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The Marionette
**First off I have to sorta express that this is really neat for me. I've been... I guess you could say both blessed/cursed with the fact that ever since I was little I've been fortunate or *unfortunate* to either stumble into situations, or have situations stumble into me. Because of this I hope that I can fill the good people of Reddit/nosleep in on several of my stories from both my childhood and my adulthood that have been creepy, and filled with supernatural mishaps. I figured I'd start it off with one of the first instances of my childhood that really perplexed me, kept me up at night, and still gives me the creeps.** When I was about 11 I had a good buddy of mine that was 13. He had had some tough times in elementary school and due to this was held back a grade. He was always seen as the 'older' kid, but because he was skinny and scrawny like me, it never felt like it to me. He was a good friend and because we lived so close to one another our summer's were always full of adventure, and our school year was never boring. His mother was the landlord at an apartment building, and his father did electric/computer work for a living. Whenever I went to his place we'd always get full rain of the apartment building. Keeping in mind of course that this was a full 18 story building, and all with residents from families, to the elderly. They must have hated us. We'd run up and down the halls playing cops and robbers, we'd take the elevator up hit all the buttons, then run down the stairs, we'd play nicky-nicky nine doors, and we'd get to hang out in all the vacant apartments. This part was most definitely the best part of the whole deal. We'd have sleepovers in these vacant rooms and bring up tvs and vcr's and watch movies, or play games, use a fridge to store all the sode and candy we wanted, stay up super late, play G.I. Joe's, the works. Now, the strange thing about this apartment is that because it went to 18 floors, they had a '13th' floor. Every building always treated this ominously, but it was never the 13th floor that gave us problems. It was the 15th. We'd hear strange noises up and down the halls. A really strange older man lived alone on the 15th floor, and for the most part anyone who lived on that floor never stayed there for long. As kids, that was all the evidence we needed of course. Now, my buddies Mom never really liked us to be up on any floors higher then the 6th. She didn't have a problem with us staying in any empty apartments, but she'd prefer it if we were only a few floors away incase we had problems or she needed to get to us. Phil (my buddy) and I of course always had to wait for one of the apartments on those floors to free up to really have fun and when they did he'd call me immediately. This particular summer however there weren't many people moving out on those floors and we were getting restless. When we had no apartments to sleepover at, we'd stay in his room or mine, and our collective parents were getting driven mad by our late night shenanigans. Because of this, Phil's mom suggested we take one of the vacant rooms on the 15th floor. Several families had moved out and though we had been asking her once or twice a week if we could go up there she was always adamant that we shouldn't be that high up and alone. Needless to say we were utterly stoked and excited that she'd suggest it and let us go up alone. We felt pretty grown up. We immediately made preparations, we got candy, food, scary movies, lugged up our small TV and VHS player, grabbed a huge bag of G.I. Joe's, and were set. We also brought a flashlight with us as typically Phil's mom would turn off several of the breakers in the apartment aside from the one connected to the fridge, and one in the living room so that we didn't burn down the place with the oven, or do something stupid with too much electricity. We went up there relatively early and set up our sleeping bags and pillows. The apartment itself was typical for the complex. Three bedrooms, one living room that was adjacent to a two-way entrance kitchen, one bathroom, and a balcony. Phil's mom locked the balcony door so that we wouldn't do anything dangerous and so the rest of the place was ours. In two of the bedrooms the previous tenant had left a ton of things. Some boxes, and cases, and garbage typically. This was typical as a lot of the time when people moved out they didn't want to pay for a truck to pick up the garbage either, and at the apartment whatever was left behind was usually put out to a garage sale. We started out with movies and G.I Joe's for the most part. We would occasionally hear some yelling from one of the lower floors, but on this particular night our floor was almost totally silent. With only the creepy old guy, and an mature Asian couple down the hall the exception, we were alone. The weird stuff started happening almost as soon as we got settled in. After plugging in the TV/VCR we'd get weird static and strange feedback. The TV was old, but had never done this before. We were usually able to get atleast a few stations and on this current night we couldn't get anything with the rabbit ears. All the movies we put in would start to go fuzzy as well and we'd hear strange noises over top and underneath intermittently. We couldn't make anything out at the beginning but we of course were nervous but thought it was 'awesome'. Two young teenage boys are stuborn when they want to be about showing fear, and neither of us wanted to be the first to get 'spooked'. Especially when we felt so grown up already. When the movie we were watching began to get snowy and talking could be heard that wasn't from Critters 2, we decided to turn off the movie and instead just play some G.I. Joe's. We nervously dumped out the toys and pick and chose which characters we wanted for the night. It only took about 20 minutes before all the worries of the weird TV stuff was forgotten and we were both on either sides of the room working hard at our stories for our characters. We had brought up a few G.I Joe accessories, and one of them was a Cobra tank. Because we only had three, a jet, the tank, and a jeep we shared them between the two of us when we needed them. I was using the jeep and Phil was playing with the jet while the tank sat alone in the middle of the room between us. I can't remember exactly the way it all played out, but I just remember that one minute I was in the game, the next I heard Phil say outloud 'Whoa. Whoa. Whoa!' and when I turned I had an instant to see the tank finish rolling the last few inches. I looked at Phil and he was frozen staring at the toy. When I asked him what was going on, it took him a bit to explain that he had heard a noise and when he looked up the tank was rolling around on it's own, but not in a straight line, as if it was being played with. I kept insisting that it wasn't funny for him to be scaring me, but he was adamant and when I didn't believe him he got quite angry. I tried to ignore him and go back to my game, though I noticed Phil get up take the tank into the kitchen and come back a few moments later to his toys. We continued to play in silence except for the sudden "Boom!" and G.I.Joe dialogue that'd we do in our different voices until *I* heard something. I turned towards the kitchen doorway and my mouth fell open as the toy tank rolled about three feet out of the kitchen and stopped dead. I looked up and saw that Phil was on the opposite end of the room, looking pale and with his mouth just as agape as my own. We both bolted to the corner furthest from the kitchen and began to freak out. Yelling and screaming and laughing nervously. Phil started talking to the 'ghost' that was in the apartment, while I remained quiet and tried to persuade myself with logic that a draft must have blown it or something. Eventually after waiting it out and nothing happening again we decided that the game of G.I. Joe's was impossible to continue and so instead we went exploring. We decided to start with the first bedroom. Which didn't take very long since, although we had a flashlight the room was empty and though it had a few scraps of paper and magazines in the closet nothing was of interest so we closed that door and moved onto bedroom number 2. In this one we found a few cases and boxes. One of the boxes had more newspapers and magazines and even a porno which Phil stashed in his pillow. There was also a small trunk in the closet that was old, battered, and blue. When we tried to open it the latch was locked and wasn't possible. We tried bashing it with piece of wood left behind as a door stop, and tried picking it with a metal coat hanger hanging in the closet. Neither worked and eventually we just closed the closet and left the blue trunk alone, though I think both of us knew that something about it was very weird. Whenever we touched it, it was cold, and it being summer, gave us the willies. With that room basically being a bust we went into the last bedroom that was clearly the most lived in. I shut the door on the second bedroom and we headed onward down the hall. All the windows had tin foil on them and had been put up either to keep the heat out, or to block out the sun, so the room was instantly a black hole that devoured all light. Keep in mind as well that aside from our flashlight and the TV and Kitchen light, we were entirely without light sources. As we had moved further and further down the hall the little bit of lighting trickling out of the kitchen was harder and harder to use, and in this bedroom in particular it seemed like nothing penetrated the darkness. Our flashlight cut through it like a dagger and without it neither of us could really see anything past a foot. It's hard to write out the next few moments properly as it feels like it all happened instantly in my mind, but I know it all played out over several minutes. This also happened many years ago and though I vividly remember what happened, it's hard to remember the exact timeline and how it all unfolded because part of me was solely in shock and the other part was just reacting. Phil and I stuck close and as we stepped into the room we were greeted with a noise I can't describe properly but made every hair on my body prick up. It was like a scream that had no voice, or a breath being blown out of a dying persons mouth. It was like the absence of sound but it seemed so **LOUD**. Both of us froze and everything began happening quickly. Something in the room moved. We couldn't see it but the sound scraped across the floor and Phil instantly shone the flashlight towards the noise. From out in the main room, a crash was heard, and a big THUD happened somewhere else in the apartment. The tin foil crinkled as if someone had run a hand over it, and the door creaked open a little further as if something brushed past us. We both jumped, Phil dropped the flashlight and we ran like fuck out of the room and into the living area. When we got there we looked back into the hall and it felt like the whole hallway had gotten darker somehow. As if when we opened that last bedroom door the darkness and shadows were creeping out and taking up space where light from the kitchen should have been penetrating. We were able to ascertain the crash sound as well as the G.I Joe tank was laying on it's side against a wall, as if someone had pushed it or kicked it towards the wall and upended it. A small piece of paint and plaster was chipped out of the wall and both of us began talking at once. My first knee-jerk reaction was wanting to get the fuck out of there, go downstairs and go back to his room. Phil wanted to stay and find out what it was, and convinced me that leaving was the worst idea. Neither of us wanted to sulk back downstairs and explain we were too scared to stay up in one of the apartments alone, and both of us being stubborn boys realized that we had to stick it out. First course of action was of course getting the flashlight back. Which, armed with the G.I. Joe jeep in Phil's hand, and the Jet in my hand we inched along the hallway ready to throw and dish out as much American Hero pain as we could. (A side note being that both of us are Canadian.) If anyone had watched us they would have laughed their asses off. Two young teen boys trying to sleuth down a hall, one arm raised above our heads each with a toy vehicle and the other hand close enough to one another that in the moment we could easily grab eachother and book it. As we passed all the rooms I noticed that for some reason that second bedroom had the door open. It wasn't gaping but it definitely wasn't shut any longer. I paid it no heed however as our bigger fish was the end of the hallway and the last bedroom. We tiptoed to the door pushed it open again slowly and were able to spot the flashlight, still on but much further into the room then either of us remembered. We didn't speak this entire time, instead barely breathing to try and keep our ears open and listening for ANYTHING. Together we locked eyes and I made a motion to head in. Phil followed and before long we were wrapped in the darkness of that last bedroom again and making our way slowly to the small sliver of light coming from the flashlight. Phil grabbed the back of my shirt, and I grabbed his with our free hand. We made it into the center of the room and in one quick motion I let go of Phil, leaned forward and scooped up the flashlight then together the two of us backed out of there as quick as possible. In a rush we exited the room and the door seemed to slam as we crossed the threshold. (At this point I don't think it was anything supernatural, I think it was just us moving so fast that we brought the door with us on propulsion alone.) Shivering we began to laugh in the hallway as I held up the flashlight in victory. Our courage seemed to be restored a bit as with the door closed and the flashlight in hand, the hallway didn't seem so dark, and with the kitchen light pooling at the far end it was like we were just at the opposite end of a very spooky tunnel. We began walking back and this time started to talk to fill the silence talking about how 'cool' that was and being generally smug bastards. It wasn't until I passed the room again and saw that the CLOSET door of the 2nd bedroom was also open that I really began to get freaked out. Phil sensed it, and asked what's up and I told him I'd explain once we got back into the living room. When we got there, I let him know about how I had closed the closet AND the bedroom door to the 2nd room, but each time we passed both the door, and now the closet were wide open. Phil needed no other evidence we both decided that we should not go back down that hallway again. Neither of us had planned on sleeping that night as it was an "All-Nighter" we had planned with plenty of pop and candy. So we went back to our sleeping bags, grabbed some sodas from the fridge and sat down and decided to read some comics we had brought up. It became obvious neither of us liked the silence however as we both were talking after a short while. It went on like this for a while. We'd eat some junk food, drink some pop, read a bit, talk a bit, eat some junk food, read, talk a bit. Anything to try and get some normalcy. The apartment seemed to have settled down as well by then. Mostly we began to plan what we should do the next day and both of us decided we wanted to go collect some beer cans for money, and then work on his car. (A disclaimer here, Phil's dad being an electrician/computer guy often did favours for people around town. One of his buddies owned a junk yard, and with Phil loving cars at the time, the buddy had given Phil's dad a free 84 beater car for free. It wasn't much, and didn't run, but we'd often sit out in the parking garage on rainy days or when it was too hot and 'work on it' which really just amounted to us screwing around under the hood, listening to music on the radio, or hooking cool shit up to the interior like Christmas lights, etc.) I suppose it must have been around 3am or so when we both started to get a bit sleepy, though neither of us dared to go to bed. It had been an exciting night and though we'd be typically watching a movie or playing a game, neither of us wanted to go too close to the hallway, and the TV/VCR was set up close to it. Our G.I. Joe's were left and forgotten as well, and the tank was on it's own in the corner where we had found it. Every now and then we'd hear a weird noise down the hall, or whatever but all in all we'd try and ignore it. Whenever one of us had to go take a leak we made an understanding agreement that, that person got the flashlight, and the bathroom door was left open. Luckily it was the first door within the hallway and so we could always hear the sound of piss hitting the water, and the tap running to know where each of us were at, at all times. It was after one of these breaks that I began to walk back from the bathroom, and when I turned from the doorway into the living room I saw that Phil was staring slack-jawed up the hallway behind me. My first instinct was to run, and run I did as I ran to him and turned around. He was pale as a ghost again and with a shiver I saw exactly why. At the end of the wall where there was darkness, there was *another* darkness. In the shape of a person or thing. It almost looked like a hooded figure but was far too tall and had weird proportions a too small head, and a too big frame. We both sat frozen for a long moment as neither of us wanted to take our eyes away from the thing or say anything. We weren't exactly sure what we were waiting for but it didn't take long for the thing to suddenly move forward at an alarming speed. It rushed down the hall and we both involuntarily scrambled back but just as it was getting closer to the light it suddenly just stopped being there. And I don't mean disappeared or faded, or something, I mean it just suddenly wasn't there. The hallway just looked as if nothing had ever been there before ever. In an instant. We both stood up and at that moment it seemed like an unspoken agreement that we had had enough. It was too fuckin' scary and we were getting out, as we made for the door the TV suddenly popped onto a snowy channel and we heard a voice from a sitcom or something start speaking in menacingly in Spanish. We bolted for the door ripped it open and ran down the hall bypassing the elevator and right for the stairs. The apartment door slammed shut behind us and neither of us stopped to look back. We ended up staying down at his place on the first floor. We stayed up till around 8/9am talking and trying to recount everything freaky we had seen up there. We drew drawings of the stuff we thought we had saw and both vowed we'd tell everyone. Though both of us at the time began blurring exactly *which* one of us was the one to jump first, or just how scared we both were at the time. When it was morning, we sneaked back out of the apartment before Phil's mom could notice we had been there. Went back to the apartment and entered. Everything was pretty much as how we'd left it. The TV was still on, on snow but no spooky Spanish language was being said, sun was coming in through the big windows and between the blinds, and it seemed like a normal apartment again. We walked from room to room again, and this time nothing seemed that scary. We stayed away from entering the 2nd or 3rd bedroom but we peered in and pretty much left it at that. I noted however that the closet appeared to have been closed again in the 2nd room. We cleaned up our mess we had left, unhooked the TV and brought everything downstairs. We left the G.I.Joe tank till last as it appeared to have been moved/played with a bit more after we had left that night. When the apartment was cleaned up, Phil's mom met us downstairs and asked us how our night had been. Exhausted but too stubborn to admit we were frightened we just said it was 'Awesome', and after dropping stuff off, headed outside. For most of the day we just tried to stay away from the apartment building and keep our minds off of it. Walked around the town a bit, found beer bottles to exchange for cash at the Beer Store, picked up some food, and then stopped in at the local hardware store to get some supplies for the car. We wanted to break down the backseat so that the trunk and the backseat could be made into a bed. Though we didn't know much about girls we thought it'd be awesome to bring 'chicks' there to hang out and 'kiss and stuff'. We headed back with some new supplies and when we entered the parking garage and made it for the corner of the garage that Phil's mom had given to his shitty car, we spotted something on the hood of it. We had, had a good day and despite being exhausted, we were talking and laughing off the night before and our plans to wow chicks with the car. When we saw that the thing on the hood was in fact the blue trunk from upstairs I was about ready to shit my pants. Phil was stunned, and I had no idea what to say, so we both fell silent and slowly approached the car. As we got closer we noticed something else was there as well sitting infront of the blue trunk. There on the hood was a little toy mexican marionette puppet of a bandito. Full on gun in one hand, badly roughed up guitar in the other and the most fucked up looking wooden face I had ever seen. In his lap was a little card that had been typed up and read: > *My name is Pedro. Nice to meet you. Treat me nice, or **bang**.* The trunk was unlocked, it was empty inside except for what we guessed, used to be Pedro. The card looked to be done up on a typewriter as parts of the font were weirdly spaced and faded. The word 'bang' was bold in the crudest of sense as seemed to be in a different font entirely. When we brought Pedro and the trunk back to Phil's, his Mom and Dad both had never seen it before. Neither of us mentioned that we had seen it in the upstairs apartment, and when they asked us where we had gotten it front, we said it had been left at his car. They both didn't really believe us, but aside from a stern talking too from Phil's mom about honesty, and his Dad laughing at us for having crazy imaginations we decided to just not fuck around with the thing. Phil kept Pedro and I think still has him today. We eventually agreed that the blue case would be better left in the garbage though, and the card itself we had left in the car as a reminder. Eventually though as we got older the car was sold and in the hassle of it all Phil had forgotten to grab it. We still have no idea where Pedro came from, how it had gotten downstairs, and why the trunk wouldn't open for us the first time we had tried too in the apartment. We stayed the fuck away from the 15th floor for a long time though. Strangely after googling a bit, I ended up finding an almost identical 'Pedro'. Even the trunks in the background look a bit similar, though the original one had different flip locks, and was more box like and less guitar like. The colour is almost identical though. IMAGE OF 'PEDRO': http://imgur.com/wQVNl Apologies for the bad typing/grammar I kinda wrote it in parts and though I'd proof-read it normally with this story it's more about me just sorta getting it off my chest then anything. more