Be Careful Where You Visit

[00:00:00] Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. Be careful where you visit, for you might be marked. These things won't leave you. They'll merge. They'll twist into you. And will they ever leave? My name is Edwin, and here's a scary story. Robert's mom said no. We couldn't hang out with each other. That was the first sign.

[00:00:26] Robert and I had known each other since kindergarten, and our parents were friends. We both went to the same high school, and we were the only ones in the whole place who were into boom pics, a little-known trading card game thing, except it was online. We still hung out, though, but I could tell that something was off. When I look back at it now, after this whole ordeal has finished, I think he just felt guilty. I stopped going to school sometime in November, and Robert showed up to my house one afternoon.

[00:00:57] I could hear my mom talking to him about me in the living room when I stepped outside. They both looked at me in shock and then remembered it was just me, slowly relaxing their shoulders. What's up, man? Robert said. My mom didn't go toward the kitchen or her room right then, like she always did. She sat down on the couch as Robert and I talked a little bit. What was new at school, how everything had been going, and what was coming next. Everyone thought I was sick until the incident at school.

[00:01:27] Suddenly all the talk was about Robert and I, the weirdos of the place. But Robert didn't care. He had always been the strange kid. He was the best. I don't remember when he left. Suddenly it was morning again at my house. The bed sheets completely soaked and some of the blankets on the floor. Mom looked exhausted as she sat on the kitchen chair that was now in the corner of my bedroom. I could sense relief in her eyes when she looked at me and then looked at her phone.

[00:01:58] She held it up to her ear, waited a little bit, and then she said, He's awake. She nodded for a few more seconds and then hung up. I felt tired. No, not just that. I was in pain. My arm felt like it had been broken and then put back together. My legs felt like they stretched out too much, lengthwise. You know that point when you stretch your arms and you go a little too far? Well, that was my whole body.

[00:02:24] I was thirsty, sticky from all over, and there was a strong smell that I can only describe as sewage in the summer. Mom walked over to me and held up my back, grabbed the glass bottle of water on the nightstand and brought it up to my face. I chugged the whole bottle so fast. I even hit my teeth with it. It dripped down my cold shirt. Mom didn't seem to care. She looked at me the way she would look at a stranger at first, before asking me what was the last thing I remembered.

[00:02:55] I was talking to Robert in the living room, right? Or was it getting ready for bed? No, that was the night before. Her arms dropped back down to her lap and she looked at me the way she used to. She put her hand on the back of my head and then reached for my legs to bring them forward toward the edge of the bed. The towels and a new change of clothes was ready for me in the bathroom, she said, as she gathered all of the blankets and sheets on a big pile on the floor.

[00:03:26] Robert was a smart kid and though I am positive now that he was warned not to tell me anything, he found a way. I had a few messages on my phone from him, confusing at first. Then I got it. He was asking about what I knew, what I had been told through the information of PAX. That was just a collector card from Boompix. I had to tell him the truth based on my status, which again, this is all game speak, but I answered in the best way I knew.

[00:03:56] After all, I could say anything I wanted. It was him, the one that had to watch out for what he said. I told him that I started feeling tired and then fell asleep. That it was part of my illness. The reason why I hadn't gone back to school. I thought of many things, like how old people begin to lose their memory. Maybe I had that. Or how my hair had been falling off for so long that I thought it was cancer. Not knowing, of course, that's not how it works.

[00:04:24] As far as I knew, I wasn't undergoing anything. I was taken to the doctor, just one, but I remember the look of disappointment in my mom when he told her that there wasn't anything wrong with me. At least, nothing he could see and recommended a psychiatrist. Mom never took me to a second appointment with her. I kept scrolling through Robert's messages, eventually finding the image of the cards, the Trudor twins, the rosary, and the Bimitar, the lord of the underworld.

[00:04:54] I tried to scroll deeper into the messages, but I hit some type of limit in the chat and couldn't go further. I knew Robert was trying to tell me something and not get in trouble. Considering how Mom didn't even let us talk in the living room as normal, I thought that maybe he had resorted to this, our secret language of the card game. This card, the Trudor twins. They were two characters that Robert and I most related to. They were some of our first cards.

[00:05:23] The story behind them is pretty cool. They're two brothers who are ghost hunters, both brave. One of them, the one that Robert would be, was the technical guy, a professional hacker and computer wizard. The other was a historian, sort of like an Indiana Jones type of guy, an expert in adventure. Together they would visit haunted places and use science to communicate and solve mysteries. We even went on a ghost hunt once, all because of... The ghost hunt.

[00:05:52] I had forgotten all about it up until this point. That's when it clicked. A friend of ours, a freshman we met during one of the active shooter drills at school, he had told us about the Robertson house. It was near the end of the street. His name was Beeman, and I'm not sure where the name was from, but it fit him. The kid's dad worked for the county and had done an investigation on the house, saying that several reports had come in about weird stuff going on in there.

[00:06:20] But that's about as far as we got with it. But the librarian at our school had a whole other story. And that's how we learned about county records. They have rolls and rolls of scans of newspapers, some that were recently digitized, and we could search for them. Like a Google, only with history of the county and the surrounding areas, all in one single computer. Robert typed in so many things, anything from murders to ghosts and hauntings.

[00:06:49] But it wasn't until he got to sacrifice, the word itself, that he made a connection to the house. Kids from our high school, from class somewhere in 1991 and 1992, had gone in there. There had been reports of animal sacrifice and human remains being found at the place. The police reports were vague, and I'm not sure if that's the way they were made back then, but they described things pretty bluntly. Pentagrams, candles, and blood-stained walls.

[00:07:19] Something out of a Stephen King novel, to quote one of them. The place was cleaned up, left abandoned, and that was that. But why were we talking about this, what, 30 years later? Calls. Police officers had been getting calls from the house, despite it having no active phone line. An investigator first did a story about this in the local newspaper. He had looked into it.

[00:07:46] A theme for a Halloween article sometime in the 2000s. I found that the telephone company blamed the calls on a false address input. Maybe someone using that address by mistake. Or the lines being configured incorrectly to begin with. Before all of the lots around the place itself started construction. In short, it had all been fake. And yet, it was still happening. But what we cared about was that the idea of an old house was just what the Truder twins would do.

[00:08:17] Robert and I spent weeks trying to figure out how we could go in there and establish contact. And that, I think, we eventually did. I can pinpoint when everything started if I go back to that exact place. The evening at the Robertson house. It was dark, but completely intact. Nothing seemed broken or missing. The supposed rooms where the pentagrams and blood was supposed to be didn't even look like the ones in the pictures.

[00:08:47] And for a little bit, I thought we had gone into the wrong house. Robert and I walked past the living room and toward the staircase in the standard Truder twin style. Get to the top first so you can lay out the plan and position yourself. And so we got to the top of the staircase and everything felt wrong. The house wasn't decayed the way you would expect a place like this to be. There was no graffiti. No broken windows.

[00:09:16] The walls were clean, yellowed from time, but intact. It smelled like dust and wood and something else. Something sour that clung to the back of my throat. We moved the way we had always planned. We split up, covered ground faster, just like the Truder twins would. I watched Robert disappear into a room on the left. I headed toward a hallway where the doors were half shut, crooked on their hinges. I picked the last door on the right.

[00:09:47] It opened with barely a sound. The room was empty except for an old dresser with a cracked mirror sitting on top of it. The mirror caught my eye immediately. I don't know why, but I moved toward it. Like something was pulling me in. The glass was warped, blackened around the edges. As I stared at myself, I noticed something shift in the reflection. Something just over my shoulder.

[00:10:16] I turned around. Nothing there. When I looked back at the mirror, that's when I saw it properly. A figure standing right behind me. It wasn't shaped exactly like a person. It was too tall. Too thin. Its face, if you could call it that, was hollow. Except for the eyes. The eyes were just open wounds. Red, angry, wet.

[00:10:46] Watching me. I couldn't scream. I wanted to. I tried. But my throat locked up tight, like a hand was squeezing it. The smell hit me then. It was stronger than before. Or a gut-wrenching stench of rotten meat and something sour sweet, like a bloated carcass left out in the heat. The thing raised a hand. Or maybe it was his whole body leaning forward. And it touched me.

[00:11:16] And there wasn't a flash of light or a noise or anything cinematic. There was only blackness. Like slipping into ice-cold water. The world simply disappeared. When I opened my eyes, I was outside the house. Robert was next to me, breathing hard. His hands were on his knees like he'd been running or trying to shake me awake. He didn't say anything. And neither did I.

[00:11:45] We walked back home without a word between us. I thought maybe he had gotten scared. Maybe I had too. Maybe I had fainted and Robert had pulled me outside. I wanted that to be the answer. I needed it to be. But in the deepest part of myself, in a place I hadn't even known existed until that night, I knew something else had happened. Something I wasn't ready to face.

[00:12:13] I told myself that night meant nothing. That the blackouts, the cold, the figure in the mirror, all of it were tricks of my mind. And it worked for a while. At home, things weren't exactly normal, but they weren't bad either. Mom didn't ask me about the house. She didn't even seem to notice I'd been gone that night. Though, I knew she must have. She started leaving glasses of water by my bed. Like I was a sick person who couldn't get up.

[00:12:41] I told myself it was just motherly worry. But soon, the dream started. They weren't dreams like you're thinking. Not colorful, not stories. There were places. Endless, rotting halls. Shadows that followed me without a sound. Doors that I couldn't open, no matter how hard I pulled.

[00:13:12] Sometimes I would wake up, biting the inside of my cheek, hard enough to bleed. Sometimes my sheets would be twisted so tight around my body that it looked like someone had tried to tie me down in my sleep. Then my body started changing. It was small at first. Nails darkened at the tips. Like they had been dipped in ink. My hair thinned faster than it should have for someone my age. No matter how much I showered, the sour smell clung to me.

[00:13:43] Once I looked at my arms in the mirror after a bath. I saw tiny marks running up my skin. Like little scratches. Almost too perfect to be accidental. They stung when the water touched them. Robert stopped coming by after that. He didn't visit. He barely messaged except for once. One line sent late at night. Don't answer if he calls.

[00:14:12] I didn't know what he meant. Not then. And it got worse. One evening I was eating dinner with mom when she dropped her fork onto her plate and just stared at me. I stopped chewing. What? I asked. She shook her head slowly, her mouth trembling a little. Nothing honey. Just tired. But she wouldn't look at me the rest of the night. The next day she called in someone.

[00:14:40] I knew because I heard her talking softly downstairs. Whispers. Urgent ones. And when I peeked through the window, I saw a tall man getting out of a car. Was holding a worn black book under his arm. He wasn't dressed like a priest. But something about him made the hairs on my arm stand up. He looked at the house the way a soldier looks at a battlefield. When he entered, he greeted my mom quietly and then asked if he could talk to me alone.

[00:15:10] I didn't want to. Something deep in me twisted and hissed at the idea. But I agreed. The man pulled up a chair across from me, setting up the book on his lap. Tell me about the night at the house, he said. I opened my mouth, but the words tangled. They were caught. I couldn't say anything real. I talked about the stairs. About the dust. About feeling dizzy and faint. But I didn't mention the figure in the mirror.

[00:15:40] He listened carefully, nodding. His hands were steady. His eyes sharp. And after a long pause, he leaned in closer. Sometimes, he said, his voice low. We see things we're not meant to see. Things that remember us afterward. He tapped the book once with a heavy finger. Do you remember the face?

[00:16:08] It felt like my skin tightened all at once. I did. Of course I did. Eyes like wounds. Skin that wasn't skin at all. They hold where a mouth should have been. And so I nodded. He flipped open the book without looking. It was already marked. Already waiting. He turned the book around to show me a picture. It wasn't a drawing. It was an actual photograph. Old. Cracked at the edges.

[00:16:37] A blurry, crooked snapshot of a thing that should have never existed. The same figure from the mirror. And underneath, written in hand, so old that the ink had almost faded. A name. One I couldn't even read off. Its letters blended and yet I knew exactly who it was in that moment. The pastor closed the book and placed a hand on my shoulder. You were marked, he said.

[00:17:07] Not accusing and not scared. Just stating a fact. Marked. Possessed. I thought the pastor would do something after that. An exorcism. A prayer. Something. Nothing. But he just looked at my mother. And she shook her head. No. She said. Quietly. But firmly. We. We handle our own. The pastor tightened his jaw but didn't argue.

[00:17:37] He simply closed the book. Tucked it under his arm. And patted my hand once. Like I was some poor, broken animal. That was the end of it. No prayers. No rites. No blessing of the house. The shame settled over everything like a heavy, wet cloth. After that day, nobody talked about it. Not at home. Not anywhere. Mom acted like nothing had happened. She cooked meals. Made small talk.

[00:18:05] Asked me how I was feeling without ever looking me in the eye. Have I mentioned feeling strange? The tiredness. The cold inside my bones. The strange reflections and mirrors. She would just smile too tightly and say. You're better now. You're home. But at school, it was worse. Word must have gotten out somehow. People looked at me sideways. Like I was carrying some kind of infection they didn't want to catch. Even teachers treated me differently.

[00:18:35] Overly polite. Careful around me. Like I might break into screaming if they said the wrong thing. Robert is gone. At first, they said he was sick. And then he said his family moved. Nobody knew for sure. I sent him a few messages. I called them sometimes. But they stayed unread and he never answered. Eventually, his account just disappeared. And mom didn't even want to reach out to their parents. It was weird. Just like he just vanished.

[00:19:04] It was like everyone wanted to erase the whole thing. I tried, too. For a long time, I tried to pretend it hadn't happened. That I hadn't seen those bleeding eyes in the mirror. That I hadn't felt something move inside me. Something cold and old and hungry. I almost believed it. Some days. Until I would catch my reflection in a window. Or the back of a spoon. Or a dark puddle on the street. And I would see it.

[00:19:34] Not my face. His. His. Smiling with a mouth that wasn't there. I think that's why mom didn't push for more. She knew. She knew that even if we try to forget. Even if we built a whole life on top of the thing that happened at the Robertson house. It would still be there. Just beneath the surface. Waiting. You can paint over rot. You can cover a hole in the floorboards.

[00:20:04] But eventually everything falls through. I don't tell anyone about it now. I don't even say his name out loud. I know what it is. Sometimes I wonder if I made it worse by writing all this down and telling it to you. I don't think anything will happen if I don't say his name. Sometimes I hear a phone ringing at night. One that isn't ours. Sometimes when I close my eyes. I see him smiling.

[00:20:34] Patient. Waiting. Waiting. And it's been that way for years now. There are days. Longer now than before. When I feel almost normal. I go to work. I come home. I wash the dishes. I call my mother once a week. Even though we never talk about anything real. I even laugh. Sometimes. It feels like living. Almost. Almost.

[00:21:07] A few months ago. Not the dark halls or the endless doors. New ones. Dreams where I'm standing over people I love. My hands shaking. Something heavy and sharp in my grip. Dreams where I'm smiling. I can feel that it's not my own muscles though. Pulling at my face. Sometimes I wake up standing beside my own bed. Nails digging into my palms. Blood trickling down my wrists.

[00:21:36] The mirror in my bathroom has a crack now. I don't remember how it got there. At first it was just a hairline fracture. Barely visible unless the light hit it in a certain way. But now it's a spider web across a whole glass. When I look into it. My reflection stutters. Like a bad video feed. And sometimes. Just sometimes. I see two of me. One standing just a little behind. Smiling.

[00:22:04] I can feel him closer now. Inside my blood. Inside my breath. Coiled around the place where my voice lives. There are things I want to say. I want to scream. But every time I open my mouth. I feel his hand clench tighter. He doesn't want me to tell. Not yet. Maybe not ever. I think that's the final shame. It's not just that I let him in. It's that I learned how to live with him. I made a place for him.

[00:22:34] And when he finally decides it's time. When the crack finally splinters all the way through. No one will even be surprised. They'll just say they always knew something was wrong with me. And the worst part. Some nights. When everything is dark. And the world is quiet. And no one is watching. I smile with him.

[00:23:06] Scary Story Podcast is written and produced by me. Edwin Covarrugias. If you know of someone who also likes scary stories. Let them know about this podcast. I'll also be uploading every story to our YouTube channel. So you can send it to them that way. If you want me to read a story on my other show. A real one. Like if something that has actually happened to you. You want to send it to me via email. And it might show up in a future episode of that other show. Called Paranormal Club. I'll link to it in the description of this episode.

[00:23:33] In responding to Sienna's comment on Spotify about the story idea. I think we do have a story where we feature Sapphire Sandalo. Called Picture on the Wall. That might be the story you might be suggesting. I'll link to it as well. Anyway. Thank you very much for listening. Oh. And please go find me on my new podcast called Paranormal Club. Keep it scary everyone. See you soon.