Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. Based on the poll on Spotify you want to
hear a scarier story, So I thought of what scares me? This story
called Inheritance is one of those stories that will grow with you. My name
is Edwin, and here's a scary story. It was a little after the
kids had gone back to school from summer break when I got the call.
I remember it because I was alone at the house, something I desperately wished
for all summer. Julia had forgotten some folders as she needed for work,
and had just closed the door and was walking to the car when the phone
rang. The man identified himself as David Border, part of the Border and
Sons log group based out of North Carolina. Hearing the name of the state
sent chills down my back. Had gotten as far away as I could from
my hometown in North carolinaationship with my parents was not the best. Problems that
I assumed every family went through, but they were not the same as ours.
There were things about my family that I didn't want to remember, things
that if I would dig into only a little bit, would move a larger
stone that would send a landslide of memories back to my mind. The arm
I was using to hold up the phone went cold when the lawyer told me
the news my father had passed away and I would need to sign off on
the arrangements for the funeral and need to be present for the materials left behind
for me. He said many other things that were just sounds, losing their
connection to language altogether, but he did promise to email me a list of
the things I was supposed to do or complete during my visit, that I
shouldn't try to remember everything right now that he understood how difficult this must be
for me. Difficult, yes, I mean the man was my father and
I loved him. I would keep in touch with him every so often,
but some of the things he would say ended up going too far into the
past to my mother and all of the things that we went through, the
sad memories of us growing up, regret in his voice, one of living
a life full of empty people. The email from the lawyer arrived about ten
minutes later, right after I called Julia to let her know what had just
happened. I realized I never asked how my father had died. I figured
I would find out eventually, or maybe that it didn't matter anymore, I
would be wrong about that too. Julia thought it was important for me to
find out, but asked to keep her updated on my flight and reminded me
of where I kept everything that I needed to travel. She asked me if
I wanted her to go with me, but she already knew the answer.
The whole thing seemed like a transaction, not a moment of grief. I
knew my father was about to go for several months, and I knew everything
was planned out, although in secret. And that was the thing with my
family, the secrets. Even as a child, I remember having to explain
to my teachers that my parents didn't let me fill out our family tree,
giving them instead a letter from my mother. The school I went to was,
again, like with everything else in my life, not normal. During
my college applications, I realized that the academies, as they used to call
them, were private schools, the kinds where parents have full control and teachers
simply followed directions. That wasn't all of it. My parents never had people
over, and I don't remember many parties except for the ones that they would
throw for my brother. But even if I try, those memories are too
far away and badly formed in my mind, and must have been four or
five during those times. My brother's face is only a blur to me,
but even that memory, he looked absolutely nothing like the person and the only
family photograph we ever had on display in our home. Julia called me as
soon as I landed, letting me know that everything would be taken care of
and that her sister would be staying at the house to help with the kids
and Beto, our sleepy golden retriever. I called the lawyer David on the
drive into town, where he gave me the address to the offices. It
was round eight at night already, and he was still in the office finishing
up some divorce filings. Things of evil, he said, laughing. I
didn't expect sympathy from the guy, nor from any lawyer. Actually, I
think it was because he was about to tell me the details of the inheritance
left to my name, something that he assumed I would be happy about.
Therefore felt like he could joke around with me. The drive there was slow,
so many cars along every single route I tried to take, So I
got to his office at about nine thirty at night. His office was neat
Wooden shelves and dark carpets. The reception desk was empty, but all the
lights were on, and the soft jazz music that was playing in the hallway
could still be heard, along with the faint noise of a vacuum cleaner somewhere
in the other offices. He was a tall man, a little bit older,
thin, and had a perfect posture with the smile of a politician.
He said hello to me and then ushered me into his office, lined with
books and newspaper clippings, with frame certificates all along the walls, but still
all of them neatly placed and perfectly spaced from each other. He explained what
had happened. My father had died in his sleep, but was still undergoing
investigation. He made it seem like there was nothing to worry about when he
casually mentioned potential foul play. Of course, I asked what had happened.
My father had no enemies, nobody wanted him dead. It took me some
digging and questioning to finally get vague details on the situation. My father had
been found by the cleaning staff on a Friday morning, his face contorted twisted
vertically so much that his jaw had been dislocated, or so they assumed.
The lawyer had seen the pictures, he said, making an expression of disgust.
There aer pretty gnarly. He said that in about two days he would
have the remaining paperwork ready, and he gave me a series of folders,
all neatly labeled with arrows on places where to sign. Each stack had a
printed half sheet of paper with the summary one that said what I was about
to sign, the estates, transfers from the trust, and other documents regarding
fees and records of accounts that were remaining. H ignore the insurance material for
now, we have to wait for it to clear, he ordered. Still,
my mind kept wandering insurance in case you got murdered. Was that what
he was talking about? Your brother is not alive any more, correct,
he asked me bluntly. He's dead. Yes, he's been dead for a
long time. I answered. I was upset at the question. Obviously this
guy was supposed to know about my family. He must have noticed it in
my facial expression, because he cleared it up by saying that my father had
left two airs in his list. It had been done through a recent modification
of his will in recent times to reflect my name in the name of my
brother instead of just me again. He read my confused expression and moved on.
It was lots of process, so I just signed over and over until
he sat there reviewing everything. I took out my phone and started searching for
places to stay, but found nothing. Hotels, airbnbs, motels, and
everything was all booked up, and the remaining were outrageously high. And despite
me knowing that money would not be that big of an issue for me much
longer, I could not bring myself to pay over five hundred dollars for a
room. I asked mister Border if he knew of any hotels, but he
shook his head and said that it was going to be a busy weekend as
one of the largest conventions of something I don't remember what coincided with a concert.
The point is there was going to be no places to stay aside from
well my father's house. The place was cleaned, he said, The staff
had cleaned the entire house before realizing that they had been in the same building
as a dead man. There was something about the way he spoke that made
me feel like I was talking to only the shell of a well dressed human,
and I didn't like it. He said the case was processing now,
so the area was usable, not required for evidence any more. I could
spend the night there. I didn't know what to think at the moment.
It was a big deal, or at least it was supposed to be.
But I accept the thoughts of going to spend the night there faster than I
had anticipated. I knew where my key was, and so after signing everything
and agreeing to meet up again on Wednesday, I got back in the rental
car and drove for half an hour or so back to my father's place.
The front gate had been left unlocked, although shut completely, just like the
memories with my family, available whenever I wanted them, everything was the same.
When I went inside the enormous house, I remember the places where I
used to play and the many others I was never allowed to enter. The
noises in the attic, the footsteps, the closet underneath the stairs. I
went even further down to the basement through the spiral staircase. Everything remained intact.
Even the smell of it was enough to make me remember the times to
spend in that house, but mainly just how much I wanted to get out.
You see, my mother had a few problems demons to deal with.
My father did his best to help, but being overwhelmed by the many issues
Mom had, he ended up focusing all of his energy into his work.
He would come home late and lose himself in thought in front of the fireplace.
Often he would ask about our days, sure, but it wasn't always
like that. I was young at the time, not older than six years
old, when I noticed just how big of a problem this had been.
My mother had grown distant, lost, and I remember spending lots of time
with my father around the house, and he been going to his work at
the office. I remember my brother being gone and me asking about him,
now having the entire back seat of the car to myself. I was told
that he was out on a trip for the academy, or that summer camp
had been extended, that he would be back soon after he finished with his
schoolwork. I don't know how old I was when I finally realized that I
would never see him again, so I just stopped asking. But one afternoon,
a Saturday, just like any other, had woken up early to go
play outside, and walked down the long hallway and down the stairs and with
every footstep, I could see a little more of the black shoes at the
bottom of the staircase. Soon I could see the black black pant legs,
and then the white shirt with the short sleeves and the skinny arms. As
I stepped down, I could see his neck and then his face, completely
pale, shorter than I remembered him. But still I knew it must have
been my brother. All of these thoughts, all of these memories that I
didn't want on a have not before I was about to spend the night in
this house, But I remember, and I kept remembering. I ran down
the stairs, excited to see him, but as I got closer and he
wouldn't move, I tapped him on the shoulder a little and watched him collapse
completely on the floor. I screamed as loud as I could, and ran
up the stairs, waking up my mother, who opened the door and then
asked what happened. Then she turned her head back into her room and then
back to the hallway, yelling George, and then dashing toward the staircase and
then to the floor below. I remember standing there, confused as I saw
her slowly climb up the stairs and then walked toward me on the hallway,
completely ignoring me as she walked past me and stepped back into her room,
carrying the curled up body of my brother, my older brother, George,
and then watched her shut the door. Part two of Inheritance is coming up
right after this stay with me like a child again. I tried not to
think of what I had just thought about as I made my way to the
guest room on the first floor. I left all of the lights on,
maybe to give the place some life, or maybe to keep me with mine.
But you probably have some of those places that grab you too. I
mean, this house was mine, or so I kept saying to myself,
but the thought that maybe it was the other way around wouldn't leave my mind.
I stepped into the kitchen, neat everything organized, likely in preparation for
my stay, along with a note on the refrigerator the cleaning service company.
I guess I didn't read the whole thing, but it was a thank you
note to the new owners, the pleasure it had been working with my father,
and the condolences from their company. The lawyer had arranged my stay there
already, and maybe that's why he had seemed so concerned about me staying somewhere
else. I know my father had worked with him for years already, and
for since the death of my mother. It was strange how she died.
The free relatives and friends that my parents knew also knew that even then I
could understand how great it was for it to just be us as a team
against the world. But my mind was too simple to understand the dark world
we were living in. We started losing my mother slowly again with me being
so young. All I can remember had to do with the things that she
would tell me and the way my father would respond to it. All.
You see, when I was told that my brother left for camp, all
those times, I had been convinced that he had been taken by another family.
And I don't know why, but I thought that I would be the
next one to be taken. Back then, I didn't know my brother had
died, and the reasons had been hidden for me. It was one of
those secrets that made life impossible around the house. My mother would rarely join
us for dinner after that, and she had an assistant of sorts, missus
Becky, a woman who would help clean her room and generally help out around
the house until she was yelled at and literally ran out of the house one
morning, crying still. I would get the chance to talk to my mother
sometimes in the mornings before going to the academy, or at night before I
would go to sleep, and she would be by the fireplace downstairs. I
was still in the kitchen, looking at the old living room with the fireplace,
thinking of the way she would sit still, looking at the fire and
then over at me with that half smile, reassuring me that she was still
my mother, that she was doing the best as she could. You know,
there was one, okay that I remember, when she was a little
joyful and actually smiling. The photographer had been hired to come to the house
and take a picture of us, and we had all gotten dressed up.
My father had his dark blue suit on, and I had put on a
matching one that belonged to my older brother George that now fit me. I
seemed to have gotten my memories jumbled up because my brother was still in that
picture, although I don't remember anything else of him that day, yet he's
in the picture, although again he didn't look the same. I walked through
the first floor of the house the guest room that I wanted to stay in
was down there, and it was on the east side of the house,
with its own entrance an exit to the backyard. I brought the bag I
had left by the front door and walked through the living room, down the
hallway and set it on the bed of the guest room, before washing up
in the bathroom to get ready to go to sleep. I didn't know if
the news had been so heavy that I hadn't processed everything yet, or if
this was the way it was going to be. A guy who was completely
okay with the death of his father and accepted it this quickly. The thoughts
that came that night brought out a different image of him. He was a
good person, although distant. He tried to please my mother for as long
as I could remember, until we lost her. Poor guy. It was
sometime in the middle of the night when I woke up to the sound of
footsteps on the floor above me. The hallway upstairs was closer to the middle
of the house, and that's where they were heading. I could follow them,
sudden and quietly walking toward the staircase. It was nothing compared to the
many things that would happen around the house. When I was younger, the
footsteps were another reminder of why I wanted to leave for so long. None
of my friends wanted to come over, and the rumors of my mother being
crazy and a witch kept everyone even further away. It was those footsteps,
the faded sound of laughter at night, the way the noises would come right
up to the door of my bedroom, so close that I could see the
shadow of the thing right outside it. It was that thing that kept me
awake, and I thought it would go away as I got older. Kids
have strange thoughts. I mean, kids are afraid of everything, right.
We make things up when we're that young, or so we'd like to think.
But as I grew older and kept experiencing or imagining, like I convinced
myself to believe the strange things that went on in that house, things became
real. You see, there were two main entities in that house, or
whatever you want to call them. There was a woman by the window,
the little footsteps with the laughter throughout the house. I know it's sounds hard
to believe, but I don't think anyone accepts it until they've seen what I've
seen. And after going back to that house, there is no doubt in
my mind about the other beings, the ones we knowingly ignore and refuse to
see, who are around every single corner, or just one simple conversation away
from becoming real. The footsteps stopped, I'm guessing from right at the top
of the staircase. So I just laid there in complete silence, expecting the
steps to move back to the hallway, completely against going to figure out what
had been making the sounds. I had investigated many times before, and no
one had broken in, and no one had been walking down the hallway.
I remember the expression on my mother's face when I told her about it late
one night, and in a haunting, calm expression, she told me to
let the souls of purgatory take their time, that they would leave when they're
time came. But I knew how scared she was about these things. I
had seen terror in her eyes already. I clearly remember an event in my
family's history that I came to name trash Day. At least that's what I
called it all of those times I've told my wife about it. That one
time I had to explain my recurring nightmares and how they all stammed from that
night. My brother was gone by that time, and my mother would be
up in her room all day and night. When the help around the house
wasn't there. I would have to take her meals up to her room.
Sometimes would see candles, dozens and dozens of them on the floor, short
stacks of books along her bed, right there with her, those books that
she would look up from when she would say thanks and to leave everything by
her nightstand. I was not allowed to be in there technically, and she
would remind me of it too, telling me firmly to please leave her whenever
I would start to look around in there. I of course wanted to see
what was going on. I mean, she had been receiving shipments every few
weeks, boxes that would very quickly find their way upstairs and into her room.
This particular night, I heard a scream from upstairs, and my dad
rushed from his own room and ran down the hallway to find out what was
wrong. She was screaming at the top of her lungs with words I couldn't
understand. Then I heard my dad shouting, items falling down hard against the
wooden floor. I stepped out into the hall and watched them carrying box after
box with these strange figures I could only describe as people. He was bringing
them downstairs and outside into the dumpster. Mom kept dumping boxes out into the
hallway, screaming to get them out. I remember running to the door and
grabbing a box so only to see the head of a large doll looking right
at me, and I dropped it as soon as my mother commanded me to
take it out of the house. I was at the top of the stairs
when I saw my father running up to me and taking it from my hands,
then made his way down quickly as I heard Mom yelling and throwing more
boxes and figures into the hall. I vaguely remember asking my father about it,
and he said they were taking out the trash. That was that.
He refused to say anything more. And you see, it was a different
kind of fear, the kind that keeps you awake for far too long,
where your mind begins to stretch to the impossible, so much that it spreads
to your face. I heard the footsteps again. I could tell that we're
coming down the stairs struggling, and I don't know how it happened. Call
it a hidden memory or a realization brought to me by the place itself that
I pieced together everything. As I was gathering my things to rush for the
door that night, the footsteps were at the base of the stairs now,
and I could hear them clinking against the wooden floor. It was just too
obvious to ignore. Grab my bag and leave the shoes. Grab my bag
and leave the shoes, I told myself as I opened up the guests room
door. My father and the way he had passed, his jaw stretched out
and dislocated, maybe from a muscle spasm or fear, the kind that stretches
your face and welcomes you to the end of your life. My mother and
the shipments of dolls, forever searching for the one that looked like my brother.
The photograph, the one in the living room that you owed My father,
my mother, myself, and the thing. I heard the footsteps behind
me as I shut the front door of the house and ran to the car.
I knew, I knew that thing. Was it my brother? What
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