Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. An old place and long lost memories come to
life as you revisit old photo albums. My name is Edwin, and here
is a scary story. We had two photo albums in our home that we
would flip through every so often when I was little. Eventually they found their
way to a box and then to our storage shed in the backyard. There
was something different about seeing the pictures in a book in front of you instead
of scrolling through them, and I was glad I found the images, which
ironically was to scan everything to be able to archive them online, just in
CASEY got lost in a fire or something. My mother wasn't a huge fan
of flipping through them, even though she obviously loved the ones of my sister
and I as children, But she found a lot of the pictures to be
unnecessary. Melancholy, called it reliving old memories that only brought sadness to her
because the times would never come back and live only in her mind forever.
I understood that was the same way I think there were some memories that were
so amazing that thinking about how they were gone and would never come back in
me sad. Things changed and people left our lives only to stay in those
photo albums. But there was another side to this. There were also memories
that we did not want to relive for other reasons, and her minds did
a very good job in hiding them for us, only to bring them back
as nightmares once every couple of years, and if you were lucky, it
would go away a few minutes after waking up. Our family used to struggle
financially when I was little. We didn't always live in Phoenix. It's hard
to think we used to live in the northern part of the United States for
such a long time, founded by green fields and forests and a place where
you actually had trees. But like with most grown up children nowadays, I
was curious to go back to how we used to live, and after one
of those photo album adventures, I asked my mom about the old house by
the lake and the property. I had the suspicion that they still owned that
piece of property because of the tax forms I would come from the state of
Michigan. There were lots of things we didn't know about our family, and
part of me thought that maybe that's why Mom didn't like going through the pictures
and having to deal with a million questions I would have. There were things
I couldn't remember in those photos, like the memories with my dad and the
trips we used to take, but for some reason, I always remembered the
house by the woods. The memories were good for the most part. We
actually got there for a short visit with my mother and aunt for some work
that we're doing there when I was about to go into high school. I
remember the flight, where we stayed and everything, even one of the most
terrifying experiences of my life. It was just how I remembered the house to
be two stories, wooden panels and an enormous porch in the front, surrounded
by trees about fifty feet away from the back door, the old oak tree
with a rope still where it had been, and a decaying swing set in
the backyard by the large shed that they used for keeping an old tractor and
a broken down truck. My sister remembered the interior of the house only from
the photos, and even though we got to walk through the old hallways and
different living areas, all I wanted to do was go outside and be in
the backyard again. The man that was with us was an inspector that was
working for my mom in order to get something done to the place. And
even though looking back now I realized that she was trying to sell it,
back then I thought they were just going to fix it. At least that's
what I was told. I do remember begging Mom to take us back please,
that I missed it there for a while after moving out. I even
cried over it. It was just such a nice place. The rustling of
the trees in the late afternoon just before sunset, the walks through the trees,
and the taste of apple pie when it was in season, Like Mom
used to call it. I think ties to the places we were born into
stay with us in such a significant manner things at time can't seem to mess
with. While the group was talking over something about the house in the kitchen
area, I stepped out into the backyard to take a look around. The
old water hose was still there, right where we had left it the last
time we played. The grass was overgrown now, but still it didn't set
a chance against the amount of trees that past own shadow on our house,
each one standing next to the other forming an enormous structure that I always pictured
as a castle, one with its own dark hallways and creatures living inside.
It's cliche to call it home, but it felt that way. I stepped
around the shed through the old broken fence that was still broken after all those
years. Silly of me to think of it that way, given that there
was no one there to fix it ever since we left. I looked at
the wall behind the shed and remembered old, like very old memories. It
must have been around four or five years old when I wandered into this place
to meet up with another little girl. Lizzie or Missy, for some reason,
were the names that came to mind, though I think Missy is what
they must have called me when I was little and had forgotten about. But
it was at that moment when I heard the shuffling through the trees as a
teenage boy crawled out and stared right at me from a distance. She was
saying something like he was calling my name, but in the fear of that
moment, I could hear absolutely nothing. It was as though my ears had
swollen up from the inside, and the sounds of the blood flowing through my
head with every pump from my heart were taking over. The guy stretched out
his hand, his lips moved as if he was trying to get me to
come with him. Next thing I knew, my mom and sister were running
up to me, and I only got to see that guy stepping back into
the trees and disappearing in the shade. I was shaking for a while,
wondering what had just happened. My mom and my aunts looked at each other
from a distance before one of them I don't remember who grabbed me by the
arm and pulled me toward the car. My sister was now following close behind.
You honk if that guy comes back, you hear me, honk,
mom told my sister as she ran back inside. It took a few minutes
before we were all in the car and the other man was in his I
thought we would all be going to the airport right there and then, so
I was surprised to drive only a couple more properties down before we came up
to my ant's house. Once again. I think my mind was just gone
that day. I barely remember what happened during that car ride or what they
were asking me. And it was at my aunt's house when things started to
take another turn. She lived around there and I guess. She used to
be the keeper of the house, you know, keeping an eye out for
trespassers, making sure that the place didn't catch on fire, and basically going
over every once in a while to check up on things. The prices for
properties around there were going up during recent times, which made sense for why
Mom wanted to sell it, But for some reason, I always wanted to
go back. That night, my sister and I were getting ready to go
to bed after dinner, who were not used to traveling and taking long car,
but my mom and aunt had no problem with him. We were on
the other side of that same patch of woods now where my aunt lived.
The whole time during dinner, my mom was trying to explain to me what
had happened with that guy and who he was. They live out there,
she said, on the own, and they make no sense. They go
out there scaring kids all day. It's kind of their thing. They don't
hurt anybody. Still a little crazy, she said, that's all, just
a little crazy. My aunt got set up in the bedroom by the bathroom
at the end of the hallway. It had two small beds and a large
window that faced the woods. The moon was out once again, bringing me
so many memories of being out there as a very young child, thinking of
the way the trees move with the wind. On clear nights like those,
I didn't have to fight much with my sister to get the bed closest to
the window. The light from the ceiling was replaced by the moonlight. When
Mom turned off the lights and closed our door, wishing us good night.
You both looked out the window for a bit before I asked her if she
remembered anything about living there. I mean, she was younger than I was,
so I highly doubted that she would. That was right. She said
she sort of remembered the area, but that was about it. Just like
with me, whenever she would ask questions about the house, Mom would change
the subject. As I grew older, I started understanding that perhaps her reason
had more to do with what happened to my dad rather than the house itself.
Maybe we moved away to run away from our memories. Eventually, my
sister's breathing grew deeper and she fell asleep. It was sometime in the middle
of the night when I heard a sound coming from right next to me.
I opened my eyes and saw the hinge of the window sliding outward slightly with
a long and stretched out squeak, and then a soft breeze, slowly creeping
into the room. It rattled to a stop as I rubbed my eyes to
see a tall, dark figure standing on the other side of the glass.
I could see his teeth moving closer to the opening of the window. I
froze, but then in a faint whisper, it said something. The thing
I couldn't hear just a few hours earlier, out by the woods in the
backyard. It whispered a name, Elizabeth, Elizabeth. It was a familiar
voice saying a familiar name, Elizabeth, Elizabeth. You're alive, my sister
screamed as a man in the window repeated the name Elizabeth. Didn't take long
before my mom rushed into the room, quickly heading toward the window as a
man rushed away toward the woods. My aunt came into the room as Mom
was grabbing our blankets and asked both my sister and I to go with her
to her room. We quickly crawled into her bed and started talking about what
had just happened. Well, I let my sister do all the talking as
she explained what she had seen. The whole time, I was in a
swirl of old thoughts that were resurfacing. Who is Elizabeth? Part two of
this story is coming up right after this stay with me images of my dad
and an old station wagon that we used to have, driving in the front
seat as we swerved around an animal, the car crash, the neighbors rushing
us to the hospital across town. It was a hard thing to forget.
It's somehow my mind managed to do so all of those years, and I
wanted to keep them alive. But once we got back from that trip,
I got involved in my regular thing, going into high school and doing everything
there. Still the back of my mind, I kept thinking about that voice
and of Elizabeth. I asked Mom about her when I used to visit her
in the hospital, and with all the details she could remember, she shared
with me the stories of my childhood friend. We were too young to know
what a friendship was, but they would take us everywhere together. We were
neighbors and would roam around each other's backyards, with our parents watching over us
through their windows as we played. It was difficult for Mom to talk about
Dad, though, but I think she started seeing his memories just like the
ones about our trips and our birthday parties, moments that we wish we could
go back to, but would never be able to relive. Good memories.
That turn sad once we have to face that reality. Dad was one of
them for her, just as I had suspected, our lives completely changed after
that car accident. Mom told me all about it, everything from what I
was wearing to Dad's life insurance policy. As the days passed, Mom told
me even more about Elizabeth or Lizzie as I used to call her because her
name was too difficult for me to pronounce as a kid. She was with
us in the car after going with my dad down to the stores, basically
an area where Dad would get stuff for the house and stop by to get
us some snacks. My sister was too young to come with us. It
was on the way back that the car accident happened. Dad's side of the
car was completely smashed in and Elizabeth was squished behind the seat and the side
door. I barely remember it. There were no screams, no pain.
Elizabeth simply went to sleep right next to me in silence. It was a
car that was passing by that stopped. They asked me a few things that
I didn't know how to answer, and then soon another truck came by to
rush us to the hospital. My dad didn't make it and Elizabeth was killed
on impact. But for the longest time, Mom said, Elizabeth's parents,
traumatized by the entire scene, could never let go of their daughter's memory.
They would show up unannounced asking if they could pick up Elizabeth. Sometimes her
mom would come too and remember that her daughter was gone. Her dad it
was barely getting over it. But Elizabeth's brother would roam around the front yard
every once in a while, and when confronted by my mom, it would
say that he had seen his sister Elizabeth and he had followed her there.
I didn't know what to think of the entire situation. As Mom spoke of
the past like that, she had never done so with so much detail,
and yet she didn't show any signs of emotion towards the Johnning family. They
had lost a child, and yes, that's terrible, but Mom had also
lost her husband and had her own things to deal with at the time.
To me, it was just a tragic story of a family who got lost
in its entirety by going into the past, something that was too much to
deal with. Eventually, the parents got some help from their local church and
some of the neighbors, but their sons still claimed to see Elizabeth around the
wooded areas, the same areas that would lead to our house from there.
I think that's where the problem started, you see. I remember a man
from the church coming to our house for dinner a couple of times. He
came along with his wife and their daughter. They dressed like they were going
to church, the lady with the dress and the man with a suit and
tie. They used to talk to Mom and pray and stuff. But I
clearly remember that even by that time, I used to still play with Elizabeth.
She would wander over to our yard and we would be outside when Mom
would call me in for dinner, and I remember it being so strange that
Elizabeth couldn't come meet with us. She would simply wander back out and head
to her house on her own. I mentioned that to Mom when she was
in the hospital, and she told me that it was true that I would
also spend time alone outside talking by myself, and that she thought it was
my young mind's way of coping with losing a friend. Until the swingset incident.
Now. I don't remember this, but Mom did. We had just
gotten the old red swing set that Dad built and painted for us, and
one day when Mom was looking out the window from the kitchen, she claimed
to see me and another little girl on the swing next to me. Some
Mom wiped her hands dry from the dishes and went out through the kitchen door
and then toward the oak tree next to the swing set. And when she
saw me that second time, I was by myself, but the swing next
to me was still swinging. She came up to me and heard me talking
to someone on the swing, but there was nobody there. She grabbed me
and led me back inside the swing, still going about just swinging. She
then talked to a priest after that, who I remember was much meaner than
the other guy from church. He told me that Elizabeth was gone and that
I should no longer be trying to talk to her. We left soon after.
The incident started escalating, with Mom seeing the little girl inside the house
more often and not knowing what to do when she was on her own.
That's how we ended up in Arizona, and after my mother died, the
reason why I went back up to Michigan was that house. It never sold
and it was transferred to my name. The idea was to stay there,
to fix it up and be able to live in it. But after only
two weeks in the place, I started noticing strange things around the property.
It was no longer a strange man wandering about looking for his long lost sister
something else. There were more houses around the area, which made the place
seem a bit safer in general, something important since I'd be living on my
own for a while. My aunt would come by every other day to help
cook dinner and hang out for a bit, so I felt right at home
while she was there, But I swear and she left. Walking down that
hallway was not for the week. The light switch was at the end of
it, so you would either have to walk into it in the dark or
walk out of it the same way. Obviously, I would only need to
go into the bedroom at night, so it would be very dark. Because
I took the ten or twelve steps in, That's where she would show up,
standing right at the end of the hallway. She wouldn't make noise as
she moved toward the door that led to the yard, and I would get
that urge to follow her. She watches me sometimes when I'm out in the
backyard, when I get home, when I turn off the lights, and
at times I still see the swing on the left swinging on its own as
I look out through my window. Despite me trying to be rational about the
situation, I know who it is. We have a choice for an upcoming
project thanks to our community on Scary Plus that you can also join by going
to scaryplus dot com or through our Apple podcast channel. Here's a question,
would you watch me on YouTube because we're about to create something, but I
definitely want to include you in here, so I want to know what you're
thinking right. Step one is to figure out what to post, and again
with podcasting, we don't get a comments section, and I don't know what
you want if you don't email or message me. So maybe we'll get set
up with that later on, but for now, send me some ideas or
help me out with a super quick pull. I'm going to link to it
in the description of this episode, and I'll keep you posted with the results
anyway. Up next, check out Scary Mystery Surprise and laugh along with us
as my co host Michelle and I laugh about creepy things we have an episode
on the Top ten Internet Scary stories of all time. Check and check it
out by typing scary mystery surprise on your app right now. Thank you very
much for listening to my stories. See you soon.