Speaker 1: A kind and brilliant boy, a strange obsession with dolls,
Speaker 1: and a story that still gives me chills to this day.
Speaker 1: My name is Edwin, and here is a scary story.
Speaker 1: Like with every job I had up until that point,
Speaker 1: it started with desperation. The homecoming dance was coming up
Speaker 1: and I needed to get enough money to buy a
Speaker 1: dress and shoes. And everything I had done up until
Speaker 1: that point was get babysitting gigs here and there. Normally,
Speaker 1: these would be friends of my family who would ask
Speaker 1: me to watch their kids while they went out on
Speaker 1: date night or during the day when there was a
Speaker 1: work event where their children couldn't go. But this one
Speaker 1: was different. Back then, with house phones, we had Mom
Speaker 1: be the one who picked up the phone all the time.
Speaker 1: But on this particular night, I happened to Anne from
Speaker 1: the kitchen. It was for me, not unusual. This is
Speaker 1: how our friends or anyone really would get a hold
Speaker 1: of us, except for a few who had cell phones already.
Speaker 1: It was a woman named Elizabeth who asked for me
Speaker 1: by name, saying that she had these appointments every Thursday
Speaker 1: evening for a recurring commitment at work, and that until
Speaker 1: they got a replacement. They needed a babysitter only until
Speaker 1: her and her husband got home, typically around seven pm
Speaker 1: on those days. Would eighty bucks be all right? Of
Speaker 1: course it would, especially back then this was good money.
Speaker 1: I would only have to work a day and be
Speaker 1: able to afford most of what I would need and
Speaker 1: needed to pay for as a high school kid. There
Speaker 1: was one bus that would take me there. It drove
Speaker 1: down one of the side streets by the highway and
Speaker 1: take me straight to the small valley just over the
Speaker 1: hill that the entire town could see from pretty much anywhere.
Speaker 1: Rock Hill, we called it, although it had a name
Speaker 1: that I only found after getting on that bus, drew
Speaker 1: Berry Viewpoint, as a driver announced once I got to
Speaker 1: the stop. But still I kept calling it rock Hill.
Speaker 1: It sounded better. The house was one of the few
Speaker 1: in the area, typical rich person home, two stories, porch
Speaker 1: all around the exterior, and acres of land behind it,
Speaker 1: trees that created a little forest back there. The inside
Speaker 1: was modern open space, and the smell of baked breads
Speaker 1: or cookies seemed to be absorbed into the curtains and couches.
Speaker 1: When I showed up, the mother was waiting for me
Speaker 1: by the porch walking up to me as soon as
Speaker 1: you saw me come through the gate at the front
Speaker 1: of the property. I hated that awkward walk toward each other,
Speaker 1: whether it was a friend of mine coming up to
Speaker 1: me down a hallway or a stranger on a sidewalk.
Speaker 1: But there we were, trying to decide when to greet
Speaker 1: each other until she finally did Are you Emma? She asked, yelling,
Speaker 1: had pretended not to hear her, and then followed up
Speaker 1: with a oh, yeah, Elizabeth, right, how are you? Both
Speaker 1: of us yelling at each other, trying to make small
Speaker 1: talk until we weren't anymore. That was early, so I
Speaker 1: was surprised that she was ready for me, but I
Speaker 1: was glad to be able to get inside right away.
Speaker 1: As he walked in, she introduced me to her husband,
Speaker 1: who was holding a broom in his hand, sweeping up
Speaker 1: some large blocks like legos, but the ones that a
Speaker 1: baby couldn't swallow. He set it off to the side
Speaker 1: and walked up toward me, smiling. How was the right
Speaker 1: over you hopped on the twenty four bus, Elizabeth? I
Speaker 1: should have told me to go get you, he said,
Speaker 1: not really sure if he meant it, but the bus
Speaker 1: wasn't too bad anyway. I smiled and tried to say
Speaker 1: something else, but instead found myself being quiet again. They
Speaker 1: soon started explaining everything and we got along great. Might
Speaker 1: always get there early, and they would always pay me
Speaker 1: right when I after house. Elizabeth and her husband David
Speaker 1: were kind and very respectful of everything, including giving me
Speaker 1: money for food, and often asked what I wanted to
Speaker 1: have stocked in the fridge for me, always welcoming me
Speaker 1: to bring along a friend if I got bored, and
Speaker 1: that they had cable TV, which was huge for me
Speaker 1: at the time. Reality TV shows were more like contests
Speaker 1: than Mom would never let me watch them, especially the
Speaker 1: dating ones. But that house, my god, it was quiet
Speaker 1: with the television off. And oh, the child, how could
Speaker 1: I forget? The kid was an angel? Well, at least
Speaker 1: in the beginning. They thought that this is what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do as a career choice. Baby sitting one
Speaker 1: oh one, I would joke to myself as I made
Speaker 1: up what the lessons would be. His name was Chris,
Speaker 1: seven years old and very smart for his age. He
Speaker 1: would ask me questions about high school and love talking
Speaker 1: about the things that he learned in school, what his
Speaker 1: homework was about pretty much everything. She prepared his own
Speaker 1: sandwiches and cereal whenever he got hungry. On the weeks,
Speaker 1: when I finished my own homework and he finished his,
Speaker 1: he would end up watching television in the living room,
Speaker 1: the History Channel mostly, But one thing that always bothered
Speaker 1: me was just how suddenly he would get up and
Speaker 1: without saying a word, it would go up to his room.
Speaker 1: The first time, it threw me off. I thought I
Speaker 1: had said something or that the show we were watching
Speaker 1: upset him. I was warned about this by his father,
Speaker 1: that he liked to be alone with his thoughts sometimes.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've met some children like these before, some
Speaker 1: that seem like they are adults already in the way
Speaker 1: they act or behave. Maybe it's something in their eyes
Speaker 1: that give it away. But although I've experienced it several
Speaker 1: times after meeting Chris, it has never been in the
Speaker 1: exact same way. Chris liked to be alone, except for
Speaker 1: when he would come down and flick on the television.
Speaker 1: I don't think he liked watching it alone. His comments
Speaker 1: on the documentaries, observations on historical figures or theories about
Speaker 1: the past, the way he would focus. I don't know
Speaker 1: something about it just made him seem much older than seven.
Speaker 1: Did you know that the Great Wall of China doesn't
Speaker 1: actually cover the entire country's border, and that it's broken
Speaker 1: down in certain parts. I acted like I knew what
Speaker 1: he was talking about. But the more and more he
Speaker 1: told me, the more I thought that maybe I should
Speaker 1: have paid more attention in history class. He told me
Speaker 1: how the Constitution was drafted, who Benjamin Franklin was, and
Speaker 1: how the Second World War ended. Of course, he also
Speaker 1: had his childlike obsessions, just like every other kid, and
Speaker 1: for Chris, it was drawing. The times I would go
Speaker 1: up to his room to get him to come downstairs,
Speaker 1: or to let him know that his parents were home,
Speaker 1: I would catch glimpses of his drawings up on the walls.
Speaker 1: He would often replace them, but there were dozens of them,
Speaker 1: making me wonder how many he would make on any
Speaker 1: given day. There was one that really caught my eye,
Speaker 1: and it was of the building the church La Sagrada Familia,
Speaker 1: which I came to learn was an old church in
Speaker 1: Spain that took forever to build, along with its many towers.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's finished yet. His parents had books,
Speaker 1: a ton of them all along the last hallway near
Speaker 1: the back of the house. The shelves reached the ceiling,
Speaker 1: which some of them turned sideways to ensure they filled
Speaker 1: every space available. Most were in English, but I also
Speaker 1: remember seeing some in Spanish, Portuguese and French. I often
Speaker 1: wondered how they kept the place from smelling like an
Speaker 1: old library, you know what I'm talking about, the smell
Speaker 1: of old paper and dusty carpets. And all this time
Speaker 1: I never questioned how Chris knew all this stuff. I
Speaker 1: could usually see what spot he would put the stool
Speaker 1: or step ladder he would lean against the bookshelves. He
Speaker 1: would almost always go for a book with pictures or illustrates,
Speaker 1: and those were usually the bigger ones. Once he was finished,
Speaker 1: he would bring them right back to where they had been,
Speaker 1: and I would sometimes push in the books a little
Speaker 1: bit more into the shelf, just to tidy it up.
Speaker 1: One afternoon, I showed up early again and Elizabeth, Chris's mother,
Speaker 1: walked up toward me when I was going through the gate.
Speaker 1: How are you, she asked, a worried look on her face.
Speaker 1: We wanted to stake Chris with us today. I don't
Speaker 1: think he's feeling well, but he refused. He wanted to
Speaker 1: stay and wait for you. We were coming into the
Speaker 1: house by this point, and I was trying to catch
Speaker 1: my breath after trying to keep up with Elizabeth on
Speaker 1: the walk up to the porch. David met us at
Speaker 1: the doorway, greeting me and asking Elizabeth if she had
Speaker 1: told me. She nodded, be ready. He asked her. Something
Speaker 1: was a little bit different about them that day, and
Speaker 1: it wouldn't take very long for me to catch onto
Speaker 1: what was going on. But it wasn't a problem with them.
Speaker 1: It was Chris and what he wanted to tell me.
Speaker 1: The hundreds of drawings all over his room I saw
Speaker 1: when I walked up to it, and I can't clearly
Speaker 1: remember it too. I heard laughter from his room, the
Speaker 1: first time I had heard something like that. So I
Speaker 1: did my usual knock aty knock knock on his door,
Speaker 1: and he became quiet. I opened the door. He was
Speaker 1: sitting on the round rug on the floor, bright green
Speaker 1: against the rest of it. His back was turned toward me. Chris.
Speaker 1: I asked him, expecting him to turn around with his
Speaker 1: usual high and brief smile, but instead he sat still,
Speaker 1: frozen in place. I could tell by the direction of
Speaker 1: his nose that he was looking towards the window. His
Speaker 1: right hand, that held a pencil he was drawing with,
Speaker 1: was completely still against the spiral notebook. I started walking
Speaker 1: toward him. Chris, he didn't budge. Chris. He set his
Speaker 1: pencil down. I looked away from the window. His eyes
Speaker 1: slowly turned toward me as the chill of the cold
Speaker 1: air outside started drifting in. Okay, they left, he whispered.
Speaker 1: I looked around the room and walked toward the window
Speaker 1: to shut it. The sun was setting, so the sky
Speaker 1: was a darker blue outside. I looked at his drawings
Speaker 1: as I always did, but held my breath as I
Speaker 1: saw his new ones, dozens of them, dolls on a
Speaker 1: window frame in each of the white sheets of paper,
Speaker 1: all lined up against his wall. I was standing in
Speaker 1: Chris's room, trying to decipher what had just happened, so
Speaker 1: I asked the obvious question, who left? Who are they?
Speaker 1: He looked at me. I could tell he was already
Speaker 1: wondering if I would believe the next words out of
Speaker 1: his mouth, and I got a chill down my spine
Speaker 1: when I heard him say, with a slight nervousness in
Speaker 1: his voice, the dolls. I stared at him in silence.
Speaker 1: This kid was far too smart to joke around like that,
Speaker 1: enough to know that it would be hard to believe
Speaker 1: at least the dolls, I asked, not whispering anymore, as
Speaker 1: I looked toward the window again. Yes, he said, a
Speaker 1: tear sliding down and around his nose. Can we can
Speaker 1: we go watch TV? He asked as he stood up.
Speaker 1: I followed him out of the room and down the stairs.
Speaker 1: I grabbed the remote and flicked it on. The show
Speaker 1: The Amazing Race was on. I had so many questions
Speaker 1: zooming around my brain that I honestly can't remember how
Speaker 1: long we were watching before he decided to speak up again.
Speaker 1: I would recall this lesson of babysitting one O one
Speaker 1: as patience, Wait and listen. They have a game, he said.
Speaker 1: I lowered the volume on the TV. It's like a secret,
Speaker 1: he continued, similar to when he was telling me about
Speaker 1: something he watched or read about. The Last time he
Speaker 1: sounded like this was when he mentioned the CIA and
Speaker 1: some of their secret missions that were in secrets anymore.
Speaker 1: They said, I can't tell my mom and dad, and
Speaker 1: then he whispered, but they didn't say anything about you. Okay,
Speaker 1: I caught myself whispering, who are they? And what are
Speaker 1: you talking about? What? Games? I was impatient. I don't
Speaker 1: think he had ever seen me like that. Okay, he
Speaker 1: started the shaking of his voice. Was gone. Four nights ago.
Speaker 1: A thing woke me up, A tapping on my window.
Speaker 1: He went on to tell me one of the most
Speaker 1: terrifying stories I'd ever heard, although I must admit I
Speaker 1: think it was because it was coming from him, the
Speaker 1: boy who was so involved in facts and thoughts in
Speaker 1: his own little world. He told me he was woken
Speaker 1: up by this tapping on the window, but I hadn't
Speaker 1: woken him up completely. When he felt the bed sheet
Speaker 1: vibrating from the left side, the side closest to the window.
Speaker 1: At first he thought it was just his imagination, but
Speaker 1: then he felt it tug, similar to when you're fishing.
Speaker 1: You ever been fishing, he asked. I nodded, even though
Speaker 1: I had no idea what fish felt. At the end
Speaker 1: of a line. He sat up, unable to scream, but
Speaker 1: wide awake when he saw a small ball of dark
Speaker 1: hair leaning over the edge of the bed. Chris always
Speaker 1: had a tiny night light on in the shape of
Speaker 1: a shell against the wall right next to his bed,
Speaker 1: with his eyes wide open in disbelief. He saw it
Speaker 1: as it climbed up, a doll, one that would reach
Speaker 1: up to his knees if he were standing up. He said,
Speaker 1: it was pretty large. It dragged itself up toward his
Speaker 1: stomach as he held his breath. It put its hand
Speaker 1: up to its mouth and shushed him in a distant whisper.
Speaker 1: It blinked its large eyes, and that's all he remembered.
Speaker 1: He woke up early the next morning, cold from the
Speaker 1: window that had been left open from the night before.
Speaker 1: He drowsily stepped over to it. It was a foggy morning, wet,
Speaker 1: he said. The window was dirty and with tiny hand
Speaker 1: marks from the outside. He stopped talking for a second.
Speaker 1: You can probably still find them. I want to see,
Speaker 1: he asked, quickly changing his mind, nervous about what he
Speaker 1: was telling me, waiting for me to tell him something.
Speaker 1: What did you do, I asked him. I was going
Speaker 1: to tell mom, he said, But I already knew what
Speaker 1: she was going to tell me, so I didn't. I
Speaker 1: kind of understood the mom was a kind that was
Speaker 1: worried all the time about everything. I later learned that
Speaker 1: she had threatened to take away the step ladder from
Speaker 1: him so he wouldn't be reaching for books on the
Speaker 1: high shelves. Apparently it had all because of the curious
Speaker 1: things he would say. I'm using her own words here.
Speaker 1: She was trying to get him to stop reading all
Speaker 1: those books, and I forgot to mention her interesting list
Speaker 1: of instructions about it limiting TV time, not letting him
Speaker 1: draw so much, and that if he started acting like
Speaker 1: a weird kid, she said to just have him tell
Speaker 1: me a story. Weird advice, I guess, and that's actually
Speaker 1: how I ended up hearing so many. But this one, well,
Speaker 1: this one was different. Let's see them, I told him,
Speaker 1: in a tone that I wanted to sound like I
Speaker 1: wasn't scared inside, but I messed up and instead sounded
Speaker 1: overly happy. We walked upstairs again. The door to his
Speaker 1: room had been left open, and he walked in and
Speaker 1: over to the bright green rug in the center. I
Speaker 1: followed close behind. He stretched his arm out toward the
Speaker 1: window and I could see them. Although I can't say
Speaker 1: I had ever seen dull hand prints on anything else before,
Speaker 1: they looked more like scratches and yes, I hated it,
Speaker 1: but it made sense. Plastic Hans probably wouldn't leave anything
Speaker 1: other than scratches on glass. Chris, I'm gonna talk to
Speaker 1: you like I would to have grown up, all right.
Speaker 1: He looked at me with white eyes, which you're telling
Speaker 1: me is crazy. But first I want to hear what happened,
Speaker 1: the full story. You saw the hand marks, and you
Speaker 1: decided not to tell your mom what happened next this
Speaker 1: part of babysitting one O one I would call detective
Speaker 1: techniques how to get the truth. Chris had stayed up
Speaker 1: for part of the night, this time waiting for these
Speaker 1: things to come by the window again. The light from
Speaker 1: under the window shined perfectly against the wall by his bed,
Speaker 1: and he looked at that near perfect square of light
Speaker 1: against the wall for two more nights, thinking that he
Speaker 1: would see the silhouettes of the dolls climbing over the
Speaker 1: window frame. I would have been too scared to stay
Speaker 1: in that room. But like I said, this kid was different.
Speaker 1: The way he told me about what he did in
Speaker 1: this situation with the dolls, it was like hearing it
Speaker 1: from a long time writer where an old uncle who
Speaker 1: lived out in the woods. But anyway, the kid didn't
Speaker 1: see them again, so they're gone, I concluded for him,
Speaker 1: but he continued, well, I didn't see them alive, like
Speaker 1: here in my room. I saw them in my dreams.
Speaker 1: He paused for a moment, sort of like dreams. I
Speaker 1: sat down on the floor as he explained what he
Speaker 1: went through for those remaining nights. He had woken up
Speaker 1: in an old house, a cabin, he said, and his
Speaker 1: eye started glazing over everything, as though he was reliving
Speaker 1: every second. I sat there on a chair as it
Speaker 1: came up to me, twisted my arms and told me
Speaker 1: to stay still. One of them in particular, seemed to
Speaker 1: be the leader of the group. She put an empty
Speaker 1: cup in front of me on the floor and asked
Speaker 1: me to drink from it, tilting it up toward my
Speaker 1: face so hard that I could feel the ceramic against
Speaker 1: my nose, And when I tried to move, she would
Speaker 1: yell words I'm not allowed to say, right, Can I
Speaker 1: say them? I looked at him, not done, imagining what
Speaker 1: he had just told me. Yes, I said. He struggled
Speaker 1: to get the words out of his mouth, but to
Speaker 1: spare you the details, he was called names, horrible things
Speaker 1: and insults, things that had never even heard my mother say,
Speaker 1: and that should tell you something. On the second night,
Speaker 1: he said, he met other dolls, all of them sitting
Speaker 1: with him on the floor, on chairs, and on risky
Speaker 1: places like the edge of a table, on shelves. But
Speaker 1: in all of them he could hear their voices, come
Speaker 1: play with me, come play with me, and then instructions
Speaker 1: over and over again for their creepy games, all in
Speaker 1: their distant voices like adults, blank pretend tea parties, story time,
Speaker 1: and singalongs. And he could tell by the laughter that
Speaker 1: would break out in the end, like when an actor
Speaker 1: breaks character taunting him. I would cry, he said, But
Speaker 1: then I would be here in my room again. The
Speaker 1: boy was sad. He looked down with a frown, lost
Speaker 1: and nowhere no one to turn to for help. Can
Speaker 1: I tell your parents? What about your dad? Let's lock
Speaker 1: up your windows? I don't know. Don't stay here, I said,
Speaker 1: admitting that I believe him now. When I yelled for
Speaker 1: them over there, the doll said that they were my
Speaker 1: parents now, and they got angry. They hurt me. I
Speaker 1: decided to stop asking questions at this moment, but I
Speaker 1: knew that I had to talk to them to at
Speaker 1: least let them know of what he had told me.
Speaker 1: Listening to a kid, one that had no reason to
Speaker 1: lie like this cry real tears of pain at remembering
Speaker 1: something was beyond anything I had ever experienced. We both
Speaker 1: walked downstairs again and sat in silence, the television on
Speaker 1: volume level two until his dad showed up, greeted us
Speaker 1: as always, paid me, and walked with me toward the
Speaker 1: front gate. And the days that followed, I kept thinking
Speaker 1: of how I could tell them such a story, one
Speaker 1: that no one would ever believe, dolls that are coming
Speaker 1: after Chris, and that he has nowhere to turn to.
Speaker 1: And I was just about to gather the courage to
Speaker 1: pick up the phone. It took a lot more back then.
Speaker 1: When I got a call from Elizabeth and a shaky voice,
Speaker 1: She asked me if I knew of any of Chris's
Speaker 1: friends hints clues about where he could have gone. David
Speaker 1: took the phone over and begged for me to please
Speaker 1: tell him if I remembered anything. The police showed up
Speaker 1: within half an hour. They were waiting for me outside
Speaker 1: along with my mom by the front door. I thought
Speaker 1: I was in trouble. I had heard about this before.
Speaker 1: If I couldn't help, they would blame me. At least
Speaker 1: that's what some of my friends talked about. Chris had
Speaker 1: gone missing after dinner. He went upstairs to finish some
Speaker 1: of his drawings, and when his parents went up to
Speaker 1: check on him a little bit later on, they searched
Speaker 1: all over for him and only found his pencils out
Speaker 1: of place and the bookmark he was making for himself
Speaker 1: out on his little table. It was the last that
Speaker 1: was known of him. I went over to visit them
Speaker 1: before the year was over. Maybe this time I would
Speaker 1: tell them about Chris's dreams. I had held on to
Speaker 1: them long enough, maybe something that would at least explain
Speaker 1: what the scratches on the window had been, the ones
Speaker 1: that the police had found. But David got to the
Speaker 1: door and Elizabeth started screaming, crying when she saw me.
Speaker 1: She wasn't ready, he said. David started apologizing. I understood.
Speaker 1: I walked back out over the front gate in silence,
Speaker 1: wondering what the lesson here would be. Scary Story podcast
Speaker 1: has written and produced by me Edwin Kobarrubias. Take It
Speaker 1: in Touch check out the links in the description of
Speaker 1: this episode, and if you want to support the stories.
Speaker 1: Try out scary Plus over on scaryplus dot com. You
Speaker 1: can also drop some stars from me in the reviews,
Speaker 1: and if you have a true story that you want
Speaker 1: me to read, email me Edwin at scarystory dot com
Speaker 1: or use a contact form on our website. Let's see
Speaker 1: if we can put together a Listener Stories episode. Anyway,
Speaker 1: thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary everyone,
Speaker 1: See you soon.