A Curious City Halloween: Scary stories from spooked Chicagoans

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Investigation, Chicago, Radio, Arts, Society & Culture, Public, Education, Curious, City

4.6 • 661 Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Three stories from Chicagoans who endured a terrifying experience that they couldn’t explain, couldn’t get over, or couldn’t escape. Karen Holt tells the story of her haunted childhood home on Chicago’s Southeast Side. Was her house simply saturated with “residual energy”? Or was the ghost of a lost boy wandering the halls? Rachel Shuki tells the story of the haunted, now-closed school she taught at on Chicago’s West Side. A tragic disaster from the past could be the reason behind unexplained occurrences in the building. Ben Astrachan and Jackson Zinn-Rowthorn tell the story of their Northwest Side apartment complex, the ritual site they found in the basement, and the friend that messed with it. Have they disturbed a spiritual realm they aren’t equipped to handle? Get cozy, dim the lights and press play.

Transcript

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0:00.0	What's up, Chicago? I'm Aaron Allen.
0:02.0	And this is Curious City.
0:06.0	Moolah!
0:08.0	Over the years, we've been collecting spooky stories from you, our beloved listeners,
0:18.0	about unexplainable occurrences in and around Chicago.
0:23.6	Stories of spirits, hauntings, curious encounters.
0:32.6	Today we gather around the campfire to bring you three of those stories.
0:37.7	From Chicagoans who had an experience they just cannot get over, or get rid of.
0:45.5	We'll take you across the city to a lost little boy on the southeast side,
0:50.6	then to a tragedy at a school on the west side. And finally, to the northwest side.
0:57.0	A cautionary tale of poking your nose in a spiritual world where you do not belong.
1:08.0	When you imagine what your creepy basement looks like, not in your wildest dreams, do you imagine that there will actually be pentagrams and ritual symbols and evidence of animal sacrifice?
1:24.7	Each of these stories are true, as remembered by the storytellers.
1:30.3	So gather around, dim the lights, and turn off your flashlight if you dare. Karen Holt was a freshman in high school when her parents bought a house on the southeast side neighborhood of Chicago.
1:56.4	The year was 2006. I remember moving in and everything seemed normal,
2:03.6	but then once you were living there for maybe about,
2:06.6	I don't know, a month, two months,
2:09.6	we started hearing what sounded like kids or a child
2:15.6	running back and forth between my brother's room and my bedroom.
2:20.3	One of those regular bungalows, Chicago bungalows, and so our bedrooms were upstairs. And at first we didn't think much about it. We actually thought, oh, you know, maybe there's
2:38.0	some leftover energy from the people who were living here because they did have a lot of kids.
2:43.0	So we were just thinking, it's probably just residual energy.
	...

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