Photographs

Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. Our story today deals with old memories of a house along every wall, from the experience of an adult storyteller who retell stories of her childhood. My name is Edwin, and here is a scary story. There was a spider that lived in the hand towel in the bathroom. I saw it when I woke up in the middle of the night in that cold and misty December out by the old house. That's what I call it now, as if somehow it was still a part of me. The only thing that remained pitch black after I turned on the light were those legs of the spider, with tiny dark thorns all along them, more at where they bent like straws, gripping onto the loops of the thread of that old towel. The bad part was that it was right next to the toilet, and I had no choice but to sit right next to it, trying not to wake it up. I stepped as far as I could before I flushed, and when I did, I think I barely dipped my hands in the stream of water before going to the light switch and running back to my room. I knew Mom was not going to do much about the spider. She was terrified of them, and Dad well, from a certain time forward, he was only able to listen to me when I told him of the million things I was afraid of in that house. Still, the next morning, once the light was out, I went back out to the bathroom and saw it still there, but perched at the top. It's I don't know how many eyes looking right at me. Mom had a bathroom in her room, and when I walked in there to use it, she looked at me and then turned away, not unusual for Mom. Once I left the bathroom, I told her as calmly as I could, because Mom always seemed angry and upset at me for everything, although when I was scared it was worse. There's a spider that lives in the hand towel in the bathroom. Mom. I heard her grunt, but when she noticed that I was still in her room and was not leaving just yet, she said, still facing away, go tell your dad about it. And I knew she was going to say that. There was a strange silence at all times of that house, and I got used to it. I think that's why, as an adult now, I'm so drawn to quiet and lonely places. Despite how bad it makes me feel, it was large, and when I tell people about where I come from now living in such a big city, they tell me that it must have been amazing growing up in such a beautiful place. And yes, to many the old house would be appealing. It had two floors, an attic and a basement. But after a time part of the house was closed off and we would no longer go up to the second floor. The yard would be overgrown for most of the year until springtime, when a gardener and his wife from a nearby town would come by to take the overgrown grass for their animals and clean up the entrance to the place. We had a large field, with the closest neighbor being somewhere not far from the dimly lit windows, just over the hill. We used to be able to see it from the second floor sometimes, where my room used to be. I remember us having dozens of photographs all over the house. Dad used to be a photographer, and he would surround us with pictures of landscapes, things he would see on a daily basis, and those we interacted with. There was an image of a spider web that he took one foggy morning, almost like the misty one in that December that outlined the spider web against the first light of the day at sunrise. It reminded me of the spider that lived in the hand towel. Mom had told me when I was even younger that spiders lived in spider webs, but Dad would know better than that. I remember walking up to him back when we would talk more and he explained where they live, and somehow are conversations would always end up with him telling me all about those photographs. There is a lot of magic in things he would tell me, and so I learned about the colored photo of the telephone that was actually dark green but came out orange in the print. It was one of his favorite stories to tell, what's a green phone looking orange in the photo? I guess we got what it's really supposed to be. And he would explain the entire process of how he took it the perfect amount of light entering the living room from the window on the second floor. I started seeing the magic in things through those photographs. There was one of the butcher he would buy meat from every Saturday morning. He was holding up a large piece of a dead animal with a hook, his stained white coat barely holding in his belly was almost as bright as his teeth as he smiled for that photograph. Mom used to like them. I think it was hard to know anything with Mom. She was always there. But not really does that make sense. Dad was the one that would bring along the life to the place, and I knew almost all of the stories, and I could tell them back to anyone who asked, even as a child. Along the entrance of the house were his early works, landscapes of when he camped at Mount Himbal, the fourth fish he ever caught, because he left his camera and the car while he was catching the first three. The time he got the car painted the first pizza he baked with Mom. But there was one photograph I never quite understood. It was at the end of the hallway, right as you get up to the second floor, by the table at the end before you get to the room that used to be mine. I can tell you about the photograph when the time is right, he would say. And I would ask him almost every day. I'd ask him to tell me, and as if it were some game or a riddle for me to figure out, he would say the same thing. I can tell you about it when the time is right. Then Dad started growing quiet. At first, Mom said he was sick, and soon I would end up doing all of the talking about my days at school, the fight in the school bus, and almost always I would remind him of the stories in those photographs while asking about the one on the second floor. I knew I would get no answers. Come to think of it, it was around that time that Mom also started changing, seeming more annoyed by everything. I was a very curious child. I know I still believed in the magic in things because I started drawing them out, giving them names, remembering their stories. And yet Mom was never interested in them the same way that Dad was. So I would take my drawings to my dad's study and show him what I did. I would sit there for hours, sometimes undisturbed by anything in that house that was far too empty for all of us. This one, this is my new toothbrush. Do you see the color of their? Dad? There's a missing letter. I think it got blurred out by my finger, and he would just look at me smiling. After school, I'd go up to Mom after dinner and she would dismiss those same stories and would instead tell me to go show my dad and tell him all about it. And it became a habit to walk over to the study and talk to him every day until we moved out, and still every once in a while I would ask him about the photograph and the second floor, the one of the little girl standing at the end of the hallway with her large eyes and neutral expression, the lamp being held perfectly in front of her chest. Even at the time, I was just speaking for memory, because I hadn't been up to the second floor and so long after one of the rooms downstairs had become mine. But as expected, he would just look at me, smiling, not a single word uttered. But I was so wrapped up in finding out the story of that specific photograph, I mean, I knew all of the other ones already. Who was she? Where does she come from? Like always, curiosity got the best of me. So one night I managed to push the table away from the entrance of the stairwell that led to the second floor. The place was so silent it felt as though even the lights would make too much noise, so I took a flashlight up the stairs with me, and soon all the stories along the wall started to come alive because it made my way into the darkness. Part two of photograph is coming up right after this. Stay with me. With every step, I would move the flashlight from my feet up to the wall. Photographs. The broken key of a piano, the one that Dad said that was Middle Sea that broke. It took me a while to figure out what he meant by that. Another step, and I remember those rose bushes that used to grow by the side of the house completely naturally. There was a white one that grew among all of the red ones, and he got a photo of it. The broken lock by the gate, the mailman from the time he delivered my birthday present, a music box from Japan on the kitchen counter, a photo of Mom and Dad in front of the house upstairs, were even more, but all I wanted was to see that photograph at the end of the hallway. Very vaguely, I remember hearing Mom and Dad argue about the projects he would choose, and I remember the way he set up the camera all of those times. He would spend hours looking at it, hearing the flash every once in a while, and then I would hear Mom's frustration as he yelled at him to come down for dinner, saying that it would get cold and that she would not be waiting for him any longer. Dad would come by, smiling as always, saying how he was so close to quote capturing it. Mom would roll her eyes and change the subject. Most of the time I didn't dare to ask Dad about what he was working on, not in front of Mom. But that evening, when I was walking up the steps, I walked to the end of the hallway and looked at the photograph of the little girl standing with the lamp in front of her chest, and like a detective trying to figure out a case, I stared at it. I tried to take mental pictures of the white dress she was wearing, the dark hair, and her white eyes, the color of the lamp a faded purple, with the lampshade shielding the light from the part of her face. There was something in her stare that bothered me even back then, but it somehow made sense that Dad never wanted to talk to me about it. The time not come. While I was up there, I tried to reach for the doorknob of my old bedroom, just to peek inside, but I was stopped by the rattling of it just before I touched it. I figured if someone was inside, it would be Mom, But I felt that chill running down my back when I heard the voice inside, I picked up my step and rushed back toward the stairs, everything completely dark behind me now. I adjusted the table at the entrance of the stairwell and ran to my room. Once inside, I sat on the bed wondering about what I had seen for a few minutes. How I'd be able to tell my parents what I had seen in a place that I was no longer allowed to visit. I waited even more before I decided I would keep it to myself and simply go back to visit during the day. Instead, I got a piece of paper from the drawer under my desk and started drawing what I had toad scene, the photograph, the hair, the eyes, the dress. When it came time to draw the lamp, I came to a strange realization. The light had been on and lighting the upper part of her face. There was no visible cable, at least not one that I could remember. Otherwise I would have remembered the color, the length of it. I don't know something about the thing so that I would be able to dry it, so that always taught me to look out for these things. It is why I caught the patterns on the wallpaper, and the black shoes, even the wooden frame of the photograph itself. Intrigued by the whole thing, and without thinking, I made my way back upstairs much faster this time, and got to the end of the hallway, completely ignoring how I had just heard sounds coming from my old room. I shined the light directly on the picture, and I was able to see much more of it this time. Yes, there was no cable in the image, but also there was a table in the image as well. It was in front of her and behind her at the same time, a type of overlaying image of this little girl. It took just a few more seconds for me to realize that the girl was faded almost see through, and the lamp was actually resting on the small table behind her. But here's the thing. Instead of being scared of the thing this time, I thought of how amazing it had been for my dad to be able to capture or make such a photograph. Looking back now, I'm able to see just how detailed this man was with his craft, and how much he cared for capturing lights and colors. Even if LETTER knowed my mom, she hated that second floor for as long as I could remember. Every once in a while like it flashes of memories of the strange sounds and sides of the place, us running downstairs and spending the night for a thing they called a sleepover in the living room as a very young kid. The sounds coming from the door, the steps, the laughter from the hallway, things I wanted to forget and had managed to for the most part, for most of my life. But like all of those memories rushing back in, I remembered how Dad was not really Dad. It was that night when I ran downstairs to tell him about the little girl with the lamp. When I went into his study quietly, as Mom had always instructed me to do so, I walked over to his desk and sat on his chair. I looked at his smiling face on the photographs by his dusty books and showed him my drawings, not having to ask him again, but rather proudly tell him that I had figured out his photograph. Scary Story podcast is written and produced by me Edwin Komarubis. Since the early days of the show, the stories and styles have changed, and there are a few of you who have stuck around for a while and others that are new to the community. I'm not sure if I can announce it yet, but I'll tell you anyway. We are launching a collection of our early stories in a book called Scary Book Fifteen Tales to Terrify, and it will be available for purchase on Halloween. If you're interested in getting it, send me a message on Instagram or email so I can send you the link to it as soon as it's available. I'll leave my info in the description of this episode. Just say something like let me know when the book comes out or something like that, and I'll personally remind you. Another way to support that it's highly underrated is leaving a five star review. If you've listened for a while but havn't dropped some stars for me. Now would be the perfect time. It helps out a ton. Our Halloween story this year is called The Schools and it will be dropping in time before our Halloween weekend. So if you guys want, we can have a live Q and a on YouTube or something like that. Let me know, be a Spotify or anywhere if that's something you'd like to be a part of, and we'll make it happen anyway. Thank you very much for listening, See you soon.