This is Scary Story Podcast. We have three stories in this episode, The
Railroad Children, Selfie and Caller number eight stories of ghostly appearances and mysterious phone
calls. My name is Edwin and here is a scary story the Railroad Children.
Another car as zoomed by in front of the store, and with it
left another breath of hope for me, a man desperate trying to get his
business back. The freeway on the other sides of the hills had already been
built a long time ago, and I still remember the panic in the town
when it was announced. My neighbors all spoke about moving out. They all
seem to have family members, their children, mostly living out somewhere nice,
Los Angeles or Houston. Some of said Boston. Yeah right. I would
say to myself, I'd love to see that old lady living with all that
noise. Secretly, though, I thought the biggest challenge for her was for
her children to actually take her in. I had already lived in one of
the big cities, Las Vegas. I knew what it was like, and
I knew how annoying people could get. But now people is what I needed
the most to keep my business going. That was a mechanic and had been
in that profession for the better part of almost four decades. Knowing all the
makes and models used in the American Southwest deserts. You know, sand in
the fuel pump, broken windshields from terrible dust storms, and damage due to
overheating were lots of those. I could fix it all. The son of
a neighbor who worked with me, Carlos, could attest that for me,
I could fix anything except for one thing that always stumped me, a problem
that frustrated my longtime clients. But trust me, it would bother me a
lot more. The first time it happened. I checked the undercarriage of the
cars for structural problems. Usually people who try to take their city cars off
road and venture out into the dirt trails from stuff they had seen on the
internet. Hashtag van life would be just another trend too, But I got
to see a few of those stop by my shot. Inexperienced adventurers loaded up
with fancy gimbals and tripods cell phone cameras on their faces the entire time.
They easily paid the bills up front, so my face is probably still out
there on some website. The mole on the tip of my nose, probably
stealing the show somewhere. But this problem, the stumper of a problem,
was occurring more and more. It was said that not far from the town
of Drismore, it was an old railroad track. At least it was what
some of the travelers told me. They were heading that way to visit one
of the ghost towns had gone Internet famous, or famous for a ghost hunter
show. Who knows. I was sent all these videos to look at on
my phone, the one that my grandchildren sent me, but I still chose
my old time radio and television to keep me entertained. Now, this town
was not completely empty, actually, far from it. There was a post
office and a library, and though scattered, there was still a small school
district there with running school buses for them in the surrounding areas. The panic
over the freeway thing was just temporary. Only one radio station had the baseball
games, and I had just cracked open a can of pepsi out on the
lawn chair by the entrance of my shop when I saw another familiar white mini
van coming down the road. I waved at them and they pulled up next
to me. Good afternoon, sir, Are you the mechanic, The dark
haired woman from the passenger seat said as she rolled down her window. The
cold air from the air conditioning in there was creeping out of it. Yep,
come on around, I said, a wide smile on my face.
See what you want about me. I'm still one of the nicest people around.
They had some trouble reversing into the yard, but eventually they got it.
There's a knocking coming from the back part of the car and I can't
see anything. Can you help us out? The driver, a young man,
said as he came closer and knew what was wrong already nothing. There
was nothing wrong. There was never anything wrong with a knocking, and it
frustrated me immediately. I held back all of my frustration and forced a smile.
This time. I turned around to look under the back tires, just
in case. I explained a couple of things to them from under the It
was always the same answers. No, they had stayed on the road the
whole time and didn't hit anything. The brakes were working, and the entire
back area of the car was well lubricated and clean. Everything checked out.
The couple had walked over to the vending machine that I had used as a
refrigerator for some time. I didn't even follow the pictures on the buttons.
The young lady took out a raspberry iced tea and held it in her right
hand with a confused look. Whoops. I stood up from the rear side
of the vehicle, and just as I was standing up, I saw them
from inside the car, the tiny faces of children, two of them wiping
their hands against the glass. Sir, I heard from the left side.
Ah, sorry about that, I said, as I listened to the young
man asked about something being wrong with the machine. I walked over to it,
and I tried to shake off those visions I had seen for years already.
I grabbed the vending machine from the left side and swung it open like
a door, grabbing the raspberry iced tea and placing it back randomly, then
getting them their orange Crush soda instead. They both laughed at the action,
and it took a little while for me to catch on to what they were
laughing at, and I briefly forgot about the children. Well, everything checks
out, so here's what we'll do, I said, Let's test drive it
and then see if we can hear it. I ain't even over. We're
gonna find nothing. The young man hopped on and I was on the passenger
seat as we sat off into the road to go around the enormous blocks of
the town. But there it was the knocking, the same knocking I had
heard thousands of times before, tapping on the back windows. I picked those
children in my mind once again and I focused, like really focused on it.
I really could hear the tiny cries once again. I asked the young
man to turn the car around and head back. Well, I explained,
it looks like there's nothing wrong mechanically, but I think the sound will go
away. Might have something to do with the heat. I was lying again.
Had to come up with that idea after lots of failed attempts to not
anger my customers. His explanation had a fifty to fifty chance of working.
Sounds good, the young man said, with a smile, probably relieved.
I got back to the shop and the young lady climbed back in the car
and gave me ten dollars for the trouble. I turned to Carlos, the
kid who helped me out around the shop. Kid, let's shut down early
today. Let's go to that thing you were telling me about. Carlos was
excited about it. He knew exactly what I was talking about. Tell me
more about this thing they say, I asked him. He once again explained
to me the story of the children of the railroad tracks, the ones I
would climb into your car and drown you with their cries. He explained that
it was rumored that two children had been playing around the tracks by themselves when
a train struck them. Their toy trains now sprinkled with their blood, thrown
yards away from the tracks themselves. It's not just an old legend, he
said. My grandpa says it happened. My old pickup truck rolled over those
rocks with ease. As we got closer to the railroad tracks, we crossed
them, just like any other car coming into town would be forced to do.
It was dark out by now. Carlos was looking a little worried.
We drove back in silence to the shop. I didn't want to admit it,
but it looked like my car would need some fixing to selfie. My
little brother used to tease me for the way I posed with my phone so
immature. It was a matter of time before my profile really exploded and I
had the support of my friends helping me out. They would like and comment
and do all the things that I asked them to do. There was a
place by my house that was famous for being in a movie. I forget
which one, but it was from before I was born. Every summer we
would get people from Europe and Latin America coming over just to check out the
restaurant and some of the streets that were in it, filling up the businesses
and hotels with tourists. It was during one of those summers that I decided
to go with one of my best friends to one of the bridges, the
one that used to have a train track running through it, and get some
pictures with a new dress I bought. It was a huge mistake. There
were so many people there that even my friend's mom was surprised by the amount
of cars there. She asked me what I wanted to do, and well,
I wasn't about to go back home, so we decided to stay and
wait a little while to hopefully get the pictures. If I could get just
one, just one picture, I would be happy with it. We sat
on one of the rocks and waited for people to clear up a bit but
even though no more cars kept arriving, the place was still crowded. I
was looking at my phone when I felt Jill tapping me on my arm and
then pointing out towards the bridge. Look she managed to stutter her out.
Her shaky index finger was pointing to the crowd when I saw her, the
bright yellow dress of a girl trying to hold onto the edge of the railing
of the bridge. Nobody would help her. Jill screamed, calling out for
anyone to please help, and she only got stares from people who were walking
by. I screamed and ran up to the bridge as Jill started to cry
over what was about to happen. The girl could no longer hold on to
the edge as she kicked and was attempting to switch hands when her twisting body
fell all the way down to the dried up creek underneath it. I closed
my eyes and cried, running up to the bridge, asking if anybody could
see her. With the hundreds of eyes staring right at me, foreigners,
some of which did not even understand what I was saying, Jill ran after
me as she cried too, and more and more people circled around us,
not asking us anything, not trying to understand what had just happened, We
leaned over the edge to look below us, afraid of what we would see,
when suddenly a large man, a security guard, came up to us
and asked what was wrong. Both started crying, and I was shaken at
the thought that nobody had helped her. I did my best to explain what
I had just seen as we were walking out of the bridge and towards the
security booth. I hadn't even noticed that we had started moving away from the
edge. Listen to me, the security guard said, in a stern voice,
I'm sorry about what happened to your friend started telling us about how we
were not going to get in trouble or anything, but to please just leave
the area. What friend, Jill asked, I didn't even know her,
and why hasn't anybody tried to go help her. The man did his best,
but finally got us to stop freaking out when he understood that we had
witnessed someone falling from the bridge. Nobody fell from the bridge, she said,
looking at me straighting the eye. Oh not today. Eventually we learned
that he was referring to Ali, the girl who fell off the bridge.
For trying to take a selfie. When we looked her up online, we
recognized her in her yellow dress. They say that residual energies can remain in
a certain spot after a tragedy, forever repeating a scene. Up next,
we have a story about a caller to a radio station that turned out to
have a dark secret. Haller number eight is coming up right after this.
It was another night at the station and I was by myself. The segment
I was in charge of was probably only listened to by taxi drivers and those
forced to work a night shift just like me. I was at a show
where people called in to share their thoughts about the daily topic, which was
a list that I made up based on a newspaper from a similar column where
people would write asking for advice. I could get people's questions, read a
similar story about it, and then discuss it on the air. Callers would
get very angry and passionate about their answers, and if done right, we
would have on callers criticizing the previous one, and then the other would call
back and we would get both of them on the air at the same time.
It was an awesome way to pass the time, though I can't say
that I loved the job. It paid the bills, and I was still
grateful to have the opportunity that I had. One night, we were discussing
the story of a young man who thought that his girlfriend was hiding something because
she refused to give him her password to her email account when he needed to
log in to get a receipt he had purchased with her account. His reasoning
was that if she had nothing to hide, then why doesn't she just give
him her password? But her explanation was that when in a relationship, boundaries
need to be set to respect the privacy of the individual. The story was
read out loud, and the first phone call came in, a woman saying
that she had run into the same problem with her ex husband and that she
should have seen his actions as a warning. Another caller said that if he
needed it for something as innocent and meaningless as checking a receipt, then why
was it a big deal for her to give him her password just to check.
The calls were pouring in, and soon they filled up the lines,
far too many for me to handle. Over by the phone calls, I
put on a commercial break and went to the bathroom and then got back.
The red lights on the machine were still on, and mindlessly I pushed the
button to answer the caller number eight. Hello, he said, in a
quiet voice, almost a whisper. Caller number eight here on the air.
What do you think about the daily topic? I asked John Kimberly, he
replied. I turned the background music down a little bit and I asked him,
Hello, caller, you're on the air. What are your thoughts about
the daily topic? John Kimberly, he whispered. I had heard his voice
before. The call suddenly became soul full of static that I was forced to
cut off the line. I picked up the next caller on the list,
and they tried to shift the topic back to the original one, but all
of a sudden, he said, who was that last guy? I didn't
know, Well, I couldn't remember, so I tried to shift the topic
back to the original thing, but we simply couldn't get back into it.
The call started dropping on the machine, and soon there were only a couple
of callers to take the answers from. I tapped another random one and answer
with my usual Hello caller, you're on the air, what are your thoughts
on the daily topic. Hey, man, he said, So that voice
of that man who called, I might know who he is. Who John
Kimberly. Uh yeah, him too. But the man who called, I
might know who he is. The calls then started pouring in once again,
call after call. They started talking about a famous case that had been on
the local news. A man found dead in a ditch by the start of
the woods at the edge of the county line. One of the suspects name
was John Kimberly. Then another caller came on yelling Joe Brilla. His name
is Joe Brilla. I knew it. Oh, I knew it. Why
does that name sound so familiar to me? I asked out loud. He
was a caller too, man, the guy replied, I recognize his voice
and enthusiasm. Kim was calling in. Just like other segments of the show,
they all had their own set of regular callers. Kim was one of
them, and now that I think of it, so was Joe Gorilla.
Right there on the air, I found out about Joe's death. The guy
had been out for a run when he was murdered in cold blood. Soon
after that, and no thanks to my show, word around the station said
that this John Kimberly guy was put on trial and found guilty for Joe's murder.
The thing that baffles me the most after listening to the recordings of the
phone calls, it's just how similar caller number eight sounded to Joe's familiar voice.
I wouldn't call myself too much of a believer, but getting a call
from the dead that might change your mind too. Scary Story Podcast is written
and produced by me Edwin Kovarubias. You can find me on Instagram at Edwin
cove E d w I n co v, or find the show over on
Scary Story podcast dot com. To get in touch, check out my other
shows, A Dark Memory and True Scary Story if you want to listen to
more creepy stuff. Until next time, thank you very much for listening.