The Truth in the Fog

[00:00:00] Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. The closer I got to the truth, the more I wish I had stayed away. Some mysteries are meant to remain unsolved. My name is Edwin, and here's a scary story.

[00:00:20] There was a photograph at my grandmother's home that always bothered me. The story was that it had been taken by my grandfather somewhere in the border of Washington and Canada. From what I knew, my grandpa was not a photographer, and much less of some expert that could modify or create anything artistic out of images. But this image, to anyone else, was just of a scene of a cabin at the edge of what appeared to be a tree line.

[00:00:47] The trunks of these trees were dry, fog all around them, and a log cabin with a stack of chopped wood neatly stacked by the corner. It hung neatly on an empty wall with the light green paint that my grandma had chosen long ago. Something she refused to change after my grandpa died. And that room, with the picture on the wall, is where I used to sleep whenever I visited my grandma in the summers.

[00:01:13] Being the only one of my cousins to actually like spending time out there in the small community where she lived, along with all these other small houses and old neighbors. Some who were always happy to see a kid riding around in a bike up and down the street. I would often be the only one there. I would go with grandma to the store, always in two trips. The second one to pick up what she forgot during the first. It was eerie, I must admit.

[00:01:41] Some of the things she would say, I wasn't sure if they were real. Things about how the man who delivered the bread in the mornings had complimented her, but would change her tone to say that she would never do that to my grandpa. Except grandma bought her own bread and no one ever knocked on the door. She would pick up the phone sometimes, and without waiting for it to ring or without greeting anybody, she would continue a conversation.

[00:02:07] Someone I always assumed was on a direct line, like those toy phones we used to have as kids. She always called her Meg. I never mentioned it to anybody. Not that they wouldn't believe me. Part of it was because I didn't want them to think anything bad about grandma. The other part was that I didn't see it as important. But it was about this photograph, the picture of the cabin in the woods, that I found out that she knew of something else.

[00:02:35] Something that had been bothering her about my grandpa's death. I told you earlier that the image appeared to only be about this cabin by the edge of the tree line in a foggy morning. But I had a lot of time to look at this photograph. Grandma's television would get two and a half channels, one that grandma would turn on in the evenings as a soap opera would play, a foreign one with a young girl who had the ability to tell the future and wanted her parents to get back together.

[00:03:04] While she watched and gave me the buttered toast with milk, I would sit on the bed in the room to eat it while flipping through the many magazines that she had collected over the years. Old news in some of them. Stories of old presidents. But while I gulped down the cold milk, I would look at this photograph and see the strange ways the trees seemed to be stuck together. Almost like a double image of tree trunks and branches. And yet, the logs on the cabin seemed still.

[00:03:34] When I think of it now, I admit that it might just be a blurry photograph. But one evening, with the static on the television on full blast from the room just outside from where I was, I saw the image move. Like when your eye gets drawn in for just an instant, but you're too slow to react to it. And it looked at every detail, the branches in the trees, all but two with leaves on it. The way the trees faded through the fog and that cabin.

[00:04:04] The dusty windows that were divided into four when I spotted it. The figure through the window glass. A man with a light-colored hat looking directly at me. Well, looking directly at the camera. The way the grin glowed against the rest of his face and window made me think that he was not smiling, but showing his teeth in a menacing way. Had it always been there?

[00:04:31] I had looked at this same photograph for many summers already, looking at every detail. But I had never noticed this man in there. My eyes would dart open at odd hours of the night as I looked over the picture, in case the moonlight had already shined away from it. And I don't know at what time it happened when I finally fell asleep, but the light had already faded and only the silhouettes of the branches shined against that mostly empty wall. I could still see that man in the window,

[00:05:01] waiting for something. It was like this for the rest of the summer, though I did eventually ask my grandma about it. Oh, that picture? Your grandpa took it, she would say. And that was without a care in the world about what I thought about it and how much it scared me. Grandma, but did you ever see the man in the window? She walked up to it. Well, that's her grandfather, she said,

[00:05:29] as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She pointed to his hat, barely visible in the window of that old cabin. But grandma, didn't he take the picture? Why, yes, he took it, she said, losing herself a bit in the picture before walking out of the room. Eventually, I started sleeping face in the other wall instead, as much as I hated turning my back on that man in the window, my supposed grandpa.

[00:05:59] I never learned exactly how my grandfather died. With my cousins one time, they said that he wasn't dead, that he had just left one day, taking a few of his things. He said he was going to go on a hunting trip and just never came back. I guess it was more common back then for men to abandon everything and start a new life somewhere else, since they would say it as if it were normal. My dad never talked about him. We only had a couple of pictures of him, the wedding with my grandma

[00:06:28] and another family portrait. A tall man that looked younger than he was until he turned 30, and then age hit him like an avalanche. Dad said grandpa had gotten sick suddenly and died. Grandma knew the story, but she ended up passing away one winter during my first year in high school. I never got to hear it. Our family had made the trip down there to take care of her things, and I was forced to pick one item from her house to take with me.

[00:06:58] I didn't know why I picked that photograph, but it came home in a box along with my dad's old baseball trophies and the large t-shirt that grandma used to make me wear after taking a bath, saying that I needed to wear something loose after the shower if I didn't want to get sick. The photograph sat in a box in the closet for years until my senior year of high school. I would only think of it when I stumbled upon that box while looking for something among the mountains of sweaters and junk I kept in that thing.

[00:07:28] But things changed once that photograph came into my house. Late at night, I would hear whispers, sometimes shallow and other times the deepest chants. Chills that would come like the wind, but not anything I could talk about anymore. Being afraid at grandma's house was one thing. I was still a kid back then, but now, scared of being in my own room as a teen, about something in the closet, I wanted to stay quiet about it.

[00:07:58] One time, I woke up with the strange sensation of my blanket being stretched out over me like a thin plastic film. It was close against my toes and tightening against my neck. I found myself gripping the blanket as if it were being pulled down and away from me with a force that was definitely not coming from me. I was too afraid to turn around. I never found out what it was, but I knew it had something to do with that photograph. It was something I heard once

[00:08:27] about how you shouldn't take things from dead people, but I wasn't sure if it still counted if the dead person was your own grandmother. I finally picked it up one day when I was sorting through things to take to college and what to leave behind. The photograph was much smaller than I remembered it. I think only the frame was large. But still, the black and white photograph was just as clear as it was all those years ago.

[00:08:57] When summertime came, I knew what I wanted to do. After pressing my dad about what had happened to grandpa, he finally showed me his obituary. A caring father, death in absentia, is what it said. He stayed quiet and gave me more details. A tombstone was ordered but never picked up. Never placed anywhere. Everyone was asked to stay quiet about it. I had to look up what absentia meant and it pretty much meant he disappeared. Nobody searched.

[00:09:26] Nobody talked about it anymore. There were strict rules to follow when grandpa had broken one, apparently. There was something about those woods that people avoided. Not even the authorities investigated like they should have. They knew about the strange occurrences in those woods. The vanished, they used to say. When they referred to the long list of people who had gone missing around there. But for me, it was like every chance I had to learn about that photograph

[00:09:56] was cut off. Grandma was of no help, maybe because I didn't ask all the questions. My dad was vague about it and still, I did impress him even more. And now, the only place that might have held some answers was a place I should not visit. But it would be my last chance and I was going to make the drive. Maybe seeing the place would give me some answers about that photograph and about grandpa.

[00:10:26] I found myself staring at the photograph up close now that it wasn't nailed on a wall. For hours, I would have it next to me, looking at every detail, again, every branch and imperfection. I couldn't believe I missed a very particular thing. It felt like when I first noticed the man in the window of that cabin. Except this time, I noticed a figure, tall, dark, and menacing, barely sticking out of the side

[00:10:55] of one of the trees. I thought it could have been one of those blurry parts of the photograph I was looking at. But then I noticed one of the eyes from behind the cabin. I didn't tell anyone about it before I made the drive. I didn't want to ask anything and I didn't want any answers. The town I made it to deserves no attention.

[00:11:24] They don't want it. In fact, they might find me if I share it. But everyone knows, especially at the diner where I got some pretty serious warnings about that cabin in the woods. They knew the area and were able to figure out roughly where the place was. No one should go there, son. You best stay out of there. People go missing all the time. And I should have listened. But I realized it too late by the time I was out there. The dirt road

[00:11:53] that led to the opening in the forest. I had gotten late and I was looking for a place to park and rest up before continuing the next day. But all I could see were trees after trees and little room to stop a car. Finally, off in the distance, I saw a small space on the side of the road right after a turn. The air had gotten misty with fog rolling in from up ahead and I made it to the spot just before it covered up the road. The last time

[00:12:23] I remember feeling this scared was back at the room at Grandma's looking at that photograph at night. And now, to think I was living in that photograph myself. With fog, the trees, and my car to take place at the cabin, feeling just as afraid as an adult now. I put the car in reverse toward the trees away from the road. Not sure who I was hiding from, but the small sedan I was in would surely go unnoticed if I parked it just right.

[00:12:52] I locked the doors and jumped into the back seat, afraid to look out the windows. The blanket was already on the seat and I don't know why I grabbed it and put it over my head so quickly. I could hear my heart beating loudly as I listened for something, anything, coming from those woods. They were silent. I knew there was nothing out there and yet, I felt like I had stepped into a place I shouldn't be in. I felt the place get heavy, suffocating,

[00:13:22] enough to get me to roll down the window no matter how afraid I felt. And I was about to, my hand already on the handle when I heard knocking from behind me. The wind picked up so fast it shook the car from all sides and in an instant all that I felt were the echoes of the branches moving in the distance as whatever this was moved through the mist and the darkness. away from me. I froze in silence,

[00:13:52] my head still under the blanket. Maybe it was a car passing by, one of those big fast cars that would rattle yours when they passed too close. A gust of wind, I thought. If there were hills nearby, surely there would be gusts. It was too hot under that blanket now and I started to pull it down but I was met with more darkness from the inside of that car. The dim glow through the fog one that I assumed was from the few stars barely visible

[00:14:21] through the branches. I sat still feeling silly and comforted by being scared in a car holding onto a blanket just like I did when I looked at that photograph the one at my grandma's house. but it was until morning when I realized just how close I was to the real thing. The fog was a cold blue that morning when I stepped out onto the wet gravel. A trail waited for me just off to the left

[00:14:51] side of the car behind the trees that were hiding me. Without hesitation, leaving the doors unlocked and everything, I walked up the trail that led to a small clearing not more than 30 feet ahead. It was there where I saw an old abandoned cabin. The cabin. The one from the photograph. Part of the roof was still up. The trees, the fog, almost in the exact position like in that photo. Manakaden helped myself

[00:15:20] and ran back to the car to grab the picture frame. I jogged back up to the clearing and confirmed it. This was the spot just off the dirt road. What appeared to be an old hunting cabin, maybe a refuge from something. I stood there for a minute and I felt it again. The strange wind that came from between the trees and stopped right behind me. I took a few steps closer to the cabin, looking behind me this time just to make sure

[00:15:49] I wasn't being followed and that I was still within running distance from the car. With my steps in a steady rhythm, I walked up toward the side of the cabin and found where the door used to be. Inside, an old table, still standing. Two solid wood chairs and broken glass on the floor. The place rumbled as I walked across the open floor toward the opposite corner. On it, a candle holder, solid brass,

[00:16:19] it seemed. And I thought about taking it, I honestly did, before I remember the price of it. You don't take things from a dead person. And though I didn't know who this place had belonged to, I knew there was something waving its finger no at me from somewhere, warning me. The walls were lined with squares of a lighter shade of wood than the rest. Some vertical rectangles and others were wide. But there was one that stood out to me.

[00:16:49] I held up the frame, I was gripping the whole time and held it up toward the wall. A nail still there and it fit perfectly in the shape of that square. Grandpa never lied. He had taken the photo from this cabin in the woods. Literally, taken it. I hung it from the cable in the back of the frame and stepped back. The haunting photo of the man in the window, menacing figure watching the cabin

[00:17:19] from the trees. It all seemed to belong in one place when I looked at it the way it blended with the wall. And it's what I remember now when I tell the story of that photograph. A part of something larger, something we'll never quite understand. I walked around for a little bit longer, finally getting back in the car without that photograph. I no longer noticed those gusts of wind as I drove back toward the diner.

[00:17:49] They had all been talking about me and my drive to the woods. Hank here went up to check on you last night where you parked by the oddest in the entrance, one of the old guys said from the counter. I think so, I answered, remembering that old cabin. Strange things happen out there, kid. They say there's a gold somewhere around there, but I ain't about to go trying to find out, the man said, staring back down at his coffee cup.

[00:18:19] You hear about that dark man in the woods? Hank, don't scare him. Don't listen to him, honey, the waitress jumped in. That's why nobody stops here to visit. Just warning to leave everything where he found it, that's all. Don't want him stealing some gold and finding him without a head. The small group of four stayed quiet. Only the old radio from the kitchen was heard for a few seconds. But I just wanted to see the cabin, I told them.

[00:18:49] They looked up at me, wide-eyed. The waitress tapped Hank on the shoulder, shushing him before he even spoke up. What did you see, honey? Nothing, I told her. It's just a broken down old cabin, right? Relief came over them all at once. I wanted to ask and find out. Who was the man in the photograph? The dark shadow behind the trees? The gust that traveled

[00:19:19] through the woods? But now that I was there with people who knew all of the answers, I held my questions to myself. And I could tell that they knew it was best that way too. Scary Story Podcast is written and produced by me,

[00:19:49] Edwin Covarrugias. As always, thank you so much for your support. You can find me on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram as Edwin Cov. That's E-D-W-I-N-C-O-V. To follow our podcast accounts, I'll leave links to everything in the description of this episode. If you're subscribed and following the show, I will tell you another story next week. Thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary, everyone. See you soon.