Speaker 1: The lonely swing set out in the field was moving
Speaker 1: in the darkness, and all I could do was stare
Speaker 1: through the kitchen window. It was another January at home,
Speaker 1: but what used to be my home and then turned
Speaker 1: into it again, this time though there was no family around,
Speaker 1: no parents, and almost no neighbors. My parents refused to
Speaker 1: sell it, despite it being worth almost a million dollars
Speaker 1: by the time they were older. Instead, they died in it,
Speaker 1: and now it was mine to sell, well half of it,
Speaker 1: at least. It was large, too big for me and
Speaker 1: unnecessary for them. They stopped cleaning the upstairs area, where
Speaker 1: the dust and cobwebs made it unlivable for me, so
Speaker 1: I too started avoiding it. They had a room by
Speaker 1: the kitchen, a guest bedroom that I stayed in. It
Speaker 1: had its own bathroom, its own entrance, even and at
Speaker 1: times I would forget how long I had lived there.
Speaker 1: It was every January when I would think that this year, really,
Speaker 1: this time I was going to sell it.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: This is the story of an inner haunting, whether inside
Speaker 1: of your own body or as an extension of it,
Speaker 1: a thing we can escape. My name is Edwin, and
Speaker 1: here it's a scary story. The house had a large
Speaker 1: field out front a swing set too old for anyone
Speaker 1: to use, but I remembered all those times out there
Speaker 1: a barbecue grille filling up the air with white smoke,
Speaker 1: only to disappear by the edge of the trees. My
Speaker 1: cousins used to love coming over to the house to
Speaker 1: play on that swing set, and as we got older,
Speaker 1: we started adventuring into the wooded area right behind the house.
Speaker 1: The place where we would play hide and seek eventually
Speaker 1: turn into play where we would only go and talk
Speaker 1: about girls in high school drama. But like how things go,
Speaker 1: usually the successful ones left and soon it was only
Speaker 1: me in town with my dreams of leaving two. I
Speaker 1: guess that's what I'm working on now. It was a
Speaker 1: twelfth or thirteenth January. Now the heater had stopped working,
Speaker 1: so I was using a small electric heater thing that
Speaker 1: would make the room smell like burnt plastic, one that
Speaker 1: I had to watch out that it wouldn't set itself
Speaker 1: to the highest wattage because it would trip the breaker,
Speaker 1: and the breaker was upstairs. But aside from that, I
Speaker 1: had little to take care of out in that house.
Speaker 1: The guest bedroom, the kitchen, and that was that, though
Speaker 1: I must admit I could never bring anyone to the
Speaker 1: house very often. Some of my coworkers eventually found out
Speaker 1: where I lived, and they would ask to host a
Speaker 1: cookout or something out there. A few houses down in
Speaker 1: the valley had fields like mine, maybe only a patty
Speaker 1: and neighbors I would complain about not being able to
Speaker 1: open up their windows, or that the music was too loud,
Speaker 1: that their baby was sleeping, or some other annoyingness. Not here,
Speaker 1: I would come home, minding my own business. As I
Speaker 1: closed the gate, drove up as closed to the side
Speaker 1: door as I could, and parked. I could yell as
Speaker 1: loud as possible from my front door and no one
Speaker 1: would hear me. But I came to find out that
Speaker 1: maybe that wasn't such a good thing. An appraiser, right,
Speaker 1: that was the thing I would need in order to
Speaker 1: sell the house. But before getting that done, I would
Speaker 1: have to clean up everything, remodel, get rid of my
Speaker 1: parents nick knacks and the furniture I grew up with,
Speaker 1: the one in all the photographs. But before getting rid
Speaker 1: of things, I'd have to talk to my brother. He
Speaker 1: was up to no good and would call me when
Speaker 1: he remembered that we were sitting on some money with
Speaker 1: that house. He would demand to sell. Then he would
Speaker 1: forget about it. And remember again near the end of
Speaker 1: the year, three children from two different women, balancing from
Speaker 1: job to job, state to state, girlfriend to girlfriend. But
Speaker 1: I would tell him this place needs work, no one's
Speaker 1: gonna want to buy it, just like that.
Speaker 2: But he didn't care, and I meant it.
Speaker 1: He would forget about it and go back to his
Speaker 1: own things while I dealt with the house, and as
Speaker 1: you can imagine, it was quiet. I would arrive to
Speaker 1: turn on the TV, open a can of coke, and
Speaker 1: sit until I got hungry. Boy, I hated going to
Speaker 1: that kitchen, even to this day. I think back on
Speaker 1: it and wonder what the heck I was doing there.
Speaker 1: Not saying I would have done this, but it did
Speaker 1: cross my mind to break open a hole in the
Speaker 1: wall to go straight behind the refrigerator and get to
Speaker 1: the kitchen that way, because what I had to do
Speaker 1: was open up my door, get a clear view of
Speaker 1: that living room. Old couches, portraits on the walls, mom's
Speaker 1: old piano in the corner, dusty carpets and chairs, and
Speaker 1: if it was dark, it would be even worse that
Speaker 1: couldn't take it. I would have to turn on the
Speaker 1: lights to that old area of the house. Lights would
Speaker 1: slowly fade as you looked up the stairs and to
Speaker 1: the second floor, the next level of darkness, where my
Speaker 1: imagination would reach the barrier of what could never be.
Speaker 1: Then I would walk to the kitchen and flick on
Speaker 1: the lights to see the familiar sight the toaster, the
Speaker 1: pitcher to heat water in the two plates, and a
Speaker 1: mug neatly stacked on the drying rack. Everything would go
Speaker 1: back to normal then, though by knew somehow behind me,
Speaker 1: in that dark living room and in that even darker
Speaker 1: upstairs area, there was something an unfamiliar sight. Though it's
Speaker 1: strange to think that of a house you grew up in.
Speaker 1: Had me toasted bread and eggs that night for dinner.
Speaker 1: It had been a long day at work, and our
Speaker 1: holiday events had been delayed in exchange for having the
Speaker 1: time for peak sales at the end of the year.
Speaker 1: Sure it was a weird time to have winter dinner
Speaker 1: event in January, but with our commissioned paychecks coming in,
Speaker 1: nobody seemed to mind it. I guess the day just
Speaker 1: felt longer to me because of the higher ups trying
Speaker 1: to cheap out on the venue, an outdoor event at
Speaker 1: a regional park which was all dirt and probably frozen
Speaker 1: in some areas.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: The previous year, they had held it at a bar
Speaker 1: and grill, one of those chain ones that all felt
Speaker 1: the same. It was all right, food and drink.
Speaker 2: Something to do.
Speaker 1: During one of the meetings, one guy, Robert said, let's
Speaker 1: go to Jose's place, right, better than that park.
Speaker 2: Everyone knows.
Speaker 1: Pause in the meeting and they kind of looked at me.
Speaker 1: I smiled, trying to play it off. I swear that
Speaker 1: at the time I didn't think it would be a
Speaker 1: bad idea. They could honestly use some friends, and the
Speaker 1: co workers had finally started having me join them for
Speaker 1: lunch and for their gossip talk. No matter how much
Speaker 1: I hated them, they knew about where I lived, the
Speaker 1: large red gates off Road seventeen. I thought of a
Speaker 1: lot of things once I got home, that this could
Speaker 1: be my chance to finally tidy up the place, starting
Speaker 1: with the yard, at least the path to the bathroom
Speaker 1: and what a guest would see on their way there.
Speaker 1: Maybe part of the stairs, maybe open up some of
Speaker 1: the windows. Imagine myself taking the things out to the
Speaker 1: street for trash day, maybe waxing those old floors. If
Speaker 1: I could take the Saturday before to stay at the
Speaker 1: house and maybe go upstairs for once, the place might
Speaker 1: start changing, because sometimes I would have to spend time
Speaker 1: sitting in the truck at the parking lot of a Walmart,
Speaker 1: or going to a drive through somewhere to pass a time.
Speaker 1: And yet I could never put my finger on exactly
Speaker 1: why I didn't want to be in that house. All
Speaker 1: of this I thought about as I sat on the
Speaker 1: tiny table in the kitchen a chef's take, like my.
Speaker 2: Father used to call.
Speaker 1: It had gotten dark while I was thinking of all
Speaker 1: of this, Only the kitchen was illuminated. The egg yolks
Speaker 1: looked green from the fluorescent lights in the ceiling, the
Speaker 1: wet bites filling the room along with an electric hum
Speaker 1: above me. I looked at myself in the reflection of
Speaker 1: that kitchen window, the one that led to the dark
Speaker 1: and empty field with an old swing set just beyond it.
Speaker 1: Somewhere in the dark air, something squeaked. I stopped chewing,
Speaker 1: holding my mouth half open, and I tried not to move.
Speaker 2: I squeaked again.
Speaker 1: It was definitely coming from outside, but chill ran down
Speaker 1: my back as my legs automatically pulled me up and
Speaker 1: toward the window. The thing about feeling safe at night
Speaker 1: is that the light blocks out the darkness outside. It
Speaker 1: can't see you, but you can't see it. And the
Speaker 1: sound was coming from the swing set, a deep, hard squeak.
Speaker 1: I was thinking back on how it was when my
Speaker 1: cousins and I would play on it, the high pitched
Speaker 1: squeaks we made, and a pattern that wouldn't change no
Speaker 1: matter how high we swung on it. We know because
Speaker 1: we would try and use it to count the number
Speaker 1: of swings before it was someone else's turn. Counting to
Speaker 1: thirty always took the same amount of time, and it
Speaker 1: always sounded the same. But this one was different. Could
Speaker 1: it have been of how old it was? Does rust
Speaker 1: have that effect on a squeaky chain? Because the only
Speaker 1: other explanation I could think of was of someone an adult,
Speaker 1: sitting on the old set, maybe not swinging, but just
Speaker 1: sitting there moving unintentionally. There was another line of cold
Speaker 1: air down my spine, cold sweat, it felt like as
Speaker 1: I stood there, letting whatever was out there look at
Speaker 1: me as I looked into my own eyes, eyes completely
Speaker 1: unaware if I was looking straight into the eyes of
Speaker 1: someone or something else. But no matter what, the thought
Speaker 1: of shutting off the lights to get a clear view
Speaker 1: never crossed my mind, and instead I did something no
Speaker 1: one should ever do when you're out there, surrounded by
Speaker 1: trees that had gone to sleep for winter, in the
Speaker 1: stillness of a house in the middle of a dark field.
Speaker 1: I reached for the window and slid it open to
Speaker 1: the right. Now, the light from the inside was doing
Speaker 1: its job, and I could see an angled stripe making
Speaker 1: its mark, my own shadow at the end of the
Speaker 1: bluish white crooked rectangle on the ground. And at the
Speaker 1: end at the end of this light strip, I could
Speaker 1: see my silhouette. It was the old red swing set,
Speaker 1: moving very slowly from side to side, likely in the
Speaker 1: direction of the wind. I thought, I cannot do much
Speaker 1: more than to stare out the slowly fading darkness of
Speaker 1: that night just beyond the swing set, slowly focusing my
Speaker 1: eyes into that swing slowly moving left to right, right
Speaker 1: to left, I shut the window and my head automatically turned,
Speaker 1: as if by instinct, behind me, toward the darkness of
Speaker 1: the living room, just beyond the kitchen tile on the floor.
Speaker 1: It was as if someone was there. I couldn't tell directly.
Speaker 1: The lights right above me would make a type of
Speaker 1: curtain in my eyes. The only other times I felt
Speaker 1: that was while driving downhill with high beings.
Speaker 2: Coming up to me.
Speaker 1: But the night was still, and there was nothing but
Speaker 1: the wind in the outside and the hum from that
Speaker 1: light above me on the inside. If I paid close attention,
Speaker 1: I might hear my heart beat. But that was it,
Speaker 1: Or was it? There was footsteps. I heard them, little
Speaker 1: by little, the sound of a squeaky step on the staircase.
Speaker 2: It was a third step.
Speaker 1: That's the loudest I had done so all my life.
Speaker 1: But this one was deeper, a heavy footstep, or slow
Speaker 1: enough to try to keep it from making noise, somehow,
Speaker 1: making it sound like a grunt echoing through the darkness
Speaker 1: of the house. I slowly walked to the edge of
Speaker 1: the white tile. That pitch black living room sent me
Speaker 1: right back. It must have been two or three steps
Speaker 1: away from the light switch, and yet all I did
Speaker 1: was stand there. Perhaps if I showed off the kitchen light,
Speaker 1: I might be able to see something. There was no
Speaker 1: way I was gonna do that. I told myself that
Speaker 1: I was stressing out about the event for my job,
Speaker 1: the one that they were talking about making at my house.
Speaker 1: I thought of the pros and cons in my head.
Speaker 1: It was a small team that would be there, maybe
Speaker 1: twenty five people tops.
Speaker 2: They would bring.
Speaker 1: Along the catering and everything. They would come with their
Speaker 1: own cleanup crew. That's right, the cleaning, and if they
Speaker 1: were gonna come, I would have to clean up beforehand.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't like they were to go upstairs. But
Speaker 1: if I tried, if I really tried, I might be
Speaker 1: able to clean everything the whole house before they get there.
Speaker 2: What was I saying?
Speaker 1: The thing was huge, plus the whole going upstairs thing,
Speaker 1: I don't know. The last time I went up there
Speaker 1: was to flick the breaker back on in the house
Speaker 1: during winter January too.
Speaker 2: I remember that.
Speaker 1: With those thoughts in mind, I was able to drown
Speaker 1: out the squeak that came from inside of the house,
Speaker 1: somehow less terrifying that the one that came from the
Speaker 1: outside from the swing set. The eggs and toes had
Speaker 1: gotten cold by the time I started eating it again,
Speaker 1: the yolk turning into plastic from the outside. I took
Speaker 1: the plate and washed it right away, food still in
Speaker 1: my mouth, making noise with the water and humming to
Speaker 1: myself so that if another sound came from that house
Speaker 1: I would be sure to miss it. I took a
Speaker 1: gulp of the carton of orange juice that was in
Speaker 1: the fridge and washed it. Everything down. The plate's now
Speaker 1: stacked again, no drinking glass to wash.
Speaker 2: With a deep breath.
Speaker 1: I flicked off the light to the kitchen and felt
Speaker 1: my way down to the switch of the living room,
Speaker 1: but I didn't turn it on. No, I kept going
Speaker 1: straight to the door of my room. I snuck inside,
Speaker 1: and that's when I flicked on the light. You see,
Speaker 1: even though I was in the same house, something felt
Speaker 1: different about being in that room. I hardly thought about
Speaker 1: my parents' final days in there, with my mom going first,
Speaker 1: two weeks later Dad followed, and once a grief died down,
Speaker 1: I started fixing up the place. I turned it into
Speaker 1: something special. The window faced the field, and if you
Speaker 1: stood on the left side of the window, you could
Speaker 1: see that swing set out there. It was in that
Speaker 1: room that I could be in complete darkness or near
Speaker 1: complete darkness with the TV on at night and feel
Speaker 1: all right. The lock always latched on the door that
Speaker 1: led to the living room, but the one that led
Speaker 1: to the outside, well, I never.
Speaker 2: Really checked it.
Speaker 1: Something about that house made my mind run crazy with
Speaker 1: thoughts of being a little kid and running down the
Speaker 1: stairs after getting scared and what happened. Often I used
Speaker 1: to have these dark dreams, and sometimes I would see
Speaker 1: things that I couldn't explain that would scare me enough
Speaker 1: to run. But as I grew older, I stopped seeing
Speaker 1: those things and consider them. What my parents used to
Speaker 1: repeat over and over, You're a crazy imagination boy. But
Speaker 1: at that moment in the bedroom, I wanted to prove
Speaker 1: something to myself that I wasn't scared, that there was
Speaker 1: nothing I should worry about, and that what I had
Speaker 1: heard was nothing but the sounds of my own brain
Speaker 1: making things up in the dark. So I flicked off
Speaker 1: the light and walked to the window, and in plain view,
Speaker 1: now maybe because of the light of the moon finally
Speaker 1: coming out from the trees, I could see that swing set.
Speaker 2: It was no longer moving, and.
Speaker 1: Quite frankly, I started doubting if it had even more
Speaker 1: moved in the first place. Those chains were heavy replaced
Speaker 1: when we were kids from the ones they originally came from,
Speaker 1: because Mom would complain about the sounds it would make
Speaker 1: that replaced them and the noises stopped. I was thinking
Speaker 1: back on that and making up theories as to what
Speaker 1: could have gotten the swings to move when I heard it,
Speaker 1: a subtle, insignificant step coming from above. I knew what
Speaker 1: they sounded like, so I froze by that window, holding
Speaker 1: my breath for whatever had made that noise to take
Speaker 1: another step, And then it did. It was moving right
Speaker 1: above me toward the hallway that led to the staircase
Speaker 1: in the middle of the second floor, slowly at first step,
Speaker 1: step step, and then rushed to the other end of
Speaker 1: the house. Another chill ran through my body, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know if I was scared or actually cold. I
Speaker 1: felt around the floor for the space heater and plugged
Speaker 1: it in. I watched as the glowing orange light of
Speaker 1: the grille of it turned on, and quickly it popped
Speaker 1: and then blended back into the darkness. This time, I
Speaker 1: ran to over the light switch and flicked it.
Speaker 2: Nothing.
Speaker 1: I flicked it again, and then two more times. I
Speaker 1: was in complete darkness. Now I prayed for the flashlight
Speaker 1: to have batteries in it. The thing I kept under
Speaker 1: the bathroom sink. Carefully, I made my way there until
Speaker 1: I felt the toilet against my knees. I bent down
Speaker 1: and felt around under the sink until I got it. Eagerly,
Speaker 1: I pressed a button. I nearly jumped when I saw
Speaker 1: my face in the mirror.
Speaker 2: I led her a chuckle.
Speaker 1: In that moment, I thought of how weird this had been,
Speaker 1: and if it was even anything at all.
Speaker 2: But then it hit me.
Speaker 1: Now, with the flashlight against the ceiling in the bathroom,
Speaker 1: I could see my breath in the air, and I
Speaker 1: felt dread. Right then and there, I knew I was
Speaker 1: gonna have to go upstairs and flick the breaker. I
Speaker 1: made my way back to the room. Standing by the
Speaker 1: locked door that led to the rest of the house,
Speaker 1: I took another deep breath, unlocked it quietly, as if
Speaker 1: whatever was up there on the second floor was going
Speaker 1: to hear me, as if I weren't alone.
Speaker 2: In the place.
Speaker 1: I tried not to breathe as I listened for something, anything,
Speaker 1: up there, but all I got was silence. It was
Speaker 1: then that I got the courage to open the door.
Speaker 1: As expected, I was met with the darkness from that
Speaker 1: living room. My flashlight lit up the opposite wall, and
Speaker 1: I could finally see those portraits at night. I looked
Speaker 1: down to where the old rug had started, and I
Speaker 1: watched my foot finally step over it. After what must
Speaker 1: have been years. It wasn't long before I was at
Speaker 1: the base of the stairs. I was shining the light
Speaker 1: directly on the next step, avoiding looking up as I
Speaker 1: slowly climbed one step, two, and then the third, a
Speaker 1: deep squeak, and I kept going until there was nothing else.
Speaker 1: It was noticeably colder up there. I looked down to
Speaker 1: the living room, now a soft light from the outside,
Speaker 1: now illuminating the floors with that dead blue light that
Speaker 1: comes on certain nights. That's when I heard another footstep.
Speaker 1: I'm in front of me, now down the hallway where
Speaker 1: my old room used to be. I couldn't do anything
Speaker 1: but wait, and I had nowhere else to turn but
Speaker 1: to that darkness. So I thought of closing my eyes,
Speaker 1: but I knew it wouldn't help, not anymore. I couldn't
Speaker 1: stop my mind from creating figures of the silhouettes that
Speaker 1: came from the dim moonlight in the deep end of
Speaker 1: the hallway. And then I watched as something seemed to
Speaker 1: hide between the lamp tables by the walls, playfully trying
Speaker 1: to avoid being seen. My heart was beating faster now,
Speaker 1: and I worked my way toward the storage closet by
Speaker 1: the water heater. I walked fast enough not to run.
Speaker 1: I swung the door open, the loose hinges, almost giving
Speaker 1: up on it. I aimed the flashlight toward the breaker box,
Speaker 1: opened it and flicked the last one. I could see
Speaker 1: some light down by the living room. Now I ran,
Speaker 1: this time rushing toward the stairs, basically hopping every other step,
Speaker 1: questioning absolutely everything I had known up until that point.
Speaker 1: I shut and locked the door to my room, flicked
Speaker 1: on the TV, and stood there for a moment until
Speaker 1: I finally plopped onto my bed and waited for what.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but that night seemed alive with taps
Speaker 1: and scratches and everything would make me meet the TV
Speaker 1: and wait again. I was tired the next day at work,
Speaker 1: but everything seemed to be back to normal by the
Speaker 1: next week. It was a Monday when my supervisor walked
Speaker 1: up to me in the break room and asked what
Speaker 1: I thought about having the winter dinner at my property,
Speaker 1: and I lied. I told him I was going to
Speaker 1: have extended family over and that they would be staying
Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks. Easily, the light came out
Speaker 1: and he believed it. He said not to worry about it,
Speaker 1: that they were going to bite the bullet and pay
Speaker 1: for a real venue instead of the park space like
Speaker 1: they had planned. Too many complainers, he said. I chuckled
Speaker 1: and nodded for the rest of the conversation until he left.
Speaker 1: But really the truth was that I had been planning
Speaker 1: to agree to the event taking place there. I had
Speaker 1: bought trash bags and I found the brooms out in
Speaker 1: the shed. I started cleaning the porch in the living room,
Speaker 1: but I kept stopping myself. There was something about that
Speaker 1: house that made me think twice. So I was about
Speaker 1: to head upstairs that Saturday, broom in hand, but just
Speaker 1: as I passed the third step, I felt it a
Speaker 1: sudden drop in temperature, the ambient of the house just
Speaker 1: a little bit darker. There was something out there waiting.
Speaker 1: I turned around right away and went back to my room.
Speaker 1: I thought of my parents and their time there. Rooms
Speaker 1: I hadn't been stepped in for years before they even
Speaker 1: passed away, Thinking that perhaps it wasn't that they couldn't
Speaker 1: go upstairs anymore, but rather that they didn't want to.
Speaker 2: And sometimes I would.
Speaker 1: Lay there in bed at night thinking about the place,
Speaker 1: and I would hear a swing creek, that deep, lonely
Speaker 1: groan that would come from the outside steps, that would
Speaker 1: travel from one side of the house to the other,
Speaker 1: sometimes fading into nothingness right above me, strangely familiar. But
Speaker 1: I didn't think much further than that, so I gave
Speaker 1: up on the idea of the appraiser and started getting
Speaker 1: annoyed at my brother's calls to sell. I told him
Speaker 1: we would both take care of it if that's what
Speaker 1: he wanted so badly, and that I'd be waiting for
Speaker 1: him to come and help clean out the place.
Speaker 2: He hasn't called My home would be only.
Speaker 1: The room and my kitchen and the idea of a
Speaker 1: door that would lead me straight to it, and I
Speaker 1: could live like that forever. It's what I'm hoping for. Anyway.
Speaker 1: I still avoid the rest of the house, just like
Speaker 1: my parents did. It's been January again a few times
Speaker 1: since then. If you're listening to this episode in January,
Speaker 1: I just want to say Happy New Year. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate you've been here and for you know, all the
Speaker 1: stuff that you did in twenty twenty five, listening and
Speaker 1: sharing and liking and commenting and everything. You could really
Speaker 1: appreciate that. Now we're all to twenty twenty six. So
Speaker 1: what was up there? That's the question, right, what was
Speaker 1: haunting this man and how the story was written? That
Speaker 1: the man himself is expressing loneliness, right, and he hears
Speaker 1: one he kind of goes through memories in the past,
Speaker 1: things that you know, playing with his cousins, when he
Speaker 1: started hanging out in the forest or you know, in
Speaker 1: the wooded area of the property. The footsteps going along
Speaker 1: the hallway, his own memories of him growing up in
Speaker 1: that house. So and he mentioned also he has no friends, right,
Speaker 1: so he has that loneliness. Now, the loneliness itself can
Speaker 1: be a haunting thing. Could he be making these things
Speaker 1: up in his head? He even doubts himself that he
Speaker 1: heard these steps up there, but they're always like these
Speaker 1: lonely like things that happened in that house. So it
Speaker 1: could be himself the one that's haunting him. Could also
Speaker 1: be some entity there. Also, there was a small little
Speaker 1: hint there, a small there's no spoilers now because the
Speaker 1: story's over. But remember this little little detail in there
Speaker 1: that he says he locks the door that leads to
Speaker 1: the living room and for the one that leads to
Speaker 1: the outside, well, he never really checks it, So did
Speaker 1: somebody sneak in? And if he never checks upstairs, could
Speaker 1: somebody be staying up there? Did that gave me chills
Speaker 1: just thinking about it. Yeah, there's a lot of the
Speaker 1: different ways that least this story can go. And this
Speaker 1: is actually how they're written.
Speaker 2: I heard this.
Speaker 1: From forgot what author it was, but it said that
Speaker 1: short stories themselves are like little snippets, like a magic trick.
Speaker 1: Like somebody shows up and they do a magic trick
Speaker 1: in front of you, and that's a short story.
Speaker 2: As long as you.
Speaker 1: Felt surprised in this case, if you felt scared or
Speaker 1: felt that chilled down your spine for a little instant,
Speaker 1: or you were in the world of the story. Job
Speaker 1: is done right, You're in it. We got you in,
Speaker 1: And that sense is what a short story is. Now,
Speaker 1: for longer stories, for movies or books, novels, those need
Speaker 1: to be like consistent, burned and actually closed every single time.
Speaker 1: For these they just need to be things that like
Speaker 1: really getting your mind and they linger like what happened?
Speaker 2: Like who was there? Now?
Speaker 1: When it gets annoying, you know, I completely understand this
Speaker 1: is I'm hinting at something in and it just feels
Speaker 1: like a cliffhanger, Like that's actually I've I've I've gone
Speaker 1: through some of the stuff that I've written before and
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, this sounds this.
Speaker 2: Is frustrating and I get it.
Speaker 1: So but either way, I appreciate the comments on all
Speaker 1: of that, and hopefully this this one doesn't overstep that
Speaker 1: that rule, you know, when it feels like a cliffhanger,
Speaker 1: This one should feel like, oh, okay, the story's over,
Speaker 1: but like have that like anease at the end. Either way,
Speaker 1: I'm very interested. I know that we have people that
Speaker 1: listen has been listening for a very long time, so
Speaker 1: they're familiar with some of the stuff that comes out
Speaker 1: in this In this podcast, I'm very interested in finding
Speaker 1: out what do you think about it? Would you didn't
Speaker 1: like about it, or ideas that you might have for
Speaker 1: or maybe even hints or theories as to what could
Speaker 1: have been. Where if of this turns into a longer story,
Speaker 1: where does it go? Another point? I wanted to address
Speaker 1: real quick, is why my voice sounds so weird right now,
Speaker 1: And that's because I've I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: like something with my sidnesses or something. It's just I
Speaker 1: have had really, really, really terrible allergies these past two
Speaker 1: or three days. And I'm saying like this flare up
Speaker 1: of can't sleep, feel my nose is super tight, this
Speaker 1: burning sensation, itchy eyes, this is like the whole thing.
Speaker 1: But now it's finally at least I sound, believe it
Speaker 1: or not. It sounds a lot better than it did yesterday.
Speaker 1: But it's thankfully it's not like the flu or anything
Speaker 1: like that. It's just this is what I can say, allergies.
Speaker 1: Actually went into the storage area with a lot of
Speaker 1: dusty clothes and old stuff, and I was I felt
Speaker 1: it right away, and I'm like, nah, and I just
Speaker 1: you know I'm still going now. Thing. Here is our schedule.
Speaker 1: We're going to be publishing Sunday night, so get ready
Speaker 1: for those Sunday scares if you're up for it. And
Speaker 1: now I have some of the comments from our last episode,
Speaker 1: Soup Mondays. I'm reading from the Spotify comments section here.
Speaker 1: If you don't have Spotify, you don't use it, but
Speaker 1: you have access to email, feel free to send me
Speaker 1: an email with the comments on.
Speaker 2: The recent stories are fireworks.
Speaker 1: By the way, this one makes it recording a little
Speaker 1: bit over two that if you have any you can
Speaker 1: also send me dms with your comments about the recent stories.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be reading from some of the recent episodes only,
Speaker 1: so if you'd leave a comment in the older ones,
Speaker 1: I might get to them, but it's more likely that
Speaker 1: I'll get from the recent episodes. So this one's from
Speaker 1: sup mondays it says. This one from Moroxany Mruzk says,
Speaker 1: welcome back. I missed you and this podcast so much.
Speaker 1: I was afraid you dropped it. I love your stories
Speaker 1: and the way you tell them. It's still soothing. Plus
Speaker 1: I still did not find anyone with the voice addiction
Speaker 1: better than yours.
Speaker 2: Edwin. Good to have you back. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: You're always a huge supporter here. I appreciate you, appreciate
Speaker 1: everything that you know you do, even just this interaction
Speaker 1: with dropping comments, even a like or a rating or anything.
Speaker 2: Like that really helps out the show.
Speaker 1: But also I need to put my part here and
Speaker 1: I need to publish these stories right and some of
Speaker 1: the things that got what I would feel like got
Speaker 1: in the way were a lot of these life events.
Speaker 1: I guess you had to call them from the past year,
Speaker 1: and it really disrupted the flow of stories. But I
Speaker 1: feel that even in dark times, even in uncertain times,
Speaker 1: we need to somehow not waste them, and believe it
Speaker 1: or not, scary stories do help out people in dark times.
Speaker 2: Strange right.
Speaker 1: I heard heard about this from a friend a long
Speaker 1: time ago. She said, Hey, if you're feeling down, I
Speaker 1: would listen to scary stories.
Speaker 2: That's what I do.
Speaker 1: And this is before we've launched the podcast, so very
Speaker 1: interest to.
Speaker 2: Think about that. Let me see this. Thank you, by
Speaker 2: the way, Rosny.
Speaker 1: Jean Lewis says, Hey, Edwin, another great episode. This one
Speaker 1: really slade a sleigh as in slighing like winter sleigh
Speaker 1: like anyway. I love the horror holiday vibes, perfectly spooky
Speaker 1: and cozy. Also, I feel I always feel like security
Speaker 1: guards are undercover defenders of the spooky world. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for sharing this awesome episode with us.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for this. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Then, Yes, actually, security guards have sometimes the best stories
Speaker 1: out there. I don't know what kind of guts. It
Speaker 1: tasts like to be a security guard. But these guys
Speaker 1: do it. These men and women now from the world
Speaker 1: that are taking care of places. You know, haunted places
Speaker 1: sometimes very eery to think about. Naomi says, hey, can
Speaker 1: you please make a haunted blue plush story? You know what,
Speaker 1: plushes and dolls and toys make really good topics for stories.
Speaker 1: I don't want to overdo it, but we could definitely
Speaker 1: come up with a story like that. Maybe not use
Speaker 1: that specific name for copyright reasons, but we don't want to.
Speaker 1: You know, one time I published this story about a hospital.
Speaker 1: Longtime listeners will recognize this. They I got an email
Speaker 1: from them, and I didn't know this was a real hospital.
Speaker 1: I made up the name, so I had to adjust
Speaker 1: a few things there. Because this was a generic story.
Speaker 1: This was a straight up, one hundred percent coincidence. I
Speaker 1: make up names sometimes for places and it happened to match,
Speaker 1: so I got it careful with that. Thanks knowing for
Speaker 1: the for the comment. Joe from Nowhere says, Hey, Edwin,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to find that one episode where the character
Speaker 1: bought a doll. She has a roommate who's irresponsible and
Speaker 1: keeps making excuses fireworks.
Speaker 2: I just heard the firework.
Speaker 1: Keeps making excuses about not being able to pay rent
Speaker 1: but buys expensive things. One day, her roommate brought a
Speaker 1: dog and left it there, And now the dog is
Speaker 1: barking at something at the end of the hallway. I've
Speaker 1: been trying to find it for days now. It's so
Speaker 1: controvery to listen to the same stories that scared me before.
Speaker 1: Please help me find it, all right, let's see what.
Speaker 2: Story could that.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing about me finding stories. I remember the stories,
Speaker 1: but I can't remember the names of them, like the
Speaker 1: names and the titles of the stories. Let me see
Speaker 1: if I can find it, because I'm gonna keep searching.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep searching for this the one you mentioned.
Speaker 1: The character bought a doll, has a roommate and a roommate.
Speaker 1: I thought of the story called Helenke, which was the
Speaker 1: story of Yeah, there's two roommates. One of them is
Speaker 1: kind of annoying, making noise in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: but also she becomes obsessed with this doll. Now that
Speaker 1: that one's a different story, then there's a different story
Speaker 1: about a dog that at every single, every single day,
Speaker 1: goes up to a certain place and just stares down
Speaker 1: the hallway and that's it. It was one of the
Speaker 1: early early stories. But for this one, I have no idea.
Speaker 1: Are you sure it was me? It was sure it
Speaker 1: was my story, and hopefully I'll find it. If not,
Speaker 1: someone from our community here a scary story. If you
Speaker 1: can help Joe from nowhere out, just send me a
Speaker 1: DM an email or something, and hopefully I can we
Speaker 1: can find the story. This happens often sometimes I'm looking
Speaker 1: for a story that I can't remember the name of it, but.
Speaker 2: It's there anyway.
Speaker 1: That's all all the comments that we have for the
Speaker 1: Scary Story podcast here. On Spotify YouTube, we have no
Speaker 1: comments there. I don't think the story published there yet.
Speaker 1: But if you don't have a comment section on the
Speaker 1: app that you use, let me know. Let me know
Speaker 1: so I can check the comment section there.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for for checking out my stories here.
Speaker 1: You know I make Scary Story podcasts like from the audio,
Speaker 1: the recording, the script, everything, so I appreciate your support
Speaker 1: in any way that you can. The way that helps
Speaker 1: out the most is to share stories guys in press
Speaker 1: a share button, copy the link or whatever. And even
Speaker 1: that like tells the algorithm like, hey, somebody's sharing your story,
Speaker 1: so you know it works out, but also letting people
Speaker 1: know in case somebody is wanting to listen to scary
Speaker 1: stories out.
Speaker 2: There, it really helps out. I'll time if you.
Speaker 1: Want to support the show through a membership Scaryplus over
Speaker 1: at scaryplus dot com is always available anyway, That's all
Speaker 1: I got.
Speaker 2: For you today.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening, for showing up every week.
Speaker 1: So the next story get ready for it is coming
Speaker 1: out next Sunday night. Thank you so much. Remember keep
Speaker 1: it scary everyone.
Speaker 2: See us soon