Speaker 1: Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. In this throwback episode, I
have three stories for you, with the last one, Ruby
Dragon Ride, being one of their early favorites. My name
is Edward, and here is a scary story the old
woman of Cedar Lane. Growing up, I remember my family
not being like the ones we saw on TV. Not
that we were dysfunctional, but we didn't speak much to
each other about problems. It's as though everyone had a
role to play and wouldn't leave it no matter what.
There was one situation that really changed everything, though, and
even though I was very young, maybe around seven, the
memories started coming back. Let me begin by telling you
more about my family before I tell you what happened.
My mom was a typical worry wart, wanting to know
if my homework was in my backpack every morning before school,
giving me extra jackets and snacks, and would come pick
me up at the entrance of the school and not
let me take the school bus back with my friends.
The blocks are too long here, she would say. You see,
she was from the city, or so Dad would say,
whenever she went into one of her worry situations. We
had moved into a smaller town, even though I didn't
know what that meant, because everything was so much larger here.
Just getting to the store would take us getting in
the truck and going down long stretches of road before
we would finally get to the Walmart and other markets
in the area. I felt it was the biggest town
in the world. Dad was different. He was quiet. He
would sometimes wake me up early in the morning to
come with him to check up on one of the
animals that he was taken care of. I don't know
if it was a side business, but people used to
bring along trailers with goats and cows and other people
would come by to pick them up about a couple weeks.
It was fun to see new animals and stuff as
a kid, and my friends really like coming over for
that reason. We always had something to do and Dad
will let me room around the fields. And even though
he would say every once in a while, Kevin, don't
go past the tree line, I think that was his
only rule. My sister, though, was the oddball of our family. Now.
She was as close as you can get to a
TV show teenager. She would sneak out of the house,
sometimes being picked up by her boyfriend and then begging
me not to tell my parents and then she would
come back home late. We had a big age difference,
so the only times I remember actually spending fun times
with her was when we would travel to see our
grandparents and it would only be us there to find
something to do, and she always had money from her
job at the ice cream shop she did at that time,
so those were the only times that she would offer
to walk with me to the store and grab snacks
and stuff. Walking in a new town and seeing the
things on the windows, it was one of those beautiful
memories that it's hard for me to forget, unlike this
other thing that my mind had completely blacked out until recently.
It was around eleven at night, and Mom was not happy.
She was yelling at my dad for not caring enough,
a phrase she used quite often around the house, because
my sister had asked for a cell phone for her
birthday and my dad said no, that she was too
young to have one of those things that maybe next year.
But Mom was on my sister's side, with her leaving
all the time, she thought that it would be safe
for her to have a phone on her not an
expensive one, she said, just one for use in case
of emergencies. I always try not to listen to them,
argue it didn't happen often, but when it did, Dad
would grow real quiet and step out into the porch
with the mosquitoes, and would sometimes walk around the area
with the animals, raking the leaves or cleaning out the
water containers. Late in the night, with only the light
of the reflectors out in the field, Mom would sometimes
start crying, and other times she would call her sister
to complain about what was going on, to which she
would always mention that she missed her old life. It
didn't make sense to me back then, but today I
think about that a lot, about the sacrifice is that
parents make for their children. Dad was out by the car.
I think when I heard him yell out for my mom.
She came running toward the kitchen and yelled for something
before rushing out into the front driveway. It was my sister.
I could see the head lights since my room's window
faced the road and part of the driveway. My sister
was crying. I could hear her rush toward my mom
and dad and struggle to get out the words cedar lane.
My sister confessed we were out by Cedar Lane. Dad
stepped inside, and by now I was standing in the hallway.
When he saw me, he said, put on your shoes,
let's go. I ran back to my room to grab
them and put them on as fast as I could.
I was going to help Dad with something. Why is
he going with you, Mom asked, angry and reaching for
my jacket that was hanging by the door, quietly giving
her permission. Dad was always very strict with this kind
of thing. He would bring up how he grew up
and how Grandpa would teach him that being afraid was
not something he would tolerate. Fears of monsters under my
bed weren't a thing around the house, because Dad would
question me about why I thought a monster would be
under my bed and not under his, a question to
which I had no answer. My sister was still crying
by the front porch, struggling to breathe and shaking with fear.
My Mom's arms around her, trying to nudge her to
come inside. Dad, don't go out there, please, she said.
Remember that at the time, none of this made any
sense to me. It was years later when Dad explained
to us about the robbers along the roads, people that
would come out from the city, he would say. He
told me of a newspaper article he read where they
said that these guys would set up traps along the
dark roads and use different scenarios for passerbys, kids, broken
down cars, fake injuries, and even other women to try
to get a car to stop for they would ambush
the driver and take all o their things, including the car.
But my dad got close to her and said that
he would be right back. As he was making his
way toward the car from the shed along with his
bag that we all knew was his gun and AMMO.
He gave her a hug and said that he would
go take care of it. My sister started crying even more.
My mom tried to get him to call the police instead,
but Dad had a point. Why would they call the
police and expect them to believe that a teen my
sister had been driving along a road and had seen
some one trying to get her to stop in the
middle of it. He would be laughed out of this town,
he said, with the most serious tone I had ever heard.
It happened super fast, with a little time for me
to even get scared. It was a strange excitement to
be out late at night in a car with my
dad felt like an adventure, and so we got in
the truck and drove in silence down the road until
finally we crossed the railroad tracks and made a left
on cedar lane. Dad rolled down the windows on his
side while mine was all the way to the time.
I need you to keep an eye out for any movement,
all right, he told me, staring straight ahead. I looked
at him, accepting my assignment, and then I looked back
out the window one more time. We were driving so
slowly along that dirt road with a truck wobbling along
the dips and bumps from the rocks. The fields along
the side of the road were closing in with tall
grass on both sides. There were gaps in between the
lines of grass that would open up to a dark
sky for just a second. And it went like this
for a few more minutes until finally I saw something.
You were going at a walking pace in the car,
and the space between the grass felt like you were
watching a movie that would blink and open back up
to the deep, dark sky. The Dad's car was getting
slower when I saw it. I looked to my dad,
and he stared right at me, asking what I had seen.
I couldn't get it out of my mouth. I just
stared at him, and he looked at me briefly before
setting the car in reverse. I begged him not to
go back. I started crying and yelling, don't there's an
old woman there. She doesn't want us. He ignored me,
and the tail lights turned to red and white as
a car went back one lane, two lanes, and then three.
She was right there on my side of the car,
an old woman hunched over, looking out toward the field,
completely ignoring us. You could see her white hair, her shoes,
and the stick she was using to prop herself up.
Dad asked me to roll down my window until he
reached over and cranked it himself. I got down as
far as I could under the glove compartment, hiding from
this thing that was out in the darkness of the field.
It was then when Dad yelled out hello, and only
the sound of the truck could be heard in response.
Daddy yelled out again, hoping for God knows what would
come out of that, And it was then when I
heard shuffling in the grass and a sad, deep groan
of something that up to this day I have never
heard before, like a crying animal, a large one mixed
with an airy scream. Dad's face went cold. He stepped
on the gas and I lunged forward. The car was
still in reverse. His head was facing the back of
the car as he would briefly look out into the
area lit by the headlights in front of us, then
he would look back again. The front of the car
was followed by the pit of darkness wherever the headlights
wouldn't reach. We were going to go in reverse until
he found an opening to turn around. And trust me
when I say this thing felt like an eternity. I
sat back up just as the thing started groaning again.
I tried not to look, but without anywhere else to turn,
I saw the old lady in front of the car,
crawling toward us at an unnatural speed. The way she
twisted and twitched toward us, he still lodged deep in
my mind. Dad eventually found a clearing and he started
to turn the car around, the thing coming closer and
closer to his side of the window. Now I begged
him to please just go, to just go, tears rolling
down my face. He eventually put the car in drive
and we kept going until we got back to the
railroad tracks. For some reason, I thought we would be
making a turn toward the police station on the way home,
but I remembered his reasoning and why we went straight
to the house instead. My dad's voice came to mind
as my friends and I were in the car a
couple of months ago when we drove past Cedar Lane
one night, creepy road. One of them said yeah, I replied,
saying nothing more, thinking of my dad. I didn't want
to be laughed out of this town. The break in.
This is a story of the dumbest thing I have
ever done. Back in college, I started hanging out with
some of the girls that my friends from back in
high school would have made fun of. They liked things
that I didn't like. They had money and cars, and
they were always looking for parties and stuff. In short,
I ended up joining their sorority, and I eventually moved out,
and we ended up moving to a house inside of
a complex. They weren't quite condos, but all of the
houses were more or less aim. I never liked it.
I didn't like anything of how my life was going,
and honestly I was just too young to see it.
And my dress has got more colorful, the shoes got
a little taller, and more and more often my weekends
would start a day earlier on Thursdays. I'm not one
to judge. People can do whatever they want, but I
know this wasn't something that I wanted, which is what
made it a problem. I started losing myself, I guess
you could say. It was a Thursday night and some
guy I had been talking to had picked me up
to go to an area we all knew as the
fire Pit, which was an area at the end of
the street where there were a bunch of bars and
live music restaurants and lots of people from college around there.
None of my roommates wanted to go, but I decided
to go anyway. They were going to go on one
of their weekend trips, those that I always found an
excuse not to go on because I couldn't afford them. Anyway,
at the fire Pit, we met up with some of
his friends, and midnight turned into almost three a m.
When we were finally on our way back, maybe one
or two drinks far too many by this point. I
crawled out of the car, practically laughing as I dropped
my phone after leaning in to say good bye, but
then having it quickly fade along with the hum of
the car as Mark left me in the dark street.
It's an overwhelming feeling for me being alone. Back then,
it was an even bigger deal, and I always seemed
to get this way after a party. I remember every
second of those nights, unlike my roommates who claim they
wouldn't remember a thing the next morning. But I'll tell
you this memory will never ever leave me. I went
to the side of the house as I usually did,
to get to the back door that was closest to
my room. I almost never locked that door, and it
was such a hassle going through the front door For
most of us, I don't think we ever used the
keys for it. There was always someone home, well except
for this night, or so I thought. I grabbed onto
the door handle of the sliding door and squeezed it shut.
Once I was inside, the place smelled different, and I
got a bad feeling crawling all over me. Right away.
I tiptoed toward the stairs, and with every step that
felt even more out of place. I found the door
to my room and stepped inside. I shut it as
quietly as possible, even though I knew nobody was home
when I heard it, a sound of someone snoring from
out in the hallway. I knew all of my roommates,
and none of them snored like this. Plus this sounded
like a man. I thought that maybe someone had been
sleeping over, so I tried to calm myself down. But
then before I moved another muscle and heard something else,
the sound of someone moving around in my bed. I
could see this little shadow twisting and turning around in
the bed. I dropped my purse onto the carpet and
stared at the silhouette of this little creature moving from
side to side, groaning, almost crying. My body froze up.
It has only happened a couple of times in my life,
but it happened the same way. My face and arms
would go cold first, and then I lost control of
my legs and then drop to the floor. But no
matter what I did, this time, I couldn't keep my
eyes off of that thing on my bed. It stood
up and I could see it like a little girl
against the back light coming from the window. That's when
my body snapped out of whatever trance I was in,
and I reached for the light switch A little girl
was staring at me, wide eyed and her mouth wide open.
That's when I noticed that the bed wasn't mine. There
were dolls and board games on the floor. The little
girl screamed. As I looked around the room, finally realizing
that this wasn't it, This wasn't my room. I heard
footsteps from out in the hallway behind me. Then I
got pushed forward when the door opened up to a
man in his pajamas looking right at me, healing, who
are you? What are you doing here? All I could
do was stare at him, confused this wasn't my house.
I explained to him that I had gotten into the
wrong house by accident, that I was sorry, and then
I started crying too. A woman came over to the room,
asking me who I was, and I did my best
to explain what had happened, that I had just gotten
into the wrong house, that I lived nearby, that the
house would look the same, but I was sorry. The woman,
our neighbor, helped walk me to the front door and
then said that she would stay outside until I got
to my own home, which I was thankful for. My
place was only two houses down. I bumped into them
a couple of more times during the semester, and each
time I felt the same level of embarrassment. I never
told anybody, but I knew that I needed to take
a better look at myself. I moved out and things
started turning around for me at school and overall, really,
but I still think back on that little girl and
feel terrible for scaring her the way I did. The
next story is called the Ruby Dragon Ride, and it's
coming up right after this. I used to work at
a theme park during high school, and it was an
easy job compared to what I do now. Of course,
the pay was terrible, but we would get free passes
and free food most days, so we had a good time.
It took only four months for me to pass those
tests on the computer that trained you to operate different rides,
and they used to go by levels. I was level B,
which meant that I had permissions to get into the
button areas and would control the starts and stops of
certain roller coaster rides. Working out one of those places
gives you the chance to meet all types of people.
Some were older folk, the kids with their parents, the
occasional drunk guy. For the most part, nobody would give
me any trouble, and come to think of it, this
story didn't involve a tough customer or anything it which
is strange. The ride I was at had two operators
and a supervisor. It was called the Ruby Dragon Ride
and it was one of the bigger coasters that we had.
It would go on its first hill, drop to a
tunnel loop around two times, and then make its way
to the final hill that would send everyone screaming. Without
getting too technical, there was a pre check button where
you would make a visual check to ensure that every
seatbelt was engaged on both the monitors and the actual
train card. You would have to check for selfie sticks,
loose hats, and for people sticking their arms out of
the ride. Once you did that, the other button would engage.
You would have to send the alert that the ride
was clear to start. You would press the button and
off they would go. Late one night, I was the
only operator there along with the assistant supervisor, was about
to close. The final firework show was going on, and
we would normally see a very small group of people
coming along towards the roller coasters during those times, but
this night it was almost empty. It wasn't the first
time I had been there on a Monday, and I
just found it strange. The assistant supervisor, a young guy
from one of the other coasters, said that he would
be right back because he had to go to the bathroom,
and I sort of nodded at him and stayed at
the little booth with all of the controls, looking at
the area that was sectioned off where people would form
a line, and I found it so strange to see
a young boy about nine years old going through the
line dividers, not under or over them, but through them.
I thought my eyes had been playing a trick on me.
I mean, it was late and I was extremely bored
by this point, but no. I rubbed my eyes and
even looked away for a bit, and when I turned back,
the boy was still there walking around that area. I
looked over to the camera, since we would see pretty
much everything inside and in the surrounding areas of the
riot entrances, but I couldn't find them. It was easy
for me at the time to think about how he
was just some kid, like thousands of other kids roaming
around the park without their parents, so I forgot about
the situation and held back mentioning it to anybody. About
two months after that happened, I was helping out a
new employee of the park, a pretty girl named Vicki,
who had joined my team. We ended up working together
most nights and got to know each other very well,
especially on those slow nights. We had this rule about
lost children and how to respond in those city situations,
which happened very often at this park, though I'm sure
that it's the same at other places. We were supposed
to approach them as for their parents and they were
in distress, we were supposed to call one of the
attendants who would come by and take them to an
outdoor play area sort of thing while they did the
announcements to find their parents. Vicky was always very into
those rules, even following her break times to the second,
which I explained didn't matter too much because we didn't
have the clock in machines there. You would just fill
out a paper log and it was okay if she
took an extra two minutes to walk back to her station.
But she would do stuff like that. You know. Well,
this one night, while I was filling out one of
the reports that one of the maintenance people had left
for me, I saw Vicky walking out into the line area.
It was dark by this time and kind of misty.
She was walking around there frantically, looking around as if
she lost something. When she saw me looking at her,
she waved at me to come to her, which I did.
She had also seen the little boy. She described him
just like I had, with blue pants, white shirt, and
black hair. I was lost in thought when she snapped
me out of it, asking what she should do. She
thought I was trying to scare her when I told
her that I had seen him at one point too,
And words spread about the ghost boy of the Ruby
Dragon Ride. Supervisors, especially the older ones, started telling us
about how many encounters they've had with that boy, and
now he would walk through surfaces. One of the attendants
that we all knew as Grandma had the scariest story
of all. She said that she actually approached him about
ten years before my story happened, and that he had
said that his name was Billy, that his parents' names
were Margaret and John. He said that they went to
the office where the children would wit for their parents,
but upon arriving, Billy was gone, scared that something might
happen to him while he was under her watch. She
reported it to her manager, who asked for the description
of the boy, something that she gave right away as
accurately as she remembered, and it matched hours completely. Nobody
knows who he was exactly, since a park was known
to keep some of the accident reports hidden, but more
than one of the older employees says that it was
likely the boy who died after falling off a ride
called Final Splash. The whole thing was tragic and it
even forced a ride to close down for good. That's
when our ride, the Ruby Dragon Ride, started construction. Scary
Story podcast is written and produced by me Edwin core
ujas Up. Let's check out another one of these stories
that quickly became a favorite. It's called The Beep. You
can find it right here on this podcast. If you
like the stories, make sure you tell someone about them.
But anyway, subscribers, I will talk to you next week.
Thank you very much for listening. Keep it Scary everyone,
See you soon.