Speaker 1: I realized my phone was dying when I tried to
Speaker 1: take a video of the trees by the road. There
Speaker 1: was something about the sun rising behind them. When I
Speaker 1: scanned the silhouettes of the trees, it looked like a
Speaker 1: barcode that told the stories of those who lived long ago.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you could relax your eyes and picture them old hunters,
Speaker 1: children running, and wild animals looking for a place to
Speaker 1: stay in the winter. I think it was a lack
Speaker 1: of signal that made my phone die faster. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that was a thing back then, but I
Speaker 1: had charged it up that morning and now it was
Speaker 1: at less than ten percent. The charger was in my
Speaker 1: bag in the back part of the van. I could
Speaker 1: have reached it if I tried hard enough, but all
Speaker 1: five of us were squeezed together with more bags on
Speaker 1: our laps and on the floor. I told them we
Speaker 1: wouldn't need that much food for such a short camping trip,
Speaker 1: and that was right, but not for that reason. Fear
Speaker 1: has a way of ruining your appetite. The story will
Speaker 1: bring us into the mysteries of the woods again, but
Speaker 1: this time with a chance to find some answers. My
Speaker 1: name is Edwin, and here is a scary story. Darren
Speaker 1: was fast asleep in the front passenger seat. The only
Speaker 1: two comfortable people in the minivan were him and the driver. Well,
Speaker 1: the driver had a bunch of sheets and maps in
Speaker 1: front of him against the window, and he thought it
Speaker 1: would be a good idea to decorate the entire dashboard
Speaker 1: with these mini hairy monsters collectibles. From there, I think
Speaker 1: out in these areas, people seem to have their own
Speaker 1: things going on. It's why we needed them for the trip.
Speaker 1: Otherwise you would have just taken two cars. They knew
Speaker 1: how essential they were, though, so they charged what it
Speaker 1: were worth. He was friendly enough though. He showed us
Speaker 1: a few viewpoints that were off the regular path that
Speaker 1: hiker and campers like us would miss because they were
Speaker 1: out in loops of dirt paths away from the main roads,
Speaker 1: and yet after zigzagging through some more pines and dry trees,
Speaker 1: he would somehow end up back on the road. If
Speaker 1: you have any trouble, he kept saying, the signal is
Speaker 1: best the top of that hill, and he kept pointing
Speaker 1: to it every time he came into view. He looked
Speaker 1: more like a flat mountain than a hill, But we
Speaker 1: understood we had his number and could spot that thing
Speaker 1: from anywhere where there was a clearing. Because of how
Speaker 1: strangely shaped it was. I called it a stack of pancakes,
Speaker 1: but my friends called it a pimple. Others called it
Speaker 1: the button, but I was glad they were on the
Speaker 1: same page in terms of safety. In having a plan,
Speaker 1: the guide made us take his business card and put
Speaker 1: it in our wallets. The phone number was crossed out
Speaker 1: on all of them, rewritten in blue ink on the back.
Speaker 1: It was good. When I was a kid, I got
Speaker 1: lost at Dizzeyland, and fortunately it's common enough there that
Speaker 1: it didn't get too traumatizing for me. But I did
Speaker 1: get scolded by my mom, who had told me time
Speaker 1: and time again if I got lost, I should go
Speaker 1: to the entrance of wherever we were and wait there.
Speaker 1: But where was the entrance of a large walkway with
Speaker 1: hundreds of people passing with strollers, all of them looking
Speaker 1: the same with t shirts, hats, and sunglasses. So I
Speaker 1: just stood there and cried until the kind lady with
Speaker 1: the broom came by. She tried to help me for
Speaker 1: a few minutes before trying to find my lost parents.
Speaker 1: I'd gotten lost before, and I would always be found
Speaker 1: if I stayed by the entrance malls, grocery stores, subway stations.
Speaker 1: Come to think of it, it might have been my
Speaker 1: parents' fault all along. And I knew that this trip
Speaker 1: was going to be something else, because there was no
Speaker 1: way I'd be able to make my way back to
Speaker 1: any entrance to any part of the woods, especially after
Speaker 1: all these twists and turns. But hey, that was a
Speaker 1: point of all of this or last trip before everyone
Speaker 1: went off into the real world after graduating college. The
Speaker 1: guide caught me looking at him through the rear view
Speaker 1: mirror and he smiled. About another half an hour, he said, smiling,
Speaker 1: or do you want to turn back? Everyone in the
Speaker 1: van knew he was talking to me. I shook my
Speaker 1: head no, thinking that maybe he had noticed that I
Speaker 1: looked sick from all the turns on the road. But
Speaker 1: I smiled back and turned to the window. Out there,
Speaker 1: in the hypnotizing trees, I saw the images again, like
Speaker 1: a flip book, the children running toward the car, chasing
Speaker 1: each other until I got to see their frightened faces.
Speaker 1: Tall strange creatures with legs like crabs were chasing after them,
Speaker 1: and from the top of the trees, a hooded thing
Speaker 1: rising up and passed the try branches, and then zooming
Speaker 1: passed the car and through the trees. It was the
Speaker 1: size of a human, faceless and dark. It vanished the
Speaker 1: trees somewhere in the next turn. I could feel the
Speaker 1: guides eyes reflecting on me again. He knew what I
Speaker 1: had seen, and he wasn't smiling anymore. This is where
Speaker 1: we're gonna be staying, Tracy asked out loud when we
Speaker 1: were dragging our legs between the bags to get out
Speaker 1: of the van. We had all been wondering that same thing.
Speaker 1: To the guide's credits. It looked exactly like in the
Speaker 1: pictures he showed us. He said it had a refrigerator
Speaker 1: and an emergency generator if we needed it. The stove
Speaker 1: needed wood that to be honest, we probably wouldn't be using.
Speaker 1: A couple of us brought camping stoves for when we
Speaker 1: needed to boil water for the boxes. Yes, boxes, a
Speaker 1: couple of noodles. A cabin would be too much to
Speaker 1: describe this. This thing was like a bungalow with a
Speaker 1: makeshift porch. The nicest part was the bathroom that actually
Speaker 1: had tile and was near the back of it. We
Speaker 1: had more than enough lawn chairs, and there were board games,
Speaker 1: a radio, a first aid kit. What do we do
Speaker 1: about the bears, Mark asked, out of nowhere, no bears
Speaker 1: this time of the year, but if you find one,
Speaker 1: we need to send out an alert because it's probably
Speaker 1: hungry and dangerous. We weren't sure if he was joking
Speaker 1: or not, because he changed the topic quickly to the
Speaker 1: signal that installed a booster nearby. But the pancake Mountain
Speaker 1: hill was blocking it and it wasn't working where we were.
Speaker 1: Do you see it? He kept asking? Do you get
Speaker 1: in touch with me if you get in trouble? What
Speaker 1: kind of trouble, Darren asked, serious this time. If someone
Speaker 1: gets lost, you turn out of food, You see smoke
Speaker 1: out there in the woods. No one else should be
Speaker 1: out there anyway. I'll be back here on Sunday four pm.
Speaker 1: Or do you want to turn back, he asked again,
Speaker 1: Looking at me. For an instant I could tell he
Speaker 1: wasn't making some type of joke in the car. Then
Speaker 1: his expression was serious, and that's how he was when
Speaker 1: he first booked the trip with him. He tried to
Speaker 1: convince us to take us instead to the other side
Speaker 1: by the desert, nicer areas, mountain views, and actual cabin.
Speaker 1: We were thinking that he was trying to upsell us
Speaker 1: that whole time, and I wish you would have listened.
Speaker 1: He was worried for this group of strangers, I could tell.
Speaker 1: Everyone started unloading the bags, mainly food and drinks and
Speaker 1: plastic bags. Michaela brought a suitcase that she couldn't carry
Speaker 1: on her own, but everything was now on the porch
Speaker 1: and everyone had gone inside to check out the place,
Speaker 1: the one where we would stay for that weekend. It
Speaker 1: didn't look too bad now. It had a lot of space,
Speaker 1: we were in a nice clearing and the lake was
Speaker 1: a short walk away. No one around for miles, just friends, food,
Speaker 1: and a weekend without homework or finals to worry about.
Speaker 1: I walked up to the guide. Tom was his name,
Speaker 1: as he sat in his vand taking notes on one
Speaker 1: of the many maps he had on the dashboard, looking
Speaker 1: at us every few seconds. You can see them, huh,
Speaker 1: he asked, sitting completely still as he rolled down his
Speaker 1: window A little more what I asked? Trying to get
Speaker 1: him to tell me instead of embarrassing myself with the
Speaker 1: thoughts and visions, the ones of something flying through the trees,
Speaker 1: children running, and all the things my crazy imagination came
Speaker 1: up with whenever I got to that level of boredom.
Speaker 1: I think those were the bad ones, he said quietly.
Speaker 1: The good ones are the ones you never see. He said.
Speaker 1: To stay where we were, and not to go out
Speaker 1: too far, to not open the doors at night. If
Speaker 1: we hear knocking, it might be, in his own words,
Speaker 1: an animal or something else. R Do you want to
Speaker 1: turn back, he asked, completely serious again. Thank you, Tom,
Speaker 1: We'll see you on Sunday. Here's something for you. As
Speaker 1: I handed him, I'm a twenty dollars bill. Feeling guilty
Speaker 1: for doing so. For some reason, he took it in
Speaker 1: thinking putting it in his shirt pocket. He tapped on
Speaker 1: a steering wheel, started up the van, and rolled away,
Speaker 1: leaving behind the kind of silence that seemed completely unnatural
Speaker 1: out there in nature. We spent the rest of that
Speaker 1: afternoon lounging and that clearing. The lake itself was beautiful,
Speaker 1: though dark enough to make me wonder how deep it was.
Speaker 1: It was one of those places that wasn't in the
Speaker 1: maps like the others. I mean, we could see the
Speaker 1: blue of the lake in the green of the forested areas,
Speaker 1: but knew little else about it, no names or details
Speaker 1: about landmarks and stuff like that. I think it's what
Speaker 1: brought Oscar here. He's the one that found it and
Speaker 1: told the rest of us who didn't want to go
Speaker 1: with the others on their usual summer trip, another trip
Speaker 1: to a cabin with a pool, beer, loud music, and
Speaker 1: coming back more tired than anything. So we just passed
Speaker 1: on that. Two of the guys got in the lake,
Speaker 1: following the rule about jumping in a natural body of
Speaker 1: water when they saw one, and they came back, rinsed
Speaker 1: off with the well water, and sat outside, drawing off
Speaker 1: by one of the lawn chairs with their towels. The
Speaker 1: last normal thing we experienced were the setup of the
Speaker 1: camp fire and sitting around it talking about politics and
Speaker 1: some of the plans for the future. He already felt
Speaker 1: like a proper good bye, even though our weekend was
Speaker 1: supposed to only be starting. I think of our conversations
Speaker 1: often we all had dreams. I mean, why struggle for
Speaker 1: so many years with money, stress and staying up so
Speaker 1: late at night with our work For the money, sure,
Speaker 1: but why do you need the money to have whatever
Speaker 1: we want? And why what do you want? Some of
Speaker 1: our reasons were to help our families. Others were to
Speaker 1: prove something to ourselves. A couple of us were in sure,
Speaker 1: myself included. We'll just figure it out as we go,
Speaker 1: was our conclusion. Once the ember started glowing dim, we
Speaker 1: decided to head inside. The darkness around us was dead
Speaker 1: quiet without the crackling of the firewood. The buzzing of
Speaker 1: the insects had stopped, and the wind started to pick
Speaker 1: up in a deep whistling that none of us had
Speaker 1: ever heard before. We were quiet as we boiled up
Speaker 1: some more water for the noodles, oscar ate from a
Speaker 1: cold can of Ravioli's, and we just sat on the
Speaker 1: enormous couch that took up the whole front part of
Speaker 1: the place. Tracy was messing with the radio, trying to
Speaker 1: find some music, but only kept cycling between the same
Speaker 1: two stations, one with what seemed to be church music
Speaker 1: and the other was a news announcer warning the public
Speaker 1: on an alert where he kept repeating this message is
Speaker 1: for the Vernacua areas south of Slugba Hill. Then she
Speaker 1: just changed the station back. Jesus as the sunset on
Speaker 1: the ocean, the rocks on mountain. Oscar jumped up, snatching
Speaker 1: the radio from her lap. Is that what this place
Speaker 1: is called? Changed the station again? Twenty two miles south.
Speaker 1: They was spotted again? Stay indoors, answer no calls. Thank
Speaker 1: you for your attention on this matter. Thank you for
Speaker 1: your attention in this matter. What was spotted? We were
Speaker 1: all a little scared, I could tell, but none of
Speaker 1: us wanted to seem like we were, so all of
Speaker 1: our questions started flooding the conversation very calmly. Who was it?
Speaker 1: What was the announcer talking about? What was spotted? Oscar
Speaker 1: put his phone back on the table and leaned back,
Speaker 1: hands on his face. No signal, he said, sighing as
Speaker 1: loudly as a person could. Vernaqua, That's what he said, Right,
Speaker 1: We're at Blackwood's not that other place. Or is Vernaqua
Speaker 1: the original name? Mark asked him what the matter was,
Speaker 1: Why was he so worried, tapping him on the back
Speaker 1: as he walked away from him and went to the
Speaker 1: kitchen for another Can we read about a place like
Speaker 1: this one? You remember, Mark? Right? We took this class together.
Speaker 1: We all chuckled. Mark doing the readings for any class
Speaker 1: was a joke, the stories of the voices and the
Speaker 1: very real documented deaths in the areas that surrounded it. Mark,
Speaker 1: you don't remember. Mark shrugged, looking at the rest of us,
Speaker 1: holding back a smile. But Oscar seemed genuinely concerned and
Speaker 1: grabbed the radio again. He was the smartest out of
Speaker 1: all of us by far, the only one on track
Speaker 1: for a PhD, and the only one interested in learning
Speaker 1: whatever we went through in college. He turned up the
Speaker 1: volume and then lowered it once the station kept flipping
Speaker 1: back to the songs about Jesus. He stood up and
Speaker 1: quickly went to the front door, the kitchen side door,
Speaker 1: and then went through the windows. He sat still for
Speaker 1: a moment before grabbing his phone again. Tom said, the
Speaker 1: hill has signal how far we can still stay somewhere else.
Speaker 1: Once we reached the base of the ridges that we passed,
Speaker 1: Tom can just come get us. But we had just arrived,
Speaker 1: and even though we wanted to listen to the things
Speaker 1: he told us about the events as early as two thousands,
Speaker 1: some stories from the eighties and many more from earlier,
Speaker 1: we had just gotten settled. Plus we all knew that
Speaker 1: the guy would get carried away and was always looking
Speaker 1: for something to be anxious about. Kayla told him that
Speaker 1: it was probably some joke or a late night radio
Speaker 1: drama like they had them before. Oscar was familiar with him,
Speaker 1: and we all knew about it after he made us
Speaker 1: listen to War of the Worlds when he was the
Speaker 1: designated driver and he picked us up from a concert.
Speaker 1: One time, he stayed quiet for a second, grabbed the
Speaker 1: radio and held it in his lap, listening for anything
Speaker 1: else aside from their music. He remained that way for
Speaker 1: most of the night until we all started getting ready
Speaker 1: to go to sleep. Mind you, it was not even
Speaker 1: ten pm by this time. Two were at the table
Speaker 1: playing some made up game, others were talking on the couch,
Speaker 1: and I was sitting in a lawn chair by the
Speaker 1: front door, with a cup of soup in my hand,
Speaker 1: in a magazine from nineteen ninety eight, my Reader's Digest
Speaker 1: kind of thing on my lap. Now it's at this
Speaker 1: point where I noticed that things were off, and still
Speaker 1: I remained quiet. I heard soft tapping on the door,
Speaker 1: quiet enough to ignore it. I looked up at Oscar.
Speaker 1: He was nearly falling asleep by the radio. I vaguely
Speaker 1: remember Oscar roaming around checking on the doors at night,
Speaker 1: had fallen asleep in the dark living room area with
Speaker 1: the other girls. Just as I started to doze off again,
Speaker 1: I heard another soft tapping, this time by the window.
Speaker 1: It was clearly separated, tap tap tap, rhythmic, unnatural. Again
Speaker 1: I tried ignoring it, but it persisted, tap tap tap.
Speaker 1: I looked to my left and saw Tracy's head turning
Speaker 1: to face the window. Do you hear that? I whispered,
Speaker 1: startling her. She moved her head, but I didn't know
Speaker 1: as she was nodding or shaking it. No. Then Mikayla
Speaker 1: turned round, wide eyed. Is that Oscar? She asked, confusing
Speaker 1: us even more. Mark, we heard from the outside, Mark
Speaker 1: you in there? It was Oscar's voice. Now, the first
Speaker 1: thing I thought was that he had gotten outside to
Speaker 1: get to the hill in order to get signal to
Speaker 1: get us right back, literally in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: and I knew it was something he was capable of doing.
Speaker 1: The guy was a little weird to everyone else, and
Speaker 1: we were the only ones I had gotten used to
Speaker 1: the way he was. So I stood up and walked
Speaker 1: across that cold floor to look at the window, and
Speaker 1: sure enough, Oscar was standing by the corner of the property,
Speaker 1: far enough away from the front door that he had
Speaker 1: to shout. Why he didn't go up to knock on
Speaker 1: the front door like a normal person. I didn't know
Speaker 1: at the time, but it gave me a strange feeling,
Speaker 1: even after that relief from seeing a familiar person out there.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was the way his pale face stood out
Speaker 1: from against the dark trees behind him. Again, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I started walking towards the front door when I felt
Speaker 1: something grip my arm. It was Tracy. Are you sure
Speaker 1: it's him? She whispered, her voice shaky. Why wouldn't I
Speaker 1: be sure it was Oscar? We all knew his voice,
Speaker 1: the way he hunched over sometimes, and the way he
Speaker 1: phrased his sentences like a question every single time. But
Speaker 1: again there was something about it. Why doubt such a
Speaker 1: normal thing, something we were used to and had heard
Speaker 1: a thousand times? Why now? And why in this place?
Speaker 1: I thought about it enough to make me crouch down
Speaker 1: and hide from the window. I heard the voice outside
Speaker 1: calling my name, now, Maggie, is that you? It was
Speaker 1: a changed tone that made shivers run up my spine.
Speaker 1: But even worse, Oscar had always called me Mag's for
Speaker 1: as long as I had known them. Never, Maggie, I
Speaker 1: don't know how we ran while hiding from the curtainless
Speaker 1: window like that, but we did. Tracy followed close behind
Speaker 1: as we went over the bathroom and leaned into the
Speaker 1: section where the two large beds were. Right there on
Speaker 1: the first one closest to the door was Oscar, his
Speaker 1: eyes wide open and turned directly to us. It's not me,
Speaker 1: he whispered, voice trembling with fear. That section of the
Speaker 1: cabin or whatever this was, had no door, so we
Speaker 1: all crouched down in a position where we couldn't see
Speaker 1: out through the window, the one that faced away from
Speaker 1: the lake. Mark and his brother were moving themselves, awake, slowly,
Speaker 1: asking out loud what the matter was. Mark was probably
Speaker 1: still half asleep. He stood up as if nothing was
Speaker 1: happening and glanced over to the window. Dude, he screamed, Oscar,
Speaker 1: you weirdo. You scared the hell out of me. We
Speaker 1: all stayed quiet as we watched him reach toward the windowsill,
Speaker 1: and then all rushed over to stop him. We yelled
Speaker 1: for him to not touch it, that Oscar was in
Speaker 1: there with us, and crouched down too to hide from
Speaker 1: the window. Whence things got quiet again. Oscar told us
Speaker 1: about the legends of the place, the one that was
Speaker 1: mentioned in the radio by the announcer the play is
Speaker 1: where he thought we were in right now. Voices they say,
Speaker 1: call your name, aim to lure you out there, and
Speaker 1: they've been tied to crimes, and they have evenen shown
Speaker 1: up in court records. Oscar mentioned a few cases, but
Speaker 1: all were dismissed as lore or ghost stories, unacceptable by judges.
Speaker 1: Legends say that they lure you out into the lake,
Speaker 1: but nobody knows how or why they happen. But even
Speaker 1: in ancient writings and stories, they claim that the voices
Speaker 1: come with familiar shapes, ones that we make ourselves from
Speaker 1: the trees. There are so many that they blend together,
Speaker 1: and our minds pieces them into familiar faces. The voices
Speaker 1: of the wind combined to do the same thing. We
Speaker 1: all stayed still as he explained what he knew, and
Speaker 1: we listened. For the first time, we really truly listened
Speaker 1: to Oscar until the sun came up. Now we had
Speaker 1: one more night remaining in that area, and for the
Speaker 1: rest of our stay we actually kept close to each other.
Speaker 1: We thought about going up to the hill and calling
Speaker 1: Tom to come get us, but felt silly at the
Speaker 1: thought of giving him our reason why. Mark's younger brother
Speaker 1: was scared the whole time, but didn't say much, just
Speaker 1: asked Oscar a few questions here and there, but stayed calm.
Speaker 1: Now there were no more creepy incidents like the one
Speaker 1: from the night before, and I remained suspiciously calm, even
Speaker 1: to myself now. When Tom arrived earlier than expected the
Speaker 1: following day, we littered him with questions about what we
Speaker 1: had heard and seen, and he listened closely before speaking up.
Speaker 1: Isn't that what you came here for? He told us
Speaker 1: he had taken all sorts of people to these grounds,
Speaker 1: and apparently most had been searching for spirits out there.
Speaker 1: I saw relief in his eyes right when he realized
Speaker 1: that we were just a dumb group of students looking
Speaker 1: for something adventurous to do on a weekend. The stories
Speaker 1: he shared with us on that right back were hard
Speaker 1: to forget, although the details themselves I've started to escape
Speaker 1: me over the years. Turns out there's something out there
Speaker 1: in the empty wounds in the lands that whold secrets.
Speaker 1: But I often think of what that thing could have been.
Speaker 1: We all saw it the exact same thing, some type
Speaker 1: of oscar or a copy of them out there. And
Speaker 1: then I thought about the haunting words of Tom himself.
Speaker 1: The good ones are the ones you never see. Scary
Speaker 1: Story podcast has written and produced by me Edwin Corujas.
Speaker 1: Thank you all for your support on my other podcast,
Speaker 1: The Paranormal Club, where I read some listeners submitted stories.
Speaker 1: In our latest episode, you can find it and send
Speaker 1: me your stories through there. Someone actually sent in a
Speaker 1: real photo of an apparition that freaked me out. You
Speaker 1: can find the show on Paranormal Club and in this
Speaker 1: particular episode I'm talking about, it's called We See Ghosts
Speaker 1: Listener submissions number four. Anyway, thank you Scary Plus members
Speaker 1: for your support. I'm Edwin cove E, d w N
Speaker 1: coov on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook if you want to
Speaker 1: stay in touch. If you're following the show, I will
Speaker 1: be back next week to tell you another story. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much for listening. Keep it Scary everyone, See
Speaker 1: you soon.