The Door

Welcome to Scary Story podcast, where I tell short, original stories made to unsettle you. My name is Edwin, and here it's a scary story. It was almost five in the morning when I first saw the headlights through the glass above my front door. My brother had finally pulled up to the driveway, and I jumped out of the third step on the stairs, where I had been waiting all night. It was too cold to be outside or else, Trust me, I would have waited there, but I had no time to even grab a jacket, and the dark hallway just above the stairs felt like it was calling my name. I stood there by the door waiting for him, and when I finally heard the keys, I heard him gasp at the door opening by itself. But it was me. I tried a whisper to him that it was me, but instead I burst out. November was a tough time for both of us. Memories of the holidays were not something we looked forward to, and our Thanksgiving would consist of pre cooked plates that my brother would get for us at his job. Most of the time. He chose to exchange the full turkey for coupons or cash, since we did not want to risk burning it in the oven. Still, we made it work, and I think back on those times with a smile on my face. Yeah, even when I remember the dark ones. He sat down next to me, his shoulder towering over my crouched body as I told him what I had seen. Despite him being tired and it being chilling outside, he sat there in silence, waiting for me to get it together, and once I did, I explained what happened. My brother would go to work a little after nine at night, leaving me in the empty house that my mom and dad had left for us to take care of. Despite the many tears and cries over not wanting to leave the apartment we all had, my brother wouldn't be able to make ends meet, and I was too young to work, so we moved into the house we had left many years ago. I was in my room, the one that had at one point been my brother's bedroom when we had been younger. Boxes lined the wall opposite to the window and the door. The one that had access to a small storage area was next to my bed. Nobody used it. I had never opened it because of how creepy it was, But in some vague memories, like flashbacks, I would get at random times, like when a certain smell hit me or the sound of a cat outside the window started. It would bring back conversations with my brother about the door. This one night, I had been going through one of the books that I needed to do for school. It was like an extra credit booklet with parts where you'd read a paragraph about something and then answer four or five questions. Immediately after, I had been lost thinking about that last story, the one about the pirates trying to exchange your stolen gold for something useful. When I heard it, I light tapping like a key against the door when you can't find the keyhole in the dark. My shoulders went up to my ears, and my brain held my head back from turning towards the sound. I was alone in the house, and even though my brother and I would blame things on the rats and the cats that would crawl through the cables that came from the light posts on the corner, as far as I could remember, nobody had heard the sounds coming from inside of the house. I twisted my neck slowly toward the door, making up my mind to run away if the tapping came back, and I sat there on the bed the old light bulb glaring right above me. For about five minutes, there was no movement, and I was trying not to breathe, until the sound of my heart beat took over my ear drums and I could hold it no longer. But then I relaxed my shoulders, I took a deep breath and reached to grab the pencil in front of me, when once again I heard it without a doubt, the sound was coming from inside the door. I could make out the sounds of a doorknob, softly, like when I would sneak out into the kitchen for another slice of pie in the middle of the night, with my brother pressing against a door knob to keep it from rattling. I stretched my left leg out toward the edge of the bed, ready to take off toward the hallway. When I froze, the door opened. I finally gathered enough courage to look toward it, but it released with such a quick motion that I even surprised myself. I could see the gap that it had opened just enough to fit an arm through, but on the inside was complete darkness. But as I sat there, my heart about to jump out of my chest, I felt a cold rush of blood leave my face as I watched it shut quickly, muffling a soft, eerie gasp on the other side. I leaped out of the bed and I went straight toward the hallway and just sat there, shaking in fear for four and a half hours until my brother finished his shift at the warehouse. I had no time to turn on any light. I had no jacket, no shoes, and nowhere to go. I watched my brother's eyes come back to me once I finished telling him what I had experienced, and he stood up and said that he would go grab a couple of things and that we would go wait for the sun to come up at Henry's, an old diner down the street. Not wanting to be alone, I stood up to go with him, but then I felt that weakness in my knees, the kind that tells you that you're better off or you are. My brother caught on and walked up the stairs, his white T shirt barely visible as he disappeared into the dark hallway. He flicked on the light once he got there, and I could hear his footsteps as he went into my room and picked up my shoes. When he yelled out to me, if I wanted my homework. I nearly jumped, but I said that I didn't need it. I could hear him going toward his room, and he grabbed his backpack too. Then he flicked off the light to the hallway. He was on his way back then, but then my eye started playing tricks on me. The large silhouette, or at least the figure with the white shirt, that I was expecting would show up, didn't. I could hear light steps creaking against the wooden floor, I mean closer and closer to the top of the stairs. My brother wasn't there. Something else was. It was a tiny person, like a toddler, but moving like an old man limping on a cane. Well I could see was its smile, reflecting off the dim light that was coming through the glass window above the front door. Abruptly, it turned around and wobbled away. I was frozen by this time. I was leaning against the front door, praying silently that my brother would hurry and show up through the hallway. At the top of the stairs, I heard him call my name, but not to me. It was then when he screamed and he ran toward the staircase, A bag on his left hand balancing against the steps of the staircase as he made his way down. I opened the front door just as I saw him come closer. All he said was let's go. I quickly put on my shoes and jacket when we were at the front porch, waiting for my brother to say something anything to me, but instead he waited until we were in the car and about a block away before he asked me what I had seen. I told him with all the details about the little man with the cane, my mind racing as I visualized a scene all over again. We had arrived and sat down at Henry's by this time the waitress that we both knew offering us the usual table. I'm sorry you had to see it, he said, looking straight at me. I never wanted to see it again either, and we both sat there listening to the soda we were sharing popping in front of us, the five or so different conversations around us, proving that the world keeps going, taking with them only the things they care about. For my other show, True Scary Story, I've been searching for stories of truck drivers and their strange experiences. So if you know of somebody, either in English or in Spanish. Who wants to tell their story, whether it's a truck driver story or not, reach out. In the meantime, here's a tale to kick off the topic. The end of the road. It always starts the same way. A driver sees a person walking alongside a dark road, they pull over and offer a ride. Nobody should be walking alone that late, and so they picked them up and take them somewhere. But when they reach their destination, the passenger is gone, or they arrive at a place where there is nothing yet the passenger acts like they know where they're going. Well, not far from one of the truck stops in the northern part of Arizona. I was stuck this time. I wasn't driving the semi, but driving back home after almost a four day trip on my truck. I was tired. I will admit, if you're not a highway patrol you won't care anyway. But I skip the truck stop in exchange of getting home half an hour earlier. Unfortunately, these places, says, have something that I desperately needed and forgot to check for in my tank gas, and so I pick up trucks buttered to a stop along the turns by the hills to the east, and I had just enough speed to reach a wider area to stop, like a little nook on the side of the road between some dry trees and rocks. It was a nice spot, probably a viewpoint of some sort, and it would work if there was something to see beyond these dark paths carved by the bushes and rocks. But I was too tired to be angry. I just stepped out of the truck and walked to the road. And yes, I could see it in the distance, the lights of the truck stop and the yellow star of the fast food restaurant right before the bend. I could walk there, no problem. So I walked back to the truck and got into the passenger seat, and then reached behind me for the empty red container for gas. I try to open the ash tray, which I had been using for keeping folded up bills and coins, but it was stuck. I stared at it for a while, and I could feel my mind swirling with the exhaustion that hits you after filling out your log book at the end of the night. I closed the door behind me, not even checking if the doors were locked, before crossing the road and walking down to the truck stock. It would have taken me about forty minutes to get there if it weren't for an old big ring pulling up next to me. For those of you who may be familiar with trucks, it was in the old style, a freight liner from the seventies or eighties, with the flat front, things that were likely not even allowed to be on the roads anymore, well at least not commercially. I noticed that it had no trailer and it was just a tractor, and I could see the top of the head of the driver. I wasn't looking for a ride, but I appreciated the gesture. It would be no more than a few minutes on the truck With that simple justification. Weird for me to decide so quickly. I climbed up to greet the driver on the window, just a few minutes ahead to the truck stop, I said. He looked confused and then asked where it was. His voice was raspy and distant. Every truck driver knows of that stop. Plus the lights could be seen from down the road, not easy to miss. He signaled me to hop on, and I did. The man still had the radio, old keychains and a real photograph of a family stuck to the dashboard. The smell of cigarettes probably buried layers deep into the carpet all around the interior. The man looked about my age, maybe a few years younger. He smiled and turned up the volume of the radio. It was static noise for the most part, with the occasional radio announcer hopping in for a word or two before fading into the sea of distorted frequencies. I looked over to him, waiting for him to laugh as he pretended that he was listening to something, when clearly he wasn't. He simply stared at the road, his right hand on the shifter. The overhead light he had in the cabin right above his left ear danced with the bombs on the road flickering, and with every dark gap of time, I could see his face dry, gone of every drop of fluid and fat that made up his face on the inside. I turned away from him, looking instead toward the road, expecting to see the truck stop just ahead of us, and all I could see was the dark road, dry bushes on the side of it. I leaned forward to look at the side mirrors, expecting to to see the truck stop once again behind us, but it wasn't there. How long had I been there? I carefully try to make small talk with a guy. So where you headed? And I waited for a response. No where by man, I already reached the end of the road. He looked straight ahead as he told me. The light flickering and about to go completely off. You know, I can just take it from here. I really want to walk the rest of the way. The weather's nice, he smiled. There's an unofficial truck stop just ahead. I'll stop there maybe a minute more. But ahead there was nothing, dark silhouettes of hills and dead trees. No other cars had passed along this old rig. Come to think of it, no one had passed in front of us either. The drug stop should have been right there. I recognized the dip in the dirt. They used to stop there and stare out into the hills before going to sleep. He put the truck into first gear and the engine rumbled as he hit the brakes. Up ahead was a clearing, a large lot. There was a tiny shop in the back corner of it with the lights on. I'll see you at the end, he said, and the light went completely off. Thank you, I said, and I climbed out. I didn't know what to think of what had just happened or where I would get my gas. But the ride was no more than ten minutes, and if we had indeed passed a truck stop, it would be just a short walk back along that same road, the road I didn't, and nobody ever leaves until they have to. I hurried through the lot. The dead silence made my boots against a gravel sound like hammers. That night, I walked up to the shop and pushed the door open. There was a man by the front counter and two other tables with two people on each. One. One was an older looking couple, the hanging lamp shining on the top of their heads as they looked at each other over dirty plates. The other had two men sitting in front of two empty cans of beer, one tipped over and about to roll off the table. The lamp swirled like water over a slow drain above their heads. Nobody seemed to notice me. The shop had a long chair for people to wait to be seated or to hang out by the door, and I took a seat, Trying to think of something else to do. I grabbed my cellphone from out of my pocket and stared at the icon at the top as it scanned for signal. But the bars of the icon, with every flicker, got a little bit larger and filled the screen. I looked around me, and the rhythmic on and off of the signal took over the windows, the shop and the laps, growing brighter with every second, so much that I had to close my eyes, but even through my eyelids, that brightness wouldn't go away. I opened my eyes to a dim purple sky and a silhouette standing over me. It was signaling me to roll down the window. I was back in my small pickup truck. My hand was grasping onto four dollars and change some of it on the floor. Now the empty gas container was resting on the back seat. The sound of an idling truck was the only sound around me, suddenly shadowed by the man standing by the window. Hey man, are you all right? Do you need help? I must have fallen asleep, I said, smiling. Do you need a ride to the truck stop? Yeah, if it can, just need some gas. He nodded and pointed at the big rig a solid mac truck just across a two lane road. Scared me there, he said, had a strange night. I'll tell you, I replied, and we talked for a few minutes before the truck stop came into view. His words, the ones about me on the side of the road not being the strangest thing he's ever encountered on that highway. His yellowed beard showed some of the years of experience he had along those roads, and he was proud of it, the stories he had gathered. You know, I said, just when I was about to climb out, I had a strange dream about an old freightliner, flat front blue seventy eight, no trailer in the back. He interrupted, Yes, I said, quietly, waiting for him to continue. That was Greg again, not the first time I've heard of it. His brakes failed back in the day and he fell off one of these ditches. Taking out an old shop back when this truck stopped was just a lot. Ask them about it. They have pictures. See you later, kid. Getting back on the road, I shut the door, and as I was paying for the two gallons in the container, I asked the attendant about the pictures. Behind her, there was an old shack looking shot familiar to me, a large window by the front door, the same one I had seen. I thanked them and walked right back on the road. And along that walk I thought of the dream of that experience, and that if perhaps it had some sort of significance to my own life, but I couldn't find one. To me, it was just a pause to go back for something I forgot, to carry it with me along an old road and continue with mine. The next story today is called The Crawling Woman of Tilston, and it's coming up right after this. My grandpa tried to defend my poor mind when they were talking about it over dinner. Now, these dinners aren't like the ones you are used to. Everyone, even our neighbors, sometimes would join. Conversations would get loud and sometimes angry, sometimes sad, but by the end everyone would leave satisfied. This time they had hit a topic of scary stories, and as a kid, of course, I loved it and I heard them as Mom started going back in time to when her and her sister's witnessed the Crawling Woman of Tilston. Both of my aunts were there and they would nod in agreement to what she was saying, and the whole house grew real quiet when she continued. They had all grown up in that small town, the one we were visiting. Of course, Tilston had changed since then, with more houses and businesses and those annoying airbnbs. The area was nice, but it used to be nicer, and I remember it too. Grandpa's house had large fields with wooded areas and two cabins in them, some that he only used for storage or for spots where he could go and relax by himself. He was an avid writer and collector of photographs, mostly his own, and he had one of the cabins lined with his work, accomplishment certificates and newspaper clippings. But despite the story of the Crawling Woman of Tilston, he never published any works about it, Or maybe he did, but refused to extend its story publicly. He had a reputation to maintain, and who knows what people would have thought of him had he published such a silly story. At least I think that was his reasoning. There were several incidents about the Crawling Woman, one of which was my mother's and her sister's experience. And when I tell you that I've seen fear, quite literally, I mean the expression on my mother's and aunt's faces as they retell it, so I can't imagine going through what they did. That night. There was a party not far from my grandpa's house, and against his wishes, my mom and her two sisters waited until he fell asleep, and then they went, leaving a note for their mother, who had given them her blessing. The only condition was that they would be back before one in the morning, no excuses, no exceptions. But as things go, it had actually turned into one a m When one of them, the middle sister, suggested that they go back because it was already pretty late. They looked at the time and they all agreed. They said their goodbye to their friends and started walking back. It's important to note that none of them were intoxicated, as it was another condition from their mother, and if she stopped defending them from their father, then all hell would break loose. They obeyed her rules religiously, except for this time when they were going to be home pretty late. The streets around that area are paved now, but back then they were mostly dirt. Roads were poorly maintained ones and lit not in the slightest. They would go for long stretches between properties, and while walking around you could see the farmland, mainly corn and vines, all the way to the gate for Grandpa's house. Of course, there was a way around the gate that would get you to the front door a bit faster, and that was by going through mister Kane's property, an old man who lived alone. And that's usually what the three sisters would do as they squeezed through the wooden fencing. One of them, my mother, got her dress stuck on a nail that was sticking out, tearing the base of it into a loose flap, almost completely, tearing off a section of about the size of a small hand towel. And they walked through the dark paths between the trees, the lumps on the ground of thousands of mushrooms. As children, they used to go and wander around there, thinking about the many fairies that would lurk in the fields like a forest with butterflies, rodents, and birds. And it was one of their friends, a little girl named Kathy, who claimed to had found a tiny house of a fairy once they searched for months but found nothing. I'm sure it went through their minds as they walked in near complete darkness. If those fairies were real, nothing to be afraid of, supposedly, but little did they know they were about to have an encounter with the creature. As they were approaching the end of the line of trees, the younger sister heard a rustling sound behind them. They all turned around, but couldn't tell if they were still with their own company. A little bit of light was shining through those trees near the edge that night, the moon full, i think, they said, when they saw her, her hair and a loose braid, dark and dragging along the dirt, her teeth reflecting off the moonlight as she twisted along the ground and walked toward them. Neither of them is sure which one screamed first, but my mom remembers how she froze in place, claiming that her legs were not responding. The thing was getting closer and closer to her, and she remembers her hand being tugged by this thing, her dress being pulled just enough to rip out the flat that was hanging loose off her dress. Her sister screamed, shook her out of the trans as they both took off, running without stopping all the way back to the house. They caught their breath once they were at the porch, and then they quietly opened the door and snuck into the room. All three shared they hadn't said a word to each other. It must have been four in the morning when they heard a sound coming from inside the house. Their father had broken up. My mom peecked out the window as a front door opened. Their father had stepped out toward the fields with a lantern in his hand, making his way toward the trees on mister Kane's property. Like I said earlier, he was a writer, and writers have strange habits. Waking up early to walk in a dark field of trees was just another thing he did, I'm assuming, but he never liked that story, and everyone knew that it was only the youngest of the three sisters and the oldest, my mother, who were obsessed over this thing. The middle one was always quiet about it in the exact same way as my grandpa. She was the one who knew how my grandma was able to fix my mother's dress that morning with the exact same cloth I was missing. Well. Aside for Grandpa, he also knew, but he would never tell anybody. If you want to listen to real life events that dip into the paranormal. Please check out Dark Memory. Moving forward, our topics have gotten a bit darker and we'll have you looking over your shoulder, so please proceed with caution. You can find Dark Memory on this podcast app or by going to dark Memory dot com. Of course, if you send me a DM, I can also send you the link. For ad free listening, go to scaryplus dot com or tap the button on your Apple podcast app to try it for free, and you can cancel it anytime. Thank you very much for listening, and thank you for joining me on this new season four Scary Story podcast