Speaker 1: Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. An old place and old
Speaker 1: memories combine for a haunted night at a place that
Speaker 1: shouldn't exist any more. My name is Edwin, and here's
Speaker 1: a scary story. It has been sometimes since I last
Speaker 1: shared my wand and only experience with something I couldn't explain.
Speaker 1: As reluctant as I was to talk about it, I
Speaker 1: think it's time I share it with someone. I'm old,
Speaker 1: I'm tired, and even if this serves to just pass
Speaker 1: the time for some of you, well, I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1: I just don't want it to die with me. I
Speaker 1: had a rough upbringing and it haunted me for a while,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know how much until much later. It
Speaker 1: was some time in the seventies and life was good,
Speaker 1: at least as good as it was going to get.
Speaker 1: I was growing up in the Midwest, learning about pain
Speaker 1: and love and everything in between. Sometimes at the same time,
Speaker 1: if you know what I mean, everything was possible, and
Speaker 1: unfortunately that meant even things that I didn't know existed.
Speaker 1: You don't know what you don't know, as they say,
Speaker 1: my aunt was building a bed and breakfast slash energetic
Speaker 1: retreat thing something about zones and energies that concentrate in
Speaker 1: certain parts of the desert. I knew nothing about that
Speaker 1: back then, and honestly, I still don't care too much
Speaker 1: for that stuff. But she went crazy for it. So
Speaker 1: she called me one day and she said, hey, Stephen,
Speaker 1: I got some work for you. She was always associating,
Speaker 1: to put it that way, with rich guys who wanted
Speaker 1: to discover things about mind control and the energies of
Speaker 1: the universe. They wore white and necklaces. They had beards
Speaker 1: and long hair. They would sit around the fire or
Speaker 1: by a lake, sometimes even taking their clothes off to
Speaker 1: let the sun hit spots that don't get it. Or
Speaker 1: so I heard. That woman my aunt was a trip.
Speaker 1: She would make everyone laugh with the way she was,
Speaker 1: but she was always standing up for little things like
Speaker 1: the bees, or larger things like the government. In short,
Speaker 1: these guys she was around had money, and they had
Speaker 1: given her a certain amount to build this stay in
Speaker 1: the desert where they could make a garden and some
Speaker 1: other stuff to go all sustainable, which meant I had
Speaker 1: a job. I took a bus and called her the
Speaker 1: first chance I got from a gas station. She had
Speaker 1: given me the number for a motel a runway in.
Speaker 1: I had to give her two days because she had
Speaker 1: to go take care of a few things. Might have
Speaker 1: been something important, though it was likely just a concert.
Speaker 1: I remember thinking it was close according to the lovely
Speaker 1: young lady behind the cash register, but she asked why
Speaker 1: nobody stays there because of what happened. Apparently a girl
Speaker 1: had gone missing and they arrested the man that took
Speaker 1: her at that motel. The joke around the settlement was
Speaker 1: that the motel should have been renamed the Runaway In
Speaker 1: because so many runaways ended up there. I might be
Speaker 1: at the perfect place, then, I said, trying to sound smooth,
Speaker 1: but I realized what I had just said just a
Speaker 1: little too late. She looked at me and smiled, well, hey,
Speaker 1: whatever place you find, there's no food around there, you'll
Speaker 1: have to make the walk back here take some stuff.
Speaker 1: I thought about maybe telling her that I'd be happy
Speaker 1: to come back to see her. I don't know, something
Speaker 1: like that, but I was already creeping her out, so
Speaker 1: I turned around, grabbed some gurriedos, some pop, a few twinkies,
Speaker 1: and a pack of gum from the counter. Breakfast of champions.
Speaker 1: She said, ringing everything up. I kicked myself a little
Speaker 1: bit for not saying something else right then I simply
Speaker 1: let the moment get away. The walk was easy. Got
Speaker 1: there around sunset. A big sign advertising long distance air
Speaker 1: conditioning and television was the first thing I saw. The
Speaker 1: billboard blocked the runway insign, and I understood why. Once
Speaker 1: I got close to the building. The carpet smelled like dust,
Speaker 1: and the cushion of the couch apparently vanished when I
Speaker 1: put my bag on it, because all I heard was
Speaker 1: it knocking on the wooden seat. An older woman came
Speaker 1: up the front door behind me, kind lady, she seemed like,
Speaker 1: and asked for fifteen dollars seven fifty for each night,
Speaker 1: and she handed me a key with a room number
Speaker 1: attached to it in a wooden keychain. Back then, they
Speaker 1: wouldn't ask you for ID or none of that, just
Speaker 1: cash a name on a roster, and that was that.
Speaker 1: The room was better than the lobby. Probably didn't get
Speaker 1: used much. The roach floating on the toilet water was
Speaker 1: a sign of it. I blopped on the bed and
Speaker 1: reached for the TV control when I heard a scream
Speaker 1: from the room next to mine. I sat up and
Speaker 1: looked over the door for an instant I was at home.
Speaker 1: I imagined Mom in the red side of her face that
Speaker 1: would eventually turn purple or a pale blue, my father
Speaker 1: telling me to bring the bag of eyes from the
Speaker 1: freezer in that cold, deep voice the man had. I
Speaker 1: would rush to the kitchen and watch my mom hide
Speaker 1: until the car spit away. I knew we wouldn't see
Speaker 1: him for the rest of that night. Before I knew it,
Speaker 1: I was outside, standing by the door, listening for the
Speaker 1: scream again. The parking lot was empty. Might have gotten
Speaker 1: there by bus or a cab like I did. So
Speaker 1: I walked around the building, startled by the sound of
Speaker 1: a cat hissing from the trash bin by the entrance.
Speaker 1: I walked toward the lobby and then rushed up to
Speaker 1: the door. This lady would have been dead had I
Speaker 1: been a killer. She didn't notice me until I was
Speaker 1: at the front counter. Everything okay, honey, she asked, smiling,
Speaker 1: any one else staying here? I asked, my voice cold too,
Speaker 1: Not yet? What is it Friday? Nope? Maybe later? Why
Speaker 1: do you ask now? Most people would keep their mouth shut,
Speaker 1: and moments like these we don't like to cause trouble.
Speaker 1: But I couldn't, man, I couldn't not if someone was
Speaker 1: in trouble, someone was screaming, I said bluntly, Uh, maybe
Speaker 1: a TV's on somewhere. Hunh, that's probably it. But no
Speaker 1: one else is here, right, I didn't want to push
Speaker 1: it at this point. Sometimes these people in the middle
Speaker 1: of nowhere let others stay without putting them in the books.
Speaker 1: You know how it is, rent it out, never put
Speaker 1: them in a roster, and then just keep the money
Speaker 1: instead of handing it over to the owner. She looked
Speaker 1: at me a stern expression. Now you're the only one here.
Speaker 1: A fake smile started growing on the side of her
Speaker 1: face until it got so wide it was about to
Speaker 1: reach her glasses. I stared at her for a few seconds,
Speaker 1: and she didn't move. I mean, not a single tiny
Speaker 1: muscle of her face moved. Her gaze got lost somewhere
Speaker 1: behind me. I took a couple of steps back, bumping
Speaker 1: into the chimes by the door that finally decided to
Speaker 1: make a noise. And still she didn't move at all.
Speaker 1: It was as if time stopped for an instant. But
Speaker 1: what am I saying? For More than that, it was
Speaker 1: like she was frozen, some type of fear. I opened
Speaker 1: the door, stepped out and looked inside. I needed to
Speaker 1: make sure of what I had seen. It was dark
Speaker 1: out by this point, and the blue light from above
Speaker 1: her desk illuminated her skull above her eyes, just enough
Speaker 1: to cover them, but it also lit up the way
Speaker 1: back to the room, just enough for me to not
Speaker 1: trip over the cracks on the asphalt of the parking lot.
Speaker 1: I reached from my pocket and tapped for the key,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't feel it. I looked back at the
Speaker 1: blue light blowing that was coming from the lobby, dreading
Speaker 1: having to go back there and finding that woman sitting
Speaker 1: completely frozen again. I must have grazed the door with
Speaker 1: my elbow, because as I was looking out toward the
Speaker 1: darkness beyond the parking lot, I heard my door squeak open.
Speaker 1: For the life of me, I couldn't remember if I
Speaker 1: had locked the door or not. I peeked inside. The
Speaker 1: lamps were off, and all I could see were the
Speaker 1: silhouettes of the chair and my bag, and the shape
Speaker 1: of a person squatting on the bed. I felt around
Speaker 1: for the light switch next to the door, and for
Speaker 1: just a split second, I sensed the leathery cold joints
Speaker 1: of a hand squirming against mine. I pulled it back,
Speaker 1: and just as I did, the light turned on with
Speaker 1: a soft buzz. Everything was still. I looked at the
Speaker 1: wall and noticed nothing unusual. Two switches next to each other.
Speaker 1: Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something
Speaker 1: going past me, through the room and into the bathroom
Speaker 1: fast and I'm saying, lightning quick. I thought I was
Speaker 1: going crazy. I'd tell you I had slept just fine
Speaker 1: the night before. It wasn't even that late. So I
Speaker 1: stood there in front of that empty room for a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes, scanning around for the key to the room.
Speaker 1: The phone rang. I walked over to it slowly and
Speaker 1: afraid to turn my back on the room. I picked
Speaker 1: it up, but stayed quiet silence. I could hear rustling
Speaker 1: on the other end. Hello, I said, in a near whisper.
Speaker 1: You made it, Stephen. Everything good. It was my aunt.
Speaker 1: I figured the cable reached far enough for me to
Speaker 1: sit on the edge of the bed, but when I sat,
Speaker 1: I felt something and got startled, so I jumped straight
Speaker 1: back up. I turned around and the enormous key chain
Speaker 1: and key were now on the floor. What happened she
Speaker 1: shouted over the phone. This place is weird, I told her,
Speaker 1: but stayed quiet, afraid to give out too much information
Speaker 1: or let whatever was in the room know that. I
Speaker 1: was afraid. Yeah, not many people stay around there. Just
Speaker 1: another night after this, I shut back. Yeah, after to night,
Speaker 1: just one more night. I guess I should have given
Speaker 1: her some credit. She figured out what room I was
Speaker 1: in by going down the list of the room extensions,
Speaker 1: the direct lines. I was a second phone she dialed.
Speaker 1: She always tried to keep things positive. We talked about
Speaker 1: the job a little bit, and then about my mom.
Speaker 1: Turns out she was at a warehouse a few hours
Speaker 1: away up north, pricing a few things, calling me from
Speaker 1: her friend's apartment. But soon she had to go, and
Speaker 1: I was once again in silence. After to night, just
Speaker 1: one more night to think. I didn't even make it
Speaker 1: through that first one. I turned on the TV. Two channels.
Speaker 1: The Pirates were on their way to the World series.
Speaker 1: Nothing nothing, nothing, and then Atom twelve nothing nothing, nothing, again,
Speaker 1: more about the Pirates, nothing nothing, A light tapping on
Speaker 1: the window. I heard it clear as day. He was
Speaker 1: so dark outside I didn't even notice the curtains were
Speaker 1: wide open. I went straight for the light switch quick
Speaker 1: and turned them off. Outside from where I was standing
Speaker 1: was the flickering sign of the runway in. Not even flickering,
Speaker 1: that poor thing. It was staying alive from the bottom
Speaker 1: right corner. I said, still for a while. It must
Speaker 1: have been two minutes, just standing lit up by the
Speaker 1: white lights of the static on TV. When suddenly again,
Speaker 1: tapping on the window, can you let me in a
Speaker 1: child's voice coming from outside. I reached for the doorknob,
Speaker 1: bestopped myself just in case I heard it one more time.
Speaker 1: There was nothing. I stood there for another minute or so,
Speaker 1: and then walked over the window to look outside. From
Speaker 1: what I could see, there was no one out there.
Speaker 1: Can you let me? I held my breath as I
Speaker 1: reached for the doorknob, and I took a deep one
Speaker 1: before I turned it, and the door opened. Outside was empty,
Speaker 1: not a single soul, not a set of head lights, nothing.
Speaker 1: Even the lights from the lobby were off. I thought
Speaker 1: to myself that this whole thing was getting to me.
Speaker 1: Maybe there was something I ate, maybe the old twinkies
Speaker 1: from the gas station. I shut off the TV, close
Speaker 1: the curtains, and stayed on top of the covers even
Speaker 1: back then, I knew not to trust those bedsheets. But
Speaker 1: it was sometime around midnight when I heard it again.
Speaker 1: Can you let me in? My eyes snapped wide open.
Speaker 1: My heart was beating so loudly. I could feel it
Speaker 1: in my ears, and I try to hold my breath,
Speaker 1: as if somehow that was gonna make me hear better.
Speaker 1: The sound had been coming from outside before, but not now.
Speaker 1: This time it was coming from the other side of
Speaker 1: the room, from the wall by the bathroom. Can you
Speaker 1: let me in? It sounded like it was a child,
Speaker 1: a little girl, and I don't know how to describe it,
Speaker 1: but it was in some type of pain. I knew
Speaker 1: what pain sounded like. I used to hear it often.
Speaker 1: If I had to put my money on it, I
Speaker 1: would say that this wasn't a little girl either. I
Speaker 1: sat up on the bed. I had only taken off
Speaker 1: my shoes to lay down, so all my clothes were
Speaker 1: still on. I listened for the voice again. There was nothing. Now.
Speaker 1: About half an hour later, wondering what it could have been,
Speaker 1: I got up, put on my shoes and made my
Speaker 1: way to the lobby again. I figured a guard or
Speaker 1: some person would be there, but it was empty. I
Speaker 1: pushed the door open, turned on the lights, which myself,
Speaker 1: and waited for that lady to come around again, but nothing.
Speaker 1: I shouted hello down that little hallway that led to
Speaker 1: what I assumed was a back door, and was met
Speaker 1: with silence. The smell of that old carpet now reminded
Speaker 1: me of my living room when STAT left. Mom never
Speaker 1: bothered to clean it, didn't know how to fix the machine,
Speaker 1: and scrubbing shampoo with a broom only seemed to make
Speaker 1: it worse for a couple of days, until it dried
Speaker 1: up and went back to regular old carpet smell. I
Speaker 1: walked back to the room, key in hand, this time
Speaker 1: had made sure to lock it. I put the key
Speaker 1: in but didn't turn it. The door squeaked open. I
Speaker 1: reached for the light switch, flicked on the first one,
Speaker 1: but no light came on. For some reason. The light
Speaker 1: from the window was brighter here and I could see
Speaker 1: the silhouette of my bag on the bed. But in
Speaker 1: that instant I realized I had put the back down
Speaker 1: before laying down to sleep. Can you let me in?
Speaker 1: I heard it, loud and clear, this time bright in
Speaker 1: front of me. My left hand bent upwards to reach
Speaker 1: for the second light switch, and it flicked on. On
Speaker 1: the bed was a girl crouching her knees, popping out
Speaker 1: of those ripped jeans, her pink shirt stained from all
Speaker 1: sides with a dark, dark color like the dirt from
Speaker 1: back home and clumps. She looked right at me, mouth
Speaker 1: open and in pain, she screamed. I didn't wait a
Speaker 1: second longer. I don't know how my legs worked, but
Speaker 1: they took me a few steps back. When I realized
Speaker 1: that I had opened the wrong room, I ran back
Speaker 1: through the parking lot and then looped around to the
Speaker 1: room mine. I understood those movies right then and there.
Speaker 1: Her hands just don't work the same way to put
Speaker 1: the key into the doorknob when you're like that much
Speaker 1: less into the ignition of a dark car. But I
Speaker 1: opened the door, I flicked on both switches, grabbed my bag,
Speaker 1: and stepped right out. I started making my way to
Speaker 1: the only other place I knew in that area. I
Speaker 1: walked a mile back to the gas station and sat
Speaker 1: out in front until the sun came out. I hung
Speaker 1: around there for a well, the whole day. I got
Speaker 1: to see the young lady come back. Elizabeth was her name.
Speaker 1: The first thing she asked, was so, where did you
Speaker 1: end up staying? I told her about the runway in,
Speaker 1: But I should have stayed quiet. Nobody stayed at the
Speaker 1: runway in anymore, she said. I was a bit disappointed
Speaker 1: that she was repeating herself. Honestly meant that she forgot
Speaker 1: her conversation, though I guess that should have been a
Speaker 1: good thing. My aunt used to work there. Everyone around
Speaker 1: here knew her. What happened, I asked, She passed away
Speaker 1: heart attack, didn't wake up one morning. I was shocked,
Speaker 1: but stayed quiet. What I had really wanted to know
Speaker 1: was what happened to the runway in. I think she noticed, so,
Speaker 1: she continued, utter staffed, and then it closed. That's why
Speaker 1: no one stays there. I stayed there, I reminded her.
Speaker 1: Her expression changed, and then she repeated herself once more,
Speaker 1: nobody stays at the runway in anymore. I said, quiet,
Speaker 1: you can't. She continued, its shut down. I didn't say anything.
Speaker 1: One of us was confused there, and it was not me.
Speaker 1: She yelled for a guy named Ben who came walking
Speaker 1: up to us. Runway in shut down, right, she said,
Speaker 1: the plays down the road. He asked, Jill's running it
Speaker 1: now no. They looked at each other, and then Elizabeth
Speaker 1: spoke up. It's opened. Ben shrugged and walked back toward
Speaker 1: the fridges. I hung out with Elizabeth until she clocked out,
Speaker 1: and then spent some time by the cars until two
Speaker 1: in the morning, before her parents called for her to
Speaker 1: go back home. You're gonna be around here, right, she asked,
Speaker 1: a little hopeful in her tone, maybe a little shy, yep,
Speaker 1: I said, smiling, couldn't help it. I made the walk
Speaker 1: back to the Runway Inn that morning. My aunts would
Speaker 1: be there at any moment to get me for her project.
Speaker 1: As expected, no one was in the lobby. The key
Speaker 1: and its keychain were hanging from the door of where
Speaker 1: my room was, Room three, by the broken soda machine.
Speaker 1: I got to the door, opened it and was shocked
Speaker 1: by what I found. The sheets were dirty and on
Speaker 1: the floor. The entire place was covered in dust. There
Speaker 1: was no TV, no phone, and the walls were yellowed.
Speaker 1: I walked around and noticed the broken windows, the missing curtains,
Speaker 1: the cracks on the parking lot that had tall weeds
Speaker 1: growing out of it. I heard a car rolling up
Speaker 1: on the dirt on the entrance of the lot. My
Speaker 1: aunt her big bright yellow van. WHOA, what happened here?
Speaker 1: Where'd you stay? She got out of the car, gave
Speaker 1: me a hug and waited for my answer. Well, here,
Speaker 1: get out of here. How she walked up to the
Speaker 1: room windows and looked inside one of them, and she
Speaker 1: came back and waited for me to answer. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well you had me worried. I used to call this place.
Speaker 1: There are one of the few with direct lines. You know,
Speaker 1: I know you called me. She stayed quiet, with that
Speaker 1: kind of silence that tells you what you need to know.
Speaker 1: Get in, Come on, she said, walking quickly to the
Speaker 1: van and holding up the door to the back of it.
Speaker 1: Who had I spoken to? Who was the woman from
Speaker 1: the front desk or the little girl? I would never know.
Speaker 1: All I knew was that my aunt had given me
Speaker 1: the number to I shut down motel by mistake, and
Speaker 1: I went with it. I trusted her blindly, like I
Speaker 1: did on those nights when she saved us for my father.
Speaker 1: Somewhere deep in there, these places stay, They haunt us
Speaker 1: in strange ways. The voice says that lived in my mind.
Speaker 1: When he would lock my mom out the way, she
Speaker 1: would cry to be let back in the way we
Speaker 1: knew not to move when things got scary, when we
Speaker 1: stopped ourselves from turning on the light, the way we
Speaker 1: would play pretend even though I was too old for it,
Speaker 1: making homes out of broken places. Scary Story podcast is
Speaker 1: written and produced by me Edwin Kovarubias. Let me know
Speaker 1: what you thought of my story. I'm Edwin cove ed
Speaker 1: wi n CoV on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, or you
Speaker 1: can leave a comment or a review. I go through
Speaker 1: all of them. You can also support these stories and
Speaker 1: the other shows that I make by signing up for
Speaker 1: Scary Plus, and all details are over on scaryplus dot com.
Speaker 1: Also check on the description of this episode. If you
Speaker 1: know of someone who likes scary stories, send them this one.
Speaker 1: But anyway, thank you very much for listening. Keep it
Speaker 1: scary everyone, See you soon.