Speaker 1: It was raining the last Christmas we spent with our father. Technically,
Speaker 1: it was the last one we spent with my mother too.
Speaker 1: She was the one who knew how to call him.
Speaker 1: A stubborn man. He was who had only listened to
Speaker 1: what she said. We all used to say that he
Speaker 1: was afraid of her. She turned him around. Mother would
Speaker 1: often say, otherwise he would be out drinking, and if
Speaker 1: it weren't for her, he would be out in the
Speaker 1: streets begging for coins to get a beer out of
Speaker 1: the refrigerated section of the local Utahns and expired food store.
Speaker 1: Not expired, just not optimal, my father would say. But
Speaker 1: they loved each other in their own ways. He would
Speaker 1: bring her the groceries and his paycheck. Every Monday meant
Speaker 1: every single Monday we would have chicken soup, no matter
Speaker 1: the weather or the time of the year. No one
Speaker 1: else liked it as much as my father did. It
Speaker 1: was how they fell in love, he would say, when
Speaker 1: he was feeling talkative. It's how we knew that he
Speaker 1: was a softie behind that tough skin. And they had
Speaker 1: been traveling between cities that year to be home just
Speaker 1: in time to spend Christmas with her parents. But they
Speaker 1: got stuck due to a storm that year and had
Speaker 1: to stay at one of my father's uncle's homes along
Speaker 1: the way. They hadn't to frosted the chicken. The gas
Speaker 1: lines were stuck. My mother had gotten everything together, grabbing
Speaker 1: some of the frozen vegetables and starting chopping up onions
Speaker 1: and searching through the spice cabinet something that would work.
Speaker 1: The water they had was poured into a pot and
Speaker 1: the wood was fired up outside. It was the best
Speaker 1: chicken soup I've ever had. He would say. It was
Speaker 1: a story we had heard many times, but my sisters
Speaker 1: and I liked the way that he would tell it.
Speaker 1: There she was my future wife, making it work with
Speaker 1: what little we had. That's when I knew that I
Speaker 1: loved her. We would all whisper along with him, and
Speaker 1: we would all laugh together at how cheesy it sounded,
Speaker 1: and yet we couldn't wait for the next time he
Speaker 1: would tell us that same story all over again. My
Speaker 1: mother loved the way that he waited for Mondays. She
Speaker 1: loved how he took care of us growing up. She
Speaker 1: had grown up without a father, and she would let
Speaker 1: him know too strict she was around the house, but
Speaker 1: she had a strong, silent love and respect for him.
Speaker 1: One of my sisters and I talk about their love
Speaker 1: for each other. We can't quite explain it to other
Speaker 1: people except with these stories. Sure they had their arguments,
Speaker 1: but they knew how to fix things. If you can
Speaker 1: fix your own boat, you can float forever. My father
Speaker 1: would tell us, usually with a wrench in his hand,
Speaker 1: when he was fixing something around the house. I think
Speaker 1: he applied it to our family too. It was especially
Speaker 1: tough when he passed. We had all moved out of
Speaker 1: the house by that point, and we would call him
Speaker 1: about once a week to check up on how he
Speaker 1: was doing. But one day my mother called to give
Speaker 1: us the news that he had been hospitalized. It wasn't
Speaker 1: long after we arrived when we had to see goodbyes.
Speaker 1: It was like watching a bird try to fly with
Speaker 1: one wing, circling the same spot in the dried grass
Speaker 1: until it grew tired, full of hope that it would
Speaker 1: fly again, that only a few more seeds would give
Speaker 1: it that final push into the clouds, Like those days
Speaker 1: when the sun struggled to shine through the orange dust
Speaker 1: in the sky, full of a different light that wasn't
Speaker 1: warm anymore, Like a pot of delicious chicken soup waiting
Speaker 1: in a cold, dark kitchen, no eager spoon waiting just
Speaker 1: a few steps away. A few years passed, and before
Speaker 1: we knew it, it was Christmas again, nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: a Monday. Her sisters had brought it the list that
Speaker 1: had been taped to the old refrigerator. It had where
Speaker 1: to get the whole chicken from, little notes in case
Speaker 1: a certain spice had run out. We all knew that
Speaker 1: chicken soup would be on the menu, even if we
Speaker 1: did have everything else you would expect at a Christmas table.
Speaker 1: Children were with us for the first time, asleep by eight,
Speaker 1: fortunately with the promise of presents in the morning. Together
Speaker 1: we walked up to the Christmas tree, set a tiny
Speaker 1: table with the bowl, like we had done for years.
Speaker 1: We brought out Mom's candles and books, photographs and waited
Speaker 1: for her to start. I don't know how she got
Speaker 1: so good at this. I remember the way she would
Speaker 1: bring over a really old lady to the house every
Speaker 1: once in a while, Berta was her name. She would
Speaker 1: come in dressed in white and they would sing, or
Speaker 1: at least that's what we thought it was, as kids
Speaker 1: never thought anything weird of it, and my mother started singing.
Speaker 1: Then soon the words change into something else, sounds like
Speaker 1: multiple voices in unison. As we all closed her eyes,
Speaker 1: we got in a circle on our knees and the
Speaker 1: tiny table by the tree. My mother cried, and she
Speaker 1: called out my father's name, softly at first, then she
Speaker 1: started yelling and anger. That's why they say that he
Speaker 1: was afraid of her. It's out of love, she would say.
Speaker 1: She was used to mondays waiting for my father, and
Speaker 1: my father waiting for her. And then the table rattled,
Speaker 1: The lights on the tree flickered, and a window opened
Speaker 1: up from behind us. The cold wind rushed in and
Speaker 1: turned off the candle. As we grew silent, we smiled,
Speaker 1: we cried, We stayed still until we saw it with
Speaker 1: our own eyes. The spoon began to move to the
Speaker 1: opposite side of the bowl, the vapor that came out
Speaker 1: of the soup remaining perfectly still just above it. Then
Speaker 1: the light stayed on and still and silent. The wind stopped.
Speaker 1: We all looked at each other and smiled at my mother.
Speaker 1: She smiled back. Before spring arrived. That year, Mom passed away,
Speaker 1: we all gathered to make that bowl of chicken soup.
Speaker 1: Earlier that morning a Monday, save a little for your father,
Speaker 1: her last words. The alarm had gone off for the
Speaker 1: second time that night. The cameras showed no one, not
Speaker 1: even a hint of movement anywhere in the mall. These
Speaker 1: places had been empty for some time, especially by that
Speaker 1: point in January, when everyone had everything they wanted already. Besides,
Speaker 1: Hooverstone Mall was one of those places, the ones that
Speaker 1: got stuck in time. The only people who actually enjoyed
Speaker 1: themselves there were the old people who would buy their
Speaker 1: shoes and suits for the department stores. Even Bridge Burger
Speaker 1: had left the food court after decades of being the
Speaker 1: last remaining attraction. It was hard to think that anyone
Speaker 1: would want to rob this place at night. It was
Speaker 1: way easier during the day. Still, when the alarm went off,
Speaker 1: I was to go to the location and press a
Speaker 1: security button to mark that I visually inspected it technology right,
Speaker 1: making it hard to slack off. So with a heavy
Speaker 1: sigh and a flashlight on my right hand, I started
Speaker 1: making my way down to the last hallway, the one
Speaker 1: by the playpen at the end of the mall. My
Speaker 1: door echoed along those shiny tiles. You could barely see
Speaker 1: the end of it. And that night, in particular, we
Speaker 1: had a full moon just above the place. The skylight,
Speaker 1: now yellow during the day, was bright blue at night.
Speaker 1: In the silence of the mall, I picked up the
Speaker 1: radio and pressed the button. Stephen Yo heading over to
Speaker 1: the last wing. He was supposed to know in order
Speaker 1: to go to a set of cameras and monitor them.
Speaker 1: But we knew that in the four or so years
Speaker 1: we had been working together, it would be pointless. Those
Speaker 1: screens might as well have been photographs. You could be
Speaker 1: replaced and no one would notice an alarm go off.
Speaker 1: I heard back a concerned voice. I almost didn't recognize him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go turn off the tracker. What he
Speaker 1: said next is what made me stop completely in the
Speaker 1: middle of the food court. I'm coming too. He saw
Speaker 1: some movement around that side of the lot where are
Speaker 1: you used to take turns being outside and the axis
Speaker 1: door was by the docks area, near where the alarm
Speaker 1: had sounded by the food court, which you see, I
Speaker 1: asked and waited for his answer. A little while later,
Speaker 1: Mondo I heard it was an echo from the deep
Speaker 1: side of the deliveries. He was running toward me. I
Speaker 1: could see a silhouette waving, but he didn't stop running.
Speaker 1: I was supposed to be going toward him, and not
Speaker 1: the other way around. It was only when he was
Speaker 1: closer when I saw that he was telling me to
Speaker 1: turn back and run. I didn't hesitate and started running,
Speaker 1: slow enough for him to catch up, and then we
Speaker 1: picked up. We rushed past the last shop of the
Speaker 1: food court and toward the seating areas by the gardens,
Speaker 1: but finally stopped at the bathrooms and back up storage areas.
Speaker 1: What happened? I yelled, and he shushed me right away.
Speaker 1: We were both sweating, not used to running around, as
Speaker 1: you might have guessed. He opened up the storage area
Speaker 1: and we rushed inside, shutting the door tightly. The closet
Speaker 1: still had those old tiny chains hanging from the ceiling
Speaker 1: to turn the lights on, and he got to it first.
Speaker 1: I could tell from his face that something had scared him.
Speaker 1: He had been working security ever since he graduated in
Speaker 1: high school and was used to seeing just about everything.
Speaker 1: I had never seen himself scared. We were still catching
Speaker 1: our breaths when I saw him grip the handle to
Speaker 1: the door and start pulling on it ood he heard.
Speaker 1: I still can't find the words to describe. I had
Speaker 1: never heard anything like it, and still to this very
Speaker 1: day after that it's been about ten years, I still
Speaker 1: don't know what it was. I want you to imagine
Speaker 1: a deep wind so sharp that it whistles, and a
Speaker 1: manic laughter in a whisper. I know it sounds bizarre,
Speaker 1: but we were both looking at each other with wide eyes,
Speaker 1: waiting for it to pass. I could tell Stephen's hands
Speaker 1: was shaking, and knew that he was holding his breath.
Speaker 1: We were there for about ten minutes. After the sounds faded,
Speaker 1: blending into the darkness of the place, I cracked the
Speaker 1: door open and felt the soft breeze of cold air
Speaker 1: begin to circulate inside the storage closet. Hey man, do
Speaker 1: you want to go? I waited for his answer. He
Speaker 1: looked at me and nodded. He didn't want to leave,
Speaker 1: but the mall was silent again. I stepped out first,
Speaker 1: afraid of seeing something just around the corners of those
Speaker 1: dark bathroom hallways. But all I could see was the
Speaker 1: dim light of the elevator button by the end of
Speaker 1: the gray and purple light, and one that was coming
Speaker 1: from the ceiling windows straight toward the shiny floors That
Speaker 1: was almost by the end of the hallway. When Stephen
Speaker 1: stepped out and we both walked back to a station
Speaker 1: by the parking lot in silence. It was like we
Speaker 1: were processing what had just happened, or if it had
Speaker 1: ever happened at all. Nobody had access to the inside
Speaker 1: of them all, not even the delivery people. All dock
Speaker 1: areas were blocked off from the sales floors. We both
Speaker 1: knew that, but we also knew that it was the
Speaker 1: least of our concerns. Who might have been in There
Speaker 1: was the bigger question, what was it? More? Alarms had
Speaker 1: been set off when we were in the building. It
Speaker 1: was normal when we did our walk through that we
Speaker 1: would set off the motion detectors, but we always set
Speaker 1: them to silence when we did. Several detectors had gone
Speaker 1: off near the storage closets, the food court, and all
Speaker 1: along the wing where we had been. Stephen noticed something else.
Speaker 1: The motion sensors had also gone off sporadically throughout the mall,
Speaker 1: with one as far as the east entrance. The timestamps
Speaker 1: didn't match up to the locations. Nobody could run that
Speaker 1: fast or be in several locations at one time. Huddling
Speaker 1: towards the screen, Stephen found the footage to rewatch. He
Speaker 1: started by watching the outdoor camera. When Stephen leaves a
Speaker 1: booth from the outside, a large dog like creature seemed
Speaker 1: to crawl from one of the trees towards the delivery docks.
Speaker 1: He moved like a stain on the ground and then disappeared.
Speaker 1: The motion sensor goes off the one I initially responded to,
Speaker 1: that's when we see Stephen going to the entrance. We
Speaker 1: replayed the footage. Excited for it now looking at how
Speaker 1: this thing was going into the mall. You see that?
Speaker 1: You see that, That's what I was talking about. You
Speaker 1: were going to go to Stephen paused. He looked back
Speaker 1: at the screen. Look, look, it's going the other way now.
Speaker 1: His fingers were smudging the old screen as he traced it,
Speaker 1: rushing toward the other entrance. Within a few seconds, Stephen
Speaker 1: was on screen going through the lot and into the
Speaker 1: building to meet up with me. You have the internal DBR, right,
Speaker 1: he asked. We couldn't see the inside of the mall
Speaker 1: from the outside booths. With a silent glance over the outside,
Speaker 1: we stepped out. Now, I make it seem like we
Speaker 1: weren't scared, but it must have been the adrenaline that
Speaker 1: made us look past our shaky voices and sweaty faces.
Speaker 1: As we made our way back inside, we looked around
Speaker 1: the area. It was a normal night, cool wind brushing
Speaker 1: past the dying trees in the parking lot. Everything inside
Speaker 1: was the same silent. As we were getting to the
Speaker 1: security office, Stephen stood still. He pointed to over the
Speaker 1: last wing of the mall. His lips were trembling and
Speaker 1: his knees were failing him as he started hitting the floor.
Speaker 1: I looked in the direction he was pointing to, and
Speaker 1: I saw what I can only describe as a glitch,
Speaker 1: A patch of darkness, darker than the dark, like a
Speaker 1: dark puddle, crawl along the depths of that dark structure
Speaker 1: that vanished near the old shops. At the end, I
Speaker 1: reached towards Stephen, who was trying to get back up
Speaker 1: on his own, and we made it to the office.
Speaker 1: We replayed the footage and watched ourselves rushed over the
Speaker 1: storage closet. We could only see the camera go dark
Speaker 1: and then back to normal, as if the night vision
Speaker 1: had stopped working. For instance, at a time because of
Speaker 1: certain areas of the screen would stay the same. The
Speaker 1: light from the ceiling a few tables from the food
Speaker 1: court in the distance. There it is, Stephen yelled. I
Speaker 1: looked over the screen and could find absolutely nothing. My
Speaker 1: face was surging through the monitor ice, twitching from side
Speaker 1: to side as it looked for the thing. But Steve
Speaker 1: and kept tapping on my shoulder, yelling near my ear. Look, look, look.
Speaker 1: He presses back against the wall behind me hard as
Speaker 1: he kept yelling. I can't find it. I yelled, losing
Speaker 1: my patience, and just then, out of the corner of
Speaker 1: my eye, from the window that looked at the interior
Speaker 1: of the mall, I saw it right outside the office.
Speaker 1: It was a hooded figure, the thing rising from the floor.
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell in what direction it was looking, but
Speaker 1: I stepped back, hearing the motion detectoral arms go off.
Speaker 1: Inside that office, the live cameras could catch it. They
Speaker 1: were recording. I was frozen completely as the thing started crawling,
Speaker 1: no floating toward us along the floor, was only about
Speaker 1: ten feet away. Steven started whispering what I thought were prayers,
Speaker 1: but all I could do was stare afraid. That if
Speaker 1: I blinked, it would end up inside. And next to us,
Speaker 1: Stephen was on the floor, his hands on the opposite
Speaker 1: sides of his head, covering his ears. The thing was approaching,
Speaker 1: and soon it started making the same sound as before,
Speaker 1: that loud, inexplicable sound that had scared us earlier. It
Speaker 1: got louder and louder, and then stopped. I watched it
Speaker 1: crawled or slide or whatever along the floor and disappear
Speaker 1: into the last wing of them. All the motion detectors
Speaker 1: all stopped right then. Before we realized it, it was
Speaker 1: five in the morning and our shift had ended. Light
Speaker 1: was beginning to filter in through the glass panes, and
Speaker 1: neither of us made a motion to even begin to
Speaker 1: look at the footage. Had been a long night already,
Speaker 1: and we both just wanted to get out of there.
Speaker 1: Stephen reported it, or at least he said he did,
Speaker 1: but there were no records of it. When we asked
Speaker 1: one of our supervisor about it, he told us to
Speaker 1: stop messing around and that we were going to get
Speaker 1: them fired. We stuck around for a couple more years
Speaker 1: until it shut down, and never saw anything similar to it.
Speaker 1: Since the footage we caught was the same, the night
Speaker 1: vision option resetting over and over again, and Steven and
Speaker 1: I talked about it. We would remember other little details
Speaker 1: of that night, the sounds of the motion detectors and
Speaker 1: the silence. Steven tried to draw it, but only got
Speaker 1: sort of close to it. The real fear started when
Speaker 1: we read about similar incidents not too far from where
Speaker 1: we were. Two people had been waiting outside a Burger
Speaker 1: fast food restaurant when they claimed to have seen a
Speaker 1: creature coming out from the woods across the street. It
Speaker 1: rushed past them, making a sound that sounded like a
Speaker 1: howl in a windstorm. Who knows if it was the
Speaker 1: same thing. To this day, It's a story that Steven
Speaker 1: and I tell in the new place where we work.
Speaker 1: He got me another security job through his agency, still
Speaker 1: at night, but with more guards. Not a single incident
Speaker 1: since I hope it stays that way. So I was
Speaker 1: asked about some of the background for some of the stories,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to add a little bit of information
Speaker 1: about the stories themselves. So our first story, Soup Mondays,
Speaker 1: was originally meant to be a story of a family.
Speaker 1: They have strange habits of invoking or calling spirits around
Speaker 1: a certain time of the year, something completely normal to
Speaker 1: them and strange to the rest of the world. But
Speaker 1: as the story started writing, you know, started moving along.
Speaker 1: As I was writing it, the cult thoughts of someone
Speaker 1: missing in the house during the holidays, that's a gob
Speaker 1: So it changed into a story of longing and love
Speaker 1: along with supernatural elements of some through through some of
Speaker 1: the emails that you send that some of my stories
Speaker 1: seem to do that, you know, the angle that we
Speaker 1: can spot in some of the stories that I've shared
Speaker 1: over the years, kind of darkness and tragedy and sadness
Speaker 1: kind of combined. And I'm not sure what we call
Speaker 1: that genre, but anyway is what the story ended up being.
Speaker 1: For the second one that was written in creepy pasta
Speaker 1: format is about two security guards on a formal, like
Speaker 1: an informal a normal night who can't understand what's going on.
Speaker 1: And for this one, imagine the setting right. There's an old,
Speaker 1: run down mall in the middle of a small town,
Speaker 1: empty parking lots, with a cracking asphalt and dead trees,
Speaker 1: and these two security guards are trying to make it
Speaker 1: work with faulty equipment, old fashioned incident reporting, and their
Speaker 1: bored out of their minds. That's how this story is
Speaker 1: set up, and the idea was sent in by who
Speaker 1: I'm assuming was a young listener who wanted a five
Speaker 1: Nights at Freddy's story. Now there are no animatronics here. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that I played that game and was
Speaker 1: only able to beat it after looking up some tips.
Speaker 1: It's pretty difficult to get the hang of it. Anyway.
Speaker 1: The whole theme of five Nights at Freddie's fell apart
Speaker 1: there as well, but we ended up with a strange
Speaker 1: mystery at work type of story. Anyway. In our community
Speaker 1: on Spotify and Apple podcast, we've received some comments. This
Speaker 1: one's from Ruby Hanna, who says, I love this podcast
Speaker 1: so much. I honestly fall asleep to it. So call
Speaker 1: me and I wouldn't blame you. It's it's it's there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people who say that they listened to
Speaker 1: to fall Asleep surprised you know that you don't have nightmares,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's a it's a common thing and I
Speaker 1: like that actually. Marchea Davis, Kaylee and her boys who
Speaker 1: will listen and broken heart emojis say that they love
Speaker 1: the stories as well. So thank you so much for that,
Speaker 1: ney a Vir and Jillian. Thank you for your comments
Speaker 1: as well. I got through them. I was. I was
Speaker 1: going through the comments recently and I found yours, so
Speaker 1: that means a lot. Thank you. Thank you for commenting
Speaker 1: on here. As always, you know where to find me
Speaker 1: in case you want to get in touch thanks to
Speaker 1: everything or in the description of this episode, and if
Speaker 1: you have ideas for stories, make sure you send them
Speaker 1: my way. Scary Story podcast is written by me Edwin
Speaker 1: Kobarubias and if you're subscribed, I'll be back next week
Speaker 1: with more stories. Thank you very much for listening. Keep
Speaker 1: it scary everyone, see us soon.