So tonight, I have a great story to tell you.
It sort of reminds me of when I was a kid.
I used to go camping with my family once a year out in Western Massachusetts and we would sit around a campfire just like this and my parents would tell me and my sisters ghost stories.
And it was sort of unclear how true the stories really were, but they were always terrifying.
And this story that I'm going to share with you tonight is from Japan, and it happened about 50 years ago.
And over the last 50 years it's been shared many, many times and there are many versions of the story, so it's sort of up to you to figure out how much you really believe is true here.
But it is a genuinely frightening story.
Also, according to some versions of the story, once you hear it, you only have three days left to live, unless you follow really specific instructions, which I'll give you at the end.
But before we get into tonight's campfire story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place, because that's all we do, and we upload two three, even four times every week.
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OK, let's get into tonight's story.
Late on a winter night in the 1970s, a middle-aged train driver named Takashi Ito, along with his assistant, were sitting in the front seat of a small cargo train that was hurtling along the tracks in Hokkaido, Japan.
So this was just a two-car train.
There was a cargo train in back, and then there was the front train that you know.
Takashi and his assistant were in.
There were no passengers behind them.
So it's just these two.
And the area that they were driving through was this very desolate area.
And basically outside.
If they looked out their windshield, all they would have seen was just basically snow and ice and just pitch black darkness and the train's headlights pointing straight ahead.
That would have been all they could see was whatever was in the headlights.
And as they were driving along, you know they had shut all the windows to the car that they were in, but it was so cold outside and the wind was whipping and they're you know they're driving right into the wind that some of the cold air was coming in one of the windows.
And you know, it's freezing cold out there.
It was starting to get really cold inside the cabin.
And so, you know, both men are starting to shiver.
And so at some point, Takashi turns to his assistant and he just tells him to hey, go ahead and open up the heating vent on the floor.
So there was just this little vent that you could open up.
That would basically expose the engine to the main cabin.
And so some heat would come up from the engine, but it would get really hot really quickly.
And so you couldn't do it for very long, but it was getting pretty cold.
So the situation called for it.
And so Takashi sort of had one eye half focused out the windshield, sort of roughly following along with the direction they were going.
And then the rest of his attention was just on his assistant, who was doing this mundane task of crouching down and sliding open this vent here.
And at some point, the assistant managed to open up the heating box.
And right as he did, something caught Takashi's eye outside of the train.
Now, remember, it's the middle of the night.
It's the dead of winter.
There's really nothing out there.
And even though, of course, it's Takashi's job to pay attention to what's out in front of them, There's no expectation he's going to see anything on the tracks at all until he gets to the next stop, which was quite a ways away.
And so the fact that anything caught his attention was alarming.
And he turns and he looks out the windshield and he can't believe what he sees.
Right in the middle of the tracks, just several dozen yards ahead of the speeding train, is a woman.
She's just standing in the middle of the tracks looking up at the train and doesn't even appear to be trying to move.
But she clearly sees the train barreling down on her.
She looks terrified.
And Takashi and the assistant, they look at each other.
They start trying to get the train to stop, but there's no way.
The train's going way too fast.
It's way too heavy.
And so it's like they throw the brakes on.
They're trying to stop, but there's nothing they can do.
And this woman, she's just not moving.
And then eventually the train smashes into her and, like Takashi and the assistant are like oh my God, I can't believe it.
And the train, it eventually comes to a grinding stop, you know, several hundred yards away.
And then finally, when it's actually stopped, it's like Takashi and the assistant they know what's happened.
They've just killed someone.
I mean, it's clearly an accident, but the shock of this was unbelievable.
And so finally Takashi, he looks at the assistant and he's like we have to go out and see if she's OK.
I mean, they both knew there was no chance.
Like, there's no chance she's alive after being hit by the train.
Out they go.
And sort of apprehensively, they began walking in the snow towards the back of the train.
Now, neither of them had a lighting source.
They didn't have a flashlight or anything like that.
And they're going towards the back of the train.
So they don't have the advantage of the headlights shining where they need to go.
All they have are the tail lights of the train, which are now flashing red.
And so, as they're walking through, the snow and the wind is whipping and it's pitch black out there and, of course, these two men, they're in shock about what they've just seen.
They can't believe, like, what was she doing out here?
Like, what happened?
They're walking and all they're seeing out in front of them is darkness and the occasional, you know, flash of red light that sort of roughly illuminated the snow out beyond the train, and then back to darkness.
And they know somewhere out there behind the train is this woman who almost certainly is dead.
So it means that there's like a dead body out there.
And so, Takashi and the assistant, they start making their way back towards the back of the cargo train.
And then they begin walking beyond where the train was, basically along the tracks they had just covered.
And, sure enough, up ahead, periodically illuminated by these red lights, was this mound on the tracks.
It looked very much like a body.
And sure enough, as Takashi got closer, he realized it was.
It was the woman.
And almost immediately, he could tell, one, she was definitely dead.
And in some ways, he kind of hoped maybe there was some miracle that she had survived somehow.
Maybe. but definitely confirmed that she's dead.
And the second thing was he could sort of see what happened here.
Her foot appeared to be wedged in the tracks.
She must have been stuck in the tracks.
And even though it looked like she wasn't trying to move, it might've been because she literally couldn't.
And so she was trapped and we hit her and we killed her.
But that wasn't all.
I mean, this scene was horrible.
I mean, her body was destroyed.
But more than that, part of her body was missing.
All they saw on the tracks were actually just her legs.
It was just her lower half.
And she had these lace-up dance shoes that would have been very difficult to take off.
The dance shoes sort of gave away that this was the woman.
They look like feminine legs, feminine feet.
But again, her upper half is just gone.
And so Takashi and the assistant, they sort of look around in the general vicinity to see if her upper half is nearby.
And again all they have is this periodic red flashing light across the snow, and it's dark, it's cold, the wind is whipping.
And sure enough.
Just a little ways off the tracks they see another sort of heap on the ground and there's nothing else out here.
So this has got to be the woman's upper body.
And so they cross over the tracks, they leave behind the lower half and they see there's a trail of blood across the snow.
And when they get to this second mound, it is this woman's upper body.
But I mean the scene.
It would have been horrible for anyone to find this.
But it was especially so because as they walked up to this woman's clearly you know dead upper half, she was looking right at them.
I mean, her arms were outstretched and her eyes were open and her torso.
It's positioned in such a way that she was almost like staring at them.
And they walk up to her and her face.
Takashi would say that it was almost like she was looking at him with an accusatory look, like she was mad at him for not having stopped the train.
Couldn't you see I was trapped on the train?
Like that's what Takashi's thinking.
Like this dead woman is mad at me.
She looks like she's furious with me.
And so it was very hard, but they continued walking towards her to just really confirm that she's definitely dead.
This is not like a second person here, but no, it was clearly just the upper half of this woman and she was definitely dead.
And despite the very unsettling nature of the way her body was positioned Ultimately, Takashi and the assistant you know just turned around and began walking back towards the train.
Now, this is 1970s Japan.
They don't have cell phones.
In fact, they didn't even have radios.
Like, they didn't have a good way to get in touch with anyone.
They clearly knew they needed to tell authorities what happened here, but realistically the only way to do that was to go to the train and then one of them would have to basically walk to the nearest civilization and get help that way, while the other person stayed with the train and also with the woman.
And so the two of them, they get back to the train.
They get inside of that front car, inside of the enclosed warm space, and they shut the doors.
And they sort of just look at each other like OK, this is obviously horrible, but what are we going to do?
And Takashi, being the more senior of the two, said, well, look, I'll stay here with the train.
You, the assistant, go out and get help.
I'll be here when you come back.
And so the assistant.
As much as it was sort of daunting to have to walk off into the darkness and the freezing cold, it almost was like a relief to get away from the scene.
I mean, this was truly horrific.
And so Takashi watched as the assistant bundled up in his jacket, and he headed out the side of the car door and then off into the darkness he went.
And then Takashi was left alone inside of the train with this woman's body behind them on the tracks.
And so shortly after the assistant had gone Takashi, you know, he's just sitting inside of this unmoving train car.
And remember, they had that heating vent open.
And even though the train was not moving, there was still quite a bit of heat that was coming up into the cabin.
And so it was actually getting quite toasty inside of this train car.
And Takashi is literally just not moving.
He's just sitting there waiting, you know, just trying not to let his mind wander to this horrible thing that's happened behind him.
And he found himself actually feeling kind of tired.
I mean, he had had a really long day.
I mean, he'd been up for nearly 24 hours at this point.
And so suddenly he was like man.
Maybe I ought to just lay down and close my eyes for a minute, because obviously when they come back here they'll wake me up like no problem.
And so Takashi did eventually get down on the ground right next to that vent.
So he was really getting the maximum amount of heat and he curled up and he closed his eyes.
But pretty much immediately once Takashi closed his eyes and effectively attempted to sleep, all he could see in his mind was that woman standing on the tracks looking up at him before she was struck by the train.
And then he would try to force himself not to think about that, telling himself it really was an accident.
He could not have stopped the train.
And also, they rounded a corner before they saw her.
It wasn't like they could have seen her if they hadn't been fiddling around with the heating vent beforehand.
They wouldn't have seen her.
They had to turn that corner, and then they saw her.
There was no way to avoid this.
This was an accident.
But it's like he couldn't get that image of the woman out of his mind.
And then, if he managed not to think about her on the tracks, his mind would then jump to seeing her, upper half positioned on the snow with her eyes still open, looking at him with this in his mind, this sort of accusatory look on her face.
And so he can't sleep.
But like he's so exhausted from the day and he's just so worn out, it's so traumatic that eventually, after you know 10 minutes or so, he did begin to feel himself, sort of allowing himself to drift off to sleep.
Like he did have these horrible thoughts, but he felt himself getting closer to finally being able to get a little bit of sleep.
Right at that point, right as he's teetering on actually sleeping, he hears something outside.
Now remember, it's late at night, the wind is whipping, you know, it's the middle of winter.
And so there had been this ongoing ambiance of the howling wind and, like nighttime, winter sounds outside.
There are animals out there.
I mean, there's lots of noises going on here.
But whatever the sound was, he just couldn't quite place it.
It almost sounded like metallic, like something was scraping against something else, like maybe two pieces of metal were grinding together, like .
But again, he couldn't quite tell what it was, how far away it was, but it really stood out right away amongst all the other noises he was hearing.
And so he's laying there on the ground, and he's listening to the sound.
He can't quite place how close or far away it is.
For all he knows.
It could be way off in the distance, or it could be right in the cargo train behind him.
And so as he hears the sound, which is sort of periodic, he tells himself like oh, maybe it's my assistant.
Maybe he's back with help.
Maybe he found someone really quickly, because it's only been like 10 minutes since he left.
But then he's thinking, there's no way.
I know we're sort of in the middle of nowhere.
We're in this really desolate part of Japan.
There's no way he would have just magically found help that quickly.
So it can't be my assistant, unless maybe he's turned around for some reason.
But why would he do that?
And so he's sort of picturing like, what were the reasons that it could be the assistant?
And as he's doing that, the sound is getting louder and it's definitely getting closer.
And the sound is again.
It's like a, It's like a grinding sort of like movement, almost like something's coming towards him.
And he can tell now that the sound, whatever it is, is definitely near like the cargo train.
Like it's right behind where he is.
And the way he's laying his head is towards the front of the train, so his feet are close to the door, the door that led out into the open and then would eventually lead you to the cargo train behind.
And so he's starting to get sort of apprehensive, like, what is that?
Is it like an animal?
Could it be the wind?
Is it somehow whipping against the train in some way that it's making this strange sound?
And all the while, this grinding rhythmic sound is getting louder and louder and faster and faster.
And then finally, as the sound is so loud that it's practically echoing inside of this room, he's in, he hears the door to where he is slide open.
And he turns and he looks to see what is coming into the train.
And when he sees what it is, he starts to scream.
About an hour later, Takashi's assistant, who had managed to go get help, was in the backseat of a police cruiser, along with two police officers who were driving in the direction of this train.
There was actually a road that kind of cut out into this sort of desolate area that overlooked the train tracks.
And sure enough, they pulled into this sort of carve out on the road and the assistant pointed, and there it was.
There was the train sort of off in the distance, sort of walking distance from where the car was.
And so the cops, they parked.
And all three of them, they get out and the police officers, they had flashlights.
And so it was much easier to navigate the sort of barren terrain here.
And they walked away from the car down to the train.
Now, remember, obviously there has been a tragedy here.
You know, this woman was struck by the train and of course the police know this by this point and the assistant knows that's what they're walking up to.
You know, the scene of this woman being killed.
But there really wasn't anything, you know, sort of darker than that.
Like this was a terrible accident, but it's sort of like, we just got to follow protocol now.
We get to go down there.
We got to figure out what happened and sort of, follow process, if you will.
And so the three of them, they know what they're walking into, right?
They're going to meet Takashi, he's waiting in the train, and they're going to take it from there.
And so they're walking through the darkness and they're shining their lights and the assistant is behind the two police officers and they're walking up to the train.
And when they get close enough to the train, the assistant begins yelling out for Takashi to let him know, like hey, we're here.
You know we're here, like come on out.
But Takashi doesn't call back.
He doesn't come out of the train.
But again, this is not like hugely alarming.
You know the assistant's like okay, you know, maybe he's just.
Maybe he fell asleep inside of the train car.
And so the two police officers and the assistant.
They make their way over to the door that leads into the front car of the train and they slide it open and they step inside.
It's a very small space and, you know, Takashi's not in there.
And there's no sign of anything bad that's happened.
He's just not in here.
And so the assistant's like, okay, that's weird.
You know, it's sort of odd that he didn't respond to us calling for him.
He's not in here, but you know, maybe he's in the cargo train.
You know the second car, for some reason.
And so they leave the front train car and they go into the cargo train car, and Takashi's not in there either.
And so at this point, the cops are looking at the assistant like, what's going on here?
Like, where would Takashi be?
It's the middle of the night.
Like, it's just pure barren wasteland.
It's ice and snow everywhere.
Why would he leave?
And so the assistant's like, you know, maybe he left and he's with the body.
You know, maybe he was just standing with the body or something.
And so the two police officers and the assistant they begin walking towards the back of the train and then begin following the tracks towards where you know the lower half of this woman is, according to the assistant.
And so down the tracks they go and, sure enough, eventually they see up ahead the legs, the legs that are sort of still stuck in the tracks.
And as they're shining the light and they're calling out for Takashi, there's no answer and Takashi is nowhere to be found.
And so now the assistant's really getting worried.
Like it didn't make any sense.
Where could he have gone?
The only other place that made any sense was maybe over near the torso.
But the assistant knows, like of all places, that at least he would want to be, it would not be near the upper half.
I mean, that was so creepy, the way the body was positioned, the way it was staring at them.
And he knew Takashi had been really unsettled by it, so why would he go over to that?
But he told the cops like hey, shine the light sort of over there off the tracks, because the upper half of this woman, that's where she is.
Maybe he's over there.
And so they shine their lights in the direction of where the upper half was.
And there's no Takashi. and there's no upper half.
There is no torso.
The woman's torso is gone.
And where it was very clearly is this huge sort of flattened section of snow with blood everywhere, and it's like this just horrible scene, but there's no upper body.
So Takashi's gone, and this woman's body, her upper half anyways, is gone.
And so now, like, the assistant and the officers, they really don't know what to make of this.
But the first thought, at least from the assistant, was maybe a bear came through and was, you know, basically taking the woman's body to go eat it or something.
And maybe Takashi was out here and maybe he got chased off by the bear.
Or worse, maybe he got attacked by the bear.
And this sort of made sense, like, oh my God, Is there a bear nearby?
Like, do we need to go in the train just to seek safety here?
And so the police officers.
They're sort of scanning their lights around, trying to see if maybe Tekashi's nearby.
And at some point they notice there's actually boot prints that leave where the torso had been.
And they sort of took off into the night, sort of away from the train, sort of off into the distance.
Now, there didn't appear to be any bear tracks around.
But again, they're thinking that's what it could be.
But they see these boot prints, and they're like, we got to go check.
We got to see if maybe these prints will lead us to Takashi.
And so Takashi and the two officers, they begin following these tracks and as they do, they see the prints.
These boot prints get farther and farther apart, like Takashi was running, like his stride was getting longer and longer and there's blood everywhere, like this drag mark of blood all over the snow.
And they follow these prints all the way past the train, way off into the night, where they finally stop in front of this huge utility pole.
And at this point, they're looking around like, where's Takashi?
Like, where did he go?
Like, there's nothing down here.
And then at some point, they hear something above them.
And so the police officers.
With their flashlights they shine up towards the top of this utility pole where, at the top, there was this fairly large metal platform.
And as they shine their lights up, they see Takashi and he's draped over the edge of this platform, totally lifeless.
His arms are dangling down and he's got this horrible, huge wound across his stomach.
He's bled all over.
He's clearly deceased, And so they're shining their lights up at him and, like the shock of seeing Takashi is horrible.
They back up, they're like, oh my God, is there a bear here?
Did the bear somehow get up there with Takashi?
Like what's making that noise up there?
And they're shining their lights.
And at some point they hear a noise again.
And then, as their lights are aimed towards Takashi in this platform, This figure sort of emerges above Takashi, like it crawled over Takashi and it peered down at the two cops and the assistant.
And it was the woman's torso.
It's like her upper half.
She sort of looked down at them, blood's all over her, and she's sort of clutching on to Takashi.
And then in one move, she sort of thrust herself over his body and began pulling herself down the pole towards the men.
And the men, they immediately start yelling and they turn and they start running.
And, as they're running off, all they can hear behind them is chick chick chick, which is the sound of this woman dragging herself through the snow towards them.
Now, unfortunately, the assistant did not make it.
The woman caught up to him.
But the two police officers, they were able to run back to their car.
They got in and they sped off towards the station.
And they told people what was going on at this train.
I mean, they couldn't even describe it, really, without it sounding totally made up.
And so eventually, reinforcements head back to the train.
And when they get there, they find the assistant.
He clearly had been caught by this woman on his way to the car, and he was destroyed.
His stomach was ripped wide open.
He was dead.
But the authorities, they searched everywhere, and they couldn't find this woman.
Her upper half was just gone.
Her legs were still stuck in the tracks, but the murderous upper half of her was gone and they never found her.
Today, it's said that the animated top half of this woman's corpse still haunts the railroad tracks in Hokkaido.
She's known as Tiki Tiki because that is the name that was given to sort of encapsulate the sound that she would make as she pulled herself through the snow.
The sort of sound became Tiki Tiki.
Now, according to some versions of the story, after you've heard the legend of Tiki Tiki, like you have now, you only have three days before she shows up to get you.
But it is possible to survive it.
Before she slices you in half across your midsection, she'll pause to ask you one question.
And if you answer this question correctly, she'll let you live.
The question is, do you need your legs?
And the only correct answer, spoken exactly like this, is yes, need them right now.
The Mr Ballin Podcast Strange Dark and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr Ballin.
Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Lacascio.
This episode was written by Karis Pash Cooper.
Research and fact-checking by Shelley Hsu, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul Ben Faciano.
Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear.
Audio editing and post-produced by Whit Lacascio and Jordan Stidham.
Production support by Antonio Minata and Delaina Corley.
Artwork by Jessica Clogston-Kiner.
Theme song, Something Wicked by Ross Bugden.
Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast.
And just a reminder every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr Ballin Podcast you can also now watch on the Mr Ballin YouTube channel that very same day.
And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe.
Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin.
If you want to listen to episodes one week early and ad-free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXMcom slash podcast plus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice.
So that's going to do it.
I really appreciate your support.
Until next time, see ya.
