Speaker 1: I was looking back toward my roommate with her hand
Speaker 1: over her mouth as she tried to hold in her laughter.
Speaker 1: I wanted to laugh too, but managed to hold it in.
Speaker 1: As I stepped closer to Amanda's door. It was dark inside,
Speaker 1: and all I could see was a blue light from
Speaker 1: the outside seeping in through the blind Amanda had no
Speaker 1: curtains in her room except for the blinds given to
Speaker 1: us from the university housing department, but she kept them open.
Speaker 1: I looked at the door handle on the inside of
Speaker 1: her room and took a half step inside. I grabbed
Speaker 1: onto it and was about to pull it when I
Speaker 1: saw a tall sillow wet standing in front of the
Speaker 1: window by her bed. Amanda was tall, but this one
Speaker 1: had broad shoulders and what appeared to be a large coat,
Speaker 1: and most distinctly, a hat. Had frozen plays and stared
Speaker 1: right at it, completely ignoring the whispers from the other
Speaker 1: roommate down the hall. She wasn't laughing anymore. My name
Speaker 1: is Edwin, and here it's a scary story. I felt
Speaker 1: a hand grip around my arm and pull me toward
Speaker 1: the hallway. What happened I could hear like on delay.
Speaker 1: My mind was racing to catch up to what I
Speaker 1: had just seen. She was being serious now as we
Speaker 1: both looked at the wide open door down the hall.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be a dare, a silly card
Speaker 1: game when everyone else went out to parties while we
Speaker 1: stayed in. Amanda liked to sleep with her door wide open,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't like we cared for understanding why or anything.
Speaker 1: We actually didn't like her very much, but her little
Speaker 1: rules kept getting in the way of everything. Her dishes
Speaker 1: were to be kept separately. She said something about an
Speaker 1: allergy that nobody quite understood. The community adviser from the
Speaker 1: university had a meeting with us and Amanda's parents to
Speaker 1: talk about it, and all we did after that was
Speaker 1: laugh and complained to our other friends about the whole conversation.
Speaker 1: They had requested so many things, including removing Amanda's door,
Speaker 1: but it was a rule from the fire marshal to
Speaker 1: keep it on noise levels. Smells and even visits to
Speaker 1: our unit were discussed, and we came out with a
Speaker 1: contract type of thing. But I'll tell you neither me
Speaker 1: or the other roommate, her name was Denise liked it
Speaker 1: in a way. That's how we became friends. Hating on Amanda,
Speaker 1: I felt bad for her in the beginning. Then I
Speaker 1: understood why she was bullied. She was annoying, complained about
Speaker 1: everything that the strangest things that annoyed the heck out
Speaker 1: of us. That night, the night of the day, when
Speaker 1: I tried to close the door, everything changed though, And
Speaker 1: it was the first time I had seen the figure
Speaker 1: by the window, the same one that Denise had been
Speaker 1: talking about for months, almost immediately after we moved in.
Speaker 1: You see, the unit had four rooms, but it was
Speaker 1: divided into two, so the two of us would share
Speaker 1: one bathroom and Amanda would have the other bathroom to herself.
Speaker 1: One room remained completely empty, no bed, she or anything,
Speaker 1: and it was on her side. That's the room where
Speaker 1: Denise had claimed to see someone standing in the door
Speaker 1: faced a living area and we could see right in.
Speaker 1: I didn't believe Denise, and up until that night I
Speaker 1: thought that it had been a type of a prank.
Speaker 1: After all, Denise had a problem with keeping a straight face.
Speaker 1: So we walked right back to the living room area
Speaker 1: and sat down quietly as I gathered my words to
Speaker 1: explain what I had seen. In her excitement, Denise waved
Speaker 1: her arms and kept interrupting me to say that it
Speaker 1: matched exactly what she had seen. What if it's her,
Speaker 1: she asked, and I stopped talking and waited for her
Speaker 1: to continue, like what if she's haunted or something? I
Speaker 1: gave her a little more silence before we both let
Speaker 1: out our laughter. The idea sounded so absurd, and we
Speaker 1: had no better solution than to laugh. That was a mistake.
Speaker 1: Amanda rushed out of her room silently like she used
Speaker 1: to roam around the house without making a noise, and
Speaker 1: stared at us. Then her mouth opened, did you know
Speaker 1: what time it is? We both stayed quiet, and then
Speaker 1: Denise pointed at the clock. Freaking Denise, We both started
Speaker 1: laughing again. It was ten thirty. By the way, Amanda
Speaker 1: tried to give us that stare that she always did,
Speaker 1: the one that showed us how much she wanted to
Speaker 1: punch our faces but would get in trouble if she
Speaker 1: did so. Plus, she was so thin that she would
Speaker 1: probably tumble over like a falling tree with a single push.
Speaker 1: Just remember the contract, okay, she said, rushing back to
Speaker 1: her room. This is the part where you would normally
Speaker 1: hear a door slam, but instead nothing. The door stayed
Speaker 1: wide open, just like it always did. Remember the contract,
Speaker 1: Denise murmured, making the stretched out horse face that Amanda
Speaker 1: would do when she would get mad at us. I'll
Speaker 1: remember the contract, she said, looking at me, and then
Speaker 1: cracking up again, covering our mouths one more time. We
Speaker 1: continued with her card game, stopping briefly to bring up
Speaker 1: what we had just seen. I was wondering if we
Speaker 1: were just going to pretend that neither of us had
Speaker 1: ever seen a strange, dark figure roaming around the unit.
Speaker 1: I thought that maybe it was the reason why the
Speaker 1: room was empty, that maybe something had happened there, and
Speaker 1: that no student ever wanted to stay there because of
Speaker 1: a ghost that would haunt it. And yet I knew
Speaker 1: that the money hungry institution would find a way to
Speaker 1: rent it out either way. It was almost midnight and
Speaker 1: we were both on our phones when the topic of
Speaker 1: Amanda's door came back up. Denise wasn't having it. I
Speaker 1: knew she hated being told what to do and always
Speaker 1: held something against Amanda even more than I did. But then,
Speaker 1: without saying a word, she got up, rushed toward Amanda's room,
Speaker 1: grabbed the door handle, and closed it shut. I stared
Speaker 1: from the living area, not believing what I had just seen.
Speaker 1: There's your contract, Denise said, laughing again. But almost immediately
Speaker 1: we heard a loud scream coming from Amanda's bedroom. It
Speaker 1: was shrill and terrifying, loud, like from an animal, things
Speaker 1: that neither of us had ever heard before. We stared
Speaker 1: at each other with white eyes, not knowing what to do.
Speaker 1: As the screams intensified, we could hear Amanda banging on
Speaker 1: her door, crying and yelling. I didn't know what to do,
Speaker 1: so I ran tow her door to open it. When
Speaker 1: there was another knock on her front door, I asked
Speaker 1: the niece to open it while I continued to Amanda's
Speaker 1: and grabbed onto the doorknob. It swung inside without even trying,
Speaker 1: and suddenly Amanda went quiet. She went toward the window
Speaker 1: and crouched under it. Next to her was that same
Speaker 1: tall figure. But I wasn't going to wonder anymore. I
Speaker 1: reached for the switch and flicked it on. There was
Speaker 1: no one next to her. Out in the living room,
Speaker 1: I could hear two other voices, God one of the
Speaker 1: community advisers and one of the other residents of the building.
Speaker 1: Who we knew. They went to speak with Amanda while
Speaker 1: Denise and I sat in the living room for a
Speaker 1: couple of hours. Eventually, Amanda's parents arrived and then the
Speaker 1: resident director. They moved Amanda's things out without saying a
Speaker 1: word to us. We didn't get to see Amanda leave.
Speaker 1: Within two weeks, we had two new roommates and our
Speaker 1: unit seemed somewhat normal. But during one of the meetings,
Speaker 1: I asked the community adviser about Amanda and what had happened,
Speaker 1: and obviously he couldn't say much to Denise and I
Speaker 1: about what it was, but did tell us that Amanda's
Speaker 1: housing contract had included two rooms, one to be kept
Speaker 1: empty as part of her co signers agreement, which I'm
Speaker 1: assuming were her parents a room for that thing. Denise
Speaker 1: asked as if the CA would know what she was
Speaker 1: talking about. He stayed quiet for a bit and then
Speaker 1: asked us about it. We told him about the dark
Speaker 1: figure that we had seen in the unit. He took
Speaker 1: a note of it, saying that the housing director had
Speaker 1: asked him to let him know of Amanda's roommates, which
Speaker 1: were us ever mentioned something strange in the unit, that
Speaker 1: it was all he knew and all he could tell us.
Speaker 1: We never found out what was up with Amanda, And
Speaker 1: every time we tell the story, someone has a new
Speaker 1: theory or a new idea to share with us about it.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to believe anymore. When someone tells
Speaker 1: me a story of a dark figure standing by the bed,
Speaker 1: I believe them. I don't know who or what they are,
Speaker 1: but I've seen them. Denise has seen them, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure Amanda, wherever she may be, I had seen them too.
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time writing for editors who
Speaker 1: genuinely care about my work. They have lately taken the
Speaker 1: role of keeping tabs on how I'm doing. Let's just
Speaker 1: say I had some problems at home, things that everyone
Speaker 1: else found out before I did. My wife left me
Speaker 1: with the guy from work. My adult children don't even
Speaker 1: know or care that I got a number. But even
Speaker 1: though I had a small bar made in the basement
Speaker 1: of the house for friends that I no longer had,
Speaker 1: all the bottles and glasses were intact, gathering some dust, sure,
Speaker 1: but I hadn't touched any of it. That was part
Speaker 1: of that. It seemed like I had to convince everyone
Speaker 1: of that, though, But I'm being straight with you when
Speaker 1: I tell you that I was fairly all right, just
Speaker 1: things that happened. I guess there was one thing that
Speaker 1: was bothering me, and it made convincing my editors a
Speaker 1: little bit tougher. You see, some of the writing gigs
Speaker 1: I get are fourteen fiction, sometimes horror books and magazines.
Speaker 1: So I get sent to a lot of gifts, creepy
Speaker 1: posters and independent movies on DBD, candles and books, the
Speaker 1: whole thing. But there was one thing that never quite
Speaker 1: felt right. Small doll made of composite material that came
Speaker 1: with a note in this note. This letter said that
Speaker 1: her name was Veronica, and according to the letter, she
Speaker 1: had been involved in the success of several poets and
Speaker 1: songwriters over the years. Her name Veronica Porto, was how
Speaker 1: she was credited in some works and had even listened
Speaker 1: to them back in the day. Famous stuff things that
Speaker 1: you have probably heard about. The thought of crediting an
Speaker 1: object for a creation of something, some material like that
Speaker 1: that became so famous seemed absurd, and I thought it
Speaker 1: was an interesting joke when I read it, and I
Speaker 1: guess that's what writers are supposed to love, you know,
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, and I did so I kept
Speaker 1: it and I set Veronica high up on a shelf
Speaker 1: with some of the many books that had been sent
Speaker 1: to me from where I worked. I would get to
Speaker 1: see her by turning my neck a little bit to
Speaker 1: the left. She had dark green eyes, rare in a
Speaker 1: doll like that. Normally they would pick blue and make
Speaker 1: the eyes extra shiny, but these were deep and dark.
Speaker 1: It would be green only around five or six in
Speaker 1: the afternoon when the light hit the shelf. The doll
Speaker 1: had been giving to me Right around the same time
Speaker 1: when I was awarded the John L. Marx Award for
Speaker 1: writing at the University. Many contracts came from that, and
Speaker 1: one of them had been for a new piece for
Speaker 1: a major motion picture company. Thinking that they needed to
Speaker 1: convince me, they sent it along with a box, and
Speaker 1: in that box it was Veronica. The contract eventually fell apart,
Speaker 1: not on my end but on the companies restructuring or whatever,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't a buying to turn over the words.
Speaker 1: I had already started with them because I wanted to
Speaker 1: keep them for myself. They were good, some of the
Speaker 1: best writing I had ever made. But after a firm
Speaker 1: letter from a lawyer I turned everything in. It's a
Speaker 1: strange feeling when you make something that you genuinely like.
Speaker 1: It's like a sense of pride, mostly followed by the
Speaker 1: fear of never being able to make something like it,
Speaker 1: a feeling that makes you selfish and wanting to keep
Speaker 1: everything to yourself, never accepting another contract again, and working
Speaker 1: on your own. But they get the buyers. They know
Speaker 1: how to distribute what you make, and it's a necessary evil,
Speaker 1: if you will. But back to my problem, that one
Speaker 1: I was telling you about in the beginning, This doll
Speaker 1: Veronica didn't belong with me. There had been a short
Speaker 1: request through the text messages made by one of the
Speaker 1: many numbers that reached out to me during the times
Speaker 1: of those contracts. One of them said, return Veronica, and
Speaker 1: that was that. Now I didn't know to whom or
Speaker 1: how to do so, and I for sure didn't want
Speaker 1: to reach out to the company again, bitter from what
Speaker 1: they had done. But days went by and it was forgotten,
Speaker 1: lost among the rest of the messages filling up my phone.
Speaker 1: Story circled in my head, stories that told me that
Speaker 1: Veronica was unhappy on that shelf as she wanted to
Speaker 1: go back. That would turn my head to the left
Speaker 1: every once in a while during my writing sessions, and
Speaker 1: I would see her an uncomfortable, vengeful face for making
Speaker 1: her sit there. I thought it would end there, But
Speaker 1: as time passed, I kept noticing small changes, little things
Speaker 1: like the position of her arm or the strands of
Speaker 1: her hair. Could the wind be so strong to move
Speaker 1: it away from her eyes and then back again? I
Speaker 1: thought I was losing it. And yeah, the contracts kept coming,
Speaker 1: and the book sales increased. Editors kept pushing for more.
Speaker 1: Their publishing companies were raking it in big time, and
Speaker 1: I was out there struggling to understand where all of
Speaker 1: these tales were coming from. And then one day I
Speaker 1: felt compelled to write, and right at the end of
Speaker 1: a poetry piece for Homeword Magazine, a special thank you
Speaker 1: I wrote to Veronica Porto. Immediately, I had my editor
Speaker 1: call me and tell me that he had reached out
Speaker 1: to the magazine to have that last line removed from
Speaker 1: the online and the print editions, warning me to never
Speaker 1: put such a thing in the credit, that the works
Speaker 1: are mine and mine only. But I disagreed. The stories
Speaker 1: I was able to write were nothing even close to
Speaker 1: my own experiences. There were trails of sentences that I
Speaker 1: would watch after my fingers typed them, and in astonishment,
Speaker 1: I kept reading as these beautiful, dark works of art
Speaker 1: kept appearing on my word document stories of love and loss,
Speaker 1: strong descriptions of people I've never met, and clothing I
Speaker 1: had never seen before being described perfectly in words right
Speaker 1: in front of me. Of course, I don't want you
Speaker 1: to think that I've lost it too, just like my editors.
Speaker 1: Do you believe me? Right? I'm all right? Trust me?
Speaker 1: What's that? All right? Okay, all right, hold on, I
Speaker 1: gotta go back to writing. Scary Story podcast is written
Speaker 1: and produced by me Edwin Kovarubiez. Thank you for your
Speaker 1: recent messages and dms. I was out due to the
Speaker 1: passing of my best friend. It was a time for
Speaker 1: stories that turned to memories and some I hadn't heard
Speaker 1: for the first time. We're also remembering other stories and
Speaker 1: memories that we had made together. It was a rough time,
Speaker 1: and I mentioned this on my channel on Instagram that
Speaker 1: friends or family that we get to choose, So I
Speaker 1: just want to remind you call them up every once
Speaker 1: in a while. Life cannot get in the way when
Speaker 1: they're a part of it already. Thank you for showing
Speaker 1: up once again. I appreciate you so much, and I'll
Speaker 1: be back with more stories. Thank you very much for listening.
Speaker 1: Keep it scary everyone, Seya soon