Maggie's Box of Secrets

It was during Thanksgiving break, back when we used to get a full week of school and not bridge over the weekend. Mom and dad still had to work most of those days, so my brother and I would stay alone and watch TV. We'd go out to the backyard and wait for dad to come bring us food during his lunch break. It was awesome, although it did come with one consequence. Since we would wake up later than usual, we would fall asleep late into the night. We'd stay out in the living room with the TV on, going through stacks of DVDs from the movie rental place, or flipping through infomercials until the regular stuff got boring. Alright, you might be thinking about where the consequence of all of this is, right? For kids, especially at our ages, this was still great. But things started changing one night after we discovered a show. It was called Maggie's Box of Secrets. I still remember the punchline. Don't tell anyone. My name is Edwin, and here's a scary story. Dad had bought us a pizza earlier that day, and once Mom got home, we forgot all about it, and she made dinner as usual. My brother and I remembered once we were helping clean up, and it was good news all over again. Movies, pizza, and staying up late. Everything calmed down. We got some chores done and before we knew it, it was quiet. Mom was reminding us to brush our teeth, wishing us goodnight and all that. It was the second or third day of our break and I swear I never wanted it to end. We started playing a few video games, waiting to get hungry again and heat up the pizza. My brother was flipping through the channels, catching some episodes of Hey Arnold and other Nickelodeon stuff until I watched my brother get up. He pressed buttons on the microwave and Suddenly we only had the light of the television on, and the one that came from the alley on the back of the house through the big glass doors. When I had to get water or pass by it at night, I would be scared of those backyard doors. There was this old shed out there. It had a door that would come loose sometimes, and sometimes I would hear it squeak open and close with the wind from the window in my room. I always tried not to look, but I would. I would just see it open and shut in a rhythmic pattern that I can still hear in my mind. It was around the time when the Scary Stories episodes of Hey Arnold started coming on, when I knew it was late, and I started getting sleepy. That's when I watched the channel change by itself. I turned to look to my brother, and he opened his eyes wide. Did you see that? He asked, quickly and quietly. I told him I had just seen the channel change by itself, when he said that the light from the remote had turned on, as if someone had pressed a button to actually change it. When I think about it now, I realize of so much stuff that my brother knew that I didn't back then. He's older than me by three years, and he's always liked more, I don't know, let's say intellectual kind of stuff. He would ask for lab kits and gifts like telescopes and books, while I always killed for a CD player or some packs of Pokemon cards. I said that maybe it was from the other remote, since one time we had lost it and Dad bought one and programmed it. We then found the one that we had lost, Went it up with two. So you can imagine the chaos that would sometimes make when we wanted to change the channel at different times. He smiled, looked out the window, and got quiet again as the show started. Of course, he knew that my explanation didn't make sense. He had watched the remote in front of us change the channel, but he didn't want to scare me. At least, that's what I think. Alright everyone, we have 84 minutes of stories coming right up for you. Who's ready? We heard this woman shouting on the screen. The camera zoomed out, showed an empty set, sort of like a game show, but completely empty and with the lights dimmed. 84 minutes, my brother asked out loud. This is Maggie's box of secrets. Shh, don't tell anyone. The logo flashed away from the screen and the same woman was now sitting on a wooden crate in this new place. She was by a field next to a tree. A large question mark was on the box. Even for back then, the show seemed outdated. The woman was wearing a type of overalls thing, but with a dress instead of pants. Her hair was dark and short, and she had makeup that would make her eyes seem huge when the camera did the close-ups on it. It was funny to watch at first. I think the idea of discovering a new show as weird as that one was cool, and something I could talk about with my friends. Everything else at that hour was cartoons or the same sitcoms who were playing their episodes. My brother had adjusted himself on the couch to reach the remote. He looked at me and asked if he wanted me to change it. I shook my head no, and he put the remote next to him. I watched him look out the glass doors again. Deep in the mountains of Appalachia, she started, they say strange creatures lurk. She looked around the crate as if she was talking to a group of kids sitting on the grassy field, even though there was no one there. Little Timmy was out with his mother one day, she started. They had gone out to find mushrooms for a meal they were going to prepare. But suddenly the mom grabbed Timmy's hand and started running. Her expression was changing. Timmy was young and he couldn't run, so she let go and ran to the house herself. She locked the door and peeked out the window as a tall thing came out from the forest and stood over Timmy. He was now crying and trying to get up to run to his mom. But suddenly everything went dark. as if it were nighttime again, and in an instant, there was a light out once more. But sadly, Timmy was gone. His mother came out, searched for him the whole day until the sun set. Eventually, a few people came over to help look for him. But he was gone. He was never seen again. It was a really strange tone that she was speaking in. Who wants to know what took him? She asked the empty patch of grass in front of her. There were sound effects that came in, voices that said, I do, I do, over and over again. The thing was, they weren't from children. They came from what sounded to be a full-grown man trying to make the voices of them. No one knows, she said. Aw, the voice mimicked. Okay, okay, she said, I'll tell you. But, shh, don't tell anyone. Now the camera zoomed in on her face, and her whole expression changed. Shapeshifters. Things that pretend to be something they are not. Her expression got happy again. Don't trust what you see. The channel changed right then. My brother changed it this time. Weird show, he said, flipping it back to see if Hey Arnold was still on. My mind was spinning, and honestly a little in shock by what I had just heard. both in the story and the explanation. But I knew not to ask anything then. It was late. I was scared. I trusted my brother and didn't say anything about why he had changed it. He eventually found the old Hey Arnold episode. We watched one more after that. The last thing I remember was my brother asking if I wanted to go to bed and then him looking back out over the glass doors. But then it was morning. Now I know that everything should have ended there. but my brother and I talked about it in the morning when our parents left. I asked him if we had dreamed it or what had happened, and he said that the TV changed by itself, that the channel had been a pirate transmission. It makes more sense now that I'm older, but it's basically when a channel gets hacked and someone puts whatever they want on it, so something that didn't get permission to get aired. Weird, I said, amused by the whole thing. But what I don't get, he said out of nowhere. is why did the channel change on our TV? He was right. Stumbling upon a weird channel would be one thing, but it changed to it. My brother watched the remote flick to it by itself. I asked him if someone had been spying on us. I think at the time Inspector Gadget was coming out and devices and all that were on my mind. If I had asked my mom or dad about that, they would have said no right away, even without knowing the truth. But my brother, well, he was smart. And he never liked being lied to, even for his own good. Like when our parents explained to us my grandpa wouldn't be coming over to the house anymore, my brother got mad at their explanation. He didn't want to rest more. He couldn't get up, he said. If he moves too much, he might get a heart attack and die. So, he answered my question by saying, spying on us? Maybe. Maybe. I thought I saw someone outside when that happened, though. He pointed out toward the shed. The thing was old, broken down. Actually, no one was allowed to go in there because of how it was falling apart. Spiders had made it their home, too. It was strange because when I would tell my parents about the squeaking doors, they wouldn't believe me. The doors are locked shut, Dad would say. I didn't give it much thought back then, though I knew what I saw from my window. That door would open. clearly visible from up there, and it would close painfully slow. I told my brother this, that the door had probably opened since I always heard it squeak. He looked at me and said that it was locked, that he... had checked it earlier that morning when he got up. So we both went out there to check the door, and to our surprise, the latch was on, but the lock was open. So I watched my brother take off the lock and pull the door open, and inside the shady interior of that shed, all I could see was tools and An old workbench, a stack of buckets, some gardening tools, and a bunch of random knickknacks. Through the rays of light that were coming into the thing from the roof, I could see the spiderwebs, and the dark spots began to crawl along the walls toward us. My brother shut the door and closed the lock. There was nothing in there but the usual stuff, and I could tell that the lock thing had gotten to my brother. It was quiet, distant, trying to make sense of it. Or maybe he had seen something in there that he decided not to tell me about. Dad had brought us two sandwiches from the deli and a container of chicken soup for lunch. He sat with us for a while, eating and hanging out at the couch while my brother explained the story of the shed incident. Dad didn't seem too interested. Eventually he checked his watch, left, warning us to stay out of the shed and not to open the door for anyone. I could tell that both my brother and I were kind of nervous about turning on the TV. We had been off almost the entire morning. We had instead just sat around talking about what we had seen. But it was like he was thinking out loud. He repeated it. Okay, so let's say I saw something there last night. It opened the door to the shed. Then I checked this morning and everything was shut and locked. Then we check again and it's unlocked. I also joined in like a detective. Okay, so what if dad went in there in the morning and he doesn't remember? My brother nodded. Okay, what if someone else has a key, like the neighbors or something? My brother looked at me and stayed quiet, nodding his head a little bit less. Now, I don't know why in my mind I simply imagined someone coming out of the shed with our lost remote control, flicking the channel through the glass door, and then sneaking back in there, giggling. Creepy, yeah, but my brother found it impossible. The figure changers, I said. Shapeshifters, my brother corrected me. We didn't live far from the mountains. The legends we would hear about in school were dark, even for us. Simple rules like never whistle in the woods, never leave anything red on your porch, never look up at the trees if you're walking through the woods at night. All those things had much deeper stories attached to them that no one was really sure of, if they were true or not. The day went as usual, with something comforting about being there by ourselves until our parents came home. We had to go buy a few things at the store and we went together, coming back home, eating dinner, watching a movie before everyone started going to bed. I could tell my brother was really tired, and he said he was going to be right back so we would watch a movie later. So I stayed in the living room, flicking through the channels until I found something. But I was tired too, so I started dozing off in the middle of a commercial break. But it was then that out of the corner of my eye I watched a little red dot on the remote begin to fade in and out, very faintly, like it was coming to life. My heart started beating faster and I sat up. I watched as it got brighter and then the TV changed. Hey there everyone, the sound faded in and out. It was the same woman from the night before. I wanted to leave right then, but in order for me to get to the room, I would have to pass the glass doors. And before I knew it, I was frozen. I didn't know what to do. We have 81 minutes of stories coming right up for you today. Who's ready? The camera zoomed in on her face and her smile. Me, me, me, I heard. And the man's voice. This is Maggie's box of secrets, but... Shh, don't tell anyone. She reappeared on the same field by the tree, sitting on that same box with the question mark. I couldn't do anything. I wanted to yell out for my brother to change the channel to get up, but that fear I felt that night was unlike anything else I had ever experienced. And I was not ready for it. The woman on the screen started talking about things a child should never ever find out about. The reasons why we don't look up at the trees, or how things can move by themselves. These really strange explanations that kind of make sense. She went story after story, pretending to talk to a group of children crowded around her as the sound effects came in of that man with the child's voice acting out their lines. Have you ever seen something move by itself? She asked, and then stayed quiet. I started getting nervous, thinking that maybe she wanted me to answer. Of course you have, she said, her voice and expression changing again. That's why you don't trust what you see or what you hear. I was petrified. She went on to tell another story from the deep mountains, the story of a man who went out to look for his animals only to find them gutted and hanging from the branches of different trees. Now what would have caused that, she said, her face pouting. her hands on her hips and the camera slowly zooming in on her teeth. She started talking about shapeshifters again. She showed maps on the screen about where they were and even had a song about staying quiet in the woods. Everything that she sung by herself and then some backing tracks came in with that same voice of the man coming in and out. It sounded like when the cameraman talks in a home video. As she would speak, sometimes a timer would appear on the screen, a thing that kept dropping and was now at minute 11. Her stories continued with warnings about leaving, of old people wandering off into the woods, of hunters becoming terrified of the forest, strange images of houses in distant neighborhoods. Then she would suddenly break into song again. This one was about a line that said, Who has seen the dark man in the woods? The dark man in the woods. The dark man in the woods. There was also pictures of sightings of this entity that were shown across the screen before she would come on again and keep talking. Four minutes, the screen said. All right, everybody, since we're nearing the ends of tonight's program, let's review what we've learned, she said to the imaginary children around her. Then I heard the man's voice start to list them off. Don't trust what you see. Great, and what else? Don't trust what you hear. and we have many more secrets, she continued. Ooh, like this last one, she said, pulling out another piece of paper from her crate with a question mark. And it was then when I heard a knock on the glass door. I looked over and watched as my brother tapped on the glass with both of his palms. I snapped out of it, and I rushed over to the door, trying to slide it open. Freddy, he said, open it, I need your help. I tried to pull it open, but it was locked. Get the keys, he said. I rushed over to the counter, but I couldn't see them at their usual spot. I ran to the living room and moved around the pillow and the blankets I had there, but nothing. Freddy, he yelled, tapping desperately. Go around, I'll open the front door, I said. But he didn't even seem to understand me. Go around, I yelled. It was then when my dad came out of the hall and asked what was going on. He turned on the lights, blinding me on the spot. What in the world, he said. What are you doing? You sleepwalking? I felt like I didn't have time to explain. My brother was in trouble, so I asked him for the keys. That my brother needed help. My dad's face got serious right then. Where is he? I looked outside, but no one was there. And yet I could see the shed door closing very slowly. He yelled for mom and then for Matt, my brother. But it was then when we both saw him coming out of the hallway. Matt, what's wrong? He asked, walking over to him. He seemed confused and said that nothing was wrong. He looked over at me and said that he had fallen asleep in his room. Dad waited for us to explain what was going on. Mom had just gotten to the living room to catch the end of the commotion, but stayed quiet. It was then when she turned her gaze over to the television. Turn that thing off, she said in a stern voice. What is it? Dad asked. It's Maggie's box of secrets. That thing's still running, he asked, walking over to the television. They were on minute one. He ran to the remote control, just as the woman was saying, but shh, don't tell anyone. And bam, it cut out. Who showed you that channel? Dad asked my brother and I. Just popped up, my brother said. Yeah, the TV changed channels by itself, I started. But he interrupted and told us to go to our rooms. We will talk about it in the morning. It was late. We could hear mom and dad talk about the show that was on TV. Mom was way more disturbed by it than I thought she would be. My brother and I didn't talk about it much that night, but I did manage to tell him that I had seen him standing outside trying to get into the house. Him, his body, outside, by the glass window. Now it took him a little bit to believe me. but once he did, he stayed quiet. Had I just seen what the show had described? A shapeshifter? Or was it something else? Years later, I asked my parents about that show. All those times we asked as little kids, she wasn't very good at explaining what we had seen. But my brother kept pushing for answers until one day she just told us. Maggie's Box of Secrets was a TV show that ran for four episodes. It was taken down by a local network after getting complaints from everyone who got it in their television sets. They said it was creepy, unnecessary, and that their kids had thought it was a children's show. So they ended up with nightmares for weeks. There was another set of people out there that had argued that it was censorship. The show was doing us a service in telling us the truth of the stories that no one liked to tell around there. Like I said, we didn't live far from the mountains, and things like the lock or the TV remote being manipulated by themselves were only the tip of the iceberg when it came to this. We didn't realize this until we started talking about it as adults, but the things we would see out there were not normal. Doors knocking by themselves, the phone ringing at odd times of the night with no one on the other line. The whispers of our names. Saying what? And then, I didn't call you. Across the house were very common things for us. Yet nobody talked about them. The rule was just to ignore them. But anyway, a few of the supporters in town decided to hire the woman of that show. And they made their own version of it. But no one would air it. They ended up sending this signal through the outlets. I'm not quite sure how it worked or how mom explained it. But it would sometimes change the channels or affect some of the other things around the house, like phones, the radio. But the main job of the broadcast was to inform. Or so they said. But it was able to air again, against the rules and on their own terms. But we didn't look for the broadcast. It never found us again. And you know, I used to think that the show itself was a scary thing. But now I don't think so. Because maybe it was trying to warn us. You know, eventually we changed the TV to a flat screen and the signal went from analog to digital. The show was lost forever. Or who knows? Maybe it's still out there. Still airing to empty screens and empty houses. Hoping to catch someone in the middle of the night. And tell them the truth. Scary Story Podcast is written and produced by me, Edwin Covarrubias. If you want to listen ad-free, check out Scary Plus. You can find it on scaryplus.com. It actually really helps the show and the other ones that we make through Scary FM. Anyway, please let me know your comments, questions, and everything. You know where to find me. My info is in the description of this episode. Thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary, everyone. See you soon.