Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. Please make sure that you're subscribed to this show
in order to keep getting the stories. This one is about a strange character
in a circle of friends and a strange discovery about her. My name is
Edwin and here is a scary story. Miss Gomes Rita was her first name,
was always a character around middle school. She got along well with the
other teachers and even with the janitor, a man from Brazil who we would
greet every morning when we got to school, but couldn't understand. I remember
she spoke Portuguese, Spanish, English, and French. Rita was the oldest
teacher. I'm sure she must have been around sixty or so when I left
middle school, but we managed to keep in touch because of my high school's
volunteer program. I knew I was gonna always re remember her because of how
involved she was with my success in that school. It was as though she
would see the potential in me that no one else gave me. She let
me pick my eighth grade teacher. You know. She made me go around
to the six teachers and introduce myself. Then she said I should make a
list and choose one of them, saying that she would ensure that I would
get into their class the following year. Rita and I became friends after I
graduated from high school and started helping out with her community gardening group. There
were other tasks there that involved me sending emails to people about getting funding for
it. I would go to her house sometimes to play with her dogs,
to enormous Golden retrievers. But I also got to know some of her friends
that used to visit her often, along with the ones that used to go
to all the city events. I forgot their names by now. I mean,
it has been a long time since Rita passed away, but there was
one of her friends that really stood out, you know. She told me
once, there's something strange about Angela. She's a character. I thought she
was joking for some reason. I mean, it was odd to hear Rita
speak like that of anybody. But when I think back on it, I
realized that it was her personality taking care of her students, even if she
had to warn them when something simply wasn't right. I had known Angela for
about two or three months before Rita told me that about her. We had
been at one of those community events put on by the city. The idea
was to set up potted plants out on a table for members of the community
to come by and take some while leaving a donation. It was wishful thinking
on Rita's part, but she still somehow hoped that the town people would leave
a few bucks or something. Nineteen plants got a new home that day.
The only person who donated anything was Angela, when she picked up a small
plant just about to bloom, the pink flowers that I had seen at the
guard and so many times, she left two dollars. She's gonna love it,
she whispered to herself as she sniffed the dirt from the pot, and
then she stepped back before trying to make conversation with us, asked us about
how the day was going and whatnot. Technically you could consider her being a
little strange just based on that, but I had no idea just how eerie
her life turned out to be. Rita didn't say anything to me right at
that moment, and I was surprised of why she waited so long to tell
me, And then I realized she just didn't know. Angela was about the
same age as Rita, maybe a little older. Her gray hair was always
flat, unbothered by the wind. At all times, it with droop over
her dark sweaters, sometimes leaving these strands of them sticking to her back and
rib area. I remember always wanting to pick them out, wondering how she
would take it if I did, but I never managed to. Other times
she would combit in strange patterns, but still came down the sides and the
back of her head as if it were heavy, just straight down. Other
people that used to be around the community garden and the events put on by
the city Council used to flat out to avoid her, sometimes in a rude
way, like one time around the doughnut table at the city Hall. There
was a group of five or six women talking about whatever women at that age
talk about, when one of them asked them not to turn around, but
that Angela was coming. I was grabbing a sprite from the cooler when I
heard her, and I got to watch them scatter like roaches away from the
table. Angela, stunned by the reaction, went by herself to grab a
napkin and a doughnut. Then she stared right ahead. I didn't know what
to do either, so I walked over to the donuts and grabbed the glazed
one, asking her how her day was going. She cheered up almost immediately,
talking about how she was having a good time and thanking me for inviting
her, even though all I had done was send an email. Email,
by the way, was a new thing back then, but most adults I
knew well, the older ones I knew, had accounts on MSN and AOL
and all that they would spend hours at the public library, sending each other
things and reading articles, learning languages and all of these things that the early
Internet was used for. It was among that group of older women who would
spend their time at city hall, at the library, and at all the
city events where the rumor started. Although I'm sure Rita tried to stay away
from it for as long as she could. I think that's what made her
tell me that there was something strange about Angela. But suddenly, I don't
know why, I started noticing all of these strange mannerisms from Angela. The
way she chewed, for example, her eyes tilting from side to side after
she took a bite, and even that smile. As other people started being
rude to her with those things I told her earlier, simple ones like walking
away when she was approaching, or with that one time when they made up
excuses not to give her a ride after she said that she could stay a
little bit longer if someone offered one. The last bus was about to arrive
during an event and she was going to miss it in that specific time,
everyone there, trust me, had a car and lots of time on their
hands. I just never quite understood it. During a tree lighting event in
December, she had to leave early, which surprised everyone because she would usually
wait for the last bus. It's tough to describe her role with that group.
I mean, it's hard for me to even explain why I was there
so much of the time. I think I mainly did it to spend time
with Rita. But it was at that same night when Betty, one of
the funny ones from the group, told us something she had found out about
Angela. Now, she said, don't go around telling everyone about this.
As far as you know, this isn't true, all right, but it's
true. I don't know why I've found this so funny at the time,
but everyone's smiles went away once we heard the story. This woman knew of
someone who worked at the library, we all knew who she was, as
secretive as she's tried to be. But she would tell Betty everything related to
town gossip, this library worker, and she would spill the beans on everything,
who she had seen with, who, who had filed for divorce,
and all this other stuff that would be interesting to them. Anyway, one
afternoon, this worker at the library was called by a customer or whatever you
call them, a guest, I guess, because of an issue with her
computer. She had been very disturbed by what she had seen on the screen.
Obviously, this secret library worker thought that it was just age and appropriate
material. She had had her own awkward encounters with people viewing that kind of
stuff online at the library. But when she got to the screen, all
she could see was an image of a wall inside of a dark room.
The wall was lit by a flashlight from where the camera was. That was
writing on the wall with a phrase in English letter characters, but words that
made no sense. When she scrolled down the web page, she said she
noticed a list of materials, this time in plain English, listing several household
items along with things like yarn. And she said that it looked like an
arts and crafts project until she saw instructions on removing the blood of a live
rodent. At the time, the worker simply closed the page and deleted the
history of the internet browser. It was supposed to clear her out once the
last user logged out, but the system back then was not as developed as
we have them today, so sometimes when you'd forget a log out, the
computer wouldn't do it for you, and you would just end up using someone
else's Internet use timer. And that's how the library used to do it back
then, anyway, And so the worker wrote down the computer's number on a
scrap piece of paper and took it to the front desk with her to look
to see who had used it before, and she found out that the user
Binangula. Just what Betty wanted here actually happened. She started getting questions from
everybody, what had the page been about, what was the name of it?
Could her friend email it to them? And all of these would be
answered by everyone in the group with their own theories, but somehow everything would
lead them back to Witchcraft, questions about her family and her life in the
past, asking what town she had come from and why she kept coming around
even though she wouldn't connect with anyone in particular, what about her family had
she been married. That's when they started talking about the time Angela mentioned her
daughter. She had arrived late to a bake sale and told them that she
had been taking care of her daughter and that she needed her to go to
sleep before taking the bus to city Hall. Nobody thought much of it at
the time, until that night in the tree lighting event, the question came
up. Angela was too old to have a daughter, right, perhaps she
was sick. Rita suggested maybe it was a special needs child and she wanted
to keep her matters private. The group went silent for a bit, suddenly
feeling the guilt of the way that they had been acting around Angela. I
never treated her poorly, and even Rita was very careful about the way she
warned me about her. I noticed a sudden shift in behavior from them toward
Angela. Though the conversation that night had actually done something good for everyone,
I for one, was relieved by it. It had been so awkward all
this time. But there was something about that night that I think they were
right about, and it wasn't about her daughter. Part two of Angela's Daughter
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I think it was a Tuesday. Rita called me right after work.
It was unusual of her to call that late, so I picked up lordle
worried. Do you get a sense when something isn't right? You know that
was right. Angela had been picked up that morning after a visit from the
medical examiner, and word got around very quickly. It looked like she had
fallen asleep on the couch and was there when the woman who delivered her meals
found her early in the morning. When she went a respond the woman screamed
and that's when neighbors call the police and she was then removed from the house.
Angela had died alone. The news hit the women from the community guarding
group pretty hard again, though I think it was guilt, although they would
never admit to it, but I mean, it'll be something that they'll have
to live with. Several weeks after the funeral, Rita and I both got
letters in the mail and phone calls from the state saying that there had been
a request to help remove Angela's things from her house if we were willing to,
of course, because she had no immediate family members in the area.
The letter had been sent by one of her brothers saying that Angela spoke fondly
of both myself and Rita and in case of anything happened, she would trust
us with her life. It would take her brother a bit to get there,
and they needed to meet some deadline. The task was simple. It
was to help her sart through her things for donation and an estate sale where
the proceeds would go to the community garden. At the time, I was
what nineteen or twenty years old. I had no idea about what an estate
sale was and had not experienced a death of somebody that I knew. It
was like a strange state of shock, but going through the items at her
house was the least I could do, and so I accepted, and Rita
did too. Getting to a dead person's home was a strange feeling, knowing
that these were the specific smells she smelt before passing away. Certain spots of
the house smelt like old carpet. The house had been well kept and things
were neatly organized throughout. Rita's plan was to get in and out quickly,
so she said that she would work on the kitchen while I did the living
room. The idea was that we would go through absolutely everything that could have
been a memento or a photograph and put them in boxes for her for her
brother to eventually pick them up. It was a Saturday morning, and we
had all the time in the world, and even though I knew that we
spent it all on her notebook, I noticed it sitting there on the table
that served as a desk against the window of her living room. The pan
that she had used was missing the cap that I later found on the floor.
It was opened to the last page she had written on and without reading
that last part I walked over to Rita, who was still in the kitchen
e thiying out the refrigerator, but I told her that I had just found
her notebook. She walked over to me and quietly whispered Angela's name as she
exhaled a loud sigh. She grabbed it and went to the couch, playing
it flat on her lap. They both sat there in a haunting silence as
she flipped to the first page of it, looked over to me and quietly
said she was always misunderstood. Huh. And she said it with that old
wisdom you'd expect a teacher to have and always wished for in a parent or
grandparent, as she went through the first page in silence before reading it out
loud, reminding me of how we used to go through the social studies books
back in middle school with that same reading voice, with those memories of when
she was only Miss Gomez quickly left as the content of those pages came to
life. Angela wrote about the community garden and the friends that she had made,
mentioning us by name along with the others. She genuinely thought we were
her friends, the only people in her life. She mentioned the time Rita
gave her a card for her birthday, and how she kept a candle for
the cupcakes she was given, and about the time Betty and the others laughed
at one of her jokes. And we sat there from about nine in the
morning until one in the after noon, going through her life in those pages,
and stopping to talk about what Angela had been to our group, both
a friend and a lesson, even though we would only remember her for one
of those. There were several strange things that appeared in that notebook, and
they stood out to the both of us. The most important one was mentioned
of her daughter. She spoke of her long black hair and perfect smile,
the ways her eyes glowed at night, and how grateful she was to have
her in her life. Angela was quite expressive in her writing, even though
in person she seemed distant and a bit insecure. She wrote about getting her
address and how they enjoyed their conversations. Rita and I were confused at the
thought. Maybe she had been a part of a program where she had to
take care of someone, or maybe volunteer in a project involving children. I'm
sure we would have found out about it earlier. If that had been the
case, and it was so strange to read about it, because Angela was
in no way able to have a daughter, especially like the ones she described,
one that was playful, young and innocent. Everyone would have known about
her. She would have brought her along to our events, or I don't
know, it was impossible, Like a few other members of the community guarding
group, perhaps her mind was aging and confusing her and all she wrote were
stories of things she wished for. Rita kept reading through the days that she
wrote, although they weren't every day, and they weren't just words. Sometimes
there were drawings and sketches, recipes and questions. Other times she would talk
about her day again of her daughter. There was one part where she said
she had gotten angry with her one day and decided to leave her alone in
her room. Girls that misbehave don't deserve dinner, she said at one point,
words that didn't seem to fit her and the way that she used to
be, And then she read the next part out loud about how Angela had
to punish her daughter, who was always unnamed by the way, just referred
to as my daughter. She had climbed onto her shoulder and tugged at her
hair the ink of her pen. She was writing with dug deep into the
paper with anger when she wrote that she couldn't believe her daughter she had pulled
hair right out of her head. She would have to find a way to
comb it over to the other side so that it goes unnoticed. I did
remember seeing her strangely combed hair a few times, along with small scratches on
the side of her neck that nobody cared enough to ask about. Rita was
a little nervous at this point, wondering if maybe it had been a cat
she was talking about and referring to as my daughter at the time. I
wanted to find out more about it, even though Rito was lost in thought
and wanted to talk things through before continuing. But instead I grabbed the notebook
and read, my daughter, the one who came to my house as a
gift, has turned into a nightmare. I'm sure of how to turn her
back into the sane and quiet little girl. I once had strands of hair
on her, tight grip like a fist, bring forth an anger so intense
that I lost my balance and sat in silence for a few minutes to catch
my breath. And then another entry that yuculatell was written a different day.
My daughter brought to life once again through the spirits hijebot and turning ken.
I begged that she goes back to normal. It is too late. I
flipped to the next page and it was blank. None of those last pages
were dated, and each one was more confusing than the last. We didn't
know what to think or if it had been related to her death, and
our thoughts would go to the same thing. She seemed so normal. Who
would have known that she had all these internal problems, problems that may have
killed her. The beam from the sun through the window had reached our shins
by now, and we could see the dust slowly flowing through it. As
we talked quietly about Angela and knew her daughter could have been, but could
have taken so much control of her? And had we noticed any changes in
her, how would we have been able to tell? If nobody actually talked
to her. There were long pauses after our questions, uninterrupted periods of silence
in that dead living room, until we were brought out of it a soft
scratching sound coming from the hallway, a soft cry from one of the rooms,
so maybe she did have a cat. We figured the whole time she
was talking about a cat, had the thing been in there for weeks?
The cry then became a little more defined, and it seemed to multiply into
several voices right in the room behind us. I stood up first and walked
to the hallway. That was sure that the noises were coming from inside,
and so without hesitating, I grabbed the doorknob and opened the door. I
looked down, expecting to see a cat run out the door, but was
instead greeted by the silence of her room with barely any furniture, a small
night stand on the corner and a large gray pillow on the floor next to
it. I walked around over the closet area. Just when I was about
to open it, soft cries once again. I turned around to look behind
the door when I spotted it. Right there on the corner of the room,
against the wall and sitting perfectly still, was a doll with dark hair,
her smile etched perfectly on her hard plastic face, the dress old and
blue, almost reaching her white shoes. I slowly walked over to it just
as Rita got to the doorway, and what I saw was impossible. I
saw the doll's arms and her fists gripping tightly around a clump of gray hair.
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