Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. In the innocence of a child's eyes, everything
looks like a game, and then our second story, nightmares, seemed to
come to life. Are you ready? My name is Edwin and here's a
scary story. There was a time when everything was good. Looking out the
glassless window to see my house, my best friend with a popsicle about to
fall off the stick, knowing that even if it did, he would pick
it up and eat it anyway. The latter didn't work, and despite me
bothering my dad maybe once a week about it, the ladder still remained,
with only loose nails and steps that would twist outward like a cruel trap waiting
to kill us on our way up the treehouse. There was little that would
keep us out of there. I remember seeing the tree house for the first
time the same way I remember meeting Gimbo when he was just a puppy,
like a cold and helpless creature that needed a friend. I looked up at
it from the back seat, where the guy with the suit who was showing
us the houses around the area couldn't see me. I didn't know what was
happening, but the thought of being able to play outside and not have to
be scolded by the landlord for bouncing a ball by the stairwell. What's the
promise that Mom made me? That was cool and everything, but what really
made me look forward to it was that house on the tree. I turned
to look at Mom when the man with the suit told my dad that the
tree house could easily be taken out to plant a new tree, and my
dad agreed. Mom simply smiled at me and shook her head, letting me
know that it would be okay. I don't think they ever argued about it,
but Dad would mention that the tree was dead and die. Well.
I didn't know that trees could die. The tree house had a view of
other trees from the edge of the forest behind her house, a place that
I wasn't allowed to visit. Passed the signs about fire safety put in place
by the county. I knew of them, and when we first moved in,
Dad and I used to explore around there searching for man made stuff.
I must have been around seven or eight when Dad explained to me the difference
between natural and man made things. I thought that was everything that existed,
and in a way I sort of grew up, thinking that it was true,
despite everything I saw in those woods growing up. It was a group
of sticks lined up in the shape of a star, the one with five
points, tied with some type of yarn or roots tightly around the intersections.
Dad struggled with this one. Normally he would look at what I was holding,
whether it be a cat from a soda bottle or a nest that had
fallen from a tree, and call it out man made, natural, man
made. But this time he looked at it and grabbed my wrist and shook
it until the star fell off my hand, man made, he said,
lost in thoughts, then he kept walking. He was distracted the whole time
after that. I don't remember when we stopped walking in the woods in the
mornings exactly, but I have some distant memories that remind me that things weren't
normal in that place where we used to live. When I was old enough
to ignore the ghosts that I had seen from the window of that tree house
blaming the fog, or learning more about animals enough to discard the screams that
I'd hear from those trees late at night, part of me questioned that maybe
certain things aren't only made by man or made by nature. Some things are
from other worlds. I strange and maybe a bit crazy, but even you
can walk around hearing a voice demanding that you leave a room or have a
thing try to wake you up by tugging at your blanket, and you'll just
ignore it. You'll think that it was some part of a dream or your
mind making things up. It doesn't take too long for us to accept some
dumb explanation for something so obvious. But I think that's what happened with me.
My friend, who was coincidentally named Buddy, fell off the treehouse and
broke his arm one day. He laughed on his way to the hospital,
even through the bombs on our way out of the property. This guy was
a jokester at heart, and I think it was due to some of his
joking that we were able to get through some of the creepiest moments that we
had in that forest that day. Before he broke his arm, we had
been walking around the woods, just on the edges of it, when we
both saw a person holding a type of leash in their hand, just looking
at us. It looked like a woman, expressionless, standing by one of
the largest trees. We had walked along that same path forever. I mean
at the time, that meant in about four years since we had met,
and we had never seen anyone else there. It was sort of expected that
we would be alone in those woods. I felt a chill run out of
my back. But it was different for Buddy. He instead stood up tall
and waved at the woman, yelling hello loud enough for her to hear us
about twenty yards away, but the woman didn't move. We both turned to
look at each other, and to our surprise, she was gone once we
turned around. There weren't that many places to hide out there, and we
had figured it out during our hide and seek games, so we kept walking
toward one of the campsites where we would sit and eat our chips, talking
about life at school and random things. It was then when we spotted her
again, standing by the edge where the dried grass started to mix in with
the sticks of the trees, just past the clearing where we'd sit whenever Buddy
would come over. He didn't stand up to wave this time. Her dark
dress, stained or wet, looked loose on her. She didn't let go
of the leash next to her. Buddy laughed at her first, probably just
being nervous or thinking that it was a type of prank, but I was
frozen solid. He looked at me and acknowledged that the woman looked dead and
did a teasing who at me, wiggling his fingers from both hands in front
of him. I couldn't laugh. I kept imagining the look of that woman
and what we would say if she approached us. We turned around again,
she was gone. I had read somewhere that you shouldn't laugh at ghosts or
spirits, because not all of them take it lightly. But he found out
the hard way when he looked out the window of the treehouse and took a
few steps back. He then missed the edge of the hole, the one
that we called the door, and he fell straight to the ground. She
might have been scared, I don't know. It's not like he would admit
it anyway. I thought it was payment for laughing, but I never told
him that. It was weeks before he was able to climb back up again,
but it took even longer to convince him to go back to the woods
with me. So I spent a lot of time going out there, just
out of habit. I guess I was searching for rabbits or cool rocks in
the ground, and it was different when I was alone. The thought of
the woman standing by the trees was also tough to forget. Eventually, Buddy
agreed to head out there with me again, probably to prove that he wasn't
scared of the woman we had seen. It was autumn now and the trees
had changed colors and the leaves had fallen off earlier than expected, which made
our walks just a little bit louder. Buddy was behind me something different about
him, not the brave type of kid that would jump off the rocks first,
but rather one that would look both ways before taking a step toward a
place we had n't been to before. It would do this thing where one
of us would decide on a path and the other would follow, sort of
like at school with a captain leading the way, and when it was his
turn, he would always lead us to the same spot. It was around
the third time when I told him that we had been there before. We
had already found everything there was. We had picked up coins and even an
old shoe. At one point we had no matter what, We kept finding
more things, a string of beads, a clump of dark hair. The
trees had already turned yellow, which made the place look a little different,
I guess, which would explain why we kept finding new items to bring back
to the treehouse. But he couldn't wait to get away from the woods.
Now something about him had changed, And though it's true that we spotted the
same woman in the distance at different times, just standing there didn't seem to
affect us as much. We would both look at each other and start walking
back to the treehouse, perhaps only a little bit faster than before. Except
this one time, we would spend our time looking for things that belonged to
who knows who Way back in the day. Dad knew about it too.
We would find knives and fishing hooks, even buttons from clothing. Sometimes at
one point he told me that man may objects eventually became natural objects too.
As a kid, I always wondered what he meant by that. Against the
yellow leaves, we would see the tree branches a little bit better, and
Buddy and I walked over to the large tree, the one that always had
new things for us to find, and we searched for a good while until
we came face to face with the woman from the woods. She was standing
clear ass day by the trunk of the tree, her eyes completely sunken in,
and the skin of her arms and face shriveled over and otherwise young appearance.
Buddy took two steps back once again, he fell on his back and
started screaming. I thought he had hurt his arm again, and the flashbacks
of his fall started taking over. I screamed too, until I heard Mom
or someone in the distance calling our names. But he kept looking up at
me with his eyes wide open, and I could tell all that he wanted
to say something couldn't get it out. Eventually, he lifted his right arm
slowly and pointed up at the trees right above us. We could see her
swaying like a shadow against the leaves, the remaining shoe about to fall off
her shrinking potty. The next story, titled The Nightmares We Have is coming
off right after this. A man sat next to a woman on the bus,
and she smiled and took her earphones out. They must have known each
other, but barely, since I could tell that she was a bit awkward
around him. She turned away from the window she had been staring out of
for the past two minutes and I felt glad I hadn't bothered her with the
time, thanks to the old woman who sat next to me. Two seats
behind her. The old lady took out her phone and with the thin white
letters over an image with what must have been five or seven kids around her,
I was barely able to decipher the time, nine forty five pm.
The young woman in front of us had seemed a bit distracted. Bothered,
I think would be the better word. I knew the feeling. We did
the useless loop around the end of Baker Street, and I looked at the
same lot with the same cars parked in the dealership. I wondered if they
had sold any since yesterday. Who is buying so many cars? Anyway?
The moon was on the other side of the bus now, and my views
from this point on would only be the closed up shops and those who were
walking around the street, walking home from work or going to it. The
same thing every night. The driver had turned off the air conditioning in the
car, or turned it down enough for us to hear our own thoughts,
something I hated doing, especially on a quiet bus. The man who sat
by the woman in front of us thankfully had something to say I was disappointed.
After slightly stuttering to get it out, he asked her how her day
had been, and that was it. I mean, you could have asked
her what she was listening to before you got on, or told her something
about your head. Heck, a joke about your giraffe neck would have gotten
me to laugh, and I don't have the greatest sense of humor. Tired,
she said another disappointment. Seeing Young Love being so messy and cringey was
not what I liked. But unfortunately it had become a write of passage for
all of us, myself included. Once you crossed it, you could end
up like me, married, happy enough to look both ways when you cross
the street, you know, like a normal human being. The wife would
be waiting for me with the warm dish of some fantastic new steak recipes she
found inside of potatoes and a glass of wine. Ha. No, I
mean, I love her and everything, but the most she can cook is
eggs and stuff that comes in a box, you know, the things you
add water to finish off. She listened to my work stories, though she
always had questions for me. Mark, what's the name of your coworker,
the one with the house by the lake. If we make friends with him,
then maybe we can have a barbecue over there. What do you think?
His name was Ben, and he was a jerk. But every time
she asked me, I would say that it was a great idea, and
that his name was Matt. I mean, he looked like a Matt anyway.
She would smile and want to know all of the details of work and
how I liked it, what I was thinking, and what I dreamt about,
and I would lie about that too. I looked away from the window
for a bit to see how a young couple, or the soon to be
couple would unfold when I found him looking at the top of her head,
not intentionally. The man's neck simply would not allow it otherwise. He opened
his mouth as if to speak. Then she interrupted him. I can't seem
to get good sleep lately, she said, faking a yawn. What's keeping
you up? He asked, find something good here, let's get it nightmares,
she said. The man stayed silent. Four or five other people were
in the bus with us, and I'm sure that at least one other person
on the bus wanted to hear about this. I could tell because this other
guy on the seat across the aisle from me, took off one of his
earphones without moving another muscle of his body. Now it's been a while since
this happened, so bear with me. The story she told still lingers in
my mind or my nightmares, and sends shivers down my back. Most nights.
She has a glass of water, and she started avoiding the cereal that
she used to eat before bed, thinking that it was a cause of these
dark dreams. She would bathe, get into bed and open a new chapter
of her book, The Alchemist Nothing Scary. Before that she had read a
Tale of Two Cities, and before that some mother aknow book about the tone
that the earth hums in, which is be flat. I think no matter
what she read before bed, she would have the same nightmares. She crossed
the street, a crowded one like the kind you see in New York City
in the movies, with noise and places where you can see everyone but not
a specific person. She walks past a food cart hot dogs or something,
and keeps walking past the street until suddenly most people are gone. She looks
behind her and the street is empty except for the man from the cart,
who is gleefully still serving invisible customers. Now, without the sounds of the
cars and people, all you can hear is his voice asking for one dollar
and seventy five cents. He drops a hot dog on the sidewalk in front
of him, then begins to serve the next invisible customer. She keeps walking
because, in her own words in the dream, she knew where she was
going. She goes past another corner to see a man dancing on the street,
stopping every few seconds to pull out a coin from his pocket and place
it carefully on his own tip bucket. He dances, jumping and spinning,
then pauses, takes out a coin and places it in the bucket once again.
And she keeps walking, seeing all of these bizarre scenes of people behaving
strangely, and suddenly she bumps into a man who claims he's there to pick
her up. He opens the door of a red car and signals to welcome
her inside. That's when she feels it, the fear, as the man
begins to chase after her. The deep wrinkles on his forehead is what she's
able to remember. She runs past the characters in her dream, every single
one of them being the same person with the wrinkles on his forehead. The
dancer stops and looks at her, only to be the same man in disguise.
She runs past a delivery driver, a person sitting on the street,
again all being the same man. Then she gets to the man from the
hot dog cart, a pile of them now by the side of his cart.
As he keeps preparing them and tossing them out into the sidewalk, she
catches a glimpse of the deep wrinkles on his forehead. Now I know that
I shouldn't have been listening to this woman talk about her dream. It wasn't
meant for me, obviously. I'm known to blurt out comments, so I
surprise myself for being able to stay quiet on this one. I must have
made a face, because the old lady next to me locked eyes with me
for half a second, enough to make me gnawd awkwardly at her. He
turned away just as she was about to tell me something, and she didn't
carry on with it. Well, what makes it scary? I heard the
man next to the girl ask her, trying to seem more interested than he
actually was. I don't know, too familiar, I guess, she said,
turning toward the window again. I knew what made it scary. I've
seen that same guy, the deep wrinkles, sunken eyes. It wasn't so
much the way he looked, but the ways he showed up for me.
He would come up in reflections and ask for change, and then I would
run to catch a train down at the station, and he would be the
first person I would see against the glass as I stepped into the empty cart.
He was the man I would see everywhere, and the only one that
paid attention when everyone else would ignore me. That's why it was scary.
And no, I wasn't making this up. It had bothered me for years
before I forgot all about him. I once made the mistake of telling my
wife about the dream, and sure enough she started seeing him too. The
curse, we joked. We used to call him the follower. We hear
about him, and suddenly we begin to notice him. The couple stayed silent
this time. The old woman next to me was trying to stand up,
so I moved over to the side. She took a couple of steps over
to the seat in front of us and sat behind the quiet girl with the
nightmare. Honey, she said as she tapped her on the shoulder. I've
seen that same man in my dreams too. The girl turned around, stunned.
She took another look at her and then looked at me, and this
time I couldn't keep quiet. I've seen him too, I said, and
surprised myself once again for not saying anything more. Wasn't anything else to say,
I guess. I could feel the eyes of the guy across the aisle
from me and caught him mouthing the words me too, leaving his jaw slightly
open in disbelief. I grabbed my bag and broke the silence as a door
of the bus opened for me. The sound of the bus faded as I
walked down the empty streets for a couple of blocks. It was just me,
no one else. Scary Story podcast is written and produced by me Edwin
Kobar Rubez. You have an idea for a story, reach out to me
via email or through the link in the description of this seve To listen to
other creepy stories, use a search bar to find True Scary Story or our
other show, a Dark Memory. Thanks for listening, see us soon.