Two for Tuesday Scary Stories Volume 76

Two for Tuesday True Scary Stories brings double the chills. In this episode, you’ll hear one story of a shocking time slip, where reality twists in ways that defy explanation. Then, brace yourself for a harrowing tale of nearly drowning in a car, trapped between rising water and fading hope. Two terrifying true accounts, one unforgettable episode of fear.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, campfire crew, let's get it on. I'll take him.
I'll take all of you on your flesh as I
feed on your fear. Turn around, don't drown by flat vegetable.

(00:32):
The story is from my neighbor Tom. He gave me
the details while we were smoking a brisket, and I'm
sharing this story with his permission. You think, after living
on the hill for three months, I'd known better than
to take the creek road in bad weather. But that's
the thing about being young and stupid. You think your
beat up Chevy can handle anything. I'd already turned the

(00:55):
radio down twice so I could see better. Don't ask
me how that works, but you know you've done it too.
Sarah was probably pacing around our little trailer, wondering where
the hell her new husband was. Twenty days of drought
and the one night I was running late, the sky
decided to open up. The wipers were working overtime, slapping

(01:17):
back and forth like they had a personal grudge against
the rain. And I was maybe two miles from our
driveway when I saw the bridge up ahead, or what
I could see of it through all that water coming down. Now,
this creek is usually nothing, Sarah and I had walked
across it on rocks just the week before, and we
barely got our shoes wet. But tonight, tonight, it sounded different.

(01:43):
Even over the engine and the rain hammering on the roof,
I could hear it growling, like something mean had woken
up down there. I slowed down and leaned forward, trying
to get a better look. The water had jumped its banks, completely,
spreading out across the road in this big, wide, dark pool.
My headlights made it look almost calm on the surface.
I mean, just a big puddle, really, maybe a foot

(02:06):
deep to it most the truck had made it through worse.
That's what I've told myself. Anyway, I should have gotten
out and walked to the edge. I should have found
a stick to test how deep it really was. I mean, hell,
I should have just turned around. But it was past midnight.
I was soaked from just running to the truck after work,

(02:27):
and all I wanted to do was get home to
Sarah and our warm bed. I mean, plus a whole
kind of man gets stopped by a little creek water.
So I eased off the brake and rolled forward. I
was just going to take it slow and steady, I thought.
The moment my front tires hit that water, I knew

(02:48):
I screwed up bad. What looked like a harmless puddle
grabbed a hold of my truck like it had been
waiting for me. The steering wheel jerked hard to the right,
almost breaking my grid, and the engine started coughing like
an old man with emphysima. And then it just quit.
And that's when I realized I wasn't driving anymore. The

(03:10):
creek was you know that moment in a nightmare when
you realize you can't wake up. This was worse because
I was wide awake and watching it happen. The current
grabbed my truck like it was made of cardboard and
spun me around so fast I couldn't tell which way
was forward anymore. Through the windshield, all I could see

(03:33):
were tree branch is whipping past and water, so much
dark water that it looked like the whole world had
turned liquid. Something slammed into the passenger side of my
truck hard enough to rattle my teeth in a log
maybe or a rock the size of a washing machine.
The impact threw me against the driver's door, and suddenly

(03:53):
that window was way too close to my face. For comfort.
My hands were shaking so bad I could barely the wheel,
and not that it mattered. I might as well have
been steering a cork in a bathtub. And that's when
the water started coming in, just to trickle at first,
seeping through the door. Seems like the creek was testing

(04:13):
how long it had before it could really get to
work on me. It was cold as hell too. It
wrapped around my ankle like a snake, and I swear
I could feel it getting higher by the second. And
that's when it really hit me that I was going
to die there. I mean, not maybe, not if things
went wrong. I was actually going to drown on my

(04:35):
own damn truck, two miles from home, two miles from Sarah.
The headlights were still working, cutting through the murky water
like some kind of sick joke, lighting up all the
crap floating around me, Branches as thick as my arm,
chunks of god knows what, and all of its swirling
in this underwater tornado that had my truck right in
the middle. The water was up to my shids at

(04:59):
that point, creeping higher, and every time the current slammed
me into something else, more water poured in my sanctuary.
This beat up Chevy that was supposed to get me
home safe to my wife had now turned into my coffin.
And there wasn't a damn thing I could do about
it except sit there and watch it happen. I'd never
been so scared in my life. I had maybe thirty

(05:25):
seconds before this thing went completely under. The water was
rushing in faster up past my knees, and I could
feel the truck settling deeper with every second. The door
wasn't budging, I mean too much water pressure from the outside,
but the driver's window was still up above the floodline.
I cranked it down and immediately got slapped in the

(05:46):
face by a wall of freezing water. The current was
so strong it felt like getting hit with a fire hose.
But there, maybe three feet away, I could see a
branch sticking out of the water, not much to look at,
about as thick as my wrist, probably from some oak
tree that got uprooted upstream, but it was the only
solid thing I could reach. I took a deep breath

(06:09):
and launched myself out that window. Big mistake. The current
grabbed me instantly and dragged me down until I was
neck deep in that freezing hell. My chin was barely
above the surface, and wave after wave kept smacking me
in the face. I try to suck in air, but
before I could fill my lungs, another surge would hit me,

(06:32):
forcing dirty water up my nose and down my throat.
I was choking, gasping, drowning while still breathing. My arms
were wrapped around that slick branch, but I could feel
my grip failing with each wave that tried to rip
me away. My lungs were burning and desperate for a
full breath that I couldn't catch. I was starting to

(06:54):
see spots dancing in front of my eyes when something
slammed into the back of my skull hard. I mean,
it felt like getting hit with a baseball bat, and
for a second everything went white. I nearly let go
of that branch right then and there, and would have
been swept away if my arms hadn't locked up from
pure instinct. Hey. Hey, Through the roar of water and

(07:17):
the ringing in my head, I heard some one shouting
a man's voice coming from somewhere upstream. Grab the rope,
Grab the rope. I blinked the muddy water out of
my eyes and saw a yellow rope with a fat
knot tied at the end, bobbing in the current, maybe
two feet away from me. I didn't think and just

(07:40):
lunged for it, wrapping my fist around that knot like
it was the last thing on earth. The second that
I had it, I heard a truck engine rev hard
up stream. The rope went taut, and suddenly I was
flying through the water, getting dragged towards shore so fast
I thought my arms might rip clean off, but I
held on. Hell, you couldn't have pried that knot out

(08:01):
of my hands with a crowbar. I don't know how
long I got dragged through that mess, but suddenly my
boots hit something solid, Not rocks or logs floating around,
but actual ground, higher ground. The water was only up
to my ankles there, and I could stand I mean
I could actually stand up. I let go of the

(08:24):
rope and fell to my hands and knees, coughing up
what felt like half the creek, and muddy water poured
out of my mouth and nose, and every breath felt
like I was sucking air through a wet towel. My
chest was on fire, my head was pounding where whatever
it had hit me had left its mark, and I
was shaking so hard I could barely keep myself upright.

(08:46):
When I finally managed to look up, trying to see
who the hell had just saved my life, there was nothing.
No truck, no rope, no voice calling out, just darkness
and rain. But often the distance, maybe a quarter a
mile down the flooded road, I could see yellow lights

(09:07):
bouncing through the storm. The volunteer fire department headed straight
for me, not searching, not wandering around. They were headed
right to where I was standing, like they knew exactly
where to find me. Whoever had pulled me out of
that water was already gone, like some kind of ghost,
and somehow they'd made sure help was coming. The fire

(09:31):
chief was a guy named Bobby Anderson, and I'd knowed
him since high school. He took one look at me
and shook his head. Hospital no arguments, he said, and
even though I kept insisting that I was fine, he said,
You've got water in your lungs, probably a concussion from
whatever smacked you, and you're shaking like a leaf. Sarah's
going to kill me if I don't get you checked out.

(09:54):
Sarah at Christ, I hadn't even thought about calling her.
She was probably going out of her mind. B Now,
I started to ask, hey, Bobby, can you and he
cut me off. I already did, he said, helped me
into an ambulance. I called her as soon as we
got the report. She's meeting us at the hospital. The
ride was a blur of oxygen masks and paramedics asking

(10:18):
me the same questions over and over. But all I
could think about was how I was going to explain
all of this to Sarah. I mean, how do you
tell your wife of three months that you nearly drowned
because you were too stubborn to turn around. Well, we
pulled up to the er. She was already there, pacing
in the parking lot in her pajamas and rain boots.
The second she saw me, she started crying. And you're

(10:40):
not the pretty kind of crying you see in movies,
but the ugly, relief, sobbing kind that comes from thinking
you might have lost someone. Sarah didn't say a word
when they wheeled me in. She just grabbed my hand
and held on like she was afraid I might disappear again.
Her face was streaked with tears and rain, and I
could see in her eyes that she already imagined the worst.

(11:02):
When I squeezed her hand back, she finally let out
this shaky breath, like she'd been holding it for hours.
I'm okay, I whispered, though we both knew how close
it had been to that not being true. Later, after
the doctors had pumped the rest of the creek water
out of my lungs and stitched up the gash on
my head, after Sarah had called my boss and her

(11:23):
parents and anyone else who might have been worrying, I
just lay there in that hospital bed, staring at the
ceiling tiles. Three months married, and I'd almost made Sarah
a widow over a flooded creek, all because I was
too proud, too impatient, too damn sure I knew better
than mother nature. And I kept thinking about that voice

(11:45):
in the storm, and that rope appearing just when I
needed it most. Someone had been watching out for me
when I was too stupid to watch out for myself.
Sarah and I we just celebrated our twenty fifth anniversary
last month. Now we live a thousand miles from that
creek road, a thousand miles from the man I used

(12:06):
to be. The life we built is a good one
full of kids and now one grandkid in laughter. But
every time a big storm rolls through, I still feel
a shiver, a memory of cold water and the sound
of my truck giving up. I look at Sarah asleep
beside me, and I see the beautiful weathered lines around
her eyes, and I think about how close I came

(12:28):
to never knowing her past that night, and I'm grateful,
not just for the stranger who saved me, but for
every single day I've had since that night. I got
a second chance, and I will never forget it. I

(12:51):
will never forget this night by dry shirt. It all
happened on my birthday during a mountain bike graced. Those
races last two days. The first day is a practice
ride to learn the course, and the second day is
the race. After practice, my friend and I went to
go get ice cream, and about halfway through mine, I

(13:14):
needed to use the restroom. The shop didn't have one,
so I headed to the hotel next door. It was
in a little strip mall, and this was about five
thirty in the afternoon. As soon as we stepped inside,
the place felt strange. The air smelled musty, like old carpet,
and there was absolutely nobody around, no workers, no guests,

(13:38):
just silence, well not complete silence. On the front counter
sat one of those little gold Asian waving cat statues.
Its paw clicked rhythmically as it moved up and down,
and that sound echoed through the empty lobby, mixing with
the harsh buzzing of the fluorescent lights above. That was it.

(13:59):
No tea, no voices, no footsteps, just the cat and
the lights. We wandered a little looking for someone to
ask about the bathroom, but the police seemed abandoned. Finally
I gave up and started searching on my own. I
noticed a restroom sign swinging slightly under one of the lights,

(14:20):
and I looked at my friend and said, well, looks
like it's this way. He sat down on a couch
in the lobby while I walked down the hall. The
buzzing lights overhead made the whole corridor feel lonelier the
further I went. At the end, instead of restroom doors,
I found a ballroom completely empty except for music equipment

(14:40):
on the stage. No instruments, just stands, cables, and a
microphone quietly humming with static, even though I couldn't see
any speakers. When I turned to leave, I noticed something strange,
a doorway leading into what looked like an Indian restaurant. Curious,
I walked in, figuring maybe the bathrooms were there. The

(15:03):
red carpet crunched under my shoes like it hadn't been
stepped on in years, and dust hung in the air,
glowing in the yellow light. Above the booths. A neon
sign flickered over the bar. It immediately felt off. The
restaurant had only booths around the edges and no tables
or chairs in the middle, which was unusual. I circled

(15:25):
the room, taking it all in, and when I looked
back toward the bar, I saw something I swear hadn't
been there before. A hallway with a glowing sign that
read bathrooms this way. I followed it and finally found
the restroom. As I walked, I thought about how perfect
this place was for photos. I love liminal spaces, and

(15:49):
this was exactly the kind of eerie, in between place
that fascinates me. But when I came back out, everything
had changed. Restaurant was packed, Families filled the boots, laughing
over steaming plates, and the bar was full of men
talking loudly over drinks. Waiters were moving quickly between the

(16:10):
tables that hadn't even been there before. The place that
moments earlier felt abandoned now looked completely alive. I froze,
goosebumps covered my arms, and my phone buzzed. It was
a text for my friend, BRO, what is taking so long?
I'm about to leave. Trying to act normal, I left

(16:33):
the restaurant and walked back into the hallway, and my
stomach dropped. It was dark outside. Back in the lobby,
my friend stood waiting, looking frustrated. Bro. He said, how
are you in there for like four hours? I don't know,
I answered, honestly. And now the lobby was busy, with

(16:56):
people walking around, the TV playing the news, and a
woman at the desk calling out, have a nice day. Boys.
We walked outside and I checked the time, eight fifty.
I swear I was only in there for maybe five minutes.
I thought about taking pictures, but I couldn't, and after
I was strange. It all felt. I didn't want people

(17:17):
staring at me like I was some weirdo sneaking around
snapping photos. I just wanted to get out of there.
I still don't know what really happened, but the whole
thing creeps me out even now. Hey Yang, thanks for

(17:46):
listening to this episode. My apologies about the episode of
the Best of College Stories that I tried to upload
last Friday and apparently did so with no audio. I
have fixed, but again my apologies for the screw up.
Probably confused a whole lot of people, and at least
I got that from the comments. If you have a

(18:08):
true scary story of any nature that you'd like me
to narrate, email it to Uncle Josh True Scary Stories
at gmail dot com. I read them all. Everyone be
excellent to each other, and until next time, be wary
of things that go bump in the night. It could
be anything a ghost, a monster, or a guy next door.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
St s s s S s s s s s

(20:25):
s s s s s s s s s s

(21:01):
s s S. I think nothing and nothing