Transcript of recorded audio
“My um, psychiatrist told me this one, cuz he went to UCSC. Um, he told me that Stevenson and Cowle, the college that I go to, that they’re said to be incredibly, deeply haunted. And he told me that story about the jogger getting killed by the cougar. (reference to an earlier conversation) And he heavily implied that like her spirit is haunting the woods. And then he told me to count the windows of the, um, like some of the dorms. And count the doors on the inside. And he implied that some of them don’t match up, so that there are sealed off rooms within Cowle Stevenson that like nobody is suppose to go into, and honestly with the amount of asbestos at my school, I kind of believe it.”

Background
This story is part of a set of voice recordings that a friend sent to me, pertaining mostly to tales at UCSC (University of Santa Cruz). As stated in the tape, they gained this story specifically from their psychiatrist, who also went to the school. They also likely felt attached to this piece as they are an avid fan of ghost stories, and UCSC has a lot of them.

Context
As stated above, this story was given to me as part of a voice recording. The enthusiasm for the story was palpable, even just from the audio. I tried to capture everything that was said through the transcript, although the speaker does fumble with speech a bit sometimes.

Thoughts
What’s interesting is that there is an element of performance for this legend, but this performance is simply acting as proof. By counting all the windows and doors, nothing good or bad is going to happen. It’s just given out as a form of proof or justification for the legend. Also, the dark joke at the end with asbestos is something I found interesting. Outside of being deliciously dark, it also brings in a real world element of death and sickness to this ghost tale.