my imagination because I remember when I got to the bottom, I was so terrified.

00;16;29;29 - 00;16;54;14
Sasha Graham
I didn't know how I was going to stop or what was going to happen. And and I just went down. You're not the first person I've heard so many people talk about levitating when they were children. And not necessarily having any, any control over it. Did it scare you or did you enjoy it? It annoyed him. He said it was annoying because he wanted to go to sleep or something.

00;16;54;14 - 00;17;02;02
Sasha Graham
Right? Oh my God, thank you. Has anybody else ever had that experience?

00;17;02;05 - 00;17;37;25
Sasha Graham
My crowdsourced ghost story events aren't for adults only. Children are welcome as long as their guardians know what they're getting themselves into. Sometimes a plucky kid will take the stage as our next diabolical storyteller. Did here in Sofia, with a little help from her mom in Bloodsucking Freaks. Now I have to bring up a very special storyteller. She needs to leave because bedtime is coming.

00;17;37;25 - 00;17;47;23
Sasha Graham
So, ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm round of applause to Sofia.

00;17;47;25 - 00;17;49;15
Sophia
Once upon a time, Henry.

00;17;49;15 - 00;17;51;27
Sophia
And. And now we're we're.

00;17;52;03 - 00;17;53;10
Sophia
In middle school.

00;17;53;16 - 00;17;54;24
Sophia
When they moved into.

00;17;54;24 - 00;17;55;10
Sophia
High school.

00;17;55;10 - 00;18;09;23
Sophia
They began to hang out with each other. They went to a restaurant, and Henry smelled something at the at the bar that made his eyes turn red and his fangs got really sharp because the cook cut himself for cutting food. Then Henry saw a group.

00;18;09;23 - 00;18;12;12
Sophia
Of people in the corner, so he pounced on them and sucked.

00;18;12;12 - 00;18;12;27
Sophia
Their blood.

00;18;13;04 - 00;18;17;00
Mom
Sucked their blood.

00;18;17;03 - 00;18;18;10
Sophia
And I got scared.

00;18;18;10 - 00;18;20;17
Sophia
And tired and tried.

00;18;20;17 - 00;18;21;05
Sophia
To try.

00;18;21;05 - 00;18;22;06
Sophia
To run away.

00;18;22;06 - 00;18;26;04
Sophia
But she was too slow, and Henry pounced on her and said her blood.

00;18;26;06 - 00;18;31;19
Sophia
She sucked her blood. Can you believe it? Oh my goodness. All of.

00;18;31;19 - 00;18;35;10
Sophia
The waiters at the table began screaming and tried to run away.

00;18;35;10 - 00;18;40;01
Sophia
From Henry, but she pounced on them and sucked their their blood.

00;18;40;01 - 00;18;56;01
Sophia
Oh, And no one survived. Oh.

00;18;56;03 - 00;19;33;12
Sasha Graham
Thank you. Sophia, what a fun family you've got. So I don't know about you, but the only thing scarier to me than a child is a full fledged adult pretending to be a kid. Not going to lie, this last story teller freaked me out. She claimed not to pretend, but to actually channel her story. Her take is a touch of Disney princess, a bit of fairy tale, and a whole lot of freaky.

00;19;33;15 - 00;19;48;22
Sasha Graham
Which is exactly why she belongs on the ghost story stage. Now here's Keira with help. There's a frog in my throat.

00;19;48;24 - 00;19;52;11
Sasha Graham
This is everyone. This is Keira. Nice.

00;19;52;14 - 00;20;18;03
Keria
And this is your drink. And I will be drinking. All right. Hi. Good evening. This is my first time doing this, so I'm exceptionally nervous, so I may tremble my words a little bit, but can I move? I'm just going to, Because I'm a little high. All right? So I'm going to tell a story and it's not going to be me.

00;20;18;05 - 00;20;42;17
Keria
It's going to be Jasmine. All right. Hi, I'm Jasmine. This is so cool. I don't get to come out very often, especially during the day. Nighttime is really my favorite time. Okay. You guys want a story, right? Okay. Okay. Okay, okay. Oh, once upon a time.

00;20;42;19 - 00;20;47;18
Unknown
There's no, I.

00;20;47;20 - 00;21;00;28
Keria
Don't be silly. There's plenty of time. Anyway, there was a little girl with a dream to change the world. Oh.

00;21;01;00 - 00;21;27;24
Keria
This is me really quick. Every night this dream would get more and more pretty. And every night she would wish to sleep longer and longer. This place was so perfect. It always started in an open field of dandelions at the edge of a forest, with the weeping willow. They looked just like they wanted to hug her, so she ran as fast as she could, hoping her raising her wouldn't stir her up.

00;21;27;27 - 00;22;14;10
Alejandro
Suddenly she was wrapped in darkness. But before she could panic, she saw a bright yellow light in the distance. She kept running and running somehow, never running out of breath. She hears something. The girl thought she was waking up, so she. She ran faster. More. The girl burst through clearing, and she's a gold pond with a little girl toad at the edge with a clap that wasn't working with a clap.

00;22;14;12 - 00;22;38;05
Keria
The trees shut behind her, leaving her one way out, completely shut off. The forest comes alive, the trees move, pushing her in closer and closer to the pond. The pond barely touches the tip of her toe, leaps up and crashes over her like a wave. The girl tumbles in it like a loose piece in a snow globe.

00;22;38;07 - 00;23;05;17
Keria
She can't tell up from down left, from right. She's struggling to hold her breath tight. Trying, fighting to break through the surface. Jump when she's about to blow everything out of her lungs. The toad leaps on to the surface. The water pulls back from her face, the toad waiting ever so patiently smiles. It sucks all but a fragment of her life.

00;23;05;19 - 00;23;22;01
Alejandro
So you see, the girl was chosen by one of your many gods to bring about the end of you all. But she just wasn't getting it done.

00;23;22;04 - 00;23;28;08
Unknown
What's that? Her silly girl.

00;23;28;09 - 00;23;49;15
Alejandro
She wasted your time, and now she wants more. Oh. Well, I'll take it from here. Make sure you all get plenty of sleep.

00;23;49;17 - 00;24;20;08
Sasha Graham
Do you think I should have ended episode 21 with Kira's story? Something about it really creeps me out. So I'm going to focus on the moon and all the wild shadows spiraling across the snow. Instead, it looks like a gothic fairy tale out there. I suppose I might be a proverbial Rapunzel up here in the fire tower, except I'm not going to let down my hair for anyone.

00;24;20;10 - 00;24;53;22
Sasha Graham
I'll help myself down when I'm good and ready. So if you enjoy creepy forest dancing shadows and fairy tale tropes, you might just love a divinatory deck I created called the Darkwood Tarot. It is the perfect tool for examining your shadow side so if you want to be the change you wish to see in the world, and I hope you do, the Darkwood Tarot might just be the perfect tool for you.

00;24;53;24 - 00;25;23;21
Sasha Graham
Because we heal the world when we heal ourselves. And your light shines brightest when it illuminates the dark. The Dark Wood Tarot is available at bookshops everywhere or through my website. Sasha graham.com. Do you have an interesting or uncanny ghost story? I'd love to hear it. Maybe have you on the show. So drop me a line at Sasha graham.com and put ghost stories in the subject.

00;25;23;24 - 01;04;03;14
Sasha Graham
I'm Sasha Graham signing off and watch NY Western Catskill radio in France. Hello New York on 93.6 FM. Stay spooky, stay cozy and don't be afraid of the dark.