Green Numbers

Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. Our stories today take a leap into something a bit more immersive, experiences that sometimes fade into memories, but at one point we're real. No grown up mind would accept that they ever happened. Then again, that's how our minds turned against themselves. My name is Edwin, and here it's a Scary Story Green Numbers. Everyone was asleep already, and thanks to the long nap that I had taken that afternoon after coming home from school, I was wide awake. It was a Friday, and I technically didn't have to go to bed, and I didn't want to, but there was nothing to do. I turned off the lights, hopped into bed once again, and stared up towards the ceiling. I used to have a small lamp that would clip onto the back of my books, and I had just bought batteries for it, so I felt around for it on my nightstand and flicked it on. The book. An old collection of ghost stories was right next to it. I brought the blanket up to my chin and ad just in my arms and hands to be able to hold the book. I grabbed the bookmark, then I opened it to where I had left off. The story was about a circus that went through town collecting children for its acts, and people would come down from the neighboring towns to see them dance and jump through the hoops of fire. Two siblings once tried to run away, but were caught. On their way out. The caretaker pulled them by the ears towards the lion's cage. He opened it and asked them to step in. Crying, they begged to be let out, but it was too late. The starving beast took one look at them and date the sister. It was only supposed to scare them, so the paniced caretaker opened the cage to pull what remained of her and hopefully save her brother, but his arm got caught and the lion bit it right off. While the little brother was able to escape and shut the cage's door. They started thinking of both carnivals and travelers who went from town to town with people who had been born with malformations, the outcasts, the ones who would now forever travel making fools of themselves while entertaining a different kind of them. My thoughts went from that to the next story, What about the girl who hangs from the trees and throws quarters and pennies to the kids who get too close. The free money causes a stir and unwanted attention to the girl, now surrounded by a crowd of little ones waiting for the next coin to land by them. It's then when she takes her pick and brings the kid right up disappears into the branches of the dark tree. And I tell you, despite how silly or strange these stories were, at one point they were real. I would close my eyes and see the whole thing. Diving into books like these was beyond anything my mind could ever come up with by itself, and so I spent my time late into the night reading and diving in and out of different worlds and stories, going from ghosts to strange deaths, and then from children that were raised by wolves to the shadows that watch you from outside your window. And it was finally dozing off at around three in the morning, according to the bright green numbers of the alarm clock across from my bed, it was time for me to call it a night. And I don't know if it was because of the stories, though thinking back on it now, it probably was. But I started having the strangest dreams I mean, strange things had already been happening in the house in real life. That's actually why I always ask for ghost stories at the library, but I could never quite find a story like mine anyway. In one of the dreams, I was in a dark field by myself night. A large scarecrow was on my left side, and two owls were flying above me, toward the oak tree at the end of the walking path. As they flew over, I heard their conversation. A woman named Beth had just given birth, that the baby had been claimed already and it would quote expire in two weeks. The other was replying with laughter as they both got too far from me to hear the rest of the story. It was then when the wind started blowing from my left side. Then it turned into a violent gust of cold air. Suddenly I was on a large wooden ship. People were running across the deck through a thunderstorm as they prepared the cannons. A man asked me to get to the mask, but as I was walking toward it, so a wave knocked me over and straight into the ocean. I somehow managed to stay afloat among those large waves, watching as a ship in battle with the others appeared only when the lightning struck in the distance. The time I was able to see them again, there were only small shadows among the rolling mountains of the dark ocean water. I woke up with a loud gasp, relieved that it had only been a dream, unaware of what was about to happen. I turned around, a cold sweat on my pillow and on my hair. I looked over to where the alarm clock was supposed to be, but it wasn't there. The large numbers were the first thing I would see when I'd wake up in the middle of the night, but not this time. Maybe I had turned around on my bed and was disoriented. Was that it. I robed my eyes, now fully awake, as I scanned the room for the alarm clock. Had the power gone out? My eye started adjusting to the darkness of the room. Thanks to the bedroom window, the night sky was bright and I could see a few stars in the distance, and took a moment to breathe a little more and to sit up on my bed. I almost never got to see outside of my window at this time of the night. We had a few large hills behind our house, and that's what made it windy and the reason why we shut our windows, But not this time. The night was still. I leaned and adjusted my head to be able to see more of the outside. The flock of birds was flying toward the hills, barely visible like dots against a deep, dark blue ocean, moving away from me. When you birds could fly at night. I looked back toward my room and slowly starting to see a soft green glow that was usually from the numbers of my alarm clock, but not the numbers themselves. The glow lit up the jacket I had thrown on the floor, the carpet, and the messy desk it was on. The numbers weren't there. I reached over to my nightstand and felt around for the book lamp, once again, quickly finding it and flicking it on. A toward the alarm clock. The large shadow of a man nearly reaching the ceiling, tilting its head to the side, or standing there looking at me. This thing was frozen completely, its eyes wide open on its dead face, barely covered up by his wet hair. I tried to scream, but no sound would come out, and it was then when I saw it take its first step toward me. I dropped the book lamp as I tried to stumble my way out of the bed that was tangled up in the blankets. The room went completely dark, and it was then and I was able to see the green numbers of my alarm clock once again. It's a bit strange, isn't it, thinking of how real these stories fell to when we were growing up. But who's to say that they were made up? Maybe you just simply forgot about them. Second story today is called the Doll in the Green Dress, and it is coming up. Right after this. I ran up towards the staircase with the two towels wrapped around my hands, carefully holding the bed warmer bottle that Grandma used to go to sleep. The water had been boiling for a while and I had woken up to my Grandma screaming at me from the other bedroom to go downstairs and turn off the kettle. Oh wow, how I hated it. I had to come downstairs and complete darkness until I reached the living room that had a dormant night light. On the other side of the room. It would cast shadows etched their arms toward me as I stepped onto the first floor. I would always do it in the same way. I would walk down, slowly, counting the steps, avoiding the second one from the bottom, the one that always creaked when I stepped on it, carefully letting me know that even the house wanted me gone. Nobody liked visiting Grandma's house, not even my parents. I always felt terrible talking about my grandma in such a negative way, so when she would invite me to stay over on those summer weekend nights, I would stay with her just to please her. I mean, she lived by herself, and she had done so for god knows how long. I never met my grandpa. I never met anyone else that lived in there, though, I guess if I had to get technical. Mom once told me that my aunt used to live with her, but she died of a heart attack in the middle of the night before I was born. It wasn't anything to be afraid of, I know. But the room where I would stay was supposedly her room at one point, but anyway, I walked up to Grandma's room with a warmer bottle in both hands. Then I kicked the door, lightly, knocking on it hard enough for it to open, and it did. Grandma was moving her blanket away from her feet. As I walked up to the black silhouette that formed in front of her enormous bedroom window. I placed a bedwarming bottle by her legs and moved the blankets over it. That thing was boiling hot, and that's how she liked it. I finally got to see that smile, and only the smile, when she thanked me and said good night. As I was walking away, I closed her door, stepped back into the hallway, and made my way down to the room once more. The sounds of my footsteps were muffled against the carpet. I knew what was coming. It happened every single night I was there. Grandma would make fun of me for it. Mom wouldn't believe me. Dad said that I should try to speak to it, but I couldn't. I sped up just a little bit in order to not make too much noise through the mystery floorboard that also lived upstairs. It would whine. With just a single step, I heard it behind me. I froze in place and held my breath. I heard it step back toward the stairs and turned the corner. I took a step forward as the floorboard squeaked, and I heard the steps quickly coming up behind me. As I sped up, I felt the door knob on my right hand. I twisted it and rushed inside, then shut the door behind me. Nobody ever talked about it. Nobody talked about the reason why people would avoid coming to visit Grandma and stay at her house. The next evening, it was the same thing. Television got shut off at eight pm, right when the mystery show was starting, and Grandma filled the kettle with water in the sink. She walked over to the stove and lit it with the matches that were next to it. She told me to fill up the bed warmer bottle once the water was hot, and started making her way upstairs. I had tried the other times I had been there before to just sit and wait for the water to boil. As I sat there on the couch, looking at the room in the strange way that the night light flickered from the outlet near the floor. On the corner of the living room. In front of it was a gap between the piece of furniture with the old television and a large chair, probably still warm from Grandma's imprint against it. Every once in a while a fly or a moth would get inside, and they would go straight for the light, casting a large shadow like a ghost, crawling from wall to wall of the living room against the orange light. As I sat there behind me was an old portrait of Grandma and Grandpa, and next to that, farther and against the wall was the bookcase with her dolls. Even during the day, the doll's eyes would follow you from the time you came through the front door until the time you got to the stairs. There was one particular doll, the one in the green dress, that terrified me. Grandma would pick her up and brush her hair. She would wash her clothes and leave her sitting on the chair while her clothes dried outside, sometimes for the whole day. And it was one of those nights when I tried to stay in the living room until I heard the kettle whistle for me, that I found myself looking at the thing with dark hair and grim smile, sitting perfectly still next to Grandma's chair on the couch. It was about the size of the leg of a chair, its face completely pale, which made her eyes so much darker than they were. It was looking toward the front door. One of its arms bent in front of its leg and the other down to its side. Those stiff elbows were bent in such a way that it looked like she was leaning on it to stay upright on the chair. There was just something about that one that troubled me. There were other dolls there after all, but none of them was like this one. I rushed up toward the staircase. I climbed the stairs, hopping over the second step from the bottom, and rushed up toward my room. Not ten minutes after that, the whistling of the kettle started creeping up on me through that dark house. As I was stepping out of my room, I heard my grandma yell for me to go grab the water, and I told her that I was on my way already. There would be no way for her to know, since I always avoided turning on the lights ever since I got scolded by her for waking her up with the bright lights of the hallway, And so I made my way to the top of the stairs and saw the shadows at the bottom. I would have to look at the thing once more once I got down there. Perhaps I could avoid it. I'd just go to the kitchen fill up the warming bottle and rush upstairs again, but I couldn't help it. Once I was down there, I shut off the stone and filled up the bottle. Then I started making my way toward the stairs. That's when I looked at it. Its eyes fixed on the front door, and it was then when it turned its head, It's dark eyes looking straight at me. I hurried up the steps that seemed to take forever until I finally made it to the hallway. I kicked at my Grandma's door, maybe a little too hard this time. I got everything set up and then left to the sight of her smile, of the silhouette against the window of her room. I tried to walk slowly toward my room. When I heard it again. I walked quickly to my room, and then I shut the door once more. It took a deep breath and waited as the steps made their way the stairs again. Scary Story podcast is written and produced by me Edwin Kovarubias. So you can find out more about me by going to Edwin dot Fm or by finding the links to my Instagram and other accounts. Write in the description of this episode, these are the types of stories that we're a bit too out there for the podcast in the beginning, but if you like them, I'd really like to know. There's a small collection of them that I'm preparing to release to Scary Plus members, simply because they were either too short or too different from our typical stories. You can try out the ad free episodes completely free for a week by going to scaryplus dot com if you use it on Spotify, or by trying it out on the podcast show profile on the Apple podcast app if that's what you want to use instead. Don't forget a tap follow to stay up to date with the episodes. Thank you very much for listening, See you sooner.