Speaker 1: Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. As requested, since I was
going to take a short break and ask you what
you would like to hear this week. The top two
stories that made it to this combined episode were A
Voice in the Woods and The Doll Maker, so they
will play back to back in this extended episode helpe
you enjoy them. My name is Edwin and here's a
scary story. There was a documentary film made not too
long ago about the guilt that one feels when you
win the lottery or to be the only one to
survive a terrible accident. Why me? And That's what I've
been asking myself ever since. It was winter time and
my friends wanted to go out to snowboard some of
the areas that they close off when the storms roll
in and suddenly driving in those roads becomes impossible. My
friends take advantage of that, so they wanted to go
snowboard there. Nobody was allowed to, though my friend Mike
used to say that it was because of some conspiracy
that's trying to lure everyone into resorts and ski areas,
the ones where you have to pay, but I know otherwise.
The places we were on were private property and if
you know anything of the people that own such big
spaces of land that doesn't have anything but trees without
their leaves and strange dirt trails that lead to nowhere. Well,
you know that they don't like visitors. Two other friends
were with us that day, Isabelle and a friend from
college named Pete, who had just gotten out for winter break.
All they wanted to do was get out of town.
It had been Pete's idea to stay out at his
uncle's cabin about two hours away from the place where
Mike went to snowboard, which we would be able to
get there comfortably if we left before it got dark.
But like with most of the plans we would come
up with all the time, this one flopped. But it
wasn't any of our faults. I didn't even like to snowboard, honestly,
had brought one board along because of Mike, but I'd
just looked dumb trying to go downhill and getting stuck
somewhere near the top for no reason. Then I would
get sweaty and then cold, and all I wanted to
do was to get to the car and go home.
This time it was no different. I hung out around
the car while the rest climbed up the hill with
their boards. Then they would reach the bottom and make
their climb back up. Pete and Mike were trying to
pressure me into bringing the car down to the base
to pick them back up, but I had no way
of knowing where to go. Plus there were no roads
down there, only these thin animal trails that had long
disappeared beneath the snow. They agreed that they would not
go very far down, and without agreement to make the
climb up to the car. While I waited for them,
they climbed up the hill. The strange silence of the
snow was enough to make their voices disappear within seconds
of them walking away. Suddenly, the sounds of snow scraping
against their boots blended with the sound of the light
winds that were coming from over the mountain, and then
there was nothing. I walked around the car and stepped
into the passenger seat of it, quickly reaching for the
glove box where I had kept the book I had
been meaning to finish. I pulled the seat back, stretched
out and open up the book to chapter fourteen. The
story had been about a man who was on a
mission to hide his family's fortune from criminals. Not the
funnest thing in the world, but a great way to
pass the time. Reading was not something I could do
with my friends around, because of all their questions, laughter,
and their urge to keep interrupting me. But there was
something off about that late afternoon, I could tell as
soon as they left. The silence around me, with nothing
but the trees that played dead along the side of
the road with other leaves creating this sea of wood
and spikes as far as the eye could see, was
enough to scare Isabel, the most logical and bravest of
the group. Maybe it was the many books I had read,
unlike this one about criminals, but about the ones with
the murderers, or the tales of recorded exorcisms from just
a few hundred years ago. The images they made in
my head all involved these leafless trees, hundreds of them,
creating their own dark world for me to visit with
every page. To think that in just a little over
an hour, the darkness within those trees would spread and
surround the car where I sat comfortably, the sunlight becoming
deeper orange with every passing minute was unsettling. In parts. Sure,
I blamed the books, but it was through them that
I learned of the cultures out of the northern and
central parts of the United States, of the hidden lakes
beneath the mountains, and of creatures I had only been
documented one time, only to later lose their classification due
to lack of records out in the wild. The world
was a strange place, and I knew almost all about
it through those books. Sometimes I thought it was the
same reason why I stayed as close to civilization as
p When there wasn't a parking lot around, I would
sit at a bench or stand by a street lamp,
anything that would remind me that humans live there too.
The car was the closest thing to that, although there
in the middle of the snowed and road, surrounded by
dead trees, that's not what I would have picked. Swoosh.
I heard Mike yelling as he crossed the road with
the snowboard quickly from about twenty feet away. From behind
the car, I saw Isabelle speed past the road as well,
a bit slower than Mike, and then Pete's was close behind.
The sounds they made were there for only an instant,
and once again I was alone, or so I thought.
There was a scratching sound from the right side of
the car by my window. As I think back on it,
I cannot remember if I had imagined this thing or
if it had been real. But this shape, I don't
know how else to describe it, had sped from the
left side of the car to the right. It seemed
to follow my friends as it disappeared between the trees,
snowboarding down the hill. But yes, it must have been something.
Otherwise there would be nothing else to blame. And if
murder books have taught me anything, it's that blame serves
a purpose that can ironically end a mystery and bring
a strange sense of peace to our minds. I was
holding the book in front of me completely still, although
the lines of the words along the page were just
to blur. My eyes tried to scan the mirrors around me,
all without moving my head. Just wait, I told myself,
Wait until they come back. Bears are not supposed to
be around at this time of the year. They're hibernating, right.
But wait, the person the thing I had seen, walked
by on two feet very quickly and took giant leaps.
It was becoming clear in my mind, just as it
fought with itself to tell me that I had just
imagined the whole thing. But then, out of nowhere, I
heard my name, Jason, Jason, Jason, it was Isabelle. I
set the book down and looked out toward the back
of the car. Jason. Isabelle must have been standing very
close in order for me to hear her that clearly.
I looked around the car, but I could see nobody there.
I put on my gloves and zipped up the jacket
just a little bit more. As I reached for the
door handle, the shadows were long at this hour. The
shade of the mountain was covering everything, and only those
golden beams in the distance. Patterns with the dark silhouettes
of the trees were visible. Just as I was opening
the door, Isabel's voice went from light and airy to
deep and guttural. I heard the sounds of the tree
scraping against something as it rushed toward me. Immediately I
shut the door and locked it. I looked around toward
the trees, and I could see a long shadow of
a figure hiding behind one of the trees, peeking. Its
head was around one of the tree trunks to look
at me. I could do nothing my body would just
not move. I was frozen in that car and try
to remain completely still. And as they stared at the
trunk of that tree, as the whole area started going dark,
sometimes almost losing the tree among the many of them
that were there, I could not look away. I needed
to make sure that once that thing moved, I would
confirm it for myself that what I had seen was real,
that it was hiding. But it just kept getting darker
until I could see nothing around the car anymore. All
I could do was wait for everyone to come back
inflicked on the reading light by the rear room mirror
in the car. It was getting cold inside, and still
there were no signs of my friends. My mind to
wander away. I thought of the many dark and snowy
forests I had read about through the hundreds of books
that sat on my shelf, The one where a cursed
father took his family out on a picnic and hung everybody,
including their young daughter. It had been an episode of
clarity for him. He said, his family was the devil,
split in three. When it came his turn to end
his life, he suddenly realized what he had done. The
stories of unknown creatures that live in the caves and
holes in the ground, those that come out and search
for food humans. Those were the things that scared me
the most, but also the old witches that live among
the trees and do their collecting at night. Who took
my friends? I looked around at the back seat for
an extra jacket. When I found a flashlight, I was
able to reach it with my left arm and turn
it on. I shined away from the car and toward
the dark trees just a few feet away from my window.
What if my friends had gotten lost out there? With
so many trees, it would be extremely easy to lose
your bearings and head in a direction you should avoid
private properties. I remember having this conversation with them many times.
They always dismissed it. Those owners don't miss around. But
as a beam of light jumped from tree to tree,
something caught my eye. Someone I think it was Isabelle
was approaching from the trees, walking unnaturally toward me. Her
legs twitched and her arms dragged much lower than I
had remembered. Her dark hair was now covering half of
her face as she looked right at me. I reached
for the door and immediately heard something that I can
only describe as a windy scream, something that came from
the woods, Jason. I heard Isabelle say, didn't seem to
come from her direction. She was not wearing her yellow
jacket this time, and it was freezing out there. She
kept walking toward me, and it didn't take long for
me to realize that it was not her or someone else,
some trap, someone wearing a mask, or a mannequin of
some kind. It would be a figment of my own imagination.
I could only move the flashlight along with Isabelle as
she stepped backward toward the trees and then collapsed completely
to the ground, merging with it, disappearing in the darkness.
I heard another scratching sound, this time from up the hill.
The name that kept being mentioned, Jason, My name sounded
cracked now, and there was a mix between Mike's and
Pete's voices. Even a casual reader would know about the
voices in the woods. These stories are something we've all heard, right, Jason.
There had been so many stories about these, starting with
the case of Emily Fairfield, the same woman who had
claimed to have survived one of the most bizarre situations
while out in the woods of the northern part of
the United States. I must have been in high school
when I first read about it, and had been a
part of Native American studies and our final projects, although
the teacher did not end up approving the topic because
it was too quote supernatural in nature. I love the
title of that supernatural in nature, and yes it was
exactly what it was. Emily Fairfield was said to have
survived a whendigo attack while out in the woods one evening,
claiming to have been saved by her silver necklace. They
say that these creatures have a strange power for lack
of a better word, and that was that they could
mimic voices of people that you know in order to
lure you into the woods. It could be the voice
of your mom, of a sister, or of a person
in need of help, anything to get you out there
in the dark. Emily had been out with her sisters
on a camping trip when the other two decided to
go and look for wood for the camp fire. Emily,
sitting by the tent, suddenly heard one of her sisters
calling for help, so she jumped up and looked around.
Even the description of this entity, this large figure covered
in fur with horns and standing on two feet, was
staring at her from the side of one of the trees.
At first she thought it was a joke, but the
thing rushed toward her and then rushed away to the
other side. The stench of the thing's body lingered even
after she lost sight of it. But as she sat alone,
she began to worry and walked toward to where the
sisters said they would be, And when she found them,
they had been hiding at the base of one of
the tree trunks, describing what they had seen and begging
to leave the campground immediately. As they ran back to
over the camp site, they could hear from out in
the woods, their names being called in the voice of
their father. He was asking for help, calling each one
by name. They made a bag, packed up, and left.
The entire account was documented in a pamphlet type of book,
a fairly short read, although of course terrifying. I had
also read the account from a deer hunter, a man
that only went by the name Burns, who refused to
go back out into the woods after his terrifying experience
with another one of those creatures. His experience was one
of curiosity and quite believable because of the many witnesses
accounts he provided, although it was also the way that
his whole identity was tied up to those dark forests,
as a man who would rise up three hours before
the sun rise to go out into the wilderness to
hunt someone who was known for his hunting rifle collections
and the jerky he would make, and then him suddenly
turning everything around and refusing to step foot back into
any type of wooded area. The stories were there, had
read them myself, and it was with a strange sense
of pride that I knew that I would stay alive
because of them and their warnings. A bit extreme, I
remember thinking, but by quickly remembering back at what I
had just seen and heard, my paranoia started making sense.
My cell phone read five point forty one pm, although
the place was as dark as it could be, basically
nighttime that early, and even though I didn't want to panic,
I knew that my friends should have made it back
up the hill by this time. When you're out in nature,
the clocks don't mean as much as a sunrise and sunset.
They knew that all three of them were into hiking
and winter sports. They were the type of people that
would spend all day out at the lake, the crazies
that would take surfing lessons during the trips to the beach,
and the ones that would look up prices for swimming
with sharks. But I sat there in the deafening silence
for an hour and then two. There were no signs
of them. I knew that if I moved the car
and they showed up, it would become more dangerous for them,
especially since we had no way to communicate with the
weak cell phone signal up there. I told myself that
I would wait for just one hour, and then I
would climb up to one of the clearings where I
would have better signal, and then call for help. Then
I would come back and wait in the car, and
I would be ready to make my way out if
I really had to. Everything was set in my mind.
I looked toward the back seat. The jacket and boots
I had refused to use were still there, neatly folded
by my water bottle. I turned off the reading light
in the car, and suddenly the outside became slightly more visible,
silhouettes all around the car growing from the snow on
the ground. But that was it. I refused to move,
and I slowed down my breathing to listen for anyone approaching,
any sounds of boots against the snow, of branches breaking,
or someone yelling my name. Despite the plan I had
made inside my head, I still had that gut wrenching
feeling was wrong, and I just sat there with that
sinking feeling, combined with fleeting hopes that all three of
them would come walking up from behind the car, that
I would be startled for a bit and then be
relieved that they had made it back. I thought of
the jokes we would make there were knowing laughter as
they would tell me everything I had missed and that
I absolutely had to go with them next time. But
another hour passed and they didn't come back. I put
the boots and jacket on, and I checked my phone,
and I made sure to have the keys before stepping
out of the car. I was expecting to sink more
into the snow, but it didn't. The light wind against
my face would have felt much nicer under any other circumstance.
The image of the clear night and stars came back
only in the memories I had of that night. The
scenario I have played in my head over and over,
remembering certain things that I hadn't noticed that same night,
and then trying to convince myself that it never happened.
Of impossible reasons of why I lost my friends. I
knew where to go. Mike had told me that there
was only one clearing at the top of the hill,
just about a ten minute hike up. I could see
the signal bars on my phone going up to two,
and with that, without making it to the top, just
about half way, I dialed nine one one. The call
was a bit spotty, but the dispatcher understood everything and
told me to stay on the line for as long
as I could. They got my details, and they got
my friend's information, and then they asked me to describe
my surroundings. Once they had everything and confirmed that I
was not in any danger of myself, we ended the
call and I was told to wait. I called Isabel
and it went straight to voicemail. I called Mike and
his phone didn't even ring, but when I called Pete
it rang. I called him again and again, but there
was no answer. My hands now shaking, unaware if it
was because of the colder of pure fear, I dialed
one last time and it started ringing, then it stopped.
I could hear wind, Pete, I asked, Pete, where are
you again? Just the howling wind, and then the call
cut off. I called again, and it rang and rang,
but no one answered. I was standing there in the
middle of these dark woods by myself, staring at something
my mind could not differentiate between darkness and silhouettes, completely
lost in thought, wondering what could have possibly happened to them?
And it's the same feeling when I think about it today.
I started to make my way back down to over
the car, rushing to get back there before emergency services arrived.
But just as I was about to get to the empty,
snow covered road where the car was, I heard my name, Jason, Jason.
But the voice wasn't one of my friend's voices. It
was mine, Jason, can you help me? It was me, Jason.
I refused to look in any other direction but that
door handle, and I sprinted toward the car. I had
left it unlocked. Fortunately, I hopped into the driver's side
and locked the door. I started it, and through those
headlights I saw it, the creature I had only made
up in my mind through the words in the books.
I had read an animal looking figure standing on two legs.
A tall beast burnt skin exposed its head, glowing against
the headlights like a skull, just about fifteen feet in
front of my windshield. It opened its mouth and let
out a deep scream. I had nowhere to go. Then
suddenly it sprinted down the hill with giant leaps between
the trees and disappeared in the darkness. And then there
were headlights behind me. What happened next becomes a blur
every time police officers, search and rescue teams, and the
long nights speaking with my friend's parents about everything. Mike's
body was found with a broken neck at the base
of the hill, not far from where I had been
parked that night. It was labeled as an accident, but
p and Isabel went missing, and for days the search continued.
Hikers and skiers also helped with the searching, but eventually
the search parties started giving up and they haven't been
found even to this day. I had been the only witness,
the only one that came back, and with that comes
a lot of questions about what I saw. They assume
the figure I saw had been a bear, and my
part of the investigation concluded. Since then, several groups have
tried to get in touch as it built a database
of sightings of these creatures, creatures that are said to
make others disappear out in the wilderness. But we still
don't have any answers. Just be careful out there, and
if you hear a voice in.
Speaker 2: The woods, run.
Speaker 1: Dansville is a very small town near the coast where
my aunt and uncle live, now mostly a spot for
people driving through with their families or lost tourists for
one of the waterfalls that showed up in an older
issue of National Geographic at one point. But perhaps better
than the waterfalls, this town's claim to fame is actually
about the town next to it. It was an old,
abandoned place that got left behind after some of the
larger cities incorporated and this one refused to join the
road network. Then it became where people used to go
film movies and then leave behind the sets alone to rot.
A very niche group of movie fans would track the
place down for pictures of forgotten films. Now, I know
this story is going to sound odd, but I do
ask you to remain respectful of the old man who
existed since his life and struggle has to be worth something,
even after the many years since his passing. I was
in high school back when I first heard of his
story and wanting to be a big shot journalist. At
one point I wanted to explore it. I had already
done stories on the mailman's retirement and the future of
libraries once the Internet came in, but some of the
most interesting ones were of the missing lambs and the
strange lights that Missus Hill would see from the side
of her house late at night. With pictures and everything,
I was able to get a headline image on the
actual town newspaper, and then later it was picked up
by the county. The answer to the lights was just gas,
at least that's what the scientist said. But this story,
this one was different. A man nameless at this time,
still lived in the town where everyone had left. He
would get groceries delivered once a week by car, where
he would make a list of materials he needed to
make repairs on his home. And although the poor man
was getting older, nobody seemed to want to take care
of him. He had no family, no friends, and he
didn't seem to want to talk to anybody. Yet he
was an important person and pretty well known. That's what
I wanted my story to be about. So I got
a right from the man at the grocery warehouse one day,
and perhaps too hopeful, I also packed a tent, a
sleeping bag, and a large bottle of water. Also carried
two cans of raviolis in my school bag. I wanted
to be able to spend the weekend there. I wanted
to meet with this man, get his story and publish it.
Maybe he would finally get out of that town, perhaps
just get some help. Everyone around the school knew part
of the story of the man in the haunted town,
yet nobody could describe where he lived. That would be
the first I met up with the kind man, with
the truck already loaded with all sorts of prepackaged foods, soaps,
and chunks of spare wood pieces bags that looked like pillows.
They were stuffed at the top of whatever light material
was inside. I thought he was joking when he said
to meet him at five in the morning. We drove
through Dansville and into the edge, the one laid by
the last hill before. Everything became flat and grassy, with
the greenery slowly getting larger until it turned to trunks
and then trees that surrounded the small two way road,
and it seemed like it too was vanishing as it
transformed into dirt and then gravel. Jim at that point
rolled up his window and asked me to lock my
door up ahead the broken down sign of Frinton, the
letters now being able to be read thanks to the
parts of the sign that faded first, the grass growing
through the asphalts now as we passed by, the buildings
still intact, perhaps a broken window here and there, but
I still felt nervous about going through the intersection without
looking both ways, even though I wasn't driving. Jim, the
driver who worked at the warehouse, had tried to make
conversation with me early on, but we ran out of
things to talk about, or simply dived into the moment
of going to a place lost in time. We kept
going through the main street, eaten into another patch of trees,
where the buildings houses now were more spread. Apart by
the large oak tree was a corner house slightly larger
than the others. The area surrounding it had no grass
growing into the sidewalks or the streets. I knew we
had arrived. There's no phone here, kid, Jim said, as
he stopped the car. You saw how we got here, right,
that's the way back. He then said that if I
got past the wooded area, a car surely would see
me and I could hitch a ride. And even though
he was trying to be helpful, I couldn't stop thinking
about that one word he said, if if I got
past the wooded area, I would be okay. I tried
to forget about it as I helped them unload the
bags and boxes to the porch of the old wooden house.
Once we were finished, he knocked on the door three
times hard and shot me one of those looks that
asked if I was sure about what I was doing.
Then he suddenly got back to the truck and drove away,
his arm sticking out the window. It took about two
minutes when I finally heard steps coming up to the door.
I clearly remember being so nervous, even more nervous than
when I interviewed the mayor or when they picked up
the body of Tracy's mom from the edge of the
river and I was there to write a story on it.
The old man opened the spring door and looked at me,
asking if I was all right, and how he could
help me. I told him that I was a writer
and that I wanted to do a story on him
with all of the confidence I had. His entire demeanor
changed right then the story He said on me. Why
in Heaven's name would you want to do that? He
asked with a chuckle. He then invited me in. His
house was neatly decorated, although the stacks of newspapers on
the center and dinner tables were out of place, he
seemed to have things in order generally, Ben, he said,
Ben gritsmore as he stretched out his hand for a handshake,
before wiping off foot looked like sawdust from his hands
and trying again. I introduced myself and asked if I
could help him bring in the stuff. He took a
deep breath, knowing it would be a lot of work,
and then looked down, nodding while getting the energy to
go outside and grab the bangs. He said he needed
to finish up a few things in the back and
that I could wait for him for a bit while
he came back. For interrupting himself to ask where I
would be staying or if I would be getting picked up.
I pointed to my backpack, and he got the point
saying that he had four rooms in the place that
if I could shake off the dust on one of them,
could stay there. I remember wholeheartedly believing that I would
be staying on the porch of a random house with
my tent and sleeping bag, thinking it would so somehow
make a good story for the place itself. But I
had never been camping, and I didn't know what I
was doing, so I was really happy to have agreed
to it. Besides, from all of the stories heard about
the town, I was not sure I would actually want
to see it alone in the darning, and so the
man and I moved everything inside by the kitchen counter
and he rushed back outside toward the backyard. Rumor said
that this man Ben was a doll maker, and he
would not make just any type of doll, but specialized
replicas of children that had died. Some people said he
started with the dolls for his own wife and daughter,
while others said that the tale had a more sinister beginning,
stories that dated way back to when the town had
people in it who told and retold the story of
the legend himself. The dollmaker of Frinton with no more
people to tell his tale, it would end up being
just me, the one who had to have the accurate
account of a story and share it to keep it alive.
And I remember sitting there watching as the sun went
high up in the sky and then later came back
down through the trees. In front of me. I could
hear the scratching sounds of sanding material coming from the
backyard with sudden breaks from the old man. I had
already gone through a can of my food and a
couple of SIPs of water by this point, with time
flying by, as I thought of the questions I would
ask Ben, and wondering how he would react to the
rumors of him from the nearby towns I was young.
If I could go back in time, I would have
helped them get out, and I would have gotten out
of there myself before nightfall. Part two of the Dull
is coming up. Right after this stay with me, Ben
came around the house and toward the porch just as
the sun had set. He walked straight to a large
barrel on the side of the porch, and with another bucket,
he took out some of the water and rinsed off
his hands. He smiled nervously as he looked around and
said in a near whisper that we should go inside.
As soon as we got in, he shut the door
in the three locks before going around the windows and
the side entrance to do the same thing. His house
had electricity. At one point I could see the old
television in lamps all over the place, but now he
seemed to get around with oil lamps and candles, like
a trip back in time. And I had my camera
with me. But even back then, a piece of advice
I heard from my teacher had been to watch out
for photographing inside private spaces, so I held back the urge.
The place smelled like dust, but was otherwise clean, and
I watched as he opened up the bags we had
brought him, and he made two sandwiches baloney and mayo
that he got from a small packet on two slices
of white bread. He quickly walked over to the chair
next to mine and sat down, taking a big bite
out of his food. That was my chance. I asked
him about himself, his family, and everything was going well
until I asked him why he lived alone in the
town with no people. There are no people here, he said,
but not alone, not alone. If the man was talking
about his dolls keeping him company, I knew that this
story would be too much for me, and that I
would need to find another angle to it or be
very cautious. With a person like that, one never knows
what to expect. He changed the subject upon, probably realizing
that I was uncomfortable with it. Everything. Then he told
me about one of his sons who was helping support
him with the deliveries, and that he would come by
every once in a while to help out with projects
here and there. He went on for a while about himself,
and then talked about the things he would eat and
how he gets his water, and then he mentioned how
the town used to be, before pausing and then quickly
changing the subject again. Mister Gritsmore, I asked, I'm here
to do a story about you, as the last resident
here in your life. What do you do all day? Oh? Well,
I make dolls, he said. Everyone knows that they've been photographed,
and I've told their stories hundreds of times throughout the years.
He continued. It turns out this man had been making
them for almost fifty years. Twenty or so of those
years had been all by himself in the town. He
pretty much watched it die, and anyone knew the story
of Frinton, it would be him. But as it dug
deeper into his knowledge of the town itself, I found
more questions and answers. He said that it was a
very old town, with certain areas dating back hundreds of
years as one of the first settlements. He spoke of
the major historic events and plagues and other difficulties of
the people of the town. The place itself was a
testament to the survival of human civilization. He continued, exaggerating
sentences with his hands as he spoke. He spoke of
the elections for mayor, the people who made it out
of town for bigger things, who later returned to settle
back in and live out their years. And then just
like that, the smile went away from his face. Everything
was good until it wasn't.
Speaker 2: He said, I.
Speaker 1: Need to first explain that this story was never written
for school newspaper, and in fact, it never saw the
light of day in anything. What I heard there was
so bizarre and personal that I decided to keep it
to myself as a form of tribute to Ben. But
at the time I guess I had my doubts that
maybe I just didn't want to damage my own reputation.
Plus Ben cared for the town so much that he
died with it, and who knows of the many secrets
that would be at risk of being discovered because of
uninvited guests looking for a thrill, completely ignoring the actual events,
and just following a blind story written by a high
school kid. Ben stood up and went over to the
back of the house to a sort of second living room.
He had back there to grab a crate. I could
see the black hair coming out from the sides of
it as he pulled out a doll with both hands,
large about the size of an actual four or five
year old child, and then set it on the floor.
I was in awe of the thing and walked over
to it to look at its face, glassy brown eyes
that sparkled with the light of the oil lamps from
the other room. Its cheek imperfect like that of a
real human face blemishes on the skin along with its
dead expression. The doll was wearing a blue dress poorly
sewn together with white cloth around the neck. I looked
over to Ben, who, instead of being proud to display
his creation, looked tired and solemn, a look more appropriate
for a funeral. He explained that the dolls are what
he makes, going into details on materials like wood and
wax and composite, natural hair and cloth from actual dresses.
Days are spent sometimes on the faces and hands whenever
he has a solid reference for them. But what surprised
me the most was that each one was said to
be complete, unique, and I mean sure. I thought he
must have meant unique, as in he would not be
able to accomplish the same level of detail on every
single one, but he expanded on it. Each one had
a name, a last name, and was of a certain
age that was intrigued. If this really was the case,
the people of my town and the surrounding places had
a reason to start rumors about the guy and a
strange obsession. I figured I would tell him about the
rumors at that moment, and risking getting kicked out into
the darkness of a dead town. I told him. I
said that the people talked about him, and in not
the most positive light, that he was a creep who
liked to live by himself, and that he had mental
problems that would not let him join a serious society.
He looked at me and smiled, making sure that I
was not going to say anything else before he started talking. Kid,
you're not the first person to tell me that, you know.
I looked at him, waiting for him to continue again.
Another tip for my journalism teacher. I wish I would
have said something though changed the subject, or I don't know,
talked about his family again, but then he explained it.
In the early times of the town, stories were collected
of a particular family who was not welcomed by the
rest of the townsfolk, and that through every generation, the
plot of the land that they had would be seized
or swapped for a larger piece, with the condition that
it would be farther away from the center of town.
The family would usually agree to the offer easily, it
was hard to refuse more land. They were able to
keep it civil for some time, until one of the
family member's husband passed away and was left alone to
fend for herself against a town that did not want
her there. Eventually, though, peculiar events started happening around the town,
like things with the clock tower being witnessed by several
people to be moving backwards at the time when thousands
of rats arrived and destroyed wooden columns and the entire bakery.
The event labeled on a wall at the tiny library.
He said that talked about the birds that stopped in
place in the sky, or the time the large white
owl stood on a branch on the center square for
over two days straight. The townspeople had gathered around the
church and at the courts to talk about what had
been happening, before deciding to do nothing because the events
were simply peculiar things. Suggestions that they were evil would
seem too silly to go on the public records, and
so they decided to leave it at that. Suspicions had
already grown about Bertha the widow, being responsible for all
of this, but nobody had any proof, and so she
remained by herself at the edge of town. Eventually, the
events escalated. Children were disappearing from the market, from the
play areas, and some snatched in the middle of the
night right from their beds. Siblings little kids would sometimes
have to testify about the disappearances, saying that they saw
a woman come in through the window and take their
little brother or sister by the leg and then drag
them straight out. All this time, I was looking at
Ben's expression to see if he would suddenly smile or
admit to be joking around, but he only kept getting
more and more upset at his own memories. Eventually, family
started leaving the town, everyone from the church people to
the elected officials, and then hundreds of children over the
years disappeared from Frinton and other nearby towns. Stories circulated
about the widow searching for children to bring back to
her house, but that part been assured was real, and
he demanded for it to be added to my story.
I looked at him writing the eye when he asked
me if I believed him. My journalism teacher never taught
me what to say in such a case, so I
just said my truth that the story was hard to believe.
It's important to mention that eventually I did find records
of the disappearances. But what about the dolls? You may ask,
who were they for and why did he spend so
much time on them. Ben's enthusiasm for answering the questions
went away right then, and even today, I consider the
way I answered his question to be one of my
biggest mistakes. He was still very polite when he answered
the process of making his dolls out of photographs that
were sent to him. Every detail had to be right
for them to be taken. He explained everything from the
shape to the weight and the color of the hair
were spot on always, and I believed him. The doll
he had made that evening was just so realistic. Before
the conversation died out, I asked again, after building some
report with him, why he did what he did. The
man simply stared at the lamp about to die out,
and then in silence, he took a deep breath and
then said, more children will not go missing. When I
think back on that conversation, I am not sure Ben
knew if what he was doing would work, But there's
a little left to say when you're sitting next to
a sobbing old man. I was looking for an answer
that was not there. Perhaps the guy only did what
he was told, and had done so for so long
that it was all he knew, getting better with every
doll that he made. For no reason at all, there
were no kids left in what remained in that town.
Lest he meant kids from other places. Ben showed me
the room where I would be staying and immediately walked
over to the window and then pressed on the latch
to make sure that it was closed. I heard him
walk around the house to the other rooms to wiggle
the doors and windows. The bed sheets were cold when
I got into bed with my sleeping bag. It was
sometime around three in the morning when I heard footsteps
from the porch just around the corner from where my
bedroom was. Everything was silent for a bit. The window
had no curtains, and the blue light from the moon
was shining straight to my face. When I turned toward it,
I waited for another creek, the kind you expect to
hear when you lift your foot from the floor. There
was nothing, and that's when I saw the face of
the doll, the same doll from earlier that day, right
against the glass. It sank down towards the sill very slowly,
until behind it I got to see the face of
an old woman, and she smiled and then tapped on
the glass and then signaled for me to open it.
I pulled up the sleeping bag over my eyes and
waited for her to go away, but all I could
hear were the chuckles. After a few seconds, I heard
the footsteps stood the porch, and then the grass and
the gravel, and she walked away, making her way through
the town once again. Are there any stories that you'd
like me to revisit at some point? I mean that
will be for some time in the future, but for now,
we have another brand new story for you next week,
so make sure you're following the show so I can
tell it to you. Thank you very much for listening.
Keep it scary, everyone, see it sooner.