A Book of Two Bears

Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. A mother is haunted by a dream and a nightmare and it finally comes to a realization. And the second story we hear about a neighbor in distress. Are you ready? My name is Edwin, and here it's a scary story. It was almost midnight and I was up again. My neighbors had noticed a few strange things about me or something for several weeks now, but I didn't know what. I instead thought that they were just being those annoying neighbors that can't seem to mind their own business. I looked out the window briefly and caught the neighbor from across the street wave his wife over to the window as he both stood there holding the curtain of their nice house with her neat lawn and clean car next to it. What were they looking at? I whispered to myself. I grabbed a book from the nightstand and creeped over to the room next to mine, stepping over some toys left on the ground. Once again, I thought I had moved those, but I didn't mind it. In fact, I felt that in a strange way, it made me feel like I wasn't going crazy after all. A book of two bears was the title. Eh. I was never good at coming up with phrases, and titles were just fancy phrases anyway. The pile of rejection letters from the publishing companies saying that my book was too strange to be on bookshelves. One of them, a man named Nick Nick Kim was his name, believe it or not, had the audacity to tell me that my title did not match the story, that I should decide on a better topic if I wanted to make a career out of this. Are you kidding me? Did he not realize that his name was Nick Kim? But I didn't want to think about it at that moment. Right now, This moment was to relax, but I couldn't help it. Those phrases lived in my mind like a mountain of rats, multiplying once every two weeks. The agent who told me that my book was too twisted, that mothers would sue the company if they accepted it, one of them, but closes I ever had to assail, backed out last minute after realizing that the book was an ironic or comedy. It was meant for children. The book was in my hand now as I walked over to Benny's bed and sat on the comfortable chair next to it. It was bought specifically for this purpose, for reading, For reading a bedtime story, I flipped the first page and then went back to the title. Carefully and proudly, I read it A Book of two Bears. Once upon a time there was a bear named Molly who lived in the woods with their son, Bond. Bond and Molly were inseparable. They ate lots of fruits and lots of green leaves. Their happiness was immeasurable, but it all came crashing down. It was at this part that I remembered how stuck I was. That's right in the beginning of a children's book, and the book sat inside of a drawer as I started another one and then another one, all in putting off the one I had already started. This was supposed to be the best bedtime story in the world. I thought of all those memories, days of staring into the blank page of a word processor, wondering how I would finish the book. Benny, did you move? No, he didn't, as I was saying, but as I was trying to come up with a way to finish it. The story came to me. They had built a great home, all strong logs and stone as a way to begin a new life. But it wasn't too long before Bond got too strong and started to reach for a knife. Bond set the knife down. Molly said, you can hurt yourself. Bond smiled and laughed. One sinister laughed and calmly put it back on the shelf. Ah, Molly sighed in relief. I suppose, so Bond will be okay. That was close. It was here when I froze once again while staring at my keyboard as they made fun of me for not being able to do anything. I was left by myself when I needed help the most, and the last thing I needed was a keyboard to turn on me. They said that having a child was the best thing that could ever happen, But if the gift was incomplete, like the book, what was I to do? I must admit that the neighbors had some right to tell me what they did. They asked me how Benny was doing for the third time, and I snapped. All I wanted was to take out the trash. They had never asked me about him before. Why did they care all of a sudden. It seems like ever since Adam left, I didn't only get to keep the house and Benny, but the nosy neighbors that came with it, the ones that judged the lawn turning yellow or the weeds growing too fast, the two story houses having easy access to judge the color of the swimming pool, now too, nothing but judgmental rich people who asked about each other's salaries and promotions, you know the type, the ones that waved to each other in the morning out of the windows of brand new European cars. But then I fell back to my rejection letters, and instead of feeling sorry for myself, I imagine just how famous I would get once my storybook got published, my name on the cover, the drawings on the sides, signing them at bookstores, and getting to go on tour. But I would never get to any of that if I never wrote the next lines. But then the gift of Benny came once again, after the panic had subsided and brought him back into bed, had grabbed all the towels and carried him inside. He was laying still in bed as I watched for his chest to rise once again. I tried, I really did to get him to be all right. It was then when something clicked in my mind. Suddenly his lungs were full, I think, bits, sunken in his purple lips, turning colder than ice in those summer nights. But what would the neighbors say, But what the police asked me about? Where would I end up? They all knew about Adam, about the way he left and took both of the cars, the empty driveway, now making the house look bigger than it actually was, the sad stairs. When I walked on the street to the bus stop, I decided to ignore them. It was no use any longer. I stared at the heap on the bed for an entire day, wondering what I should do, what I could have done, what I could still do. And he rushed. I ran to my keyboard and opened up my story. I stared at the lines of the two bears who wanted to be together forever, Molly and Bond, my son, Benny and me, And then I thought of the lines. My book was done. Bond went out to the woods at his favorite place to play, when, without looking down, he jumped and turned around. He fell down to the river and drowned. The following story is called the alarm clock, and it is coming up right after this. Dad asked me to check the bag when you were leaving the drive through. When I was a kid, and despite the years and the thousands of times that I visited McDonald's, I still remember that gut wrenching feeling when I realized that they had forgotten my fries. Dad simply parked the car, went inside, and brought a bag, partially stained with oil, back into the car. He smiled at me, and I simply stared up ahead at the dashboard of the car that was with my dad. When I'm by myself, I can barely utter out a no. When they asked me if I want avocado or if I want extra cheese on something. It used to be for fifty cents more, but now I keep hearing that it's a dollar twenty nine or even more than that. Every time, I simply looked down and managed to get out a no. But like I said, just barely. It was the same deal. When I moved into the apartment building in my university, the upper classmen had access to the new buildings and they looked great. They had one major flaw. You could hear every single step, utensil and toilet flush upstairs. I asked a housing manager for a space on the top floor, but when she said that they weren't available, I didn't question it and accepted what I was given. A friend of mine came over one day and heard the stompers upstairs and asked me why I had not complained yet. She was sure that someone would be able to take care of that, but they were probably nice. Maybe then I would be able to sleep a little more, but I was too nervous or afraid, I don't know. A few friends suggested that I talked to someone about it, But what was I going to say? That I didn't want to bother anyone. How was that a problem? Well, she would say, maybe you're just being a doormat someone people just walk over and take advantage of. Then I'd say sorry for taking up so much of her time and go back to being myself. I swear I didn't think it was a big problem, but I definitely saw an issue with it. Once I got married. The whole situation got out of hand, and I doubt it even counts, but it haunts me sometimes. My husband had gone away for an interview out of state, and I was left alone with the two kids and a cat. The relief I felt being by myself was nice for a little bit. There were some things that I needed John for. You see, we had a neighbor, a woman named Carol, who was the nicest woman you could ever rem She never bothered anyone, and back when her husband was alive, he would hop on over to our yard and mow it for us. We were at his children's weddings. We even shared Thanksgiving dinner. One year, the whole block knew of her husband, and we were all devastated to learn that the terrible accident that had been reported on the highway just a few miles away from our house was actually the cause of death of Carol's husband. Carold seemed okay with it for the first couple of days, but eventually we stopped seeing her outside to get the mail. The delivery man kept putting packages by our door to hold for Carol. Flowers would wilt from how long she took to pick them up, and when she did, she would do it in such a strange way, though when I really think about it, it is it weird at all. She would call my house phone and say that she would be coming over to pick up her mail and then thank me. I can still hear that fake happy tone in her voice as I'm saying this. I could tell she was devastated, but there was no way for me to convince her to be able to talk about her loss. Instead, she would lie and say that she had recently started a new job and that she was very busy going to visit her grandkids. But I knew she was around. The large windows from her house let out every single sound, and I could hear the everyday noises in there, a faucet turning on, the vacuum cleaner, and her alarm clock ringing in the mornings. The woman was sad, coping in a way by hiding out. But when she finally started coming outside again and tending to her garden and all those things that she used to do, she began relying on my husband John for some stuff that she was not able to do, like cleaning out the gutters or trimming down part of the tree that she had in the front yard. John is a good guy, so of course he helped her out, and he helped me out too by taking the hit and letting her talk His ear off instead of mine. One time she caught me as I was walking into the house with two arms full of groceries and talked about I don't remember what long enough for the bag of frozen peas to begin carving a hole on the paper bag. She made up so many things about how she was doing great at the after school club she volunteered at that she had won at Binga. I stayed quiet, hesitating to congratulate her every once in a while. I had been at several of those volunteer events, and part of the conversations were about how visibly absent she was. The voice coming from her face didn't seem to match. It was like her eyes were stuck on the day that her husband died, and the sounds from her mouth simply couldn't make up for it. Not too long after a conversation, if it can be considered that I stopped noticing the sounds from her house, the vacuum wouldn't come on before the price is right, the faucets wouldn't come on that much anymore. In my mind, of course, I thought of the worst things possible. Maybe something happened to her, Maybe she didn't wake up one morning that she needed help, but I felt like I was overreacting, and like with most other things, I simply kept my mouth shut. When John came home from work, he noticed me being lost in my thoughts, and I figured that if anyone would listen to me and genuinely take me seriously, it would be him. Still, I told him that I was okay and asked him about how things were at work. We just kind of left it at that. As I was sleeping, I saw a light flicker from the outside. Without thinking, I stood up and walked over to the window. I could see Carol standing over the window, the one that she used to share with her husband. She was motionless, lost in thoughts like me, and I knew that it was weird. I mean, anyone would say that it was strange. But the curtains were pulled over the window. You see, they were an off white color and nearly all of the light could filter through it. I somehow knew that she was facing me looking outside the house, there was no way to be certain. I saw her right arm, so that would be my left slowly rise up and away from her hips. She held it up as if to wave, and I swear I waited for her hand to move, but it simply stayed there. I expected a hello, and instead I gotta thank you from her signal. When you look outside at night and there's light inside, you can't see beyond the glass, and worse, you're not going to be able to see beyond the curtains. But could she see me? I debated, waving back. I thought back on our conversations and the way she lied to me about the great stuff that she was doing, the things I knew she hadn't done because she never left the house. But then I remember the way she thanked me for always being there for her, for being her friend. She was so happy that John and I had found each other, and that she and her husband used to say how much we reminded them of their younger selves. I remember looking at the hole about to open once I set the paper bags on the ground, right when she told me that she missed her husband as always, I had no clue what to say. I simply nodded and agreed. She knew how I was. I never knew what to say or what to do. Thinking back on it, I realized that she understood me too, And after about a minute I raised my hand. At this woman across the side yard from me the middle of the night. I meant to say you're welcome, and I thank you too. I did it. I breathed a sigh of relief as I stepped away from the window and back to the bed, feeling a type of peace come over me. I should speak up more. The light from the outside flickered off as I got into bed. She must have been going to sleep too. Following morning, I started hearing the noises from next door again, starting with the alarm clock, except for this time, it didn't turn off. It beat and beat for hours, and it must have been around lunchtime when I called John to let him know that I thought something was wrong that Carol hadn't shut off her alarm. In his best tone, he asked me if I wanted him to do something, but instead I told him that I would call him back. I put my shoes on, and with a renewed sense of courage, I walked over to Carol's front door and knocked and knocked and knocked again. I walked around her house to her living room area where her family portraits were when I spotted her, now a lump on the couch, her face facing the Ceiling at Peace. Scary Story podcast is written and produced by me Edwin comarubs. If you have ideas for stories or suggestions, please contact me through the link in the description of this episode for real stories told by people who experience them. Be sure to check out the other podcast called True Scary Story. You can find it by searching for it right now on your podcast player. Thank you for listening, see us soon.