A Strange Request

Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. All three stories today are titled A Strange Request the Tapping, and I can see it. My name is Edwin, and here it's a scary story. There was another knock at the door, a woman this time, but the purse held neatly in front of her with both hands, her head leaning slightly forward as she tiptoed over to the chair across my desk. I pretended to want to get up, and instead waited for her to take a seat. I introduced myself and she began speaking way too quickly for me to understand. But I didn't need to understand another story like this. I simply nodded and agreed, telling her that I would be happy to help in any way that I could, that I would send over the documents for review. I shook her hand, and she walked away with the nervous but grateful smile across her face. I've been the same story for three or four days already. Regular citizens beginning to show up around this time for the fourth year in a row. Though, if I remember correctly, there was a gentleman who used to come around here back when I was vice chair of the Community Projects Committee. He had this exact request. You see, there was a dark, curvy road on the northeast side of the city, the part where the hill startedge but never ended. I agreed with him. The area was dark and eerie most nights already, so when I was first told of his experience and had to present it to the committee formerly, I felt like I would be laughed out of the room. Instead, the members looked at each other in silence, and every single one of them knew of somebody with a similar experience. But signing off on such a strange request would put at risk for backlash and misuse of our city's funding. If anything, I was the only one who was learning about the whole thing. A young boy four or five years max had been reported around the road sometime in the middle of the night. The first call came from a woman who said that she had not stopped in fear of it being a trap to steal from her or worse, She fulled up on a very well lit corner by the shell gas station and called up the police department. An officer was sent out on a search for the boy in the white shirt. The transcripts of his radio transmission seemed to make fun of the whole thing. The officer asked for assistance with quote strange activity by the cemetery road. When back up arrived, they found the officer sitting by one of the gravestones in a trance like state, claiming he had made a mistake in calling for assistance. He apologized, but it didn't take long for him to later come in support of an investigation to offer a proper burial to a boy. The reports kept piling on to this town where nothing ever happened, and where the biggest issues were about the elections for mayor, where no one seemed to like the results. If I hadn't made a choice about this request, they would not be happy with me either. The idea came from a blogger whose article went to Little County Famous, and then a bigger network picked up the news. She claimed to have been driving by the dark, curvy road when she saw a child in the middle of the road walking calmly through the cemetery gates. She grabbed her camera and parked the car, ready to follow the ghost story in the making. She got into the cemetery through the side of the close gates. She was able to see the boy once more, this time standing by a patch of dirt by the fourth tree from the entrance. According to this woman and the news report, the little boy pointed to the ground and disappeared. Amateur investigators started digging in the cemetery, but were kicked out by the caretaker, who instead took up the job, supposedly as an act of goodwill, and eventually called the police. He had found human remains in the patch of dirt where everyone had been digging, where the little ghost boy had been standing. All of it, just like the rest of the things that went around the office, seemed too much of a coincidence. Had the remains been planted, there was the blogger or the so called investigators involved. Eventually, the request was approved and the city funded a new burial ceremony and a gravesite. Since then, the request stopped coming, and the ghost of the little boy he's never seen again. I'm happy to say I won reelection the tapping. I used to like being home alone, and I would usually get the chance to do that when my parents went out to the store on Friday evenings. I never went. My sister and I would usually spend the night watching movies and making a bunch of popcorn in the microwave. One day, we couldn't get the VCR to work, like he was on the wrong settings for the television. Something like that would happen every once in a while, so we knew how to fix it. This time, no matter what, I couldn't get it to connect. I tried to check behind the television, but it was too dark, so I asked my sister to grew up the flashlight from my room and bring it. She was used to bring in stuff like that without a problem. This time she flat out refused. She was nice about it and said that she would go with me, but to please not make her go by herself. She was afraid of the hallway, more specifically the entrance to the attic that was there. We both had a theory about it. You see, the house was not old, not by a long shot. The area where my parents had moved into was always known to me as the street of the ugly houses. It seemed to have been built a long time ago, But in reality, it's just that some of those houses could not be renovated due to a city law that treated it as historic or something. The only way that they could fix it up was if the house was in danger of collapsing, or if it broke some other type of building code. I think that's what happened to this house we used to live in. The yard had the original shed and old wooden shack with a door that had a hook n We would hear the tap tap tap from the shed from inside the house. My mom tried to fix it with the nail and a rubber band like the ones that held together the broccoli from the store, but nothing worked. It was until one day, when my sister and I were playing at an old work table that my dad had set up in the backyard that we heard it once more tapping. She took two steps toward me and bumped against the neck of the sweater tied around my waist. In an instant that was gone. There were the nights of terror of looking out the window to see a tiny creature standing by the shed having just come out. At the other times, I imagined the doll from the movie we had just seen crawling out of the hole by its door. The night, I would cover my head with the blankets, fearing for that split second that my feet were exposed to the cold air of my room, it would grab me. After so many times of being ignored by my parents, my sister started to rely on me to calm her down. When she would hear the tapping, she would step into my room and ask if I could hear it too. She would sit on the foot of my bed, and within minutes I would cover her with my blanket as I squeezed into the warm sheets that had been under me. It's strange how it works. It was just a simple tapping that old door against a frame like footsteps in the middle of the night. Would lay there, never once thinking of standing up to look out to the shed and the trees behind the backyard, not even once to make sure that the sounds were actually coming from there, and not where I thought, no where I knew they were coming from. My sister turned her head to it first. The door to the shed was still, and yet the tapping continued. We both looked at each other, slowly getting distracted by the tapping. Once again, we looked up to the glass of the window from the attic, the shape made by the tip of an index finger growing and shrinking next to the purple nail of a thumb as it tapped against the glass. The rest of the pale fingers curled up under it. Ah, I can see you. I try to force a smile at the scammy taxi driver who had overcharged me once we arrived. It's always an issue with a distance meter thing or something to say that the fee was actually higher than described. It was not my first time in Mexico, and there was no way I was about to get into an argument with the stranger. At two in the morning and an empty street that looked a lot like a Los Angeles alley, A friend of mine had recommended that place to me, saying that the caretaker of the hotel was nice, a woman named Sophia, and that she could use all the help she could get. Sometimes that gets the best of me. I do my best to buy from local businesses and help wherever I can, but then you end up with scam artists that make you think twice about who you can trust. I knocked, and then a woman peeked through the tiny window above the doorbell. I could see her smile before she shut it and unlocked too many locks from the metal door before opening it. The orange light from the candles by the back wall threw me off a bit. There was a woman sitting on a rug on the ground, leaning against a chair. I'm Sophia. The woman who opened the door said, do not worry about her. She will be okay. She asked me to wait for her to finish helping the woman on the ground, helping her stand up, and I walked up to her too. I reached for her cold hand when I felt Sophia's hand slapped mine away, fear in her eyes as she tried to smile at me once again. I stepped back and waited by one of the crooked bench, laughing at the situation, half wondering if I had done something disrespectful during her ceremony or whatever they were doing. The other woman pulled out a cloth from her pocket and handed her some money, thanked her and went for the door. Sophia was behind her, ready to close it once again. Then she turned to me and apologized. She told me that she had been helping the woman with something scary going on in her life, but that she would be okay. I told her that it was all right, nothing to worry about, and I was about ready to go to sleep. She grabbed her notebook and looked at me. She then pointed at it and let me see her list for myself. I think she wanted me to know that I was the only guest. I looked around at the two story courtyard, lined with flowers and candles on the side of the wall by the now empty chair. The backyard had a small pool in an outdoor dining area, way too good for what I was paying. You are the only guests tonight, amigo, she said. Other guests will come tomorrow, girls from Canada. New friends for you, she said, her lips rising far too high with her smile. Room sixteen. It's right there, best view. Do you need help with anything, she asked. I shook my head and grabbed my backpack. The room was small, but very clean, two upside down glasses on the nightstand and an old television said in front of it. I went to the bathroom and got ready for bed. I had another day of travel the next morning, and I was beginning to feel nauseous. I blamed the meeting I would have on Monday. It was two in the morning when I first heard it. I can see you enter the side. Sometimes dreams linger for a bit while you're awake. I looked to my right and grabbed an upside down glass, and then grabbed a water bottle. The light from the outside was seeping in through a gap in the curtains to the best view. I had to give Sophia some credit. The skyline view for my room was surprisingly nice. Perhaps the light was interrupting my sleep even more. I can't see you, I heard once again. I felt the blood leave my arms as I reflected as to what could have been the problem here. Though nobody was in there with me, I still remember refusing to act scared. If I did, I fear that I would never forgive myself for believing something so outrageous. I turned away from the window, the shadow of the curtain now against the ra wall a few feet away from me. It was around four in the morning when I heard a soft whisper, I can see you. I jumped up on my bed, and thoughts were racing of the woman by the chair when I had come in, her body almost as sweaty as a T shirt. I was wearing cold and stuck to my chest. I've seen you, had echoed through the room. If this was a prank, it was far too much. Sophia had said that I was the only guest. She told me where the office was and that she would be there all night. I couldn't remember for the life of me if the room had a phone, so instead I put on my shoes and simply put on a jacket over my wet shirt and opened the door. Sophia was in the security office, and I could see the television show she was watching, soap opera. I called her name from a distance to not startle her, but she still jumped a little bit. She smiled at me and asked if everything was all right. She'ld have seen her face when I told her about the voice I was hearing. She grabbed my hand and asked me to sit by the chair, telling me that it would be all right. As I was about to sit down, we both frozen place whispers from the backyard area, saying things that I could not understand. She lit a candle and sat me down. For some odd reason, I complied. She stood in front of me, repeating a chant that I could not understand. Words were just noises, and noises were just waves of fear coming over my body. As I saw the shape of a little girl running around the courtyard, zooming past the front door and then to the backyard, I heard her step coming toward me from the left, but I was unable to move and could hear her steps over Sophia's voice in a rhythm that was now becoming familiar. I tried to speak, I tried to yell and scream at Sophia to tell her to stop, that the thing was coming for us. That's when I heard the deepest growl. I can see you. Sophia stood over me with both hands outstretched. When I heard the doorbell ring, two girls came through the front door and they looked at me sitting on the ground. Candles lit behind me. Sophia told him to wait a moment as she came back to help me up. One of the girls asked if she needed help. Sophia then put both hands up, stopping them in place. Stay right there, she told them, followed by an of the nervous smile. Do not worry about him. He will be okay. Scary Story Podcast is written and produced by me Edwin Komarobas. 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