CreepCast - Goatman, Laughing Jack and more... | Creep Cast

Episode Date: November 24, 2024

Isaiah and Hunter read some of the most requested, most beloved creepypastas there are. But probably not for the reasons you'd think. In the end, it's just two guys dicking around. You're listening to Creep Cast Live On Tour! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is the cold habitual, and it is the froy of the mountains blue. The frost at its summit. Coors Light, t'en've been a fraud. Celebrate in a fashion responsible, you have to have the age legal to consume the alcohol.

Woo! Stop! Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket. To my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Nissan. Buy your tickets now. I get a free Tilly Dog.

Chili Dog, not included. The Naked God. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that for a very limited amount of time, you can get in on this creepcast merchandise. We have three items. They're very cool. And I'm telling you right now that if you head to the link in the description and get some while you can, I will do everything in my power to ensure that Hunter never sees a dime of it.

Okay. And I'm going to use this money to try to get out, to try to make something of myself because I can't do this anymore. So if you can support us, heading to the link in the description, it would mean everything to me, and maybe together we can stop it. Thank you. Hunter said we were doing costumes. Welcome back to Creepcast. Thank you all so much for coming out tonight. And first and foremost, happy Halloween! Let's go!

We are very honored that you all decided to spend your Halloween with us. We promise it won't be that lame, probably. And also, as part of the Halloween tour, you guys are the special ones who got to actually show up on Halloween. So hopefully this is worth the way. Now we have three deliciously evil tales for you tonight. We have three stories that we are going to be reading. The first one is an internet classic

that I'm sure many of you all are familiar with. The second one is also a classic but for incredibly different reasons. And then the third one is a story by a very special author that we are going to need your all's help with but we'll get to that when we get to it. Are we ready to get our cast creeped?

Let's fucking do it! So for tonight's first story, we have Goatman. In a show of hands, I'm sure pretty a lot of you all are familiar with Goatman the Cryptid. But who here is familiar with the Anansi? version of the story. No way.

Wow. Usually it's... New blood. Okay, great. This is great. I get to do this to you for the first time. So a lot of you probably...

Raise your hand if you know the cryptid goat man. That's what I thought. Oh, fuck you guys. Yeah. Well, I know him. I just... I mean, we all know.

Yeah. So Goatman, the cryptid, we're all familiar with it. Goatman really entered like the modern culture with like, this horror stories, you know, creepypasta stuff like that from this story. This was originally uploaded to 4chan on the export in 2012 by an anonymous user. And then from there, it made

its way onto creepypasta sites, circulated to like YouTube channels and things like that. So this story really is like the inception of Goat Man in the modern age. And a lot of the things you know about the character come from this tale. So if you haven't heard about it before, that's fantastic, because it is not what you think it's going to. going to be. So I'm excited. But with that out of the way, are we ready to begin? Oh, I'm ready. I'm ready. Can we cue the scary music? There we go.

Let's go. So scary. So, so, so scary. All right. Beginning. Go ahead. Here's my story. B-16. Be black and have family down in Alabama. They farm and own a huge amount of land. Why did everyone laugh at the 16 thing? B-16.

Get some every time. Is it because we have... bad track record on the show whenever children get involved normally doesn't go too well it's not gonna get any better bitch it's it's this is we're up here the stories the show's gonna end down here

tonight so get used to that yep uncle owns a big house and a bunch of trailers they put out in the woods for hunting or camping down south cousin suggests that we go out there to camp no I'm a city kid from Chicago so they tease the fuck out of me

I'm gonna read over the rest of him for the story but I just I need him to do that once collect food, kill a pig and some chickens, and bring necessities to camp out for a few days. We get to the camp, and it's obvious something's weird. Air has this weird electric smell, like right before a storm, like ozone. We think nothing of it, and unpack and go down to a little creek to swim for a few hours. All of a sudden, some older white guy and a white teenager come out of the bushes. He has a shotgun in the crook of his arm and says hello and asks us what we're doing this far back in the woods.

tell him about my uncle who he knows and say we're camping out he tells us we need to be real careful out here stick together because there's a big animal in the woods his son who's my age asked if he can stay and hang out with us he says okay i'm going to stop green texting because the story's fairly long and the format's harder to write in so thank god we move in actual storytelling now i like how you just couldn't start with that yeah like it's not just he had to be like i have to do the thing for a few lines and now i actually get to tell the story correctly yeah So we have our basic, like, horror movie setup. You have a group of kids who are going out into the woods

and then some old farmer from the region says that there's something out there, right? So we end up playing football. Dicking around with me, he's going to use that word a lot, digging around with me. There's a white kid Tanner, five of my cousins, and then four of their friends. In total, there were five girls and six boys.

We all were around 15 to 17, and we ended up just digging the day away. Eventually, we head back to camp, and pull out some stuff for a campfire. Even though the trailers had both had kitchenettes, Tanner says that his family's property sits up against my uncles. He wants to run home

and ask his dad if he can come out camping with us. His cousin Rooster says he's going to go with him since it's going to get dark soon. I hate that name for a cousin. My name's Tanner. This is my cousin Rooster. Hold on.

You, a million person, if I had to put money on it, you would have a cousin named Rooster. I would. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's why I'm so bitter about it. Yeah. Who would have been there when your grandfather shot your dog? That's true. Rooster might have applauded it. Yeah. Woo!

Dead dogs! Woo! Yeah. Woo! Fuck you. Someone made someone earlier brought him like a painting they did. Like Hunter as a child scared with like a wheelchair A silhouette of my dog. Why?

Oh, that's so good. At the Phoenix show last night, his mom was there. And I was like, did it happen? And she stood up and was like, oh yeah, he shot that dog. So unnecessary. Yeah, so keep talking bad about Rooster. Like you have any room.

Anyway. My cousin Rooster says he's going to go with him since it's going to get dark soon. One of the girls also wants to tag along. It's about 7 o'clock and it's starting to get pretty dark. They grab flashlights and take the trail toward Tans' property.

the rest of us chill we make s'mores drink and kiss on the girls hell yeah well don't support that because I was immediately said that only someone who has zero interest in the ladies would say a phrase like kiss on the girls he's dicking around did yeah exactly that's

so you're getting a little head of my conspiracy theory because he keeps mentioned that he mentions like male genitalia five times in this story and his only mention of females is like well we kiss on them that's what you do right that's like that's the normal thing to do. I'm a little suspicious of his intentions. About 30 or 40 minutes later, there's the

smell of ozone again. You can notice it over the send of the fire we had started. It's really nasty, coppery smell, like right after you've had a nose fleet and it stopped. It wasn't exactly like dried blood, but it was that metallic back of your throat smell. We immediately think that it's some kind of electrical malfunction. Every time I hear that sound effect, I think a plane's about to hit the building. Electrical malfunction, or that someone, left a hot plate on or some shit. We searched the trailers and nothing's on, but we can all smell it.

All of a sudden, we can hear people booking it down the path toward us. Rooster, tan, and the girl her. Her name's just the girl. There's no name for her. She doesn't get a name. I kid you not. Whatever that broad's name. There's a part coming up in the story where he speaks of the girl and girl two.

He doesn't... I couldn't be fucked another name. I have no idea. It's 4chan in 2012. This could have been much worse. That is true. They'll come running into the clearing out of breath, and they don't even break stride. They all run into the trailer right by where the fire is.

We all get out of there and into the trailers. They end up calming down, even roosters crying his eyes out of this point. All the while, the fire is guttering lower and lower. So my other cousin says screw it and are about to go outside to get the generator out of the shed between the trailers. Tanner goes, Fuck no!

Lock the front door! Ain't nobody else going outside. that started as like, no. That started. No, no, no, no, it was good. It's like, no, no, quit, quit. There you go. You get it.

That was a good tanner voice. Well, what should it, what should a tanner? For one, I'm at the guy in the Hawaiian shirt clap for him. That was ridiculous. Was it too gruff for a tanner? No, you started as a 14-year-old boy and ended as a 57-year-old Cajun man. Okay, okay.

You went, well, let me kind of- Lock the front door. Nobody else going out. Yeah, ain't nobody else getting out of here. Come on. Well, let me retry it then. Let me be a 14-year-old again. What I wouldn't give to go back.

Fuck, no. Lock the front door. Ain't nobody else going outside. There you go. That's better. There you go. Okay. He's been crying, too.

His eyes are bloodshot and... Oh, fuck. Don't go out there. Seriously. I'll do anything if you don't make that noise again. Okay. His eyes are bloodshot and puffy and his pants are dirty as shit. He shit himself.

Yeah, thank you. It's stinky. Stop. I can't. I was in medical school before I. Okay. He goes on to tell us that they, went up to his house. His father said, sure, he could go out camping, but to make sure they were

careful on the way back, and then maybe they should take one of the hunting rifles just in case. Evidently, Tanner had seen something in their yard a few days before. One of their pigs had been ripped up and half eaten. They assumed it was just some big cats or coyotes, even though they don't usually mess with live animals. Tanner went upstairs, packed his stuff, and told his dad they would be okay without the rifle, because coyotes avoid people. Then they start walking back toward where we were camping. Okay, so two notes about this. One, he sees a pig mauled to death ripped into pieces.

And his dad's like, do you want a gun? And he's like, no. Pops, it's coyotes. They won't fuck with us. We're human. His dad's like, right. That 400-pound pig, he had it coming. But me, a 90-pound 14-year-old, I'll be.

I'll be able to take him And also I didn't think about We have read this story This is our fourth time reading it I have not thought about this until now Tanner just met all of these guys Yeah right Because he was the he was the aforementioned guy

Who came down with the dude With the shotgun Dicking around Yeah digging around And he shows up and he was like Oh I've never met you guys before Can I come camp with you in the middle of the woods For days on end

Is that just You haven't done that before? No, no, I can't say I have, have you done that before? You ever met a pack of bros and just want to hang out in the woods? Make a few mistakes, maybe. I'm looking to, I'm looking to make some secrets. Hey, I don't know, Michael, you want to dick around? All right, wherever I did not mean to tell.

Okay, we're got, the music back on. Wait, sorry, sorry, sorry, Michael. No, no. Do you want to dig her out? Put the music on. Cut him off. Kill that mic. Oh, sorry. It was almost pitch black by this time. So they weren't sure at first

what it was. The girl says that she heard something in the bushes right off the trail. They all beam their flashlights over there and there was someone standing in the woods in a little hollow. He says that's when he realized that the guy was facing away from them.

They keep walking and they start smelling the nasty, coppery ozone. and smell. They say that they look off into the forest on the opposite side and there's a dude standing there too. Oh my God. Backward. Slightly closer

to the path. Oh, my God. Oh, okay. So now they start power walking and Tan keeps going. I should have taken the fucking rifle. I like the mention to

that, yeah, the power walk. Why not just fucking jog, dude. You're in the middle of the woods with a group of people you've never met before, and there is just a man. And you're like, hey, and he's just, like, facing away, and they're like, well, I better speed a little bit, but not a lot, yeah.

My mom does this on Saturdays. We should be there in no time. I like to think that they see the guy he's twitching, there's fucking blood coming out of his eyes, right, and they're just like, oh. So you guys think s'mores, like, right away? Completely unfazed.

Yeah, absolutely. as they're telling the story the smell is super strong even inside the cabin they say that after they started walking faster a kind of low jibbering had begun coming from both sides of the wood

as they booked it back to the trailer the girl said she flashed her light out to the side of them and saw something jerking and saw something jerking itself through motherfuckers

dead sprinting through the wood I don't know what it was, but God damn it, I knew what he was doing. Tanner's like, whoa, he's dicking around, too. That's pretty good. Come on. It's just everything. It's you making the jokes. It's me in a sonic costume.

It's like a seven-foot, tall goat man. Jack and his cock off running through the woods. It makes it way scarier, I agree. I like that. Because if you see him normally, it's like, ah, but if you see him doing that, it's like, ah, like, yeah. Way more.

If I just saw him running, that's one thing. Jerking it and running, now we're in some serious danger. It's terrified. He's doing that through the woods. Then they just flat out ran as hard as they could to the trailer, which would be, that would be the thing to escalated to running, I agree. I agree. So we're out in the woods, and we're assuming at this point

it's some rednecks or something trying to mess with us. All of a sudden, my other cousin, Jr., starts going on about how he went to school with a native kid that was telling him about the goat man or some shit. Well, I knew this boy down or there. Yeah. From being from Tennessee, this is an accurate. Quote, we probably tell him to shut up because we don't need any spooky talk right now. I love that. I love, every time you read that line, I love it so much.

Dude, seriously, Junior, stop. No more spooky talk right now, for real. I'm shaking right now, man. But he just keeps going on and on about how it's the goat man and how we're in his woods and blah, blah, blah. Now, at the time, I never heard of this goat man or any of that. Then a couple years ago, a year before I graduated from college, I had a mined on for a roommate, and I ended up asking him about it.

And to sum it up, it's basically a man with the head of a goat, as the name would imply, and he can shape, shift, and get among groups of people and terrorize them. It's also supposed to be kind of like the windigo. Before you clap, it's bad mojo to even talk about it. And even worse, if you see it, so that's all of you. Good luck. Keep in mind, I didn't know this back when I was 16. So my cousin's going. The goat man's gonna get in

and fucking get us. Just the difference. He just said he's 16. His name is junior, dude. You're describing a Confederate general. Like the voice. The goat man's real. I heard it.

I'm just imagining now, like, it's just a bunch of kids. And then he's in, like, a Calvary uniform with a giant mustache like a kid. Yeah. Are we kissing on girls yet? When are we going to really start dicking around? I brought my costume and everything.

Okay. The girls are all terrified and my cousins and I are all trying to figure out if it's just some hillbillies or an animal. All of a sudden, smell just goes away. To this day, I haven't even experienced anything like it. Obviously, smells usually fade away or lessen, but it literally was just there one second and not the next. We figure it was just some assholes. trying to mess with us. So we don't go back home because we think if we do, they'll chase us through the woods or something. Nothing else weird happens that night. You stay another night for the main part of that night. Nothing happens. At about one in the morning, we're outside

getting drunk telling ghost stories. Someone is finishing some too spooky story. Timmy Taffey or something, I don't remember. We added that. That's not enough. Yeah, that's it. The, 2012, they weren't bringing it up. Show of hands. Who liked Tommy Taffy? That's about the split I expected. There's going to be a lot of fucking enemies made tonight. I think the one guy who raised his hand, the person next to him was just like

How many of you deeply despise Tommy Taffy? All right. Booh. Yeah. What's funny is I caught a couple couples out there a couple, whatever, who like he raised his hand on the first question.

and then she did and looked over at him on the second one. We're done. Yeah. Smell comes back. It's so strong that one of the girls literally starts vomiting.

Is that funny? I should like immediately. Damn. You ever smell some bad potatoes before or something? God damn, dude. Calm down.

I stand up and you can feel how clammy the air is. I say we should have get inside. and this isn't right. Should have just left. We all go back inside and we're standing around.

My cousin keeps going on about how it's the goat man. My other cousin Rooster tries to shut him up. And all the while, I'm just feeling that something's wrong and I can't figure out what it is. We end up setting there for a while. Smell is just as strong and we're terrified and all huddled in this camper. We ended up cooking brats, brats.

Brots, dude. I've been corrected by every audience. In Boston, they wanted to throw in. me out brots for everybody because nobody wants to go outside. It's one of those packs with four brats. Thank you. We have a total of three packs. I grill them up on the stove and give everybody a hot dog and get mine. That's when the girl that had been out with Rooster and Tan just starts screaming. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Lord, get it out. That was better than the child voice, I guess, a little bit. My voice can't go that high, dude. She gets a voice now, though, Kira.

yeah she's finally she gets a name congratulations she graduated she's crying and shivering and then it dawns on the cousin standing up what's wrong me and him both glance around the room and i feel my heart sink i run out of the cabin and the girl runs out with us she's back to the girl now and everyone the trailer door is banging against the side of the trailer as everybody books it out one of my cousin's friends ask us what's wrong start counting us there's only 11 now I shit you. Nope, sorry, don't.

Sorry. I shit you not. There were 12 people in that cabin. I was about to explain, like, if you were, I was going to be sarcastic. If you remember, there was three packs of four brots, but then I forgot, you've got like your, your child line. What am I doing? The child line. You got the line?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't mean. Whatever. Anyway, okay. Hmm. Because everybody didn't know each other that well. Nobody had noticed the whole time that there was an extra person. And then, we'll get there.

And then I realized earlier that I'd kind of noticed something was off. You know when you're just digging around and having a good time that you don't sweat the small stuff and you don't always keep track of certain stuff? I'm dead sure that someone else had been in the trailer with us and that they had been there for at least a day, eating with us. What makes it worse is that I couldn't figure out who it was because I don't think anyone ever actually interacted with

the other person, Goatman. The girl kept praying to Jesus and we're all sitting outside. Eventually, we get big ass sticks and go back to the cabin, but there's nobody in there. When we were in Louisiana, I read that line and the whole audience went, woo! Like started sharing and everything. Get the sticks, you got it. We count again, and there's 11 people. We go back into the trailer and lock the door. We explain what happened. The girl says that she realized two, and that when she was about to say something, the person sitting next to her had grabbed her like hard, leaned over toward her, and said something she couldn't understand. Pause. Pause.

The person sitting next to you grabbed your thigh really quick and does, well, okay, and you don't say a single thing to anybody? Okay, so there's a lot, there's a lot happening here. First of all, first question, what is the number of people in a group? This isn't like at a bar or like a public space. You are in the middle of woods on private property. What is the number of people that have to be there that you don't recognize a new person suddenly appear? It is way

more than 12. I would say 20. I'd say up. Yeah, it has to be like, what she was so and so that night, but 12 is like, you've been there all day too. And apparently kissing on each other and whatever that means. Digging around. Yeah. So it's like another person shows they're like, oh, that must be like Jamie's

friend or something. Like, no, that doesn't make any It gets worse after this. I just don't want to go back to the idea that you're eating brats, right? Someone squeezed your thigh again. And like I said, right. Someone you've never seen before. Yeah. Someone you've never seen before.

They have the brot in their hand. They're just like... And just not face at all. Yeah. Just like, all right, well, that must be one of those guys with Alex. I think in any instant, no matter what age. if I was eating a hot dog or a broad if someone touched me in any way I feel like

it's just the worst time to touch someone that is a sweaty meat I just would not want anybody to physically touch me you'd let me touch you right come on dude hey hunter

what I love you thanks man so pretty I'm not he won't have done it every show and he won't. He always says thanks or okay or something like that. He hates

me. So, prema. Yeah, who hurt you? Who did that? My grandpa. My grandpa. So, we're pretty much scared as we huddled together and I fall asleep. When I wake up,

the sun's just coming up and half the people are asleep and the other half are packing her shit up. We all want to to walk back home but like four people want to stay until the sun's all the way up and some people think that we're just messing around and still want to stay at the trailers. I just want to get out of the woods. The girl's name was Kira, the one that the Go-Man had touched. Anyway, I asked her if she really thinks it was something bad and she says that she just wants to go home and that she doesn't want to be out of the woods alone for another night. So we decided to split up. The four that want to

go can go, but I have to stay because I have the keys to the cabinet. It's my uncles and I have to lock up. That is an insanely, that is infinitely stupid, good Lord. Well, it's stupid, but also at the same time, that is 14, 15 year old logic. I can't leave. I have to lock it up. Not when a shapeshifter is touching you. That escalates beyond any like childhood stupidity. Oh, not me, man. If I was 15 or 16, I would definitely just be like, my dad's going to kick my ass. I can't. I have to stay. So you'd stay with the demon goat in the woods? We don't really don't know what it is yet. I just think, we got

some brats. I just think let's ride out the storm. Not kidding. You should talk to someone about that. Anyway, I'm super pissed at this point because I feel like people aren't taking this shit seriously. I definitely don't want to go out in the woods for another night. I spend the rest of the day trying to convince the rest of the people.

Now, four girls and four guys, to get out of Dodge. Tanner leaves with him to go get a rifle and says he's going to be back, so there are just seven of us left by 4 p.m. At around 5 p.m., he hasn't made it back yet, and we're getting extremely antsy. The only reason I stopped begging him to leave was because he went to get a gun. At about 5.30 or so, the one cousin that did stay says that the girl, Kira, is outside. We all look outside, sure enough, she's just standing by the fire pit with her back to the cabin. I'm thinking to myself, if she was so scared, why would she come back? And I get this nasty feeling in my gut.

Keep in mind, the whole time the coffery smell has been gone. Now I realize I can smell just a twinge of it. I say this to the rest of them. Everybody. And these are the people that wanted to stay in the woods after we had the goat man in her midst. He's laughing at me and asking if I set this up, just scared of them. Why did the lights get dark? I'm looking at them like I don't someone want to okay

you're not you're not you're not going to believe this we have no idea who that was that was. That was a guy at the back door for like three and a half hours. You should be waiting. more frightened.

We've got to figure that out. Did he say anything to you? Stop dicking around. You have a quote now. Go ahead. Let me the fucking. Stop fucking plague. Is that the quote?

Wait, where are you? That's what I have here. Oh, no. Oh, I'm not fucking bullshit in you all. We're all right now. Wait. It wasn't highlighted. I'm sorry. Okay. All right. Get it together.

I asked them, Why would I play like that? So one of the girls goes outside to get Kira. She gets halfway to her and stops Kohlton. Kira starts heaving. I don't know how to describe it. Sort of like if someone with their back turn was laughing without actually making any sound.

It was this fact that made me realize there was not a sound in the whole woods. it was dead silent. So to keep track, this is the girl who was freaked out, said the goat man had whispered something to her, and she goes off with the group

who left immediately. Now she is standing back at the camp, at the campfire facing away from them, and she's like twitching and convulsing. Everything is silent. So what does this group decide to do? This was like late September, so it was still fairly hot at the time,

but super chilly some days too. You could usually hear big-ass geese honking or some kind of horses. No, again, why not? Take your time. He's really not going to do it. Okay, all right. Fuck us, I guess.

It's okay. It gets a little stage fright. You can hear those, some kind of birds or squirrels chit-chatting. Okay. All right I hope that goat man guy comes back I step out the door and tell the girl

to come back in the trailer right now she backs up into it and we lock the door we pull down all the shades except one and put a guy there in a chair to watch Kira. She stands there for another 20 minutes or so eventually the guy turns to say that she's still there and there's a huge

big bang on the door. We all jump up and scramble around the living room of the trailer. The banging super loud. My cousin is holding one of the girls. The other two are kind of giggling with nervous laughter and me and the other two guys are shitting bricks.

Then we hear Tan. He's screaming. Let me the fucking! Stop fucking playing! We go... There it is. For show. He didn't make it up. I am also. about to burn to death in this thing. It's getting progressively

hotter in here. Dude, pop those guns out. No, no, quit. Take it off. Hell, stand up and give us a twirl. It's a t-shirt. Damn. My wife will find everyone in this room. There's one, I think, Samantha? Sam, yeah, Sam. Okay, so

the stalker tour, Sam plus one. I remember Sam because she was wearing goth makeup. And I, no, not the reason you think. And I was out front and she comes up. I'm like, hi, what's your name? And she goes, I swear it's not Jacobi. So be polite and not make the woo noises. Thank you very much. Oh, it's stuck. No. You're all on the list. Stumbles

in with a rifle. There's no. nobody else outside. Evidently, he had walked up to the campsite. Nothing weird happened in the forest, but he had seen a girl. Mind you, he said it was not Kira standing there. He got to the edge of the clearing. She had turned toward him with a slack-jawed look, just stared him down, slowly tracking him as he walked around the outside of the clearing towards the camp. He said it wasn't until he was almost halfway to the trailer that he'd realized She was getting closer to him. She had started off by the fire,

and without him even seeing her move, she had been turning and she'd closer. He said, he just ran the rest of the way back to the cabin, thinking it would open. When he got to the door and it was locked, he turned, and it was about half the distance to the door. He looks around the room and then gets super pale. He pulls me to the side and whispers in my ear.

You know, there are only seven us in here, right? I get that feeling where your stomach drops to your nuts. There's another mention. It had been back inside the trailer while we were sorting out who was going where. And then we all went outside to talk earlier in the day. It just slipped right back in. Okay. There are, someone laughed at that.

It's immature. There are seven people in your group. You already almost got got once because the 11 of you couldn't recognize a 12th. five leave you're now seven and four leave you're now seven and somehow an eighth person comes and you're like oh they must be with Alex how do you let it slip by twice

I think they deserve to die at this point oh absolutely yeah I think is there anyone you care about in the story like you don't want to tan you don't care about junior or rooster fuck junior and fuck rooster that's mean why

I don't know dude rednecks I don't know so you're in the L.A. crowd so you play towards their you know like everyone's just like this is the show going to be good soon

we look out the window and there's nobody there so we recount and then I go over and ask everyone how many people were here earlier and everybody says eight I say

how many are there now they all do the count and realize there are now only seven people in the cabin Dan had brought back a couple boxes of ammo in his rifle. He had told his dad that there was some kind of animal in the forest because he didn't think he would believe him if he said it was the goat man. He says that his cousin is supposed to be coming down in a few hours

and that in the morning we can all go back to his place and his cousin will drive us home. Now I'm really terrified, but I at least feel better because we can be American and shoot whatever it is that comes back. That's right. That is right. USA. USA. USA! USA!

You know what? L.A.? I misjudged you. I apologize. That was a little... That was not, yeah. That was kind. I feel at home. Well, debatable. No, I'm kidding. But then my cousin gets into his huge argument with one of the girls because she thinks that I'm trying to be funny and prank

him. She's getting really scared and thinks I'm not funny. He keeps telling her I'm not that kind of person and she says, well Girl 2. Yeah, I'm girl too. How do we know the girl wasn't just Tanner and a wig? Why didn't we think of that?

Well, how do we know the girl wasn't just Tanner in a wig or if it's really the goat man? How do we know that this is the real Tanner and the goat man didn't just kill Tanner in the woods and take his gun? Okay, a lot happening here. For one, she's like, there's two options. Either this is a prank, this is a prank, or we kill Tanner right now. That's it. Two scenarios. Yeah.

I understand why she's girl too now. So we get into a huge argument about this where me and Tanner like... We could seriously be in danger. You have gone from a child. Dude, I am trying to keep it fucking together here. Okay, hold on. Okay, sorry, sorry. Wait, wait, wait, wait, actually, can you do an L.A.

accent. I don't. We could seriously be in danger. Because of the very least, someone has been sneaking themselves into their fucking trailer without us knowing and mingling with us. And at worst,

something bad is in the forest fucking with us. That was pretty good. I like that. One of the girls is crying and saying she wants to go right now. I don't like that. He's saying she wants to go right now. Please. Girl three.

Let's just get out of here before it takes one of us. And we're trying to tell her we shouldn't because none of us are walking through the woods in the middle of the night. At this point, sun is starting to go down and it's getting a little cloudy out. We eat something to turn on the radio for a while, but we can't really get a station out there. It was everything decent. I thought for a second.

I was like, is that guy about to fall through the ceiling? So we turn it off at about the time that Tan's cousin shows up. He was like, 19, I think. Now, the sun is just barely over the horizon and he has one of those heavy-duty lantern flashlights and another rifle. He walks up to the trailer and we whispered to Tan asking if he's sure, that's his cousin, and he says yes.

The guy looks behind him and all around the camp, then walks in. He kind of glances at all of us and looks a little confused, and then he says, where's your little buddy at I figure she would meet up at the cabin she a little slow or something that's where you get off at I think I mean

speed but I can't tell if it's mental or not I think he means literally slow because of what like she is walking at a slow pace yeah he also asked whether we had been choking choking blood cooking blood like cooking's any better cooking blood

in the cabin because it smelled like blood and hop pans all the way up the trail. We're all like, nope. We ask him what he's talking about with the girl he saw. I came down the same trail tan used. And when I did, I ran to one of the used guys buddies. That threw me for a loop, dude. He just randomly becomes a talent.

Well, yeah, it's like, I came down the trail, the same trail tan used. And when I did, I ran into one of you guys buddies. Just Tony Supreme. Just immediately. Tanner's cousin continued to explain. The person he saw was standing in the middle of the trail

looking at him slack jawed. He had asked her a bunch of questions, but all she did was just look at him. Then she smiled, and he said he kept walking. She couldn't seem to keep up with him and kept lagging a little behind. He said he asked her if she was hurt or something and if she needed any help,

but she continued to stare. Eventually, he turned around a bend in the trail. trail. But when he went back to see if she was okay, the trail was empty. We'd assumed she had taken some shortcut through the woods to our trailer. We tell him the whole story of what's been going on. I have expected him to say we were full of shit, but he just listened and then sat down on the couches in the living room. Tanner's cousin gets back to the girl. He says that when she had kept trying to like behind him, he kind of weirded him out. So he tried to keep her in front of him.

No matter how slow he walked, she was always lagging a little behind. He smelled this nasty smell. It got stronger as he got to be camp. Eventually, it got really strong. She had said something really low that he didn't catch, and when he had turned around, she had been right on him. He stepped back from her. It was at this point that he asked her if she was okay.

If she wasn't, he offered to carry her back the rest of the way. She just kept staring. he said he reached out for her as if to grab her on the shoulder but he must have misjudged the distance because she was off to the side of where he had put his hand like she had moved while he was looking dead at her so at this point we know the shit's real unless tan's playing a joke which we can tell he's not because he's almost pissed in his pants they load up their rifles we eat some more and we just kind of sit around until about 11 to this day every time i think about this, I really pray to God that it's some

huge prank that my cousin's played on me and just never revealed, so I'd shit myself for the rest of my life. At around 11, the stink of copper turned into an actual gross, blood-like smell. Like cooked blood and singed hair. Tann and his cousin,

Reese, get up instantly and grab the rifles. There's like a half knocking, half-clined at the door. Now, shit you not, there's this voice. It sounds like, like when you see one of those YouTube cats and dogs whose owners teach them how to talk

it says in this halting, weirdly toned voice, let me the fucking stop fucking playing. That's really good. I dig that. You can bury that every time. Yeah, it's almost like there's no cadence. Like it's a breathe in almost.

Like the way like a bark could kind of get distorted into a noise. It made me, my nuts. There's another this guy loves bringing it up. Keep in mind one mention of kissing on girls about 12 of these creep up against my body and one

of the girls just starts crying and calling for Jesus. It was so obviously not a person talking. It didn't have the right cadence. That's some shit that I never realized until that moment. But all people have a certain cadence when they talk no matter the language. All

people have a certain kind of rhythm when talking. The shit didn't have any kind of cadence. or rhythm. So now I'm in full on terror mode. We keep yelling outside. Who is it? Stop fucking around, man! And it just keeps saying,

Or... Let me the fuck in. Let's go. For almost 15 minutes. Then the smell goes away for a while, and for the next hour or so, you can hear someone basically creeping around in the woods and shit.

A couple minutes, it comes back to the door and says something. finally the smell fades away at around 2 in the morning Rees says man fuck this he opens the door walks outside with his rifle

he fires a shot into the air and screams something like in the name of Jesus Christ go away it it's funny to imagine he goes from like a redneck a gun to like, the Vatican

has sent me on a mission, like, yeah. Yeah, monster. Yeah, no joke. He fires two more times, and then from the woods, right up against the river, across from the trailer, it sounds like something is slowly jibbering and hooting. Then, it, no, okay. Then it starts screaming.

And it sounds almost like a woman and a cat in a bag screaming together. I guess that's what that would sound like, yeah. It's a weird phrase, because normally you say, like, oh, it sounds like this, as if it's like a relatable point. Like, oh, it sounded like a car, like a gun. But it's like, oh, we've all, you know, you haven't seen a woman and a cat in a bag screaming together.

The author had enough of that in his life to be like, right? It's exactly like that. You know, mom and fluffy. Who among friends is not from time to time? Like, I seriously have never heard any shit like that. We can hear the brush over that way start to shake. Reese fires over into the tree line and then starts backing up into the building. We locked the door and we can hear this shit keening and screaming.

Reese says something had come out of the bushes, super low to the ground, and was crawling toward the cabin. He had shot at it. Pretty much, that was how the rest of the night went. Literally constant screaming for the next two hours and shit moving out in the tree line. but it never came back up to the cabin until everyone had finally fallen asleep. Tan had been sitting in the chair watching the door with his rifle. Nobody else heard or saw this and he told me two days later after the whole thing was over.

He said he had been nodding off after the screaming and noises finally stopped. He'd been almost asleep when he saw someone come out of the bathroom and then laid down in the middle of the floor and go to sleep. He just assumed it was one. of us and that the guy had nodded off then he said he kind of realized something was wrong and while pretending to be sleeping he counted us there were nine people in the cabin he didn't want to try to shoot at the thing and have it kill us all then and there or have Reese wake up and start shooting and us kill ourselves so he just stayed awake all night pretending to be asleep he said sometimes it would stand up and kind of do this weird jittery thing

or heave like it was laughing, but then it would just lay back down. The story closes pretty weak, because from my perspective, nothing happened. When we woke up, I noticed that Tan was a little jittery and that he was avoiding looking at all of us.

But we ate some breakfast, packed up, and started walking to his house. He stayed last in the cabin and said he'd lock up and bring me my uncle's keys. He told us, Start walking. I'll catch up.

which I didn't really want to do. We got a little bit up the path and when he came running up, we just jogged back to his house. His cousin took us home. There was a window in the bathroom. Tann had gone back to lock up and looked in there. We were too stupid to lock a screenless window

and it was up when he went in there. I'm guessing it had been doing that all along, waiting for us to fall asleep or slip up and then getting in among us. walked with us all the way back to his house and then he said it lagged to the back of the group looked him dead in the eyes before walking into the woods End of the goat man

definitely of the end of goat man I want to say this right off the bat I want to say off the bat Harry is evil for throwing the amonga I was stinking in my head like no one reacted thank God the first time you guys rule and he decided to whatever okay I want to say just right out the bat that how the fuck do you fall asleep after all this stuff has happened

I like how people are just like you witness you go through hell he said two hours of screaming and gunfire screaming and gunfire and like how people are just like dude I just can't stay up anymore if I don't get my eight hours it's going to mess up my rhythm yeah dude seriously I got this whole thing going with my heart rate I got to do it I can also him the guy who is on guard initially being like oh well the new person for the third time now I'm sure I I've met them before. Right. It's just dark.

Yeah, like insane. But I will say, it's a fun story though. So I love, I like the story a lot because for one, kind of the way it was posted. This wasn't like an author, like publishing a story or like a no sleep or anything like that. It was originally posted on X. I believe the original post was someone asked the question. And again, it's all anonymous. Someone was just like, hey, does anyone have any like creepy stories in the woods?

And then someone's like, yeah, I have one and did this whole thing. So it's not like. it was a fictional story or someone trying to, you know, make something up, it came across in such an earnest way that it started to gain traction from there. And a lot of stuff about the goat man mythos comes from this story. Things like he smells like blood or others will adapt it to say he smells like rot in general. The idea of him being a shapeshifter, the idea of him having sort of presence that like can be felt even if he's not there. All that comes from this. And like most people just associate that with the cryptid in general, but that's how impactful this narrative

was. So it's cool because it just came out of nowhere. I remember this being one of the first creepypastas like I ever read. I remember listening to this in high school. And then at every subsequent sleepover I went to for the rest of the year, I would play it. Mr. Creepypasta's reading to terrify people. I didn't have a lot of friends. But I would always play it just because I enjoyed the story so much, thought it was scary that, yeah, I'm, I really like it for what it is. sure it has a weekending, but again, this wasn't some grand narrative. This was like, oh yeah, this happened to me one time. Yeah. And there's another note

I like, that I didn't think about until this final reading, but there's a mention earlier, the girl in the cabinet grabs her, like, whisper something to her, and then the next time we see her, she is, like, a vessel. Or she's dead, and it's now, like, taken on her form, right? And then there's a mention of it,

like, kind of speaking or gibbering to them, and he's writing the story now, but he could still be marked. It could still be out there. Yeah, like afflicted or something. Yeah, it still like leaves the door open for like, well, that doesn't mean our rider or friends are safe just because they're out. It's a really fun narrative for what it is, and I've always liked it. How did you all feel about it? Cool.

It's a fun story. It's a fun starter, right? You get the, you get a little bit of this, a little bit of that, but you need a nice palette cleanser between these stories, don't you? You certainly do. So now we have just that. So the next story, we have a creepcast logo. The next story. that we have for tonight is

All right. So raise your hand if you know this story. Awesome. I love that this is a lot of people are going to get blind to this. The other half of you are in for something. Yeah, I love this one. So to give, this should give you the context you need.

This story was originally posted to deviant art in 2013. And it is about a murder. To give you an idea of how much joy we feel for this little guy. The original plan was for all four of these live shows. We were going to read a different palate cleanser in the middle. And after the first one, Hunter said we are reading this at every show. I love this story so much.

This is not a quality story. We know that. Oh, it's quality. We also know that you all are probably expecting that kind of thing. We should also mention very importantly, the typos are not our own and are instead part of the original. So we're going to get that. But first, for this story, I forgot to mention we have a little special guest tonight.

Coming in to help us read this very funny, funny story is someone who makes good work, dare I say admirable work. He's from this area, you know. Have you guys seen the movie Hereditary or Midsummer? Right? If you don't know him, his name's Ari Aster. And he's here to read Laughing Jack with us tonight. Give him a round of applause. That's not happening.

I think, uh... I would have to imagine Ari Aster has a lot of better things to do with this time. We want to take a moment and thank today's sponsor, Saly. Saly is a new ESIM service app brought to you by Nord Security. With Saly ESIM, you can find an affordable plan in over 160 countries and eight regions, meaning you'll always have a connection when you need it. Whoa! Saly comes in to save the day when you're abroad and your standard plan doesn't work.

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Let's keep reading. So are you familiar with the story at all? As always, no. So what we're doing is to let you all in, the first and last stories, we're going to read, we're going to read, oh man, we're going to read our last story at every show. But each middle one is going to be a different short one. That is, it is not here to be scary because you all like that for some reason. So we are going to look back at this. I think the other ones we're doing are what, Sonic.com. Yeah. To give you an idea. And some other ones like that. Yeah. So, like, this one's for fun. It's sort of palette cleanser. Uh, it's, I haven't looked at this one since I read it years ago, but I just have a feeling. So, we're going to go ahead and get into it. So written by Steve Aikens. Remembered by Steve Aikins? He went by Snuffbaum, uh, when he posted it in, um, March 3rd. No, it was earlier than, it says 2017 here. It was no, no, I have March 3rd, 2013. 2013 sounds more right. Yeah. And it was uploaded originally to deviant art. Oh, yeah. Just, yeah, to give you an idea. Another little factoid for you. Yeah. So laughing Jack, there's been eyeless Jack.

Was Jack around this time just... No, it was just because everyone would make, there'd be like a creepy image or something. And they'd be like, what if it was a monster whose name was Jeff, Jack, Ben, um, trying to think of the others? Just random, universal names. Yeah. With adjective common first name. Right. Ben drowned. Laughing Jack. Jeff the killer. adjective, whatever, you know, just stuff like that. So it was just like, either they made the picture, they saw a picture of like a creepy clown, and then the story comes off of that. Right. So we're going to get into this, and let's see how this goes. All right. Story two, Laughing Jack. It was a nice summer day, but my five-year-old son James was playing.

I immediately forgot about how violent this story gets until I read five-year-old. Well, this will be fun. All right. Good luck, Hunter. Five-year-old son James was playing. outside in the backyard of our suburban home. James has always been a quiet boy. He plays by himself mostly. He never had many friends, but he was always, he always had a wild imagination. It was in the kitchen feeding our dog Fido when I heard what sounded like James talking to someone in the backyard. I'm not sure who it, I'm not sure who it was he could be talking to. Could he have finally made a friend at my house randomly? Fucking brutal, dude. James? Thank God. James, did you finally make a friend?

Being a single mom, it's hard for me to... Nice. It's hard for me to always keep an eye on my son. Yeah, it is. So I decided to... Gross, to go outside and check on him. When I went into the backyard, I was a bit confused because James was the only person back there.

Was he talking to himself? I could have sworn I heard another voice. James? It's time to come outside. What was that at the end? The laughing, Jack, I mean. James, it's time to come inside. It came inside and sat down at the kitchen table. It was about lunchtime, so I decided to make him a turkey sandwich.

Yeah! James. James. I like to imagine he's not looking at her. James. James. Who were you talking to out there? James looked up for a moment

I was playing with my new friend I poured him some milk and continued to pry as any good mother would Does your friend have a name Why didn't you ask him to have lunch with us James stared at me for a moment before replying His name It's Lavajag

I was a bit Are you scared yet? I was a bit taken back by what he had said. Oh. That's a strange name. What does your friend look like? Go ahead. He's a clown.

He had long hair and a big, swirly cone nose. He's got long-armed and baggy paints with stripy socks. And he all. always smiles. It's like a weird Cartman thing, almost. I realized my son

was talking about an imaginary friend. I suppose it's normal for kids as they have imaginary friends. Especially when he has no real kids to play with. How normal are imaginary?

Who here had an imaginary friend? Okay. Oh wow, that's way more than I thought. Freak, freak, freak, freak, freak, freak. Yeah, hey! Kill all of those people. What about up time? I can't say, I'm taught, just yell if you have.

That's way too many of you. You all are not safe in a sound booth. They're like, more room for you, Mr. Pringles. Just nothing but empty seats up there. Well, they have to, he's so tall. Okay. I can't see them, so that might have been the imaginary friends laughing. Exactly.

Oh, Peter. The rest of the day went by as per usual, and it was starting to get late, so I put James to bed. He tucked him in, gave him a kiss, and made sure to turn on his nightlight before I closed the door. I was pretty tired myself, so I decided to go to bed not long after. I had an awful nightmare. It was dark. I was in some kind of run-down amusement park. I was scared running through an endless field of empty tents, broken down rides, and abandoned game huts. The whole plays had a horrible look to it. Everything was black and white. The prize stuffed animals all hung from nooses

in the game lines. What's funny is I know like the time period this was written on Deviant Art he was like, this is so good. The fucking plushes are hanging. All with sick grin stitched on their faces. Felt like the whole park was looking

at me, even though there wasn't another living being inside. And suddenly I began to hear music play. The sounds of Pop Goes the Weasel being played on a squeeze box echoed through the park. It was hypnotizing. I followed its tune to the circus tent almost in the trance. Unable to stop my legs from moving forward is pitch black.

The only light came from a single spotlight shining on the center of the big top. As I walked toward the light, the music slowed down. I found myself singing along unable to stop. All around the mulberry push, the monkey chase the weasel, the monkey, though twas all in fun. That's pretty creepy, right? That's pretty good. It's not the monkey.

It's monkey thoughts was all in good fun. Oh, I don't know that. I don't know that. You don't know Pop Goes the Weasel? I've heard it maybe once or twice. When you were born, did your parents keep you in a box until you were like...

It was a lot of ACDC in my house. That's mostly what it was. I still have no idea how old he is, by the way. The music. stopped right before, oh, did it all go, it does go all. All right, well, we're there now. The music stopped right before its client, don't read ahead. And suddenly, the lights shot on. The intensity of the lights was practically blinding. All I could see was a small dark silhouette shuffle towards me. Then another one appeared, and another, and another. There were dozens of

them all coming toward me. I couldn't move. My legs were frozen. All I could do was watch as the haunting figures drew near. As I got closer, I could see they were children. As I looked, yes, I had the same thought. As I looked at each one, I noticed they were all horribly disfigured and mutilated. So that was the thing back then. It's like insert child into story, words like disfigured mutilation. By the time this is over, we are going to see the words disemboweled. We are going to see the words probably, well, it's not a picture,

but if it was to be photorealistic blood or something like that. Some had cuts all over their body. others were severely burnt and others were missing limbs even eyes the children enveloped me clawing at my flesh dragging me to the ground and tearing inside of me as the children tore me apart and I faded away all I could hear was laughter horrible evil awful laughter is something funny this is just it develops so quickly hi children ah like immediately I woke up the next morning in a cold sweat after taking a few deep breaths I looked over and saw that a few of James's action figures were positioned facing me on top of my nightstand.

I sighed. James had probably woken up early and put these here. I gathered up the toys and made my way to James's room. However, when I opened the door, James was down to sleep. I just shrugged and placed the toys back into his toy box and headed out to the living room. A little while later, James woke up and I made him breakfast. He was quiet and seemed a bit groggy. Perhaps he didn't sleep well either. I decided to ask him about the toys. James, honey, did you put the toys in mommy's room in the morning? His eyes shot up at me for a moment and quickly glanced back down into cereal. Laughing Jack did it. I rolled my, now I want this kid to be disembelled.

I rolled my eyes and responded. Well, you tell Laughing Jack to keep the toys in your room. James nodded and finished up his breakfast. then decided to go play out in the backyard. I went to relax on the liver, and I must have dosed off because I woke up a couple hours later. Shit, I need to check on James.

Any rational mother's first thing is to say that out loud. Instead of just being like, oh, man, it's like, oh no, I need to check on James! Looks at camera. Yeah. I was a bit worried. It had been over two hours

and I haven't checked on him. I went and stepped out into the backyard, but James wasn't there anymore I was getting nervous though I called out to him James! James! Where are you? Wouldn't it be insane if like right now it was like I look in the front row

James had been hit by a truck at the end Laughing Jack means nothing It's all just about neglectful parenting I will say two hours is excessive To what? Not check on a child? Yeah, you're five-year-old who's just like I have an imaginary friend He was probably just in the backyard

like spinning his arms or something stupid Wee. Carry me, Jack. Just that. I heard a giggle from the front yard. I rushed through the gate around the front of the house. James was sitting on the sidewalk. I breathed the side of relief and walked over to him. James, how many times have I told you to stay in the back yet?

James, what are you eating? James looked up at me, then Mreisha chew his pocket and pulled out a handful of hard candies in all colors. This made me better. I forgot. Gosh, parts of the story are coming back to me as I remember them. Like, I just remembered where the candy goes later in the story. This is so insane. Okay, this made me very nervous.

James? Who gave you that candy? James just stared at me, not speaking. James! Please. Tell Mommy where you got that candy. Laughing Jack gave it to me. My heart sunk.

I kneeled down to look him in the eye. James, stop saying his name. Yeah, she keeps using the, like that's what mothers do. James, I've had enough of the damn laughing Jack thing. He's not real! Now, this is a very serious situation, and I need to, know who gave you the god damn candy i could see my son's eyes cheer up but mama laughing jack did give me the candy i just this is so funny because i remember being a child and reading this

like this is the scariest thing i've ever seen like scrolling like oh oh yeah close my eyes it took a deep breath James has never lied to me, but what's he telling me is impossible. I made him spit out the candy and I'd throw away the rest away. James appears to be fine. Maybe I'm just overreacting after all. He could have gotten it from Tom and Linda from next door, Mr. Walker down the street. Worst. Such so much creepier.

Who gave this Mr. Walker down the street? You're like, oh my God. This is like immediately becomes much more real. I have to call the police now. either way I'm going to have to keep a closer eye on James the night I put James to bed as usual and decided to go to bed early myself suddenly I was woken by a loud band coming from the kitchen I sprung out of it's like a heavy metal band just in

I sprung out of bed and hurried down the stairs when I got to the kitchen I was horrified everything on the counters had been thrown on the floor and our dog Fido hung dead from the line picture just straight up hill. Oh my gosh. I was kind of thinking to myself like, what else isn't that over the side? And then, brer, like, oh.

Our dog, Fido, hung dead from the light fixture. Does that bring back any memories? Oh, God. You know what it actually made me think of was in the urban spook episode with the baby? Flying on their way. So now I'm just thinking of the dog being like,

whew. The baby. Now, the funniest part about the urban spook was, like, there's a mention of the ceiling fan spinning. Oh. With a baby on it. Yeah. So I imagine it, like, fully pulled out to the side, like, whew!

Oh, it's fast. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. His stomach was cut open and stuffed with candy. There it is. The same type that James was eating earlier that day. My shock was quickly broken by his sharp scream coming from James's room, followed by loud crashes.

Ah! I quickly grabbed a knife from the drawer and moved up the stairs at the speed. only whose, only whose child is in danger could have. Okay, only a mother, I imagine. Yeah, only mothers can go this fast. Sorry, Olympics. I burst through the door and flicked on the lights. Everything in the room was knocked over and tossed on the floor.

My poor son in his bed crying and shake with fear. Pull of urine, standing the sheets. Oh, God. I pissed myself. I scooped. I scooped up my child and ran out of the house. went next door to Tom and Linda's house. Luckily, they were still awake.

They let me use their phone and I called the police. The boy that's written's funny. Like, Tom and Linda, you'll remember them from the candy mention earlier. I didn't take them long to arrive and I explained what happened. They looked at me as if I were crazy. They searched the house, but all they found was a dead dog in two trashed rooms. The officer, nothing to see here. Okay.

A disenbowled dog with candy in it. Yep, it's a normal Tuesday. I guess that's just what it is. The officer had told me that someone had probably gotten into the house and done this right before making a quick escape when they heard me coming up the stairs. Yeah, one of those dog disembounds. Oh, wait, I was right.

Yeah, he said disemboweled. Did they not? A second. Did they not use the word? Hold on. No, no, no. You're high. It'll happen.

Just wait. Shut up. I knew it wasn't true. All the doors were locked. none of the windows were open. Whatever was in my house didn't come from outside. The next day, James stayed inside.

I didn't want him to leave my... I only think this is him looking out the window. But I want to go outside. I went into the garage and found his old baby monitor and set it up in his room if anything comes in at its night. I was going to be able to hear it. I went to the kitchen and grabbed the largest knife from the drawer and put it on my nightstand.

Magionary friend or not, I'm not letting anything hurt my little boy. I don't like that. Soon enough, night came. I put James to bed. He was afraid, but I promised him that I wasn't going to let anything happen to him. I talked to him in, gave him a kiss, and turned on the nightlight. Before closing the door, I whispered to him. Good night, James.

I love you. I tried to stay up as long as I could, but after a few hours, I felt myself drifting off. My baby would be safe for the night and I needed to sleep. Just as I lay my head on the pillow, I heard a soft noise come from the baby monitor. I'd put on my nightstand. At first, it sounded like interference, like the kind of radio would make. And it turned into a soft moan. Was James asleep?

What? A soft moat. Keep going. Then I heard it, we're not going there. Then I heard the laugh from my nightmare, that horrible laugh. I sprung up from the bed and grabbed the knife from under my pillow. I rushed over to James' room and creaked the door open. I tried the light switch, but it wouldn't come on.

I took a step in and I could feel the warm, thick liquid on my feet. Suddenly, James's nightlight came on. I could see the absolute horror laid out in front of me. James' body was nailed up on the wall. Is something funny, Hunter? The nail piercing through his hands and feet. Oh, I forgot he was crucified. Fucking little James is.

being crucified right before I Mama, why? His chest Mama is a Yo! His chest was cut wide open

and his organs hung down to the floor. That's basically disembowling. His eyes and tongue had been removed along with most of his teeth.

How much time did he have? I was disgusted. Were you? Your thoughts? crucified in his bedroom. Oh my god. Gross. That's what she said. James. Oh, my God. I could hardly believe this was my baby boy. Then I heard it again, the soft, desperate moan. James was still alive.

Oh my God. My baby, my, I like the guys are like, whoo, like, my baby. My poor baby. It's so much pain and barely clinging to life. I ran across the room and vomited on the floor. Jesus. But my sickness was interrupted by a horrible cackle coming from behind me. I spun around

while still wiping boy. It's supposed to be wiping. It says whipping bile from my mouth. Then out of the shadows emerged the fiend responsible for all this horror. Laughing Jack. His ghost.

white skin his ghost white skin and matted black hair and matted black hair hung down to his shoulders he had piercing white eyes surrounded by dark black rings his twisted smile revealed a row of sharp jagged teeth

and his skein didn't look like skin at all no it almost looked like rubber or plastic He wore a patchy black and white clown outfit With striped sleeve and socks His body itself was grotesque His long arms hanging down past his waist

And the way he was poised Made him look almost boneless like a rag doll He let out a sickening laugh As to let me know he was pleased With my reaction to his work Oh my God He then turned around slowly in front Why did you say it for that?

Well just I think he's like He's like He's like He said you know I thought you were like The nerve Like that's what got you You know what I'm gonna go with that one All right.

I like that better. How dear, you're laughing, Jack? Unappropriate. He then turned around slowly in front of James and began to laugh even more at the horrific side he had laid out. That was enough to shake me from my tear. I snapped.

Get away from him, you bastard! I rushed at the monster, raising my knife above my head and stabbed him. But as soon as the knife touched him, disappeared in a cloud of black smoke. It's like a vampire. The knife passed through and pierced James still being hard.

Mama, no. Splashing the warm blood on my face. No, what have I done? My baby, I killed my baby. I immediately fell to my knees, and I could hear the sirens in the distance. Where's the police coming? That's every one.

That's one, yeah, Tom and Linda probably, that is every one of these stories. It's, like, Jeff the killer did that. Like, the beginning, like, he's just in his room and the police are like, pooh, like, they just know. This is Jeff the killer. Yeah, that's smile at all. Yeah, yeah, I mean? So all, there's a trend of all these, like, like, guys who, like, laugh or enjoy it or whatever, like just mutilate children. That was, like, a big thing around time.

They just all copy pasted each other. And then Deviant Art made them into. like e-boys and like made weird art of them. Gone sexual. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Yeah, yeah. I immediately don't move that. And I could hear the sirens in the distance growing louder. My boy,

my sweet baby boy, I promised Mommy would, I'm like reading that. I promised Mommy would protect you, but I failed. I'm sorry, James. I'm so sorry. It's okay, Mom. Police soon arrived to fight. Yeah, he has the knife sticking out. He's like, it's really not that bad. It's really. I think I'll be okay.

police soon arrived to find me in front of my son still wielding the knife covered in my baby's blood the trial was short insanity we're going to the trial yeah we're just skipping next step god I was placed in the the fuck kind of Harry Potter shit is this the Ferrupulous

Jesus Christ you know what I promise you this is what is what is some obscure reference to some fandom or thing in 2012 and he's like the same shit that's like Arkham like Arkham Asylum like yeah if this was just like I was placed in the Arkham you know asylum

Arkham House. Yeah I thought yeah sure for the criminally insane where I've been for the past two months it's not so bad here. The only reason I'm awake now is because someone is playing Pop Goes the Weasel outside my window I'll talk to the orderlies about it in the morning

and the end you know what i'll get i'll give it having it become a uh you know it's do you think she just went insane and killed her kid that's gotta be you are giving it way too much credit you think so a skiing clown showed up in her bedroom and the sun's bedroom crucified him then turned into smoke and she stabbed her child i see it more as a mother no do not do this with this story a mother looks at her kid who's kind of a loser

and she's like I really wish James was kind of fucking cool so she goes insane and she's like stabby stabby bitch so he just kills him no no stop

not for this story exactly okay so with that I'm not giving you any more floor with Laughing Jack I hope you all enjoyed that reading of Laughing Jack

at least thank you Thank you all so much for being here. And with that, do you want to go ahead and get into the first story? Enough of the bickering. I'm ready to dive in. Let's get into it. So we'll go ahead and go on to the first one.

We've got... Okay. Hold on. Oh, shit, I forgot about this. Did you do this? I just, spoils. You did this? It's a lucky crowd.

Okay, so this, at every show we've done, they've put stuff in the PowerPoint. without telling me about it. I was supposed to hit next and we were going to the first story. Did you know what's going to pop up here? I do. If it's on the street, can you at least read it?

Can you read it? Phoenix? You're going to want to see this. I'm scared. Uh-oh. What did Daddy do? Am I right? Were you just setting around earlier and you're like,

hey, guys, I've got a great idea. That's right. Okay. All right, we're going to the first story. So our first story of tonight is The Tall Dog. The Tall Dog is written by Elias Witherow, who you all will know from both Tommy Taffy. Very mixed reaction.

No, no, no. who's shaking their heads is bullshit. All right, it's creepy stuff. As well as feed the pig. Now, the same person, mind you, who decided to throw the picture of us in the hot tub up, Harry, our guy in the back,

has assured me that the tall dog does not contain the elements that Tommy Taffy contain. However, hold on, hold on. However, Harry loves to lie to me. has done it a lot. So I wouldn't put it past him to be like, yeah, just read it on stage.

This is, we have not read this yet. Yeah, so, this is a Phoenix first. At the previous two shows, we've done the same set list, and we're like, let's switch it up a bit, change the story. So any reactions we have to this thing are earnest, and I promise you,

if something terrible happens, kill that guy who's in the back in the sound stage. If we're going into hell, at least we're going in together. We're going in together. All right. What's also really funny,

I realize midway through this, there's a girl setting at the very front up here who, on the way and said, my boyfriend dragged me here. I have no idea who you two are. So the whole time, I was setting here like, it doesn't contain the Tommy Taffiel and she's looking at me like,

what are you talking about? What is that, is it a sweet treat? Don't worry about it. It's fine. So anyway, we're going to go ahead and get into the Tall Dog. But with all that out of the way, Are you ready to start creeping your cast?

Ooh. Let's get it! Let's get into it. May we have the music? We always expect, like... This is so weird because there's just eyes over the top of the screen.

I will say, yeah. I'm going to hold in a little bit more. I just want to point it. It is a lot of... Usually we're on Discord during these calls and have you all this closest. It's a fucking nightmare. The theater, I could just hide

and it's pretend they're not there. It was just... There are one, two, three, four, five, six people whatever, sure. Be brave. We always expect life to be easier than it actually is. Why is that? Why do we assume we are owed happiness? Why do we act so surprised when things go wrong? Is it the society we live in?

Society. Why the society have to be so fucking cruel? Can we talk about that for a second? Thank you. Was that a Phoenix accent? Is that, what is a phoenix accent? Everybody like, yeah, yeah. Yeah, society is to be cruel. Yeah, it's pretty good.

Is it the false advertising that surrounds us at all time? What are we going to? Is it because of the things we watch or the books we read? Why is tragedy always so shocking? Life is a slog of disappointment and misery. This is such a great first note. I'm fucking depressed. Sometimes we are grace for,

with pockets of joy, brief respite from all the hardship. In these moments, we feel like we have figured out what the purpose of our existence truly is. Love, family, culture, travel, natural beauty. But it's all bullshit. Man, this guy. What a great. Thanks, Harry, for the suggestion.

Yeah, what a fucking wet blanket. God damn, dude, ride a roller coaster or something. Those fleeting hours of contentment are nothing more than a quick breath between breeding. Brett. Quick. Watch out, ladies. A quick breath between beatings.

Thank you. It's a ray of hope that gets stuck inside our minds like a cancer. We hold into it, we beg for it, we scream for it. During times of unbearable, mental agony, but you can tell this guy wrote Tommy Taffy, Having something to hope for is worse than if there was no hope at all. Hope is a lie. It's a disease that tricks our minds into thinking this painful reality

is going to evaporate like a puff of breath on a cold wind. Let me assure you, reality is a brutal, bloody corpse. Someone went, oh, okay. Now, you might be reading this and thinking, I'm not like this. I have a good life, a healthy family, and I'm financially secure. let me tell you I hope you enjoy your quick breath of clean air

because there's a bomb falling over your head did you write this I might have in a drunken stupor I might have written this we were on the plane yesterday and I look over

and he's like 18 pages into a word document I'm like what are you writing and he's like nothing I tried so hard to write a creepy pasta for this show and just couldn't get a Couldn't get it gone. Was this it?

Is this the opening of it? Like, just being depressed? I don't know. You might not see it yet, but it's descending at a tremendous speed. When you least expect it, it'll land and devastate your entire existence. It will destroy everything you love,

and it will leave you broken and weeping in the... Fucking... Gutter. Why am I telling you this? Why should you listen to me? Because the bomb's already dropped on me. The fallout's unbearable and I can't seem to find a gasp of clean air

in this toxic wasteland of life. My throat burns my eyes water and I can't speak for fear of tearing my silent's throat. My wife is dead. Hold on! Pause! This story's called Tall Dog! There has not been one dog mentioned yet.

No. No. Can you imagine Marley and me play? laying out in this? It's just, oh, it'll be like, oh, my God. Holy shit. I have absolutely zero idea

where this story's... A dog shows up somewhere unless it's a metaphorical dog or something. Oh, fuck that, dude. Give me a dog. This better be a big-ass dog. Oh, do you... Oh, hold on.

Are you... Is there, like, perhaps, I don't know, maybe some trauma you have with a dog or, like, a memory? Hey, hey, easy down on. Okay, no, no, no, no. No! No!

I just want you... Hey, I want all you fuckers to know that my mom is here tonight. Okay? And she's pissed. Where are she at? Raise your head. Right there.

There she is! Yeah. I crawled forth from that woman. So... What a gal. Just for the record, because this girl's very confused. Yeah, she's like, what? So just for the record, did Grandpa Ernest shoot that dog?

Okay. All right. So you all witnessed it. Thank you. Can we get back to the dead wife? Yeah, yeah, sure. Please. Back to the wife.

Bring the music back, yeah. Instead of dead dogs. She died a year ago and left me on. alone to raise our little girl. Heather. Ugh. Bad name. Sorry. Any Heather's in the house? Raise your hand. Oh, yikes.

Frungstenner. Just kidding, Heather. Good name. Heather. Heather is all I have left. She's the gas mask I struggle to hold on to. She's a choked cries of desperation I admit from between bloody teeth.

Heather God damn This is the Okay What are his two stories we love Tommy Taffey and Feed the Pig Do you remember the best part of Feed the Pig A like

10 minute description Of someone being chewed to death That was sick Yeah So I imagine everything else is also gross He's like I'm in a loving marriage And he writes this Yeah

Well no she's dead She's my gas mask Well he was in a loving marriage The daughter's his gas mask That's true That's true you forget the thing I read one paragraph ago? I remember

I have bad memory but I remember. Hey real quick Hunter. Every show he fucking does this, Sid. I have been asking him questions about previous creepcast episodes and he has gotten one right so far. Okay, Hunter what is

the creepcast episode? No one say anything that Mr. Wellers comes from. Oh shit. No one, don't. Oh, fuck, actually, don't. Well, I remember Mr. Willow sounds a little like this, and he's got a blood bank down the south.

Fuck, dude. The showers? Yes, oh my gosh. Whoa. I did not. I thought you would completely memory hold that story. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you remember any details about the story of the showers?

No. Wait, wait. The Victorian China. who's just like crawling around the tunnel, right? She had like the little fucking gown. Yeah, they saw like a kid through the flashlight or something like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you remember why there were showers, why they were in a tunnel? No. Okay. All right, that was, you know what? That was actually insane. I never would have thought

a million years that would have came out. I'm very excited. Well, okay, I'll think of one to stump you in a minute. I'm impressed, good job. All right, anyway. Quiz me again, bitch. Heather is five now. Good age.

We did. To be five again. Not, come on. God, people are like, ah, God, riding bikes? Remember riding bikes when you were five? Good time.

Yeah. You're... God, you sick fucks? Well, I just... You're a YouTuber. You have to be careful with like phrasing. We did... Put the music back on.

Quick, quick, quick, quick. We did our best to recover from the pain of my wife's death, a loss of a companion. a removal of a mother. I shuddered to think my daughter has to face the bloody blade of life at such a young age.

She needs to be sheltered from it. She needs protection. For a while, I thought I was providing that. But that was before the nightmare started. That was before the tall dog. There you go. There's your dog. No.

I scrubbed sleep from my eyes, rolling in the darkness to check the clock. 3 a.m. I groaned and pulled myself from the warmth of my sheets. Heather was crying from a room, calling my name. She must...

I'll do anything for you to not do that. Dad! Dad! She... Please. Pretty good. I'm begging you.

That's pretty good. Stop. Okay, all right. Fuck me. She might... Yes. She must have had a bad dream. In a day's...

blinking sleepily, I shuffled out of my room and down to hers. The house was silent, and my feet scuffed over the cool hardwood floors. Heather never has bad dreams, I thought, yawning. Did I let her watch something scary before bed? I entered her room, the space illuminated by a pink ballerina nightlight, and went to my daughter's side. She was curled up in a ball with her hands over her face. She was sniffling, and her pillow felt damp with tears.

cooing, I scooped her up and told her everything was okay. After she calmed down some, I asked her if she had had a nightmare. She looked up at me with big, teary eyes and nodded. She hugged me and asked if she could sleep in my bed. I told her, of course. It won't come in your room. Dude, I'm playing a five-year-old girl. I know, I know.

I'm doing my best. That sounded like a 58-year-old man pretending. to be a five-year-old girl It won't come in your room I don't like that character It won't come in your room I don't sure Whatever makes you happy

I'm gonna keep I'm trying Okay I thank you Hey Hunter I love you Thanks man Every show I do that

Someone's like Aw Heather asked me As I picked both picked both up off the bed I picked us up Oh You can read it what it says

I paused Sweetie What are you talking about Are you Oh wait I am Okay You can do the

I'm sorry Sweetie My little angel What are you talking about She wrapped herself tied around me And whispered Don't don't

That's all talk I hated that. Oh, my gosh. That was the scariest thing that's happened on this podcast. I didn't know what to make of it. The phrase nonsense. And so I told her there were no dogs

coming into the house and that we were safe. I felt to relax against me as I walked us back into my bedroom. I laid her down to my bed and stroked her here until I heard the soft snores of sleep. Lay down next to her and exhaled heavily.

Sleep returned to me in a rush of heavy fatigue. The next day, life resumed its predictable repetition. I got Heather ready for school and then rushed to prepare myself for work. I left her downstairs in front of the TV, happily munching on some toast as I scurried to shower and shave. It was like this every morning, but I was used to the frantic pace. As I threw my sports jacket on and bustled into the hallway to go downstairs, I paused. I bent down and wet my thumb with my tongue. I scrubbed it along the hardwood floor

Why did someone laugh at that? I scrubbed it along the hardwood floor wiping away a streak of dirt that ran towards Heather's room. I gripped my teeth and reminded myself it wasn't a big deal. She was five years old and couldn't be expected to remember to take off her shoes all the time.

Hold on a second. I gripped my teeth. I had the same thought. I was like... It's a bit aggressive for a dad. God damn, dude. It's a five-year-old. He's like, she's not ready to go.

I like how he's, like, calming himself down. Like, you know, okay, I have to be careful how I bring this up. Do you remember the joke in Tommy Taffy when we were talking about how he was, like, W.W.E. slamming the child into the walls and stuff like that? I'm very much aware, yes. Is that what the father does if, like, her shoelaces aren't tied? It's, like, drops from the staircase.

Good parenting. Standing. down the stairs and collected my daughter to begin our day. I switched off the TV and grabbed Heather's pink Barbie backpack, asking her if she had to go to the bathroom before school. When she said she didn't, I snatched the car keys off the kitchen counter and ushered her to the front door. As I followed Heather out, I hesitated my hand freezing before I closed the door all the way. I stuck my head back inside and listened. I could have sworn I had heard something from upstairs. After a second, I shrugged and closed the door, locking it tight.

The day passed like so many before it. The hands on the clock pushed forward triumphantly and finally announced the end of the workday. Not long after, the trumpets of freedom were blown. It was a bit dramatic. I found myself at home once again. He works at an Enterprise car rental company. He's like, the trumpets of freedom are blaring hot right now.

Didn't you work at Enterprise? No. Didn't you work at a car rental thing? No. I swear you've told me a story. This is maybe somebody in your past life. I don't know. No. Did you lie?

to me at some point? You do that a lot. Possibly. Okay. I still have no idea how old he is. And he won't tell me. 46.

Okay. I ordered pizza for us, a rare delicacy for my daughter. What kind of a dad is he? Does he even look at her? You can't out pizza the hut, sweetheart. And Smith throws her through the wall. Yeah, again. Every time.

I spent the evening watching children's shows on that play, not with his daughter by himself. Yeah, she was upstairs. Well, you know how it works, sweetie? You can't have pizza and cartoons. Choose one. I barely saw the images on the screen. The fatigue from the day washing over me in heavy waves.

A stomach full of pizza didn't help either. Heather shifted and snuggled into me, resting her head against my chest. I smiled and kissed her shoulder, telling her that after this episode, it was time for bed. She put up her usual resistance, but I battled it valiantly. That was something I had to learn how to do. My wife had always been the one to say no and knew when to say enough was enough.

I was always a softy, allowing Heather to get away with a multitude of activities. It was hard to say no to her. Her big, cute, brown eyes brimming with innocent please. My dad heart melted every time, and I would eventually cave, begging her not to tell her mother. But after the brain... Gosh! After the brain tumor took my wife from us,

I had to learn how to balance my daughter's request with fatherly affection and parental standards. I thought I had a reasonable balance. With each passing day, I would discover another piece of the puzzle and take another step closer to becoming a functional single parent. The crazy drops, weren't like, that was before the accident. I'm trying to just remain.

happy during the story. It's a really sad story so far. The fucking brain tumor was another bullet in my chest, dude. Yeah, just think of the, as he's saying this, he's like frisbeeing her through like a glass pane or something. That makes you happy, right? I'm a good dad.

I'm a good man. When the show ended, I told Heather to go upstairs and brush her teeth and get ready for bed. Groaning, she obeyed, and I began to pick up the kitchen. I placed our place in the dishwasher and threw out the empty box. I checked my watch and saw that it was almost 11.

I sighed, not realizing how late it and got in. Should have put Heather to bed two hours ago. I exhaled. It wasn't the end of the world. After the kitchen was clean, I turned off all the lights and made sure the front door was locked. Satisfied, I climbed the stairs and went to check on Heather's progress. To my delight, I found her already in bed and asleep. I went to her and gently kissed the top of her head, smiling to myself, she really was a good girl.

Yeah, because you were not going to put her to bed, this dad, I swear. I turned on her nightlight and closed her door behind me. I went to my own room and prepared myself for bed. As I slid into the cool sheets, I decided that tomorrow after school, I would take Heather to the park so she could ride her bike along at the community bike trail.

Content with my plans, I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep. Darkness, haze, groggy. I slowly peeled my eyes open and the black head spinning. Why was I awake? What time was it? I rolled over and looked at the clock,

3 a.m. I blinked and closed my eyes, deep drowsiness filling my body like hard liquor. Heather was crying. I forced my eyes open again. I realized that was a sound effect, but there was a brief second of like, am I imagining that?

I don't think this place is just fucking haunted, dude. I don't know. Yeah, we're going to get done with the show and Harry in the back's going to be like, oh, that was a great sound effect. How do you guys do that? That's why I was awake. I pulled myself into a sitting position

and scrub my face with the palms of my hands. Why was she crying? Another nightmare? Or perhaps because dad keeps throwing her through the upstairs window. As I stood, I prayed that this wasn't going to turn into a regular thing. Your daughter's crying upstairs.

Heather, come on! Dad's got to get up real early in the morning and fucking rent out some Toyota Camrys. Come on. It's like, she's five. This isn't like a 15-year-old who's like screaming every night. It's a five-year-old and he's like, I told her if it happens again.

It's kind of like, I stumbled around in the darkness and pulled my door open. I stepped out into the hall and paused, cocking my head toward the stairs. I thought I heard. heard something moving downstairs. Another wave of cries

from Heather's room forced me back into motion and I shuffled down the hall and opened her door. The room was bathed in soft pink light, the tiny ballerina illuminating the walls with her glowing body. I went to my daughter and knell by her bed, whispering softly that daddy was here and everything was okay.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me tight, soft sniffles escaping her bubbling nose. Stroked her hair and out. asked her if she had had another nightmare. She pulled away and looked up at me, her eyes brimming with tears. Yes, Daddy.

It was awful. And when I woke up, I didn't like that. She trailed off, struggling to get herself under control. My eyes... Are you being the five-year-old? Yeah. Well, she's getting...

I'm getting up. Oh, I thought you were like whipping your hair back. Maybe I am too. Okay. My eyes melted. What is it, sweetie? When I woke up and the tall dog was whispering in my ear. That one was better.

Thank you. Thank you. She sobbed, collapsed in a... I take it back. I don't like this, I don't like this line of direction. We are like 10 minutes into the show. You gotta quit. Collapsing against me.

I felt my stomach churned slightly. Prickles of uneas rose along my arms like tiny mountains of fleshy fear. This was the second night in a row she had mentioned this tall dog. I didn't know what the hell she was talking about, what it was, but it was. clearly bothering her. I don't know doctor her anything but I think she's upset about him. Get used to the tall dog, sweetheart.

Would you? Now, Daddy has to drink. I wondered if someone at school had told her something or she had seen something scary on TV about a dog. Whatever it was. It was giving my daughter nightmares and I needed to find a way to make it stop. Suddenly, Heather squeezed my neck

and I heard her gasp. Before I could react, she buried her face against me and started sobbing even harder. Her whole body's shaking. Confused, I pulled her off me, cuffed her face in my hands. What is it? What's wrong? Heather pointed behind me towards the open door. It just peaked around the corner. It was looking at you. Don't look at me.

I spun around my heart thundering. There was nothing there. Of course, there was nothing there. Why would there be? Putting a hand over my chest, I forced myself to settle down. There's nothing there, honey. It's just shadows. It's late.

Do you want to sleep in my bed again? Her eyes, that sound effects. Sounds like a train's going to hit the building. Her eyes remain locked on the open door as she slowly nodded. I picked her up and rubbed her back and as I walked us out of her room. There's nothing to be afraid of. She had just had a bad dream. as I walked down the hallway

I paused in the darkness I looked to my right down the stairs down into the gaping maw of black did I did I hear something moving down there Heather squeezed me tight and whispered into my ear

it's going into the basement don't like that oh that's fucked you ever get scared by your spouse or just anybody you're just like stop I would hate that to say that to my child enough I remember there was one night where it was me and Kayla

and like every now and then she'll sleep talk and it's normally like nonsense or whatever and I remember it was one night right before she had some presentation, something she had to do the next day and she was sleep talking and it woke me up and I was like okay she has a big day tomorrow I'll just try to, I won't wake her up to change it, I'll just let her go sleep and I curl up

and like as soon as I do that she's like he's covered in chains and I'm like okay get up like it's whatever you have tomorrow is not that important who are you talking to yeah I got yeah

I've had moments like that if things freak me out this kind of reminds me honestly tonally it's a weird detail but I picture myself in the same house I pictured the author in

in stolen tongues yeah like yeah just out kind of where like his wife was like being possessed slowly and he kept seeing like he kept thinking

there was something in the darkness downstairs like the way the house is set up became that house in my mind as he's describing it's like the same dark staircase the same like

kind of void around the edges of the frame I'm into this so far other than the father being incredibly abusive I think no I'm kidding no I'm biving with it so far

as long as we don't get any Tommy Taffy elements I'm sold so I shifted her way to my arms Her words sending a shiver of her knees Down my spine I told Heather there was nothing down there I brought her into my room and tucked her into bed

I sat beside her and rubbed her head Until she drifted off to sleep It took longer than it had the previous night But once she was breathing easy I went to my bedroom door and stepped out into the hall In the dead of night when surrounded by heavy darkness Fear has a way of making monsters out of the shadows I forced myself to remain calm, reminded myself that I was an adult and went and stood at the top of the stairs.

I looked down, the enclosed staircase revealing nothing but the square black mouth at the bottom. I listened, holding my breath. Silence. I shook my head, telling myself that I was being ridiculous and went back to my room. I closed the door and lay down next to Heather. I stared at the ceiling, mind alert and awake. I knew I wasn't going to be falling asleep anytime soon. I pulled my phone off the nightstand and brought up the internet browser.

After taking a moment to think, I searched the term, Tall Dog. I scrolled through some dog show sites that popped up and finally found a link to a message board. I clicked it. I know this is going to be somewhere important, but it's very funny to me to imagine you typed in Tall Dog. It's like a Greyhound and was like, of course! This explains everything. That dog is that dog is tall. She was right.

My heart skipped a beat as I read the question at the top. My son keeps having nightmares and complains about something called the tall dog. Does anyone know what the hell this is? It's happened three nights in a row. It's driving me crazy. Help! He's being like a tactic. by the dog as he's typing that.

Oh my God! Yeah. The top answer is in a chill rocketing through my body. It read. Your son is telling the truth. Give help. The tall dog is real and it will keep coming back.

It's attracted to deep sadness and it won't leave your son alone until it gets what it wants. It is very dangerous. I know this sounds insane but I'm telling you the truth. I've come across others who have encountered this thing. It is very very dangerous.

real and very dangerous. All right. Well, okay. What a poll first off. For one, just a Google search of tall dog. The word tall dog, of which there's nothing else on the internet with those words in it for sure.

Oh, you mean the ancient deity? Oh, yeah. You're talking about the old elder god. Yeah, get some everything. Oh, for sure. Okay, so we're going to play Game Hunter. Your dad. Okay. I'm a dad? You're this dad.

Oh, good. You're the dad of Heather. Just your wife named her. I know you hate that name, sorry. I don't hate it. Okay. You're right. In this scenario, you don't. So you have your daughter, Heather, and she keeps having dreams about the tall dog. It's keeping you up at night, whatever. And then stop making that face.

And then you decide to search it, and you go on a message for it, and someone's like, my son's been going through this, and then you see a reply that's like, get help, get help, quick, it's going to kill you. Ah. What's your first course of action? I would believe it immediately. Okay. So what do you do? What can you do?

Well, first I just, I feel like I would... Well, what's weird? Is it get help? How? Get help. I'd go to ask Jeeves and I'd do... Tall dog help. If the last answer was so easy,

that one has been an easy rate. I would assume it means, like, religious of some kind, like a priest. Oh, I wouldn't do that. What would you do? What am I going to go and do in church? Dude, I got the tall dog. Well, he's like, oh my God, it's spooky, I can't.

Gets out like a big book. I can't even, a tall door. I have no idea. I can't even remotely think what accent that was. It's a guy. Oh, I'm an old Italian. Oh, okay. The Vatican.

Okay, so you're the Pope. kind of okay so what I really am getting at is how many times do I have to ask this question before you just say you'd abandon your daughter oh very quickly

oh extremely quickly I'd be like well sweetheart I can make another the mom's dad yeah well I can get a new wife just a clean slate yeah exactly well it was a good run shake keep the house

leave. So did you just like abandon her at the house? Oh, absolutely. Okay, and you just drive away, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The exact same scenario you pulled on your fictional wife in stolen tongues, funny enough. Correct. You love abandoning women. You know why? Every time it incites a new vacation. I'm always going to tropical places when this happens. So if anything, abandon the daughter, well, something just booked his ticket to Honolulu. All right? I keep getting married and having children so I can take. Two-week vacations, period. Easy, peasy. No, anyway, babe, scary music.

Yeah, whatever. I put my phone down and stared into the darkness. My heart was raising. This couldn't be true. It's funny imagine it's just like one Reddit post. Like, man looked at one Reddit post. He's just like, every part of me wanted to write it off

as a bizarre coincidence. But it was so specific that, I couldn't. What am I supposed to do with this information, I thought? This is crazy. Stuff like this doesn't happen. It doesn't exist. Yet here I was, staring at a warning on my phone

while my terrified daughter lay curled up next to me. It was unnerving. I turned on my side and stared at the closed bedroom door. Just outside, the door were the stairs leading to the ground level. As I closed my eyes, I pictured something long and lengthy, pulling itself up them, snout dragging along. the wood. I forced the image out of my head and shivered. There was nothing out there. The next day, Heather didn't mention anything about the nightmares and I didn't ask her. I wanted this to go

away and bringing it up in the daylight didn't seem like it would help my cause. I prepared her for school and got myself ready for work. The guy whose face is right over the top of the monitor when I was like, I didn't want to ask her about it. I just saw him go, like, good call. As we left the house, I realized just how tired I was. The lack of sleep last night was taking its toll on me, and I made a mental note to stop and get more coffee after I dropped Heather off. While I drove, my mind wandered back to the message board warning. In the daylight, it seemed a little silly.

I pushed the fear back into the corner of my mind and scolded myself internally for being so irrational. I reminded myself again that, I was an adult and didn't believe in monsters and things that go bump in the night. After I dropped Heather off, I went and got another cup of coffee and then drove to work. My brain accepted the caffeine gratefully, and as I sipped on the steaming liquid, I pondered what my wife would make of the whole thing. She'd probably say I was being stupid and to man up.

I see now why he's such a mean guy. It's a cycle that was in the household. Honey, the doctor King's having these nightmares You ever thought about being a man about it? Would you just man up? You ever thought about God damn.

This is an awful household. Yes, dear. The thought made me grin and I suddenly missed her. That was a good memory? That was a bad follow-up line of what you said. Ah, she would yell at me, wouldn't she? She was a bitch, yeah.

Eventually, I pulled into the office park and lot and began my day. Being Friday, I was hoping I could leave a little early. Chris Morning Air, a prelude to a possible, beautiful day. I still planned on taking Heather to the park. I had hopes that the fresh air and sunshine would erase her nightmares, burning them away in a blaze of brilliance. Well, things didn't go as planned. Go ahead.

I know, my brain did the same thing. Go ahead. A little millennial smirk there. Well, things didn't go as planned. Urm, well, that did happen. Irm, that just happened. You're going to want to see this. It's right behind me, isn't it?

Whatever, all the infants, yeah. Halfway through the day, I got a call from Heather's school. I said, knowing this daddy, be like, I didn't answer it. I didn't want to. I sat dumbfounded, as the principal told me I needed to come pick my daughter up. When I asked why, he informed me. that Heather had started biting her classes.

God damn. I have no idea how I would respond to that. It just changes, like, visually. I was imagining, like, a very scared little girl. And now it's, like, a piranha mouth, like, unhinging, like. Started biting her. She'd probably learned it from her mom.

And wouldn't stop until a teacher forcefully pulled her off someone. Like the teacher's got a foot in the other kid like trying to rip him up. She killed three other classmates. It's brutal. Also, classmate, like, more than one.

They sat her back down and they're like, don't do that again. She's like, it jumps to the next person. Ah! Immediately like, has to be like ripped off. Get back up and grab her. How many kids were bit before they had to call the dad? Oh, five.

Yeah, five. Easy. I closed my open mouth, shock erupting across my face. There had to be some kind of mistake. My daughter didn't do things like that. Only her mother did. The principal assured me that he was just as surprised as I was, but that she needed to be taken home for the day. The other kids were scared of her, and the parents were being notified.

What? Dude, that's a pretty rational response. Hey, uh, your kid was bit today. Hold on, no, no, no, I was in like... I had to pull them off. Hold on, no, no, no, no, no. I'm saying that, like, I was in the first grade. I remember, like, a kid biting someone else.

And, like, what? Like, kids get into a fight and bite someone, right? And it's not... Don't do that. Don't do your whole, like... You know, the school of werewolves? Hello? Is that your accent of me now?

Oh, my God. There, okay. You know, the school of werewolves, come on. What I was saying is like, you're not afraid. You're just like, that kid's weird, right? The kid that bites is weird. How terrifying is this five-year-old that they're calling parents and the kids are, like, scared and afraid and stuff like that?

They've had the phone prepped. Yeah. This is the girl that brings, like, tortilla chips and dips them and ketchup at lunch. Yeah. And, like, she had played, she's like the pony girl at school. Everybody had a pony girl at school. Did anyone, was, okay, did anyone in here know a horse girl, like slash wolf girl? Okay. Everybody!

I swear I heard someone say my wife was one. Yeah, married her. Wow, that, you, that's going to be. Saddle up. That's a weird car ride home. I call her Heldago. Was anyone in here, you don't have to raise your hand, I'm sorry, that he did that to you. Was anyone else in here, the pony girl?

girl or the wife. Okay. I see, you're way too eager to admit that. Great, I thought. I'll be the single dad with the violent child. As soon as the thought popped into my head, I got angry with myself. Who cares what they think?

I need to go see if my daughter's all right. For the first time, the story. Bullshit. I informed my boss of the phone call and he nodded me out the door. I thanked him and told him I'd make it up on Monday before bolted into my car. As I drove, I tried to make sense as to the possible reason

why Heather would act out like this. She wouldn't just do it. One of the kids must have been picking on her. One of them must have provoked her. She wouldn't just start biting kids. I sat at a red light, anxiously drumming my fingers against the steering wheel. Something was going on with my daughter, and I

needed to get to the bottom of it. First, the nightmares and now this. Clearly, Heather was going through something, and as a responsible parent, I needed to find out what it was. It's like he's trying to convince himself. Yeah. Could it not be the fucking brain tumor from her mom? She's been having nightmares

and he's driving like, I'm a good parent. I'm going to say, don't do that or something. Yeah, like, it's funny, the boss nodding him out the door like, oh, his freak daughter did something again. I gripped my teeth, he does that a lot. As the light turned green and I gun the engine, I wondered if it had something to do with my wife.

Maybe. Dead mom might. That could, I'm not saying, it is, but potentially could be a reason. I missed mom. Why? You're like five. Do you even remember her? Idiot? Stupid.

You know what? No pizza tonight. Wait, didn't I just buy you a fucking Nintendo Switch? Hello? Was your mom Mario? Didn't think so? Yeah, goddamn. I wondered if this was Heather's way of coming to terms with her death a year later. I felt my eyes suddenly well up,

and my knuckles turned wide. Oh, crying. I thought he was getting mad. I thought he was like, stupid kid. It wasn't fair that she had been taken away from us. What had we done to deserve such sadness? What was going through Heather's young mind in the absence of her mother?

What could I do to fill that sorrow? And I started to panic. The creeping thoughts of Heather's upcoming teenage years. What if this was the end of our good relationship? What if she started blaming me for her mom's death? I knew she was only five, but time has a way of preserving deep hurt and forming scars that never heal. I realized how much I needed to be there for my daughter in these early years, for the first time, these crucial developmental times.

How I acted could make her break the way she viewed everything. I'm a father? I have to do stuff. As the thought scrambled my mind, I pulled into the school parking lot and was slammed with a realization that she held me to the bone. I remember the message for warning. The tall dog is attracted to deep sadness. You're just now remembering this. I shook my head.

No, don't start going down that road. That's insane, and there's no such thing. She's forming waking nightmares in order to deal with what she's going through. Skilling myself, I ran into the school. Before I knew it, I was sitting in the principal's office, listening to him, apologized for making such a big deal out of this, and that it was more for the other kids than for Heather. I barely heard him, nodding as his words washed over me in ways of numb noise.

Finally, a teacher led Heather into the room, and I scooped her up into a big hut. I kissed her on the cheek and saw that she had been crying. I told her I loved her and that we were going to go home. She nod silently at me, her big brown eyes filling with tears. I told the teacher in principle that I was sorry for the incident and assured them it wouldn't happen again. They both smiled and thanked me, but I saw something else behind their mask. of public decency. Judgment.

They saw me as a single father with no idea how to raise a little girl. They saw a struggling man with no answers. They saw someone who had lost his wife and was still finding a way to live without her. No, dude. They saw a fucking monster fighting other kids.

Well, it's funny. Way to also make the situation about yourself entirely. So what? I guess I'm the bad guy. It's like there's dry blood all over her mouth. This is all about me now. I like the idea too I know we made it up

but I can't get the image out of my head of him like throwing her through the house periodically so the daughter's like has cuts and like a cast and everything and he's like I wonder what the parents think of me you must think I'm a real monster I suddenly got angry

a spike of adrenaline course I know he's angry at the other teachers but it's funny to imagine he's like you're going through the window again. A spike of adrenaline coursing through my bit. This must be so weird for people who are dragged here and don't know the show. Like, do they joke about, like, abuse children all the time?

Oh, yeah. Fuck them, kids. Ask the person who you came here with. This is incredibly light compared to the normal run. Ask them what Barasca is on the way home and see what they say. Yeah. But I kept my mouth shut. I turned and left

hugging my daughter to me as I stormed out of the school I didn't know if it was righteous anchor or embarrassment and I didn't care they had no idea that I had gone through what I was dealing with

who were they to judge me I put Heather in the car and drove us home in silence I fought to get myself under control I reminded myself that this wasn't about me if you had to remind yourself it was about my daughter she was the one who needed help

she was the one who needed loving support what are you telling yourself this we eventually arrived home and I checked my watch it was almost four I abandoned the idea of going to the park and instead said Heather down on the couch I placed myself next to her and told her I needed to talk to her

about what happened at school sweetie are you doing okay I asked gently gaited in her mental state she looked at her hands and nodded I cleared my throat I was always so bad at this

is it true you bit those kids today I saw her lip quiver and she slowly nodded without looking up at me I saw honey you can't bite you know that right why did you bite those kids

she shrugged again and I saw a tear roll down her cheek be brave I told myself you can't back out now. Were you mad at them? Did someone say something mean to you? She put one hand in her pocket and slowly shook her head. Eyes still downcast. Heather? Can you look at me?

She turned her eyes to mine and I saw she was crying openly now. She kept fidgeting in her pocket. Can you promise me you won't do it again? He's getting mad. More tears ran down her cheeks and she cried out. I'm sorry, Daddy. I'm really sorry.

I did not like that. Good Lord. I leaned down and kissed her on the head. It's okay, honey. I know you're a good girl. Daddy loves you. Just please don't bite anyone again, okay? She's...

I know it's not like anything like weird or anything in the story it's reading, but it kills me to hear Hunter say things sometimes. Daddy. While we were in New Orleans, he had... an uninterrupted 10-minute fight with two of his own different characters. Like we were in the car and he was doing two separate bits

and then one of the bits overheard the other bit and they were yelling at each other. Why are we talking about personal shit right now? I just need someone else to understand what it's like every day. I finally noticed in padded her leg. What's at your pocket, Heather? You have something you want to show me?

She suddenly looked embarrassed and shook her head. But I prodded her and after some coaching, she finally pulled out a handful of brown nuggets. Hold on. I blinked, wondering why my daughter was carrying around a pocket full of dirt, and then my heart slammed so hard against my rib cage I thought it would break. I tried to keep my voice under control. Is that dog food?

Oh, that makes so much more sense. Okay. I was like, I thought it was crap. I thought she had it. I was like, she's like, I'm a ducky. She starts barking at him. She pulled her fist up and hugged the nuggets to her chest, staring at her feet, dangled from the edge of the couch.

Where did you get that? I felt to just. Was that in there? Oh, you went, okay. Give me time. Sorry. I felt the deep disturbance roll over me now. I found them.

No, we're not there yet. Where did you get that? What? Look at the script. Turn around. Oh, shit. That's different than it's on the paper. Okay.

Where'd you get that? Okay, under her breath. I found them. Okay. Thank you. You can keep going. Fine. I'm just making sure. And, and

what are you doing with them in your pocket? A flurry of nerves fluttered in my chest. Heather looked up at me. They taste good. Gross bitch, dude. My girl's eating pedigree. All right. We were a little harsh on the day.

for throwing her through. Oh, justified immediately. But now I get it. I think it's totally fine to abandon your child in this sense. Thank you. Yeah. I'm sorry.

I misjudged you. I forced myself to breathe and held out my hand. Why don't you let me hang on to those and I'll make us an early dinner, okay? Reluctantly, she handed over the nuggets and I plastered a smile to my face. I asked her if she wanted to watch some TV while I made dinner, and she offered me a small grin and nodded sheepishly.

As I turned on her shows, I fought with the voice screaming in my head. Something was going on here. Something really, really awful was happening to my daughter. I didn't know what exactly, but the past couple days seemed to mark a turning point in her behavior. I started preparing dinner, begging myself to stop overreacting, but I couldn't shut it out. The nightmares, the tall dog nonsense, the biting,

and now she was eating dog food. I didn't know what to do. Didn't know what to say to her. I wanted to ask her about her mom, ask her if she had been thinking about her recently, but I was afraid to. I didn't want to open up a wound I couldn't close. I didn't want to deal with the trauma of her dead mom,

so I just never mentioned it. What if she started asking questions I couldn't answer? What if her behavior got worse? I began to wonder if I needed to take her to see a therapist. as she thought as the thought entered my mind I violently slammed the door on it there was nothing wrong with my daughter

she was just a vibrant little girl who had a few nightmares and bit a couple kids so what when I was her age I'm sure I did things much worse and turned out quote fine What the fuck? This guy is insane.

Yeah, like the dad's talk. It's going to come out. It's like, well, the reason the daughter's mad is because I actually killed her mom and said it was a tumor. Bummer. Yeah. And she won't get over it. Yeah, this dad's insane. Like, she, I have a daughter who's going through a lot of complex, like, you know, time in her life.

And she's understanding social dynamics and missing a mother. Should I take her to a professional? No, because biting people and eating dog food really isn't that bad if you think about it, like, yeah. I hope the dad dies. Yes, but what is the... Raise your hand if you're in support of the dad dying.

Thank you. Okay, all right. Like, I got there's a couple that did, raise their hands, are just like... Those were the plus ones. I think tonight. This isn't funny. This is a very serious situation. What does that mean?

I shouted internally at myself to stop thinking about it. There's no such thing, and I needed to face the problems I could handle. I finished making dinner in mental agony and prepared two plays. I went to the couch and said, he's so mad all the time. I went to the couch and sat with Heather. Both of us eating in silence as cartoon images danced on the screen. When I woke up, the tall dog was whispering in my ear. All right.

I grip my teeth He does the whole time around my food I wasn't thinking about this bullshit anymore I cry Okay hold on What was that? What does he mean the tall dog was whispering? Like he was thinking about it

It's got to mean like you were thinking about it Yeah like he couldn't get out of his head Not that literally there was whispered Okay all right That's better that's much better I thought something was whispering in his ear And he was like Well that's a little strange

But hey when I was her age I crawled into bed mentally exhausted. It had taken me forever to get Heather to sleep. She had begged to sleep in my bed, but I told her no, and I'd keep my door open in case she woke up scared and wanted to start forming bad habits. That's your concern right now. I rested my head against my pillow and stared out into the dark hallway from the crack of my door. I shut my eyes and said a silent prayer that Heather would sleep through the night. Maybe then all this would be over. She would go back to being the little angel I knew she will. Then she'd go back to acting the way I want her to.

I didn't want to continue down this road of bruntal speculation and continue assuming that every little bad action was a foretelling of a bleak future for her. That's right, so you should just ignore it. I let out a long breath and waited for the gentle arms of sleep to rock me into the world of dreams. Didn't take long.

My eyes snapped open, bloodshot and wide. I was soaked in sweat. The horrific nightmare still clinging to my brain with razor-sharp claws. I rolled onto my back and wiped sweat from my face. I swallowed hard and waited for reality to clear away the cobwebs of slumber, my heart was racing and I put a hand over my bare chest willing it to slow. My wife. I'd been dreaming about my wife. She had been in a hospital bed screaming my name and clutching her head. I'd been beside her crying, begging her to tell me what

was wrong, but she just kept screaming. I began to scream for a doctor and that's when I realized all the lights in the hospital were off. No one was in the halls. I kept screaming for help, pleading with my wife until I finally heard a noise. From the blackness of the hall, a doctor in a bloody laugh coat came crawling into the room on all fours. His eyes were wild and he started barking at me. That's sick. His mouth foaming.

I backed away from him, shock and terror rising in me like a dark mountain. The doctor lunged at me, teeth bared. That's when I woke up. I pulled my hands across my face, forcing the images from my head. What a horrible. nightmare. I realized my stressed mind was probably mixing all my current worries into a terrifying nighttime cocktail, sneaking up on me and pouring it down my throat while I slept. I looked over at the clock 3 a.m. I snorted eyes wide. Just real quick, eyes wide, grateful that at least it was

me instead of Heather who had woken up tonight. If I could take her fears from her, I would gladly. I just needed to be careful I didn't end up burning myself out. As I rolled on my side to face my door, I heard something from downstairs. Immediately my mind exploded into alertness, the nightmare fear is still fresh on my breath. I lay in silence, ear-cocked, and listening, my heart racing. There. It sounded like something was walking around. Get up. You have to get up, I thought. Fear tingling my stomach. It's probably nothing. It's probably the house settling. Maybe Heather got up for some reason, or sleepwalking. In which case, I as a father, will not investigate further.

I pulled the covers off me and swung my feet over the side of the bed. I jumped as I heard more movement. What is going on? Tense and terrifyingly nervous, I crept to the door. I paused staring out into the empty hallway. I didn't hear anything.

I slowly opened the door and went out into the hallway. Something was making noise at the bottom of the stairs. I bawled my sweaty hands in a fist and steeled myself. The house was impossibly dark, every corner filled with grinning back, black. The floor underneath my feet creaked as I slowly edged myself over the top of the stairs. I looked down, and something was looking back up happy. I stifled a scream, terror clenching my throat like an iron grip.

My eyes bulged and my breath rushed from my lungs in a wave of cold fear. It was long and slender, its hairless body, a sickly gray. looked like a dog but it was greater in length and bone thin its snout pointed up at me from the foot of the stairs easily two feet in length

its eyes were completely wide and swollen in their sockets like bloated marshmallows because on all fours its front two legs resting on the first two steps as it gazed up at me it began to pull itself outright

my knees turned to liquid and I washed an absolute whore as it rose to stand on two legs his head towering towards the ceiling. Its neck was long, too long for a dog, and it snarled at me. Its mouth full of black, needle-like teeth. It started slowly walking up the stairs towards me. I backed away in frantic desperation, unable to comprehend what I was looking at. I tripped over my own feet and fell, not able to tear my eyes away from the advancing monstrosity. As it neared the top of the stairs, it crouched

back down on all fours, and I saw its swollen white eyes pulsing with excitement. I tried to scream but found that I didn't have the breath. It was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen and every alarm in my head was blaring with furious urgency. I scooted backwards with my hands into the safety of my room and stood, grabbing the door and slamming it shut and one violent gesture. I stood with my back against the wood,

sucking in hungry lungfuls of air. What the hell was that thing? What was it doing in my house? Where had it come from? Heather, now he thinks about it, sir. Oh, fuck, I have a dog. Oh, no. I pressed my ear to the door

and heard footsteps pad down the hallway toward Heather's room. Thank God, maybe it'll go for her and I'll be safe. Please, please. I scrambled in the dark for some kind of weapon. I grabbed my discarded work pants that were lying in a pile of the floor and slid the belt from the loops.

I wrapped it around my knuckles turning the buckle outwards. Yeah, bro. I appreciate the dedication, but I'm sure you can punch this thing to death. I went to the closed door and took a deep breath. I couldn't let that thing hurt my daughter. I opened the door and stepped out into the dark hall. My eyes scanned my surroundings, but I didn't see it. I knew it had to be in Heather's room.

I cautiously crept down the hall. Ears trained to pick up any sound of the creature. Heather's door was wide open and faint pink light drifted out from the inside. I entered her room and froze. The monster, the tall dog, was a little. on all fours by Heather's bed. It's now it was inches from her ear and its mouth moved rapidly,

but I couldn't hear any noise. It was like, it was speaking directly into her dreams. Heather's eyes were shut, but she had begun to stir. Soft cries escaping her lips as the tall dog silently filled her mind. Suddenly, it realized us in the room

and whipped its head around. Its eyes seemed to vibrate in their sockets, thick white pus leaking from the gelatinous, milky, Scleras. It silently bared its teeth at me. Its mouth filled with sharp, ebony darkness. I took a step back, feeling my throat tight and gripped

the belt harder in my hand. I needed to get it away from Heather. My heart was seizing in my chest, and my back was coated in a cold layer of sweat. I forced my knees to lock, and I licked my dry lips. A tall dog turned away from the bed and rose up on two legs, towering over

me. Despite its appearance, it didn't move like an animal. It's balance was perfect, and its legs and muscles twisted and flowed with the confidence of a human. What do you want? Would it have been that calm? Hey, he whispered. Be more...

What do you want? Thank you. Okay, all right. You were like, what? Like you were annoyed by... Not to kill the pacing, but... Yeah. Sorry. Okay. I'm still on the edge of my seat here Okay, all right, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I killed the moon Back in I whispered holding my ground as a trickle of sweat

Slid down my face Then it leapt at me I screamed Okay, now I, you bro, okay whatever Raising my hands to protect my face As its long body crashed into mine I fell to the floor Its thinnui flesh pressed mine to the wood

Its breath was hot on my face And stars exploded across my vision my head bouncing on the ground. When the energy battered out of me, I blinked back darkness and scrambled desperately, trying to get it off of me. It pinned me where I lay,

its powerful legs digging into my sides. I looked up into its hideous face and the white ooze pouring from its eyes dripped into my hair. It leaned down and opened its mouth, its jaw parting to reveal rows and rows of black teeth. I watched in horror as its throat began to open,

folds of dark flesh parting like oil and water. and then I heard my daughter screaming from deep down inside. Daddy! Daddy! Help me, please! Don't let it take me. Daddy, please! Heather's voice was shrill with panic, and it sent waves of chilling terror through my body. No, this wasn't happening. That wasn't my daughter. It couldn't be, please God, no. The tall dog snapped its jaws shut, and I shoved it off of me. The surge of energy igniting my muscles. It skittered on all fours towards the open door, and I scrambled to stand and breathing heavily.

What did you do to her? What have you done to my daughter? The tall dog crouched, denied me, sniffing the air. I waited for it to strike, waited for it to move. This creature was going to kill me. I knew that, but I was ready. I stood my ground in the dim light, trembling, accepting whatever happened next.

Instead of charging me, though, it turned away and sprinted down the hall. In shock, I listened to it crashed down the stairs and onto the ground floor. more footsteps followed than faded as I realized that it was gone leaving me shaking in horror I turned to Heather who lay motionless on the bed I threw the belt onto the floor and went to her side

prayers flowing from my lips tears leaked down my cheeks as I grabbed Heather and lifted her head to rest on my lap her eyes were closed and her body was still please please God I'm begging you no no no Heather baby my angel Wake up. Daddy's here. Please, sweetie. Wake up.

I shook her, pleading, drool and mucus bubbling from my face as reality tore my exhausted brain in two. Suddenly, her eyes flickered and then she opened them. She stared up at me, blinking rapidly as if she wasn't sure where she was. Let out a cry of raw relief and hugged her tight against me. More tears pouring from my eyes. I sobbed, rocking back and forth on the bed, clutching her to my chest. I thought I had lost her. I thought she'd been taken away from me. And then Heather began to bark. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.

It's a testament to this story that the reaction of that wasn't as much laughter as it was like, oh! My bloodshot eyes widened and I pulled her away to look at her face. Her eyes roamed around the room curiously and her tongue lulled from the side of her mouth, drool leaped from her lips as she said on my lap, panting.

She finally looked up at me and let out a series of yaps, all signs of humanity, from her eyes. Heather, stop it, stop that. Don't do that. It's okay, it's gone, it's gone, sweetie. I cried out shaking her, but she didn't stop.

She jumped from my arms and began to run in circles as if she were chasing an imaginary tail. She stopped and cocked her head at me, shouting a sharp bark as if she wanted me to play with her. Set on the bed, watching her, and gripped my face with sweaty hands. I began to scream.

Heather will never be the same. That night I rushed her to the hospital and begged the doctors for help. After examining her and bringing in a multitude of specialists, they informed me that she wasn't in control of her mind any longer. They told me she would never regain it. Something had been taken from her that couldn't be replaced or repaired. I don't know how long they ran tests on her as I desperately expended all my options, desperate to try anything.

I couldn't imagine a life without her. I couldn't imagine a life alone. imagine a life alone from her. I wept and prayed until I had nothing left to offer. Nothing changed, nothing helped. I wondered if anyone even noticed. You see, life's an unflinching monster. Doesn't care about you. It doesn't take your side. It simply is. It took my wife away and opened up a wound of my daughter's mind, a wound I didn't even have the courage to ask my daughter if it even existed. Something horrible had caught the sin of that gaping wound. Something had grown hungry for it.

It had entered our life and slipped into the gory cracks of my daughter's hidden, suppressed sadness. It had replaced her mind with its own and had devoured the fractured remains of a confused and hurt psyche. And I know I've lost Heather forever to it. So now I stand here in the darkness

over my daughter's bed. I grip the pillow with shaking hands. Tears rolled down my face and I bet God to forgive me, but whatever's laying in this bed, I know it's not my daughter. Oh, it's very good. And that's the tall dog! Woo!

Fuck, that was good. That was really good. Rough for a live show. Sorry about that, all the plus ones. But no, I love that. That was great. It had so many inklings of Feed the Pig in there with the description.

It did. Like, you know, whenever he gets into the pig actually eating the people, the way he describes the dog. I'll never, I'll never forget the way in Feed the Pig when he's actually being mauled to death where it's like the wet bone pops from my leg.

Like adjectives like that do such a good job at like describing the terror of it. And there when he's describing like the brutal depictions of the dog with like the sharp teeth and things like that, it just does such a good job at painting an image of it. I really do like Elias's work. I think he, I think he's a very talented author. Everything I've read of his like bothers me a little bit. Yeah, it's hard because it seems like you could say that the dog is like, like a demon feeding on

the sadness of people. But at the same time, it seems like he just likes making torture porn for people. In a way, doesn't it? What do you mean? Like, in a way where the stories, it's just fucking miserable the whole time. Oh, you're saying the author.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I think, and that's not a discredit to him as a writer. I think he likes the misery of it in the same way that like, if you're writing like gore horror, the way you like the bloodiness of it, right? So the stories like Feed the Pig

like Tommy Taffy are like just someone like misery, misery misery on top and on top and a lot of his outcomes are very brutal but I mean I love that kind of thing there may be some people who I mean heck you guys watch creepcast you probably like it at least a little bit

but no I like the brutality of it and the ending of the story is harsh but it's like part of me is glad it's very cold reality to it yeah it is honestly I'll tell you right now I would not raise a dog girl all right would I take

the pillow to her face maybe I was about to be like but you wouldn't but okay all right well tell on yourself there not to keep drawing it back to like feed the pig but like the way feed the pig the ending realization was he had tried to take his own life and this was like his trial to get out of it basically

it kind of reminds me here where like the end result is something that heavy which some people may not like but I personally like I think it's great I think it's a fine first thing what did you all think of it I like that one It's pretty good Now I also understand

It's a pretty heavy story I just hold on Let me go to our logo I understand it's a pretty heavy story I understand that's something That a lot of you may be like Well that was rough or whatever Admittedly at the previous two live shows

We would open with Goatman Which is a much much lighter Tale With just a bunch of teenagers Being very stupid in the middle of the woods So everyone else got like a light Kind of intro you guys got the heavy one you're welcome.

But I feel like you guys deserve a bit of a palate cleanser. Oh, yes. So for our second story, we have. Appropriate response. So you've heard of it. Raise your hand if you're familiar with this one. Okay.

About half, I think. Raise your hand if you didn't just raise your hand and you also came here as a plus one. Okay, yeah, that's why. There we go. A lot of people in the back, they're just like fucking me, dude. I'm a total Sonic the Hedgehog fan, much like everyone else.

Hey, hey, who the fuck isn't? One guy, woo! This is from like an age on the internet where people, this is like around the time of Jeff the Killer, around the time of like Laughing Jack, stuff like that, just coming up with these quick horror stories about anything and then uploading

them. And much like Ilus Jack that we read on there, you can probably guess most of these were made within like an hour. Sure. Right? So that, just know that going in. Anyway. But I don't mind playing the classics. I don't think I've ever played glitchy or hacked

games before, though I don't think I want to play any after the experience I had. I started on a nice summer afternoon. I was playing Sonic Unleashed. I liked how you get to explore the towns in it. Thank you for that. Until I noticed, out of my peripheral vision, that the mailman had arrived and put something in my mailbox as usual and left.

What's funny is I've never played Sonic games. So in my head, it's like a human mailman that's like not digital. Like a live action man walks up and the kid's like, well, that's kind of weird. I paused my game to go see what I got in the mail Oh I'm not gonna I thought I fucked up for a second

I was like I was like I thought this is a real guy I don't know There's a blue fucking animal Walking around delivering mail I have no idea I thought Okay

I thought in the game He's like He's gaming And out of his actual vision Walks up to the door Okay well the way it was where I was playing and I noticed Okay whatever sure

Sure That my bad I thought that a mailman Okay I got the mail The only thing in the mailbox was a CD case For computers and a note I took it inside

I looked at the note first and realized it was from my dear friend Kyle RIP Kyle Let's just call him that Whom I hadn't heard from in two weeks I know that because I recognized his handwriting

Though what was weird Is how it looked it looked badly written and scratchy and somewhat difficult to read as if Kyle was having a hard time writing it down and did it in a hurry. This is what he wrote. Tom,

I can't take it anymore. I had to get rid of this thing somehow before it was too late. And I was hoping you'd do it for me. I can't do it. He's after me. Fucking son. anything.

And if you don't destroy the CD, he'll come after you two. He's too fast for me. He's too fast for me. Oh, let's go. I'm pulling for them. Destroy this Godforsaken disc before he comes after you

two. It's too late for me. Destroy the disc and you'll destroy him. But do it quick. Otherwise he'll catch you. Don't even play the game. It's what he wants. Just destroy it.

Please, Kyle. I like how he's just like, seriously, you are going to want to play this. Destroy it. Do not. Don't play it. You've got to destroy it. Don't play it. Destroy, don't play.

One more time. The biggest, and I don't want to, I don't want to ruin the pace either. Yeah, you're really going to kill the pace in the sonic. No, no, no. This is art. The biggest anomaly in my life is finding out why the fuck people are so dedicated to the Sonic fandom. So to me, this reads is legitimate

when he's just like, you're gonna want to pop this bad boy in quick. But don't do it. And the guy's like, what do you mean? Don't pop it in quick. I always pop it in quick. You know?

So I'm, I'm bought in right now. It's what I want to say. All right, you're locked in. Well, that was weird. Um, even though, Kyle is my best friend and I haven't seen him in two weeks

I didn't do what he asked me Hell yeah I didn't think yeah Kyle said three times destroyed and he's like I don't fucking think so Kyle I didn't think that a simple gaming disc would do anything bad to him after all it's just a game right

boy was I wrong about that anyway I lose that the disc and it looks like any ordinary computer CDR disk except it had black

marker on it written sonic.exe. And it was much unlike Kyle's handwriting, meaning that he must have gotten it from somewhere else like a pawn shop or eBay. The places you get this.

When I saw Sonic on the writing of the CD, I was actually excited and wanted to play it. God damn. Since I'm a big Sonic fan this you know Kyle was right Kyle I don't know why he had to send it to this guy but he was like I know he's stupid he's gonna play

I better reiterate this I better say seven times and he looks like he's like Sonic I'm a big fan I went up to my room and turned on my computer and put the disc in and installed the game when the title screen popped up I noticed that it was the first Sonic game

I was like awesome because like I said earlier I like the classics. Yes, to keep telling us. The first thing I noticed that was out of place was when I pressed start.

There was a split second when I saw the title image turned into something much different, something that I now consider horrifying before cutting to black. What could it have been? Just like a man's gaping asshole

just like right there. He was like booting it up, he's like, That's a different kind of ring. Don't... Don't worry. You're going to find out in just a second. I remember what the image looked like in that split second before the game got to black.

The sky had darkened. The title emblem was rusted and ruined. The Sega 1991 was instead Sega 666. Oh no. And the water had turned red like blood, except it looked... Hyper-realistic! I love it.

So there's this thing back in like early creepy pasta culture where every story for some reason had to include a mention of hyper-realistic blood. So in other words, you're looking at like a picture, but the blood in the picture is hyper-realistic. His eyes were hyper-realistic. Like Squidward Suicide did that. The Bend Drown did that. All of them had some mention of hyper-realistic blood. So this is our obligatory one for the story.

But the freakiest thing that was in that, split second frame was sonic. His eyes were pitch black and bleeding with two glowing red dots staring right at me. And his smile had stretched wider up to the edge of his face. I was rather disturbed about that image.

When I saw it, though I figured that it was just a glitch and forgot about it. After it cut to black, it stayed like that for about 10 seconds or so. And then another weird thing happened. The save file select from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 popped up, and I was like,

What the fuck? What's this doing in the first? first Sonic game. I as a Sonic fan know all the save files. Anyway, then I noticed something off. The background was the dark, cloudy sky of the bad Star Dust Speedway level from Sonic seating. What the fuck does that mean?

That is insane. And there were only three save files. The music was that creepy caverns of winter music from Earthbound. This guy. You know there was like one guy They just like oh my god of course There's one dude like setting over there somewhere

Who's like how could they not know Yeah there's definitely one guy with his arms cross right now Just like This is easy elementary work boys I think this is reasonable Right Yeah Only it was extended and seemed to have been in reverse

Oh my god Another classic And the image for the save file Where you see a preview of the level you're on It's just red static for all three files What freaked me out more was the character select showed only tails, knuckles, and to my surprise, Dr. Robotnik, now I was sure that something was up.

I mean, how can you play as Robotnik in a classic Sonic game for crying out loud? I was going to add for crying out loud as a joke, but it's in the text. That's when I realized that this wasn't a glitchy game. It was. a hacked game Chinese Sonic

yeah it definitely looked hacked it was really creepy but as a smart game fuck off oh my god oh this is great I wasn't scared

or at least I tried not to be I told myself that it was just a hacked game and there's nothing wrong with it anyway shaking off the creepy creeped out feeling. I picked File 1 and chose tails when I

selected and when I selected and got started. The game froze for about five seconds and I heard a creepy pixelated laugh. Oh, that was cool. Yo! Pixelated laugh that sounded

an awful lot like the Kefka guy from find. This is just Nintendo reference. Well Sonic Sega, whatever. But just reference, reference, reference. He's going to talk about as Funko Pops in a second, before cutting to black. The screen stayed black for about 10 seconds more, and then it showed the typical level title thing, except the simplistic shapes were different shades of red, and the text

showed only Hill Act 1. As a Sonic fan, you would know that the first text. The screen faded in, and the level title vanished, revealing tales in the green hill zone from Sonic 1. The music was different, though. It sounded like a peaceful melody in reverse. Yeah, reverse music, same as hyper-realistic blood. It was all the rage.

Anyway, I started playing and had tails start running like you would in any of the classic Sonic games. What was odd was that as tails was running along the level, there was nothing but flat ground in a few trees for five minutes. That was when the peaceful music started to lower down into slow deep tones very slowly as I kept going. I suddenly saw something and I stopped to see what it was. It was one of the small animals lying dead on the ground bleeding.

That was when the music started to slow down. Tails had a shocked and saddened look on his face and I never saw him have before. So I had to move along and he kept that worried look on his face. As he kept moving, I saw more dead animals as tails moved past them, looking more and more worried as the music lowered, and he moved past more dead animals. I was shocked to see how they all died. They looked like somebody killed them. Oh, that's the AC.

I was like, what? I'm like, do we have a sound effect for that? I was like, yeah. I'd rather gruesome ways. A squirrel was hanged on a tree with what a... Oh, this is great. Oh, God, I got to lock in. oh my gosh

what appeared to be his entrails hanging out a bunny had all four of his limbs torn off and a duck had his eyes gouged out and his throat slit I felt sick to my stomach when I saw this massacre and apparently so did tails

after a few more seconds there were no more animals and the music seemed to have stopped I still kept tales to continue after a minute passed after the music stopped Tails was running up a hill and then he stopped it wasn't until I saw why Sonic was there on the other side of the screen

with his back against Tails with his eyes closed Tails looked happy to see Sonic but then his smile faltered obviously noticing that Sonic wasn't responding to him if not acting as if he was totally oblivious of Tails' presence. Tails walked slowly towards Sonic, and I noticed that I wasn't even moving my keyboard

to make him move, so this had to be a cutscene. Suddenly, I began to have a growing feel of dread as Tails walked closer to Sonic to get his attention. I felt that Tails was in danger, and something bad was going to happen. I heard faint static growing louder as Tails was but inches of, away from Sonic and

stopped and stuck his hand out to touch him. That foreboding feeling in my gut was growing stronger and I felt the urge to tell-tails to get away from Sonic as the static grew louder. Get away. Tails no.

Suddenly in a split second I saw Sonic's eyes open and they were black with those red glowing dots just like that title. Though there wasn't a smile. when that happened the screen turned black and the static sound was off it stayed black for about seven seconds

and then white text appeared forming a message saying hello do you want to play with me at this point I was creeped out I didn't want to continue with the game but my curiosity got the better of me when I was taken to a different level

with the level title now saying hide and seek this time I was in the Angel Island let's stop referencing Sonic levels from Sonic 3 and it looked like everything was on fire tails looked as though he was scared out of his wits this time

oh boy he actually looked at me and made frantic gestures to me as if he wanted to get out of the area he was in as fast as possible I was starting to get freaked out by this. I mean, Tails was actually breaking the fourth wall

trying to tell me to get him out of there. So I pressed down on the arrow key as hard as I could, made him run as fast as he could. A pixelated version of that creepy theme when you meet Shadow. Stop

referencing Sonic. When you meet Shadow at the art as Robotnik from... Right. From, I guess, Sonic Adventures 2. Right. Was playing as I Taytells treks through the desolate forest, trying to help him escape

from whatever he was trying to run from. Suddenly, I heard, this is the fourth paragraph that's opened with suddenly. Suddenly, I heard that creepy laugh again, that awful Kefka laugh, right after 10 seconds of past as I helped

tells run through the forest, and then I started seeing flashes of sonic popping everywhere on the screen, again with those black and red eyes. And the music changed to that suspenseful, drowning jingle as I see Sonic behind tails slowly gaining up on him flying.

Sonic wasn't running. He was flying. The flying pose his sprite was making looked very similar. He's about to make a reference. To metal Sonic's flying pose in such, gosh.

Except it was just Sonic. You don't get this. Sonic can't do that. Only Metal Sonic can do that. It's true. And he had the black and red eyes again. Only this time, he had the most deranged-looking grin on his face. He looked as though he was enjoying the torment.

He was giving the poor little fox as he came up on. Suddenly. Fuck off with the suddenly! When Tails tripped another cutscene, the music stopped and Sonic vanished. Tails laid there and started crying for 15 seconds. I timed it.

The scene was rather upsetting to watch and I kind of teared up myself. Oh my God, Tails, no. But then, Sonic appeared right in front of Tails and Tales looked up in horror. Blood started to come from his face and he looked down at the horrified fox. I could do nothing but watch.

Just in a split second, Sonic lunged at Tails, right before the screen went black. There was a loud screeching noise that only lasted five seconds. The text returned only this time, and it said, You're too slow. Want to try again?

And then that god-awful laugh came with it. I was so shocked by what had happened. Did Sonic Murder Tales? No, he couldn't have. Him and Tails are supposed to be best friends. Right? Right. Why did Sonic do that to him?

I have no idea. I shook the shock off as I was brought back to the character select. The save file that had Tails was different. Tails was no longer in the box itself but in their TV screen itself, which was flickering with that red static. Tails expression scared me. His eyes were black and bleeding, and his orange fur had gone black, and he had an expression

of anguish on his face. Trying to ignore it, I picked Knuckles next. I like how he keeps playing the game. The laugh came again. The laugh came again. Is that a goose? Sorry.

Sorry for asking you to do your job, but I apologize. Thank you. The laugh came and the screen cut to black again and stayed there for 10 seconds. This time, the level said, You can't run. I was really freaked out by now. I couldn't really tell if this was a glitch or a hack

or some kind of sick and twisted joke. Or anything, really. What's that mean? But despite my fear of what happened next, I kept playing. The next level looked much, different. It had the ground of the scrap brain zone.

Stop referencing sonic levels. It's a good zone. But the sky background looked like the main menu. It had the dark reddish, cloudy sky. He's going to make another reference. But it was the music that creep me out the most. It sounded like

Gygus theme right after you beat Pokey and Earthbound. Sure. Okay, yeah. I also noticed that Knuckles looked afraid just like tails did, though not as much. More rather, he looked a little unnerved. Thank you.

He broke the fourth wall, just like tails, and looked as if he wasn't sure about going on, but I made him move anyway. What a sadistic fuck? He ran down the straight pathway in this dark level, and as he did, the screen started to flicker red static a couple

times, and then that maddening laugh came again. Then after a few seconds of running, I noticed several blood stains on the metallic ground. I fell to growing sense of fear again thinking something horrible is going to happen to Knuckles. He looked nauseated walking down this blood,

Stained Rhone, but I still kept him going. Suddenly, as Knuckles ran, Sonic appeared right in front of him with those black and red eyes, and then red static appeared again. When the static vanished showing

nothing but black screen with text saying, Found you. I was now scared. Sonic found Knuckles already? What was going on? Anyway, Red Static came again and then I was back to the level. Knuckles looked like he was panicking

and Sonic was nowhere to be found. And this time, the high-pitched squealing from, give me a reference, Silent Hills One's final boss was playing. Good boss. Was it someone went, yes. Oh my God. Was this some kind of boss battle with Sonic?

I hope to God it was. suddenly Dear fucking Lord Sonic appeared right behind Knuckles in what appeared to be pixelated black smoke as opposed to real black smoke I made knuckles turn and then punch Sonic

but Sonic vanished in black pixelated smoke before I could even land a hit that terrible laugh went off again I'm not even gonna wait on it this time then Sonic appeared behind Knuckles again and thank you and then I made him

just a hair and then I made him punch again and Sonic vanished again laughing Knuckles was panicking knuckles Knuckles was panicking even more and even I felt like I was going crazy Sonic was practically playing with us he was playing a sick

twisted little mind game with me Stop his Sonic! You tear it me apart. Another... What a timely room reference. Thank you. Another cutscene played as Knuckles fell to his knees and clutched his head sobbing.

I felt his agony. Sonic was actually driving us both crazy. And then in a split second, Sonic lunged at Knuckles, and then the screen went black with another distorted screeching noise that lasted for at least three seconds. so many souls to play with

so little time would you agree what the hell just what's going on I started to think Sonic was actually trying to talk to me through the game but I was too scared to think that

you just said you I was starting to think I was too scared to think Anyway, I brought back to the main menu, and this time the second file box had knuckles in the TV screen. His red fur had darkened to a reddish gray. Oh, my God. His dreadlocks were dripping with blood.

Oh, my God. And his eyes were black and bleeding, too. Oh, God. Who's left? And he had a look of sadness on his face. I regret asking that. Someone's like, oh, there's like five characters left. Sorry.

I began to think that those are actual characters trapped at, What? Wait. I looked at the sadness of Knuckles and I began to think those aren't, those are actual characters trapped in those screens on the save files.

Right, right. But I, but I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it. So he's like, maybe Knuckles is real. Duckels has a consciousness inside the CD. We're just going to power through. So I shut off the game and took a break. I took a nap.

Oh God I need to sleep on this I wish I hadn't because I then began to have the most disturbing nightmare It's so, okay So if you were reading creepypastas Around this time

There was always like a scary dream There was always photo realistic blood There was always backwards music So this author's like I need to do all of those at once Got it. Hell yeah And there's no natural way

to incorporate sleeping into a video game So he's like in the middle of this I fell asleep So I got pretty tired and I took a nap. I was in pitch black darkness. I was under the light given off by a lamp,

as lights do, as lamps do. That hung high above my head. I could hear the cries of knuckles and tails nearby. They were saying stuff like, Help us. Why did you give us to him? Run away before he gets you too. Their cries died out as I then.

heard Sonic laugh his laugh it sounded a lot like the distorted Kefka laugh you said that he has mentioned that stupid laugh three times you're all of fun to play with kid just like your friend Kyle

though he didn't last this long I like the person who said what like this is where they get off like Kyle got it too really I want to say that's a kind of fuck's into so what is just the You didn't last as long as Kyle.

Just kind of, I don't know. What? Gone sexual, 4K addition. Sonic backshots, 4K. Because now I'm picturing a demented, evil Sonic, like, twerking. And he's just like, you're pretty good, kid. But can you last this long? There's like rings.

Every time he's bouncing up, rings are popping out. I'm a fucking demon. No? All right. Just me, I guess. I was in medical school. Okay. I was scared in looking around for the source of the voice.

We'll be long now until you join him and all my other friends. I saw him. walking toward me, flickering in and out in several directions. You can't run, kid. You're in my world now. Just like the other. Now I'm imagining like macho man, Randy Savage

in a sonic box. Oh, yeah. You can't run, kid. When he grabbed me, and I saw his bleeding black and red grinning face, I woke up with a fright. After a couple of hours, I decided to continue playing the game.

Of course. I don't know why, but I had to know. Sure. I had to figure out why this was happening. So I turned on the computer, turned on the game, and selected Robotnik next. I still thought that was wacky, playing as Robotnik. This is down right strange. Robotnik's the weird part.

Okay. He's having fever dreams. He's like, really? Robotnik? Okay. But anyway. the level title appeared again and this time it said

which I found really freaking you might have threatened to kill me in my sleep if you will but mess with my Sonic game yeah really no title for this one this time I was in some kind of hallway didn't really look like it was from any of the classic Sonic games

though it had the pixelated style the floor was shiny and checkered the walls were dark grayish purple with animated candle lights and a few dark bloodstates here and there and there was a dark red curtain hanging above on top part of the screen.

Every 12 seconds or so that red curtain sways very slowly but whenever you're playing the game you can barely see it move. The music, oh I can already feel because he's describing the scene I haven't looked at the end of the paragraph

but there's going to be a reference to something the music was oddly pleasant a piano playing a rather sad yet peaceful song but I knew better you knew better where's it from this was the song that played in Hill Act 1 only it wasn't in reverse Oh Jesus

Robotnik didn't look entirely nervous like Tails and Knuckles did but he did have a suspicious look on his face as if he was just a bit paranoid How are you telling this on like a pixelated little Anyway. He did a little animation when I just left him standing. He would turn his head to the left

and then to the right at least twice and then shrug at me as if he had no as if he had no idea where he was or what was going on. Even though I was scared out of my mind about what was going to happen, I had Robotnik continue onward. He did his casual running animation, you know, when you've

beaten him at the end of the classic Sonic game and you chase him. Thank you! As we continued through the hallway. I'm getting mad. then I stopped at a long flight of stairs leading downward now I was less nervous even Robotnik seemed unsure of himself though I pressed onward as I led Robotnik down the stairs

I noticed that the walls had gotten darker and more reddish the red torches were now an eerie blue and then we leaned land yes landed onto another hallway this one was longer than the last one stop explaining the okay or at least it felt like it

and then we headed down another flight of stairs down. This one was much longer. It took at least one full minute. Thank you. And I heard, I'm so mad, I'm slamming the keys. And then I heard that horrid, that laugh again. Thank you. And then the music slowly faded until it was quiet.

And it did the wall. And, oh, wait, it doesn't, I was right. And it did the walls turn more dark red. And the torches were a black flame now. Ooh. When Robotnik landed onto the, the third hallway, I noticed he now looked really

creeped out. Then he tried to hide it. I couldn't blame him. I was scared to. Suddenly, Sonic popped right in front of Robotnik the same way he did knuckles and then Red Static. The Red Static lasted for 15 seconds

and then it showed me a most unpleasant image. The image showed a you got it Blank of Sonic standing in the darkness where you can only see his face

while his head and torso faded into black Hold what is blank Iver Realistic blank I don't know Probably Probably if

Probably if I had to guess It's they're trying to do the SEP thing It'd be like A redacted We'll redact stuff. It's too horrible. It's too horrible to say what it was.

Which does kind of imply. It's like his, yeah. I didn't know if we were bringing back twerking Sonic around. Maybe blank. And when I say, oh, he's going into detail. When I say I'm realistic. I mean, like, he looks so real. You could see the lines in his blue fur.

Holy shit. Maybe this is something a little... As if you could actually feel the fur if you touched the screen. All right. Oh, my God. Now that's a little gross doubt. Oh, my God.

His face. Oh, God. Oh, my God. He had the most horrifying smile I had ever seen. Oh, dear God. And that's saying something considering I saw that

image at the start of the game. His eyes are wide and black and once again crying blood, which also looked high for realistic. And there were too small glowing red dots and those black eyes staring right at me,

as if staring into my mind. His grin was wide and demonic. It literally stretched to the sides of his face like a Cheshire cat. He somehow made another reference, except Sonic had fangs, very sharp fangs, much like, here we go, the were hog's teeth,

except more vicious-looking. How are you doing over there, Chief? I'm in hell. somewhat yellowish and from the look of it he had stains of blood and small bits of flesh on his lips and fangs

as if he ate some animal Oh my God I stared at the gruesome image for a good 30 seconds he's timing the seconds like so every time I like to think they're Mississippi's too What Mississippi

Two Mississippi Never taking my eyes off it I felt as if he was actually looking at me smiling at me that face it just took 10 seconds for it to etch itself into my brain for good although if you'll recall from earlier I stared for 30

then the screen flickered with red static again three times and on the third time I heard the Kefka laugh except this time it sounded distorted demonic even do we have one for them no okay it went back

to the image again except this time there was the text again though it was messed up, but it was pretty much one of the most horrifying things I looked at since I had this game. I am God.

Oh! The wall, Sonic! What? Is Sonic? You know from Sonic Invitches 2? Was that a Sonic costume?

I really hope he doesn't have a concussion. Okay, we're so, we have to be close. I'm God. It was, when I read that message while looking at Sonic

when it hit me, I realized right there and then what are these sentences? This Sonic was a monster a pure, evil, sadistic, all-powerful, nightmarish, demented monster and all of his victims

including tails, knuckles, robotic and possibly Kyle are all just his little toys in the game in this very gateway to his chaotic nightmarish world and

very hell his victims are trapped in. Suddenly, in an actual split second, an actual one, I screamed as Sonic lunged at the screen, screeching loudly with his mouth wide open to an unnatural length, revealing nothing but a literally spiraling abyss of pure darkness before the red static came again. This time, much louder and distorted,

so loud that it hurt my ears. I yelled and grabbed my ears as the red static screech for a good, count them, seven seconds. Then, it stopped and showed nothing but black screen as I sat there staring at the black screen. One last text came up. Ready for round two, Tom.

The Kefka laugh. Now sounding more clear as if Sonic was right behind. It's right behind me, isn't it? Played again, count one, two, three times as I looked at that text in shock and confusion. Then I got booted back to the main menu and this time the third save file

had a TV image of Robotnik in the same tormented state as tails and knuckles. Robotnik's skin turned a dull gray, his mustache drooped and had blackened, his glasses broke and his blood is coming, from them and he had a mere dead like expression on his face I looked at tails

knuckles and Robotnik and cried a bit I pitied them for the agony they're going through they were forever trapped within the game forever tormented by that horrid hedgehog oh fuck you son and always will be

I sat there for maybe 25 seconds horrified by what it just happened is the very embodiment of evil. True. He tortures people who play his game. True.

In more ways than one. And then when he gets bored, he drags you into the game. Literally, drags you to hell. Where he can play with you always as his toy. I can't get the game out of my computer. I think it's stuck in there. But at least I managed to turn it back on now

after I set there for... I heard a voice right behind me like a whisper. Try to give this interesting food me down. Now, okay, the thing about the Rule 34 Sonic may be accurate now. I turned around to see where the voice came from and what I saw made me scream. Sitting on my bed. Staring right at me.

Was a Sonic plushy. Smiling with bloodstains under its eyes. That's Sonic! It ends there. My God. My God. That was rough. covered some losers

before but at least they were like they were fun like Ilish Jack for example is well I was going to say an equally bad story but Ilas Jack okay that's the one where like they left the body in the house and he realizes

his liver's missing because he's holding it like that one's pretty bad but at least that one was fun this one was just like I can reference I can reference digus in this one like Yeah. It was just, it was insufferable.

Yeah. Like, I mean, it's insane how insufferable is. Like, Sonic saying, I am God, is great. The story ends with that plushy. I thought... That's the end-up scare. I thought that it was going to be that people who have played the game, their consciousness gets trapped as the character's in the game. You are giving it way too much. No, no, no, definitely. But I'm just saying, that would be a cool concept, right?

People trapped to a video game. That's been done in stories before. I'm trying to think if there was a creepy pasta that did it. I can't think of one. But, like, that's definitely shown up in horror before. I mean, like, what is that black mirror one? Oh, Ben drowned, right. Yeah, been drowned, duh, yeah. I completely, I fucking got rid of that

with that Jeff Goldblum shit. That shit just just been wiped. Been wiped from my fucking mind. You can't get rid of me, Hunter. Huh. Oh, fuck. Well, I mean, you don't... It's always me.

We are now on to the third. one. And the third one is one that is very near and dear to our hearts, as it will soon be to yours. And that story, oh, wait, hold on, I keep forgetting, I'm supposed to switch to this, whatever. Our next, our next story, our final one for the night

is Mayhem Mountain. Mayhem Mountain. Now, we could just sit up here and do the same old goddamn saying. Well, hold on. I think any context of why this story is so special. Oh, yeah, yes. Actually, good one. So this story

was written by Rebell. Becca Klingle, who many of you all will probably familiar as the author of Barasca. I feel like that holds less weight now after the Deepwoods episode. Yeah, now the Deepwood's episodes out, so you are like, raise your hand if you watch the Deepwoods episode.

Okay, I have, now that time has become separated from us recording that, appreciated making part two and three funny. Yeah, because they are funny. And part one still exist on its own to me. I'm not as emotional about it right now that I was when we recorded that. I was

listening back to it today. I was like, we were pretty mean. I got pretty, a little harsh on it, yeah. But Rebecca is a fantastic author, and this is a great story sheet. Well, Verasca is one of my all-time favorite, like creepypastas, internet horror stories. You all watch the episode. You know how it goes.

So this is another one that she did. Now, so like I said, we could just do the same goddamn thing and read it all, but there's so many characters in this that I say we need to pick three people from the audience to help come up here and play some of the characters. So hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. We got to announce the rolls. So first of all, I will be playing Mark. And then did we, I think we changed it up since we made this slide. I'm going to be Brandon and Danny. So yes. So now Scott will be one of you all as well. So the three roles we need are for Charlotte, Koji, and then Tyler and Scott, they're both like pretty minor roles are going to be played by the same person. We have your scripts free made for all of that. We need. We need.

need three volunteers. Now, whoever, hold on. Hold on a second. Whoever volunteers is going to be asked to do an embarrassing audition from their seat and then is going to be on camera for the internet, for us and everyone else to make fun of it. We need to make sure that you have the chops to be up on this stage. Hunter, you can pick first. Well, I can't see. Can we turn just a light a little bit? Thank you. You right there waving me at the top. Let's see. Hold on. You haven't even passed your audition yet. Let me see here. Let me see here. Hmm. Koji first?

Koji? Uh, yeah, we'll do Koji first. I want you to give me, uh, like act as if, laughing Jack, just killed your son and you have to say, my boy, my, my dear baby boy. I want to say, hold on a second. I thought that that was coming from the same person, and I was going to be like, I did, unfortunately, point up top. So that was a crazy effect.

All right, hold on. Hold on a second. I was looking at you, and there were two voices like, Booh. That's what, for a second, I was like, that is fucking awesome. That was crazy. You know what, Koji?

Yeah, come on. Come on. All right. I need two more. Let's do the Tyler Scott character, right? Yeah, it's, this is some. you have to play two roles here so two separate voices so whenever you do the audition make sure they do two voices okay this guy right here okay hold on you haven't passed your audition yet

don't get your tickets before they hatch all right I need you to be what's a good what do you think this is the audition I know like what's a good audition if it's two separate people then you need to choose I would do something like the Titanic scene when Rose is on the thing and then he's looked and then Leonardo DiCaprio's in the water

looking up okay you have to be both Rose and Jack you need to say something like I'm cold and then you need to give me a very convincing Rose like it's okay Jack

so something along those lines we need that from you now Get up. Get up here. Get up here. Get on up. Start handing those out. All right.

I need one more. This is the person who, this is the person who is going to play my girlfriend in the story. So it, no. Can I speak? My wife is in the backstage right now.

And if I, if I, if I pick a woman, we're both dead. Okay? Hold on. I audition, you black shirt, bald head. All right. What's his audition for Charlotte? For Charlotte? I think it should be like a Sex and the City thing, right?

Charlotte's a character from Sex and the City. So she's just thinking, we know that. I love sex in the city. Okay. So I think you should say something like, you should say, take me to 7th Avenue. I'm going to stop by the Prada store and get some shoes. As long as you promise to not do the character in that voice, get on up here. All right.

Hi, hi everyone, hi, by the ways. All right, so, you all have been given scripts that have your character's part. If Hunter did it correctly, which you probably didn't, your character's stuff should be highlighted as we go through the story. But to start off with each of you, you've got to be pretty close to the mics for them to hear you, so you can pull them in and get them comfortable or ever need be. If you want to go down the row and each one of you introduce yourself, if you want to say one thing that isn't offensive and won't get us canceled, that's be cool. All right. All right. Hi, my name is Zane. I'm an 18 year old. And I am, horror is one of my special interests. So I'm super excited to be here. Sick. Let's go. Koji! All right. Coachy! Played Koji.

Yeah, it's wireless. Yeah. The future's now. Hello? It's not working? I was just say, hello? You all, you all may need to share if that's cool. It works. My name is Kerry, and I'm really happy to be here. Wow. There you go. Okay. Hell yeah, okay.

In the role of both Tyler and Scott, and then finally my girlfriend, my dear Charlotte. Well, my name is J.C. I'm just a country boy from Patterson, Mississippi. All right. That's our Charlotte! That also sounds like the kind of woman I date. Perfect. All right, so I guess also to set the tone for all of our business. tone for all of our beautiful voice actors on stage, we should probably say that this is about

a charismatic group of people coming back to buying amusement park. Yeah, it's about a group of, as Mayhem Mountain implies, it's about a group of people coming to a biome amusement park. So we're all friends, we've all known each other for years. We're reuniting, so be happy and joyous until people start dying. Yeah, talk to me as if we've known each other for 30 years. Yep. And if you

don't, I'll fire you on stage. There are cameras all over the place. That's true. Fair enough. All right. So would you like to begin? Hold on. We need the music. We need our setting. Thank you. In two miles, take exit 19 for Valley Park Drive South. The direction's chirp for my sister's phone. Charlotte, turn that.

Oh, I'm Mark, by the way, if I didn't address that. Charlotte, turn that. Oh, wait, hold on. Charlotte's not my girlfriend. It's my sister. Whatever, dude. Oh, no. Right in slip, bro.

I, uh, I am from Mississippi now. You are for... I'm from Tennessee. We can make this work. Not off the table yet. Charlotte, turn that off. I know where I'm going. You sure about that? I mean, it's been a couple decades, Mark. Please, like I could ever forget where Adventure Valley is. Come on, we spent every summer of...

There it is! I swerve briefly into the oncoming lane to Charlotte thrust her arm in front of my face and pointed excitedly out the window. There's Adventure Valley. My God. What right is that? That coaster, it was called Steel. Something, right? No, no.

Wait, that's, that's Mahim Mountain, isn't it? That was good. I like that, yeah. That's tough. Awesome. I gently push my sister's arm out of my face and back over to her seat. I couldn't falter for excitement while I was trying so hard to control my own giddiness. I felt like we were kids again, yelling and bouncing in the back seat.

Hold on. All right, I'm alive. Thinking about kissing his sister again, dude. I just get so excited. Yelling and bouncing in the back seat of my parents' car as the first shining rails and wooden planks of the park's roller coasters came into view above the treetops. That's the steel viper. Mayhem Mountains on the other end of the park.

And that wooden coaster over there is the Excalibur. Oh, yeah. I remember those. I was always too much of a Worcester. ride the viper, but I rode the shit out of the Excalibur. I'm so happy we picked you for Charlotte. Yes, she did. Well, Charlotte,

you're an adult now. I think it's time to take on the viper. Oh, shut of damn. Are you 12? Woo! Hold on. When we were, when I was reading Goatman earlier, every time I would read a word,

like, I entered the trailer, or like, it threw back at me or whatever. Everyone's like, oh, this section specifically is disgusting. Kill everyone over here. Please, whoever's up top. And there's a couple more. A couple more. Keep it going. That's enough.

That's enough. They get the point. As long as the contractors have tested it and given it the okay, I'm in. Shut up. Good God. That was really the question, wasn't it? We didn't know which rides

had been inspected and cleared and which ones had it. I sent up a silent prayer that Mayhem Mountain was counted among the rides that had. I'd left Brandon several voicemails asking about it since he was the one in charge of everything.

But with how fast things had been moving since we'd bought the park, I couldn't fault him for being a busy man. If you told 12-year-old me that my crazy, hyper, wild-eyed friend, Brandon Decker would end up graduating Cum Laude from Northwestern Business School. See?

That's insane. That's like we're outside, guys. Like, calm down, Lord. Business school, I can't wait for my parents to see this and be like, what was that about? What were they laughing? From Northwestern Business School,

I would have laughed in your face. Brandon, no way. Tyler, maybe. never Brandon. In fact, half the reason I think he chose a business designation was because of Adventure Valley. When the park closed in 1989, Brandon had gathered us all together in his basement, and with a gravitas and solemnness I've never seen in him before since, asked us to make the pact. At the time, the promise had been the most serious vow that five, 12-year-olds could ever make. High off an entire summer of Adventure Valley Fund, we agreed with all the

ceremony of a meeting of parliament that we would one day come together and buy adventure valley amusement park of course back then we planned to just buy it and ride the roller coasters into the ground we decided which friends from school we would let in and which enemies would be barred from the gate and it had always been our park and it was only right we should have it it had taken 20 years but we eventually did fulfill our promise the hell of a lot of pushing from brandon and sizable offer of collateral from Tyler, the bank had agreed to give us the multi-million dollar loan to buy, repair, refurbish, and reopen the park, size of the loan that the six of us were responsible for gave me nightmares for several weeks. What kind of bank has six people,

oh yes, a very timely Wells Fargo joke, what kind of bank has six people walk into it and be like, we want to buy an amusement park? And they're like, how much is it? six 32 year olds seven yeah six 32 year olds and it's like how much is it it's like several million dollars why are you buying it well we told which other we would when we were 12 yeah my 12 year old self needs it yeah exactly we got collateral okay if you say so how would this place ever turn a profit it had been closed decades ago after operating in the red for several years county had experienced a high number of runaways and missing persons in the area in the last year of the 1980s. The entire region was on edge of the case as the cases mounted and people in the area

became depressed and suspicious of each other that absolutely killed park attendance. Seeing the first cresting waves of roller coaster rails through the trees made me all but forget about my financial worries. I mean this was Adventure Valley. If we opened the gates, people would come. There, there, there, that's our exit. Awesome. Why is it by you? I'm shocked. I pulled off the interstate,

took a left under the bridge. Less than a mile later, we came upon the acres of the parking lots, the acres of the park's parking lots to our right. There we go. We turned in and drove all the way up to the front near the gates where several other cars were all parked. Alexis, a Mini Cooper,

an old Chevel, and Honda Civic, another rental car like ours. Looks like we're the last one's here Woohoo All right Sis I don't appreciate the tone You approached me

With that She was right As we pulled up next to the Lexus I noticed a group of people standing next to the ticket booth Waving to us excitedly Oh my god Is that Tyler? Jesus, he's lost some weight He's so skinny now

And Brandon's losing his hair Holy shit is that Koji? Koji got hot Oh boy Calm down Paris Hill These guys are my What? So timely Yeah, what a ageless joke

These guys are my friends They're off limits to you Same roles as when we were teenagers Besides half of them are married Really? Which half? She's sassy She's sassy Charlotte's like

anything that moves Whatever's over there Charlottes are they bricked up dude God damn right I raised an eyebrow Charlotte and shook my head and amused me

Wildermen my little sister never had outgrown her boy craziness Wait Who's that What That's Scott

You know Scott Demiour Very demure Not Scott Shut up So when I said In the last during laughing Jack

there was, I read over it so quickly. I said the phrase among us. That was me. And this, I was looking down and off at the top of my eyes, I saw like three rows of people go like all the ones.

We're doomed. It's like working with children. We are doomed. Charlotte, sorry, sis. Go ahead. Not Scott. Scott looks exactly the name, the girl next to Scott. Oh, Charlotte's interested in the girl next to Scott, okay. Oh, I had put this off so long that I actually forgot to tell my sister at all.

That's Danny, Scott's girlfriend. This is likely an effective error of editing on someone's behalf. The stories or ours, I don't know, but if it is one of our guys' fault, just have them executed after the show. Death to them. Kill them. Danny, as in Danielle Bircher. Well, yeah. My sister gave me such a horrified look

that you'd think I'd betrayed her to her death. But it was fleeting and quickly replaced by a sly smile. Fine by me. I'm sure she's not the same person she was in high school. We're all adults now, right? Now, come on, let's go. So, I think... I do, I want to say this, I like the little...

A little T-Sesh we're having with Charlotte. Well, I like... Huh? I think the implication is supposed to be that they had, like, beef in high school. Oh, absolutely. But it's much funnier to imagine they hooked up. Yeah, she was a bitch.

Yeah, it's much funnier to imagine they hooked up. Especially with how Charlotte's acting constantly, the whole story. I will say I do like this. So, those of you that I've seen Deepwoods now, and also Barasca, Rebecca does such a great job at, like, making me care. about what's otherwise, just kind of like paint-by-numbers characters, right?

Like, in Barrasca, you have characters like Kyle and, yeah, Kyle. I know, right? Exactly, yeah. Someone who otherwise is just kind of like the dumb character in the story, and you have Kimber, who's a generic love interest. But the way that Rebecca, like, writes around the two and, like, gives them so much personality and cutesy little moments and stuff, you feel like emotionally connected to them.

And kind of going back to what I was talking about Laughing Jack earlier, how when you want to run to the punchline, it's not as effective. One of the reasons Varoska hit so hard in the end is because, like, I cared about Colin Kimber. So to see that happen to them was absolutely heartbreaking. Yeah, I like the way she writes dialogue between characters. She does, yeah.

She can take kind of what would otherwise be trope characters and be like, here, this is fine, because now we're making jokes like, oh, what if Charlotte and Danny, you know, blah, blah, blah. And it makes me care about Charlotte more than just character within story, right? Sure. Yeah.

It's just something I appreciate about her writing. A sigh of relief escaped my chest as I slammed the car door and followed Charlotte over to the entrance. Though I saw most of these guys every year, seeing us all here together standing at the ticket booths of Adventure Valley, brought me a sort of happiness I hadn't experienced in many years. Mike fucking Lannis. I can't believe it. He has been dying for that lion read. Yeah, all the blood forced to his face just like... He's been vibrating in the chair.

I love it, dude. He's got some big, big energy with there. This is, just so far, by the way, Louisiana, you are beating Boston to death with your energy. Boston was fantastic, but just like the absolute hoot and hollerness, I appreciate it. That's Louisiana for you. Tyler had an edgy commanding voice that probably made his many employees shudder and scatter. But I am like a brother, so his bravado just made me laugh. Can you believe it? I asked as I gave him a hug and a slap on the back. Back at front gates, 15 a day doesn't seem

so ridiculous now. I forgot to highlight mine. Wait, what have you been marking over there in your script the whole time? I've just been messing with my Sharpie. All right. Now if I may, 50 a day my ass. He said shaking my hand. By my math, it looks like we'll be charging about $65 a day. Gotta make money, guys.

It's been so long since I've been to an amusement park. How much you amusement parks cost now for like generally? $7,000. $200? That sounds about right. No. I have been a dollar one, but it's been forever. $500.

Well, Disney charges... God damn, all right. For one, someone's very mad about it. But Disney's also, like, here's the Church of the Mouse that will be $8,000. And people are like, okay, that's different. But 65 for an entire day is fine. I'm okay.

I can let that slide, I think. We charge you all $35 for this crap shoot, so I don't want... I'll pay it. Charlotte. Yeah, I don't like that tone. Charlotte smiled and gave Koji a hug. Are people really going to pay $65 a day?

Even Disneyland only charges $85, and there you get access to two parks. How could I forget? One of our investors works for the mouse. Pity, they won't let you design any artwork for this place. Come on, man. I'm not an artist. I'm an engineer. Don't you mean Imagineer?

Yeah, I fucking do. I hate that line. Good Lord. As Brandon and Charlotte tease Koji, did you read that last one? Yeah, I did. Oh, yeah, I thought, yeah, I'll read it again. I'll read it again.

I'll read it again. Oh, my God. Yeah, I fucking do. Y'all making Koji run through lines twice. As Brandon and Charlotte Tees, Koji, I made my way over to the side of the ticket booth where Scott and his girlfriend were conversing. I didn't know why Scott was being so standoffish, but I thought it might have something to do with the investment. Scott, the least

well off of a six, worked at his dad's collision shop and hadn't had a whole lot of money to invest. I thought, that's really funny, that they're all going in on a multi-million dollar loan, and they're like, Scott, I know your family business is falling apart and your paycheck to paycheck, but you promised. You said that you give us. You said that you give us. $780,000 He's like, fuck You know, the deli shop Really isn't doing as hot as I thought it would

We wanted to buy the amusement park I guess there's my grandma's estate I guess I could send that, yeah I still don't get you money for grandma I thought maybe he was embarrassed about the money But now watching him laying against the booth With slowly shifting eyes I realized it wasn't that at all

Scott was just stoned Same old Scott Hell yeah, weed, yeah brother No, that was not, okay. What's up, burnout? What's up, burnout, my brother? I haven't seen you like 15 years. How about a pro-buck?

Good God. Oh, my gosh. Good, good, God. I know this was written in 2015. It was 2015 to a T, I guess, good Lord. It's about to be like, bro-fist, whatever, yeah. Our special guest, Pute Pie, here to... Scott smiled and pushed off the wall to come give me a quick hug.

Hey, how's it going, man? Fuck, look at you. What's your diet, man? Rabbit food and lettuce? You're not going to get any ladies with that skinny body. That was great. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

You know, I love... I love that we gave Tyler and Scott. They're just two big-dick energy guys. Yeah. Dude, are you even going to pick up chicks with this tiny little body guy? Well, I was thinking in my head, like, is he going to switch for Scott? And you absolutely did, so I appreciate that. Good job.

Hell, yeah. Your mom doesn't seem to mind. Oh! Damn it! Go ahead, Danny. Hey, Mark. I'm Danny. Do you remember me? Danny Bircher

Scott's girlfriend gave me a shy smile and stuck out her hand so we could engage in a stiff handshake Yeah it's like I can move the chair without dying Good Lord Yeah I think so

You were in my sister's class right? Charlotte Lannis Danny had the decency to look embarrassed Yeah but we weren't really friends yeah they definitely hated each other sure that's putting it lightly i thought

we were freshmen when you guys were seniors yeah i do remember that maybe i should just get it over with called charlotte over and the reintroduction of the two girls while awkward was over pretty quickly to everyone's relief that you all were Charlotte Danny oh yeah our awkward our awkward moment

Are you Are you all eager to get into the park. We were all eager to get into the park. It was odd not stopping at the window for tickets and even otter to walk around the resting turnstiles at the front gates. I delighted in reminding myself that we own this place now. Brandon gave us a tour of the park. Not so much of the geography.

We all knew that inside and out, but of the hypothetical layout, reorganization of the park as he saw it. The Excalper is going to need the most amount of work, according to Rich. A roller coaster made of wood exposed the elements for all these years, we'll keep as much of the original structure as it's safe, but we might have to rebuild most of it. Do we even

have the money for that? Yeah, we have the money for that. Ah, Mr. Moneybags. That mini dealership treating you good? I nudged him hard with my shoulder. Tyler stumbled, but kept it... Did someone just laugh at hard? Good Lord. Yeah.

Tyler stumbled, but kept enough composure to push me back into a passing churro stall. God damn. dude. Yeah, good joke. Those six BMW dealerships are treating me very well. Well enough to serve as the sizable collateral we needed. Thank you for the back story.

Charlotte runs up behind us and throws her arms around Tyler and Koji. So, can we like ride some rides? Are you kidding me? Why do you think we're here? I'm just here for Mayhem Mountain. All right, fine. Title Draper. All right, fine.

I thought you guys would be interested in how our investment's coming along, but I guess I'll go fuck myself. Can you stay on script, thanks? Sorry. All we're interested in... What? Big snort.

Give us a snort. Oh, God. Okay, I'm trying. I told you you'd be embarrassed on cameras. If I could, I would, I swear. I'll do the sound. Please, God, I can't. Beautiful. That's good.

We'll work off that, yeah. Okay, okay. We're trying here. We're not professionals. That's not the script. I can be mean to Hunter. I feel so bad. I'm sorry.

No, it makes me part of the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in that case, do better. I'm doing my best. Yes, Captain. All we're interested in is the project. is the projected Roy and, more importantly, which rides have passed safety inspection?

A little or half of the, a little, a little, a little of that. Hold on, I'm having a stroke. Fully recovered, don't worry, I'm still the sharpshooter of this group. A little over a half of them are writable. It sounded like you were trying to do an Elvis impression for example. A little bit of a little bit, a little over half of them are writable. Brandon stopped walking and tried to look annoyed and failing that he smiled

suddenly everybody was talking at once is still vibra open? Yep, that one's on what about the snap dragon? That one is good to go to Renegate Falls the water's not on damn shit high roller? Yes Space bin

oh yeah Power tower They're doing the inspection this week. Isaiah, one more time. Power tower? Stop. What are you doing to me with that? Don't look at me when you say that.

There was only one ride I really cared about. Mine and Brandon's favorite. What about mayhem mount? Fuck, yes. He answered this to the collective groans of the rest of the group. Oh, man. There you go.

Oh, God fuck. Damn it. It's like such a drag. What? I was in my fourth year of a medical school program. Shouldn't have dropped out, bitch. Mayhem Mountain had always been our thing. The others had always been happy to ride high roller and snap dragon into exhaustion.

Brandon and I always fled off toward the end of the day to ride Mayhem Mountain into the twilight hours. I hate that ride. It's boring as hell. I hope designed something similar for Disney. land, Hong Kong. We put it in fantasy land for fuck's sake. Hey, that ride's awesome. It's long and it goes

upside down. Charlotte is just That was going upside down. That was the show. That was the show. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Charlotte is just too scared to ride it. I'm not...

I'm not gonna address it, Charlotte. I'm not scared of that ride. It just gives me the creeps. Something about it just, I don't know, seems off. All right, look. We'll start at the end of the park and work our way towards the back. That way we can ride every ride

that's past inspection, including Mayah Mountain. And Snapdragon. The others all nodded excitedly. Yes, every ride. And of course, we can ride them, you know, as many times as we want. Hell yes, brother.

Nice. Coach, a high-five, Brandon, and we headed down the street towards face spin. Our progress through the park was blissfully slow. Everyone wanted to ride every ride multiple times. And one person always had to stay in the loading area to operate the ride. Is this not incredibly unsafe? Super. Well, I thought that whenever you get on a ride, I thought that, like, you're buckled in

and then someone's just like, click the button to start. is operating the ride in the loading area, but that's one person. So if there's a malfunction or anything like that, it's like, have fun of nine. They can buy an amusement park. Doesn't mean they know how to fucking operate. They're like, yeah, if it gets stuck

or they're just like, well, well, we own it, so. Yeah, take that. I'm going to die on the track that I own. Exactly. It only took an hour or two to forget that I was a fully grown

35-year-old man. Being I'm just glad it's not a child again. Amen. Being back here, running through the line ways with my friends, arguing who got the first row of the first car. It was like being 12 years old again.

Still, my eye was constantly drawn up over the buildings into the distance. To the back of the park where the high, gleaming rails of Mayhem Mountain shined in the un obscured sun. There'd be no arguing who got front row on that coaster. It was me and Brandon. It was always me and Brandon.

Charlotte, Tyler, and Koji were the most like children. Constantly running ahead and arguing over which ride to get on next. Hey. Yelling back to ask Brandon, if this one or that one have been cleared by the contract. Hey, Mark. What? It's me and you, buddy. Always.

It's always me and you. Front, front car always. Hey, Brandon. Yeah. I love you. Thanks, man. Look, at least both you all said it once. What if I died right now and you're like, I never said it back?

What was that? What if I died right now and I never said it back? Like, I just got shot in the head. What would you be, what would you, what would I do if you died right now? Yeah. That would be startling. Yeah. No, I mean, like, because I said I love you and you didn't say it back.

So. I would live with that. Yeah. If I died right now, what would be your biggest regret? concerning me. God, good question. Good question. If you died right now, what's that shoes do you wear? I didn't like that line of questioning. Look, at least both you all said it once today, at least.

We got, we got Hunter at the beginning and Isaiah later, so we got once. Kill all three of them when they leave. I don't even have a, I don't even have a microphone. What did I do? He's just here. Have you come up with your regret yet? You know, I'd like to think I live with no regrets. Okay. So you wouldn't feel bad about anything?

You know, I think we had a good run. Okay. All right. I'm going to go back to the story now. Okay. Charlotte, Tyler, and Koji were the most like children, constantly running ahead and arguing over which ride to get on next. Yelling back to ask Brandon if this one or that one have been cleared by the contractors.

Brandon and I held back from the group a bit discussing ideas and possible improvements for the park Scott Danny took up the rear of the group quietly talking and lighting joints When we arrived, shut up When we arrived at the Enterprise A simple ride that consisted of spinning cars On a circular track

I offered to flip the switch while the rest of the group Road to Excess The Enterprise always made me sick when we were kids Brandon offered to stay on the platform with me to chat while everyone else rode the ride I flip the switch to turn the ride. Wait, who's chatting? Brandon and I'd chat.

Oh, okay. It's me. Chat. It's me, man. What's that in your pocket? Just kidding. Boys being boys, you know? Just dudes being dudes.

You got the coaster to yourself. I can't be mad at the audience because you're the worst proponent of all of that. Just two guys digging. Around. Yeah. Going on rides. Kill that guy twice. Twice.

I mean. I sighed. All day had been trying to ignore the bright graffiti sprayed all over the park, but the words painted over the signage for the enterprise were impossible to ignore. Where did the missing kids go? and the rest of the graffiti in the park was much the same. Most said things like, where are they? Runaway Row, find Ryan Kinski, and the missing are now dead. Similar sayings could be found in towns freight across a few dilapidated buildings in the industrial district.

Brandon's eyes avoided the sign, but I could tell he was thinking about it too. Do you think the reason they shut this park down? I mean, you've seen that being an issue for park attendants? Brandon was quiet for a few moments as he waited for the ride to slow to his stop so he could flip the switch again. Nah, I don't think so. Low attendance issues aren't actually what shut the park down. They aren't? Nope.

That surprised me. When we were negotiating the sale of the park, I was given the access to the park's financials in the 80s. So they weren't operating at a loss? Oh, they were. but this park has operated in the Redson's opening day in the 70s half of their revenue was being fed back into something called county services whatever that is the bank couldn't tell me and I believe and believe me

I tried to find out now I appreciate that just because this is the author of Barasca what was the name of that silly little machine in Barasca The shiny gentleman. That's right. County Services. Look, just because this is the author of Barasca

and just because there's now missing children and just because there is a suspicious amount of money being funneled from the park into county services and just because our audio guy decided to play the droning noise when he read that line doesn't mean that this is going where you think it is. But if it is, we're going to go there together. That's right.

And if you're not, and if you're not, well, guess what? No refunds, so. County services. Yep, bizarre. And according to the paperwork that the park was closed because the owner didn't want to live here anymore.

And he couldn't be bothered to wait for a decent offer on the property. So he just sold it to the bank for next nothing. So I said next morning. That doesn't make sense. Wow, Brandon. What a weird thing to say

in the middle of a conversation? I'm sorry. I just got. lost in those eyes. You're not. What was that? What was that sound effect? I don't even know. I'm afraid to figure out.

Are you messing with me? I have no idea what it was. So, he was a rich guy and an idiot. Yes. To an extreme of both cases. Excuse me? I wasn't done reading. Sorry. I leaned back against the railing to stretch my back now, if you want to go.

Yes, to an extreme of both cases. The owner of the park was Abel Bissett. What kind of fucking name is that? Bissette. I'm going to stick with Bisset. Yeah. You could call him Biscuit. Biscuit.

Abel Biscuit. Abel Biscuit. Abel Biscuit. Related to that French billionaire. I'm guessing. Oh, that's why you all knew it. It's French. I hate you all.

Michael Biscuit built this park for a son in the 70s. Abel was never really what we'd call business inclined. I've always heard him described as simple. I can't believe the son of a billionaire lives in this area. Well, not anymore. He moved on decades ago. I shook my head in disbelief. Who would ever have thought that our

simple little park was owned by a famous billionaire son. Hell, I may have even sat next to him on rides and had no idea. You guys want to go again? Do you guys want to go again? Come on. Yeah! Thank you. The rides come to a stop.

The other's eyed us from the safety of their ride cars. I'm ready to move on. Anybody want to ride again? So on three, two, one, nope. Nope. Okay. three, two, one. Nope.

Okay, we're going to do three, two, one, no. Nope. That's how it works. Well, you say three, two, one, and then someone says, nope, before the countdown actually starts. I'm sorry, I apologize. I feel immediately bad if it's not Hunter. It was near five o'clock when we finally arrived at Mayhem Mountain.

As the sun began to set a familiar panic and urgency weld in the pit of my stomach. It took a moment for me to realize that we didn't have to leave when the park was. close this time because the park didn't close. We could stay until sunup if we wanted to. As I eagerly, someone went, oh my God. As I eagerly approach the turnstile for Mayhem Mountain, Tyler spoke up behind me. Listen, can we run at the town and grab something to eat before we ride the Mayhem? Wait, what the fuck? Thank you, Tom. I'm having a honor moment. I'm sorry. Listen, can we run to the town and grab something to eat before we ride Mayhem? you really want to ride mayhem after we eat good point there's only one loop

two don't forget the inline roll um um um actually um um actually uh there's an inline roll yeah fuck off mark yeah um brand brandon irm it's right behind me isn't it No, it's not. That's already happened. Kill that guy. Scott. Yep. Two plus, it's a two-minute ride. If your food isn't sitting well, you've got a long wait till it's over. Look, let's ride it a couple times and then go eat.

When we come back, we'll see how we feel. Everyone nodded, and we started walking through the line ways up to the platform. When we reached the loading dog, I was excited to see our favorite green car sitting on the track. Fun seat Oh that was so in tune I'm staying here I'll just work the launch pad thingy I'm

I'm sorry somebody forgot to highlight my part Oh Still scared after all these years chair I like Share Do you believe There's a lot. Stop, stop, stop. Everyone paused. You can't make fun of Hunter when he starts the whole thing

because then he likes it. Then it's like a, it gets him off. So you have to just ignore him, and that's what actually hurts his feeling. Yeah! Raise your hand if Hunter's your favorite creepcast host. Raise your hand if it's me. No, Isaiah gang Isaiah gang for life Thank you

Thank you for voting for me more The Loser is going to be executed after the show tonight Where are we even at? Scott, yeah Still scared after all these years, Cher? Share Yeah, just share the singer's setting there, yeah Chair? Chair.

Shut up, burnout. Scott left and tousseled, tussled her hair before running and jumping into the first car behind Brandon and I. Danny got in next to him and then Tyler and Kogi took the second car. Fold the shoulder restraints down

and they locked in place. Ready? Yep, send the car through. Charlotte pulled the lever and the brakes disengaged. As the car moved forward, I turned to Brandon. When I've been with you. When? I've been with you for the past, like, five days straight. Go ahead, Mark.

Did we get the green car on purpose? I yelled to him as the coaster clacked him. I just love the purpose? Did we get the green car on purpose, Bobby? Is that your impression of me now? Just that line. Oh, did we get the green car on purpose? you know when people draw fan art of me now it's just a pair of lips

damn fine lips who would ever do that yes the damage you I have I think I have reason to sue if I wanted to like the damage you've done do it they're so much better in person I uh Look, the mustache brings them out. Hey, I'm giving Hunter's shit.

I got to give you something. Kayla, I'm scared. Come help. This magic moment. I yelled to him as the coaster clacked around the load platform and began the clattery climb up the first lift hill. Yep. We sent cars through here all morning by made sure Rich and New to leave with the green machine in the loading bay. Awesome.

As the train climbed up the hill, the lift hill, I made no attempt to hide my under belief. Looked out over the expansive park. I couldn't believe it was fine. Every track, every car, every turnstile, every screw. All from the front gate to the overflow parking lot in the back was all ours. I wished I could go back in time and tell a young me waiting in the two-hour line for Mayhem Mount. One day, you will own this place. As we crested the hill and the train fell into the first drop, I realized I essentially had gone back in time.

At least I was screaming like a 12-year-old, as was everyone else behind me. We dipped into the first tester hill and then banked hard and up to the second lift hill. We dropped from there down to the vertical loop, banked around a set of gift ships, up briefly, and then down a small hill into the inline roll. We arrived back at the loading bay. We were all screaming and whooping. Charlotte didn't even have to ask, just smiled at us and sent us through again. We went twice and more before we finally got off the ride. Koji walked over to check out the control panel while the rest of us taunted my sister. You sure you don't want to go, Char? It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome.

It's great. It's awesome. It's amazing. It's so good that I'm dizzy still. I can't speak. Nah, I'm good. I have no problem being the carny for this ride. Come on, Charlotte. Just one more time. Oh my God. One Simon will leave you alone. Tyler's like coughing up blood on the ground. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no way, not interested. I'll write anything else. Charlotte still got it

Hey, do you guys know what track B is? Track B? What do you mean? Brandon walked over to Koji at the control board and raised an eyebrow. That's weird. It's probably just the track that used to get the cars to the storage bay. No, that's called a transfer track. Track B has to be something else.

Yeah, well, I've been on this ride enough times to know that there is no other track. He definitely has. So, should we try it? Fuck no. If you don't know what track B is, that means that contractors didn't know about it either, which means it hasn't been inspected at least 20 years. That's suicide.

Look, if track B exists, then even the most incompetent engineers would have found it during an inspection. It rich cleared this entire ride. It's probably just the ride in reverse. We're good. well we're in what kind of roller coaster has the ride in reverse he had no shit

that's terrifying so we should make this to where it goes both ways Mario cart mirror race no thank he was speaking for the both of them though Danny didn't look quite on board with the idea Mark yeah I guess I'm in what's the worst that could happen

funneled into a repair bay all right then I'm into he flipped the switch over to attract me in a moment later a loud metallic scraping some distance away from the park sound uh-oh uh-oh look look look look i know no look look look look just because and literally everything else has been the same up until the metallic noise part it it's okay I hope. I don't know.

Are we sure? We're here together either way. I studied the familiar silver roller coaster under the pink sky of the setting sun, but I saw no physical changes to the track. I looked over at Brandon and a shrug of his shoulders told me he didn't either. Shall we? Gestured to the train cars, we had just as embarked. I gave Charlotte a questioning look, but she shook her head with an emphatic no.

So it was just the six of us again. It's only right, you two take the bow of the ship. Oh, captains, my captains. He gave a mock salute. I laughed and hopped into the right side of the front row. Brandon crawled into the seat next to me. Tyler and Koji got in behind us, and Scott and Danny took the back. We pulled the shoulder bars down and they locked into place.

You sure about this? Danny said something from her place, a few hours back, but all I heard was Brandon say. Pull it! The brakes released and the train rolled away from the platform and into the twilight of dusk. The lights had lit up on the track while we'd been arguing and the roller coaster looked absolutely beautiful. I was filled with awe and reverence at what this place truly met to me and my friends. It was a symbol of our youth and innocence, blissful ignorance of the world. It was our own little bubble of happiness. The coaster again climbed the lift hill from the top. Brandon and I

studied the track, but in those few seconds, I saw no difference. Brandon looked over and I shook my head at him disappointed. By the time we reached the vertical loop, halfway through the ride, it was clear that there was no track beat, but it was hard to be upset because I was still on Mayhem Mountain, still found it an impossible challenge not to smile. We banked around the now brightly lit gift shops up the small tester hill and then back down the inline roll, except the inline roll was suddenly above us. We'd missed it. Instead, the track now descended into a large square hole in the ground. Behind the gift, no, behind the gift shops, and we were headed directly into it.

I was in too much shock to scream or even move. The black hole swallowed us in an instant and we descended into complete darkness. I felt a comfortable pressure leave my shoulders and realized that the shoulder bars had released. I gripped the front lip of the ledge of my seat and heard the terrified screams of my friends behind me as the coast were suddenly spun into what felt like an inline roll. Friends, do you want to scream? I knew they'd be too enthusiastic about it. I was too scared to do anything, but hold on for dear life, though some part of my brain

registered that the G-forces of the roll probably would have been enough to keep me in my seat if I'd like, oh, probably. We came out of the inline roll and dropped again, hard. As the roller coaster dropped, the room suddenly lit up around us. I saw the track below arcing up into a light tester hill. As we hit the bottom of the hill, the shoulder bars lowered mechanically. The car went over the small tester hill and then brake to start up another tall lift hit. I took my first breath since dropping through the ground and looked around, tuning out the screams of Danny and Tyler behind me.

We were in what can be described as a cavernous room, and I only assume it stretched in the farthest reaches of the park above. There were lots of vertical loops, high drops and sharp curves that put the tracks perpendicular to the ground. Throughout the entire sub-level building, lamps dotted the wall every 30 feet. They put out a dreary yellow glow for as far back as the eye could see, but many were burnt out and imparts the track disappeared into darkness. But in the dull, yellow edges of the light, I saw something that registered in me a horror beyond death. Far away from us, in a section of shadowy track, I saw the high crest of a peak hill, which reached almost the ceiling of the giant room, and then the track just ended. Suddenly, I felt the horrible reality of the world outside my mind began to bleed in. Danny was screaming uncontrollably. Tyler was crying, bawling even.

Koji was yelling at Brandon, who was looking straight at me, hitting my leg hard and repeating my name. As the cars continued to climb, I finally gave him my attention. I didn't want to be alone in the fear anymore. What is this? We have to get out this ride. We have to get out this ride, Mark. I know, man. We're going to die.

I know, man. I yelled at him as we reached the top of the lift hill and dropped over the other side. I squeezed my eyes shut until I felt the shoulder bars once again released, and I bit my lip to keep him crying. I opened my eyes and choked as I watched the track ahead us, bend up into a vertical loop. I reached up and tried to pull the shoulder bar down, but it was locked in place. Hang on, hang on to the seats! As we approached the loop, I felt the brakes engaging, slowing the car, and the tow cable catch beneath my feet.

We were being pulled up through the loop, but too slowly for gravity to keep us in our seats. As the train began to invert, I felt my feet rise from the floor of the car. My hair fell over my face and my butt left the seat. I closed my eyes and tried to block out the screams of terror from behind me. I concentrated on my death grip of the ledge on my seat as we granted the track. We remained upside down for what felt like eternity. Finally, the pressure began to ease. My butt dropped to my seat and my feet to the floor.

The white noise subsided from my ears and I heard Koji screaming. Tyler! Fuck! Fuck! He fell out! Fuck, he fell! He's dead, man! He's dead! He hit the track down there! He had a crazed look in his eye. I was finally seeing the Brandon for my youth. The shoulder bars descended again this time locking in tighter.

We came out of the loop and sped up and down several tester hills. I tried to study the track ahead of us as we went through the safer parts. I thought I saw a water reflecting off the metal rail somewhere in the distance. Brandon sobbed in his seat. Mark, what are we going to do? I don't want to die, man. I don't want to fucking die. I don't know.

I don't know what to do. I'm sorry. I'm scared too. We banked around a corner of the room and the shoulder bars released again. This time, we dove into a curve that put the left side of the train parallel to the ground, and it was a long drop. I gripped the edge of the seat tightly as before, but this time I kept my eyes open and was able to catch Bram. as he began to slip out of his seat. By the time the train righted itself,

I couldn't tell who'd been lost. Most of the screaming behind me had turned to loud sobbing or silence. The shoulder bar didn't re-engage and I felt the car's brake slowed the train down again. I didn't have to loop to know what was coming next.

It was another inverted loop. This one was tall and large and I could tell we'd be upside down for longer. Someone behind me began screaming again, Danny, I think. As I tried to take measured breasts and position my hurting hands back under the lip of the seat. Brandon did the same, looked over at me as the car started off the loop, tears streaming down his face.

I don't want to die here, man. I shook my head back in him because I couldn't think of anything to say. I felt tears leave my own eyes as we reached the tipping point of the loop and my feet again left the floor. Before we were even completely upside down, I felt my back began to slip down the seat. I thought if I lost my grip, I could try to grab for the shoulder bars when I fell off the car. The car suddenly stopped and I opened my eyes to see we were completely in front. heard it. I grunted loudly at the pain an immense effort it was taking to keep my grip on the seat. The car started to move again slowly and I heard Brandon say something to me. I looked over

at him just before he slid out of the car. One second he was there next to me and the next he was falling, falling away from the car. I saw Brandon try to grab the shoulder bar on the way out but we couldn't keep his grip on it. I watched him fall and I saw him break his back on the trap below and he stopped moving. I stared down at him as the car continued to move slowly around the loop, he started back up at me, dead or nine. By the time the car hit him on the way out of the loop, he was completely gone. Shoulder bars re-engaged and we went through a dreadfully long period where nothing happened. We were secured in our seats by the restraints as the coaster spent what felt like several minutes racing over hills, banks, curves, even an inline roll.

Without the adrenaline pumping through my veins, I felt the shock began to wear off. It was replaced by a panic and fear unlike I'd ever experienced and I decided that was the point of this section of the track to build and facilitate an unbearable fear. I felt the brakes engaged finally and I looked ahead to find the loop we were surely entering, but there was none. We were high, almost to the top of the ceiling, and we slowed to a stop on a straightaway. Directly ahead was a drop in at the bottom of the hill a series of four different tracks with a transfer stack just before they split off. Each track had five or so feet of color, red, orange, green, and blue before racing off in different directions. I felt an urgent shape.

shaking on my shoulder and turned around to hear what Koji was saying. Which track are we connected to? I looked at the transfer stack. Green. Where does green go? It was hard to hear him over the sound of Danny sobbing from the second car. I tried to trace the green track through the building, constantly losing him finding it again.

I wasn't sure, but it seemed to end at the lift hill I'd seen earlier. The hill with no track at the top. I yelled back and pointed. It ends at the hill. Danny cried louder. Fuck! While we were stopped, I rub my hurting hands together. As I looked down at them, I noticed something new in the car.

At some point, a small blinking panel and flipped over in the wall at the front of the car. It had four colored buttons and an old analog timer. The timer was so old and damaged that though the numbers were clearly changing, I couldn't see how long we had. We get to choose. Can you see which track ends where?

I followed all the tracks as best I could, but the rails circled and slid in between each other. It was hard to tell which track went where. I think the blue track ends in that big pool in the corner the red track ends in a wall and the orange one just drops into a hole in the floor like the one we came

down here through, I think. There's no way out, dude. They're just telling us how we're going to die. We can still find a way out of this. Choose the pool. I've heard drowning isn't an awful death. What the fuck? Yes, it is.

You know, Scott, I've got to say you're probably wrong. Your brain shuts down and you go out slowly. Scott, not that I've ever been there or anything, but I'm going to guess, no. Choose the pool. I've heard drowning isn't an awful death. I've heard it's calming at the end. I can hear him choking back tears. Okay, I'm sorry, Scott.

That's better. No, choose the hole in the floor. It's possible it drops down into another cavern like this. There might be more track, which means more time to figure out how to live. You don't think we'd be the first to choose that option, do you? And no one that went missing ever came back. There's just more death in that hole. I don't want to die like this, and at least it's a chance.

Danny was still whimpering in the back and offered no suggestion. It seemed the decision was up to me, and I had to make it fast. I knew I didn't want to die by dropping off the track. I didn't want to drown. Perhaps the quickest death was the wall. You got a car crash us? I'm trying to hang with it and get through the idea of just like, wily coyotes smacking it to a wall.

If anyone survives, they're going to have serious whiplash. Yeah, I hear it's peaceful towards the end. Yeah, I hear a brick wall is peaceful near the end. It's a slow death, really. More than likely, we would all be killed instantly. Less suffering, less time to think about our fates. But the truth was, I was an entirely positive witch track into where. It was all educated guesswork and my time was up.

The orange, let's go down to the second floor if there is one. Scott and Danny said nothing, and Koji choked out the last. words I'd ever hear him say. Push it before it chooses for us. Before I could think about it any longer, I pushed the orange button and committed us to whatever death it led to. We heard the metallic scraping of the track transferring below. Once the orange track was securely connected, the brakes on the car released and the train rolled slowly toward the drop. Danny started screaming again. As we dropped down the hill, I got a better view of the orange track. There was a vertical

loop ahead that didn't look as high as the others we'd been through. In fact, It looked like there was a chance to fall. It was a chance to fall wouldn't kill us. If it wasn't an optical illusion and if the shoulder bars disengaged for that loop, we might have a shot at living through this. I yelled back to everyone behind me. Let yourself fall out of the loop, the one up there.

No one responded to me, which didn't matter because I didn't think I'd have the courage to let go of the seat anyway. We raced along the track in and out of the banks and curves. At one point, we passed along the pool and I looked down. Below the water's surface, the track ended above an even deeper pool. I could see the shadows of several coaster cars at the very bottom.

I suddenly felt the brakes engaged and I realized we were coming to the loop. I tested the shoulder bar by pushing up on it, but it stayed locked. I was somewhat relieved in that moment to know I wouldn't have to make the decision to fall out now or gamble on the orange track. But suddenly, the restraints released. As we started up the loop, I gripped the lip to seat tightly and turn my head back to look down. It looked like we were very high and I only hoped the ground was the loosely. packed dirt that it looked like. I had to choose now, fall or the hole, I chose the fall.

So I began to slide up the seat. I yelled at the others to let go and fall out of the car. Then I closed my eyes and let go. Felt my head crack the shoulder bar on the way out. It wasn't like a slow motion fall. It was over before I realized that I actually let go. One moment, I felt an intense pain as my head hit the bar and in the same moment I realized I was on the ground. And even at the time to realize the possibility of hitting the track below or getting run over by the cars. Over my eyes in time to watch the cars speed over the track above me. The pain didn't hit me all at once.

I had one long, blissful second before I felt it. And then I was in agony. I'd hoped my body was so in shock that I wouldn't feel much of the pain, but I felt it all. I concentrated on keeping my eyes open and trying to catalog the damage. There's blood on my clothes, but I didn't know what part of my body it was coming from. I heard screaming as well, but I didn't know if it was in my head or coming from my friends as they approached the end.

I didn't want to move, didn't think it was safe to move, but I knew I had to, if only to pull out my phone. Trembling fingers, I pulled the thing from my pocket and brought it to my face, trying to focus on the screen, but it was shattered and refused to even turn on. I threw it away from me, and then I realized the silence. The ride had ended. With a great amount of effort, I rolled over onto my stomach and dragged my broken body across the ground towards where I thought I remembered seeing the hole. I crawled for what seemed like hours. Maybe it was. Sometimes I tried to stand or even kneel, but the pain of my back and ribs was too great. I passed out several times from shock and pain, but eventually I made it to where the track disappeared into the ground.

I pulled myself to the edge and looked down inside the hole. The track ended just below the surface. It was a natural shaft with walls made of rock. I didn't know how deep it went, and I didn't want to. It was a fate I'd only narrowly escaped. But then I thought my friends were down there and maybe someone survived. goji my voice echoed loudly down the shaft no answer scott nothing i reached for a nearby screw and dropped it down the hole it took half a minute to land and when it did it was with a tink as it hit something metal small sound echoed up the shaft and out into the cavernous room and i realized this place was built with acoustics in mind i rolled over onto my back and studied everything i could see from where i was staving off my body's desired

pass out again. I felt nothing but numbness when I finally saw what I was looking for. A long panoramic window in the far wall. I knew what track would be was for and I finally let myself slip away into the darkness. I remember very little of my rescue. There were lots of people in uniform and my sister yelling in pain, lots of pain. I was in and out on the way to the hospital, but I remember I passed through the room behind the window at some point. From my stretcher through the chaos, I saw in that room a single chair facing the window. It was covered in a deep layer of dust. I was never visited by anyone official, let alone ask to give a statement. Charlotte stayed by my side of the hospital for months while I recovered. She wouldn't say much about that day,

although she finally did tell me something. She said that they wouldn't let her ride with me to the hospital and that someone offered her a ride. On that drive, she'd been spoken to by two people that had convinced her to never speak of what had happened and to convince me of the same. Whatever they threatened her with, had her begging me to agree, and I did at the time. I am still to this day learning to walk without aid. I never saw a mayhem out again. The lone defaulted in Adventure Valley was bought up by an unknown LLC, which bulldozed it and built a block of apartments over the top. They're still empty to this day. I don't like the dark anymore. It reminds me of the horror of my friends experienced as they

looked down and saw the track end before they disappeared into that hole. I try not to think about what they must have felt as they fell down the shaft in complete darkness, strapped to a roller coaster, waiting for the terrible end. I wish I'd chosen the pool, if only to save them from that fate. As for the billionaire son, well, he was only simple in the fact that he was a man of simple taste, and he still is. I looked him up once, only a few years ago. He owned several amusement parks now, all sizable, but small and small.

enough to be popular only in their specific regions. In fact, one's not very far from where I live now. I thought about going many times, just to check, just to see. But then I realized that I probably didn't need to search all the rides in the park to know. Because I know somewhere in that park, some ride in some corner, has a track beat. That's man, Matt. Yeah, that's the man, man. Unbelievable.

Unbelievable. That's such a good one. You what's so funny is you sit there and you get completely immersed by the story. I mean, like you were joke around the beginning,

but then there's just an exact moment everybody just stops and listens to you. Well, I mean, I was going to make some jokes and stuff. I'm like,

I kind of filled a vibe. No, yeah. It's like, it's good. Because, I mean, you mentioned it at the first show. For one, can I just say, so glad it wasn't a pedophile,

right? Yep. For once. We've been shown mercy. The first show, I didn't know that going in I kept being like, uh, uh, like I was scared to death. No, you mentioned at the first show that it was like a saw movie.

It very much feels like a saw movie. Which it really was, like, why would someone with all this money and stuff want to kill people for fun and, like, crazy ways? Or even just who built, like, the amenities that you would need to build a bunker. Yeah, you need billions of dollars to hide all. It's also funny. I didn't think about it until this time, but when Charlotte was up there, it's like, oh, there's a track B. Like, some 16-year-old high school kid was like, I guess I'll send this batch to the dead room. Like, just, like, switching over.

every night. No shit. But no, it's a fun story. Like I said, like, she's able to take these otherwise basic characters and make me care about them. And it's a ton of fun. Like, you go through a giant roller coaster underground and people are dying, and then you have to choose how you die.

Yeah. It's just a fun, campy little story. And I'm glad we got to read it for you all. And also, a round of applause for these guys. You're doing such a great job. Beautiful. Thank you so much. You may all depart the state.

Yeah, you may go back to your seats. You can keep the scripts, though. Those are yours. Yep. Keep them. Round applause again. Get up. Who up, creeping, they cast.

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