Speaker 1: Would you raise a family in a house haunted by
Speaker 1: your father? Since one man's legacy leave scars and shadows
Speaker 1: beneath an ancient oak tree. My name is Edwin, and
Speaker 1: here's a scary story. The oak tree in front of
Speaker 1: the house had always been a witness to death. It
Speaker 1: stood there still on most days around the property, taking
Speaker 1: over everything inside of it, including me, especially on dark
Speaker 1: nights like the one who were about to have. I
Speaker 1: stood there watching it from the road during the day.
Speaker 1: As I heard the school bus approaching, James came running
Speaker 1: up to me from the school bus, just like he
Speaker 1: always did, a little project or a gift in his
Speaker 1: hands that he usually wanted to show his mom and
Speaker 1: talk about it before getting ready to have dinner with us.
Speaker 1: I waved to the bus driver and he sped off
Speaker 1: into the twisting hills to leave the other two kids,
Speaker 1: some that lived even farther out into the woods. Beatrice,
Speaker 1: my wife, didn't like us living so far, but it
Speaker 1: was a large plot of land, only taxes and bills
Speaker 1: to pay on it and nothing else. It was all
Speaker 1: my dad had left me. A successful business man who
Speaker 1: hated well, didn't like being around other people. He would
Speaker 1: often say to never trust anyone. James had a drawing
Speaker 1: in his hand, something he had exchanged with another kid
Speaker 1: from his class. Henry has a swing set in his
Speaker 1: house now, he said, stretching out his hand and giving
Speaker 1: me a piece of paper. He had a phone number
Speaker 1: on it, Henry's mother, asking about James going over to
Speaker 1: play at his house. Up until that point, I had
Speaker 1: been very careful with James, never letting him out of
Speaker 1: my sight, except for when he went to school and
Speaker 1: my wife caught on right away. Nothing's going to happen
Speaker 1: to him, she would say, it'd be fine. I walked
Speaker 1: behind James as he ran up to the house through
Speaker 1: the long pathway to the porch. I passed by the
Speaker 1: oak tree while they thinking about my son and how
Speaker 1: quickly he started going to kindergarten. So many things that
Speaker 1: happened in that property, and how I was that oak
Speaker 1: tree that had seen it all. Looks like James made
Speaker 1: a friend. I said. They want him to go play
Speaker 1: after school tomorrow, something about his swing set. That's great,
Speaker 1: Beatrice said. She was walking up to us, wiping her
Speaker 1: hands on her shirt as she grabbed the note from
Speaker 1: James and read it out loud. She looked at me
Speaker 1: right away, smiling, reassuring me that he would be fine.
Speaker 1: So she grabbed the phone and called the number on
Speaker 1: the piece of paper, and almost immediately. Maybe it's a
Speaker 1: mom thing, but she got along great with the woman
Speaker 1: on the other line. They agreed that we would go
Speaker 1: pick him up. She wrote down the address and everything
Speaker 1: was ready into the woods. Or is she from town?
Speaker 1: She's from town, not far, just down the hill over
Speaker 1: there by the Hudson Ranch, she said. Hudson Ranch was
Speaker 1: quite a distance away. I thought to myself, looking for
Speaker 1: excuse to change my mind about the whole thing. We
Speaker 1: had already talked about this among ourselves, that I had
Speaker 1: to start letting go. But I know that James had
Speaker 1: already talked about some of the things that I used
Speaker 1: to mention to my father when I was growing up.
Speaker 1: The strange figures out by the yard at night, visible
Speaker 1: from the room that James was now living in. They
Speaker 1: would crawl from that oak tree in the front, and
Speaker 1: sometimes they would scream, others they would cry. James had
Speaker 1: run into her room crying, saying that he had seen
Speaker 1: a man by his window, much older, a grandpa, he said.
Speaker 1: He said that the old man tapped on the window
Speaker 1: and walked out toward the tree. That night, I ran
Speaker 1: out there like a maniac, straight to the oak tree,
Speaker 1: the source of everything I experienced. Out there, I looked
Speaker 1: up at the branches, the markings of ropes from many
Speaker 1: years before, and I felt the chill of the shade
Speaker 1: of that tree, even at night, much colder than the
Speaker 1: other areas of that grassy field. I ran my fingers
Speaker 1: over the three tally marks carved on the trunk of it,
Speaker 1: the ones that haunted me almost every night when I
Speaker 1: thought of Dad. I stood out there for a while
Speaker 1: until Beatrice walked up and asked me to come back inside.
Speaker 1: It was nothing, she said, Maybe James was streaming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I sighed as I faked the smile, and yet I
Speaker 1: knew that they weren't dreams. When do you pick up James,
Speaker 1: I asked Beatrice the next morning, once he had been
Speaker 1: picked up at the school bus out by the road
Speaker 1: at five, just in time for dinner, she said. I
Speaker 1: looked at my watch, seven forty seven am. This is
Speaker 1: gonna be fine, she said, and I knew that nothing
Speaker 1: was gonna happen to him. Everything would be the same.
Speaker 1: And I think part of Beatrice understood how the words
Speaker 1: of my dad had gotten to me over the years,
Speaker 1: not to trust those from town, to always lock your door,
Speaker 1: and to keep a loaded done right by the doorframe.
Speaker 1: The distrusting man, if that's even a word, paranoid even
Speaker 1: And I was about to say something about the address
Speaker 1: when Beatrice snapped and looked me right in my eyes,
Speaker 1: asking how long I was planning on doing this, What
Speaker 1: did I want out of my experiences around the house,
Speaker 1: And what was I gonna do about James being afraid
Speaker 1: to go outside at night? But he shouldn't go out
Speaker 1: at night, I yelled, that's the whole point. No, right,
Speaker 1: the shadows, the ghosts that roam around the house, isn't it.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to start a fight that early in
Speaker 1: the morning. But she was wrong. She thought they were
Speaker 1: bears or some other animals around the yard, because even
Speaker 1: she had seen them too, silhouettes of humans floating across
Speaker 1: our fields. It bothered me so much that I set
Speaker 1: out trail cameras out there with clear views of the
Speaker 1: dark fields the trees on the outside of the property,
Speaker 1: but I could not get myself to put one near
Speaker 1: the oak tree in the front. If there was one
Speaker 1: thing I could prove to Beatrice that there were no
Speaker 1: bears out there and no creatures large enough to match
Speaker 1: what we had seen. I think she was mostly worried
Speaker 1: about how all of these would affect James with his
Speaker 1: experience of seeing quote a grandpa. Beatrice was getting worried
Speaker 1: that maybe all of my fear was somehow being passed down,
Speaker 1: even though I never even came close to talking about
Speaker 1: these experiences in front of him. I walked out toward
Speaker 1: the porch and stood there, procrastinating about taking out the
Speaker 1: scrap metal I was clearing out from the shed from
Speaker 1: where the truck was. It was four point thirty when
Speaker 1: I pulled up to the house. Beatrice was still in
Speaker 1: the garage when I honked for her to come out.
Speaker 1: I know she always took forever to come outside, but
Speaker 1: every minute had the wait of an hour that evening.
Speaker 1: James was going to be ready very soon, and we
Speaker 1: had to be there to get him. The drive was
Speaker 1: as you could imagine it, Beatrice trying to lecture me
Speaker 1: on things while being careful enough to not let me
Speaker 1: shut down completely. Although it could have gone much worse,
Speaker 1: we got there in one piece. James was excited when
Speaker 1: he got back in the car and told us all
Speaker 1: about what they did and played at the house. We
Speaker 1: got burgers, he said, you got bert, I started, James,
Speaker 1: your mom made dinner for us. Beatrice shot me a
Speaker 1: stare that I could feel as I looked at James
Speaker 1: in the rear mirror. He stated quiet. Beatrice asked him
Speaker 1: some more about the games that he played, and he
Speaker 1: came around again. When we got back, James jumped out
Speaker 1: of the car, singing something he had learned at a
Speaker 1: stranger's house. He walked inside and put his backpack down
Speaker 1: by the hallway. I stood by the doorway as Beatrice
Speaker 1: walked over to James. So many thoughts thrilling like smoke
Speaker 1: around me, stinking my eyes and making it hard to breathe.
Speaker 1: I walked back outside. The sun had started its golden routine.
Speaker 1: As I leaned against the truck, the light beginning to
Speaker 1: dip between the branches of the oak tree. He ate
Speaker 1: dinner at a stranger's house with people from town. I
Speaker 1: thought of Dad's warnings. Why you always ate the same
Speaker 1: things at home. Why the only person to ever come
Speaker 1: over was his business partner Lewis. Why their meetings were
Speaker 1: always out in the yard or in the car, and
Speaker 1: why Mom always stayed out of everything. So many memories
Speaker 1: turning into life lessons that I couldn't get rid of.
Speaker 1: As I looked out at the darkness of that oak tree,
Speaker 1: I made up my mind that I would slow down
Speaker 1: and let those memories catch up with me. Finally, Beatrice
Speaker 1: was right. I didn't want this for James. I looked
Speaker 1: at the dark silhouette of the oak tree as I
Speaker 1: leaned on my truck, the wind picking up just a
Speaker 1: little bit, bringing alive part of the thing that terrified
Speaker 1: my father. You see that thing out there, my dad
Speaker 1: asked early one evening, just like this one. I nodded.
Speaker 1: That tree has a few things, and one day that
Speaker 1: thing will end up taking me too. The thing the tree,
Speaker 1: when it was getting dark out, looked menacing from my room,
Speaker 1: like a monster that would release one of its own.
Speaker 1: Every night, I could swear that I saw those strange
Speaker 1: silhouettes crawling out of it, things floating underneath its branches.
Speaker 1: But Dad was the only other member of the household
Speaker 1: that would talk about them with me. Had I sat
Speaker 1: with him during the heated meetings with others. The way
Speaker 1: he spoke of the people from town with such hate
Speaker 1: in his voice. One morning, the sound of Dad's truck
Speaker 1: approached my side of the house and he rushed inside.
Speaker 1: He grabbed something from the safe and got to the
Speaker 1: room we were not allowed in, and he dialed the number.
Speaker 1: I remember only part of his words, but exactly his
Speaker 1: tone during the call. Thieves, don't change, he yelled in anger,
Speaker 1: Bring her here. All I remember from that night were
Speaker 1: the crowds of people that surrounded our fields, the way
Speaker 1: Dad told all of us in the house to stay inside,
Speaker 1: as we grabbed onto Mom's skirt and tried to distract ourselves.
Speaker 1: In the kitchen, she was going to bake a cake.
Speaker 1: Nobody got to eat it. Mom had forgotten an ingredient
Speaker 1: in all the commotion, but refused to step closer to
Speaker 1: the refrigerator by the window. She just continued with the recipe.
Speaker 1: There was a moment when everyone got louder outside, a
Speaker 1: group of well over thirty people. Mom looked over the
Speaker 1: field for just an instant and brought us closer to her,
Speaker 1: and after only a few minutes it was completely quiet outside.
Speaker 1: Mom ran to the window and I watched as the
Speaker 1: group left and Dad was left standing there by the tree,
Speaker 1: carving something into it with a knife, writing something on
Speaker 1: the trunk. Mom started waking up its screams in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night for some time, and my dreams
Speaker 1: turned into nightmares. Whenever the curtains in my room were open,
Speaker 1: I could see figures swinging on the branches like upside
Speaker 1: down ears of corn from the ropes. I could hear
Speaker 1: the creaks crying, as if at any moment there were
Speaker 1: thud against the ground and begin to crawl. But I
Speaker 1: used to tell Dad all about this, and he would
Speaker 1: smile as he listened to me, asking me details about
Speaker 1: what they looked like, asking if it was a man
Speaker 1: or a woman out there, how many and what they
Speaker 1: were wearing. A man showed up to the house once
Speaker 1: with a box truck and parked it by the porch.
Speaker 1: He stepped out, and Dad ran out there. I watched
Speaker 1: him drag the man all the way to the tree,
Speaker 1: and they yelled at each other. I couldn't do anything
Speaker 1: else but stare in disbelief. Thinking back on it, I
Speaker 1: should have gotten Mom or one of my brothers to help,
Speaker 1: but I just stared at a distance from the window
Speaker 1: of my bedroom as a rope went up on one
Speaker 1: of the branches. I shut my eyes and heard the
Speaker 1: squeak the same cries from the rope as it stretched
Speaker 1: and then swinged from side to side until it came
Speaker 1: to a near complete stock, woken up only by the
Speaker 1: soft wind that came through the property in the early evenings.
Speaker 1: It was almost dark out when he came back to
Speaker 1: the house. He went straight into this room with the telephone,
Speaker 1: and within five minutes two cars had arrived and taken
Speaker 1: the ropes off the tree and drove away. Back then,
Speaker 1: I had no idea what was happening, But as I
Speaker 1: grew older and things became more apparent, I learned of
Speaker 1: things hidden deep in my memories that showed that Dad
Speaker 1: was not a good person. The night Mom was found
Speaker 1: was the beginning of the end. The police was unwilling
Speaker 1: to help us at first, and we were invisible to
Speaker 1: those town for weeks. We would go out at night
Speaker 1: as I sat in the car, riding by dried up
Speaker 1: rivers and dirt roads with flashlights with my aunts and uncles,
Speaker 1: people I would only see on my mom's birthday for Dad.
Speaker 1: It ended with my dad calling over his friend and
Speaker 1: business partner, Lewis, to the house, only to carry him
Speaker 1: by himself away from the tree sometime in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night. For me, it hasn't ended yet. Dad
Speaker 1: would speak of the shapes at night, the ones that
Speaker 1: would whisper his name through the darkness of the fields.
Speaker 1: He would look tover the tree and let a manic
Speaker 1: laughter out, suddenly stopping what he was doing and sitting
Speaker 1: on the ground to look toward it. He would tell
Speaker 1: my brothers and I the stories of that tree. The
Speaker 1: woman who stole, the man who lied, and the one
Speaker 1: who killed. Everyone must pay was his lesson. But Dad
Speaker 1: was too far gone by this point. His sentences stopped
Speaker 1: making sense. Sometime around when my brothers went off to
Speaker 1: college and I was just getting into high school. I
Speaker 1: had learned to take care of myself by that point,
Speaker 1: and I didn't need him anymore. And he knew that
Speaker 1: the things that would come from the trees would remain
Speaker 1: outside most days and wouldn't bother me, though I wish
Speaker 1: I could have said the same for Dad. I heard
Speaker 1: the door open one night, and I walked over to it,
Speaker 1: only to see Dad walking out to the tree. It
Speaker 1: didn't surprise me anymore. He would often talk about wanting
Speaker 1: to confront everything himself and rush out there, sometimes spending
Speaker 1: hours under the branches of the oak tree. He was
Speaker 1: a haunted one. His conscience, as I now understand, was
Speaker 1: too much to bear. That night was his last. I
Speaker 1: walked out there before the sun came out to see
Speaker 1: the familiar shape of a large ear of corn like
Speaker 1: a sack, hanging from the tree. The police actually showed
Speaker 1: up that time and took care of the rest. From
Speaker 1: that point forward, things were silent for a while. I
Speaker 1: would be on my own from that point forward. All
Speaker 1: of this I remembered as I stood there, leaning on
Speaker 1: the truck in front of the dark oak tree, as
Speaker 1: the sun faded into the horizon behind the house, the
Speaker 1: darkness that was that tree now swallowing up the property.
Speaker 1: I thought of James and the real fear that I
Speaker 1: felt about losing him for one of my choices, or
Speaker 1: losing him to one of the many things he said
Speaker 1: he would see roaming around that house. And end to
Speaker 1: all of this was what we needed. Beatrice was right.
Speaker 1: She always mentioned how our lives would be better outside
Speaker 1: of that property, that memories become real far too often,
Speaker 1: that I was beginning to turn into someone else, and
Speaker 1: so I brushed toward the tree that night, now in
Speaker 1: complete darkness, as I felt the shape swoshed by my sides,
Speaker 1: the cries and the wailing of the ropes as they
Speaker 1: feared getting snapped into the deep growl, slowly turning into
Speaker 1: the final gasps of air the lives he had taken them.
Speaker 1: I felt the roots of that monster in front of
Speaker 1: me when I got close, nearly tumbling to the ground
Speaker 1: before I felt the rough side of the trunk against
Speaker 1: my hand. It twisted and turned hungry for what it
Speaker 1: thought I was about to offer. I searched with the
Speaker 1: tips of my fingers for the markings on that tree,
Speaker 1: high up there where Dadd used to carve them. One, two,
Speaker 1: three tally marks on the tree. I took the knife
Speaker 1: out of my pocket, unfolded it, and right next to
Speaker 1: the fingers of my left hand, I started carving the
Speaker 1: last of them. I could feel the wind against the
Speaker 1: oak tree and circling every part of my being as
Speaker 1: it prepared for my climb. But it was not for me.
Speaker 1: The fourth mark, long forgotten and missing, was for my father.
Speaker 1: Four tally marks, four lives the tree would ever feel
Speaker 1: against its surface. It was as though every scratch of
Speaker 1: that knife against the wood meant so much more than
Speaker 1: his very name on his headstone, A proper goodbye. I
Speaker 1: finally pulled away from the oak tree and ran back
Speaker 1: to the house. I stood still on that porch, the
Speaker 1: light buzzing with mosquitoes by the doorframe, when I heard
Speaker 1: it squeak open, Dad, Can we get a swing set,
Speaker 1: James asked, startling me. Thought of someone swinging from a
Speaker 1: set of ropes, and it chilled on my spine for
Speaker 1: the last time. We'll get one for the new house,
Speaker 1: I said, just as Beatrice stepped out toward the doorway.
Speaker 1: We stood there for a bit and I looked at
Speaker 1: her in the eyes before her smile faded. The wind
Speaker 1: picked up and we all heard a deep hum coming
Speaker 1: from the direction of the oak tree. We ran inside
Speaker 1: as quickly as we could shut the door behind us.
Speaker 1: Scary Story Podcast is written and produced by me Edwin
Speaker 1: Kowar Robes. You can find me on social media and
Speaker 1: on my website Scary Story podcast dot com. Links to everything,
Speaker 1: including how to join Scary Plus, are in the description
Speaker 1: of this episode. Thank you very much for listening. Keep
Speaker 1: it scary everyone, See you soon.