Bad Fortune

Welcome to Scary Story Podcast Today. I have a couple of stories. One of them is of a strange encounter and the other is about how far a person can go to get what they want. My name is Edwin, and here it's a scary story, bad fortune. It was a whole other life back then, and trying to remember things and taking notes in order to tell my story, lots of things came up. Any of those I had to put behind me. I doubt many people will listen to my story, well, not enough to identify me completely. Recently, I met someone who had gone through something similar, and it appears as though it happens the same way every time. Either way, I've omitted some details to save me the trouble, hopefully. Like I said, it was completely different. If I had to put a start to it, I'd go straight to my job at the grocery store, the one with a kind woman at the front counter, but with a terrible business partner, which was her husband. He would show up drunk and harass the female employees when I wasn't there. But I don't know what I would have done had I been there. For some of the situations that they've talked about I literally could not afford to lose those measily eighty eight dollars and ninety cents per week, even though it was around two thousand and one. That kind of money did not get me anywhere. I would end up selling water bottles and candy along the streets on the weekends, which paid all right. It got me through a few things. Money was tight. Every day I would walk to the bus stop and pray that those thirty five cents would still be in my pocket. I had gotten paranoid about checking for change my pants because of that. I have it that has stuck with me even today. Life had gotten a little more difficult around that time. My girlfriend had left our daughter to me, saying that she needed a fresh start, whatever that meant. I tried calling her and her family, but they didn't help. A couple of my buddies from other jobs that I had here and there told me that they had seen her getting on a Greyhound bus, but she looked, for lack of a better word, generic, so it could have been anybody. At least That's what I told myself at the time. My neighbor helped out a lot. I think everyone around the old apartment building had their own set of demons, and sometimes we got together to battle them. She used to work for three hours during the day, so I would watch her dog, a large, old blind golden Retriever, for a bit and feed him before going out to my jobs. I wonder how Jane's doing. Actually, last I heard, she was getting into the internet thing and moved out. I really hope she got her project off the ground. Anyway, she used to watch my daughter while I was at work. Dollar store frozen pizzas in ramen. We're a thing around the apartment. I tried to get the good stuff from the grocery store, but under the thread of the boss man there, I would be lucky to sneak an apple home. And I know there's a lot of people out there, hard working people that try to get the most amount of ounces of food for that dollar. When you get to the end of the week annoyed by another ten dollars late feet charge for your water bill, God forbid. When your child gets sick and needs to see the doctor at one of those walking clinics once with a three hour wait, and then have to see a prescription one that will set you back another forty dollars or so. Some people talk about their tough times like they're proud of them, but not me. I hated every minute of it, and I think the only reason I stayed alive became clear once I heard my daughter laugh all those times you were watching cartoons in that old television set, the one that came with the apartment. It was around eight, almost nine at night when I finally got off work. I wanted to stay longer, but I remember Jane telling me that she would have to be somewhere at nine thirty, and suggested in her quirky ways that it was okay that Bennie, her dog, could watch her, that he had protected her before. It was a story told five thousand times by Jane, the near robbery and how Benny lost a tooth while he was saving her. She loved that dog. The bus passed by me straight to the bus stop as I took off running after it. It was the last one of the night, well unless I wanted to wait another hour and a half. But I got there, and I happened to see another man running towards a door of the bus as well. I took a few seconds before climbing on, giving the other guy a chance to catch up, which he did shortly after. Then I stepped onto the bus. Then I felt my face get cold when I only felt a dime that was in my pocket. I must have lost that quarter somewhere. I started searching for it in my other pocket, but it wasn't there. The other guy, dressed like he didn't belong in a bus, said that it was all right. He dropped the quarter and a dime and then another set of coins. I looked at him, nodding, saying thank you, before grabbing my seat near the back of the bus. Then he sat across from me, completely still, so at times I glanced over and caught him looking in my direction. One of those times I looked at him, and through that eye contact, he spoke up long night. You have no idea, my man, I told him, before looking toward the window again. And that was my first encounter with that man. Every so often for the next couple of weeks, I would see him. He would purchase a candy bar for me and casually ask about my day, or he would not at me. As I passed down that sidewalk on my way to start my shift. It was obvious for me that he stood out walking around in a dark suit in an area of town with no offices or places like those where people have to dress that way. So I asked him one day that I had seen him often around there, and out of curiosity, I wanted him to tell me what he did for a living. I'll tell you about it, he said, and then mentioned my first name. Now this was a complete stranger, and by that time I had the suspicion that he knew me. I swear at the time I thought it was someone I owed money to, trying to get those ten bucks back. I was surprised, though, when he said that he was simply sent to help, nothing more. He said things about my life that I hadn't told anyone about, like that my daughter's fourth birthday was coming up, and what I wanted to get to surprise her happened in a matter of seconds. And I'm not sure what else he said to me, because my mind was so numb with information that it simply stopped processing. And just like that, he said that if I wanted to talk about it more, to come find him that next day at the donut shop on Maine after work. Didn't even try to get me to say yes. In fact, he didn't even ask it as a question. He just said it and kept walking in the same direction he had been going before we bumped into each other. He wanted to help. At the time, I thought of Jane and her story about how she got ripped off by a timeshare salesman. Honestly, I was thinking it was something along those lines, and it stayed on my mind for the rest of the night, the next morning, and all through my shift at work. Help. It was something I rarely thought about. I mean, the last time was when I was applying for free daycare as one of the programs for my city. But reaching for my pocket once again to make sure that the dime and quarter were still there, let me make up my mind. And so after work I reached Randy's Donuts on the corner of Maine. He was sitting in one of those metal tables outside, waiting for me to come up to him. He didn't wave, and he didn't smile. I walked up to him, trying to make small talk about the weather and ask about his day, but he jumped straight to the point. There was no messing around, no chit chat, and this time he looked much more serious than before. He told me that I had been in financial trouble that he could help. I don't know why, but I thought for a moment that he would want me to do some legal stuff or something bad, like kill somebody for money. But it wasn't. He prefaced the whole thing by telling me that if I talked about it with anyone, I could say goodbye to my family, but in a way that seemed like he was joking. He knew my parents' names, my daughter's future kindergarten's name, and even my neighbors. I told your earlier that I had met another person who also went through something so similar. The way she puts it, she was given an offer she could not refuse. I don't know if she meant it literally, but I was about to find out what that felt like. This guy, who never told me his name, told me that he could offer money, a business, and anything I wanted. That he had a client who looked for people to simply take over a part of a business, and that would be all. I would be given a ridiculous amount of money in parts that I would likely never see him again. Once you leave Earth, everything will belong to my client. He said it in a tone that I hadn't quite heard before this time. He waited for my response. This had gotten very serious, very quickly, and I didn't even know what I needed to say to him. I just wanted to accept and go home. I remember how dumb everything sounded, and even though I had never been scammed like Jane had, I'm pretty sure that's how I'd gotten started. Immediately, he took out a document from his coat pocket, unfolded it, and that's when I found out his name. It was a lawyer, though his name I'm afraid to repeat, and the details of that document is what I'm scared to speak up on. It didn't go over many details, but it included a sum of money and an explanation as to how it worked in a short two sentence statement. I can't go over what I exchanged. I know they'll somehow identify me through what I've told you so far, but it's within the bounds of what's allowed. A couple of days after that, I received a delivery. I heard that the exchange had been made, and life changed drastically for myself and my daughter. And I never thought that i'd be involved in this order, that this was real. It would be amazed at the list of others that are in it. Names you've heard, like I'm sure you've heard mine, that are also a part of as they like to call it, the Blessed. How ironic. The following story is called a dress for the Wedding, and it's coming up right after this. Stay with me. My family is fairly large and our gatherings always involved some type of guest cousins, new boyfriends, and uncle's boss or friends of the family that we've gotten to know over the years. We never had any trouble with any of them, except for my cousin, Mary's friend, a girl named Gina, and I don't know how they were even friends. She was disrespectful to my grandparents and one time even showing up drunk and throwing up all over the carpet. It had been a running joke not to invite her to anything anymore, and it started to bother Mary for a while, but eventually she understood that she needed to stay away from her. Here's what led up to that. There were several incidents, really, and they were all signs of what she was capable of doing. Mary called from a holding cell one day saying that Gina had been charged with stealing things from a Macy's that they had both been taken in for questioning. I thought those places like the shops at the mall wouldn't care about things like that enough to charge anybody, But I was wrong. Two perfumes and a pair of sunglasses is what she had taken. Another time, Gina called the house to try to get a hold of Mary, who had been ignoring her. She had gotten into a fight with her boyfriend and had broken his car's windows. She had also let out the guy's dog through a window and had an idea to go out of town for a weekend. They were going to go car camping out by the forest, but even though get this, she had never been camping in her life and had no idea what they would need for two days out in the woods. Mary declined and Gina ended up showing up to the house to try to convince her drama was what this girl was after, I'm telling you, A couple of years passed and Mary sort of lost touch with Gina. That he would hang out every once in a while, but not that much, so we didn't have to see her at her family events. So when Mary was planning out her wedding, and she invited Gina. We all joked around and started retelling all of the craziness we had to endure when she was around. But she was Mary's friend, after all, and it would be a small wedding, so she thought that not too many things could go wrong. There would be no bridesmaids, no late parties, and just a simple reception and a dinner at a nice restaurant. Still, Mary wanted a nice dress, obviously, though not a full wedding gown or anything, and she invited Gina to come along for the shopping trip. That's where everything started all over again. So let me start by assuring you that she did not steal anything from the shop. It went to an area known for having nice coffee shops and lots of hipsters, and they checked out two other places before finding this one on Third Street, a n O a night out. In the many retellings of this story, I keep saying that the dress was upwards of one thousand dollars, but I'm not exactly sure how much upwards it was. The thing was that Mary found her dress, and Gina did too. Mary's dress was white, and found a light dress with foalds at the top, the perfect length for her, but the price tag was not going to work out for her. Mary says that she begged and almost got into a fight with the saleslady at the shop, practically begging to let her leave a deposit that she would come up with the money within two days and get the dress. The woman was not accepting the offer, saying that it was store policy that wasn't letting her. My cousin had already and paid for her dress by this time, saying that Gina started almost threatening her to let her borrow money, almost reaching for her purse to use her credit card, something that Gina wouldn't qualify for anymore. Although Mary knew. She says that if Gina really wanted to come up with eighteen hundred dollars in two days, she would, but if she let her borrow money, then there's no way she would ever see it again. Mary claims that Gina ordered her to distract the lady at the shop, letting her know that she would take the dress no matter what. Eventually a security guard was called to escort her out. It was a whole big thing, but it didn't surprise any of us. Although I think Mary by this time was remembering how much trouble Gina was and had been for all of those years they had known each other. Gina also called me, asking me for money, although she didn't tell me it was for a dress, but to help for an emergency expense that had come up. She was bagging me over the phone until it was clear that I would not be able to In pictures of the dress that Mary showed me, it did look very nice, although maybe not almost two thousand dollars nice, but still I could see why she liked it so much. It was a beautiful dress. But Mary got involved with other things for her wedding and Gina stopped bothering everybody about that dress. A few weeks later, on the day of the wedding, I was surprised to see Gina show up with that beautiful light green dress and a matching clutch handbag. Mary noticed it too, and I could see her surprised look in her eyes when she showed up to the reception. Gina had done it again, against all odds, She had once again gotten what she wanted. The wedding was beautiful, Everything went great, and Mary and Rob were going to be heading out to their honeymoon a couple of days after that. So Mary used that time to get ready for her trip and to take the dress as she had worn to her wedding back to the store to get it cleaned and prepared for storage where they wrap it up and put it in a nice box for you and everything. And so she asked me to go with her. I got to see about two dozen of them there on full display. One of a kind dress is to match all types of elegant styles. The saleslady recognized my cousin right away and looked at me and then behind me, to which my cousin saw and smiled back, saying that no, Gina was not with us. They could see that feeling of relief fill her face at that instant. They both kind of laughed a bit and caught up on the wedding and how it had gone. Despite all of the people and events, this saleslady knew, she sure remembered every detail and story she had been told. She remembered Rob's name, the location of the wedding, where she had gotten her cake from, and even where Mary was going for her honeymoon. But it was when Mary casually brought up how Gina ended up getting that dress. When the saleslady's face went serious, then almost completely pale, she was going to need help. I could see her losing her balance before I reached over to her and grabbed her arm. I helped her sit down next to us. She apologized with her eyes stuck looking straight ahead. She then muttered that it couldn't be that it was impossible. It took her several tries, but eventually she told us the whole story. At first, she said she wanted to keep the dress and save it for Gina. She understood that finding the dress that calls you is a tough thing to let go of, and even though Gina had made a scene in there, saleswoman made a note to set it aside anyway. Shortly after Mary and Gina had left the shop that day, and older couple came in. Their faces looked worn down and devastated, and it took them a bit to speak up. They had been looking for a dress for their daughter and it needed to match her favorite color, the color of a beautiful clutch handbag that the man was carefully holding in his hands. But before the saleslady could say anything, else. The woman noticed the light green dress that Gina had gone crazy over and asked for it, that it would fit her daughter perfectly, no more questions. She would take it as is and on the spot, so as a saleslady was wrapping it up for them in silence, she casually asked if it was for her graduation or a special occasion. The woman lifted her head up and tried to force a smile. She looked directly into her eyes and said it's for her funeral. Scary Story podcast is a part of Scary FM's collection of shows. Up next, check out True Scary Story to listen to people's true experiences with the paranormal directly from them. You can support the shows by trying out Scary Plus on scaryplus dot com or on our Apple podcast channel. In it, you receive ad free content, some bonus stuff, and early released episodes as they come out. But that's not the only way to help out. You can also leave me a review and a bunch of stars on the thing, and I'd be more than happy with that. You can find out more about me over at Edwin dot fm or through my links for socials. I'll leave them in the description of this episode. Thank you very much for listening to my stories. See us soon.