Apparition at the Gym

[00:00:00] Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. The following stories take us back to simpler times, to strange experiences with no explanation. My name is Edwin. Here's a scary story. I started going to the gym during the winter after I had moved to a new city in the north

[00:00:26] part of California. Most of the people I worked with always talked about it and I don't know. I got peer pressured into getting a membership so I settled for a trial. But here's the thing.

[00:00:39] I get awkward around people and do not like how you have to shower with how current in the locker rooms. To me that seems old fashioned and should be changed as soon as possible, but I guess I'm getting off topic. Here's what happened to me one night.

[00:00:53] The gym was open at all hours so I found that if I got there I had around 11 at night and left at midnight or so. There weren't a lot of people there and I'd be able to use the machines that I wanted.

[00:01:05] But one night I got there later than usual, not around 1 in the morning. I used to stay awake pretty late so that wasn't unusual but I also found out something amazing. The gym was almost completely empty with the exception of the girl at the reception

[00:01:21] desk dozing off with herself on her hand, opening her eyes wide and waving lazily at those who came in at that time. I had printed out a list of exercises to do along with the number of sets and reps to

[00:01:33] do them and had the time to walk around and choose the machines and weights I was going to do instead of walking around pretending like I knew where I was going and what I was doing.

[00:01:43] They were all in the same area in front of a mirror so I set everything up and I placed my towel on the bench. I put my earbuds on and cranked up the music. I even thought to myself that cliché thought that everyone has at one point.

[00:01:57] That working out is not that bad and that now you get it, no really, now you get why people actually enjoy working out. Oh my goodness. But everything was going well until I had to move to the next set of machines and I noticed

[00:02:11] someone when I looked in the mirror. He was hovering around the bench pressing equipment. When you work out sometimes you have rest periods between exercises right? So I assumed this guy was just waiting around for when his time to work the next thing came

[00:02:28] up on his timer or whatever. But still he made me uncomfortable. He was scrawny and bald with the strangest smile you can imagine. It was like he had too many teeth or I don't know something looked off.

[00:02:44] I got to the new set of machines trying not to make eye contact with him before sitting down at one of the benches facing the mirror once again. It's clear not to make it obvious that I was scanning the area to see if the guy was still

[00:02:58] there, but I couldn't spot him. So I simply focused on looking at my form in the mirror, music still blasting in my ears. I bent down to grab the dumbbells from the floor, picked them up and looked over to

[00:03:10] the mirror in front of me when I spotted him again. This time he was farther away to the right of me by the racks with the barbells. I could see his black shirt and black pants just standing there as he was smiling.

[00:03:28] Okay I thought to myself this guy is just being weird. It was something to keep an eye out for since being in a building with a creepy stranger like that in the middle of the night was not the best scenario to be in.

[00:03:41] I turned down the volume of my music and kept doing what I was doing, looking over to the guy every minute or so. Every time I looked he would just be standing there, motionless.

[00:03:54] But when I sat down on the mat I noticed that he was dragging his feet, taking painful steps toward me. He couldn't tell I could see him clearly through the reflection, but his eyes from

[00:04:08] what I could see were fixed on me as he stepped closer and closer until he was about three meters away from me. I dropped my weight and stood up, turning my head toward this creepy guy. There was nobody there.

[00:04:25] Don't drop the weight I heard from the girl at the reception desk. The phrase probably stuck in her brain so much that she could literally say it in her sleep. I ran toward her, zooming around some of the machines that she stood up from

[00:04:37] her chair to face me. Are you alright? she said, scanning my body, probably for any injuries. There's a creepy guy in here, I told her. My voice a little shaker than I thought it would be.

[00:04:51] She asked me to wait as she wiggled the mouse over her computer and the screen turned back on. You're the only one in here, she said. Her eyes now fully open and fully awake looking right at me. I could tell she wasn't sure of what to do.

[00:05:07] I saw him. He was skinny and with a black shirt just standing there by the machines. She looked over to where I was pointing but by this time, there was nobody there.

[00:05:19] She picked up the phone and called for the security guard on duty from the shopping center where the gym was. Within a couple of minutes an older woman in uniform showed up by the glass door and I opened it to let her in.

[00:05:31] She seemed more relaxed about the situation asking what the deal was about this creepy person walking around in there. She chuckled when I explained it to her but still offered to walk around with us to scan the area. But then she had an idea of what had happened.

[00:05:47] Sounds like McFarland, she told us. This place used to be a bar and restaurant some time ago. It was known to everyone that there was an apparition only showing up in the mirror behind the bar even back then.

[00:06:01] I'm not sure where he came from but I would get calls to come check out the place when the security alarms went off at all hours of the night. Things would fall and doors would open. I didn't know he was still around. Images.

[00:06:36] Back in college, a bunch of us went through a stage of finding weird things on the internet and sharing them. It wasn't like it is today by sharing on TikTok or whatever but more like literally gathering people around our own laptops and laughing or being creeped out together.

[00:06:52] I think it was more fun that way instead of telling someone to hold on, that you'll send it to them and then wait and watch for their reaction. One of these things we found was something similar to Peter answers.

[00:07:04] Basically a site that you would ask really creepy things to and it would answer with 100% accuracy. And it could be any question. Things like what we were wearing to our mother's name and things like that.

[00:07:19] It's kind of a sad story but one of my friends made another one cry by asking, How will Molly die? And then it managed to answer. Car accident. June 2014. Molly looked at all of us and then ran off to the bathroom. It was pretty messed up.

[00:07:40] It was such a big deal that one of the supervisors at her study room got involved and spoke with all of us about proper internet usage. And also made a sign of thing.

[00:07:50] The odd part was that a few of us did in fact have to go to her funeral. The only friend of the group that has died but not in a car accident and not on that date.

[00:08:03] She was at work when she collapsed and hit her head, she never regained consciousness. Be it coincidence or not we'll never know. But here's the thing. James, the guy who showed us the website or at least one of the ones that was the most excited about it,

[00:08:22] had cleared it up for us. The thing was a prank. You see on the site, the person who asks the question types in the answer right before asking it. Some type of coding thing I guess.

[00:08:36] But when you ask the actual question would you type before shows up as the answer? It is brilliant I think. Still some of us believed it for some time and we were obsessed with finding the next coolest internet thing.

[00:08:50] At least my best friend and I were desperately looking for something to share. We used to hang out at the computer lab at night, working on homework but on our spare time we used to search around for creepy websites.

[00:09:03] One day Pat called me over to his computer super excited about what he had found. I still can't forget that website and to this day I have no idea how it worked.

[00:09:16] I want to put it all behind me but I also need to warn people about things like these. Things that speak the truth about our privacy online and how little of it we have.

[00:09:27] The website had a simple layout, but to connect to it you had to use a special browser. I'm not sure if this was what people nowadays know as the dark web,

[00:09:36] but back then it was a specific browser that would let you connect to a bunch of unindexed websites. Some of which had horrifying images of torture and stuff like that. Things that would get censored in an instant by any search engine today.

[00:09:49] Others had blog posts just like any other website, with people talking about their lives. This website was different. It asked for an image of yourself and in exchange it promised to find someone who looked like you.

[00:10:05] We decided to test it out with a random picture we found on our school website of a professor from some other department. We selected the file, uploaded it and the website spit out a series of numbers and letters

[00:10:19] and then asked us to record it and check back in 24 hours. That was skeptical about the whole thing but Pat was creeped out about it, laughing and taking a step back away from his chair every time we completed another step in the process.

[00:10:34] Once we got to the end with the red letters asking us to check back later, he seemed a little disappointed. The next day was a Saturday and I found it surprising that he had actually shown up again at the school that night

[00:10:47] just to check back on that website. With the browser, he had configured from his usual computer at the lab. I lived on campus so he called me up as soon as he was at the parking lot

[00:10:58] and he got to the computer lab before I did, even though I was directly across the street from it. He was still catching his breath and rushing to start everything up when I got there. He took out a piece of paper from his pocket and one by one,

[00:11:13] he entered the characters on the website form. There must have been around 30 letters and numbers to type. When he finished it, he took a deep breath and clicked enter. Nothing happened. A blank screen staring back at us on the computer.

[00:11:31] Pat and I both looked at each other when something popped up on the browser. It was a small image on the top right and then more images started populating under it. One by one. There were pictures of that professor.

[00:11:47] Images of the same short dark hair, some with glasses and others without it. People who looked slightly younger than him and others that looked a bit older. But still, it was true that they all looked like the person in the photo we uploaded.

[00:12:02] Then something else appeared on the screen. A black rectangle with a gray play button on it. Without hesitation, Pat clicked on it and the bottom bar started loading. It was a video of a man getting out of a car.

[00:12:18] It looked like he was at a parking garage and he walked over the elevator. He looked just like the professor in the photo that we uploaded. The video looped starting over and over again, replaying the 20 or so seconds several times before I noticed something on the screen.

[00:12:37] One of the columns in the parking garage had the big yellow painted 3B on it. But Pat and I must have noticed it at the same time because we both set it together. That's our school. So the website didn't actually find look-alikes.

[00:12:55] Rather found images of yourself on the internet. We both uploaded our own photos to the site that night and had to wait the painful 24 hours to be able to see the results. My photos, as there were no videos, were pretty strange.

[00:13:12] Images of myself in marching band and pictures I uploaded to Facebook and some with friends I no longer speak with. But there were other people in there who looked exactly like me. One holding a baby and another me at a college graduation in another country

[00:13:31] based on the style of gowns and flags in the background. There was one of a person exactly like me seen through the windshield of a car at a red light. But Pat's results were different. He had several images of the typical Facebook post or profile picture

[00:13:50] but along with those he found several clips, though different than mine. There was one of him running through the parking lot. He said it was probably from the previous day when he had ran to the computer lab to see the results.

[00:14:03] Several other videos of other people who looked a lot like him couldn't be. As until we got to the bottom of the page with another black rectangle on it the play button right in the middle. The scene was that of a wall with a window that seems familiar.

[00:14:22] When out of the left side of the screen Pat's face shows up close and right in the middle of the frame. He then adjusts his glasses and the reflection of a computer screen appears on them. He turns to the left, Waves his hand

[00:14:40] and we could both see him speak to somebody. I held my breath when I saw myself walk up next to him. We shut down the computer and looked around for the webcam but couldn't find it at first glance. We assumed it was integrated to the monitor or something.

[00:14:59] We agreed not to share the website with anyone but now even if we wanted to there would be no way to do so. This is the last time we checked. It had been taken down.

[00:15:18] This next story is called The White Coat and it's about a frustrated child who sees something at night. It's coming up right after this. I heard my son scream for the second time that night and it had been a recurring thing for the past several months.

[00:15:36] I heard from other parents that this stuff happens and that it will go away. They still managed to share a few tips on how to deal with it. I tried the good old trick of actually checking the entire room with them, opening the doors, checking under the bed

[00:15:52] and leaving the lights on but nothing seemed to work. At six years old his active imagination got him to say that he had seen a man in a white coat. The explanation he gave me was terrifying even to me.

[00:16:06] The man apparently lived inside the closet and would open the door, slowly stepping out into the wooden floor of his room. He would walk around the room pacing back and forth several times then approach him and in his own words

[00:16:25] see that he was his new friend and to not tell his parents anything. Second part is what got my blood boiling the first time he told me and I was angered by the thought even if he was just imagining it

[00:16:39] that my son would ever think about keeping things away from me. I was sure that he had imagined the white coat thing from the lab coat that was hanging in the storage area out in the hallway.

[00:16:51] I had used it during my time in school taking laboratory courses for my degree. Billy had seen this coat as he was growing up so he was probably remembering it. But the way he said it just felt true.

[00:17:08] I walked into his room and sat on the bed next to him explaining to him that he had probably imagined that once again. I was tired obviously from having to get up for the second time that night

[00:17:20] but I managed to keep my frustration hidden while I was in his room. He looked at me dead in the eye and told me that the man had told him that his name was Robert which is my name

[00:17:33] and that he was going to take him to go play. It was the strangest thing to hear this from someone so young especially after hearing that not all imaginary friends are actually imaginary for a child but real apparitions that only children can see.

[00:17:50] I read that in the book somewhere. When I asked him what he looked like he described him as short with dark hair and then he took many wobbling steps when he walked. I asked him if he had seen his face to which he answered sort of.

[00:18:07] Much later I would find out that what he meant by that is that he had no face. That used to be his go-to answer instead of saying no to me. Sort of. So I sat there for a few minutes in silence

[00:18:22] as Billy waited for me to say something, anything about what he had just told me. But I could not think of anything to tell him at the time I didn't believe that he had actually seen anything.

[00:18:35] Simply blaming it on a bad dream or at some of the movies he had seen during his past weekend at his grandparents' house. But of course didn't want to tell him that. I was beginning to explain to him once again that there was nobody in his room

[00:18:49] and that he would be fine when he let out a blood-curdling scream once again right in front of me. He couldn't speak, simply pointing out toward the door as he tried to crawl back further toward the wall behind him.

[00:19:02] I reached out to hug him and he was so tense and shaky before he started crying once again. Something genuinely scared him. My wife stepped out of the room and she sat next to me trying to comfort Billy. When I got an idea

[00:19:19] I stepped out of the room and went into the storage closet where I had the white coat I used to use. My idea was to show him that he was probably imagining it from back then when I used to use it.

[00:19:31] But also I would tell him that I would get rid of it so that he wouldn't be scared anymore. I opened the door to the closet area and saw the coat hanging on the metal hanger.

[00:19:42] But when I reached for it, my blood went cold as I nearly tumbled back. You couldn't believe it. I ran my hands along the inside of the coat and then around the closet to see if there was any way this could have been possible.

[00:19:58] There was no way this was happening. Someone had been wearing that coat. It was still warm. Scary Story Podcast is produced by me, Edwin Covarrubes. If you want to hear more creepy things by me be sure to listen to my other podcast called A Dark Memory.

[00:20:27] You can search for it here or find it over on adarkmemory.com. Be sure to follow this podcast to get new episodes right on the app you're using or find out more over on scarystorypodcast.com. Until next time, thank you very much for listening.