Speaker 1: You sure this is the place, I said, releasing the
audio button on the app. Mabel hated audio notes, she
had let me know on several occasions, but she knew
that she had no choice. She wanted letters she could read.
I didn't like sending them either. It was just faster
that way with one hand. As I was carrying my
bags out of the car and into the building, the
place looked like the kind you would see in a
crime scene of a movie, with yellow lights and dark hallways.
I'd never seen such a place, not even in downtown,
where I lived for most of my life, sometimes even
jumping over people's excrement on the sidewalk. At least this
place didn't smell as bad. I saw the bubble showing
me that she was sending an audio note. I remembered
that I hated them, too, but I still waited for
it to arrive. I stood completely still out there, the
distant hum of cars or whatever was out so late
in that part of town, fading away. I don't remember
how I met Mabel. She was now my assistant, and
in the middle of one of the things that would
make me lose my patience faster than anything else. Finding
directions yes, is there a tap coffee up front? Go
straight ahead. The elevators are on the right, past the
internal parking lot. I'm re sending the code to enter now,
tap coffee, I said to myself. The lights were off,
but the sign was still there. The best cup ready
for you and me, I repeated. It was a slogan.
The driver was long gone past a corner by the
time I spotted the parking lot through that deep alley.
Inside of the building, a dim light was struggling to
keep itself on. At the end of it, I took
a picture of the place, sent it to Mabel. I
set the bags down and gripped them a little bit tighter,
lifted them back up. My phone was in my pocket now,
and I made my way into the building. No other
soul around to welcome me. I felt the phone vibrate
against my leg as I kept walking. I should have
never been there. My name is Edwin, and here was
a scary story. Who agrees to meet with someone so late?
I had heard about buyers in Asian countries being different
than how we do business, But no matter how sensitive
I try to be of the culture changes, this was
something I couldn't get used to. They had already made
me drink far beyond what I was comfortable with, spending
much more on a business expense card than what was allowed.
This was a huge deal, literally, the one of a lifetime,
and even the chance to talk about it with someone
made my gut rattle with excitement. Could be a new house,
a car I could possibly retire once the contract was over,
but I knew I wouldn't, And so I walked my
steps echoing through the dim parking lot, much more condensed
than I remember them to be. Ahead and to the
right was a thick column hit by several cars, already
with graffiti on the top, but it was upside down.
Don't look down it read the letters in bright green,
freshly sprayed. Just a thought of it made me shiver.
I imagine that bridge over the Timing River back home. There
was graffiti all over the place too. One particular night,
the moon was reflecting a thousand times on the little
waves in the dark water windier than normal that night.
This details things that I just don't want to remember.
Everything that ran through my head. I felt so alive
and so bad I could even smell it, blood and water.
The headache was already arriving like concrete with one loud
splash against me. I picked up my steps just a
little more. The dim light was still flashing and odd
patterns against the wall at the very end, not sure
where the rest of the light was coming from. And
yet I could see all around me. There was not
a lot of space, but rather these labyrinths of paths,
too small for cars to pass through, yet clearly marked
with arrows and stop signals on the concrete ground, round
mirrors on the corners. The smell of gasoline in the air.
It was strange, but lots of things were strange out here,
even the drive. The quiet man bowing when I got
on the car, dead silent as he looked toward me
in the rear view mirror every once in a while.
At first I thought he couldn't understand me because of
the language barrier, but as soon realize the truth the
guy was deaf. Nothing I said got his attention. I
put my back down and took my phone out. I
didn't remember changing the screensaver. I didn't even get to
ask myself any questions though, before the phone vibrated again
an audio for Mabel, keep going straight, you're nearby. I
was about to play the previous message before I realized
what I had just heard. How did Mabel know where
I was? Had she mentioned the blinking light, the one
by the elevators. How would she know that? Silly me?
She was replying to the photo I sent her. I
smiled at myself and my nervousness. It hadn't clicked in
my head yet. This was one of those meetings that
meant everything, and I was nervous. Everything had been so
automatic up until this point, not a single drop of
effort for me to get here, and still I knew
nothing about the people I was meeting with. I was
just told to arrive, given a list of notes in
a bag with me, not unusual for these types of meetings.
Reservations for the night had been made that were sitting
in my email, already taken care of by Mabel. I
picked up my bag and looked ahead. The light was gone.
It had died finally, and in front of me was
only a dark path that ended one or two hundred
feet away. The elevators would be on the right, and
I sighed kind of angry at the whole thing. My
memory was failing me. It had been up for too long.
I thought the coffee hadn't worked like it normally did.
I hadn't walked up even ten steps when I nearly
bumped into a concrete wall. I stretched my arms in
front of me and patted the cold surface with the
duffel bags, moving to the right, fueling for the corner,
but it never came. I set both of my bags
down again. I turned my head in the darkness when
I noticed the blinking light on my right down another
long hallway of concrete. This one was lined with nothing
but the black and yellow faded paint of an abandoned
parking lot. That's what this was, or had been, a
parking lot. I must have gotten turned around at some point.
It wouldn't be the first time. I grabbed the handles
and kept walking. Passed the first concrete column on my right,
and above it, instead of more graffiti, there was a
half ball of a mirror, a convict's mirror, I think
they were called. There was just enough light for me
to look at my body. I found a strange relief
in seeing myself standing there, but it lasted for only
a second. As I got closer to it, I noticed
the puddle of water on the floor I looked below
me and saw nothing, a concrete ground the same color
all around me, and yet in the mirror the spot
underneath me was dark. It reflected light from the outside,
and it was growing. I started feeling the kind of
coldness that comes with wind on wet skin. I looked
up on my reflection, a gray suit now darkened by water.
I could see it dripping from my sleeves, and I
could feel it seeping into my leather shoes, pooling into
warm water inside. I looked at my arms and moved
my fingers. Nothing was wet, and yet that chill kept
running up and through my arms, into my torso and
down my legs. I started hearing the water in my ears,
muffling the steps I took. As I backed away from
the mirror, my phone vibrated again. The bag hit the
ground before it made a thud, but I paid little
attention to it and instead just grabbed my phone and
turn on the screen. Keep going. Almost there, I heard
the echo of a blend of Mabel's voice and someone else's,
someone I remembered, but not right then. I imagined the
name in my mind. It was right on the edge
of a cliff made up of memories. I heard the
voice say something I couldn't understand, and I tapped to
have it play again, but like a proof of digital smoke,
that faded and disappeared into the chat window. I looked
around me, still not losing my patience, not now, And
suddenly I could only think about how much I wanted
to carry a cup of coffee, and yet I couldn't
with a bag in each hand. I really needed one,
but the shot by the entrance taped coffee had been closed.
But as the echoes of those last thoughts lingered in
my mind, looking toward that dim blinking light, I kept
saying it to myself, tap coffee, the best cup for
you and me. And then it clicked. Our first date,
my wife, the unsuiting teas that neither of us finished.
Neither of us liked it, actually, we later found out,
but try to be cool and force ourselves to order
something when we sat right there at that tiny round
table with the uncomfortable wooden stools across from each other.
That flashback didn't last very long. I turned around toward
the entrance of that building, now lost behind some column
or the shadow of a wall, and I looked ahead
again continuing those memories, I remembered that for those three
hours we talked non stop until the sign turned off,
and the server kindly told us that they were going
to start mopping soon, and if we wanted something else,
we stepped outside in the rain and ran for the
bus stop. Together we got on and went where it
took us, and then let life do the rest. Tap coffee,
we used to say, the best cup for you and me,
the cheesy little cups we made for ourselves at our wedding.
Oh how that made us laugh. But it was weird
because that coffee shop, as far as we knew and
had mourned in our own ways, had gone out of
business long ago, and yet there it was, in another country.
Another time had walked past it without a single care
in the world, like I didn't remember. I looked in
front of me. The light was staying on longer at
the end of the hallway, unblinking, inviting, and I kept thinking,
what was this place? How did I end up here?
I wouldn't say I was panicking, but I couldn't feel
the beating of my heart picking up, just the cold,
the sudden clog of dirty water on my ears. I
looked up at the mirror again and watched myself walk
straight ahead. Before I took a single step, fearing what
it meant, I just followed it, not looking back. I
try to walk faster, but those bags would hit my
knees and I would tumble forward as it hit me
with opposing rhythms, those strange echoes in the cold building.
My footsteps would make sounds that were delayed, and I
tested it one, two, three steps forward and I heard
them later than normal, out of sync. The whole thing
was a natural thinking. It must have been the strange
building echoing in its own ways. I kept going. The
light was blinking now, and it was lighting up a
deep hallway by a door. To the right. Just a
few steps ahead of me was another hallway, an intersection
in the darkness. There was wind running across it. I
could see leaves twirling from one side to the other,
dust flowing like smoke along with them. I walked a
little bit faster to look ahead and was met with
the sounds of a rushing river. The water was rising
quickly with the hallways met It made no sense. You
need to make it come on. I heard a voice
like Mabel's, but not coming from my phone anymore. It
was distorted, coming from somewhere deep in that hallway and
in between my ears at the same time. Hey, it's Victoria.
I heard Victoria. I yelled, honey, where are you? I
yelled it down the hallway, can you hear me? I
heard her whisper. Mabel started reassuring her in words that
were only jumbled up phrases I had heard all my life.
I heard her again. This time it was Mabel. The
doors are up ahead, just keep going hurry and dropped
the bags and rushed ahead. I was just about to
cross that intersection of hallways when to the right I
saw something. I can best describe it as a spider
with four legs. It was large, with a pair of
eyes like those of a human, and I couldn't believe
my eyes. All this time, these meetings and places just
like these always had some element of surprise. Instructions on
location were since maybe half an hour before, all carefully organized,
with new phones that would be tossed away. It would
meet in bridges and in cars, moving trains and running
trails with this. No matter how much I try to
convince myself that my eyes had played a trick on me,
imagining hearing this river in a building. Fear was creeping
up on me. No substance, no drink, had ever gotten
me here. I stumbled backward and fell to the cold floor.
The thing turned the corner, its neck, craning toward me,
and all I could do was turn away. But I
recognized this face, mister Prowley, the man from the deal
we were signing. I didn't think he was going to
be here. That yellow smile frightened even the servers. But
he always had the money to make up for it. Hey,
he said, the voice coming from above his shape. How
about that? Look at you? Ready to do this? Meet
me at eleven, Meet me at eleven, he said again,
Meet me at eleven, Meet me eleven, It echoed over
and over from all around me. At eleven, I remember
the tone of her voice. It was Victoria. When he
walked to her apartment, the one that she shared with
her roommates. I get half an hour, though, Are you sure,
younger me had thought of it as a banded thing.
I had asked her out on a second date. I
was even willing to see her during her lunch break.
I couldn't wait, And yet I should have appreciated that
Victoria wanted to spend more time than just a lunch date.
During her short break, she nervously suggested that we go
watch the second half of a movie. That's when I
started finding her funny. She laughed and confessed that she
had fallen asleep the first time. Of course, we would
have watched the whole thing, she reminded me, I just
care about the second half. We laughed so much that night.
I replayed these conversations over and over as the years
went by, never ending. It felt like our life together.
I never wanted it to end, and yet it did.
At one point, she angrily said that she felt like
she was living with the corpse. I glanced past this
creature with the face of mister Prowley on that dark
hallway untilard the dimming light in the distance, and hadn't
gotten closer. Victoria was right. Work had gotten in the way,
and no matter how much I lied to myself about it,
our future was only part of it. I wanted more money,
more prestige, more time. I wanted to be in that
building with the suits from the finance floor. I started
talking like them and dressing like them, walking around with
briefcases like them. My phone vibrated. I'd forgotten I no
longer had bags on my hands, and I unclenched my fists.
I was able to fit them now into my pocket.
I saw the chat two messages for Mabel, Hey, you're
all right, forgive yourself. The audio glitched played. Victoria's voice
blended with Mabels. This time she was crying, like she
had done so many nights when we were together. I
press play on the second message, Victoria's taking care of
It's not your fault. The water rose this time up
to my knees, and I felt it the hard sand
and mud on the sides of my head, and then
the rocks scraped my face as it carried me farther
away from the light. I watched many hallways to my
left and to my right, birthdays and funerals, those I
never had the time for. I watched my son second
birthday and my daughter's tea ball tournament final. I sat
with Victoria during those movies at home when she fell asleep.
The water carried me deeper into that building. The smiling
faces of these spiders. Mister Prowley in the text from
the Many Companies I had seen the ones during my
time away from home. I watched the contracts float on
the water as the men shook hands, four or five
arms extending from a single body, smiling with each other.
There was enough light in that building, fading in and out.
As the water carried me away, I could still see
you around me. I knew I was going deeper and deeper.
I didn't know what was actually happening, or what I
was imagining, or if it was a combination of the two.
But suddenly my eyes opened and I was back in
that hallway, the dim light still ahead, a little bit
closer this time, my clothes dripping wet. I took no
more time thinking about it and crossed the hallway, mister
Prowley's eyes following me closely. As I walked in front
of him, I thought I was out of the danger.
The place looked a little bit brighter now, my phone
still clenched tightly on my left hand, dripping dark water
onto the cold floor. What had been so bad about this?
We lived a good life. Right from behind me, from
the ceiling, I heard the tapping of unnatural steps until
I saw what it was. There was another salesman, the
one from the other companies. The split, as he called it,
multi hundred thousand dollars deal split into different hands, mine
being one of them. I laughed as I thought of
the money we had made together, how everyone was in
on it, and how dumb it was to stay out.
I smiled at this creature in front of me. I
knew him as Tyler, but only God knows what his
real name was. He had died in his office, found
the next day by one of the assistants from the
second floor, mixing pills and alcohol. Probably a common thing
amongst these guys. Maybe he was poisoned. No one trusted
each other, and I knew why firsthand. I thought of
the bags now away behind me in the darkness of
that hallway, the cash given to me to pass on
with the splits. I heard Tyler say, he gave us
your word, he repeated, he was angry. That was the reason,
wasn't it, I said out loud, with my phone up
to my mouth, letting go of the voice no button,
And then I remembered the brakes of the car hadn't worked.
I was in it, and the car was nearly purchased
brand new. Top of the line. That cold river up
ahead I never stood a chance. It hit me that
concrete after the car flipped, and I managed to get
half my body out the window before it rolled over again.
I knew whose fault it was, and maybe I deserved it.
And these voices echoed in my head. My friends in
the business, how long you think we can keep this
going for? We all asked at certain times, so one
of you ruins it. Tyler would yell, the serious in
his voice. Sometimes maybe he was blaming me. I should
have never trusted him. There was no response from that phone.
Mabel was offline, and yet I wanted to smile, thinking
of all the money we had made. If I could
go back and make more, I doubt I would skip it.
Why doesn't everyone try it? Sometime nobody finds out money
hits in cash and it's untraceable, and there are many
new ways of getting it too, Mabel, I said to
the chat window on the phone. I typed it out.
I tried calling, but nothing, Victoria, I yelled at the walls.
I'm fixing it, baby, No more of that stuff, I promise,
I said, smiling after each sentence. I was close to
the blinking light. Now I could see it glowing yellow.
Almost above me, and to the right there was a
single elevator. I pressed the up arrow and it started
glowing red. This was it, It was over. I was
soon to be up there with everyone who had come
before me. This is what it was like to be dead,
killed over envy and greed. But I can't say I
didn't have a good time. I looked at my phone
to message Mabel one last time, and I remembered right
away that she didn't exist. Nobody did. This whole thing
was made up. I would probably start all over. I
would find out if heaven was a real place now.
And so I looked around at the old dark hallways
of the building or whatever this place was. Who would
have known. This is what it was like to die.
We had a good run, and I was ready to
cross over. The elevator door opened, another blinking light overhead,
and I stepped right in, smiling at how easy this
had been. The doors closed, Go it down, Going down.
The elevator Echo Scary Story podcast is written and produced
by me Edwin Kvaruz. For story breakdowns and additional material,
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