CreepCast - I Found The Bunker Of A Prepper Family | CreepCast

Episode Date: January 25, 2026

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Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. The creepcast. Today we are going to be reading Christian Wallace's. I found the bunker of a prepper family who went missing three years ago. Which Isaiah, tell the people who Christian Wallace is, even though he needs no introduction. Christian Wallace is one of,

definitely one of our most frequently covered writers, I would say. And for good reason, the man has put out some absolute bankers from, my wife has taken our roleplay too far and the counter story my husband has taken our roleplay too far let me search this before I'm sometimes I think of an author and I'm like oh yeah he wrote that

and I say it was confidence and people later will be like no he did say that and it's like don't you do this for a living and I'm like well that's debatable you know I do I do this and I make money doing it but to say I'm like professional at it implies a level of ownership that I'm not really, you know, prepared for. And he also did the only other astronaut on this mission died six weeks ago. One of our favorites.

So those are some of the best stories we've covered on the channel. And we've covered a ton of a lot of his other stuff too. So we're reading another one of these stories today. Hunter saw this title a while back and has been really excited to read it ever since. So I'm getting out the way. He picked this one out. So if it's Christian Wallace's first bad story, it's Hunter's fault. It is my fault.

I will say I'm a huge, I've done videos on my channel popa meat for it, but like doomsday preppers, like that kind of like end of the world scenario survivalist is such a, I don't know, it's such a fascinating community of people, you know, because it's one of those things. I don't know if you feel the same way, but it's one of those things where you're just like, you can't say that they're totally wrong or so it's like preparing for the inevitable. And I'm sure that some of them obviously go off the deep end or, you know, all that kind of stuff. But I will say there's something just like also you know what it fucks with me is that i sometimes feel like i'm like what do they know that i don't you know like i feel like they have something figured out that i don't and that always fucks me up to so i'm very curious to see what angle christian takes with this kind of like subject matter um i will say during the flood like hurricane helene when all the roads and like infrastructure was gone for a few weeks and it was kind of everyone was left to him for themselves, guests who had the food, the electricity, and was able to help everyone else. No shit, really.

The preppers. Yeah. They had a ton of food because they had food supplies for years. They were handed them out to people and they had electricity. And they had like Starlink systems. The people could contact their families and let them know they were okay. They could coordinate with other people to tell rescue crews where to go and stuff like that. So, yeah, made the difference.

With a flood, this might be a stupid question, but are, the underground bunkers they would just flood too right or are there some that are actually airtight sealed where they could flood and they'd be fine uh i mean you can get ones that are sealed it's so unless you you don't you run out of oxygen though right you would i mean like if you get really serious about this you can have a rebreather system you know set up um we're like you have an airway that like has a vent that's on higher ground right or whatever it's all where your intake you're you're in take you're you're in-take is. But most of it wasn't like standing water you're stuck under. It's like floods of water that you just need to keep away from the door. Right. So if you're on any level of elevation and not next to a river, any kind of bunker would have been able to endure it because you're not just setting under it. Right. Most of the damage was caused by the wind and like the, the torrential rains creating these like mud slides and stuff like that. Interesting. Well, I'll tell you what, you know, joke all you want, but when the power goes out, guess who's laughing?

Guess who's got... Yeah, it's one of those, uh, there's this layer the cable guy bit for back in the day when he's like, everybody makes fun a redneck until their car breaks down or something like that. It's like that kind of like, it's that same kind of vibe, but... Yeah, they're, that, uh, the old saying, uh, the man who sleeps with a machete is a fool every night, but one. Yeah. God.

So fucking brutal. It's so cool, though. It's sick. Uh, I mean, I'm excited, though. Christian Wallace has, I mean, like, I would say the, uh, the astronaut story is one of my favorites. It also caused me to talk about Mr. Floppy, which maybe Mr. Floppy will make an appearance here. I don't know. I hope not.

We'll see. But yeah, I mean, if anything, let's get into it. You know, I just realized that on my new set, the way it's set up where you can see the, uh, cryptid tier chart back there, which I will finish at some point. but you drew the big demon-headed thing saying kind of cringe. And that's like the largest single item in my background. You've got to change that. The biggest thing on my set is something you did. That is unfortunate.

And you should change that. You need to commission like a sick, like a sculpture or something of like a cryptid. Well, what I want to do when I get, so this room's temporary. This is in the new house, right? and I'm just waiting for like the little studio to get built next to the house. Right.

When that studio's built, I want the inside of it to look like a log cabin. Oh, that's fun. Like a fireplace and stuff. And I want to have a huge mount made. Like I have the little, like the normal deer over there that I put the night vision on. I want to have like a massive. There's this, what's the thing? I think it's when the deer get too much calcium at like pay hunt farms.

but they won't shed old antlers. They'll just grow new ones. It's like it's not good for the deer and stuff. Like that's what happens when you overspike their diet. But it gets these weird, like monstrous looking racks to come out of them. And I want to have like a commission art piece that looks like that with like a huge like monstrous skull in the night, like a windigo, you know, mount with the night vision. And I want to put that as like a mantle piece over the back of the room. I mean, that would be fucking sick.

Especially being in a log cabin. You would literally have your set. It would look like the lonely broadcast station. Well, so the way the set's going to look is one wall is going to be like solid cabin walls, fireplace and all that. And then the other wall is floor to ceiling windows that is pushed up against the forest. Oh, how fun. So it's like in the forest with freaks. out being in there at night.

Fuck. Well, I mean, where I am right now, I keep putting more lights up so it's like you can walk around the property at night. When those lights are off, we need to, we need to do a night recording one night and really try to read one that we think is actually scary. And I want to see you fucking squirm in that new office. Because that way, I feel like, because I've done that even before, I love me, I've kept my composure.

But there's times where I'm alone at my studio. And I'll like, and I, I just, I'm so immersed in the story that I feel like I'm like seeing things. So I kind of like look up or look behind me or something casually. It's just, it fucks with you so well. But dude, the forest right there. No. There's no way. I would pussy out so bad.

Where I'm at right now, I've got. So this, this, um, rooms on the second story. So there's like trees that hang right outside the window. And at night, I'll open the window to let the breeze in. So there's been a couple times I've been playing a. scary game or watching something scary. And I'll glance and I'll see the wind like pushing the limbs towards the window back and forth.

It's excellent vibe, but terrifying. Are they close enough? Are they close enough that they like tap your window? They're not close enough to tap, but they're close enough that they're in the peripheral kind of bowing in. I bet you anything you start you like just, you imagine, you just hear it and you're like just like the, I bet you're going to start feeling like you hear something, you know. It's too perfect.

an environment to not have that happen. One night I came in here and an owl, I had the window open and there's an owl that was perched on the window and he was facing away for me, but it was dark in the room and he was fat. So

walking into the room, it looked like the back of someone's head. Oh God. Right? But like I said, this is a second story. So that would be like an 11 foot tall. Yeah. The giants in the apple. Galatios, yeah. I walk through, I walk into the door and I freeze and I see like the silhouette and then it flies away.

And I like jumped out of my skin. Oh my God. Yeah, no. Good times. Yeah. I'll get, I'll get scared for a recording one night. That'll be fun. We should. Yeah. Also, thank you to our audio listeners right now who are driving or usually at work from what we see. Thank you for listening on Spotify or Apple podcast. It helps us out if you give us a nice rating. And then also to our Patreon members who got a little exclusive story. yesterday or a couple days ago. And we'll probably be getting me a little more frequently while Isaiah has his beautiful baby coming soon. So if you want some extra content, feel free to go there, support the channel. If not, you get all the free content right here, baby. Otherwise, Isaiah, do you want to jump in? Go ahead and jump in. I do have one question for the people, because you brought up that a lot of people comment

that they listen at work and stuff like that. what I feel like there's not a ton of jobs you can do that right well I don't know there has to be a ton of jobs for you can't do that I mean probably but I think I don't know like even whenever I did

like construction or something I was had like an earbud in construction and stuff like that yes if there's like if it's you doing a task absolutely I get it but if you're in any kind of like service position like someone can't be working a checkout right well of course not the show.

But you know what I do see is people will say on their lunch break they'll put something on or I would say a large part of our audience I think while they're doing like I think that we are

background fodder for people cleaning their house I believe is is a big one too people are like yeah I just want to do my errand I mean that absolutely makes I do the same thing I listen to YouTube videos

yeah it's the best background I listen to creepcast yeah I listen to myself talk for her I remember that yeah all right yeah we can go ahead and get into it. So.

And we will leave a link to Christians. He has an anthology book as well. We'll leave a link to his stuff in the description. With teeth. We're also going to leave a link to his website, C.H. Wallace.co. com. UK, even though he's from the UK, I forgive him.

He has a link to a ton of his one-off stories as well as his like short stories and stuff like that on there. So be sure to check him out. He's a fantastic author. I feel like some of the best writers are from the UK that we've read. Even like Neon Tempo with the, the left-right game. That's also a UK lad. And Dathan is, no, Dathan's American.

He's American. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's on the right side of the pawn. That's right. Yeah. All right. Let's get into it. All right. I found the bunker of a prepper family who went missing three years ago. Dr. Daniel Vance was a smart man. Too smart for his own good, maybe.

40 years old, a lecture in fluid dynamics with a mind made of shapes and numbers. No one knows why, one day, on a whim, crunched the numbers on the apocalypse and came to a troubling conclusion. He didn't share exactly what it was, he deduced. But given that he immediately quit his job and liquidated his many assets, it's fair to say it wasn't positive. Swep up in the wake of the tremendous upheaval was his wife, a 24-year-old PhD student who had had grown infatuated with Daniel sometime before. She loved the strange bear of a man who could just as easily build a log cabin as he could explain the idiosyncrasies of an asteroid's orbit.

Speaking to Daniel, always left you with a profound impression he was right. So when he told her what he wanted to do, she agreed. Fifteen years and five children later, the Vance's were living in the distant woods just beyond my hometown. They were enigmatic, richer than the Pope and extremely serious about their Preper lifestyle. But they were also funny, easygoing, and incredibly compelling to speak to. This is like Ted Kaczynski if he could speak to women. Well, he's not, we don't know he's Ted Kaczynski yet. I will say I do like this.

Super smart PhD guy builds Lock Cabin in the woods. If he didn't write about murdering women that he was afraid to go on dates with and instead of married them, that's what I mean is. have no, he, this, the doctor has no, uh, fault like that yet. If anything, I do like the dynamic of like, very scholarly man, uh, has wife who was like infatuated with his studies. Now they like live remotely. This, this setup also of like, I love, I love this setup too, not to stop it too soon, but the idea that, uh, a learned man is doing this thing. It doesn't seem crazy. Right. Like these things, it's a person that is too, too.

smart for their own good at them doing it. You really don't think anything of it, but I'm curious to see where it takes that left turn. I'll also say there, again, not to make this about me, but I like making stuff about me. There is a surprising number of people

you'll find. A lot of them I found during the flood who are like preppers who, you know, live off the grid, own their own generator for power, use you know, wood pellet stoves for heat and stuff like that, who will come to find out are incredibly accomplished doctors,

researchers, inventors. There's this one guy who was one of the people bringing supplies, repairing equipment for people. And it turns out that he had the patent on a bunch of like surgical technology, stuff like that. Yeah, he was loaded. Yeah. But no, they'd rather just live off the grid, put their stuff together. It's like you get to a point where you're like, hey, this whole, like, rat race societal thing. Maybe not for me. Maybe all I need is a fireplace and a wife, you know? I also think that people, because of TV and stuff, have also made like every Doomsday Prepper person is like a religious fanatic or like a sheltered person or like, like trying to get all of these like negatives attached to it when it could just be

some people are just like too smart for their own good. They're just like, we should probably have these backups. We should probably have these commodities, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's like, well, I mean, you know, you never know what can go wrong. Who has? Who knows? I'm just too lazy. If the world ends, I'm just, I'm going to lay on my lawn outside and I'm just going to let it take me. I'm sure my wife will flee and she will live her life with a with a man who was willing to survive, but I'm just going to be like, I'm, I just, I can't. I just simply cannot. Just a minor inconvenience. Yes. It's a thunderstorm. All right. I'm dead.

Well played, world. Yeah. Well played. Checkmate. I get it. They're running a vacuum right outside of the door. I can hear anything. Okay. If you can hear it, we'll keep going. But it made me think of that thing. I want some streamer did where there were housekeepers in the background.

And he was like embarrassed to keep speaking. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. The many mentions of XQC on this podcast. We've only mentioned him twice, right? Yeah. The many.

That is a surprising number to come up. Yeah. You're right. But they were also funny, easygoing, and incredibly compelling to speak to. Larger than live survivalists who swept into town with bizarre requests that thrilled local businesses. Vast quantities of cement, iron, lead, and steel were all shipped through the remote mountains so that the vanses could build their shelter. The advanced methods they used to keep it secret were legendary.

Daniel had once spent six months earning the license necessary to drive HGVs up to his compound so that no one else lay eyes on it. And on one occasion, when a company had refused their request for GPS tracker-free vehicles, he bought them out wholesale so that they had no choice. Wow. What are HGVs, by the way? High something vehicles. It's like it's heavy equipment that you use to transport materials on.

Okay. So it's not just like a semi truck. It's something that can go up a mountain or something. Or like it's more terrain or heavy, right? Good Lord. You okay? Heavy. I'm getting over the flu.

Heavy goods vehicles. So any like tractor trailer. 8 to 7. Okay, so it's just a, okay, so it's just like a semi-bed shirt basically. Yeah, similar, something like that, yeah. So when they stopped appearing in town during the pandemic, when requests for food

and goods stopped and all contact was dropped, most attributed it to lockdown. They had a bunker and had spent their entire lives training to be self-sufficient in the face of civilizations collapse. Even Alexander, the youngest to just three, was already collecting

firewood as a chore and learning what local plants were edible. Most of us just assumed that if anyone could ride out COVID without breaking a sweat, it would be the Vance's. The reality turned out to be something else. When the worst came to light, we discovered that Daniel had used the pandemic as an excuse for a dry run. The family intended to spend six months in lockdown and essentially beta tests their fallout bunker. Three months in and the sheriff received a distress call on the radio. Coordinates were provided by the hushed voice of a sobbing child that most assumed was out of

Alexander, even though that's never been proven. The police arrived and found the bunker still sealed. It took hours for emergency responders to cut into the door. All the while, efforts were made to contact the family within, but to no avail. Once inside, police were left dumbfounded. There was no one to be rescued. No bodies, no survivors. There was evidence the door's locking mechanism had failed and trapped the vances inside with no way out.

but if so, where are they gone? Hmm. So let's, so the, that's kind of crazy. So a child called in the report to even let people know where they're at. But now it looks,

the thing is basically, it's sealed shut, no way of getting out, but they're gone. Yes, correct. That is, that's horrifying.

I mean, like, what kind of mystery even. You know what? It just reminds you of something where it's like the, kind of like the lonely broadcast station stuff of like the 411 missing reports, where it's like, oh, they're gone. And then all of a sudden they just reappear, like this kind of like weird phenomenon.

It has that vibe. But also just the idea of a child escaping and like and calling the cops is such a horrifying. It's such a horrifying call to hear. And it's, it's so creepy how like casually it's just brushed by. Like a child weeping calls and we like went to work. Like it's just it's so nonchalantly said. It's probably the three year old, which how did a three year old know? But you would have to assume it's older than that, right?

Because they had five kids. Oh, yeah. That's true. It's true. It could be any one of them. So kid calls. They were sealed inside, but they're gone. Yeah. So it's like, is there a secret door in the bunker?

Does it go deeper? That's what I'm wondering. Do you go into a thing where they discover that he was even wilder than they expected and went even deeper into the earth or, you know, like some kind of weird cavity or something like that. Or did something burrow in? I don't know. Okay.

You remember how at the beginning it said that he was doing like equations and then he freaked out and that's what started all this. Okay. So they go back and look at his equations and it's like a bunch of numbers and like symbols and stuff. And at the end it just says mole people. Yeah. It's like all these.

Like how did he do this math they got to mole people? he has a perfectly preserved mole skull in his room then someone so someone's at the side they're like if he was afraid of mole people why would he dig down? Yeah one of the cops is like why would you dig down

and then there's like an obvious mole person in a cop uniform that is very strange I don't know why he would do that we should probably just get out of here right I think it's a great idea. Bob, that's a damn fine idea. Let's get out here.

Yeah, let's go get some breakfast. Does anyone want to go to the caves, perhaps? Yeah. Hold on a second. Let me dig this hole real quick. Of course. Okay, I'm ready. Beds and cods lay everywhere with moldering,

yellow sheets, buckets close to hand with stains all around them. Some doors were barred, others smashed to pieces. There was evidence of makeshift quarantines and, in places, it looked like violence. The police, usually a fantastic source of gossip, were not forthcoming until the town demanded answers and the sheriff was forced to offer only the barest of outlines. An outbreak of waterborne illness has struck the vances down not long after they were locked inside and unable to seek help. Rumors of contagion were ever stated

and fueled by unrelated rise of COVID. Whatever contaminant had killed the Vance's, it was non-organic in nature. No need to panic. The Vance's loved ones had been notified. The bunker was going to be demolished and we could all put this terrible tragedy behind us. Don't you hate those waterborne illnesses

that completely vaporized the body in clothes? Yeah, I mean, this is 100% just sounds like a cover up, right? Yeah, of course. 100% not telling the public what is actually happening. Yeah. An outbreak of waterborne illness has struck the van says down. There it is. That's what I should have done that.

Damn it. I should have done that. Fuck. So you're whiskers. So you have mud all of your whiskers. Oh, sorry. Wives it off. Thank you.

That way. So, mole, what seems to be the problem? We don't know. Yeah, that pitch was over your left shoulder and you swung at it. I know. It was right there for the taking. I'm so sad. This video is sponsored by Hello Fresh.

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add radios, computers, smartphones too. They were survivalists, not Amish. And where were they? I like the implication that the Amish wouldn't call for him. Also, yeah, well, I think he's trying to say that the Amish don't have cell phones, but I'm pretty sure. Cell phones, but I'm pretty sure the Amish do have like a fucking Verizon plan. So it's different to different groups depending on where you're at. But a lot of the Amish people I know are like, um,

they'll say that it's okay to use technology for work or stuff like that. Like they'll drive vehicles for work and stuff like that. It's leisure typically that they stay away from. So they'll call you in an emergency or like if they need some. It's not like, well, I guess it's time to die here, Jedediah. Jabber Dyer, grab the messenger owl and send this to the hospital quick. He's like, no, they can make a fucking call, dude. Verizon, T-Mobile.

What are these evil spells you speak of? What are these demons in your magic box? Yeah, I don't want any temptation from you devils. Away with you. That vacuum I mentioned earlier is like shoved up on the door now. And I think it's because the Amish are upset. This is the Amish vacuuming your house. Isaiah, let us in, you dirty boy.

Yeah, I open the door and they're just dressed like pilgrims. How long can someone... vacuum directly outside of the door. I heard it for fucking 25 minutes, 25 uninterrupted fucking minutes. It's just been a person fucking vacuuming the same spot. Go up there and tell him, it's clean. He got it. You got it.

It's like, it's a hallway too that's like 18 inches wide. How long is the stuff? It's a 780 foot hallway. So it takes a while. Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you. Did you have it visited yet? So I bought the house from House of Leaves.

It's actually a non-Euclidean hallway. That has an unmappable entrance. So I forgot to tell you, I bought the Winchester Mansion. And they're vacuuming the stairs that lead to nowhere right now. Technically, the house is the hallway. Yeah, we are the hallway. We've become the hallway. Yeah.

Okay. I think they left for now. It's like a shark. It keeps circling back. I bet you she's right. Whoever's vacuuming. They're like right by the door. And as soon as you stop talking, they turn it back on.

Or as soon as you start talking, they turn it back on. What's also funny about this is I'm doing the YouTuber thing where I'm really unappreciative of people that are helping me take care of my house. Listen, it's you can have all the appreciation of the world. What could possibly be near your door that they have not got? What could have happened? I don't know. It's just hardwood.

It's on that complex. It's hard wood. It's a rug. They're not even vacuuming carpeted floors. There's not even a rug there. Oh my God. Get a broom. Get a swiffer.

What are you possibly vacuuming? This is going to go down as the most out of touch. It's plastic wheels. It's plastic. wheels on hard wood. Oh, my God. Okay. All right.

Anyway, they were a survivalist, not Amish. And where were they? What had happened to their bodies? Why didn't they simply left? We shouted these and more at the town meeting, but the police simply refused to comment. For most of us, the excitement lasted another week or two until we realized we weren't getting answers anytime soon.

Besides, the pandemic was in full swing, and most of us had other things to worry about. The tragic story eventually faded until it was just one of those awful things in the town's history that we didn't talk about. I was as guilty as anyone else of just forgetting about it. I certainly never expected to find the bunker out there in the woods. Fated police tape still on the open door that hung wide open with scorch marks around the lock. It stood out in the woods like someone had cut a hole right in the fabric of reality. The darkness so deep and black it almost ate to look at.

The side of it made my heart drop into my stomach. radiated pain. Does that make sense? I think some part of my lizard brain picked out details that wouldn't become apparent to me until I got closer, like the bloody finger streaks that stained the handle from where someone had scrabbled furiously at the lock without success. And the tiny viewing window had been smashed with a hammer that still lay nearby. I needed only to glimpse it to imagine the family taking turns to stand there and scream into the woods, desperate for rescue. Good God. any other circumstances I would have run, but I'd gone there looking for my dog.

My light revealed a few wet pop prints making their way down the dusty concrete tunnel. Oh, God. Fuck. Oh, good. No. What? I abandoned the dog. There's no way.

No, come on. I can't. I can't. There's no way. Have you ever? Okay. Go ahead. No, go ahead.

No, you go for it. Have you ever abandoned? Have you ever. Um, like, like, what's urban exploration is a lame way to say it. But have you ever been in the woods and like checked out abandoned structures and stuff? No, uh, no. No, because I'll tell you. And I'll tell you why is because, well, one, I've seen too many movies.

And then two, I don't want to fall. I'm big. I'm a fat man. So I don't want to fall through any floors. And then three, I, I just imagine there's like squatters or something there. that is going to hurt me. So no. And then also an active crime scene

where there's bloody fingerprints where people have died and they haven't found the bodies. And then of course, my amazing little fucking pupper had to just, well, why don't I go down there? No, I'm good.

I told the story on here about like checking out the abandoned penitentiary, I think. And stuff like that. I love walking through abandoned buildings and stuff like that. There was, This is weirdly reminiscent of some,

there's some game I played where you're a man in the woods and there's an old bunker and your dog goes into it. What? That's a game? That has to be influenced by the story though, right? It was the Blair Witch video game. Interesting. This came out a while back and it was set in the universe

of the Blair Witch and you played as a guy who I think was a veteran who was coming coming home because there was a missing person out in the woods. So him and his dog went out there to look for it. And most of the game is you walking through the woods is like the Blair Witch gives you visions. And the dog is like your only companion out there. And there's one segment where he starts to hallucinate memories of like Afghanistan overlaid.

So it's like these barracks in the middle of the woods and the dog goes down into them and you follow. That's right. That's what it was. The game actually went kind of hard. I don't know what the public reaction was good. There's a segment at the end of the game where the dog's injured. And you walk with the dog for a long time.

And the message starts showing up saying leave him. So you think the only way you can get out is to lay the dog down and like leave him in the woods. But I think I did something different or went backwards or something and it fixed it. so you can get out with the dog. But I remember, like, walking around for a while, not knowing what to do and then seeing the message leave him. And I, like, my stomach drop, like, I'm not, I can't leave the dog. But Hunterwood, Hunterwood leaves the dog.

Oh, I would look at that pixelated dog and I would immediately turn around. I throw a bone down into the dark alley and I just go the opposite direction immediately. Oh, without a hesitation. That's good, buddy. I'm happy to hear that. My light revealed a few wet paw prints making their way down the dusty concrete tunnel. Half burn knees and half. of Collie. Ripley is the sort of dog who trembles in my arms when a storm buffets the windows

and needs his paws held when we brush him. I love him. I do not have much of a family or a wife or even many friends. But I have Ripley. I can no more have turned around and gone home to an empty apartment where I would have to sob my grief away than I could flat my arms and fly. He was my dog and I'd raised him since he was a puppy. I wasn't going to leave him out in those woods. I went in after him I didn't know what to okay what about your wife what if your wife went down those stairs

yes I mean even the Ripley thing who's made the dogs I'm very cute I feel bad I would probably go in after the dog if it was one of my dogs if it was tugboat no way that selfish son of a bitch

I'd be like you know what if I can live here dude what about Cromeda what about Croddad I would go down for Crawdad I'd go down for Croddad and Ron yeah Crod dad's down there like

yeah I would feel very sad for crawed out and I'd be like she's probably afraid tugboat though I'm like that selfish son of a bitch probably just like oh I live your doe whatever it makes you feel me better I also would not go in for tugboat I know all of that is the consensus and people online are like oh he's so cute blah blah blah I'm like you have no idea the selfish hatred this dog has for all of mankind tugboat likes to wait until I'm like by myself in the kitchen like drinking coffee or whatever and then get right behind me and scream as loud as he can. It's just unfortunate.

A genetic abomination. I didn't know what to expect, but I knew it wouldn't be good. Whatever the police had found, they not only kept most of the morbid details to themselves, they had also lied. The bunker was not demolished or even sealed off. In fact, looking at the occasional blue latex glove tossed aside, and the one or two broken police issue flashlights,

it seemed like the last people inside had been in a hurry to get out. Given this was where seven people had presumably died, I assumed it was someone's job to clean it all up. But the corridor looked largely untouched. Just a few meters in and manic writing started to cover the walls. The desperate scrawls of a lone survivor left there to be rediscovered like cave paintings. Most were deliberations on how to get out. diagrams, blueprints, equations, and formula, all focused on the door and the circuits

responsible for its faulty lock. I instinctively assumed they belonged to Daniel and that he'd been the last to die. What a god-awful fate for a man to outlive his children, and yet it got worse. Slowly the writing changed from equations and plans to a desperate scrawl. the same few phrases repeated over and over. Five doors. Five. Not six.

Six. Did it make it? Did it make it? Six doors. Six. God, dude. God.

Also, I just want to say, I was, I was already spooked by the idea of like, there are gloves tossed in flashlights. I'm telling you. See, Oh, Ripley doesn't seem so cute now, does she?

The idea, too, that's like, the police are like, oh, yeah, I know, things are like basically broken. You shouldn't have to go up there. It's like they probably went up there. It's all something and just left it completely untouched. Like, fuck that. We're not going back. No, no, no.

Also, the cave painting aspect thing, too, is insane. And watching like a person slowly, mentally go insane is, uh, five doors and six. Did I tell you about? my house what happened? No. So the house we got

previously a guy lived here with his wife since like they got married back in the 70s or whatever and then she died early 2000s and then he didn't die until like 2020. So for 18 years about he was living in the house by himself. So in

the basement he just started writing messages to himself and some of them are like notes like need to take out the trash, need to talk to so and so about an engine part, blah, blah, blah, blah. But as time goes on, they start to get more like, remember to look at the dog today. Like, remember to blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. And then he started to, I think, take notes about things that made him happy. Like he wrote like flowers bloom today and wrote the date and stuff like that.

And above all of them, above like all the right. writing he wrote on the wall sometime in 2014 uh baby owls flew so like he was watching a nest of baby owls and then they took off that day and he wrote it down so all like his like near two decades of riding talking to himself is on the wall and uh we're we're leaving that up we're going to leave that there but wow uh you know it probably is just like a nice thing of like little moments and you get like little pieces of a person's life but out of context and like not knowing anything about this that's horrifying. Like you have got to try to make that into a story or something.

You should write that into a story. So I thought about either making a YouTube video or making a story called the man who lived in my house. Because between that and like walking through the house, I see other stuff he's done. Like as I see stuff. I'm like that's like for example, in the garage there were all these like pieces of wood that were like drilled into the wall. And I'm like, why did he do that there? It's so random. Until I started using the cabinets. And with the garage door open, a draft would come in and shut all the cabinets shut.

But where he has the wood drilled is just the right place that you can rotate the wood and use it as like a stopper to keep the doors stuck open and stuff like that. So walking through the house, I've seen stuff that he's learned from living in it that now I'm relearning, seeing where he's put implements and things like that. Do you morphing into a man in this property? like morphing it to that other man would be so crazy. You know what I mean? Like a thing of like when you buy someone else's home, you become the last tenant that lives there. Yeah.

Something weird like that. That'd be like an interesting take on like almost immortality or something. Like some kind of weird. That's, is that kind of what you got from the ending of the Shining? Honestly don't know. Any of the Shining fucking weird. Well, the ending where it's like, you know,

like, oh, you're the keeper. You know, you've always been here. And then the picture where it's him from the 30s. So that is like whoever keeps the hotel because it's like he's almost reinvigorated through the hotel again and again. Yeah. I'm not sure. I mean, like possibly. It's just weird too.

He gave birth to or he like his son is the guy that has has this power and the shiny too. So it just makes him feel very paranormal in nature. But yeah. Yeah. But no, it's a similar idea, I think, of like becoming the same person over and over again. but I've thought about, yeah, the man who lived in my house. Because some of those messages are kind of like, what was the one that bothered me a bit?

It was something like I've got to quit talking about it. Something really vague like that. Well, yeah, the things that are vague and you have no context for, you're going to dissect that how, you know what I mean? You could totally misinterpret it, but it's just, it takes on its own meeting to you in a weird way.

Yeah. I'm also, I don't want, because he still got family around, so I don't want to docks his name, but I'll text you what his name was because it adds to the thing. That was his legal name.

Wow, really? I just texted it to you on. Yeah, yeah, and I'm just, I'm looking at it. I'm saying it's very, yeah, it's like a Star Wars character or something. It's a wild name. Anyway,

you had a full-on bounty hunter or like a Jedi living in your house at one point. It's kind of crazy. He was just walking around in a Mandalorian costume. Yeah. Stop talking about it. God. Madiard.

It seemed like the kind of thing you'd find in an asylum. Psychotic rambling punctuated only by six paragraphs right at the end. Each letter was impeccably neat. And each small paragraph was topped with a beautifully drawn Christian cross. Elliot Vance, age 15, a gift to guitarist. He liked boys even though he thought I didn't know. I loved him. With everything I had, he would have made a great man.

Alicia Vance, age 14. She liked to paint and shoot. She had her mother's mean streak. It would have served her well in the future. Elijah Vance, age eight, the smartest of us all. These were Daniels memorials to his family. Seeing the words lit up by my torch was a haunting insight into the overwhelming despair he'd endured.

Must have realized he wouldn't get the chance to speak at his family's funerals or to write their obituaries. This was his last desperate way of making sure the world might one day know them as he did. It's real people. The words marked the end of the tunnel, standing adjacent to a trapdoor in the ground. It was not open, but the tunnel came to a dead end immediately afterwards and Ripley's prince disappeared at the hatch. I feared he might be in danger.

Still, I stopped and looked at the bunker door 20 meters behind me. The once gloomy forest looks so bright. Even on this cloudy day, the air dotted with rain. Part of me felt like I was leaving the whole world behind as I began to climb the ladder down. I entered a large circular living space that was packed with furniture and little nooks and crannies. The walls were covered with folding beds and tables and every inch was multifunctional. A dining space could become a sitting space, which in turn might be able to be. might be where someone slept or even exercised.

It all depended on what particular bit of furniture you unfolded or unclipped or unfurled. Seven people in close quarters, nowhere near enough privacy, made sense they went with this cluttered overlapping use of space. But it was still a large room, bigger than most studio apartments. And there were a few corridors that led deeper into the earth telling me the bunker had unseen depths. I looked for some sign of my dog and soon found his show. trail, but this far from the rainy cops, Ripley's prints were starting to fade. After barely a few meters, they petered out vaguely in the direction of a nearby door. I wanted to follow,

but stopped myself from rushing onwards. It was unlikely Ripley was getting out any other way, and I'd do us no good getting hurt myself. I decided to take a look around and quickly spotted a dinner table. If I needed proof, the police had not bothered with a cleanup, this was said. The plates were still out. Food rotten to a strange blackened husk. A child's hat lay across one place setting. The once creamy fleece turned a sickly green and yellow. The chairs had their bricks reinforced with wooden beams fitted with long grooves so that something the width of a nail could slide into them. And on each of the cushions were foul-smelling stains that looked oddly like an aspirant. I touched one with gloved hands and the material cracked audibly. Whatever it was,

Similar stains were on the cutlery and plates, and there were even handprints of it placed firmly on the tablecloth. At first I thought it was blood. That wasn't quite right. It was too contained to be leaking blood. On the back of one of the chairs, a stain tapered exactly where a woman's waist would be like a near-perfect silhouette. I shivered as I remembered that Miranda Vance had always been a slim woman, wondered how she left her imprint on the gray fabric. So is it implied that there was like a rot? on them. That's what I'm thinking

is it feels like some kind of decay is what I'm thinking. Because it's not blood. Because at first I was like oh fuck is it dried blood. No, I'm thinking it's some kind of rotter decay but it also almost seems like you know like the atomic bomb like those shadows. The shadows of Hiroshima. Yeah. Like that. It kind of makes you think of something

like that too. Maybe not the shadows but just in that way that's leaving silhouettes but it does feel like a rot or like a mold or something. They were at the dinner table. And the little eight-year-olds, Mommy, look what I made. And just opens a capsule of uranium 238.

Wait, where'd you get that? On the power of God. If I had to say, though, I mean, I'm probably, it almost seems like a fungus or like a mold. Like, I'm thinking mold. Like a leftover decay or something. I think a mold. He's walked into a Resident Evil 7 mansion.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. The Baker's House, yeah. That definitely puts a different kind of vibe into the story of the bunker. Now I'm picturing it like that like swamp house kind of thing. Yeah. Down in Dubai, you down in Louisiana. Also, I didn't even think of this.

How did the dog go down a ladder? I don't know. It wasn't a ladder, though. It's a stairs. I thought he said he went down a ladder. No, I think it's a staircase that goes down to the earth. Using my torch. British.

Using my torch, I saw that these stains repeated in the oddest of places. Yes, there were some on beds and blankets and even patches of plain floor exactly like you might expect in a room full of sick people. Why did one stain on the floor bear such a strong resemblance to a child huddled in a fetal position? And why was the same stuff all over the TV remote and on books on shelves and board games too? Everything from sofa cushions to TV boxes to piles of dirty laundry were covered in the same

dried brownish material that gave off a foul coppery miasmosmos. I found the jigsaw particularly baffling. Someone had set up another table with four chairs, all modified with the same back support as those by the dinner table. And a jigsaw had been laid out with four separate piles, but only one was depleted. The rest looked largely untouched, almost like someone had portioned out pieces for three other people who had absolutely no interest in going along with it. Maybe Daniel had tried to keep up morale while the family were sick. God help me.

If that were true, I couldn't help but imagine the poor man sat there with his loved ones close to death, desperately trying to encourage them to click their own pieces into place while they faded in and out of consciousness. Okay. So here's my theory off of that line. His family was dead pretty early on and he was like playing house. Like setting them upright, decaying in their chairs and moving them over to play Jick's on stuff like that. so so are you saying that there was like you are you saying that you think that the guy killed him and he was like messing with their bodies or on accident they died so you're not you're not

sure yet if you're like you think that the doctor had any uh ill intent or anything yet you think it's just like you think maybe just went crazy then or something i mean i guess i'm trying to see like because i like that that idea of a guy like basically playing house and like positioning stuff and he's just like going about this like twisted and the stains are like the rotting corpse right exactly yeah uh i think either he went crazy and took him down there and killed them or bringing them down there got them killed somehow i feel like maybe maybe maybe the police were right it was a waterborne illness just they died but then everything that happened afterwards is like him acting like they're okay with the bodies for like a year i feel like they got sick

or something and like they were existing with this illness that was like making them fucking ooze or do something like that. Could be that. Something about that room emanated madness. The longer I stay down there flicking the bright discs of light off my torch from one detail to another, the more I wanted to leave. One door had wooden beams nailed across it. One sofa had been partially disassembled.

Multiple beds had been burned. And all the light bulbs had been removed and put in a box on the kitchen countertop. Looking up at the ceiling, I finally had some insight into why the police were so confident the vances had not survived despite never finding their bodies. Someone had jammed a human finger into one of the empty sockets. Almost like they expected it to glow with the flick of a switch. What was it about this place that it caused the police to leave and never return? Not to even take that finger and test it for signs of illness or even just to confirm who it belonged to. I decided it was time to hurry up and find my dog.

People had died in that place. While I'm not superstitious, I can't be the only skeptic who has done the calculations in his head and realized it cost nothing to be respectful of ghosts. That bunker was cramped, terrifying, and the air stanked so bad I started to worry I'd get sick myself. It served no one any good to linger. I'd be damned if I'd just walk away and leave Ripley to rot down there. It's not like he could climb a ladder and get out of his own. even if I wasn't entirely sure how he'd gotten down there in the first place. Oh, so you were right.

I thought it was a staircase, but no. Yeah, so it almost seems like if his paw prints are down there, then oh, my, it kind of seems like something grabbed him and took him down. Mm-hmm. Here's an even worse idea. Here's an even more terrible idea. Something has either his dog's legs or something that looks like dog legs and, like, is making little stamps on the ground.

Oh, yeah. That he thinks is his dog. Yeah. Yeah. Uh. Um, I also like how you tried to gaslight me out of the latter thing. And it worked.

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Something which felt like a terrible taboo in that god-awful place. Like screaming in a graveyard. Ripley! I waited and hoped to hell I'd hear the pitter-patter of his paws, but for the longest of moments, it's only the kind of silence that makes you wonder if something or someone in the darkness is holding its breath trying to look like just another patch of nothing.

Biding its time until you finally turn around and show it your back. The TV came on with a blurt of white noise that was so loud and so sudden I cried. threw my arms up, he nearly fell backwards onto a rolled-out sleeping bag and looked like it had been a week in the sewer. At the time I realized what caused the noise, I could already hear a tiny rendition of Daniel Vance's voice. I realized the issue here to emphasize just how little I understand anything that's. I frowned at the screen as I approached. It showed a greenish infrared view of the bunker with Daniel up front and the dinner table behind him.

It was grannie and hard to see, but I could clearly tell that his family were sitting in those chairs. Miranda was supposed to fall into perfect sense. Miranda often went to storage to fetch food for cooking. We found it behind one of the refrigerators. One of the figures in the background slumped onto the table with a loud clank, it's in a plate spinning off onto the ground. Shit, shit, shit. Daniel muttered as he got up and grabbed the woman by the shoulder and set her upright.

Miranda never did like my cooking. cooking. Snorted to laugh as he fussed with something at the back of the chair. The rods are much better than tape. All those hours spent taping them up right to their chairs. Never worked, but the rods. If you get right into the spine with a little, with a little modification, I can just slot them into the chairs.

That way everyone's able to enjoy them for, join in for dinner. I'm working on something similar for family game night. Great bear. Great bad job, dude. So a reluctant bear trap, I will say, because that's brutal. Yeah, I mean, shoving the rods into their spine is insane. And your family spine.

Also, he's still, she never liked my cooking. Also, he's coexisting with something because he's like Miranda would go down and fetch food. So she saw the thing first, right? So he's, he's aware. He's aware of something going on. It could also be like a mold or some growth or something back there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. that caused it.

But what was weird is he yells out Ripley and then the TV just turns on, right? Yeah. And it's a recording of Daniel in this room doing it. So there's something going on there. Right. By the way, it's probably apparent at this point, but this rules so far. Christian Wallsman.

This whole story? Oh, my God. I mean, even like he's, he is one of the goats. But even amongst his works, this is one of my, just the setting the stuff. This is one of my favorite setup so far. So I can see it so plainly in my head, all the details,

I don't know if you feel the same. I feel like I'm just picturing the bunker as the same from Cloverfield Lane or whatever. I was thinking about that earlier, Cloverfield Lane. Yeah, I'm thinking of the room is more like a concrete open. I don't,

I have this clear image in my mind of it. Yeah. I have this. You know, it's weird. I think it's the same image in my mind that came when I first read the road. And it talks about the father and son finding the supplies in the bunker. But I don't know where I got that original image from. Could have been weird.

Or no. Yeah. Because, you know, the way my mind works is it builds off of stuff I've seen in real life. Sure. Or like in visual storytelling. So I feel like it had to come from somewhere, but I can't remember where it came from originally. Yeah, I'm curious. Maybe it is Cloverfield Lane and I'm forgetting what that one looks like.

When I hear like, oh, Bunker, it just, whatever the first thing that pops up, I feel like it just sticks. And to me, as soon as he said, bunker, I was even picturing the doctor kind of looks like John Goodman. It's like, it's like, just like it's building that kind of visual in my head. Not saying it's just one for one. Close. Yeah. This is pretty close to what I was thinking of. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Daniel wandered over to the camera and with a grin, he lifted it from the tripod and scanned the dinner table. I saw I nearly made me drop my torch His family were long dead Gaunt faces missing noses lips that had receded

to reveal awful grins These were corpses plain as day Even when viewed through such a low resolution image The only thing that made them seem remotely alive was the way their eyes

still reflected the infrared back so that they glowed in the dark And yet Daniels seemed oblivious to it all Tossled Elliot's hair, kissed his wife on the cheek, run a hand across one young girl's shoulder. He even picked the young Alexander up from his high chair, and I assume he called him.

I don't know for sure, because I looked away. I'm willing to see the poor boy up close. Eyes averted from the screen, I couldn't help pan my torch across the same dinner table and shiver as I finally realized what all those stains were. Not quite blood, but close. liquefying flesh. Left alone for months,

Daniel had not put his family's bodies to rest. Instead, he had moved them around from place to place, puppeted them, living life as if nothing had really changed. Looking at where those stains had settled, I saw a clear pattern emerge. He had put them to bed. He had set them dinner.

It propped them up to watch TV or gave them their favorite books. They even set there as lifeless husks, while Daniel waited for them to complete a jixie. saw. Idea horrified me to my core. Back to work. It's obviously not a part of the original designs. No room on the other side. None of the blueprints. Elliot didn't believe me, and why wouldn't he, and why would he? I have made every inch of this place, but I had not install that door on the storage on the bottom level. I checked the cameras and some of the photos I

took during the build, and the walls is just blank. But the door is there now and it must lead somewhere. I don't know when or why it opens, but it does. And the next time I'll be ready, because I have to know what's on the other side. And why it did this to us? Alone down here, often all asleep at once. Anything could have slid our throats and been done with it. But it didn't. It took its time. I have to know why. It took our radios and computers and phones, one by one. of us noticing until it was far too late. I kept telling the kids they need to take better care of their things, and even as they complained,

I just assumed the phones were lying behind some shelf. Where else could they go in a locked bunker? But it wasn't the children at all. Looking back, there are so many signs. Who kept taking away the lights? Who kept draining the batteries and our torches? How long did we live there before we finally realized we weren't alone? Was it here every step of the wall?

way the door out of nothing that leads to nowhere at least most of the time because i know for a fact it does not always open onto a blank wall there is something behind it i can hear it shuffling around in there wet breath rattling in its lungs a horrible sound i hear roaming these halls when it thinks i'm asleep bro this goes so hard it's why it's it's cool because i showed up in the bunker Yeah, it's weird. It's weird because I don't know if I can trust him, you know? Like, I really don't know if I believe Daniel in this, in this deal. Because also, we have to consider, too, he brought his family down and locked them in this bunker.

Mm-hmm. Whatever. Like, they kind of, like, you know, you know what I mean? So I don't, I don't know. Maybe there wasn't into the world coming, but like it was prevented somehow because of this. I'm not sure. I mean, there is all the calculations and stuff. But now it seems like it is like this kind of house of leaves, like, how did this get here?

I did not put this here. And I'm wondering if that's also some of what his, uh, some of what his research on the walls like the, the cave painting. That does read kind of house of leaves, doesn't it? The whole, uh, like there's the fascination of like, what does the door do?

Yeah. Yeah. Will this one is much more obvious, but. Yeah, Will Navidson didn't go in. I mean, he was obsessed with the door, but he didn't go insane because of it like this one did. Maybe he's not. insane per se maybe he thinks his family's still alive maybe he's no i think like i think he believes they're dead i mean that's why he's also like that's why they came in and did what he they did to us i think that he knows that this thing is there i think he's just like he's aware his family's dead but he's still

playing puppet with yes yes exactly i could see that who kept taking away the lights who kept draining the batteries sets up man the idea of being in a bunker and there's like a shadow there an extra thing in there with you. That makes the writing from earlier makes sense too. Five doors, not six, not six doors. What was the other thing he said in the midst of that? He was like five doors, not six. And then he said, did it make it?

Hmm. Yeah. Which is just him what he said here. He's like, I definitely did not put that in. Oh, I did it make the sixth door. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay.

I listened to Daniel, fascinated by this strangely compelling rant when movement caught my eye. Infrared camera running in the infrared camera running in the dark. Its image, a rolling mess of form noise. What was it I'd seen? I paused the tape and rewound. Squinting. I saw two pinpricks of light in the darkness just over Daniel's shoulder. Slowly, the image resolved itself in my mind. I knew what I was seeing and it turned my blood to ice. Miranda Vance turned her head. And her lifeless eyes closed as she fixed them on the back of Daniel's

head. Oh my God. Not even any point leaving at this stage. I'm no doctor, but that door is giving off enough radiation to, well, to kill a family of seven. If none of us had touched it,

being in the same room is risky, but not lethal. But given how sick we'd become, it's pretty obvious how curious you got the better of us. One by one, and we all got too close, or maybe not. move that thing on the other side came through and did this. I don't even know what was that.

Daniel turned, the camera stopped recording. The image it froze on was of a lone man. Pride as a star in the camera's lens facing off against unknowable darkness broken only by six pairs of white glowing eyes. Good God.

Bro. That's so good. So by the way, the implication that his family's possessed by something, or they're still alive in the rotting bodies. I'm not sure. I mean, like it could be a thing of radiation poisoning or something. Yeah.

Like something radioactive is getting them. But 100%, 1 million percent, the family is going to crawl out of that six fucking door. Like they took the dog and they're going to get our, our, our protagonist. Yeah.

Well, by Ripley. You know, you were a good dog. You know, I'll miss you dearly. Nice to meet you. Yeah,

I'm glad I got to know you when I did. Uh, but you're, You're the... Also, it makes sense to why the cops aren't going back is because it's a fucking radio... It's a radioactive mess. The police were like, no. No, no.

No, that's okay. Nope. I became painfully aware of my position relative to the table and I had the painful premonition that if I turned, those chairs would not be empty. I would see the vances, all of them. Daniel is well waiting for me. Heads turned. Bodies left to rod for years in the dark.

Behind me something shifted. It breathed. Loud, quick. I knew what it was. I knew. Came at me so fast that when I felt something hot and wet touched my hand, I screamed, only for the presence to suddenly recoil. But then without hesitation, it leapt at me and bore me to the ground.

I wept as Ripley licked my face. It was shivering and, worst of all, silent, which was not normal. He was not a quiet dog. not when greeting me and not when excited like he was now. But whatever he'd seen down here, he clung to me and dug his paws into my shoulders like he wanted to be cradled over the shoulder, something he had been too big to do for years.

You fucking idiot! I cooed in a soft whisper and even in the dark I could feel his tail wagging. Joking aside, felt nothing but relief had finding him. Let's get the hell out of here. I picked him up, straining a little under the weight, but refusing to give into tired muscles. made for the ladder. It wasn't easy, climbing the three or four rungs to the hatch,

but I managed it and gave the hatch a shove. First one hand, then two. Again and again with everything I had, still the hatch refused to budge. Shit! I cried while pounding at it with my fist, but all I achieved was a sore wrist. The hatch had jammed when,

somehow, the handle had been snapped clean off. Now I'd need a pair of pliers or something to cut through the metal bar locking it shut. My fingers couldn't move it, nor could I brute force the hatch open. The metal bar was an inch thick and, at the very least, I need some tools to get at it from the side. At least it's fixable, I thought, as I climbed back down and caught my breath.

On one wall, I noticed a simple diagram of the bunker made in chalk. It had three floors. The bottom was storage, Daniel mentioned that before, and I noticed that he had drawn through it with a large red X, and the top floor was labeled quarter. where I stood now, but the middle floor was labeled workshops, and it was there I realized that I'd find what I needed. There was one door that opened onto a concrete stairwell, and standing at the top, I shone

my light down the spiraling guardrails, unsure of what it was I hoped to see. There were only harsh shadows and the sense of something foul rising up in the air, a smell that tickled my throat and burned a little in my lungs. But the police even gone down this far? They seen what I'd seen on the TV and just left. Somehow I thought it was unlikely that had been enough to send the entire sheriff's department running. So was it something else that had done it? Something that had been enough to terrify dozens of armed men?

Something that was almost definitely down there. Door. Went down quietly. At first I considered leaving Ripley behind, but after losing him the first time, I decided I'd rather risk it just to know he was right next to me. Besides, he was being quieter than I was, and I didn't feel much like going down those stairs of my own. He accompanied me with only the quiet, click-clack of his paws on concrete.

Sound I found deeply comforting, as I barely managed to keep my torch from shaking in my hand and my breathing steady. Down one floor, and I found the workshop exactly as you might expect. A large space filled with generators and fuel and water tanks and boilers and heaters and pretty much anything and everything that you need to survive, which you couldn't put outside due to fall out. Wires, pipes, and tubes ran from one end of the room to the other, and even years later, most of the machinery still hummed in the pitch-black emptiness. An idea I found deeply unsettling. Taking one look at the strange tangle of harsh shapes and industrial figures looming out of the walls

and floor, I shivered and looked around, quickly finding a small area Daniel accorded and off for his own use. But a fifth of the total floor space, there was a large workbench and some seriously high-end machining equipment. All very well used. Lathes, buzz saws, drills, belt sanders, welding torches, everything a man needed to do it himself. Daniel had been busy. I'm not sure exactly what it was he'd been working, but there was an arm on the bench. It's a... Jesus.

I know... I know it's like a scary visual, but the reading of all the equipment, I thought he had been building contraptions or like creatures or something. And it's like, my prized work, an arm. I wonder, do you think it's, do you think it's Daniel's arm? Could be. Good chance. Very good chance.

It set atop a pile of papers that it slowly turned brown over the years until the whole thing looked like it had been soaked in tobacco spit. On the whiteboard was a faded but still visible diagram of, what looked to me like a ball and socket joint. I thought of the tape, Daniel's little mechanism to keep his family upright, and looked at the arm and suppressed a momentary gag reflex. I don't know if Dan had been working on posable limbs

or just a way to put the decomposing remains back together after they started to fall apart, but the size of the arm suggested a pre-teen child. Oh, God. They left it out on the surface like it was a disassembled clock. It was also missing a finger. Just how crazy was he? I wondered as I pinched my nose with one hand and began overturning boxes looking for a hefty pair of pliers, or maybe a hacksaw.

Ripley backed away from the noise, but once I made sure he wasn't going anywhere, I carried on, grabbing and pulling a box after box, hoping I'd find what I was looking for. Anything to break that metal bar. In the end, I managed to get a pair of bulk cutters, a crowbar, and heavy-duty pair of pliers. One went in my pocket, one went down the back of my jeans, and the other was clutched in my fist. Too large to be tucked away in my clothes. The bulk cutters felt hefty in my hand, which was a bit of comfort, the feeling didn't last long. Something moved in the darkness. Out there in the twisted jungle of shadows cast by all those pipes and wires that ran from one

machine to the next, a figure moved. Thin, but unmistakably human in its outline. I couldn't help but remember what I'd seen on that tape. Surely it couldn't have been real. Maybe Daniel had rigged something up, some fishing wire and a motor, maybe. The idea that those bodies had been moving on their own. Couldn't be sure of that, could I? It was a frightening idea. While my mind had latched onto at a sheer panic,

that was all. Then I saw them. A pair of white pinpricks reflecting back at me from the depths of that cluttered room. Ripley, already behind me, head nuzzled into my leg, pushed even closer against me and let out a barely audible wine under his breath, the behavior of a dog who was terrified, close to pissing himself with fear. Just a bit of metal, I told myself, as the light shook so violently in my hand I struggled to see straight, just two shiny bits of metal. They blinked and began to come towards me. God. If I had any doubts left, they were dispersed by the side of a pale white hand emerging into the light.

I ran straight to the stairs and went to climb them, but only one or two steps in and I saw something gripping the handrail on the top floor. Moldy clump of flesh only just recognizable as a fist. The flesh withered until the fingers were basically bone. Without meaning to, I brought my light up out of habit and saw the bloated face of a hairless corpse glaring down at me. I couldn't even tell you if it had been a teenage girl or a 60-year-old Daniel. Either way, I instinctively turned and found another body shambling towards me out of the workshop. I was trapped. Nowhere to go.

By the feel of warm fluid on the back of my leg, I could tell Ripley had finally pissed himself. An adult dog, tail between his legs, shivering like a puppy and desperate to be picked up. God, I needed him to just stay together for a little longer. I couldn't take him in my arms, but I couldn't leave him behind either. With nowhere to go, I ran down and entered storage. There's the temptation to stop once I hit the bottom. Down here the air was thicker and the sounds of my breathing were muted, somehow distant, but I only had to look back up to see three pairs of eyes glaring down at me.

So without giving any of it much further thought, I barreled down the corridor and stumbled onto a door at random. Opening it, I saw what looked like your standard storage room. Only most of the shelves had been overturned and the food left it rot on the floor. one or two shelving units were still upright though and their shelves were covered in tall opaque boxes that made them a fantastic hiding spot that I decided

would have to be where I crouched down and turned off my light I was already inside when I realized that wasn't all that was in there the door almost looked normal I guess what a menacing sentence I know I hate that I hate that uncanniness of

that. Oh, man. Gosh. This is excellent. This story is excellent. Because in my head, I'm like, there's no way he would ever go further down. But then you put a threat that makes him go further down, which lets us see the rest of the layout and stuff.

And also the presentation where we had a map of it. So we know what's coming while he's in the workshop. Like, it's all very well done. This is an excellent story. I could see why Daniel must have been confused by it because it looked a little bit like all the other doors down there. but it was different too. It was too tall and too wide.

About a foot and a half off the ground, and the metal rested in its entirety like it had aged out of sink with everything else down there. All around the jam was a profusion of wet, soppy moss like the kind you find hanging off trees in a swamp. And every few seconds the door would leak something strange and oily, like the kind of thing you find in a parking lot on a rainy day. Of course, that wasn't too strange in itself,

but the leak was horizontal, defying gravity so that every few seconds, a large glob of the stuff would whip across the room and slap into the wall opposite, reading a puddle about the size of a man that defied all reason. Interesting, so it's like gravity's thrown down there. Remembering Daniel's words about radiation, I instinctively inched away from this puddle and the door on the opposite wall, backing myself into the darkest, quietest corner I could, while I pulled Ripley behind me and hoped to hell he wouldn't give me away.

Once I was in there, I turned off my light and waited. Most have taken longer than I thought to hide in the spot, because it was barely two seconds later when a few figures entered the room. It was pitch black after I turned off my torch, but they made enough noise to let me know that at least two of them had stumbled in after me. I stayed there, unable to see anything. Not sure if they were heading straight for me or just getting ready to leave, forced to hold out and let luck decide my fate.

When I finally heard something scrape against the wall, nearly two feet from where I stood. He gave up and switched my light on. Desperate to know what was coming for me. The sound had been terribly misleading. Daniel Vance was no more than six inches from my face. He hissed from a toothless and cracked mouth, a living corpse just like the others.

Somehow a flash of intelligence remained in those wide, terrified eyes. And then I heard it, the creaking of a door. Without even thinking I turned the light and saw it on the wall, I saw it open. Behind the strange still there was more than just plain old concrete. Much more. I saw a raging gullet of flesh, a ring tube of pulsing muscle lined with teeth the size of hands, a spiraling descend into madness, hot-foded air washed into the room, buffeting me and the rotting corpses. All of us paralyzed by what we were seeing, even if for most of the moment,

the figures besides Daniel and myself they didn't have eyes to see with. I muttered, unable to take my eyes from the flesh tube beyond the doorway. Daniel whispered as he grabbed me with one fist and hurled me out of the room. I hit the floor and skidded along a slick fluid left by Vance's footprints, the smell of which turned my stomach. Perhaps the worst detail was that it was cold. I don't know why. I'd just expected whatever oozed off of them to be feverishly hot, but it wasn't.

It soaked my shirt like I'd fallen into a moment. muddy puddle. It's coming. This voice wasn't Daniel's. I couldn't say for sure, but it sounded like a child's whisper. One by one, the body shuffled over to the open door and knelt before it. I don't know why, but I got the impression the others had lost pretty much everything left of their minds, but Daniel remained aware.

He looked back at me once more and spoke before he pressed his head to the floor in supplication with the others. The only thing we did wrong was being here for it to torture. It didn't need a reason. Don't let us go. It won't even let us die. His forehead kissed the dirt. And then something reached through the door and gripped his head in its palm the way you or I might pick up an apple.

In full panic, I ran over and grabbed my dog in the bolt cutters, and I ran like my legs were pistons. Machines whose signals of exhaustion and fatigue could not slow me down or cause me to fall. I had to move. I had to leave. The hand that had grabbed Daniel, the side of it flushed my mind clean like some kind of enema. It hurt to see the image for playing my mind. There was nothing else in my head echoing around except the side of fingers with one too many knuckles and nails as large as a smartphone. I reached the top floor and nearly collapsed from breathlessness, but I wouldn't let myself stay down for long.

I crawled over to the ladder and climbed up and immediately went to work trying to cut the metal lock. It was hell with just one hand, the other clinging to the torch. that I kept frantically pointing at the door behind me, and it wasn't long before I fumbled one too many times and dropped my only source of light. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm mute, but there was no time to look for it. I had to get out, and I had to get out fast.

I couldn't see, but I was sure I could hear something climbing up those stairs, not the steady thump-thump of human feet. Now, this was different. This was a rapid pitter-patter of a spider, maybe. Something with hundreds of feet or hands, or God-nose-what, skittering along the floor and walls and ceiling, pulling itself along with the body whose mere shape would offend God. Using all my strength, I leaned hard on the bolt cutters and, at last, the bolt gave.

I threw the hatch open and got just enough ambient light to see Ripley, hovering at the bottom of the ladder, rowling and effectually at the doorway. Crouched down, scooped him up, and fled up the ladder so quickly that my muscles turned to jelly at the top and I fell over onto my hands and knees. But still, I was out. The long corridor covered in writing was a head. head of me, and at the very end a doorway capped now by the tired blue light of him of full moon. Ripley needed no encouragement. He whipped down the corridor with canine speed and I followed

at a broken and stumbling crawl, eventually shouldering past the open door and collapsing onto the forest floor. For a few seconds, I drifted in and out of consciousness. But when I looked up and saw the canopy overhead moving, the branch is back lit by a full moon, I snapped awake and glared down at something gripping my ankle. Oh, shit. The hand had reached out of the dark and seized me and was slowly dragging me back into the earth below. Whatever it was, most of its body lurked out of sight in the shadows beyond the doorway.

But the hand that crushed my leg was the size of my torso, an arm that looked like it belonged to a mole rat. God damn it. Officer Mole? Yes. I told you not to enter my arm at night. all right now that that's my bear trap that's a bear trap

I've hit two heavy ones this episode that one was like a that was like a prophetic pull oh my gosh oh I know it's I know what it's applying like under underdwellers and stuff like that but just the fact that I that brought up oh his equation did in fact say mole people

I struck it with my own fist. I dug my nails in. I cried and kicked and screamed, but nothing could stop it. From behind the door, something like a face grinned and leered at me with joy. It was taking its time, sure enough, pulling me in so slowly that it gave my mind all the time of the world to appreciate the nightmare that awaited me. I think if, in that moment, you're giving me a gun. I would have shot myself because God helped me. I couldn't escape the look in Daniel's eyes.

Now he knelt to worship this thing like a man who knew that hope or, pride or joy or anything with even a hint of goodness to it was so far out of reach for him, it might as well be a dream. How long was this thing going to keep them down there? How long did it intend to keep me? I wept like a child, feeling like my mind was slowly crackling as I tried everything to stop it from pulling me into the shadows. I kicked it the earth.

I dug into it using my hands, looking for a rude or a pipe or anything to hold on to. Nothing, nothing. I did would slow it down. I was no more than a foot from the doorway when Ripley appeared. A dog afraid of hovers and plastic bags and doors that move on their own. A dog who once got stared down by a particularly feisty rabbit who stopped mid-chase and turned around, baffling the predator on its tail. Dog, you couldn't even watch scary movies around.

And he lunged at the arm like he was a wolf. Hey! Like he'd always been one. Add boy, Ripley. And while he didn't quite break the skin, The pressure was enough to make the things grip weaken, and I slid my leg out. Unable to stand, I knelt and grabbed the dog, pulled as hard as I could, and now that thing bled at last as the pressure of the jaws and the sliding teeth ripped into its flesh. Together, at last, Ripley and I were let go and sent rolling backwards, head over heels.

I wasted no time waiting or looking, processing. I heaved the dog to my chest and crawled until I passed out, making it. maybe half a kilometer away. Only when I could no longer see the door did I let myself fall to the ground face first, give up consciousness. The doctor said I had pneumonia, which I suppose made some kind of sense. I might have even believed them were it not for the sheriff's visit, asking strange questions of me as I lay in bed about what I may or may not have seen. I dismissed them to the best of my ability. I wasn't interested in chasing that particular nightmare down, figuring out if it had been real or not, at least not while I lay there, half drowning

in my own infection. To be fair, I had to see some sympathy for why the police had done so little to seal that place off. I have, on occasion, thought about going and doing the job myself, but to this day I still have nightmares about being pulled into the dark beyond that door. Not just the bunker door, the one I narrowly avoided at the end, the one below. What I saw was a kind of madness. I'm sure of it.

I often think of Daniel's words. It didn't erase. Somehow, the vances were that opportunity. Maybe they built their bunker on a layline, or a weak spot between dimensions, or the side of former satanic rituals. Not sure if it even matters. They went into the dark thinking it'd be a safe place

to wait out the world's troubles, but something had been down there waiting for them, waiting for a chance to get out of family of seven people to lock them in and deprive them of escape and slowly take from them everything it could. I've moved since then. Couldn't help it. It wasn't just the memories you see. It was the shortwave radio I kept in my basement.

Something my father passed on to me when I was just a boy. God, I'd forgotten about it. At least until I woke up one day to the sound of a blaring white noise down in the dark. buried in that sound was the faint whispering of a man his voice barely recognizable but unmistakably is and that is the end

my god did you read the let them go yeah I did okay okay wow my god what a great story dude one thing I love about Christian Wallace's work is the pacing but not only that but the way that he does exposition and the buildup to where like he spend it seems like he spends a lot of the very

beginning of the stories instead of just being like I'm going down to this deal and then you get a lot of the exposition of like oh yeah like when you're down there you get the exposition it's like i like that you get a lot of this like a little bit of backstory exposition of what's happening and then it just seems like also my dog and like i think that it just takes it takes a turn it's like my dog went missing and he's down in that very bunker yeah that's a fun way to present that Yeah, all of the little, because sometimes storywriters have trouble with their connectors, how it's like,

I want the character to do this, and I want them to see this thing, and they need to go here and it needs to be this, but it needs to be believable. And sometimes the things that will push the character to those different points doesn't work as well. But Christian Wallace doesn't have that problem because it's like, okay, well, he loves this dog.

He establishes how much he loves the dog. So he goes into the first layer. Well, now he's trapped. he has to go the second to get supplies. And now he has to go to the third because there's something on the second. So everything flows very well. And you get to see all the set pieces

and it feels natural and it keeps the tension up. There's never a point where you're like, well, I don't know about that. Because a lesser storyteller would be like, I was in the first floor, but I had to know what happened to the family. So I go down to the second where it's like, sure, we the reader wants to know what happened to the family,

but no way this guy would, right? Yeah. So everything feels very reasonable. Why do you think that? Why do you think the TV just turned on randomly? I feel like I almost feel like I missed a line or like I'm forgetting a line about like. Yeah, I feel like I'm maybe didn't read it right. I like wonder if in the shadow of the guy turned it on or something or what it seems like knowing that Daniel is down there.

He still, which also I just want to say how God, how like daunting and horrifying is that of like your family, your family are husk. they're basically just zombies that just won't die, right? And you are rotting with them and you're, but you're still conscious and you're still able to understand all of the shit. And I love that Daniel's character was not used as a vessel to like kill. He was used as a vessel to be like, you get the fuck out of here. Don't end up like us,

which is, which is kind of interesting too because the parallel of like Daniel and his family were doomsday preppers. They went into the dark. to hide for the troubles of the world, right? But they found a bunch of evil or whatever. It almost seems it's just it's like a it's like a fun way for that character who did that to go out and just be like don't live your life like this and like basically like get

out of here, which I think still to me translates to something of like don't live in fear and get out of get out of. Yeah. This place. You know what I mean? What was the, um, it, there was a picture of what am I trying to think of? it was, why am I stupid? I was about to say something and then I completely,

I hate it when that happens. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The door opened up and it was like a throat, right? It was like this thing of twist. That reminded me of Dionea house a lot. Yeah, Diania House. I know that I say this probably every other fucking podcast,

but the final prayer or something where it's like an entity living in the hills, living in the ground or something. And there's some arm or something that comes. out of it. And it's like, it's like keeping them in a purgatory. I like that thing that Daniel says, it didn't need a reason, just an opportunity. It's just something that causes, you know. It's just evil.

Death, misery, decay. Yeah, it's a pure wickedness. Which goes off of what you were saying, how it's like the family was paranoid of the world, something going wrong with it. But then they found the essence of wrong down in their hiding hole, right? Yeah. Well, in the hiding hole,

I think that it's interesting that the creature, the sixth door, is like an appendage. It almost seems like of this thing. Yeah. That just appears. So it's like uncanny. It's like luring people in. But it's like you are trying to hide from the unknowns, from like the unknown precedent, like an unknown accident that would happen. Right. You're trying to prepare yourself for something that could happen. And then of course, the thing they go down there for, they're completely unprepared for. I think it's just kind of an interesting. I also like the, uh, which is this is going to sound really rude. People aren't going to be happy at this. My one.

critique is I think the dog should have died. I knew it. I knew you would fall in line. You know what's weird is because I am so happy the dog didn't die. I feel like my heart was fluttering. Here's why. Because here's why. Because there is a cautionary aura to the family.

Right. Like they feared the world. So they hid from the world and they found something beneath. the world, right? And we see Daniel who is being punished for that and is witnessing the punishment of his family. Right. Because it's almost a curse, or it is a curse,

that he keeps his consciousness, right? Like if he's made it to some mindless Zobby puppet thing, that'd probably be better than the alternative where he's completely aware of what's going on, that his family's down there. Even in the final moments of the story, when he's listening to a shortwave radio and he hear Daniel saying let them go, let them go. He has to watch his family be kept in this puppet state,

which is like a hell. It's literally a hell of his own making, right? And then there is a weird connection established between Daniel and our author because similarly, the author went into this bunker

for something he loves, right? The dog. So we have Daniel goes down there to preserve something he loves. And we have the author that goes down there to preserve something he loves. But in both cases, going down there is a narratively moral wrong. Right? Do not go into the bunker. Do not go away. Maybe for author, it wasn't necessarily to escape the world,

but he is going into something he knows he shouldn't go into, right? Even if it's for good reasons and to help what he wants. So that scene where Daniel's speaking to the author and he's like, get out of here. That is like, Daniel, getting the author to do what he could not to leave. But nevertheless, our author goes in. So I feel like if in that final moment where the dog came over and bit the hand, and then if then the dog was dragged down and maybe our author passes out or gets away or whatever in the police find him, it's like, yeah, because he wanted to go down there,

something he loved paid the price. I feel like that would be the final bow tie between him and Daniel. I feel like it worked a bit better. I feel like it's a bit too easy for him to go down there. there'd be no consequences, right? Oh, sure. No, I mean, I, you know, I think going on top of that, too, like, I think, like, and this is all hindsight, whatever, just subjective bullshit, but like, sure, sure.

Daniel being more of, like, maybe not like less of a, like, like, like, picturing him up too as like he was like, you know, like, basically like not a mentally unwell man, but just something where it's like expecting the worst always. He believed that it was going to go. It was more of a detriment, right? and then that way later when he's sitting there with his dead family it almost feels like you infect and you burden your family with that kind of mentality or you change them you zomify them into that state of belief or something right the same way that with our protagonist it would have

been something funny if it were not funny but it would have been something entertaining if he was a conspiratorial guy as well except maybe like no doomsday he was just like they're not telling us these things it's another case that they're just covering up or whatever, some type of conspiratorial thing to where he goes out into the bunker, which is similar to Daniel going down for his own reasons. And then he has to like have that kind of price. Basically having some kind of motive to where our protagonist could learn where Daniel could not. Like the ying and yang, I think, need to have the opposites right there.

It would have probably felt a bit more satisfying or something where it's just like don't go digging for things that are going to get you in trouble or yada, yada. it, which I'm paraphrasing and it probably sounds stupid. But I do, I agree is what I'm saying with you. I think like it is a bit too convenient of like I'm going down here. I do wish they had a bit more motive of being like this is, there's just something weird or like these fucking cops are covering something up. Something that is more about like something larger than himself is putting others in risk the same way that like a doomsday thing of like an atom bomb dropping or something and fending for yourself or helping your family. I feel like it's also. a bit, like the dog

bites it and then it bleeds and it lets go. It's like, okay, so this is a creature that you can hurt and you can make bleed and stuff. I think it makes more sense if the dog biting it was more of a sacrifice. It would be heavier. It would be heavier if the dog.

It's not like the thing bleeds. The dog's just like, oh, okay, I'll take this instead. So it'd be like the dog's sacrificing itself to save it, which it kind of does. It puts its life on the line to bite him. I think that if you have the dog get like an ounce of courage

because it's kind of a funny character growth for the dog of like you know dogs a big wimp and then he steps up but if it does nothing it's still like a noble gesture I thought that what it was going to happen is Daniel was going to pop up and like grab it or something like try

no no no the monster oh the monster like he was going to bring it down with him yeah yeah something of just being like this is my burden to carry and he seems off like that kind of thing like I to me that would have been also a fun way to like tie that together. Because yeah,

I agree. Then it just feels like it's, the thing isn't, it wasn't hurt or something because, yeah, with these like big, I don't know, like monstrous deity kind of things.

You almost want to see, like to me, it's always effective when it's like manmade things cannot hurt this thing. Like a human being could do nothing to this source, which is also why it feels like, of course he like bows to it. Because also it might be like fucking with his family or something.

And of course, course Daniel's going to do whatever he can just to keep. Yeah, he can't do anything other than supplicate himself. Of course. There's no resistance. Yeah. Yeah. I think I also want to clarify that my critiques of the story saying the dog should die,

because I feel bad sometimes when we read a great story and I spend most of the time talk about critique. The reason that's all I have to talk about is because everything else about the story banged. The workshop segment, the house, the living room, the like, it was excellent. It was such a good story. It's also just part of the, to me, that's part of the fun of reading a story. I mean, how many times you've seen a movie where you're talking about things and you're just like, it would have been cool if they would have done this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just the idea that's just that's just that. Yeah, it's definitely not undermining or trying to undermine the work. It's just something of like these are just like little subjective thoughts because also you can implement these things and they could suck, you know, like who knows. It's just fun to riff and all that kind of stuff. So definitely, uh, you know, with these things to. I will say this.

I am a proponent in most media that the, dogs should probably die more often. Because dogs are like an untouchable thing for people. Yeah, there's that website of like innocence. Like a baby.

Because they're the ultimate persona of innocence. But if the point of your story is that the personification of innocence is being injured, then you have to kill the thing that is totally innocent, right? The best example of that, at which I didn't even realize

this happened until I try to watch the movie with my wife who hates it when dogs die in movies. And no country for old men like three dogs die. And it makes sense in that movie because the whole movie is about the laws of good, good guy, bad guy, you know, the sheriff riding in to clean up the town. That doesn't work here. Like things die even if they don't deserve it. So the dogs die in their works. And I feel like there's too many horror movies that can get through with like a message like that and it be effective.

But they won't kill the dog because people are going to be uncomfortable about it because people need to feel comfortable in a genre. that the root word is horrific. And it drives me up a wall sometimes. I mean, I see what you're coming from. I think it all just comes down to like, what is the point? It's kind of, I think it's the same thing of like,

I don't know, having like sexually sexual assault in a movie or like, you know, child death. There's these things that are just kind of untouchable things that are just like you shouldn't include them. It just seems overly cruel. But I mean,

I think that it just comes down to the intention. Like if you just randomly kill these things, you rarely do this stuff. It feels like a fetish or it feels like you're fetishizing something and it's for it's like more for the director. I know like a critique that my wife has with a lot of stuff that has like overly sexual assault type stuff is it feels like it's a fetish for the director or it feels like it's for men or something, which I agree. But I do think that there's elements where it is like important. It is a horrific thing that can't happen. But it's the same thing with like a dog death or something. Is it just like a cheap way to make you feel something? What purpose does it serve? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I think honestly, I feel like modern movies are more reliable to kill a kid than they would a dog. 100% 100% yeah um and i feel like that's weird i feel i don't like that well you even see it in like social media post too about people like you'll hear like it's something where it's like the ruby franky thing where she like abused her children or whatever that was big media attention but like sometimes i still feel like you hear about like somebody like like a dog abuser will be hung from the gallows before like a child a child abuser was yeah like a YouTuber who hits their kids or something like that which is just insane to me. They're both bad.

They're both awful. Nothing is good, but it's just crazy that a human life. It's just, it's just that kind of thing. There's a weird, there's a weird disparity

between, like, innocence of like the young and innocence of animals, which, yeah, they're both innocent, but it's weird that people are so uncomfortable by the death of an animal and not the death of a child

a lot of times in horror movie senses, which I don't know. There's probably some greater conversation to be had with that. But yeah, I feel like the dog should die more. I feel like not, it shouldn't be gratuitous,

like anything should be gratuitous. But I feel like, I think the purpose of your stories is a loss of innocence, and you have to lose the innocence, you know? I think, yeah, and I think that the only way I think I agree with you on that, because in this one, I do like that the dog stepped up.

Like, just as like this short film went, because this was like a very punchy short story. Yeah. I liked that the dog made it out. It was a nice ending, even though, like, him coming there and all that stuff is his fault.

I think that you have him get stripped of that. If he went there for a selfish or like, like some kind of reason that is like, you should plenty of signs worn that you shouldn't have went down there which there was a couple here but I do think like uh if if he was a guy that was just like fuck this I'm doing it anyways they're hiding something blah blah blah and you that loss has to stay with you forever I think it feels so much more like deserve like this is like a punishment this is something that like you could have avoided this if you just stepped out of your own way if you weren't so selfish yada yada yada

that kind of stuff but I mean I don't know people might totally agree with you too and some people I know will get comments being like you know it just seems to gratuitous. There should never be a reason for it. But I think that that's all open for discussion. And that's the thing, too, is it's all subjective. You know, like, it's just your opinion and what you think and all that kind of stuff. So I'll say, um, um, um, a couple notes. Like, I remember with the dog dine thing. I was writing the story one time. I was telling Kayla about it and had a dog dine in there. She's like, you can't do that. And I'm like, well, it's like a flesh thing that consumes all, it's like consumed the family and all the wildlife and stuff like that around the house. So,

know, the family had a dog, so I see the dog. And she was like, well, you can't kill the dog. I'm like, okay, so you want it to kill everything but the dog? And she's like, yeah, you have to write a reason why it didn't kill the dog. I'm like, that's stupid. But also, I'm reading through the comments of the post. And someone raised an interesting point. They're like, perhaps Daniel did find a way to survive the apocalypse that's about to come.

Like his family has immortality now, but it's not the way he expected. which is an interesting thought. Like a monkey, Paul kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah, like he did find an equation. Like, oh, if we build a bunker here, if we do this, we'll survive the coming apocalypse. And they will. It's just not in a good way. Also, I say all that stuff about the dog dying.

And I'm like, who's this for? Why wouldn't they kill the dog? And then I read, I read some of these comments. And there, where was that one that cracked me up? It was like, I was starting to do the same thing here until the paragraph about Ripley. I audibly went, well, I'd do that. I would do the exact same thing to save my doggo from being

stuck somewhere. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely going to be, you know, I mean, it's just it's pure innocence, you know, that's a thing. There's also, yeah, there's multiple people asking what the last part about the radio meant and if they could get some

clarification about the radio and it's like, okay, maybe you can't kill the dog. Maybe these people would get way too fired up if you killed the dog. I think people would, you know, people, people fucking, they get, they do. It's, it's fucking, see, I'm not, yeah, I'm not critiquing Christian Walls for not killing the dog because the, because like, people get mad about it. I'm critiquing the audiences to be like, you got to let the dog die more. You got to just be okay with some dog deaths.

Okay. I love dogs too, but I also love people. And when I read a horror story, they both got to go. That's just part of it. They both got to go. Nobody bats an eye when a guy gets his fucking head blown off. No. Do you know how many horrific mutilat mutilations of men I've seen in movies? No, boy.

Believe it or not, all of my guy friends, men. So, you know, maybe I don't want that to happen to him. Don't want that to happen to dogs. Show me it in a movie. I'm glad, though. Christian Wallace, three for three, man. What a, I think we've covered more than three of his. Have we?

I am positive. We've covered more than three of his. Well, if we have, then, I mean, it's, fuck, he's a perfect hitter in my book right now. I think that there are great lengths to, at least for reading. You know, I know, I know like a lot of people that listen to this podcast, they really want longer big episodes. But like somebody that can, that can like give a story in such a in such a fucking lean, punchy. Like it just doesn't have a lot of fat. It's just like right to the jugular.

I think is just extremely impressive. And it just makes for like a fun casual reading. Like this is the great. Which is also why I want to say, be sure to pick up if you are interested in more of like reading his stuff. be sure to support his his book will like I said we'll leave it in the description below these are going to be like just such fun like you know

you're at work or before bed or all that kind of stuff these just like real fun easily digestible stories that I think leave a really fun mystery or you know they leave a nice thought loop in your head of just thinking about the story yeah the guy is like man he he punches with some stuff he's an all-time oh yeah

the one about the deer meat the daddy reading deer meat. That was Christian Wallace. Yeah. Okay. So he's got four. Yeah. We've, I'm glad you know what, though. It's been a while. It's easily been like a, year since we've read one of his things. Well, the deer meat one wasn't a year ago, but other than that, yes. Oh, yeah. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Whatever. But the, uh, ignore everything. You just said. Yeah, I don't know. I thought, I thought we were talking about the another story. But the, uh, yeah, it's good stuff.

What can I say? Thanks for listening on audio platforms, guys. We appreciate you. Also, thank you to our patrons for supporting the channel and getting all the bonus episodes. We appreciate that as well. Until the next time, guys, be sure to check out Christian Wallace's website. We'll leave some links to his website or where you can find his book below and just support the author. You know, if it wasn't for them, we wouldn't be reading this story. So until next time, guys, stay creeped.

We'll see his next one. Stay creeped. And look, just got to kill the dog. Okay. Got to kill the dog more. So get on that. Thank you.