transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Today's episode is presented by the first trailer for A24's highly anticipated next horror event, Backrooms. A furniture store owner vanishes after discovering a mysterious doorway in his basement that leads to an endless network of interconnected rooms. From Kane Parsons, the preeminent creator of the Backrooms YouTube series, this tense psychological horror thriller explores the suffocating dread of liminal spaces and the unknown lurking behind them. Watch the trailer now for Backrooms and see it in theaters May 29th.

Speaker 2:
[00:36] From unsolved mysteries to unexplained phenomena, from comedy gold to relationship fails, Amazon Music's got the most ad-free top podcasts, included with Prime. Because the only thing that should interrupt your listening is, well, nothing. Download the Amazon Music app today.

Speaker 3:
[00:59] No. This is Creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous, chilling and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 4:
[01:45] Hey, Nichole, what do you think is going on here?

Speaker 5:
[01:49] What do you mean, Danielle?

Speaker 4:
[01:51] Like, with the camp?

Speaker 5:
[01:53] I don't know, it looks pretty good out here, all things considered. You know, because Jon's the one responsible for it all.

Speaker 4:
[02:00] What about Jon?

Speaker 5:
[02:02] What about him?

Speaker 4:
[02:03] Don't you think it's kinda strange that after we got here, he went off by himself, and then we saw him crying in the dark?

Speaker 5:
[02:11] Not really, Jon cries all the time. Just show him a puppy video or a firefighter saving someone, he suddenly has something in his eyes.

Speaker 4:
[02:19] Did you see a puppy or a firefighter out in the swamp?

Speaker 5:
[02:22] No, I wish. Then this would really be a great camp. Do you want to talk to the others about it?

Speaker 4:
[02:29] No, not yet. I guess it could have been about something else, right?

Speaker 5:
[02:34] Knowing Jon, it could literally be anything. Come on, let's go join the others at the campfire. You have a story today, right?

Speaker 4:
[02:42] Yeah, it's about how there's something wrong at the edge of America. I realize you may not be familiar with the Olympic Peninsula, given how out of the way or otherwise unknown it is, so I'll introduce you. The Peninsula is the farthest western point of the contiguous United States. It's dominated by the Olympic National Park, the Olympic Mountain Range, and of course, Mount Olympus. It is home to sprawling primeval forests and one of the only temperate rainforests in North America. This makes it a popular spot for hiking, climbing and kayaking. It's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, though I won't pretend I know what that means. The Peninsula is only a two-hour drive from Seattle, but I suppose, because of the Puget Sound, a vast oceanic inlet separating the Peninsula and Western Washington, it remains relatively uninhabited, except for us, of course. Far south of Port Angeles, in a deep valley, is a small collection of settlements deep in an untamed valley. That's towns built by hermits, rich family men who wanted to make a tourist attraction and doomsday preppers. This is the North Forest region, and it's doomed. Of course, this community has been dying for the last 50 years. No normal person just has the money to start up and run a town anymore. And the idea of weird reclusive settlers potentially building illegal infrastructure and dumping sewage in a beloved national park makes governments testy. Such a strange place allows for stranger stories. Such as the man who returned himself to the earth by squeezing into a cave, or the tall hiker, or just plain old bigfoot. And at the risk of being self-angridaizing, the strangest story is the series of events I've decided to share. December 8, 2025. The first day I began to be uneasy. It seemed like it had been raining nonstop since June. I didn't even know the sky could hold that much water. I didn't open the curtains, not that it would change the amount of light coming in. I panic ate an orange to stop the sweat and shakes, and went rooting for a real breakfast. I pulled a Tupperware from the fridge. The label on the top indicated it was a salad from two days ago, and I held it to the light. I could stomach some wilted greens, soft, mushy croutons, I didn't have anything else, beggars can't be choosers. I almost dropped it. The entire inside of the container was splotched with mold, thick and uneven, blooming in colors of white and gray. Sickness churned in my stomach as I stared into the decay. I imagined the mold creeping across my fingers and flinched, tossing it onto the counter. Fuck me, I shivered. I pulled out my phone and googled how to clean mold out of plastic. I didn't want to throw away a perfectly good Tupperware just because a salad had spoiled fast. But nothing was loading. My reception was flashing between SOS and no service. I wrinkled my nose and, holding the container far away from my body as I could, dropped it in the trash. I left my room above the bar, clattering down metal stairs and splashing into a puddle. My boots sank into the muddy slurry. I looked out toward the horizon, and my eyes darted up, up, up, climbing from tree to ancient tree that were painted into the sheer mountain face. That which seemed like a solid wall curved up and over my head, disappearing into a rolling-grain mass. The clouds were light and dented, cotton with an internal glow. And only a few raindrops a second splashed down onto my face. A beautiful day. I had been mopping up mud that customers had tracked into the general store when someone bumped into the glass door. A deer with its two kids. It stared at me with big black eyes. Aw, hi, I grinned. It stared aimlessly at me, nostrils twitching as it smelt the glass. There was a clatter behind me. A customer glared at me from around the shelf. He was dripping water all over the floor, and his hood was up. He shushed me, whiskers twitching. Don't talk to animals, freak. I narrowed my eyes and went back to mopping. Dunking the mop in the bucket, watching the dirt wiggle through the clean water, I glanced back at the deer, which nudged its kids and walked off. December 15th. I was out in the garden. Knees and hands caked in mud. My sleeves rolled up even as cold rain pelted me. Even with my hood up, my hair was wet and stuck to my eyes, so I kept pushing it out of the way with the backs of my dirty hands. It's been raining nonstop since June. Not even a small flurry of snow to interrupt it. Though that was fine, I suppose. Climate change was a thing and usually snow comes in January. I dug through the dirt, plucking a plump worm out of the soil. I smiled and dropped it into my bucket of dirt. I needed worms for some winter fishing. I dug a little more and plucked out another worm, and another. I set the trowel aside and began moving the soil with my hands. I didn't want to cut all these guys in half. I moved the handful of wiggling soil. And something in my gut turned. The bottom of my hole was just filled with skin. Thick, off-pink tubes of wet, wiggling skin. Worms, twisting and sliding over each other, wrapping around each other like rat tails. Not even in soil. I grabbed the trowel and moved more dirt, gingerly. My face in a grimace. I cleared a large area around the original hole. The whole bottom of the garden box was just worms. A record-breaking amount of worms. Something a crappy fox affiliate would write an article about. They just wiggled over each other, avoiding the soil. I wiped my hands on my coat and pants slowly. Fumbling my phone out of my pocket, I took a photo. The flash was on, brighter than the natural sunlight. For a second, all light was contained to that single cone. The shadows were disgusting. Dark anti-worms writhed over their real brothers. December 16th. I had a cold, so I didn't go out much that day. I stayed inside and read Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation. I was woken up by cars going by every couple of minutes. I checked out the windows. Pickup trucks. Their brights danced through the trees and cast strange faces on the mountain walls. The sky was a black void swallowing the peaks of the mountains, clouds so thick that neither stars nor moon cut through. I closed the curtains in a huff. There was a clatter at my door. I froze. Sucking breath and all sound into my lungs, holding it until a cough almost forced its way out of me. In the silence, I heard scraping, slow, deliberate, high-pitched and screeching, occasionally interrupted like a ball rolling down a rocky surface. I moved slowly and cautiously. I went to my bed and retrieved the handgun from the nightstand. The cold metal in my palm did nothing to quiet the pounding in my head. Counting my breaths, I loaded it, and with a wince, cocked it. I walked to the front door and closed my eyes for ten years. I was imagining some horrific man, face like wax, eyes like a predator, pressed against the window in leering. Logically, I knew it would be a raccoon or bear, but I didn't own a gun because it was easy to make me feel safe. The scraping again. I peeked out the door window. There was a buck. Bull-proud antlers cast twitching, spindly shadows on the ground, its teeth around my metal handrail. It wasn't gnawing exactly, but scraping back and forth. My eyes watered. I pounded on my door. Hey, I shouted, screw off. It stopped. Its pupil shrank.

Speaker 6:
[12:04] Get out of here.

Speaker 4:
[12:06] Go on. It let go of the handrail, metal dust falling from its mouth, glittering in the porch light. It looked at me. It saw me. Slowly, it turned and walked away. The way it walked, though, swaying like it was on two legs, not four. I didn't sleep well for the rest of that night. December 18th. Throughout the last day and a half, the valley was rocked with the crack of rifle fire, coordinated and constant, expanding from somewhere in the far forest before ricocheting off the mountain walls and cloud ceiling. The clouds. They pressed down upon us like a lid, perfectly flush with both sides of the valley. There were no imperfections anymore, no divots or puffs or curves. The sky was smooth, flat, and featureless. It sat so low that it erased the upper slopes of the mountains entirely, swallowing them whole along with the sun. Things like noon and dusk were indistinguishable, aside from a slow dimming of the light. Pillars of smoke drifted lazily up from the forest, maybe twelve or twenty. Rising in slow, straight, expanding columns without twisting or thinning. There was no wind to stop the columns from connecting with the ceiling. They were holding up the sky. I didn't want to go outside anymore. I sat on my bed, tapping my foot, holding my gun in one hand, and thinking about writhing shadows. This is not why I moved out here. I made sure all my lamps were charged and that I had enough candles. I could just wade out this atmospheric river as long as the valley didn't flood. I tried not to cry. I tried not to be angry at myself. I tried to find my glucagon. I tried to find someone to blame. I failed. Reluctantly, I answered the knocking at my door, the sound muffled by the incessant drumming of rain. It was a man, David, I think. One of the many, many hunters in the valley. He had his hood pulled down low. I couldn't see his eyes with the way he angled his head. Rain lashed at his back in thin sheets, sliding off the waterproof coat and dripping into sharp arcs onto the threshold. He shifted around, blocking the weather itself from getting inside. He pulled down his surgical mask to speak. Oh. Well, you stay safe. I went to close the door. He pressed a gloved hand against it. Will you be coming to the bonfire tonight? Bonfire? Yes, celebratory. Oh, are you sure that's safe with the storm? We're sure. I still couldn't see his eyes. Well, I'll think about it. He turned abruptly and clattered down the stairs. His hands balled into fists as he took a sharp turn around the concrete wall and disappeared. He had left mud where he had touched my door. The world dimmed as somewhere above the clouds, the sun set. I moved slowly towards the largest gathering of people I had seen in a very long time. There were maybe 40, 45, gathered around a bonfire roaring in the downpour, the only source of warmth and light in the starless night. Sparks twisted up from the fire, hovering feet above the fire, twinkling in the blackness before winking out. Rain pelted the ground, making every shuffling, unwilling step forward I took treacherous. I pointed my headlight out toward the river. Despite the raging storm of the last few months, the water level hadn't risen much, if at all. In fact, the river was completely calm, almost unmoving. The glassy water reflecting the all-consuming void above. I turned to the fire. People shuffled around, heads down, hoods pulled low. Most were hunters, with the stupid camo jackets and rifles slung over their shoulders. I didn't see their faces. The fire hissed and popped and rain splattered against coats, but the hunters didn't speak. I willed my hand off my gun. There were pop-up canopies, but nobody stood under them. I got closer. Hidden from the rain were five rectangular shallow pits, uniform and equally spaced. At the bottom of each pit was a layer of tinder, laid like log cabins. Also under the canopies were jugs of gasoline. I willed my hand off my gun. Two pickups roared. I hadn't noticed their approach. The rain was falling even harder. Everyone turned to the trucks. The tailgate was popped, and a hunter retrieved a large and bulbous item, slinging it over their shoulder. They moved towards me, toward the pits. And as they passed in front of me, the firelight caught the object just the right way, illuminating it. It was a doe. Its fur long, like a dog's, and patchy. Bone white. Firelight made it glow against the encroaching darkness. Where there was fur missing, I could see individual pores in its skin, oozing a reddish-black tar. Then its head passed across my eyeline. I could clearly see its teeth, pressed tightly together, frozen in death. Oh my god.

Speaker 7:
[18:16] I could see its teeth.

Speaker 4:
[18:18] Its mouth had been brutalized, lips and cheek torn away, revealing gums and teeth and skull underneath, all sticky and caked in tar. A half-litted eye stared at me. I drew my gun. The hunter dropped the dough into the pit, and more followed. So many more.

Speaker 3:
[18:38] You should leave.

Speaker 4:
[18:39] A man from behind me whispered, almost whimpered. I turned. He was wearing a full-face respirator. The plastic was fogged and streaked with rain. I could see the fire in the reflection. The fire standing completely still. What did you do to those deer? I was crying now. Who the fuck cares? They're sick. He placed his hand on my shoulder.

Speaker 3:
[19:06] You should leave.

Speaker 4:
[19:09] I need to leave. December 19th. I dreamt of my old suburban home, of men with guns standing out on the lawn and under the orange tree. They had these things, like sharp hooks connected to ropes. They tossed them through the windows, glass shattering. I heard my mom scream. The hooks flew at me, biting into my arms and legs, pulling me down the hall and through the window. Men with guns were dragging me through the woods. Into the wetlands. They weren't men. They were just boys. I dreamt of them poking me, giggling, playing with my hair, trying to win my favor. Giving me beer and a dog to pet. They were shooting their guns in the air, whooping and hollering as my little legs ran through the marsh. Snap. I snapped my ankle in a watery hole and fell face first into a bear trap. The power was out. A notice on my door informed me that the anaerobic digester that powered the valley had simply stopped digesting. It felt like someone had just broken every one of my ribs individually. But at least I knew for sure now that leaving was the right choice. I grabbed the straps of my pack, tugging it over my shoulders, feeling the weight dig into my spine. The rain had picked up again, and I pulled the hood of my protective shell lower. I stomped around the jeep, dragging my feet through the mud as I carried the box filled with all my personal belongings to the car. I swung the door open and shoved it into the back. The cardboard now softened by the rain. My hands slipped against the slick surface. I hoped nothing had gotten wet. The pack followed. I swung it off my back and onto the passenger seat. I crawled over the bag and behind the steering wheel, then reached over and slammed the door shut. I gripped the steering wheel tight, letting out a long, slow breath. I slid the keys into the ignition and turned. Nothing. Just the whining click of a dead battery. My arms felt like jelly. I took three deep breaths. The constant drumming of rain wasn't helping. It was taunting me. I reached over and popped open the glove compartment, retrieving the jumper kit. I checked the charge level. Dead. My whole body turned to jelly. I slowly let my head fall onto the steering wheel. Gasping in despair like a fish out of water, fear crawled through me, sinking its sticky black claws into the inside of my skin. After I'd collected myself, I realized not all was lost. There was a garage nearby, where there should be more car batteries. I stepped out into the rain and manually locked the door. I balled my fist tight as I trudged the mile stretch to the garage. The path narrowed into a churned up trail of mud and puddles. I ducked under low branches, the needles tickling my face. I stood still for a moment. There was no whisper of wind through the evergreen needles. I looked up, and the trees didn't sway. I walked faster. The forest peeled away around the garage. It sat on a long strip of concrete. It was nice to walk on something other than dirt for a little while. The garage was quaint, a relic of a simpler time, like it had been torn straight off a dusty main street and tossed here. Its red brick walls were streaked with moss and rainwater. A faded sign above the single bay reads, Geyser Valley Auto Repair. A sound scraped across the concrete, soft at first, like someone dragging their feet. From around the corner of the garage, something emerged. A deer, diseased and hollowed. Its fur patchy and caked with mud and congealed blood. Its eyes were dull and wet, pupils contracted. It had its face pressed up against the rough brick of the garage wall, with all its weight as it walked forward. Slowly it slid the side of its head across the wall, raw flesh tearing away against the rough surface. Layers of skin and flesh stretched and snapped with this movement. And I could see dark, disgusting muscle beneath the flayed skin, glistening with rain and tar. I drew my pistol and aimed at the tormented creature. It jerked its head to look at me, removing its face from the wall. The deer stepped forward, hooves clattering as it dragged them across the asphalt. Its bloodless mauled maw grinned at me, despite most of its teeth being missing.

Speaker 8:
[24:02] It grinned.

Speaker 4:
[24:04] I looked into the eyes of that wretched thing, and I saw something more than predatory. It was not hunting me. It hated me. It leaned back, then leaned forward, like a runner preparing to… It charged me. Barely in control of its own legs, I screamed as that mutilated beast from hell barreled towards me. Each bullet leapt forward with a deafening clap of thunder. The first grazed its hindquarters, the second its ear. The third and fourth buried firmly into its skull. Its legs gave out, jaw slamming into the concrete. Its eyes rolled and its cheeks twitched as the hatred drained from its body. I confined myself to the janitor's closet of the garage, sitting on the floor, hiding from the whole world in the dark. I sat on my hands to avoid the urge to draw my gun. I counted to ten, then a hundred, then a thousand. I thought about that night, the stink of the swamp, of the beer of my own breath. I thought about why I moved here. I counted to a hundred again. There were no car batteries in the entire shop. I did take some double A's though, and a couple of candy bars. One I ate immediately. As I loaded up my bag, I tried not to look out the front of the shop, at the corpse of that thing. As I walked back, I decided what I needed to do. I would have to hike out of the valley. It was only ten hours to Port Angeles, and I could probably hitch a ride sooner than that. I looked up at the flat gray ceiling. It had crept down another hundred feet or so. I could already feel the cold creeping up my legs by the time I had gotten back to the Jeep. I took my waterproof pants and a new pair of socks and changed in the Jeep. I took my most important belongings out of the cardboard box and nestled them carefully into my backpack. I secured my gun in its holster. Ten hours to Port Angeles. The rain was calm and drizzly, the most calm it had been for months, and the thick trees shielded the trail from most of the rain, giving me some nice solid ground to work with. I decided to walk as far away from the river as possible, because while it should have been crashing over rocks and rapids, it stood completely still. I tossed a stray maple leaf into the river, and it sank like a rock. There was a sharp increase in altitude as I reached Goblin's Gate. I sat down on a rock and adjusted my pack and re-tied my boots. The last thing I wanted was to get blisters long before arriving at Elwha. I shivered and grinned, happy to be out on the trail again. Then I looked up at the vast empty forest. I felt my body go cold and clammy. I sat still for a while and I heard nothing, nothing at all. The entire valley was in an airtight vacuum. In my panic, I had left at 3 in the afternoon. That gave me two hours of daylight that were quickly slipping away. The grayness above me dimmed and shadows along the mountain faces began to stretch. As the grayness once again turned into an infinitely hungry void, I clicked my headlamp on, tossing shadows across the trail. Rain flickered through my beam. I wish I had a lantern. A bubble of light seemed much more comforting than what I had. The trail became a shifting, uncertain path. Roots spilled out all over the trail, and puddles mirrored the sky, turning into endless dark holes. Even as rain slammed into them, their surface remained undisturbed. I stopped to fish out some food for a snack. The sky had swallowed the light completely again. My headlamp was the only source of light in the entire valley at that moment. I tripped over something. I stumbled and struggled to regain my balance, my backpack swaying and tilting. I looked back to see what it was. A dead mountain lion. The large cat had been gored in the side, and its skull and legs had been crushed. Trimpled. Flies covered the corpse like a coat. But like the lion, they too sat still. Occasionally bristling, but otherwise still. It was only six hours to Port Angeles now. At the edge of the trail, ferns had been flattened and farther out, whole bunches of underbrush had been folded over. I gripped my pack tight. My headlamp darted around. Every time I cut through the darkness on one side of the trail, the retching in my gut said something horrific was happening on the other side, and I twisted my head to make sure. On the trail ahead of me were clumps of dirty fur. I toed it, bone white. My whole body was shaking as I kicked my pace up a notch. I clenched my fist so tight I left dents in my palms through my gloves. The only sound I could hear was the rain, the squelch of mud, and my thoughts thudding in my head. My skin prickled, and I wanted to tear it off. And one other noise, the rustling of leaves, heavy panting that wasn't my own. I turned slowly, very slowly. Two eyes glistened in the dark. I turned more. Two pairs of two eyes. Five pairs. The shadowy bodies they belong to are completely still. I didn't dare risk pointing the light at them directly. I felt their hot white gaze peel me apart one layer at a time. I turned slowly the other way. More deer there, too. I willed my foot forward, but it was bolted in place. All those times I had frozen a deer in place with my brights. This is what I felt like. With a force of will enough to conquer the whole world, I took a tedious, sliding step forward. And so did they, moving silently in the dark. There was a sharp exhale from behind me, and I whirled around. The deer all around me leapt forward when I moved, right up to the edge of the light. Before me stood a tall and once proud bull rose about elk, one of the most dangerous animals in the Olympic National Park. Its sickly white fur glowed in the light, and the shadows snuck into its sunken eyes, making them appear even deeper. Its lower jaw had been torn off, and its tongue hung uselessly. Fresh gashes in its hide oozed black tar, and its antlers and hooves glistened with blood. It made a low moaning noise, its throat convulsed, and with a gurgled black bile expelled itself through its ruined mouth. It turned its head, and the light caught its eye. The most pure, retrolic hate I have ever felt reached out from its eyes and throttled me. My body felt oh so light as I spun on my heel and ran for my life. My little legs ran down that trail, slipping and sliding and riding myself, even as the deer flew through the trees alongside me. Limbs twisting and cracking. I ran, ran, ran. Deer all around me fell in the darkness as their unnatural gate caused them to shatter their own legs. But I could feel the bull gaining on me. Its panting synchronized with mine. My legs burned, my lungs burned. Shadows whipped by me, and the rain picked up. Wind tugged at my face, and thunder cracked somewhere far above. Moonlight dappled the ground and trees. I looked up, there in the sky, unburned by the clouds, shown a round, silver disk. The moon. I gasped in relief, then horror, as I felt my foot slide into a hole. My ankle snapped, and I fell face first onto the asphalt. I screamed in pain, then cried for help. I felt the bull loom over me. I dragged myself forward, slapping the ground. I felt a liquid land on the back of my hood. It slid down the waterproof surface and landed into my hands. Bile. It stepped over me, then turned around. I looked up at the thing, and slowly crept my hand toward my belt. Toward my gun. Hot hatred squirmed in its eyes. It expelled some more bile, and then placed its hoof on my left hand.

Speaker 9:
[32:55] Fuck.

Speaker 4:
[32:57] I tried to yank my hand away. I tried to roll away, but this was a 700 pound creature. I was pinned. We both let out a low moan of pain. It brought its head close, teeth that remained gleaming in the moonlight. I looked away from its eyes, and the pain in my hand grew suddenly sharper. I frantically locked eyes with it again. As it crushed my hand, it told me everything. I screamed and it bellowed in return. The pain spread and I felt pressure in my jaw, shooting sparks along my spine, the weight of antlers and consciousness. I felt myself fall from a cliff onto the rocks below, but I still refused to die. I refused even to decay. I felt what had taken hold. In the deepest forests, it festers in that dark soil, untouched by sun, unmolested by man. There are no drying winds. Cleansing fire or winter to arrest its growth. And so it grows, learning through deer and moss and all the green things. It is black mold in a child's bedroom. A dog trapped in a crawlspace in the summer. Life without interruption curdles into resentment of all other life. There was shouting and gunfire. The bull darted away. People picked me up, took my pack. They splinted my ankle and called an ambulance. December 20th. I told the doctors what happened when they asked me. I toned it down. Said that there was some prion affecting deer and humans in the North Forest region. They nodded along until I mentioned the NFR. Where's that? They asked. Um, Geyser Valley, I answered. They sent me to a ward in Seattle for better care. Everyone was telling me I'd hallucinated the place I lived for the last five years. They determined I was perfectly stable aside from my insistence that NFR exists. It didn't really matter, as long as they investigated the disease. I looked out at Lake Washington. It was still as glass. The clouds a lid pressing down on Seattle.

Speaker 5:
[35:30] Hey, everyone.

Speaker 10:
[35:31] So, if you've been listening to our Nutri-Fol ads for the last couple of months, you might know that I've called on some old acquaintances of mine that have had some, I don't know, let's say, follicular issues. Now, if that's something that's genetic or simply a side effect of subjecting oneself to the endless miasma of twisted pleasure and pain, who's to say? But while I hang around here, I wanted to remind you all that Nutri-Fol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand, and it's the number one hair growth supplement brand personally used by dermatologists. Nutri-Fol's hair growth supplements are peer-reviewed, NSF-certified for sport, and clinically tested. Stop waiting for all your wishes to come true in the form of a mystical puzzle box and do yourself a favor. Let your hair be one last thing to worry about. See visibly thicker, stronger, faster growing hair in three to six months with Nutri-Fol. For a limited time, Nutri-Fol is offering our listeners $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping when you visit nutrifol.com and enter promo code CREEPY10. That's nutrifol.com, spelled nutrafol.com, promo code CREEPY10. Hey, um, can someone let me down? The hooks are sliding into places I don't much care for hooks to be.

Speaker 2:
[36:58] Hello?

Speaker 10:
[37:01] That's nutrifol.com and promo code CREEPY10. Did I miss the first story?

Speaker 4:
[37:23] Yeah, where were you?

Speaker 10:
[37:25] Just taking care of some stuff. Don't get it twisted. It takes a lot to make these camp trips go as smoothly as they do.

Speaker 5:
[37:33] Smoothly?

Speaker 10:
[37:35] Believe me, you don't wanna see what things would turn into if I wasn't involved.

Speaker 4:
[37:39] You think we could try that next year?

Speaker 10:
[37:40] What was that?

Speaker 4:
[37:42] Nothing, you're up anyway.

Speaker 10:
[37:44] Oh, sure. Shouldn't we wait for everyone else?

Speaker 5:
[37:49] I'm sure they'll be along soon. And they're still checking out camp to make sure there aren't any booby traps.

Speaker 2:
[37:53] What?

Speaker 5:
[37:55] I mean, animals or something.

Speaker 4:
[37:57] You know, it is kind of strange, actually. How often all of us are together, but only a couple of us seem to say anything.

Speaker 10:
[38:06] Weirder stuff than this happens at camps all the time. I mean, I went to camp plenty when I was young, and sometimes it wasn't until later I realized anything strange happened. Like the missing week of camp. I couldn't tell you where the impulse came from. I really don't think that much about times I've gone to camp unless the occasion calls for it, which is rare. One night, I suddenly got the itch to look up the camp I went to in middle school, wondering if it was even still around. It was idle curiosity, the way people revisit places online when they want to confirm they existed outside of memory. Almost to my surprise, there actually was a website, which definitely wouldn't have existed when I went there. The homepage was filled with a collage of pictures of the camp. It looked newer than I expected, cleaned up and modernized to the point that I almost thought it was a different location. But the layout still followed the same logic I remembered. Cabins on the left side of the lake, trails looping outward like ribs. I scrolled down through the pictures and noticed the website had a gallery section labeled Archives. I clicked it without thinking much about it. The page loaded slowly, rows of thumbnails stretching back through the years, each somewhere at its own folder, neatly labeled and sorted. Even mine was there. I'll admit, I felt a little dumbfounded for a moment. Someone had actually taken the time to digitize and upload pictures from decades ago? This was pre-digital cameras, mind you. We're talking disposables and rolls of film. Of course I had to click it. I recognized the images instantly. That summer sat in my memory like a sealed box, defined more by feeling than detail. Heat, boredom, the quiet panic of being away from home longer than felt reasonable. I opened the folder expecting a handful of group shots and activity photos. There were more than I expected. The first images were normal. Campers lined up for activities. Me standing at the edge of the occasional frames. A bit chubbier than I remembered, but recognizably myself. I scrolled slowly, smiling at details I'd forgotten. Then the dates caught my attention. The folder was divided into weeks, each clearly labeled. Week one through week four. I knew I'd only stayed for three weeks. I stopped scrolling and counted again. The photos didn't lie. There wasn't an entire additional section labeled week four. Had I left early for some reason? Maybe there was an option to pay more for the extra week that my parents just couldn't afford or didn't want to spend? I clicked on the week four subfolder. The first image showed the lake at dawn. Mist clung low to the water while it was pale and colorless. I remember the lake looking that way in the morning sometimes. Or at least, I thought I did. I kept scrolling and stopped when I saw myself again. There I was, standing alone near the treeline. My posture was wrong. My shoulders slumped forward as if I were tired beyond exhaustion. My eyes were open but unfocused, staring directly at the camera. I didn't and don't remember that picture being taken. I told myself memory was unreliable. Childhood summers blurred together. Or it was a mistake. Someone uploaded the picture to the wrong folder. It would be an easy enough mistake. Except that the date in the corner of the picture itself told me that wasn't the case. Of course, I stopped thinking about all that the moment I saw the next picture. It was a picture of me.

Speaker 7:
[42:26] Asleep.

Speaker 10:
[42:28] The photo showed me lying on a bench near the lodge. Limbs slack, mouth slightly open. My skin looked gray in the early light. The angle suggested the photographer had been standing close. I stared at the screen, aware of my breathing in a way that felt intrusive. I had no recollection of sleeping outside like that. The time stamps were precise. The photos were taken minutes apart. From the pictures, the story began to unfold in my mind. Me wandering exhausted to a bench before collapsing on it. As I scrolled, the images grew worse. There were shots of me walking alone along trails I didn't recognize. Shots of me standing waist deep in the lake at night. Water perfectly still around me. As if I were half submerged in a mirror. Shots of me sitting on the ground with my back against the tree. Head tilted to the side like an animal listening for predators. In every photo, I was looking at the camera. Even when my eyes were closed, that was when the nausea set in. I leaned back from the screen, heart racing, trying to ground myself in the room around me. I dug my fingernails into the palm of my hand just to remember I was awake. I kept scrolling, because who could stop at that point? The week continued in detail. Activities I didn't remember attending. Meals I didn't remember eating. Group photos where I stood at the edge, always slightly apart from everyone else. No one else appeared unusual.

Speaker 11:
[44:23] Only me.

Speaker 10:
[44:26] The injuries began appearing midway through the week. At first they were small. Scratches along my forearms. Dirk ground into my knees. Bruising that bloomed dark and uneven beneath my skin. By the next set of photos, the damage was worse. My hands were wrapped in gauze that soaked through with red. My ankles were swollen. Skin stretched tight and shiny. In one image, my shirt clung darkly to my side. Stained where blood had dried. I didn't remember being hurt. And I sure as hell didn't remember the pain that I must have been in from those injuries. How could they have happened without me remembering? Without the memory of my mom throwing a fit at the sight of what happened to me? The last day of the week contained fewer photos. The final image showed me standing at the edge of the woods just beyond the camp boundary. My face looked older, somehow. Hollowed out around the eyes. My mouth was closed, but my jaw was clenched so tightly that cords stood out along my neck. Behind me, the trees pressed close. I closed the laptop and sat alone in the darkness. The next morning I woke up with soreness in my limbs that made no sense. My hands ached like I had been doing manual labor all day. My calves burned when I stood up. I told myself stress could do that, even though I didn't believe it. I returned to the website and downloaded the images. I studied them one by one, searching for something that explained the gap in what I was looking at and what I could remember. My parents, long into their retirement years, were on a Mediterranean cruise and I wouldn't be able to get in touch with them for at least a few more days. So I kept looking, and I started to notice patterns. I was always photographed near the woods. I was never pictured inside a cabin during the fourth week. In one image, my shoulder was dislocated. In another, taken later that same day, it was back in place. Thanks to a hockey accident when I was ten, I knew what relocating a shoulder felt like. I would have remembered screaming. I know I would have remembered it. That afternoon, I decided to take a trip to my family storage locker. My parents, being boomers, were the children of depression-era people, so the urge to... I won't say hoard, but keep things longer than they needed to, I had been ingrained with them. After I moved out, I guess I finally found the desire to clean up and move basically our entire basement to storage. After an hour or so of digging through things, I found my old camp duffel bag. I remembered it fondly. I remembered how it had felt like the perfect size to fit everything I needed without being so bulky that it was hard to carry or store. I hadn't opened it and I don't know how long. The zipper stuck briefly, then gave way. Inside were clothes I didn't recognize. They smelled like dirt and lake water and something else. The fabric was stiff with dry grime. One shirt had a tear along the side, fibers stretched and darkened with old blood. At the bottom of the bag was a pair of shoes I didn't remember bringing. The soles were nearly worn through. That night I dreamed of walking through the woods while something followed just close enough to guide me. I didn't feel afraid in the dream. I felt used. The soreness worsened over the next few days. Bruises surfaced on my body in places I couldn't account for. My palm split open along old scars that had faded years ago. I spent more and more time staring at the photos, focusing on the last one in particular. The trees behind me in that image didn't match any trail I recognized. The density was wrong. The spacing between trunks felt intentional in a way that didn't make sense. I zoomed in until the pixels blurred. Between two trees, something pressed outward from the darkness. It wasn't fully visible, but the impression of it distorted the surrounding space. Spark bowed slightly, as if something behind it leaned forward. I closed the image and felt a headache forming behind my eyes. The next morning, mud streaked my floor near the back door. It was fresh, damp, and tracked inward by bare feet. I walked up next to him and confirmed that the prints matched my own, and the bottom of my feet were dirty. I was scared to sleep after that. When I did rest, I woke with dirt under my nails and leaves tangled in my hair. My muscles screamed with exhaustion and my joints felt loose as if they had been pulled and reset repeatedly. That was when I started to understand that the missing week wasn't over. It had never stopped, that it was for me. I packed my car and drove without stopping until the forest thinned and the road widened. The further I went, the lighter my body felt. Finally, I had to stop at a motel to get some sleep. I could never sleep in a car, not even as a kid. That night, I slept without dreaming. In the morning, I checked the website again. It had become my compulsion. To my horror, new photos had appeared in the folder. They showed me driving. They showed me stopping for gas. They showed me sleeping on the shitty motel mattress, face turned toward the camera. I don't know how long the missing week lasts. I don't know if it will ever end. But I know I'm stuck inside of it. Sometimes I wake up sore and bleeding in places I can't see, with the sense that I've been very busy doing something I was never meant to remember.

Speaker 4:
[51:17] Holy crap, is that still happening to you, Jon?

Speaker 11:
[51:20] What?

Speaker 10:
[51:22] Oh, I've been fine for literally days. Okay, I'm just gonna go wander off into the swamp for a while. No one follow me.

Speaker 5:
[51:36] You know, normally when Jon doesn't want us to follow him, I feel better.

Speaker 4:
[51:40] It's probably best to not overthink anything Jon does. Let's focus on something a bit less disturbing. Got a story to tell us?

Speaker 5:
[51:50] Sure, sort of. It's more about this kind of dream that I keep having, but it's not. It feels like something that really happened to me. It's about Lake Oblivion. I stand at the entrance of the summer camp, which sits on the north bank of Lake Oblivion, watching as my grandparents' car drives away. And as it turns out of sight from the dusty track onto the highway, the words of my grandma ring in my ear. Enjoy yourself, sweetheart. Make some friends and try to take your mind off of what's happened as best you can. It had been two weeks since the car crash had ended my parents' lives, their souls taken from their bodies in a mangled mess of twisted metal. As the front of the car we had been traveling in collided with the sight of a lorry, as it blindly pulled out in front of us, the front of my father's vehicle had folded like a concertina, pulverizing both him and my mother, but remarkably leaving the rear seats where I had been sitting with Madonna's like a prayer playing through my Walkman, relatively unscathed. The seatbelt I had been wearing did its job well, holding me tight as the force of the crash tried to claim my body as it had done so my parents. When the vehicles collided, I had been looking out of the side window, watching as a flock of birds flew upwards from the cornfield we were passing. I had no time to react or even really consider what was happening. My head was suddenly pulled forwards, then jerked backwards, instantly knocking me unconscious as it was forced violently against the back of the seat, jolting my neck unnaturally as it did so. After this, I remember nothing of being in the car or of what happened next. Fortunately, this meant I had not seen with my own eyes what the wreckage had done to my beautiful parents. I have only been told since that they would have died an instant and painless death. And so it was that I had come to live with my grandparents in the summer of 1989, an orphaned girl of just 13 years old. They lived in a rural detached house in upper New York state, a home I had visited each summer of my life with my mother and father as we would make the long but enjoyable annual drive up from our home in Philadelphia, how I longed to be able to spend that time with them again, any time with them again. It had been on one such drive that our misadventure had occurred and how strange it had felt when my grandparents picked me up from the hospital and I completed the journey to their home without my mom and dad. My world was truly broken. My grandparents were in as much shock as I was, for they were also grieving having lost their only daughter and son-in-law, but I couldn't really appreciate how they were feeling. At only 13, I couldn't really comprehend anything that was happening outside of my own head. I don't think that they were at all equipped in taking on a teenage girl at their age, and those first few days were spent in relative silence. I couldn't bring myself to leave the bedroom I was now told was mine. But eventually one day, grandma sat next to me on my bed, a steaming bowl of homemade vegetable soup in her hand, and she told me her great idea. We're going to take you up to Lake Oblivion so you can spend a week with people your own age. You'll be able to swim in the crystal waters and make lots of new friends. Your mother went every year when she was a girl, and always had such a wonderful time. And so here I was, dropped off with a bag full of clothes, a few books, and a couple of swimming costumes. Pretty much everything I had packed for the visit to my grandparents in the first place. And while I was to be left here alone, they were going to drive down to my home in Philadelphia and make a start on sorting out the affairs of my now deceased family. They promised the next time they would take me with them, but insisted this first time would be too tough. They explained they also had a number of legalities to work through before we could arrange a funeral, which was going to be incredibly tedious and time consuming. I understood now why I had been sent away for the week. I so desperately wanted to go back to my home, but I guess they believed it would be too painful for me this soon after the accident. I had made a list of everything I wanted my grandma to collect and bring back up to me from my bedroom, and she promised me she wouldn't forget a thing. After their car had pulled away out of sight, I turned from the road and looked out across the lake. The water was just as impressive as my grandma had described. It was vast and the sun was shimmering on the surface, creating a beautiful kaleidoscope effect. I had been left in the company of a camp counselor named Marcia, and she seemed to have been forewarned about the recent tragedy which had now changed my life forever. She was pleasant enough, probably no older than her early 20s, and she regularly asked if I was okay, if there was anything I needed. She held my hand as we walked, while reassuring me that I could take all the time I needed to integrate with the rest of the girls at the camp. It was already quite late in the afternoon when I had been dropped off, and I was soon ushered into a dormitory and taken over to a bed in the corner of the room. There were around 20 beds in all, most with bags and suitcases surrounding them. A handful already with girls around my age laying down reading books and magazines, some chatting together. Each girl within the room had looked up when I walked in, and they had all smiled at me. I started unpacking the few belongings I had brought when a bell started ringing, and the girls all jumped up with excitement. I followed as they made their way outside, and we walked across a lawned courtyard full of picnic benches, with an adventure playground sitting on one side. I continued following as we walked across to a large dining hall where Marsha and around half a dozen other counselors were waiting to greet us, all smiling together to make us feel as if we were somewhat at home. Inside the hall were dozens of other children sitting on rows of long tables. I was overwhelmed and had very little to say to anyone. I found that no matter what I did, I couldn't stop thinking about my mother and father. And not for the first time, I found myself resenting my grandparents for leaving me by myself so early into my grief, for bringing me here and leaving me in a situation which was going to force me to be sociable. When all I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and cry myself to sleep. We were served a meal of cheeseburgers and fries with lemonade. I managed to make a little small talk with the girls sat on my table, all of which would be sleeping in the same dorm as me. But I just couldn't give myself completely to the experience. I spent the rest of the evening laying in my bed reading, as the other girls came and went, playing inside and out while laughing together. At 10 p.m., I was ushered to a bathroom where we all washed and brushed our teeth. We then returned to our dorm where I learned the lights out would be in 30 minutes. Until then, the room was a hive of activity, as the girls around me chatted and giggled, buzzing like bees, while I merely melted into my bedsheets and tried to pretend I was invisible. Sleep came easily to me that evening, despite the continuing sounds of laughter after dark. And as I had every night for the last fortnight, I dreamt of my parents, of driving in their car, of the accident, always stopping and often waking at the moment of impact. This time was no different, and I woke sharply. Sweating and scared, I sat up and realized it must be close to morning, as the first light of the sun was shining through the cracks of the door and bending around the corners of the curtains which hung over the windows. But something strange hit me almost instantly, and in my confusion, I realized that I must have been left to sleep in, and that it was later in the morning than I first thought, for I was completely alone in the room. Frantically, I looked around, but not only was there no one else with me, the beds which had been freshly made with crisp white sheets the night before were bare, some with dirty looking mattresses, others with exposed rusty coiled bed springs. The room looked as if it were abandoned, the beds not slept in for years, I started to panic trying to make sense of the situation I found myself in. Wallpaper which had looked clean and knew the night before was peeling from the walls. The smell in the air was different, it was musky and dank, old and decrepit. The floor was covered in brown petals of water with dozens of little flies buzzing around and skipping over their murky surfaces. I was truly panicking now. I looked up and there were holes in the ceiling where water had clearly dripped down from the rainy night I had just slept through. I sprung out of my bed and ran frightened to the door, throwing it open and expecting to see a courtyard full of the other children I had met playing. But this is not the view that greeted me. Instead, I saw long unkempt grass that had not been cut in years, rotten picnic benches that were overturned on their sides, the play area covered with nettles three feet high, and the metal frames of the swings and slides now a dull, rusted copper color. I tried to scream, but no sound came out of my mouth. I ran across the now barren wasteland that the evening before had sprouted flowers and the laughter of children towards the dining hall, hoping it to be full of my peers and the adult counselors. Marsha would surely make everything better. But to my despair, this room was also empty. Just a torn and threadbare carpet sitting in the center, which had been thick and plump when I had eaten my dinner in front of it the night before. I was truly alone. It seemed as if no one had been here for years, decades even. But how could that be? This had been my mother's favorite place to holiday as a child. And I had been dropped here by my grandparents in order to socialize and try to forget the morbid turn my life had taken for a short while. But now I was here all by myself, with the lake surrounded by miles of woodland sitting between me and the nearest civilization. I ran back outside frantically looking this way and that not knowing where to turn next. And before me the lake still sat shimmering. It looked alive, the only thing here left alive. And I made my way towards it, slower now, no longer running as it drew me closer. As I approached the water's edge, I started to see ripples on the surface. I stopped to focus clearly and watched as two fingers began to emerge, breaking through the tension. They seemed to be walking from the middle of the lake towards the bank, towards me. Their arms held out as if they wanted to embrace my body when they got close enough. The figures were badly deformed. Blood-splattered faces, a mess of exposed flesh and plant matter from what I could only imagine came from the bottom of the lake. And I knew almost instantly that they were my parents and that they had come for me. I slumped down to my knees, my screams now echoing around the landscape. I was surrounded by nettles and the buzzing of insects. And as my parents approached almost close enough to touch, I began sinking into the floor, the dirt engulfing my body like quicksand as it pulled me down deep into the earth. In a hospital room sits an elderly woman keeping vigil over the bedside of her only grandchild, as she lays comatose in a vegetative state, a cold and senseless state, just as she had done so since her parents' car had collided with a lorry of fortnight before. Her mother and father had been killed instantly, and following the accident, Ava, who was just thirteen, had been kept alive only by a synthetic machine. Her grandma had wept endlessly ever since the tragedy, weeping for her lost daughter and the grandchild she was now desperate to save. But reluctantly, she now signs the paperwork that is handed to her after being told all hope is lost. Sobbing uncontrollably, she clasps tight the pen in one hand, while her other strokes the arm of her granddaughter. She looks up, noticing as water begins to drip from the ceiling of the hospital room onto the floor beside her. She breathes in deeply, and is surprised as the scent of the room causes a vivid memory to flash through her mind. A memory of a holiday camp next to a lake that her daughter would beg to be taken to each year as a child. She closes her eyes as Marsha, the intensive care nurse, tenderly puts a hand on her shoulder, and informs her that the time is now. She remains that way as a doctor sits between her and her grandchild, and she feels an excruciating internal pain as she senses him switching off the life support. Hey, everyone.

Speaker 10:
[64:00] I'm gonna turn in for the night. I'll see you all bright and early tomorrow for the activities we participate in when we aren't telling stories. I don't think I really need to go into any more detail about that.

Speaker 7:
[64:10] Goodnight.

Speaker 4:
[64:14] Where do you think he keeps going off to?

Speaker 5:
[64:17] I don't want to know. I don't think any of us would be better off knowing.

Speaker 4:
[64:21] Still, it's concerning, right?

Speaker 5:
[64:24] Sort of, but at least it's not as crazy as last year, and on the plus side, Owen hasn't shot himself in the neck to-

Speaker 3:
[64:29] Ow! Oh, crap. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit creepypod.com. You can also follow us, at Creepypod on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are done so through Creative Commons share alike licensing, or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the expressed written consent of the Creepy Podcast production team and the story's author.

Speaker 9:
[65:28] This week's episode is brought to you by Well Go USA's new creature feature horror, The Yeti, only in AMC theaters April 4th and 8th, and on digital April 10th. When an oil tycoon and a famous adventurer disappear into the frozen wilderness of Northern Alaska, a hand-picked rescue team ventures in to bring them home, but they're not alone. They've crossed into the Yeti's territory, and the brutal elements are the least of their worries. Packed with blood-splattered suspense, a towering beast and gruesome practical effects, the Yeti is a throwback to the glory days of monster movies. Starring Brittany Allen, Eric Nelson, Jim Cummings, William Sadler and Corbin Bernstein, don't miss it. The Yeti, only in AMC Theaters April 4th and 8th, and on digital April 10th.

Speaker 7:
[66:16] You know, I've been having a hard time trying to explain what Midnight Burger is, so how about I let them give it a shot?

Speaker 12:
[66:24] I just wanted to let you all know that I really, really appreciate Midnight Burger.

Speaker 13:
[66:30] I just wanted to let you know that you definitely have a huge fan here in the Middle East, in the GCC.

Speaker 11:
[66:35] Just wanted to give you guys a shout out, tell you how much I love you guys.

Speaker 7:
[66:40] All of the weirdness is really my jam, really right up my alley.

Speaker 8:
[66:43] First, I love your podcast.

Speaker 4:
[66:45] It's been pure joy to listen to.

Speaker 9:
[66:46] Just here to say, keep up the great work.

Speaker 2:
[66:48] That season was amazing.

Speaker 7:
[66:50] I wanted to thank both of you for everything you've done.

Speaker 9:
[66:53] We really love this show.

Speaker 11:
[66:54] Your podcast is amazing.

Speaker 13:
[66:56] Such an amazing show altogether.

Speaker 12:
[66:57] It's really nice knowing that there's another dimension that I can travel to and kind of escape.

Speaker 6:
[67:04] You guys have actively ruined all of their audio dramas for me.

Speaker 8:
[67:08] You can't get people to understand the humaning that happens in this damn show.

Speaker 14:
[67:12] Keep doing what you're doing, because it's awesome.

Speaker 11:
[67:14] I love you guys. Can't wait for more.

Speaker 14:
[67:16] Thank you so much for everything you do. You are hope. You bring hope with you. And you might not think it, but you are far more important than you realize. Thank you.

Speaker 11:
[67:27] Take care. Love you. We open at six.

Speaker 7:
[67:29] At the nexus of all things, there is a diner. Look for Midnight Burger on your favorite podcasting app, or just go to weopenatsix.com.