The Railroad Children

[00:00:00] This is Scary Story Podcast. We have three stories in this episode, The Railroad Children, Selfie, and Caller number 8. Stories of ghostly appearances and mysterious phone calls. My name is Edwin, and here is a scary story. The Railroad Children.

[00:00:31] Another car zoomed by in front of the store and with it left another breath of hope for me. A man desperate trying to get his business back. The freeway on the other side of the hills had already been built a long time ago, and I still

[00:00:45] remembered the panic in the town when it was announced. My neighbors all spoke about moving out. They all seem to have family members, their children mostly, living out somewhere nice. Los Angeles or Houston, some even said Boston. Yeah right, I would say to myself.

[00:01:04] I'd love to see that old lady living with all that noise. Secretly though, I thought the biggest challenge for her was for her children to actually take her in. I had already lived in one of the big cities, Las Vegas.

[00:01:19] I knew what it was like and I knew how annoying people could get. But now, people is what I needed the most to keep my business going. I was a mechanic and had been in that profession for the better part of almost four decades.

[00:01:34] Knowing all the makes and models used in the American Southwest. Deserts, you know. Sand in the fuel pump, broken windshields from terrible dust storms, and damage due to overheating. Were lots of those. I could fix it all.

[00:01:50] A son of a neighbor who worked with me, Carlos, could attest that for me. I could fix anything except for one thing that always stumped me. A problem that frustrated my long time clients. But trust me, it would bother me a lot more.

[00:02:07] The first time it happened, I checked the undercarriage of the cars for structural problems. Usually people who try to take their city cars off-road and venture out into the dirt trails from stuff they had seen on the internet. The hashtag VanLife would be just another trend too.

[00:02:24] But I got to see a few of those stopped by my shot. Inexperienced adventurers loaded up with fancy gimbals and tripods. Cell phone cameras on their faces the entire time. They easily paid the bills up front. So my face is probably still out there, on some website.

[00:02:44] The mole on the tip of my nose probably stealing the show somewhere. But this problem, the stumper of a problem, was occurring more and more. It was said that not far from the town of Drismore, it was an old railroad track.

[00:03:01] At least it was what some of the travelers told me. They were heading that way to visit one of the ghost towns. Had gone internet famous or famous for a ghost hunter show, who knows.

[00:03:12] I was sent all these videos to look at on my phone, the one that my grandchildren sent me. But I still chose my old time radio and television to keep me entertained. Now this town was not completely empty, actually far from it.

[00:03:27] There was a post office and a library, and though scattered, there was still a small school district there with running school buses for them in the surrounding areas. The panic over the freeway thing was just temporary.

[00:03:42] Only one radio station had the baseball games, and I had just cracked open a can of Pepsi out on the lawn chair by the entrance of my shop. When I saw another familiar white minivan coming down the road, I waved at them, and

[00:03:56] they pulled up next to me. Good afternoon sir, are you the mechanic? The dark-haired woman from the passenger seat said as she rolled down her window. The cold air from the air conditioning in there was creeping out of it.

[00:04:11] Yep, come on around I said, a wide smile on my face. Say what you want about me, I'm still one of the nicest people around. They had some trouble reversing into the yard, but eventually they got it.

[00:04:27] There's a knocking coming from the back part of the car, and I can't see anything. Can you help us out? The driver, a young man, said as he came closer. I knew what was wrong already. Nothing. There was nothing wrong.

[00:04:44] There was never anything wrong with the knocking and it frustrated me immediately. I held back all of my frustration and forced to smile this time. I turned around to look under the back tires, just in case. I explained a couple of things to them from under the car.

[00:05:01] It was always the same answers. No, they had stayed on the road the whole time and didn't hit anything. The brakes were working and the entire back area of the car was well lubricated and clean. Everything checked out.

[00:05:18] The couple had walked over to the vending machine that I had used as a refrigerator for some time. I didn't even follow the pictures on the buttons. The young lady took out a raspberry iced tea and held it in her right hand with a confused look. Whoops.

[00:05:34] I stood up from the rear side of the vehicle, and just as I was standing up, I saw them. From inside the car, the tiny faces of children. Two of them, wiping their hands against the glass. Sir, I heard from the left side.

[00:05:55] Ah, sorry about that I said. As I listened to the young man ask about something being wrong with the vending machine. I walked over to it and tried to shake off those visions I had seen for years already.

[00:06:07] I grabbed the vending machine from the left side and swung it open like a door. Grabbing the raspberry iced tea and placing it back randomly, then getting them their orange crush soda instead.

[00:06:19] They both laughed at the action and it took a little while for me to catch onto what they were laughing at. I briefly forgot about the children. Well, everything checks out so here's what we'll do, I said.

[00:06:31] Let's test drive it and then see if we can hear it. I knew what we were going to find. Nothing. The young man hopped on and I was on the passenger seat as we set off into the road to go around the enormous blocks of the town.

[00:06:46] But there it was. The knocking. The same knocking I had heard thousands of times before. Tapping on the back windows. I pictured those children in my mind once again and I focused. I really focused on it. And I really could hear the tiny cries once again.

[00:07:12] I asked the young man to turn the car around and head back. Well, I explained. It looks like there's nothing wrong mechanically. But I think the sound will go away. Might have something to do with the heat. I was lying again.

[00:07:29] Had come up with that idea after lots of failed attempts to not anger my customers. This explanation had a 50-50 chance of working. Sounds good, the young man said with a smile. Probably relieved. We got back to the shop and the young lady climbed back in the car

[00:07:47] and gave me $10 for the trouble. I turned to Carlos, the kid who helped me out around the shop. Kid, let's shut down early today. Let's go to that thing you were telling me about. Carlos was excited about it. He knew exactly when I was talking about it.

[00:08:05] Tell me more about this thing they say, I asked him. He once again explained to me the story of the children of the railroad tracks. The ones that would climb into your car and drown you with their cries.

[00:08:19] He explained that it was rumored that two children had been playing around the tracks by themselves when a train struck them. Their toy trains now sprinkled with their blood, thrown yards away from the tracks themselves. It's not just an old legend, he said. My grandpa says it happened.

[00:08:39] My old pickup truck rolled over those rocks with ease as we got closer to the railroad tracks. We crossed them, just like any other car coming into town would be forced to do. It was dark out by now. Carlos was looking a little worried.

[00:08:57] We drove back in silence, back to the shop. I didn't want to admit it but it looked like my car would need some fixing too. Selfie. My little brother used to tease me for the way I posed with my phone. So immature.

[00:09:33] It was a matter of time before my profile really exploded and I had the support of my friends helping me out. They would like and comment and do all the things that I asked them to do.

[00:09:45] There was a place by my house that was famous for being in a movie. I forget which one, but it was from before I was born. Every summer we would get people from Europe and Latin America coming over just to check

[00:09:59] out the restaurants and some of the streets that were in it. Filling up the businesses and hotels with tourists. It was during one of those summers that I decided to go with one of my best friends

[00:10:10] to one of the bridges, the one that used to have a train track running through it. Get some pictures with the new dress I bought. It was a huge mistake. There were so many people there that even my friend's mom was surprised by the amount of cars there.

[00:10:27] She asked me what I wanted to do and well, I wasn't about to go back home. So we decided to stay and wait a little while to hopefully get the pictures. If I could get just one, just one picture, I would be happy with it.

[00:10:43] We sat on one of the rocks and waited for people to clear up a bit. But even though no more cars kept arriving, the place was still crowded. I was looking at my phone when I felt Jill tapping me on my arm and then pointing out

[00:10:58] toward the bridge. Look! She managed to stutter out. Her shaky index finger was pointing to the crowd when I saw her. The bright yellow dress of a girl trying to hold onto the edge of the railing of the bridge. Nobody would help her.

[00:11:15] Jill screamed, calling out for anyone to please help and she only got stares from people who were walking by. I screamed then ran up to the bridge as Jill started to cry over what was about to happen.

[00:11:28] The girl could no longer hold onto the edge as she kicked and was attempting to switch hands when her twisting body fell all the way down to the dried-up creek underneath it. I closed my eyes and cried, running up to the bridge asking if anybody could see

[00:11:44] her with the hundreds of eyes staring right at me. Foreigners, some of which did not even understand what I was saying. Jill ran after me as she cried too and more and more people circled around us, not asking us anything, not trying to understand what had just happened.

[00:12:08] We leaned over the edge to look below us, afraid of what we would see. When suddenly a large man, a security guard, came up to us and asked what was wrong. Both started crying and I was shaken at the thought that nobody had helped her.

[00:12:24] I did my best to explain what I had just seen as we were walking out of the bridge and toward the security booth. I hadn't even noticed that we had started moving away from the edge. Listen to me, the security guard said in a stern voice.

[00:12:39] Sorry about what happened to your friend. Started telling us about how we were not going to get in trouble or anything, but to please just leave the area. What friend, Jill asked. Didn't even know her and why hasn't anybody tried to go help her?

[00:12:56] The man did his best, but finally got us to stop freaking out when he understood that we had witnessed someone falling from the bridge. Nobody fell from the bridge, he said. Looking at me, straight in the eye. Oh, not today.

[00:13:15] Eventually we learned that he was referring to Ali, the girl who fell off the bridge for trying to take a selfie. When we looked her up online, we recognized her and her yellow dress. They say that residual energies can remain in a certain spot after a tragedy,

[00:13:46] forever repeating a scene. Up next we have a story about a caller to a radio station that turned out to have a dark secret. Caller number 8 is coming up right after this. It was another night at the station and I was by myself.

[00:14:08] The segment I was in charge of was probably only listened to by taxi drivers and those forced to work a night shift, just like me. I was at a show where people called in to share their thoughts about the daily

[00:14:20] topic, which was a list that I made up based on a newspaper from a similar column where people would write asking for advice. I could get people's questions, read a similar story about it and then discuss it on the air.

[00:14:35] Callers would get very angry and passionate about their answers. And if done right we would have on callers criticizing the previous one and then the other would call back and we would get both of them on the air at the same time.

[00:14:50] It was an awesome way to pass the time. Though I can say that I love the job. It paid the bills and I was still grateful to have the opportunity that I had. One night we were discussing the story of a young man who thought that his girlfriend

[00:15:04] was hiding something because she refused to give him her password to her email account when he needed to log in to get her received he had purchased with her account. His reasoning was that if she had nothing to hide then why doesn't she just give him her password?

[00:15:22] But her explanation was that when in a relationship boundaries need to be set to respect the privacy of the individual. The story was read out loud and the first phone call came in. A woman saying that she had run into the same problem with her ex-husband and that

[00:15:38] she should have seen his actions as a warning. Another caller said that if he needed it for something as innocent and meaningless as checking a receipt then why was it a big deal for her to give him her password just to check?

[00:15:54] The calls were pouring in and soon they filled up the lines far too many for me to handle. Overwhelmed by the phone calls I put on a commercial break and went to the bathroom and then got back.

[00:16:05] The red lights on the machine were still on and mindlessly I pushed the button to answer the caller number eight. Hello he said in a quiet voice almost a whisper. Caller number eight you're on the air what do you think about the daily topic I asked?

[00:16:25] John Kimberley he replied. I turned the background music down a little bit and I asked him Hello caller you're on the air what are your thoughts about the daily topic? John Kimberley he whispered and heard his voice before.

[00:16:45] Call suddenly became so full of static that I was forced to cut off the line. I picked up the next caller on the list and they tried to shift the topic back to the original one but all of a sudden he said who was that last guy?

[00:16:59] I didn't know well I couldn't remember. So I tried to shift the topic back to the original thing but we simply couldn't get back into it. The call started dropping on the machine and soon there were only a couple of callers to take the answers from.

[00:17:19] I tapped another random one and answered with my usual hello caller you're on the air what are your thoughts on the daily topic? Hey man he said so that voice of that man who called I might know who he is. Who John Kimberley?

[00:17:34] Yeah him too but the man who called I might know who he is. The calls then started pouring in once again. Call after call they started talking about a famous case that had been on the local news.

[00:17:49] The man found dead in a ditch by the start of the woods at the edge of the county line. One of the suspects name was John Kimberley. Then another caller came on yelling Joe Barilla his name is Joe Barilla I knew it oh I knew it.

[00:18:09] Why does that name sound so familiar to me? I asked out loud. He was a caller too man the guy replied. I recognized his voice and enthusiasm. Kim was calling in just like other segments of the show they all had their own set of regular callers.

[00:18:26] Him was one of them and now that I think of it so was Joe Barilla. Right there on the air I found out about Joe's death. The guy had been out for a run when he was murdered in cold blood.

[00:18:43] Soon after that and no thanks to my show. Word around the station said that this John Kimberley guy was put on trial and found guilty for Joe's murder. The thing that baffles me the most after listening to the recordings of the phone calls is just

[00:19:00] how similar caller number 8 sounded to Joe's familiar voice. I wouldn't call myself too much of a believer but getting a call from the dead might change your mind too. Scary Story Podcast is written and produced by me Edwin Covarrubias.

[00:19:32] You can find me on Instagram at edwincov or find the show over on scarystorypodcast.com to get in touch. Check out my other shows A Dark Memory and True Scary Story if you want to listen to more creepy stuff. Until next time, thank you very much for listening.