Ball of Fire

I know you like stories of the strange and unexplained, so I need you to check out Jim Harold's Campfire. It's where real people share their true spooky stories in their own words. The concept is simple. Jim talks to everyday people about their strange encounters and publishes it as a ninety minute episode every week. There's no exaggeration or anything. The stories basically speak for themselves. I recently told a story on there, so let's see if you can spot it. And there's more stories too, like the one about a child who had vivid past life memories or the one about a woman who found a ghost in her bed. Now, not all the stories are horrifying. Some are heartwarming, like a visit from a past loved one or a peaceful near death experience. Perhaps Regardless, they are true and fascinating, as told by ordinary people who've had extraordinary experiences. Now do me a personal favor. Tune into Jim Harold's Campfire on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or wherever you listened true scary stories again. You can find it by searching for Jim Harold's Campfire. Welcome to Scary Story podcast. The following tale is based on a true story that, with all due respect, I try to disprove it failed. As you know, things that could be real are some of my fears. My name is Edwin, and here's a scary story. I had not gone to visit my family in such a long time, over ten years, and yet people still seemed excited to see me, even though I only knew their names and not much else. Cousins long lost, ones that had once played with me and my toys on their visits, had boyfriends and girlfriends. Now two were married and one had a baby already. There was a reason why everyone knew about me and my arrival. My mom said, I was news in a small town. Visitor from the United States is reuniting with family. It's what the headline I was imagining said. There was no headline, though, news spread by word of mouth, although come on, the town had Internet and WhatsApp and Facebook, so it was not exactly traveling back in time. I would be staying at my grandmother's house, a woman named Malena, who was not alive any more. But I had left a small house with two bedrooms, an outdoor kitchen, and enormous living room. Nobody wanted to live there, or so my cousins told me. Some were sad and others were scared. Although long before my mom knew of my trip there, she had mentioned that the house was haunted and that not even the visitors wanted to stay there because of the sounds it would hear late at night. Once my trip was planned, she sort of walked back on the idea. She said that the place was fine, and that if there was a ghost there, if it was probably a good one one that would be taking care of me during my stay. I don't consider myself afraid of ghosts, and yes, I do believe in them. It's hard to be a part of my family and not believe in ghosts, although I think it's more of a Latin American thing. It's like the stigma of believing in the supernatural doesn't exist as much with us. When something appears to be impossible or otherworldly, we at least in my family, have resorted to prayer and advice from the older relatives, those who have seen things, like my grandmother. I arrived with one objective in mind to reconnect with one of my younger cousins and get them to stay in the house with me so that I wouldn't be alone, and it was not difficult at all. In fact, all of them said yes, but the players could only fit two of them, so they decided among themselves who would stay the youngest, Fernando and Lucia, the second youngest. Both siblings both very kind and welcoming, excited to greet me at the bus stop, even over the phone. As expected, the arrival was a blur. They picked me up and as soon as I put my luggage away and locked it behind one of the closet doors at my grandmother's house, we were off to town for one of the biggest meals of my life. Had been a tight squeeze in the car on the way there, and I wasn't sure how we were going to make it back, but we managed. Uncles and cousins, family friends that I had never met before were at the house about an hour after that. More food, louder music, and more guests arrived. As they asked me questions about my family and how my mom was doing. Some showed me pictures on their phones, pictures of photographs of prints they had taken of their photo albums back at home. In one my mom was at some type of gathering in a pistel green colored dress with fluffy shoulders, another with a fried fish on a plate, laughing with one of my aunts. These were my people blood, and they treated me as such, even protecting me from things I could not see. As the music died down that night and the coffee and bread came out, we started gathering in the living room one by one, bringing in chairs and pushing the couches together. The stove was on full blast, boiling water for everybody. Kids were coming in in a little group with a carton of milk in between their arms, clasping tightly on to the coins and pieces of gum they had gotten as change from the corner store. I remember looking at everybody, wondering what had taken me so long. Eventually the stories turned from their own families to the one of my family, carefully avoiding the topic of my father in the same way my mom did every time he came up in conversation. Had met him. I was about six years old when he left, or at least when I was told that he left to the doctor, and later was told that he would never be coming back. I don't know what I thought had happened to him. At the time, but I know that death was not one of the options. My dad's family was also in that town, although the family was not as large, they too knew about my visit, and two of my cousins were at the gathering that night, along with my other cousins. I knew who they were, and although they were distant, they would still tag me on Facebook every once in a while and always messaged me for my birthday. Everything was flowing smoothly until one of my uncles came running through the side door, barely holding onto his breath as he said that there was smoke coming out from La Bruja's house. Again La Bruga the Witch. Every one rushed out towards the front, I myself being pushed by a couple of my cousins behind me as we saw smoke, and then two there wore three people outside closer to the corner, looking pretty calm and walking back into their houses. One of the neighbors came in and spoke to one of my aunts, who then nodded and walked back to the house, not looking worried about anything. Smoke had been seen coming out of the house on the corner by the abandoned lot more often than usual. To me, it didn't seem like a big deal considering the amount of smoke. It didn't look like a fire. It looked like when something is cooking in the backyard, or like when something is burning on a grill, just gray, almost white smoke shooting straight up and away into the sky. Everyone seemed to know what was happening, although it was only my younger cousins the ones who managed to tell me about it. The woman on the corner of the street was a witch, and whenever there's smoke in the yard, they say that she is working on someone, or, in clearer terms, witchcraft. I asked so many questions, being a kid from across the border and only hearing about these things from movies or books. Why do they let her do that here? Why haven't the people of the town stopped her? Is it only bad things she works on? Nobody talks to her, they told me. Only the shopkeepers know her name, and most people don't care for it or her. She was well aware of it too. Smoke coming out of her yard had been the warning for most people, and some kids from the neighborhoods would try and dump water on the little fire bit she would make, only to get chased out. Since yesterday they told me this woman had been burning fires almost NonStop. I couldn't believe what I was hearing and asked what she looked like, why she did that sort of thing, and they said that we could go and look at her. She was out in the yard probably and she wouldn't even notice us. Feeling like a kid again, I agreed, and Fernando whispered how we would get out without anyone noticing through the door to the backyard. We got to the side with the missing fence and we walked behind the houses on the dirt path, right between the trees on the hills next to us. The smoke was all going toward the hills. Although I could see through the dark directly by the source of the smoke, I could see a cement wall and a heap of large rocks. Both Fernando and Lucia were right in front of me, signaling me to follow them as he climbed onto the rocks and peeked over the wall. When Lucilla got there, she waved her hand even faster. I climbed up the rock to see a woman, a large woman in dirty black sandals about ten feet away. She was wearing dirty pants and an oversized shirt stained from the front, her hands in front of her, pointing toward the fire. And I don't know how this happened. When the three of us explain it, we all seemed to have different versions of it, since I was a first to run away, but we all saw her freeze in her position as her neck turned toward us. It was the first time I got to see her large eyes and eyebrows. She just looked at us and stood still. I don't know how long that silence lasted until I finally heard her yell with a thunderous scream, Garcia. Everything got so bright that I covered my eyes and tumbled back, barely making it to the ground on two feet, and then running straight back to the house in the same direction we had come from. I could hear Fernando and Lucilla behind me all the way until we got back to the yard. Did you see that, Fernando said, did you see that? He claimed to have seen her turn into a ball of fire, that he had never seen that before when he heard about it from the neighbors. We stood in the yard, catching our breaths with Lucilla so nervous that she was laughing at what we had just seen. The whole time. I was stunned, playing it over and over in my mind, remembering her yelling out my last name as she looked right at me. Part two of Ball of Fire is coming up right after this. Let's see if we have some sponsors to keep the show running. Stay with me. This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. And so I stood there in the dark, being stretched into all directions by an invisible force who leaned in and whispered, take more time to yourself. Scary, isn't it. The thing is, we have jobs, school kids, needy pets. We can't just ignore everything. Therapy can show you the tools to find more balance. That way you can find support to then do what you have to do for others. Just a little behind the scenes info here. I do all of the work to get an episode out in this show, and usually it's podcasters who ask me about how it's done. Setting boundaries, for example, is a skill that was the most difficult for me to learn. If you've ever been curious about therapy and want to give it a chance, give Better Help a try. It's completely online, convenient, flexible, and you can set your own schedule. Just fill out the brief questionnaire and you'll be on your way to get matched with the licensed therapist. You can switch whenever at no cost. 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They are filling and the recipes use original combinations of high quality ingredients. Go to HelloFresh dot com slash scary story sixteen and use the code scary Story sixteen for sixteen free meals plus free shipping. Again, that's HelloFresh dot com slash scary Story sixteen and use the code scary Story sixteen for sixteen free meals plus free shipping. Try out Hello Fresh, America's number one milk it. We went back to the house and with my aunts realizing we were gone, they grabbed us and pulled us into the living room and then shut the door. The difference in the air inside the house had changed completely, with everyone trying to be quiet but also keeping calm in order to not freak out the kids that were there. I heard one of my uncles say to turn off the lights, and within a few seconds we were in complete darkness. A kid, not sure which one, was crying over by one of my cousins, while a few of the older uncles were looking out the window and about to open up the door. It was a bizarre welcome to the town to say the least, and some of my aunts could see that, so they tried to explain what happened, even though I was sure they didn't quite understand it either. My family had some strange habits, like meeting with a priest when I arrived to the holy water and prayers and all that. I thought it was another quirky small town thing they used to do, but I would be wrong about that. You could feel the weight of the air against your ears during those three long minutes. I could hear the whispers of my uncles and see the concern of my aunts. Did the street lamp glow coming through the outside. Eventually they turned the lights back on and talked about what had just happened, and wanted to know. I was one of the older cousins, after all, I was not going to get scared like the other ones. And yet I could find no way of asking about it. It felt like a wall all around me that everyone was a part of. Things had started to get back to normal in the house, not quite ten at night by then, when suddenly there was a crash and the power went out completely. From the windows, you could only see what remained of the moon light about to be hidden by the trees up in the hills, and so we're calling out for the candles that Grandma used to keep in the cabinet, went by the dinner table. They had all been used at one point, and it was until they turned them on that I could see they were all in different colors. You could hear the neighbors out on the street talking amongst themselves until one of them yelled, and then we heard footsteps on the dirt in front of the house as boots ran toward the other side of the block. My uncles opened the door, and after standing out there for a few seconds, they too started running toward the same spot. I managed to get out before anyone stopped me and caught a glimpse of a small brush fire with a lamp post on the corner of the street completely bent, and watched them put out the fire before stepping back inside. When Lucia grabbed me by the elbow and led me toward the kitchen. You went to the blessing, right, you are protected already, right. She told me about what we had seen earlier and how they hadn't seen it in a very long time. The woman turning into a ball of fire. You can imagine the thoughts that went through my mind at that very moment. But she was saying was impossible, and yet I felt an obligation. I guess it was out of respect to believe her. The whole thing had been so strange that perhaps she was right. The power outage was the last of the events of the night, with people leaving and saying their goodbyes one by one by candlelight. Everyone told us to be careful, with one of my aunts saying that she would only be leaving for a few minutes while she went to grab some things as she needed from her house, that she too would be staying along with us that night. And it was that same night when I found out about my dad and his history in that town. My aunt was one of those people who could not keep a secret, but given the circumstances, she said he had to tell me what had been going on before my mom met my dad. My dad had been in a relationship with another woman who was known to use the services of Dona Alberta, the woman who lived in the house on the corner. My dad not being a believer in witchcraft, and a thing known as a mare to quote tie up someone continued to see her despite the many warnings from his family. The spell was supposed to be against my mother, but it didn't work and instead ended up working against my dad. He tried for years to get the spell removed, returning to meet with one of the elders in the town to cleanse and rid himself of all negativity, but it was too powerful and his body gave out, dying of an illness that was never quite figured out even by the doctors in the capital city, and it was even worse back in the States. And the other woman had also died under strange circumstances. Word had gone around of her, complaining of spirits in her home and a demon who would follow her when she would do her shopping and during the day as she did her house chores. My aunt said that some of her friends had seen it, a human, weird looking thing that was behaving like a dog, sometimes found eating out of the trash bags that the neighbors would put out. That it would spend time up on the trees, with some saying he could fly, while others said that it could crawl like a spider up the walls and the trees. She would be seen talking to him out on the street, and strange noises would fill her house in the dead of night. To me, it was just another one of those stories that seemed too out there to carry any truth to it. But things are different in a small town. Word spreads around and people believe things that would be impossible in any other place. I can barely remember my dad being sick, but I remember him going away and the phone calls Mom would have us on where he would ask me about my day and what I would be when I grew up. GENERIC advised that made no sense to me at the time, at least the stuff I could remember, the way Mom would always remind me of what Dad would want out of me. But still it was all simply too hard to believe. That next morning, another cousin of mine knocked at the door early in the morning, rushing to where my aunt was sleeping and letting her know what she had seen. The n Alberta had gone to the small shop my aunt had and worked out of her own home. Because my aunt had been staying over that night, my cousin was taking care of it for her. That morning, the woman had showed up for her usual morning shopping, but this time She was wearing a cloth over her head, covering part of her face, but while reaching for her change, the cloth slipped a little. My cousin was able to see part of her face purple, completely purple and yellow on one side of it, as if she had gotten hurt. Her hands were scratched and swollen as she got her money, limping away in pain back to her house on the corner. Soon the town had another story, the woman who turned into a ball of fire and crashed into a lamp post as she searched along the streets for the boy she was supposed to take. I left shortly after that and I haven't returned. Since the story's being produced now directly from the people who went through something early similar, and even though it will be in Spanish, I'll do my best to get the story out to everyone. To listen to these episodes without ads, check out scary Plus over at scaryplus dot com that helps out with the making of these stories and other shows from Scary f M. Thank you very much for listening and for your support. See soon