Two Dolls in the Basement

[00:00:00] Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. This episode features tales from dark events inside of a home, the stories from the road. My name is Edwin. Here's a scary story. There was an old doll that lived in the basement of the house at the end of Berry Street, the place

[00:00:27] where we used to live when I was in elementary school. Nobody liked to go down there and I remember that being the case because one time, mom came downstairs in her bath towel

[00:00:37] to get the phone and call dad at work, complaining that the water heater had turned off again. And even though dad explained everything to her, she had my younger brother and I go downstairs

[00:00:47] in the basement with her. It wasn't like we could do anything to protect her or anything. But I remember understanding that even grownups felt scared just like my brother and I. My brother grabbed onto my shirt as it went downstairs in a single file. Mom turned

[00:01:02] on the light. She left us standing by the base of the stairs as she reset the water here. There was something about that place that we were terrified about. I tried not to look around too

[00:01:14] much afraid of what I might find, but my younger brother pointed out the boxes that were stacked neatly on the corner of the basement. Three neat medium boxes, one on top of another.

[00:01:25] The name Ellie written on the sides of every single side of them with a thick black marker. Mom started jogged over to us, asking us to go back upstairs. We were halfway up when she flicked the light off. We would stay up at night sometimes, talking

[00:01:45] about things and playing with some of the board games dad had bought for himself over the years, even those that we didn't quite understand. Monopoly for example. But while we were in the corner of the room and our laughter would die down,

[00:02:00] we could sometimes hear the faint sounds of something moving in the basement. My brother asked what I thought the sounds were, and I said that they were probably rats, thinking that it would make him feel better, but instead he shot me one of those worried looks.

[00:02:15] I didn't know what else to tell him. There was no way I was going to mention the doll that lived in the basement. Dad had told me about it. We were moving some of my toys down

[00:02:28] to the basement one night to make room for my brother's new bed, when I asked what we couldn't throw out some of Ellie's boxes. Ellie was my mom's best friend who sold us the house,

[00:02:39] and even though dad and everyone who knew Ellie were nice to her, they all had a story to share. She was a strange woman, and even though I barely remember her, I know that she used

[00:02:49] to give me some of the strangest birthday gifts that mom would take away to save them for later. I mean, she gave me a rug one time, and another year she gave me a book called The Guide to

[00:03:00] Crystals or something like that. Ellie used to be much older than my mom, and she used to invite us over for dinner every once in a while, but she used to give mom strange presents too, like for her birthday. I guess the boxes didn't belong to Ellie,

[00:03:17] but instead were filled with the many odd gifts she used to give to us. Mom probably felt bad about throwing out the stuff, so she kept everything stacked up in there. Dad was never a fan of Ellie, and absolutely hated those creepy items, I could tell.

[00:03:34] He opened the boxes before putting them in the basement when we moved in. That's when I saw the doll for the first time. She was missing a lot of dark hair from the

[00:03:44] top of her head, some of it oddly covering the front of her face. The dress was light brown, with flowers or polka dots I don't remember, but Dad had tried to convince Mom to get rid of it.

[00:03:58] They didn't argue over anything, but I remember Mom's specific instructions to take one of the four boxes and separate them from the rest. Three boxes would go into the basement, and one would go into the attic, above our rooms. Dad rolled his eyes, knowing

[00:04:14] full well that Mom always decided these types of things, and there would be no point in questioning her. I think what annoyed Dad the most was that Mom was following Ellie's crazy instructions for no reason at all. Still, he sighed as he grabbed the box without the name

[00:04:30] Ellie all over it, and opened it to re-tape it properly. As soon as he opened it, another doll plopped out of it and landed on the floor. He grabbed it by the arm and threw it back in.

[00:04:42] He then taped up the box and set a few things under his breath as he disappeared into the entrance of the attic. He had to be nice about it, Mom would say. Ellie had gone through many

[00:04:53] things in her life, and now that she was gone, this was the least it could do to honor her wishes. Most of Ellie's other things were sold during a thing where people came to this house and

[00:05:03] bought almost everything. The rest was thrown out. Strange things used to happen in the house. One of the creepiest was the wind. Well, that's what we called it. It would sometimes feel a strange

[00:05:19] cold wind rushing in from under the door when my brother and I were up at night. One of those times I opened up the door and the wind stopped immediately. I still remember that worried look on my little brother's face, the one he gave me

[00:05:33] when I looked back to him after shutting the door. My room was the closest to the entrance to the basement, so we could hear some of the water rushing through the pipes, but along with those, we could hear the cries and laughter, tiny voices coming from the basement.

[00:05:50] In the beginning, we both sort of ignored it or refused to talk about it, but soon we started hearing the sounds of little footsteps all over the ceiling and then on the stairs. When he asked me what I thought they were once again,

[00:06:07] I said that those rats had worked their way up to the attic. I wasn't about to tell him that there was another doll living up there, but the noises became creepier with screeches and taps against the wooden floor above us that followed no specific pattern.

[00:06:25] Fortunately though, they only lasted a couple of nights. My little brother was a first to tell mom and dad about it, even though I asked him not to, mainly because it would trigger dad to start complaining about the

[00:06:38] stuff inside those boxes. Like I said, dad used to find them creepy. But I was right. Mom and dad argued about the things in the boxes. We told each other so many things, but I clearly remember

[00:06:52] what dad claimed that Ellie had gone crazy after what happened. I heard mom gasp, saying that she couldn't believe what he was saying. Ellie, after all, was her friend. Losing your twin babies would make anyone go crazy, Tom. I heard her yell.

[00:07:10] We could hear everything. That thing has to go, dad yelled back. I heard him open the basement door next to our room and then stepped down to it. He yelled once again, sarcastic. Oh, this is hilarious.

[00:07:24] As he knocked over a box and went up the stairs again, the whole house went quiet. I did not do that, Tom. This is not funny. Mom's tone suddenly was soft and shaky. I rolled out of my bed quietly and went toward the window, just as dad

[00:07:43] opened the front door. He was walking out to the trash cans by the side of the house. I saw him throw out two old rag dolls into the trash can and then shut the lid.

[00:07:57] We heard only the sounds of his boots against the gravel as he walked back to the house. I drive up and down the freeway between the apartment by my university and my parents home almost every weekend, and I've experimented with different times of the day to make the

[00:08:27] six hour drive. I heard that people outside the United States find it strange that we can drive so much and be okay with it, but to me, it is almost relaxing to drive across a desert scenery.

[00:08:41] There isn't much to see and your legs get numb after a while, but knowing it is just you for miles and miles of road is a unique experience that I look forward to. Along the way I pass by

[00:08:52] four or five rest areas, you know those places with the vending machines and bathrooms on the side of the freeways. During the day I noticed that there were a lot of people crowding

[00:09:03] of the place and the ice cream vending machine was always out of those vanilla ice cream crunch bars. And whenever I left early in the morning, the first 10 or so miles away from the city were

[00:09:13] crowded with everyone going to work and such. And then on arriving, I seemed to get there just as the next rush hour had started and the traffic was terrible. But at night, it is something else.

[00:09:27] Only seeing headlights on the road to the hum of my car felt like I was flying through space. You see, the stars are visible out there, something I don't usually get to see where I live.

[00:09:40] So whenever I left at night, I would make time to park the car out in the rest area by exit 57 and sit on the hood of the car just to look up at the sky. Now I'm not a

[00:09:50] naturey person most of the time, but I genuinely started enjoying my time out there all to myself. But honestly, I'm not sure if I was alone a few of those times,

[00:10:01] despite no one being around. It was around two in the morning when I pulled up to the darkest part of the rest area, a parking spot by a couple of trees. There was another car parked on the

[00:10:14] other side with the driver probably taking a short nap in that old brown hatchback. I turned off my engine and sat there for a little bit, looking out to the vast dark

[00:10:24] fields in front of me. When suddenly, I heard a woman scream from that area where the old car was. I grabbed the keys from the ignition on my phone and ran out of the car. It took me a little

[00:10:37] while to turn on the flashlight on my phone but when I did, I shined it toward the field in front of me and then toward the car. Someone was standing by it and I remembered

[00:10:46] thinking that maybe she needed help. A jog toword is looking around me in case anyone else had heard the scream. There were no other cars in sight. I yelled toward the car, asking if she was

[00:10:59] okay but the woman simply waved at me. I ran faster toward her when I heard her say to me in a calm voice to please call for help. My cell phone's flashlight turned off right when she

[00:11:12] said that. I asked what was wrong but she stayed quiet, asking me again to please call for help. Nervously, I asked her to follow me so that I could get my phone to turn back on with the charger

[00:11:27] and that I would call the police. I didn't know what was happening and I always thought I would know exactly what to do in a moment like that but it all failed me. I ran back to my car and

[00:11:39] plugged my phone into the charging cable. This time, the phone turned on right away and I dialed 911. I told the operator where I was and that there was a woman screaming who needed

[00:11:50] help. They asked me to describe her in the car so I looked out to my window to see a brown car on the edge of the parking lot. The woman was no longer in sight. They asked me if she needed

[00:12:02] medical services and I told them that I didn't know. It would send a highway patrol they said and they asked for my name and number and asked me to stay where I was and lock my doors.

[00:12:14] I figured it was some type of protocol to tell the caller to lock their doors but it turns out they had a reason to order me to do that. When the police arrived and asked me what I had seen,

[00:12:27] they asked me to describe the woman. Short, blonde hair, dark blue jeans and a gray hooded sweater. They were interviewing me and other four or five vehicles showed up around the old

[00:12:39] car. Then another man came up to me asking me for a few more details before giving me his card, asking for permission to keep in touch. One of the police officers who seemed more relaxed

[00:12:50] than the rest told me that what I had seen could not have happened but he didn't say much else. He did manage to tell me that the car had been reported as stolen and that the caretakers

[00:13:04] and that the caretakers of the rest area had requested that someone tow away that car for several days. He still thanked me for the call but didn't say much else then he told me I could leave.

[00:13:18] It took a couple of days for me to realize that the story had been circling in the news and had been about that same car and about that same woman that had been killed and stuffed

[00:13:29] into the trunk of it. You should have seen the look on my face when I saw her picture on the news. There are many stories that take place out on the dark roads

[00:13:47] and such is our next story which is coming right after a word from sponsors that helped pay for this podcast. If something getting in the way of your happiness or with you achieving your goals,

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[00:15:01] Again that's better help.com slash scarystory. I took up a job as a truck driver making deliveries from coast to coast but by far some of the strangest experiences of my life happen on

[00:15:23] the same stretch of road along the Tan Freeway in Texas. There is an exit there that has a sort of history with us truck drivers, particularly the old timers who are still running loads from

[00:15:34] place to place. There is talk about the phantom signals which are a series of messages that get picked up by radio receivers, some talking about deliveries to warehouses that have been closed down decades ago. Not all trucks have radios nowadays but I thought that they did

[00:15:52] when I first started. So of course when the salesman offered the installation I said yes without thinking because like I said I thought that it was a mandatory thing. The story of the phantom signals was told to me when as I was driving through that stretch of road

[00:16:09] I heard someone say a dirty joke and then laugh until he started coughing. Picked up the radio to try and say something to him when another transmission came through. It said something about the panda bears which is a code word for police cars out on the road

[00:16:25] and then it faded out as I started talking about lots of loads available at a place called Stacey's. I'm not familiar with a lot of these things so I usually ask others with more experience than me

[00:16:36] about them. So when I got to the truck stop some of the other truck drivers were hanging out by the front of the convenience store when I heard one of them mention Stacey's. I walked up to

[00:16:46] them and asked what Stacey's was. They joked about one of them an older truck driver who had worked for the company a long time ago then I mentioned that I had heard that name on the radio

[00:16:58] the previous night. They all looked at me both surprised at the fact that I had an old-fashioned radio in the truck because I had heard one of these phantom signals. The older man looked at

[00:17:10] me and asked if I had been around exit 136 and I immediately said yes even though I was not 100% sure. Yeah he said that's where they happen. Be careful out there he said and then he slowly

[00:17:26] walked back to his truck and climbed on. There are also stories of strange lights out in that area that's what one of the other guys said. He said that trucks were allowed to park along that

[00:17:40] area because it used to have a series of warehouses around there so the roads are wider and safer to park on. I was intrigued by the idea back then I was still learning the ropes

[00:17:51] and still had not gotten used to the long boring drives that most of the drivers didn't seem to mind so I quietly decided to park out there in that area on my way back maybe catch some pictures

[00:18:02] of those lights. Sure enough the next delivery point would let me pass right through the same stretch of freeway so I made sure that my radio was set to the same frequency and off I went.

[00:18:16] I parked by the old wire fencing which I guess once surrounded some of the warehouses and I parked the truck. It was around sunset then and it was time for me to log some sleep

[00:18:27] hours so I got my bunk bed ready and took out some of the leftover burger combo I had bought earlier in the day. That's when the radio started going crazy. The static sound grew louder and then I heard lots of signals being picked up at the same time

[00:18:45] too many voices speaking enough to make it sound like one constant static sound. I will admit that I was freaked out by the whole thing. I started up the truck just as the

[00:18:57] sun was about to set. It looked amazing over the mountains off into the distance so I took out my phone and took a couple of pictures despite knowing that sunset pictures never come out okay on

[00:19:08] my phone. It was true this time too the picture did not come out fine. At first glance it looked like a typical scenery out in the middle of nowhere but through the bushes you can see faces. Faces on

[00:19:26] the ground and on the bushes themselves like distinct reflections of real people standing around the outside. If you look closely enough you can see my own face taking up part of the

[00:19:39] sky on the left hand side. It was my fault for taking the photo through a rolled up window but I try not to think about it as something evil. I mean it is very possible that the

[00:19:52] reflections were all coming from inside my truck. Reflections of old truck drivers who once turned off their engines right where I was parked. It was back when the old place was buzzing with activity. My reflection showed me that I was one of them now. A real truck driver.

[00:20:22] Scary Story Podcast is written and produced by me Edwin Covarrubias. If you have a true scary story to tell I would love to hear about it to see if we can add it for an episode

[00:20:32] of a podcast called True Scary Story. It features real calls with people who tell me about their paranormal experiences. Check out TrueScaryStory.com right now on your phone or find the podcast by searching for True Scary Story on your podcast app.

[00:20:49] We are already receiving submissions but we have room for more. Anyway to get notifications when new episodes come out on Scary Story Podcast check out the website ScaryStoryPodcast.com and the form on there will ask you for your email.

[00:21:03] Just fill it out and I'll let you know when new episodes come out along with a note from me about the episode. Until next time, thank you very much for listening.