Tales from the Mexican Desert

Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. I'll tell you some camp fire stories. Oh some say they are just rumors, although if they remind you of something that actually happened with you or your family, does that make them real. My name is Edwin, and here's a scary story. Have you ever been to rural Mexico? The real Mexico? Not the cities, not the beaches with the hotels and the board walks, But I mean way out where the roads turned to dirt and the stars coming clearer than you've seen em. That's where this happened. My dad's hometown, some little village tucked away into a dusty valley and Sonora, where the wind smells like rust and the dogs don't belong to anyone. We flew down right after sunset. The sky looked heavier there, I get sagged closer to the earth. I remember stepping out of the plain and thinking something's a little bit different here. The air was thicker, definitely a lot warmer, and dustier, smelled like stone and old things. It felt a little weird. We were like walking into a memory, a memory of my family, and into a real place. It was my first time there. The houses were built from rough cement or so I noticed when we were driving in ten roofs were all dented in. Wires were looping from post to posts like someone strung up laundry lines just to catch the heat. There were many lights, and the one street lamp near the house buzzed like God some secret to tell, but didn't know how to say it. My little brother Matheo sat beside me in the back of my uncle's van, half asleep, with his head against my shoulder. He looked out the window and whispered, is it always this dark here? I said, maybe it's just night, even I didn't believe that. He grabbed my sleeve like he used to when we were younger, didn't say anything after that. The house was old, two bedrooms, a kitchen that smelled like years of cooking, a sagging couch in the living room, and the air was so still that I felt like time had stopped. The hallway to the bedrooms was narrow and a little bit crooked, just white enough for one person at a time. There was only one light in there, this little yellow bulb that flickered like it was thinking about quitting. The walls were cold to the touch and stained with a kind of a yellow color. I ran my fingers a long one, and I thought, this house remembers things. It was one of my movie moments. There was a bathroom inside, yeah, but the water barely worked. The real bathroom was outside, and it was through the yard, behind some rusty, dry bushes, and this little concrete shack with a rusted out door had a crack sink in a plastic bucket for flushing. I'm not sure anyone was supposed to use it. You had to carry yourn water out there, and at night that wasn't gonna happen. The path turned black, and I mean black like coal, But that when I didn't have to say it. We just looked at each other that first night and made a pat Nobody goes out there alone ever, and yeah we were too old for that, but in that house you cling to what's familiar and what's safe. Now, the first time it happened, I thought it was a dream. It was late, like really late, and the kind of night where the bugs go quiet, and that must have been half asleep drifting when I heard it, a whisper socked and right in my ear. Glad Ah, I sat straight up, my heart and my throat. I felt like someone had leaned in so close that their breath was brushing against my skin. But there it was, asleep beside me, wrapped in his blanket like a burrito. I looked around the room. The fan in the corner was ticking gently, swinging back and forth, like didn't want to be there either. Nothing else moved, and the air didn't move that much even with a fan. I crept out to the hallway and I checked the living room. Everyone's doors were shut tight, no footsteps, no creaking floorboards, just that weird, thick silence. Must have been a dream, I told myself, but it didn't feel like one. The next night, I woke up needing to pee, and a Nudgementdale come with me, I whispered outside. We didn't even argue. We grabbed the old flashlight from the drawer and shuffled barefoot across the towel floor. The flashlight flickered the whole way like it was scared too. The wind was up, the trees were whispering, and somewhere off in the distance, a rooster crowed like it didn't know what time it was. We were halfway across the yard when I heard it. Again, glad uh. This time it was right behind me. It was close enough that I felt the breath of it. I stopped cold and spun around. There was nobody, just the yard and the shadows and that pitch black nothing beyond the trees. But theyll looked at me what. I stared a second longer and then lied nothing. We got to the bathroom, did our business quick, and I didn't let go of his sleeve the entire way back next morning, but Theyll barely touched his food. They just sat at the table for it was hovering over his eggs. His eyes were fixed to the window, like he was waiting for something. And finally he says, you called me last night. I blinked, No, I didn't. I heard you from outside. You said my name. I was asleep. He looked up at me, pale and confused. It sounded just like you. And that's when the cold sank into me for real this time. Later that day, we were scattering corn with their cousin, just something to keep the chickens from attacking each other, and I asked him, trying to play it cool, you ever hear someone call your name when there's nobody there? He stopped and didn't even look at me, and said why, no reason, I told him. He kept his eyes on the ground and said, if you hear your name at night and no one's there, it's probably Lavos the voice. I said, what's that? We said, it's not a person. It's not even a ghost. It's just a voice. It copies people you love. It calls to you, but it's not them. That's just a story, right, he shrugged. Maybe, But don't answer it. That's the rule. If you answer, it gets closer. That night, I didn't even pretend to sleep. I just lay there staring at the ceiling, counting each tick of the fan, every creak of the wall. And then it came clad and this time it came from the window. I didn't move, didn't even blink. Glad. It was soft, kind of sweet, actually, like someone trying to lure a kitten or something. Mathel stirred beside me. Did you say something? I reached over and grabbed his arm under the blanket. No, I whispered, go back to sleep. We didn't move until the sun came up. The last night, that's when it really happened. I woke up and knew something was wrong. Mattheo's bed was empty, the flashlight was gone. I ran to the window and he was outside, standing near the outhouse. It was still like a statue. I didn't think. I just grabbed the jacket and bolted out barefoot. The dirt was cold under my feet and the air was still not even leaves were rustling. This time, Matteo, I whispered, what are you doing? He didn't move, didn't even turn around. I got closer. My heart beat was like a drum in my ears. And then he said, you called me. No I didn't. You said you needed help. No, Mateo, I said louder this time I didn't. And then I heard it his voice, but it wasn't coming from him. I came from behind me, clad ah. He was low, familiar, just a little bit wrong. I didn't turn around. I grabbed Matheo's arm. He blinked at me like he was waking up from a bad dream. And Glada, the voice said again. It was closer, smiling somehow I didn't see a word. I didn't let go. We walked fast, not running. Just something in me said not to run. We got to the house, slammed the door, locked it and didn't speak. I don't remember falling asleep, just the silence, and Motheo was holding my hand like he used to when you were kids and thought that monsters were real. We left the next morning. No one asked why my parents didn't push it. Maybe they knew, maybe they didn't want to. Matho and I never talked about it again. But some nights late, when everything's quiet and the wind's just barely moving, I still hear it, a whisper glada, and I don't answer. I don't look because I remember that, and I know, I know it wasn't my brother who said my name. They say there's a little girl who walks the coastline down in wy Mass. You hear about her from time to time, always after dark, always near the rocks where the tide crashes the hardest. At first, people said it was just drunks seeing things, you know how it is a few too many beers, a long walk home, and suddenly the shadows start to play tricks. Guys would stumble out by the port, swearing up and down. They saw a girl standing knee deep in the surf, thin and drenched from head to toe, like she had walked straight out of the sea. She didn't say a word, didn't even move, just stood there watching. No one believed them, not really, It was just bar talk something in about the next day over coffee. But then more people started seeing her. It wasn't just the drugs now. Like a gas station attendant, a security guard, a tourist couple from Metemosio said that they saw a little girl standing in the middle of the road. It was around two in the morning. By the time it turned around, she was gone. They said. There was seaweed stuck to the asphalt to where she had been standing, just making it a little more creepy. And then one of the university students, someone from the local campus, a smart, curious type, decided to dig into the story. Her name was Ludivis, and she was doing a project on sonoda and folklore, collecting stories from older folks around town. She figured the girl on the beach was just another ghost tale, something passed down to scare kids away from swimming after dark. But lord of this was different. She didn't just ask around. She started spending time down there on the beach late at night, the same spots where most of the stories came from, down by the naval station near those jagged black rocks where the waves slam and like they're angry. That whole part of the coastline feels a little off, even in the daytime, cold wind, no birds, and that night it's dead quiet except for the sea anyway lower. They starts documenting everything, talking to venders, to older fishermen, anyone who might know something. The story starts to take shape right there, you see, They see that there was a girl back in the nineteen seventies. Her name was Yes Delgado, eight years old. Her parents sold food near the marina. One night when they were packing up after a festival where music was still playing, people were still dancing. Yes, kind of wandered off toward the water. They looked away for maybe a minute, and that's all it took. She was gone, just disappeared, No scream or splash, nothing. They searched for weeks. They brought in divers, even a few navy guys helped, but they never found a trace, not a shoe, no ribbons, just her parents standing at the edge of the surf, calling her name over and over. The official report said that she drowned, swept out by the tide, and that was that. But something didn't sit right. The tides weren't strong that night, and he nees knew of that beach. She grew up on it, played on those rocks every weekend. Then after that the sighting started, at first a few a year, and then more, always around the same time, between one and three in the morning, always in the same area. Lord of this figured that there had to be some kind of explanation, a trick of the moonlight, maybe local hysteria. So she kept going down there night after night, always with her notebook, sometimes at the voice recorder, and sometimes with one of her class mates, but more and more often she went alone. She told her roommate once, she said, I think she's real. I don't think she's a ghost. I think she's something else. Her last entry in the notebooks said she isn't lost, she's waiting. That was a night lure that disappeared. No one knows what happened. Her roommate said, she just never came home. Her phone was found near the rocks. The battery was dead, the screen was cracked, and her notebook was inside her backpack, soaked from the tide, but still legible. They searched the beach Coastguard got involved. People thought maybe she fell hit her head, got dragged out by the water, but she was careful. Everyone said that she knew that beach like the back of her hand. She always wore a head lamp, carried pepper spray, told people where she was going. She just never came back. After that, the sightings got worse, more frequent, more vivid. A taxi driver said that he picked up a little girl near the port and thought that she was just lost. Told her to sit in the bag while he called someone, but when he turned around, the seat was empty. It was wet but empty. One of the workers swore he saw her standing on the dock at sunrise, just before he shift ended. He said she was staring out into the water, motionless, and when he blinked, she was gone. But her footprints were there. They were tiny, bear and wet, and they led right off the edge of the dock. Now people leave things for her, little offerings, Stuffed kids might like a seashell, a piece of candy, a doll wrapped in a plastic bag. They'll see them, talked, and the cracks between the rocks. If you go down there. No one says it out loud, but everyone knows why they do it. It's not to honor her. It's to keep her away, because, as I say, if you go down there at night alone and you hear little footsteps behind you, slow and slapping on the wet sand, you don't turn around, not unless you want her to follow you home. And if you see her face, well that's it. She never leaves, no matter how far you run, no matter how loud you scream, she just keeps walking. So if you ever find yourself walking near the water after dark and the wind dies down all at once and it gets so quiet that you can hear the ocean breathing just under your feet, walk faster. This happened when I was about nineteen or twenty, out on my dad's old ranch and Sonora, and we're talking way out in the desert. It was just me out there at first, looking after things after my dad passed. But then my thea, my aunt, dropped off her kids for a few weeks while she went to at Mosigo to do seasonal work. There were three of them, Alex who was about eleven, Camille was of eight, and the youngest Martin, barely five. Still afraid of the dark now daytime out there was fine. It was hot, sure, but manageable. You wake up with the sun, fix a few things eat which you brought for your stay, and maybe lie out on the roof at night to catch a breeze. And that's all there is. But at night it's quiet. It's really quiet. It wasn't RESTful or peaceful, just the kind of quiet where you can hear your heart beat. You start to wonder if the wind's saying your name, or if that creaking noise is just a tin roof or something else. Anyway, it all started around the second week the kids were there. The first weird thing where the dogs Canello and Brujo, they stopped barking. Now, if you ever lived near dogs, especially ranch dogs, you know that's not normal. These two barked at everything, vultures, snakes, each other, and their own shadows. But one night they just stopped it. Would sit on the porch, ears pinned back, eyes locked on the mesquita trees that were bordering this north side of the property. They weren't blinking or moving, just watching. I called to them, nothing, I threw a chunk of meat, nothing. They just sat there, untouched. The next night, same thing, third night, they wouldn't even go near the edge of the yard. They would whiney be trying to push them out there. It sounds funny now, but Ruho peat himself when I grabbed his collar, and that's when I started to get that old feeling, you know, the one like when you're walking alone at night and you feel someone right behind you, even when you know there's nobody there. I didn't say anything to the kids, obviously, I didn't want to spook them than Alex the oldest comes to my room one night. It's late, maybe close at two am. The moon's out. He knocks one's Then he opens a door real slow, and he's pale as a ghost. There's someone outside, he says, I sit up. What do you mean one of the ghats get loose? He shakes his head. No, a woman. She was standing by the trees. She had something in her hand. I think, I think it was a doll. It was made of sticks. Now I figure he had a nightmare, maybe one of those stories my thea used to scare them into behaving. But his voice, well his voice was different. It was flat, no drama. He was just scared. So I get up. I grab a flashlight, and my dad's old rifle. Didn't even check if I had bullets, I'll be honest, and I just went outside. There's nothing, just the trees rustling in the wind. I told Alex it was probably a dream, and I sent him back to bed, but I didn't sleep that night. I sat on the porch, eyes fixed on the tree line, and then, just past the dead mesquite, you know, the kind all twisted up like a burnt hand, I saw something move. It wasn't like stumbling or walking. It was more like gliding. A white shape, slow, smooth, like fog or fabric in water. It weaved in between the trees without making a sound. I didn't chase it. I just sat there. Stomach was all twisted up, my rifle grips so tight that my knuckles ached. Next morning, I go outside to feed the goats, and I noticed something on the kitchen window. Handprints, small ones like a child, but too high up, higher than even Alex could reach. And they weren't made with mud or dust. They were black ash maybe, and they smelt not like burnt wood, but something sour, like old blood. And that same day, the goats refused to leave their pen. They just huddled together eyes on the trees. Their eyes were all wrong, wide and glassy, like they were watching something only they could see. That night, I didn't wait. I lit a fire, brought out the rifle, and just sat on the porch. Every nerve in my body was strung tight like a wire. And then the ground gave out near the old windmill. It just sank in, slow and soft, like something inside was pulling the dirt down. It went over the next morning and saw this shallow pit, maybe four feet across, and at the bottom a single bone, a long yellow bone human I think, tied with a faded red ribbon and a strip of a cracked type of leather. I called on Ernesto. He was our neighbor, kind of. He lived about twenty minutes south seventy. Something looked like a dried apple, but he was still sharp. He showed up, took one look, and went quiet. He said, you ever hear about a woman named Marie Angella. I shook my head. She lived up that way, he said, nodding toward the trees. Long long time ago. Folks said she talked to animals. She wore a necklace made of chicken feet. Some said she could make a man sick just by looking at him. He paused. He called her a witch Abruga. In one year a baby went missing, then two more, and then a woman vanished, pregnant with twins. People got scared. They dragged her from her hut. They tied her up, They hanged her from the biggest mesquita tree. The ground wouldn't take her. Every time they tried to bury her, the dirt spit her out. I waited for him to continue, so they took her up past the trees, the last row of them, up where the wind never stops and even the coyotes don't go. They buried her there in a pit lying with stones, and she swore. Errinisto said that if anyone disturbed her grave, she would come back and take something in return. I fill that hole in before sunsets a pile of rocks on top. Poured salt around the windmill too, just in case. And after that things settled. The dogs barked again, the goats stopped staring. No more shadows in the trees. But I never rebuilt the windmill, and I still haven't. Every once in a while, not always, but when the moon is real low and the wind shifts just right. I swear I hear something out there. Just the soft voys and the dogs. They still go quiet when it starts. They remember her. Scary Story podcast is written and produced by me Edwin Karroubias. This was a slightly different style of storytelling, more of the creepy pasta meets campfire story. So just let me know what you thought of it. Oh and like I mentioned in the beginning, if this reminds you of a true story, please send it to me so I can share it in my new podcast, Paranormal Club. But there's going to be a lot more stuff in there, like investigations, real mysteries, and of course a lot of listener stories. Anyway, thank you so much for your support with reviews and comments, and thank you very much for listening. Keep it Scary everyone, See you soon.