Ghost in the Recovery Room

[00:00:00] Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. This episode has stories of entities that lurk in the dark.

[00:00:07] One takes place at a hospital, and the other at an area that's a bit more common for ghosts.

[00:00:17] My name is Edwin. Here is a scary story. Hospitals haven't changed much since I was

[00:00:26] little, and at least not in that town. They still have the individual doctors setting

[00:00:31] up their offices after they go out to study in the city. The ones that are more attached

[00:00:36] to their family or to the place itself seem to always come back. And you know it too when

[00:00:42] they're leaving and you can just tell that as soon as they get their diploma, they will be right back.

[00:00:48] The same goes with the others, those young ones that spend too much time on their phones and

[00:00:52] computers. You just know they simply can't wait to get out of here. But when I visited that

[00:00:58] old place once again, I was surprised to see the paved streets. They used to be made of dirt.

[00:01:04] People were now wearing the uniforms and you can tell which one worked at the bank and which

[00:01:08] one worked at the hospital. Everyone had a role now. Most of the buildings looked the same though,

[00:01:15] run down and the paint peeling on the side of them. You know the area that didn't face the

[00:01:20] street. That hadn't changed. But along with the same old hospital building, all of the memories

[00:01:26] of the recovery room were coming back. The story itself was a big deal, and it wasn't

[00:01:32] only mine. There were others too. When one of the candidates for mayor was hospitalized and

[00:01:38] was forced by the newspapers to stay in the recovery room just like all of the town citizens,

[00:01:43] he too had an experience in there. That's how it became big news. Though most of us already

[00:01:49] knew about it through rumors and the stories that happened to a friend of a friend. I

[00:01:56] was that person in some cases, at least I think so. Because I told everybody I knew about what I

[00:02:03] had experienced. I had gotten off a minor surgery procedure due to a broken arm. When one of the

[00:02:10] neighbors jumped onto the same branch of the avocado tree and we both went straight down to

[00:02:15] the hardened dirt and rock as soon as it snapped. The other kid got a nose bleed from hitting

[00:02:20] his face against my skull. But still in the end, I got the worst part of the incident.

[00:02:27] The pain was creeping in after some of the medication started wearing out.

[00:02:31] But mainly it was discomfort, not full on pain. My parents, aunts and uncles were all there to

[00:02:38] see me making a big crowd inside that open room with a dozen or so beds lined up against the

[00:02:43] walls. A handful on each side. There was another girl with her mom across from my bed

[00:02:49] looking at a magazine. I could tell the woman was annoyed but the girl was smiling at seeing so many

[00:02:55] people inside that room for once. Once everyone left and the sun started to set, filling the white

[00:03:02] walls with that golden light, I started thinking about how terrible it was being there by myself.

[00:03:08] When I miss a soccer game, the next two days of school, and now even normal things would

[00:03:13] take longer to do. It would be that way for weeks. But we don't have those same things anymore, right?

[00:03:21] Big rooms with large windows that let exterior light inside at hospitals.

[00:03:26] Fully equipped with a nurse that is not afraid to scold you when you do something you're not

[00:03:30] supposed to do. Yeah lots of things had changed. But I heard that one thing hadn't changed about

[00:03:37] that old hospital. First night I was there and the lights went off. I stared toward the

[00:03:44] ceiling unable to fall asleep. I'm like that with new places. I can't find my spot on the bed and

[00:03:50] simply turn over and adjust the blanket as often as possible. The girl across from me made a sudden

[00:03:55] noise. She was right in the darkest part of the room so I was not able to see what happened.

[00:04:01] Was it a bottle? Marble rolling toward me? As my eyes adjusted to the low light from her

[00:04:09] corner of the room, I thought I saw her sit on the edge of her bed. The thin mattress bending

[00:04:15] slightly underneath her. I wanted to ask her if she was okay but I was too scared to say anything.

[00:04:22] Those nurses were meaner to kids, especially if they woke them up at night.

[00:04:28] But the bend on the mattress went away as she stood up and walked toward the foot of the bed

[00:04:33] looking directly at her own pillow. I saw her shadow get thinner as she turned to her side

[00:04:40] and walked toward the bed next to hers blindly going bed to bed until she ended on my side

[00:04:46] of the room and approaching the bed I was taking up. There was more light where I was and

[00:04:52] that's when I was able to tell that the girl was far too short to be the same girl I had

[00:04:57] seen during the day. Her hair was dark and her skin was pale yet she seemed to be walking around

[00:05:04] like a blind person feeling the edges of the beds almost as if she was looking for something.

[00:05:12] She was two beds away from mine when I saw her standing at the foot of one,

[00:05:16] standing still with her arms to her side. For suddenly reaching toward the blankets as if

[00:05:22] expecting someone's legs to be there. I didn't know who she was so I simply laid there.

[00:05:28] Frozen, trying desperately to get my legs to react so that I could pull them closer to me for

[00:05:34] when she came. She was on the bed next to mine when I got a clear view of her. Young, she must

[00:05:43] have been six years old her head barely reaching the top of the frame of the beds as I saw her

[00:05:47] round face every part of her skin glowing against the light from the outside. Everything except

[00:05:54] her eyes. She turned toward me. I saw her float toward the edge of my bed once again

[00:06:04] entering the dark part most of her face and body hidden from sight. I saw her arms stretch

[00:06:13] toward the edge of the bed and reach for the bed sheets. She knew there was somebody there.

[00:06:20] She smiled. I tried to scream but instead I remember crying until I fell asleep,

[00:06:26] not seeing where the girl had gone or if she was still there. My parents had come to see me

[00:06:33] early in the morning with a doctor speaking with them next to my bed. The girl on the other side

[00:06:39] of the room kept looking my way as she spoke to her mother or whoever the other woman was next to

[00:06:44] her. I started sitting up on my bed and the doctor was still talking to my mom while dad

[00:06:50] listened with his arms crossed. The woman and the girl exchanged a few words before the

[00:06:55] woman stood up and walked toward me telling the girl that she would ask me about whatever

[00:07:00] they were talking about seemingly frustrated. Can you tell a little Mary here that you didn't

[00:07:06] see a little girl walking around here last night? My eyes opened wide. The doctor turned my way.

[00:07:15] Mom and dad were confused but I could tell it was my turn to say something.

[00:07:19] The doctor chuckled.

[00:07:22] The ghost girl, oh yeah, watch out, he said. He had probably heard that story enough times and was

[00:07:28] just as tired of it as the woman who asked me that question. I saw her, I replied. The girl

[00:07:36] across the room stretched her arms forward and seemed to be relieved to hear my answer.

[00:07:42] Took a long time before anyone figured out the real story of the ghost of the hospital room.

[00:07:48] I most believed that it was the daughter of a man who had gotten sick and was staying at

[00:07:52] the hospital. She would come by and visit every day by herself. Of course they were different times

[00:07:59] back then. Until one day she was killed on her way there while crossing the street.

[00:08:05] They say she's friendly and doesn't cause too much trouble. I wonder if she's still around.

[00:08:18] The next story is called Dead Houses and it's coming up right after a quick message

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[00:09:30] slash scarystory. Join over 1 million people taking charge of their mental health.

[00:09:36] Again that's better help, h-e-l-p dot com slash scarystory. I was out by the cemetery where they

[00:09:50] had these huge apple trees. It sounds bizarre to say those things right off the bat but as kids

[00:09:57] apples and fruit trees were the coolest things ever because they were basically free food.

[00:10:02] We didn't grow up with a lot of money. So the neighborhood kids and I climbed to the top

[00:10:07] whenever we saw that the cemetery gates were open which was rare.

[00:10:12] Visitors had to enter through a little security booth thing that they had

[00:10:16] but the gates were reserved for when cars were coming in with a coffin inside.

[00:10:21] My friend knocked on the door right after I had gotten home from school telling me that

[00:10:25] him and two other kids were going to go to the cemetery and to grab my shoes so I did.

[00:10:31] I grabbed an old canvas bag and my shoes and took off running toward the cemetery to get some apples.

[00:10:37] It was a thing we had done dozens of times. This time when I was on top of one of the large branches

[00:10:43] I saw a truck coming in down toward the long road that led to the other side of the cemetery.

[00:10:50] We all just sort of stopped and looked in the truck's direction.

[00:10:54] I'm sure we were all wondering who was inside. For some reason we didn't seem to mind all

[00:10:59] the headstones around the trees where we were hanging out.

[00:11:03] I heard some apples fall to the ground as Mike, one of the older kids from the group, yelled out

[00:11:09] look. I looked right up toward him and then followed his finger down to the side of one of

[00:11:14] the headstones. There was a group of them there and I'm not sure what you call them

[00:11:19] but they were like stalls with text etched on the sides of them.

[00:11:24] I thought they were like gravestones of the rich people in town but one of the other

[00:11:27] kids called them dead houses so that's what I knew them by.

[00:11:32] Right on the side of one of those dead houses came out a silhouette dressed in white suits

[00:11:38] and a golden necklace. It was an old man it looked like with white hair and his arms at his side.

[00:11:47] We all stood quiet. He walked slowly toward the tree and right from the base of it looked

[00:11:53] up at us. His face wrinkled like I had never seen before. His voice boomed when he told us to stop

[00:12:01] picking the apples. We all froze in place until he turned around and walked back to the dead house.

[00:12:09] I looked up at Mike and he looked down at the rest of us.

[00:12:14] He said he was probably a crazy man and we should wait until he leaves

[00:12:18] but we stood there trying not to move a muscle for a very long time and nobody ever came out.

[00:12:25] We had a clear view of the dead house we could all see around it. There was no movement,

[00:12:32] no sound, nothing. But as we were standing there grabbing on to the branches we all heard

[00:12:39] a deep shriek coming in the direction of where the so-called dead house was

[00:12:44] the one where he had disappeared into. We all jumped from the tree trying to leave with as many apples

[00:12:51] as we had picked but I simply left mine. I took off toward the main gate as fast as I could

[00:12:57] as I heard one of the other kids scream behind me. I stopped and turned around.

[00:13:03] He had tripped and was on a patch of grass between two headstones yelling for no apparent

[00:13:07] reason. That's when I saw the same figure from before coming up behind him.

[00:13:14] It was clear this time. The old man could barely walk this time around and the kid had plenty of

[00:13:19] time to stand up and run toward us but he screamed even louder when he turned his head and saw the

[00:13:25] figure for himself. Eventually he managed to stand up and keep running. I started running too.

[00:13:33] We saw a group of adults over by the other side of the cemetery and we all

[00:13:36] sort of agreed to head toward them and get help. The group that was standing there

[00:13:41] didn't seem to notice us. Their heads bowed down as they lined up in a semi-circle.

[00:13:47] I was trying to hold my breath as to not make a sound and disturb their prayer as I walked up

[00:13:51] toward them. Some had their eyes closed yet a few of them seemed to notice us.

[00:13:58] Without turning around they simply opened a gap between them so that we could join them.

[00:14:04] I looked up at one of them as he moved aside. Before I could tap him on the arm

[00:14:09] I noticed the open coffin in the middle of them. The corpse laying there with his mouth slightly open.

[00:14:18] His wrinkled face, his white suit clearly visible, the gold necklace still around his neck.

[00:14:37] Scary Story Podcast is produced by me Edwin Covarrubies. If you'd like to get notifications

[00:14:43] when new episodes come out be sure to visit scarystorypodcast.com and click follow right

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[00:14:54] of this episode. Until next time thank you very much for listening.