Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. The stories in this episode bring along the unexpected.
I hope you're ready. My name is Edwin. Here's a scary story.
There was another fight in the bus that night, and oh god,
how I wanted to quit. Sometimes it was always the same thing and in
the exact same area. Driving down the long stretches of dark road right outside
Los Angeles was exciting at first. I used to see them in the movies.
The movie Speed was one of my favorites, and I always remembered that
scene of the bus jumping over a freeway. I think it took place around
here too. It was exciting at first. The training I did to get
my license was with a group of truck drivers, all excited and scared when
they had to dock a trailer or go in reverse to learn how to do
that too. You know, I met a lot of friends and we kept
in touch for a while, but just like with everything, we just sort
of lost contact. I would spend long hours sitting there, always assigned to
do the same route, seeing the same people, and yet nobody talked to
each other. As drivers, we greet everybody, and maybe that's why I've
made so many friends during my training. The bus was moving over one of
the bridges where I had nowhere to pull over when the fight started. It
was a kid, a high school kid most likely, picking a fight with
this large man who had asked him to turn down his music. I felt
kind of guilty. I never enforced those rules about people turning on their bluetooth
speakers in there. I just assume that people will know to use earphones instead.
I told him to settle down and had to get up in their faces.
The kid went to the back of the bus and the other man stepped
outside, saying he would walk the rest of the way. Was unfortunate.
I liked working during the day a lot more. Nighttime was always full of
this sort of stuff, tired people getting off of work, students coming home
from school, and everyone mixing into this box with wheels with only one thing
in mind, getting home. And that was on my mind too, To
be honest, there was nothing else I hated more than to drive past the
street that would take me straight to the parking lot where I would clock out.
Just four more trips, I would tell myself. But I try and
not to think about it too much. You know. It's kind of like
when you have to go to the bathroom, the closer you get to it,
the more you have to go. It was just me and the old
lady with the McDonald's hat. She was either super happy or just tired and
angry when she got on the bus. She worked late, and so far
I had learned a few things about her, like how she lived by herself
and how she brought a cheeseburger for her Chihuahua dog every single night. She
told me that one time she forgot it and her dog. I got angry
about it and almost bit her. Those little dogs are fears, so I
believed it. She got off the door in the back. She waved at
me, and I waved through the rear view mirrors, making sure that she
stepped off properly. Before I pulled out of the bus stop. It was
just another night. I turned the corner and then turned right again, watching
the yellow reflective things that were right on the lane against the black asphalt.
Then up ahead, I saw someone standing by the bench of the bus stop.
I looked in their direction. It was a tall man nearly hitting the
roof over the bench. He reminded me a lot of mister Tran, the
man who came from his shop in downtown every single night except for Sundays.
Watch your head, I know, he would say to me. Then I
would just laugh with him about her inside joke. He loved talking about his
kids and how they were going to be studying at USC doctor. Yes,
doctors in the family, he would say. I felt proud of him,
and then I thought back on my own kids. They had just gotten caught
with vapes and getting in fights at school. Still, I kept my smile
all the way up to my eyes as I watched him step off every single
night. I pulled over, hit the brakes, and opened the door,
and I waited. Some people carry things and bend down to pick them up
before climbing onto the bus, but this was a little longer than normal.
Do you need help, I spoke out into the flickering lights of the bus
stop. There was no response. I looked out the windows and dimmed the
lights inside. The exterior became clear blueish street lamps lighting up part of the
road up ahead. I unbuggled my seatbelts and went for the door, grabbing
the edge of the exit and peeking outside. There was nobody there. I
stepped back into the bus, looking at the monitor. Dang it, minus
five minutes. Again I was a little behind schedule. I put on my
seatbelt as I was pulling away from the stop, hearing the wind and creeping
in through the cracks of it. The thing didn't see it well. Even
though it had been quote unquote fixed several times, it always came back.
Fortunately it wasn't too cold that night. I thought of mister Tran, and
then my kids, and then how little we all know each other right there
in my own little piece of the world. The role I was given,
everyone working towards something better or to hang on to what they have. There
were always people around that were out of it, especially late at night,
so I thought little of the strange person who ran away at the bus stop.
My mind races when I'm by myself and the bus. It was something
about being alone. The next night, on a saturdy mister Trann and the
McDonald's lady, the kids with their hot cheetos, the young lady with the
book, and two new people climbed on at different stops along my route.
They never spoke to each other, and yet knew each other very well.
Everyone knows quiet, and most nights everyone had a nice time on my bus.
But just like every night, they started leaving through the back door,
waving goodbye, one of them asking how to transfer to the other Lions that
would take them to Long Beach. And soon it was just mister Tran and
the second to last seat from the back, silently looking out the window.
The poor man was overworked, and we both knew it. His eyes would
close on their own, and it seemed like he would wake up mid conversation.
At times he leaned his head against the window. I tried the corner
and then turned right again, the same yellow reflective paint guiding my poor tired
bus back to the station. Up ahead the bench from the bus stop,
and there the tall man hunched over, turning his face toward the bus,
his black shoes on the red paint of the edge of the curb. The
white socks could be seen. And I'm telling you, just like mister Trann,
I opened the door and again I waited. The bus hissed. As
I used the neely mechanism to get closer to the curb. I could see
his silhouette walking slowly toward the door, his head down, half of his
face covered by the collar of his raincoat. I could see the thinning top
of his head as he came from the right side of the door. He
looked up. It was mister Trann. I couldn't help but let out a
gasp, and then glanced over to mister Tran in the second to last seat
on the back of the bus. He hadn't woken up, and I looked
back at the door once again. The strange man was gone. I took
a few seconds to think about what I had just seen, and took several
deep breaths before I started the bus back up and shut the doors. I
scanned those mirrors like a hawk. Had he crossed the street? Had he
hidden behind one of the signs or behind the bench. I tried not to
think about it anymore, so I looked back down at the bright yellow lines
the whole way until I got to mister Trant's corner. Mister Tran, your
stop, I said, mister Tran, I said a little louder before taking
off my seatbelt to walk over to him. The smile got wiped off my
face when I turned around. I walked slowly toward the back, afraid.
I had run this scenario in my head so many times, but never thought
it would happen, not with mister Tran. His head was hunched over and
it wobbled loosely. When I tried to shake him awake, mister Tran,
I yelled and then took steps back. I turned around and tiled for help.
There was nothing they could do. He was gone. I sometimes picked
up their children right by usc doctors. They're doctors now. The whistler Dad
used to scare us when we misbehaved back when we were kids, telling us
about the strange creature that lurked in the dark, waiting right outside our windows.
It would arrive for several reasons, from things like not brushing our teeth,
to talking back or messing up with our chores. There were several things
that made us really believe it, and the entire place where we used to
live did not help one bit improving us otherwise. The house was a renovated
farm on a few acres of land, and we had room for horses and
other animals, but we were still adding them. At the time, we
only had one horse and about a dozen chickens that kept dying. We kept
buying more for some reason, even though Mom argued that we should focus on
fixing up the roof to the place where they lived. One time, we
overheard Dad talking on the phone about the whistler, and it creeped us out
to know that he would talk to his friends about it over the phone.
I think that's what made it real for us. The whistler would come by
and kill the chickens, and instead of fixing a roof or whatever, Dad
wanted to install a security fence and cameras. Now so back then, cameras
were expensive, and that's what Mom and Dad disagree with. Why I spend
so much on a dumb theory about this so called the whistler, Mom argued.
But still they only seemed to talk about it between themselves, and whenever
either I or my sister would hear something about it, we would call a
meeting and run up to the attic to talk about it. We pretended to
take notes and records of the sightings and reasons why the whistler was real.
We had read a few books about detectives and mysteries, and that's about as
exciting as life in an old house with the field was going to get.
We told our friends at school about it, and one of them, Kara,
would come over sometimes to do our investigations into the whistler, and on
some weekends we were allowed to camp out in the yard and start a fire.
My sister was the first one to fall asleep. Always, Kara would
fall asleep shortly after, so I was the only one that would stay up
later than usual until the battery from my rechargeable flat light would die and I
would lay there listening to the stomach's growl as they thrashed around like wild animals
while they slept. It was a Friday and Kara's dad was unloading her sleeping
bag and the cool tent, which had room for six people, when I
saw my dad bring along the medal cages with another set of chickens. I
remember thinking to myself that I shouldn't even look at them. They had no
idea what would be waiting for them. I was also slightly angry at my
dad for buying more. My dad and hers talked for a little while,
mentioning the chickens and about purchasing other animals. While they talked, they asked
us to grab the cages and take them to the chicken coop. The poor
things looked up at us, twitching their necks from side to side as they
tried to figure out what we were about to do with them. We opened
up the cage and they climbed up the little ladder and into their new home.
Neither of us said anything, simply staring into the opening of the chicken
coop, somehow knowing what would happen. My sister scared us when she showed
up from around the corner a jar of peanut butter in her hand. She
asked what we were doing and if we could camp out by the chickens instead
of under the old maple tree. We told her that if we got that
close, we were not going to be allowed to start a fire, but
she insisted, and we finally settled on having the tent face the chickens,
but farther away into the field. Smiling, she turned around and started walking
away before turning back to us to ask me to open the jar for her.
That night, we started the fire, ate our usual fish sticks and
spaghettios and started talking about random things. For us at the time, deep
talks were about what the stars were and stuff about our parents also boys.
Soon my sister fell asleep with her dirty socks facing the entrance to the tent,
but Carrie and I opened up the window of it and covered up her
feet with the jacket and shined our flashlights over to the chicken coop. The
chickens made noise whenever we did that. Insects were buzzing around, and the
wind was starting to rattle the trees in the distance. Then the frog started
doing their thing. Kara put her head down for an instant and ended up
falling asleep on her own arms. Again, it was just me. I
remember thinking that I needed to zip the window thing back up, but I
put my head down too, and soon I was asleep. Then, in
the middle of the night, the faint sound of a song like the wind
started surrounding the tent. I opened my eyes and looked out the opening,
but the song it wouldn't stop. I tapped on Kara's arm, but my
words wouldn't come out. She shook it away and rolled over. Suddenly,
the horror started nighing and the chicken started to rucous inside the chicken coop.
I could hear their wings flapping and making their chicken noises wildly across the inside
of it. But then everything went quiet. I shined the light over to
the entrance of the chicken coop, toward the tiny little window in the middle
of the wall. Inside, I saw the silhouette of a head, too
small to be human, but the exact same shape. Its eyes reflected back
at me like a cat. Is that what it was? I shook Kara
awake, telling her that there was something with the chickens, and asked her
to stay awake that I was going to run to the house to get my
dad. Kara didn't get the chance to disagree. I unzipped a tent and
took off, running toward the house. I opened the door and then called
out for my dad. While I was in there, you heard a scream
coming from the outside. Dad jumped out of the bed and ran downstairscribing a
shotgun on the way out. Kara and my sister were running toward us a
thing in the chicken coop. They said it was a pale, skinny man
with a wide smile. As he slowly walked away. Dad put his shotgun
down. I told you girls the whistler. This next story is called Learning
to Crawl, and it is coming up right after this. Mom was right.
As much as I hated admitting it that those books had spent upwards of
two hundred dollars on CALLI was better off with the food that she suggested.
At only four months old, she was sleeping almost at my same patterns,
And yet it was because of Mom. I try to argue about the authors
and mom clubs and all that, but hey, mom knows best. At
least this time, we had moved into her house after Mike struggled with keeping
his new job and I was fired from mine for reasons that I suspect had
nothing to do with my performance, but for having a baby and requesting additional
time off. Who cares. I was glad to have my family at that
point. We accepted the help my parents were offering. We would stay at
their place for a time until we got back on our feet, and then
we could thank them with more frequent visits to see their granddaughter. Sounded like
the perfect deal to me. Mike appreciated the help, and we accepted.
My childhood bedroom was the same as I remembered it, nothing strange, if
anything, just dustier than I remembered it and a lot smaller. I went
through the old boxes in the closets and found the many notes and drawings I
had made when I was little, and I went back in time briefly.
When Mom announced that dinner was ready downstairs, the place seemed quiet. Many
of the neighbors had moved to better areas, and I didn't know that my
parents had been surrounded by mostly empty houses in the lots around theirs. After
dinner, Mom went straight to bed, and I gathered a few blankets from
the closet downstairs and went back up to check on Cally. She opened her
eyes wide and laughed. I would get her out of this, We would
get her back into a house of hours. I promised her. Her sleeping
schedule was spot on. Mom was right. Kelly went to sleep, and
I knew that she was deep inside her dreams. At that moment, I
got ready for bed while asking Mike why he had been so quiet this whole
time, But he ignored the question in the best way he knew, how,
by trying to make me laugh. I knew it would be hard on
Mike too. This thing, after all, would only be for a little
while. We turned off the lamps and I stared up at the ceiling briefly
before I too, drifted off the sleeve to the sounds of that old house
and its many cracks and pops. It was almost two in the morning when
Mike shook me awake. I grabbed onto his arm, trying to catch my
breath and fill up my chest with air, even through the heavy shirt,
wet with sweat, feeling like it was freezing. When he got the blanket
off of me, he told me that I had been screaming. He was
sitting next to the bed, holding Calli in his arms, the lamp on
behind him. My apology faded in volume as I reflected on what my nightmare
had been about. I could see the lady by the foot of the staircase,
her legs twisted and blood dripping away from her foot. She used to
make me afraid of going to bed when I was little and I had forgotten
all about her. My sister and I both would talk about the woman at
the foot of the stairs. It would make stories about her and draw her
in our notebooks, probably some of them still in some box in the closet.
At that very moment. He would scream and run from the hall sometimes
at night, claiming to have seen her. Dad was more open to these
types of stories, so when we finally annoyed him, he took us to
the library to work on a project. He said it would be like a
school project, except just for fun. Our job was to research the house
to finally stop believing this nonsense. But what we found even surprised him.
A woman had indeed died in that house after falling from the top of the
staircase, and the story has it that she lived alone by choice. The
choice was that she had chosen to get rid of her children, and it
had a whole story behind her. And Dad got really into it, but
called off the whole research thing because we weren't old enough. That's all I
remember about Teresa Maybury, the woman who died. We kept seeing her for
a while, though you would hear her cries in the middle of the night.
I always try to keep our screams to ourselves by covering our own mouths,
but the floorboards and the house made it impossible to even go to the
bathroom at night without waking anyone else up, especially Mom. I had never
told Mike about it. Actually, it wasn't about to. It was late
and we were both exhausted from the move. I said sorry once again and
fell asleep. Mom had gone grocery shopping that morning, and the sun was
seeping into my dusty room through the window, just like I remembered it.
If I closed my eyes once again, I could imagine the morning craziness to
get ready for school. Poor mom. I went out to two job interviews
that day, and Mike had good news about one of his a restaurant looking
for a cook. We settled in for the night. After a generally positive
day. Things were looking up. I flicked off the lamp and went to
sleep. I was peeking out the railings of the second floor, a few
feet away from the staircase. The flowery dress of the woman at the base
of the stairs was torn from one side, and her twisted knees shook up
and down as she took her last breaths. In real life, I knew
that she was not a good woman, but in my dreams it went up
another level. I was afraid of her getting up and coming after me,
something I thought she had done already multiple times. I looked down at my
own legs short I was six years old again. I was running back to
my room as Mom opened her door, yelling at me to go to sleep.
I closed the door to my bedroom and the cries of the woman at
the base of the stairs. I sat up on my bed, awake.
Now Mike was turning around on his side. The baby was fast asleep on
the crib next to us, and my shirt was damp with sweat. Once
again, I stepped out into the hallway and to the bathroom, the floorboards
creaking underneath me as I made my way there, when I noticed something out
of the corner of my eye. I looked down to the base of the
stairs, the moon shining through the curtainless window of our living room, the
cries along with the twisted legs of the woman. A puddle of blood ran
next to her feet, a red shoe by her tangled up dark hair.
She twisted, grunting and crying like thunder and wind on the wooden floor downstairs.
All those times I had seen her when I I was only a kid,
and I had never seen her move like that. Then her arm twisted
the other way, her palm landing by her neck as she pushed herself up.
Suddenly I was a kid again, hiding behind that railing of that worn
down staircase. My legs gave out and I dropped the ground, my mouth
unable to let in even a breath of air. She dragged her body to
that first step. I thought of my older sister and I standing safely on
the second floor, looking down at her. Her arm twisted onto the second
step. I thought of all the nightmares and the time I teach her found
my drawings of the woman at the base of the stairs threatening our parents with
social services. Her legs jerked right by her head on the third step.
I remembered the screams for my sister that would wake me up as we turned
on the lights to talk more about it. Her head turned up to look
at me as she threw her dead leg forward, a slab of her face
dangling right off her right cheek, her eyes completely gone. Terresa Mayberry,
the way she ended up alone in that house. My arms were shaking.
I could hear my elbows rattling as they tapped against the wooden railings. She
opened her mouth, the jaw now dangling in front of her neck. I
try to get up, but I was only able to throw myself back,
my legs now pointing right at her. I try to scoop myself toward the
wall, but nothing worked. My voice, my legs, my arms,
they wouldn't respond, I couldn't see her in that staircase. I knew she
was there. I heard the taps as she crawled up another step, and
then again, then again, Tap tap Tap. Scary Story podcast is written
and produced by me Edwinkom. For more creepy story, search for True Scary
Story on your podcast player. I also make a podcast called a Dark Memory.
Tap follow to stay updated with the show, and as always so you
can find me on Instagram and Twitter with my username Edwin Cove. That's E
d w I n coo V. Until next time, Thank you very much
for listening.