{"id":56,"date":"2026-03-30T15:12:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T15:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scarystorytime.com\/blog\/?p=56"},"modified":"2026-03-30T15:12:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T15:12:15","slug":"episode-6-ghosts-of-the-livermore-asylum-and-other-terrifying-tales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scarystorytime.com\/blog\/episode-6-ghosts-of-the-livermore-asylum-and-other-terrifying-tales.html","title":{"rendered":"Episode 6: Ghosts of the Livermore Asylum and Other Terrifying Tales"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>2026-03-29 &#8211; Episode 4 &#8211; Ghosts of the Livermore Asylum and Other Terrifying Tales Transcript<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?episode_id=70999216&amp;theme=dark&amp;color=00d084&amp;playlist=false&amp;playlist-continuous=false&amp;chapters-image=true&amp;episode_image_position=right&amp;hide-likes=false&amp;hide-comments=false&amp;hide-sharing=false&amp;hide-logo=false&amp;hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"200px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\n<p>Intro<\/p>\n<p>Welcome to Spooky Boo\u2019s Scary Story Time. Today I have for you several spooky, scary stories about ghosts These stories are by anonymous people on the internet. If you would like to send your anonymous story in, please visit my website at www.scarystorytime.com and click on SUBMIT YOUR STORY.<\/p>\n<p>Now let\u2019s begin\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Story One<br \/>\nI was thirty years old the night the memory came back so hard it felt like I was in a different frequency. I was sitting alone in my apartment in Livermore, the rain was so heavy outside I could barely see the light across the street through the window. A half-empty bottle of whiskey sat on the coffee table, but I wasn\u2019t drunk yet. Just tired. Tired of pretending the scar on my left side didn\u2019t ache every time I turned too fast. Tired of the way my phone still lit up sometimes with old group chats from people who didn\u2019t know what really happened that summer when I was nineteen.<br \/>\nIt was back a few years ago. I was home from community college for the break, working nights at the auto parts store and lying to everyone about everything. My girlfriend Emily and I had been together since junior year of high school. She was sweet in that small-town way\u2014dark hair always smelling like vanilla shampoo, always saving me the last slice of pizza. I told her I loved her every night on the phone but always refused to get married. She hated that. Then I\u2019d hang up and text Sarah.<br \/>\nSarah was the girl who worked the register with me. Blond, loud, the kind of trouble that made you feel alive for five minutes. We\u2019d been sneaking around for three weeks. Nothing serious, I kept telling myself. Just fun. Just something to kill the boredom before I went back to school.<br \/>\nThat Friday night Emily had texted me she was having a sleepover with her friends at her parents\u2019 house. \u201cGirls only,\u201d she wrote, with a little laughing emoji. I was supposed to be at work until midnight, but I got off early and figured I\u2019d swing by, surprise her, maybe steal a kiss on the porch before heading to Sarah\u2019s place. The house was dark except for the basement window. A weird orange glow flickered behind the curtains. I let myself in with the key Emily\u2019s mom had given me months ago and crept down the stairs.<br \/>\nThe basement smelled like melted wax and something metallic, like blood on a hot skillet. Candles\u2014dozens of them\u2014were everywhere: on the coffee table, the TV stand, the shelves of board games. Their flames danced like they were alive and nervous. Emily and three of her friends sat cross-legged on the carpet around the old Ouija board her grandma had left behind. Their fingers rested lightly on the planchette, a cheap plastic heart that looked ridiculous in the candlelight.<br \/>\nI almost laughed. Almost. Then I saw Emily\u2019s face.<br \/>\nHer head was tilted back, eyes rolled so far up that only the whites showed. The veins in her neck stood out like cords. Her mouth hung open a little, breath coming in short, wet gasps. The other girls were whispering, giggling at first, but their voices had gone thin.<br \/>\n\u201cEmily?\u201d I said.<br \/>\nHer head snapped forward so fast I heard her neck pop. Those blank white eyes found me instantly, like she\u2019d been waiting. The planchette shot across the board and stopped dead on the word YES.<br \/>\n\u201cYou\u2019re going to be in an accident tomorrow,\u201d she said. Her voice wasn\u2019t hers. It was deeper, flat, like it came from the bottom of a well. \u201cWhen you\u2019re taking home the girl you\u2019re cheating on me with.\u201d<br \/>\nThe room went still. The candles didn\u2019t flicker\u2014they just died. Every single one of them snuffed out at once, like someone had pinched them between invisible fingers. Wax smoke curled up in the sudden dark. The girls screamed. One of them knocked over a candle holder trying to get up. They scrambled for the stairs, shoving past me, voices cracking with panic. I stood there frozen, heart hammering so hard I could feel it in my teeth.<br \/>\nEmily\u2019s body folded like someone cut her strings. She collapsed sideways onto the carpet, eyes fluttering shut. I dropped to my knees and scooped her up. She weighed nothing. Her skin was cold and clammy, like she\u2019d been dead for hours and was just now pretending to be alive again. I carried her upstairs, laid her on the couch in the living room, and pulled a blanket over her. Her parents were out at some dinner party; I didn\u2019t call them. I just sat on the edge of the couch for ten minutes watching her breathe until the color came back into her cheeks. Then I left. I didn\u2019t even lock the door behind me.<br \/>\nI drove home shaking. The whole way I kept telling myself it was a prank. Emily had heard something about Sarah. Or one of the girls had seen us. They\u2019d staged the whole thing to scare me straight. That had to be it. Ouija boards don\u2019t work. They\u2019re cardboard and plastic and teenage boredom.<br \/>\nThe next morning I woke up to a text from Emily. \u201cLast night was so fun! Sorry if I passed out early lol. Come over later?\u201d No mention of the basement. No mention of cheating. No mention of anything. I felt this sick wave of relief roll through me. Whatever game they\u2019d been playing, it hadn\u2019t stuck. She didn\u2019t remember. I could still fix this. I could break things off with Sarah quietly, be a better boyfriend, and never speak of last night again.<br \/>\nI picked Sarah up at her apartment around six. She was wearing cutoff shorts and a tank top, laughing about something stupid from work. I told her I was taking her home after we grabbed food. She leaned over and kissed my neck while I drove. I felt dirty and electric at the same time. We were three blocks from her place when the truck ran the red light.<br \/>\nI remember the sound more than anything\u2014the wet crunch of metal folding like paper. The world spun. Glass exploded across my lap. Sarah screamed once, high and short, and then she was quiet. The truck had slammed into the passenger side at forty miles an hour. The door caved in so deep it pinned her against me. I blacked out for a second, maybe two.<br \/>\nWhen I came to, sirens were already wailing. Blood was everywhere\u2014mine, hers, I couldn\u2019t tell. My left leg was shattered. Something sharp had sliced through my side, nicking a kidney. Sarah\u2019s head lolled against my shoulder at an angle that wasn\u2019t human. Her eyes were open, but she wasn\u2019t seeing anything anymore.<br \/>\nThey cut me out of the car with the Jaws of Life. I spent six months in rehab learning how to walk again. Physical therapy every day, nightmares every night. Emily came to visit twice. The first time she held my hand and cried and told me how sorry she was about Sarah, how awful it was that I\u2019d lost a \u201cfriend\u201d in the crash. The second time she brought flowers and sat on the edge of my hospital bed and asked why Sarah\u2019s lipstick had been on my collar when they pulled us out.<br \/>\nShe\u2019d found out. Of course she had. The cops, the paramedics, the gossip in our shitty little town\u2014everyone knew. Emily looked at me with the same flat, empty eyes she\u2019d had in the basement and said, \u201cI hope it was worth it,\u201d then walked out. That was the last time I ever spoke to her.<br \/>\nI\u2019m thirty now. The scar on my side still pulls when the weather turns. Sometimes, late at night, I catch myself staring at the wall like I\u2019m waiting for candles to light themselves. I never touch Ouija boards. I don\u2019t even play with coasters if they\u2019re shaped like hearts. I tell myself it was coincidence. A bored teenager with a dramatic flair, a truck driver who\u2019d had one too many.<br \/>\nBut some nights, when the rain sounds exactly like it did on that basement window, I hear her voice again\u2014deep, certain, coming from somewhere that isn\u2019t her.<br \/>\n\u201cYou\u2019re going to be in an accident tomorrow.\u201d<br \/>\nI wonder if she ever remembered. I wonder if she\u2019s out there somewhere, older, living a normal life, or if part of her is still down in that basement with her eyes rolled back, waiting for the next idiot who thinks he can get away with something.<br \/>\nI pour another drink and watch the rain. The bottle\u2019s almost empty. Outside, a pair of headlights sweeps across the wet street, slow and careful. For a second I think it\u2019s the same truck, circling back after all these years. Then it turns the corner and disappears.<br \/>\nI close my eyes. I don\u2019t sleep much anymore. But when I do, I dream of candles going out all at once, and hear a plastic heart sliding across the board to spell out the only word that ever mattered.<br \/>\nYES.<\/p>\n<p>Story Two<br \/>\nMarara Tale by HoFo<\/p>\n<p>The Marara \u2014<br \/>\nThey sent us fifteen hundred miles from home. Into an ocean that forgets men.<br \/>\nWe were the crew of the Sassafras \u2014 a weathered cutter, not built for legends. But dragged into one all the same.<br \/>\nAnd there she was.<br \/>\nThe Marara.<br \/>\nNot sailing. Not sinking. Just waiting.<br \/>\nShe rose and fell with the swell \u2014 but not like a living ship. She lagged, as if the sea itself rejected her weight. Her mast was snapped. Her rigging hung like the ribs of something picked clean. No flag. No voice. No plea for help.<br \/>\nOnly silence. The kind that dares you to break it.<br \/>\nWe had been at sea too long. Provisions low. Tempers shorter. And God help us \u2014 we were out of cigarettes. You don\u2019t know desperation until you\u2019ve watched grown men \u2014 Coast Guardsmen \u2014 tearing open emergency rations not for food. For smokes. Survival kit, they called it. Turns out survival meant nicotine.<br \/>\nWe came alongside that ghost of a vessel, and even the wind stepped back. No birds circled her. No waves slapped her hull. The ocean itself seemed to say: not this one.<br \/>\n\u201cBoard her.\u201d<br \/>\nOf course we did. Because that\u2019s what men do \u2014 step forward even when something ancient in our bones says don\u2019t.<br \/>\nThe hatch fought us. Swollen, sealed, like it didn\u2019t want to be opened again. When it gave, the breath that escaped was wrong. Not rot. Not death. Something older. Something with the smell of a clock that had simply stopped.<br \/>\nInside, time had stopped mid-thought. A cup left behind. Charts abandoned. A life interrupted. No storm chaos. No struggle. Just absence.<br \/>\nThen the engine room.<br \/>\nWe went down with lights cutting through the dark \u2014 and the dark did not retreat. It clung.<br \/>\nThen we heard it. Before we saw anything. A dry, papery rustling \u2014 everywhere at once. The flashlight beam caught the walls moving. Not the ship. The walls. Thousands of them. Cockroaches, layered so thick the metal beneath had disappeared. They covered the pipes, the gauges, the floor. They covered him.<br \/>\nAnd there we found him. Or what remained.<br \/>\nNot a man anymore. Just bone, wrapped in the memory of one \u2014 and a living coat of things that had made him their home. Folded into that space like he had crawled there to escape. We didn\u2019t linger to ask from what.<br \/>\nNobody spoke. Nobody needed to.<br \/>\nAs we backed out the skull rolled across the deck as the sea swell was changing. We secured the hatch. Left everything exactly as we found it \u2014 because some things don\u2019t need to be disturbed twice.<br \/>\nBack on deck, the air felt heavier. Like we had taken something with us. Or something had noticed us.<br \/>\nThe systems told a strange story. Fuel still in her veins. Batteries dead as the man below. A ship that could have lived. But didn\u2019t.<br \/>\n\u201cTow her,\u201d someone said. No heroics. We would drag this corpse across the Pacific and be done with it.<br \/>\nBut the sea was not done with us.<br \/>\nBy day three, she was following too well. A dead boat should wander, yaw, fight the line. Not the Marara. She tracked us straight and true \u2014 like she wanted to come home.<br \/>\nAt night the towline sang. A low, strained hum, like a voice stretched across miles of black water. Some men saw a shadow cross her deck where no one stood. A hatch opening \u2014 slowly, patiently \u2014 on its own.<br \/>\nWe told ourselves it was exhaustion. Hunger. Nicotine withdrawal.<br \/>\nWe dug back into the emergency kits and found a few crushed smokes tucked between flares and rations. We lit them like kings. And for a moment, we felt human again.<br \/>\nBut every time we looked back, she was there. Closer than before.<br \/>\nWhen we finally reached Honolulu, she looked smaller. Quieter. Like whatever had filled her had thinned out. Or spread.<br \/>\nWe handed her over. Filed reports. Checked boxes. We did our duty.<br \/>\nBut some of us never forgot the feeling \u2014 out there in that endless blue grave \u2014 that we had not found a drifting vessel.<br \/>\nWe had interrupted something. Something patient. Something that had waited six months in silence and did not mind waiting longer.<br \/>\nThe men who were there \u2014 the ones who still wake up staring into the dark \u2014 they\u2019ll tell you the truth. Not loudly. Not proudly. Quietly. Like a confession.<br \/>\nThe Marara wasn\u2019t trying to be rescued.<br \/>\nShe was trying to come back.<\/p>\n<p>Story number 3<br \/>\nAn Anonymous Story in Livermore<\/p>\n<p>I still get chills thinking about that night in December, back when we were young and reckless enough to chase a party across the Bay. My name is Elena, and this happened years ago, but the memory clings to me like that fog that swallowed us whole.<br \/>\nWe\u2019d driven over from San Francisco\u2014me, me, my roommate Sarah, her boyfriend Mike, and our friend Josh\u2014in my beat-up old Honda. Someone had texted Sarah about a massive house party off L Street and College Avenue in Livermore. \u201cYou can\u2019t miss it,\u201d the message said. \u201cBig crowd, college kids everywhere.\u201d We had the general area but no exact address, so we figured we\u2019d just cruise around until we spotted the lights and the cars.<br \/>\nIt was a cold, damp night, typical for the month, and as we turned onto L Street, the fog rolled in thick and sudden, like someone had dropped a heavy gray blanket over the whole town. We laughed at first, blasting music and squinting through the windshield, teasing each other about getting lost on the way to a party. \u201cClassic Livermore,\u201d Mike joked. But the fog kept getting denser, swallowing streetlights and houses until we could barely see ten feet ahead.<br \/>\nWe drove slowly, tires hissing on the wet pavement, searching for any sign of life\u2014red solo cups on lawns, thumping bass, clusters of people our age. But there was othing. The streets felt wrong, twisting in ways I didn\u2019t remember from the map. Then, without warning, the fog lifted as quickly as it had come in.<br \/>\nEverything had changed.<br \/>\nThe modern houses, the apartment complexes, the cars we\u2019d passed earlier\u2014they were gone. In their place stood wide, tree-lined streets with big, boxy automobiles from another era: chrome-heavy Fords and Chevrolets, tail fins gleaming under old-fashioned streetlamps. The buildings looked decades older, like something out of a black-and-white photograph. We stared in stunned silence as I eased the car to the curb and killed the engine.<br \/>\n\u201cWhat the hell?\u201d Sarah whispered.<br \/>\nUp ahead, dominating the end of the block, was this enormous building that looked like a giant Southern plantation house transplanted to California\u2014white columns, wide verandas, sprawling wings that seemed to go on forever. Tall palm trees lined the long driveway leading up to it, their fronds swaying gently in a breeze that hadn\u2019t been there a minute ago.<br \/>\nIn the distance, faint but unmistakable, we heard a woman crying. Soft, heartbroken sobs that echoed through the still night air. We couldn\u2019t pinpoint where it was coming from\u2014it seemed to drift from everywhere and nowhere at once.<br \/>\nCuriosity got the better of us. We climbed out of the car, our breath fogging in the suddenly sharper cold, and started walking up the palm-lined pathway toward the building. The air grew icy with every step, biting through our jackets. The crying grew louder, more desperate.<br \/>\nThen the wind picked up\u2014sharp, whipping gusts that felt like cold fingers dragging across our skin. We huddled together, arms linked, trying to stay warm and steady. That\u2019s when the force hit us: an invisible pull, strong and insistent, dragging us forward along the path. We stumbled toward the building, our hearts hammering.<br \/>\nAs we got closer, we saw them\u2014people being wheeled along the wide porches and pathways in old-fashioned wheelchairs. Dozens of them. Most looked barely alive: shriveled, dried-up bodies with sunken eyes and skin stretched tight over bones like living skeletons. They stared blankly ahead, mouths slack and open.<br \/>\nThe nurses pushing the chairs turned toward us in unison. They smiled\u2014wide, unnatural grins that revealed sharp, rotting teeth, yellowed and black at the gums. Their uniforms were crisp and white, but their eyes were hollow and dead.<br \/>\nOne of the guys\u2014Josh\u2014panicked first. \u201cScrew this!\u201d he shouted, breaking away and bolting back toward the car. Sarah and Mike followed immediately, yelling for me to run. I turned to go with them, but my foot caught on something uneven in the path. I tripped hard, scraping my palms on the cold pavement.<br \/>\nBefore I could push myself up, a ghostly hand clamped around my wrist\u2014ice-cold, impossibly strong\u2014and yanked me to my feet. I found myself staring into the decaying face of one of the nurses. Her skin was mottled gray and peeling, lips pulled back from those rotting teeth in a grotesque smile. Her breath washed over me, thick with the stench of death and decay, like an open grave.<br \/>\nI screamed, but no sound came out. The world spun, darkness rushing in at the edges of my vision. I felt myself falling&#8230;<br \/>\nThen everything shattered.<br \/>\nThe grand building, the palm trees, the wheelchairs, the nurses\u2014they all dissolved like smoke in the wind. The fog was gone. The modern streetlights flickered back on. The 1950s cars vanished, replaced by the familiar shapes of our own time.<br \/>\nSarah and Mike were shaking me, helping me to my feet. \u201cElena! Elena, come on!\u201d Their voices sounded far away at first, then sharp and real.<br \/>\nI was back on L Street in Livermore, December cold nipping at my face, my car parked exactly where we\u2019d left it. No plantation house. No crying woman. No rotting smiles.<br \/>\nWe didn\u2019t say much on the drive back to San Francisco. Josh kept glancing in the rearview mirror like he expected something to follow us. Sarah held my hand the whole way, her fingers were trembling.<br \/>\nWe never went back to Livermore. Not once. Even now, years later, if someone mentions the name, I feel that cold wind on my skin and smell death on the breath of something that should never have been there.<br \/>\nWhatever we drove into that night\u2026 it never really let us go.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please make a comment and tell your friends on just about any social media. You can find me at spookybooscarystorytime or 707SPOOKYB. Please remember that you can always turn in your own stories. Visit the website at www.scarystorytime.com and use the submission form. I can\u2019t wait to tell yours!<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s all of tonight. I\u2019ll see you in your nightmares!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2026-03-29 &#8211; Episode 4 &#8211; Ghosts of the Livermore Asylum and Other Terrifying Tales Transcript Intro Welcome to Spooky Boo\u2019s Scary Story Time. Today I have for you several spooky, scary stories about ghosts These stories are by anonymous people on the internet. If you would like to send your anonymous story in, please visit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,5,8,7,13,6],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podcast-episode","tag-demons","tag-ghosts","tag-hauntings","tag-paranormal","tag-ships","tag-unknown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scarystorytime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scarystorytime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scarystorytime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scarystorytime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scarystorytime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scarystorytime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57,"href":"https:\/\/www.scarystorytime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions\/57"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scarystorytime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scarystorytime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scarystorytime.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}