Give Them Nightmares

Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. Our two stories today are called Give Them Nightmares and two Bodies in the Back. My name is Edward, and here it's a scary story. When my grandpa died, my parents sat me down at the kitchen table and they told me that one of his requests of the family was at the house at the end of Vascondillo, the place where most of my family would take their vacations in the mountains, would be left to as oldest granddaughter, and that was me. I was seventeen at the time, and they said that I would need to travel to meet with a notary to sign some papers about it. I don't think I knew exactly what that meant, because nothing changed. I didn't move or use a place for anything, not that I could at that young age anyway, but everyone else kept using it as if nothing ever happened. After I graduated from college and started looking around for a place to live, my dad brought up that place that we had in the mountains and said that I should use it as an airbnb while I looked for work. It was a great idea. No one had been there in a few years, mainly from what I thought had been a family spreading apart little by little, but I didn't know that the reason went a little deeper and a bit darker than that. The area was an enormous lot with two units on it. One was a main house with the views of the hills and a pool in the backyard, while the other section was like a guesthouse, not completely finished but was still solid, with two small bedrooms and a bathroom. From what I could tell, the place would only cause what it took to keep it maintained, with all of the grass and the bugs that would get inside, spiders sometimes crawling on the walls, something my grandpa always took care of for myself and our cousins. The pool was antied when we were gone, and honestly, I thought about filling it in permanently, not with water, but with dirt and cement. A pool like that out there was way too cold and it would get dirty right away. It was my place, anyway, I would have time to decide. I thought about it and decided to head out there for about a week, and it was a four hour drive for my parents' house. I would take inventory of all the things, come up with the list of stuff to fix and then I would take photos to post it and then have people come and visit. Plus I really needed the time away. Word spread about my visit, and it's not like I was hiding it, but I didn't want problems with anybody from my family. Fortunately, the only call I got was from my aunt, the cool One, as she asked if Lucy could come with me because she was going to be off of school and she didn't want her to be alone at the house. Really, I think she just wanted to get her away from her high school boyfriend, but that was none of my business, and I agreed. I went to pick her up and then went to the store, which we probably got way too much food and snacks for the road and for the trip, but things were more expensive out there, so we bought all the stuff and started driving. It was late when we got there. I remember feeling this sense of dread upon getting out of the car to open up the gate. It always happened with me with old and dark places. I would close my eyes and see what they were like during the day, with laughter and chatter quickly fading. As soon as I opened my eyes to see the dark, empty places all around me. I thought of Grandpa, and he would always be waiting for us to get out of the pool, killing all of the spiders for us and making us his famous tuna sandwiches. He pulled up to the house and got our flashlights, and Lucy waited in the car while I went to turn the power on and the property. Yes, the place had utilities and Wi Fi. It wasn't exactly in the middle of nowhere, but it sure used to feel that way when I was growing up with so much green space all around me. Like we did whenever we got there. We grabbed the brooms, the mops and brought out our blankets to put over the beds, after giving them a good shake and beating with the towels that were there. Dust settles even in enclosed spaces, and never understood why we opened up all of the windows to air out the space. That was our first mistake. It was almost midnight when we went to the room to sleep. We still had that quiet agreement about the place, just like when you were little, the one that said that we didn't want to sleep alone. You know, when you were little, we would hear the adults in our family tell ghost stories and make fun of each other for being scared of the house, something that my grandpa absolutely hated because it scared us. I could still almost hear him. Don't talk about that, you're going to give them nightmares. But I remember some of their chatter and the things they say they would see as they were unloading something from the truck at night. Why they couldn't finish up the guest house in the back. It would creep me out when I was growing up. Once in the room, we had a short conversation going something about her boyfriend and advice that Lucy's friends had given her about one of those high school issues, you know, a simple problem that turned big just for not being able to communicate properly. Eventually I heard her take a deep sigh, and then dead silence filled the room. Suddenly I heard a thought, a loud one coming from the kitchen area of the house, the one that faced the tree line to see the birds during the day, but only showed a pit of darkness that night lights every once in a while were visible from there. For what my grandpa used to say, they were fireflies, and he had promised to take us to see them up close so that we'd stop being afraid of them. But never did. My body went tense immediately, and I swear even my ears got more powerful right away, being able to hear the beating of my own heart that I desperately wanted to shut up so that I could listen to any other noises. There was no one else in that house. My only explanation was that it was an animal, a raccoon, or something opening up a window. The windows had forgotten to close them right before going to bed, and like I said, that's what I think started this whole thing. I knew I would have to close everything. And I looked over to Lucy, her face turned away from me, and the reflections of the outside light bouncing off her dark hair. They were the only visible thing in the room. I would have to wake her up. I heard another thought, but this time it was followed by steps. The thing had gotten inside. There was nothing else it could have been. It was an animal, and it was getting closer. I put my hand on Lucy's shoulders and shook her a little bit, and she reacted right away, asking if I had heard that. In a half asleep state. Failing at hiding my fear through my voice, I told her that we had to go close the windows and if she would please come with me. I don't know what I was thinking. There was clearly something walking around the house that was there asking to go out in the hallway and around the house to close the windows. But still Lucy agreed, and so we turn on the light, trying not to be quiet on purpose, hoping that this animal will get scared and leave through a window. Before we got out of the room, we heard the steps again, and suddenly another thud, this time coming from the outside, with steps against the gravel on the other side of the house. We both looked at each other and I opened the bedroom door, stepping outside to flick on the light from the hallway. We walked to the kitchen, trying to avoid the pitch black scene of the trees in front of the windows and just closing them. We walked to the living room, the bathroom, and the room that was in the back of the house, closing each one one by one. If it was all ready quiet in the house, this made it even more deafening. We made it back to the room, got into bed, and stayed quiet as we both thought, I'm assuming about the same thing. What had that been? The next day, I woke up to Lucy walking up to the bedroom door and squeaking it open calmly. She looked at me, asking where the food was. I told her that we had set the bags by the refrigerator instead of putting everything away, which was mistake number two. They're not there, she said, expecting me to suggest another spot for her to look. I rolled out of bed, trying to comb my hair with my hands as I put my shoes on to go look for the stuff we had brought over. But she was right, and when I looked at the kitchen there was no sign of anything. We had unloaded four bags off to the top with things from the grocery store. Some of those things should have been refrigerated even and we had completely forgotten to put them away. But we didn't have to talk much. We both knew we had unloaded him. Lucy even made a comment about how I almost dropped one of the bags, and her first instinct was to ask about the caeso dip at the bottom of one of them. There was no other spot for those bags. But it was then when we both looked at each other with white eyes, thinking back on the thing from last night. We sat down in the living room, wondering what it could have been. There are a lot of animals around the area, but neighbors are across the field of trees, and it's unlikely that anyone would simply walk up to the property without a car, something that we would have heard. The whole night was still and quiet. Lucy wasn't going to call her mom since she started freaking out and asking too many questions, but I called up my dad and told him exactly what had happened. He asked about the torn bags or scratch marks, obvious signs of an animal being there. There weren't any. Whatever had been inside had taken the food along with the bags. He asked if anything else had gone missing, but I didn't know. I told him we would call back and hung up. We went through our things, but everything was there, our phones, wallets, gee, everything. We knew we would have to drive down the road a bit to get to one of the grocery stores, but we agreed to go to Mel's Dieiner for breakfast before going to the store. It was on the way, just an eight minute drive according to my app, and so we did. We found the diner, pulled up and went inside. It waited a while to be served, until an older waitress came by, thanking us for waiting, explaining that they had had some trouble with the preparation. From working in restaurants throughout college, I knew how essential that was having everything washed, peel and chopped before the customer rush hours, so I smiled and asked if they had been short staffed. She smiled with that smile when servers realized that we're just another one of them and said that no, that it was with their supply food had gone missing overnight. Lucy looked at me and then at the waitress, almost shouting that the same thing had happened to us too. The waitress a smile faded, but she insisted on keeping it going this time not the same, as she turned away to grab her pen. Do you know what you want? She asked us awkwardly. This time we ordered two large pancake specials. Don't judge us, and then we just looked around the diner. We remembered it, after all, despite all those years, the Rundown horse ride that you operate with the quarter and the claw machine in the front. But it was then when we heard an older man as he was leaning toward us from his stool, quietly asking us about the missing food. I know who did it, and I've set up traps for them, he said. He didn't look creepy or anything, just obsessed over what he had mentioned. Lucy was more talkative with people, and I really wanted her to be quiet in case she let it slip that we had been there alone in the house, but instead she asked about what he was talking about. The man leaned in a little more from the stool that was too away from us, telling us that he had lived in the area for years that he knew almost everyone, also reassuring that they had always had strange occurrences around this time of the year when autumn came around. You're not from Gabriel's family, are you. Gabriel was my grandpa's name. We told them we were, and so we talked for a bit until our food came around. He talked about the fireflies and memories of how the area used to be before everything started turning into airbnbs, painfully mispronounced by the old guy. Lucy nudged at me as I try to nudge her back to be quiet. Well, look, he said, Gabriel and my family had heard about these areas and the tiny people that had been spotted. I have a trail. Can I have them set up? You know I've seen them, but oh, they're smart. Obviously intrigued by the comments he was making, we asked about what he was talking about. Just as the waitress came by with our glasses of orange juice. He leaned in a little more. You guys, ever heard of goblins? He asked, his face completely still. The waitress gave the guy a serious stare. Bill, leave them alone. You're going to give them nightmares when the night is dark and you have two bodies in the back. What would you do if you hear something? I'll be right back with the story about a driver from a funeral home. Some people think that we get desensitized to seeing the dead bodies in front of us as we fix them up for burial. Even though it's true that we sometimes stop to admire the clothing options that the family members have chosen for their deceased, we still treat them with the respect that they deserve. I'm about to tell you why. When I first started working in the field, I heard many stories of strange things that would happen as we prepared the bodies, from things going missing to sounds of cries coming from the storage areas. I've heard them all, but we try not to think about it, at least not when you're alone in the facility at night. It was in my early days and I had just graduated from high school, and I would run tasks here and there for one of the cemeteries in the area, replacing light bulbs, running messages and the paperwork between the funeral home and cemetery or the crematory, and answering phone calls. Of course, the owner of the funeral home had some organizational issues with a business, and he struggled a lot to keep things in order, even in his own office space, so most of our tasks as employees overlapped. The only person who always did the same thing day after day was mister Kingsford, the embalmer. Most of us were afraid of him, yet he wouldn't speak much to anybody. I think even the owner was afraid of him. Rumors went around that he had been involved with the wrong crowd, which eventually got him into prison. Nobody knew for sure right now, for a fact, that nobody would ever dare to ask him. I still remember the day when the two bodies came in. A mother and her adult son. Both had been found dead and had to be removed directly from the holding area that they had near the police station. I had been working there for a couple of years now, and I was in charge with the transportation that day, so it was me the one who went to pick them up and the wide van, the one that could handle up to three bodies in the back. At the time, I remember that I was in a hurry to do everything. I wanted to look good in front of my boss, and eventually I wanted to work arranging the funerals for people, since I found it the most gratifying. Plus, the flow of dead people was unlikely to stop anytime soon, so there was lots of money in the business. I was at the location within ten minutes from when the call came in. I was there at exactly twelve o three am. I loaded the bodies onto the van, briefly reading the tags to match them with my list. Normally, we try to avoid finding out who we're carrying, mostly in fear of being someone you know. But I always like to check the security officer at the front would always tell me their tragic stories, or sometimes just a comment about who they were. This time, though, there was no one at the entrance, and instead the bodies had been left with a note almost by the entrance. It happened sometimes, or so I'd heard. I know this from when I used to run paperwork. Things don't always work out the same way, and there were countless times when I'd have to go get a signature from odd places. This time, though, paperwork was signed and released ready for me to pick up. I went inside and sat in the van and I started it up and looked at the destination on the list. Was supposed to go straight to the crematorium. Now this was strange. Normally they go back to the funeral home perhaped and viewed, at least in my town, and then they make their way to get turned into ashes. I wanted to double check, hesitating to do so because I would have to contact the embalmer. Then asked to see if the names were in his roster, and then I just gathered up the courage and managed to dial the number. Anyway, the sound of the TV in the background startled me when he answered. As I explained the situation. There's no one on for tonight or tomorrow. Yet he said he was annoyed. When I asked him what I should do. Then I knew what he was going to say, but he said it anyway, do what's on the list. And that was the kind of thing that he would say around the funeral home all the time. Do what's on the list. And so I drove away and onto the dark road to the right. This place worked all night, and it looked like an old warehouse. I was glad that the families never got to see this place. Honestly, the workers there usually had music blasting all night, one time joking that they were the pitmasters and asking for their name tax to reflect that. Of course, not everyone was like that, but that level of disrespect stuck with me. As a van was humming down the road, suddenly I heard a groan coming from behind me. At least I thought it sounded like that. I looked in the rear room mirror only to see white backs, perfectly still dead. Your mind plays tricks on you like that when you're dealing with dead bodies. You know, if you've never seen a dead face and wondered if they suddenly opened their eyes and what you would do. You won't know what I'm talking about. But it happens with voices too. You look at them and wonder what they sounded like, those people you've never seen before, how they laughed or how they cried, how they lived, and how they died. There was a scratching sound now, and I blame it on my mind or the darkness, but I swear I saw something move from the inside of the bag. My heart was racing, and I pulled over, reaching for my phone as I heard another grunt, but this time a bit louder. I called the owner of the funeral home, Stephen. I explained as calmly and as logically as I could at the time, the bodies I had picked up had been moving. He had also been awake already. The TV or radio were on. These people were night albums. I tell you, I think we all sort of are. And he was confused, asking me if I was sure of what I was talking about and who the pickup was for. I explained as much as I could, with us, finally concluding that I should reach into the back and check on the bodies right there on the side of the road. I was hesitant but another groan, a softer one, brought me back to reality. I could see something moving. I told Steven I would call him back, and I hung up as he was saying bye and to keep him posted. I took a deep breath stepped out of the van, unlocking the back doors. The still night, with only my headlights lighting up the side of the road and the red one shining on the gravel behind the car, the whole area seemed like I was in another world. I opened the door quietly, my hands trembling against the door handle. See them twisting, two twisting bodies, groaning in pain. I shouted, hello, are you okay? They stayed still. I reached from my pocket, only to realize that my phone was in the front seat. But I had no choice. I was supposed to open up the bags. They pulled the platform toward me, so I reached for the zipper. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes as I unzipped it in one long stroke. An arm wiggled its way out of the bag and reached for my neck, and I could feel the cold sweat from it. They smell I had never smelled before, as this thing, this person took a deep breath, his eyes looking straight at me, paralyzed. I looked at the other bag and unzipped it. A woman with dark hair, not moving as much as a man, but still with those wide eyes. I took a step back, my mind racing, trying to decide what to do. I try to ask them what happened, who they were. My phone started going crazy in the front of the car, and all I could think of doing was to close the door and drive to a hospital. The closest one would be in the next town, past the crematorium, and so I did. I floored it, and not long after that I was rushing up to the ambulance area, rambling and failing to put my words together as I explained to the receiving doctors that the people in the back were supposed to be dead. They helped me get them out, put them on stretchers, and bring them inside. It was then when I checked all of the miscalls from the police department and from the crematorium, all with voicemails accompanying them. There was one text message from Stephen telling me to get them to a hospital as soon as possible. From what I found out, they had been paralyzed. With some type of medication, but the story from the police and the crematorium never added up. They were saying that it was an internal error, but that didn't explain the paralysis. Both people made full recoveries with minor complications, and they moved away almost immediately. I get messages from them about once a year thanking me for what happened that night, but I could tell they didn't want to relive it and therefore never talked more about the situation itself. I left my job and Stephen almost lost his business after a series of threatening calls. We both moved away and started over. Steven retired and I still keep in touch with him, especially for advice in running my own funeral home operation. Thank you so much for the story ideas, and if you write short scary story, send me an email with it so that we can share it on our Instagram. I'll leave my contact info in the description of this episode. Look Next be sure to check out a true scary story. It has been featured as show of the Month for October twenty twenty two on Apple Podcast's Dark Side collection, and you can find it there along with other creepy shows. Thank you very much for listening See you soon,