Elizabeth

Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. An old place and long lost memories come to life as you revisit old photo albums. My name is Edwin, and here is a scary story. We had two photo albums in our home that we would flip through every so often when I was little. Eventually they found their way to a box and then to our storage shed in the backyard. There was something different about seeing the pictures in a book in front of you instead of scrolling through them, and I was glad I found the images, which ironically was to scan everything to be able to archive them online, just in CASEY got lost in a fire or something. My mother wasn't a huge fan of flipping through them, even though she obviously loved the ones of my sister and I as children, But she found a lot of the pictures to be unnecessary. Melancholy, called it reliving old memories that only brought sadness to her because the times would never come back and live only in her mind forever. I understood that was the same way I think there were some memories that were so amazing that thinking about how they were gone and would never come back in me sad. Things changed and people left our lives only to stay in those photo albums. But there was another side to this. There were also memories that we did not want to relive for other reasons, and her minds did a very good job in hiding them for us, only to bring them back as nightmares once every couple of years, and if you were lucky, it would go away a few minutes after waking up. Our family used to struggle financially when I was little. We didn't always live in Phoenix. It's hard to think we used to live in the northern part of the United States for such a long time, founded by green fields and forests and a place where you actually had trees. But like with most grown up children nowadays, I was curious to go back to how we used to live, and after one of those photo album adventures, I asked my mom about the old house by the lake and the property. I had the suspicion that they still owned that piece of property because of the tax forms I would come from the state of Michigan. There were lots of things we didn't know about our family, and part of me thought that maybe that's why Mom didn't like going through the pictures and having to deal with a million questions I would have. There were things I couldn't remember in those photos, like the memories with my dad and the trips we used to take, but for some reason, I always remembered the house by the woods. The memories were good for the most part. We actually got there for a short visit with my mother and aunt for some work that we're doing there when I was about to go into high school. I remember the flight, where we stayed and everything, even one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. It was just how I remembered the house to be two stories, wooden panels and an enormous porch in the front, surrounded by trees about fifty feet away from the back door, the old oak tree with a rope still where it had been, and a decaying swing set in the backyard by the large shed that they used for keeping an old tractor and a broken down truck. My sister remembered the interior of the house only from the photos, and even though we got to walk through the old hallways and different living areas, all I wanted to do was go outside and be in the backyard again. The man that was with us was an inspector that was working for my mom in order to get something done to the place. And even though looking back now I realized that she was trying to sell it, back then I thought they were just going to fix it. At least that's what I was told. I do remember begging Mom to take us back please, that I missed it there for a while after moving out. I even cried over it. It was just such a nice place. The rustling of the trees in the late afternoon just before sunset, the walks through the trees, and the taste of apple pie when it was in season, Like Mom used to call it. I think ties to the places we were born into stay with us in such a significant manner things at time can't seem to mess with. While the group was talking over something about the house in the kitchen area, I stepped out into the backyard to take a look around. The old water hose was still there, right where we had left it the last time we played. The grass was overgrown now, but still it didn't set a chance against the amount of trees that past own shadow on our house, each one standing next to the other forming an enormous structure that I always pictured as a castle, one with its own dark hallways and creatures living inside. It's cliche to call it home, but it felt that way. I stepped around the shed through the old broken fence that was still broken after all those years. Silly of me to think of it that way, given that there was no one there to fix it ever since we left. I looked at the wall behind the shed and remembered old, like very old memories. It must have been around four or five years old when I wandered into this place to meet up with another little girl. Lizzie or Missy, for some reason, were the names that came to mind, though I think Missy is what they must have called me when I was little and had forgotten about. But it was at that moment when I heard the shuffling through the trees as a teenage boy crawled out and stared right at me from a distance. She was saying something like he was calling my name, but in the fear of that moment, I could hear absolutely nothing. It was as though my ears had swollen up from the inside, and the sounds of the blood flowing through my head with every pump from my heart were taking over. The guy stretched out his hand, his lips moved as if he was trying to get me to come with him. Next thing I knew, my mom and sister were running up to me, and I only got to see that guy stepping back into the trees and disappearing in the shade. I was shaking for a while, wondering what had just happened. My mom and my aunts looked at each other from a distance before one of them I don't remember who grabbed me by the arm and pulled me toward the car. My sister was now following close behind. You honk if that guy comes back, you hear me, honk, mom told my sister as she ran back inside. It took a few minutes before we were all in the car and the other man was in his I thought we would all be going to the airport right there and then, so I was surprised to drive only a couple more properties down before we came up to my ant's house. Once again. I think my mind was just gone that day. I barely remember what happened during that car ride or what they were asking me. And it was at my aunt's house when things started to take another turn. She lived around there and I guess. She used to be the keeper of the house, you know, keeping an eye out for trespassers, making sure that the place didn't catch on fire, and basically going over every once in a while to check up on things. The prices for properties around there were going up during recent times, which made sense for why Mom wanted to sell it, But for some reason, I always wanted to go back. That night, my sister and I were getting ready to go to bed after dinner, who were not used to traveling and taking long car, but my mom and aunt had no problem with him. We were on the other side of that same patch of woods now where my aunt lived. The whole time during dinner, my mom was trying to explain to me what had happened with that guy and who he was. They live out there, she said, on the own, and they make no sense. They go out there scaring kids all day. It's kind of their thing. They don't hurt anybody. Still a little crazy, she said, that's all, just a little crazy. My aunt got set up in the bedroom by the bathroom at the end of the hallway. It had two small beds and a large window that faced the woods. The moon was out once again, bringing me so many memories of being out there as a very young child, thinking of the way the trees move with the wind. On clear nights like those, I didn't have to fight much with my sister to get the bed closest to the window. The light from the ceiling was replaced by the moonlight. When Mom turned off the lights and closed our door, wishing us good night. You both looked out the window for a bit before I asked her if she remembered anything about living there. I mean, she was younger than I was, so I highly doubted that she would. That was right. She said she sort of remembered the area, but that was about it. Just like with me, whenever she would ask questions about the house, Mom would change the subject. As I grew older, I started understanding that perhaps her reason had more to do with what happened to my dad rather than the house itself. Maybe we moved away to run away from our memories. Eventually, my sister's breathing grew deeper and she fell asleep. It was sometime in the middle of the night when I heard a sound coming from right next to me. I opened my eyes and saw the hinge of the window sliding outward slightly with a long and stretched out squeak, and then a soft breeze, slowly creeping into the room. It rattled to a stop as I rubbed my eyes to see a tall, dark figure standing on the other side of the glass. I could see his teeth moving closer to the opening of the window. I froze, but then in a faint whisper, it said something. The thing I couldn't hear just a few hours earlier, out by the woods in the backyard. It whispered a name, Elizabeth, Elizabeth. It was a familiar voice saying a familiar name, Elizabeth, Elizabeth. You're alive, my sister screamed as a man in the window repeated the name Elizabeth. Didn't take long before my mom rushed into the room, quickly heading toward the window as a man rushed away toward the woods. My aunt came into the room as Mom was grabbing our blankets and asked both my sister and I to go with her to her room. We quickly crawled into her bed and started talking about what had just happened. Well, I let my sister do all the talking as she explained what she had seen. The whole time, I was in a swirl of old thoughts that were resurfacing. Who is Elizabeth? Part two of this story is coming up right after this stay with me images of my dad and an old station wagon that we used to have, driving in the front seat as we swerved around an animal, the car crash, the neighbors rushing us to the hospital across town. It was a hard thing to forget. It's somehow my mind managed to do so all of those years, and I wanted to keep them alive. But once we got back from that trip, I got involved in my regular thing, going into high school and doing everything there. Still the back of my mind, I kept thinking about that voice and of Elizabeth. I asked Mom about her when I used to visit her in the hospital, and with all the details she could remember, she shared with me the stories of my childhood friend. We were too young to know what a friendship was, but they would take us everywhere together. We were neighbors and would roam around each other's backyards, with our parents watching over us through their windows as we played. It was difficult for Mom to talk about Dad, though, but I think she started seeing his memories just like the ones about our trips and our birthday parties, moments that we wish we could go back to, but would never be able to relive. Good memories. That turn sad once we have to face that reality. Dad was one of them for her, just as I had suspected, our lives completely changed after that car accident. Mom told me all about it, everything from what I was wearing to Dad's life insurance policy. As the days passed, Mom told me even more about Elizabeth or Lizzie as I used to call her because her name was too difficult for me to pronounce as a kid. She was with us in the car after going with my dad down to the stores, basically an area where Dad would get stuff for the house and stop by to get us some snacks. My sister was too young to come with us. It was on the way back that the car accident happened. Dad's side of the car was completely smashed in and Elizabeth was squished behind the seat and the side door. I barely remember it. There were no screams, no pain. Elizabeth simply went to sleep right next to me in silence. It was a car that was passing by that stopped. They asked me a few things that I didn't know how to answer, and then soon another truck came by to rush us to the hospital. My dad didn't make it and Elizabeth was killed on impact. But for the longest time, Mom said, Elizabeth's parents, traumatized by the entire scene, could never let go of their daughter's memory. They would show up unannounced asking if they could pick up Elizabeth. Sometimes her mom would come too and remember that her daughter was gone. Her dad it was barely getting over it. But Elizabeth's brother would roam around the front yard every once in a while, and when confronted by my mom, it would say that he had seen his sister Elizabeth and he had followed her there. I didn't know what to think of the entire situation. As Mom spoke of the past like that, she had never done so with so much detail, and yet she didn't show any signs of emotion towards the Johnning family. They had lost a child, and yes, that's terrible, but Mom had also lost her husband and had her own things to deal with at the time. To me, it was just a tragic story of a family who got lost in its entirety by going into the past, something that was too much to deal with. Eventually, the parents got some help from their local church and some of the neighbors, but their sons still claimed to see Elizabeth around the wooded areas, the same areas that would lead to our house from there. I think that's where the problem started, you see. I remember a man from the church coming to our house for dinner a couple of times. He came along with his wife and their daughter. They dressed like they were going to church, the lady with the dress and the man with a suit and tie. They used to talk to Mom and pray and stuff. But I clearly remember that even by that time, I used to still play with Elizabeth. She would wander over to our yard and we would be outside when Mom would call me in for dinner, and I remember it being so strange that Elizabeth couldn't come meet with us. She would simply wander back out and head to her house on her own. I mentioned that to Mom when she was in the hospital, and she told me that it was true that I would also spend time alone outside talking by myself, and that she thought it was my young mind's way of coping with losing a friend. Until the swingset incident. Now. I don't remember this, but Mom did. We had just gotten the old red swing set that Dad built and painted for us, and one day when Mom was looking out the window from the kitchen, she claimed to see me and another little girl on the swing next to me. Some Mom wiped her hands dry from the dishes and went out through the kitchen door and then toward the oak tree next to the swing set. And when she saw me that second time, I was by myself, but the swing next to me was still swinging. She came up to me and heard me talking to someone on the swing, but there was nobody there. She grabbed me and led me back inside the swing, still going about just swinging. She then talked to a priest after that, who I remember was much meaner than the other guy from church. He told me that Elizabeth was gone and that I should no longer be trying to talk to her. We left soon after. The incident started escalating, with Mom seeing the little girl inside the house more often and not knowing what to do when she was on her own. That's how we ended up in Arizona, and after my mother died, the reason why I went back up to Michigan was that house. It never sold and it was transferred to my name. The idea was to stay there, to fix it up and be able to live in it. But after only two weeks in the place, I started noticing strange things around the property. It was no longer a strange man wandering about looking for his long lost sister something else. There were more houses around the area, which made the place seem a bit safer in general, something important since I'd be living on my own for a while. My aunt would come by every other day to help cook dinner and hang out for a bit, so I felt right at home while she was there, But I swear and she left. Walking down that hallway was not for the week. The light switch was at the end of it, so you would either have to walk into it in the dark or walk out of it the same way. Obviously, I would only need to go into the bedroom at night, so it would be very dark. Because I took the ten or twelve steps in, That's where she would show up, standing right at the end of the hallway. She wouldn't make noise as she moved toward the door that led to the yard, and I would get that urge to follow her. She watches me sometimes when I'm out in the backyard, when I get home, when I turn off the lights, and at times I still see the swing on the left swinging on its own as I look out through my window. Despite me trying to be rational about the situation, I know who it is. We have a choice for an upcoming project thanks to our community on Scary Plus that you can also join by going to scaryplus dot com or through our Apple podcast channel. Here's a question, would you watch me on YouTube because we're about to create something, but I definitely want to include you in here, so I want to know what you're thinking right. Step one is to figure out what to post, and again with podcasting, we don't get a comments section, and I don't know what you want if you don't email or message me. So maybe we'll get set up with that later on, but for now, send me some ideas or help me out with a super quick pull. I'm going to link to it in the description of this episode, and I'll keep you posted with the results anyway. Up next, check out Scary Mystery Surprise and laugh along with us as my co host Michelle and I laugh about creepy things we have an episode on the Top ten Internet Scary stories of all time. Check and check it out by typing scary mystery surprise on your app right now. Thank you very much for listening to my stories. See you soon.