CreepCast - The Showers | Creep Cast

Episode Date: May 4, 2024

A teachers story about a weird farm in Nebraska takes our storyteller for the ride of his life Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is the cold habitual, and it is the froy of the mountains blue. The froy at its summit. Coors Light. T'envue in a fraud. Celebrate, in a fashion responsible, you have to have the age legal to consume the alcohol.

Welcome back to Creepcast. I am your co-host, Meat Canyon. Joined with me is... Windagoon, the other co-host guy. Feels so weird We've never done that kind of intro I'll go with it You want to do an old like 50s broadcaster

The start Yeah I was about saying Can you do the Mid-Atlantic accent? There you go Yeah yeah Just a little time down on hand I was just For people who are watching us on YouTube

Be sure to also check us out On Spotify and Apple Podcast It helps boost us up there And if you listen there Be sure to give us a nice little Five Star rating It helps all the world But today we are going

over the showers, which is, as I'm looking at here, it is the scariest story of, of 2012 is what it says at the very time. That's right. This is apparently a R-slash-no-sleep classic. Dare I say one of the greats, on the Mount Rushmore of R-slash-no-sleep. According to the internet, it certainly is. It's up there with things like Barasco, which I know we're all still very scared of. I remember this being talked about in the same capacity

things like no end house were talked about or 1999 and unlike those stories that I've read and remember all the details of I actually don't remember the showers I don't think I've ever read it so I'm excited to get to experience it for the first time because most of the time

like don't get me wrong it's fun to know exactly what's going to happen and hold a teddy bear up to the camera it's a terrorize hunter that's great yeah by the way I how dare you by the way. Oh yeah, the audience never got to see your reaction. No, nobody got to see that. And I want to say that's bullshit.

I had people flooding, flooding me on Twitter after the fact and read it and everything. And I want to say that, like, I saw the edit. I saw like, when I was rewatching the cut and I was like, this son of a bitch. I was like the entire time played me like a fool the entire time. So I want to say, yes, I saw it. It's unbelievable. My mouth was a gape during the edit. I, when I first saw the first cut of it, my mouth was wide open.

I was like, he trolled me the entire time. Bro, when you, when you were like, I think there's a picture of you with a bear. I was, God. And it was holding it. I was, all I could do was grip my teeth and clinch my fist and rage. I was just like, you, you bastard. Dude. You make me look like a fool.

The joy I felt in that moment has to be comparable to holding your first. born like wow I'm sure it's the same thing getting one over on me that much was that was that pivotal

you don't understand how satisfying of a burn it is when you're like I think you have a teddy bear I uh and I keep gas lighting you it's so good

as soon as you have your first child I'm going to go up to it I'm going to say we're on the same level you and I I'm going to say to him I'm going to shake his little hand and be like

you and I are one and the same also I want to say so the title of the story today is the showers from what we see here it's by clover 10176 we'll put the link in the description of course um but also the way my hair is part is because uh and i took a shower just before this just because i knew we were taking the showers it definitely wasn't because i smelt like shit and my hair was super greasy so now this is why my hair looks like this so i don't want people dogging on me all right i look like rosanne bar whenever my hair is wet so i'm sorry for that. It's very, it's unfortunate. But I'm, I'm very, I'm, I'm excited. I, as always,

I have never read this. I've just seen people in the comments suggest, suggest this. So once again, I am excited, but we have a very love, hate relationship with, uh, with suggestions, viewer suggestions. I don't know what you're talking about. I've been thrilled by everything we've covered. Listen, I will say it's always been entertaining. There's always been some kind of peak where I'm like, what the hell is this? What are we doing? Whether it be good or bad. Look, every single thing we've covered has been an utter joy and benefit to my life for better or worse. That doesn't mean that they've all been good, but I've loved every single one of them.

But yeah, I'm very excited to talk about the showers. I will mention to the audience, I'm technically high right now and shouldn't be operating a vehicle, not because I do illicit drugs, but because I do legal drugs. I had my wisdom teeth removed a few days ago. and I am hyped up on pain medication right now so I feel great I feel awesome are you doing the nice fentanyl flop right now yeah that's what the doctor prescribed fentanyl yeah he's like so this is a very popular drug right now

there you go the kids love this so if I say anything weird or do anything weird don't hold it against me unless it's funny you absolutely have to hold it against them I want to say also you prefaceing that you can't be driving large vehicles it's like are you recording and driving at the same time. For a second, I'm like, is he in his car just barreling down the freeway? He's like, I got to record the showers.

If you watch this edit back and I'm like driving a truck. I would have to make some kind of disclaimer being like, I don't know what is happening, but this is not, this is not okay. We can't, we can't go on like this. Well, without further ado, as I say, let's just, let's hop in. Absolutely. I do want to mention that the author, so yes, his username, on Reddit is Clover, whatnot. The author's legal name, because

since this has been printed as a novella, he's worked on other things, his name is Dylan Sindler, Sindler, however that name is pronounced, it's sin, and then Deller, Sindler, whatever. Dylan wrote the story originally, it's gone on to write other stuff.

So he gets full credit for everything we're talking about, and we're going to link his original post. Oh, cool, yeah, and like you said, there is, it has been novelized, so you can pick up the paperback it looks like As with a lot of these, like, pin pal was like that. I think if Barat, I know Barasca and Left, Right game were made into the audio shows. I think maybe Barasca also had a print version, if I recall, right?

Maybe I'm wrong. But yeah, a lot of this stuff kind of becomes popular enough that it's put into other, like, media formats. I will say, I can't remember on the Reddit page that we had, but someone did a different cover for Pinpal. And it looked amazing. It was really, really good. I think they submitted it to a graphic design contest and won from what I saw and it was amazing. So if we can

we thought well we should put it up here because it was really really cool to see. I'm also trying to look right now for the showers, the actual physical book and it looks it looks like it's out of print. It's like it's apparently very hard to find so if anybody has it you might be sitting on gold. Could be a collector's edition type

thing. That's what I'm saying dude. I'm going to have to be digging. You could convince Hunter to buy it off of you for a lot of money because if there's one thing Hunter loves it's stealing money from our fans as he's discussed. I do. I love it. Get me your money. I want it. All right, we should get to the story before you're canceled. Let's do it. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, please, hurry, run, run. All right. The showers, part one. Every area in all parts of the world has those area-specific urban legends that just refuse to die. Whether the stories are about a haunted asylum on the outskirts of the

city, a creature that lives in the nearby woods, or a ghost that haunts a lonely stretch of road outside of town, there's always a common thread within the tales. No one has ever been to these places, seeing the creatures, or witnessed any hauntings with their own eyes. That's true. Do you think that's true? Do you think that's true? I think it's true with a lot of urban legends that work, right? Because the person who tells them never tells the story, oh, I saw this. It's always the old minor who lived in the hills or you know

the trap ran into this yeah yeah he said she said kind of thing of like oh my cousin's friend you know what I mean something something like that because it removes doubt

from the storyteller or like removes like a line of questioning because it's not their story it's someone else's like I don't know that's just what I heard yeah exactly and it keeps urban legends alive there are members of every generation

who will proclaim that they know someone whose brother's best friend's sister went to the haunted house with 13 floors that used real blood and snakes and spiders and is so scary that no one has ever made it all the way through that sounds like how people

talk about McCamey Manor back in the day no God yeah except those people are just actual assault victims and they're just like hey can someone arrest this man please this fucking psychopath I got punched in the face it was fun I guess

God those same people will swear by these stories without ever being able to provide a shred of evidence or a name of someone who could provide proof of the claim simply because everyone around here knows that it's a true story. The storytellers eventually pass the tales onto their children who modify them just enough to keep up with the changing times and the cycle continues. I'm as skeptical as anyone when it comes to these stories, seeing as I was like a junkie when I was younger, constantly searching for more terrifying stories about whatever area of the country I was living in at the time. I made up and

spread stories about haunted pizza parlors in New York. My cousin's encounter with the Jersey Devil or how my grandfather encountered a feral, human-like demon creature in the woods of Colorado. I even broke the one role with these stories by putting myself in them. This took guts, in hindsight, because I had to make sure that I always told them the same way. Surprisingly, no one ever called my bluff. I already, I already like the intro so far. I feel like, uh, I used to do, I used to do that as a kid. I used to like try to eat up stories, like scary stories from people I heard. Uh, and I would like retell them, but sometimes I would embellish them a little bit.

You know, maybe make them a bit more intense or stuff. I, yeah, it's kind of homie so far. It is. One thing that I like to so far that the author is doing is admitting to that they, he fabricates, or they fabricate their own stories, right? Yeah. And admittedly, it's just like, yeah, I lie and no one really calls my bluff. And I feel like it's setting up a good, it's setting up an interesting ball where I think it's going to be boy who cried wolf kind of situation is what I'm thinking.

Yeah. And again, I'm actually, normally I just gaslight you by being like, yeah, sure, Hunter. That sounds cool. We'll see because I know where this is going. But this time I'm actually like, yeah, could be. I don't know. I'm glad. Finally, the sadistic mastermind himself can't play one over on me.

Or who knows? You could be lying. I have no idea. That's right. Go back into your realm of doubt. As I'm sitting here holding a shower head up to the camera. Yeah, you're taking a shower right now. You rewatch the episode.

I'm completely naked. Just like. I'm like, I see your cock and balls. We cannot put this in. I don't know why you had to stand so far away from your Logitech web camera. Why was this recorded on an iPhone? Oh, what the heck? Yeah, exactly.

I'm like, this is unsettling. Anyway, I like to think that I've had some wonderful contributions to various urban legends around the Midwest and Northeastern states. I moved around a lot. There was always a surge of joy whenever I would wander the halls at school and hear one of my classmates,

retelling my stories to another one of their friends, adding little bits here and there, like a massive game of telephone. I knew, of course, that the stories were complete fiction, but I stood my ground whenever someone asked me about them. I would even manage to act a little bit, speaking with a shaky voice or looking scared when I would recount a situation that I supposedly experienced myself. I suppose this aspect of my childhood has led to my current predicament, which I will recount, in full for the internet to take from it what they will.

I have laid this little introduction out as a sort of disclaimer, aimed for my current. particularly at those who would call my story into question. I've been like the boy who cried wolf for years. I assure you with every ounce of honesty and integrity that I have that this time the wolf is real. That you called the boy who cried wolf. So. I did.

So much. God, I'm they shooting from the hip again. I like that though. I like that the, I like that also that string of sentences too of, I've been like the boy who cried wolf for years by assure you with every ounce of honesty, integrity that I have have at this time, the wolf is real. I think that's fun. Yeah. I like that line a lot. That's a cool sentence. The wolf is a good tag. I think. Yeah. It works. The wolf is real. Yeah. That's fun. This is interesting, too, is very well written so far. But also very, it seems a lot. And I know we've said this before, but like, you know, this is a 12 year old story by this point, right? And it seems. like back, like the older the stories are, the less bullshit they throw in.

Like, it's very like, they give you a nice plump beginning and then they like, it doesn't feel like there's a lot of fat. Like, I feel like he's really ramping us up to something versus before, or later on in the series, I think people found out that people like to actually chew on these things a lot. So they really have a lot of preamble.

Yeah, I mean, like a lot of like, a lot of, not necessarily unnecessary buildup, but stuff where it's like, you probably could have cut that and the story would have been fine. But I like that this is probably the part right here where we're going to get thrown right over the roller coasters edge into where we're going. I also feel like back in the day, creepy pasta communities were very much so kind of like, it's weird to call them like a practice grounds because you're still publishing it for people to see.

But especially because of like the anonymity and kind of the nicheness of the community for a while, a lot of people would put like these sections into their creepy pasta. I feel to kind of see how it worked, to be like, can I kind of ramble about this for a bit? Does this work for a good tagline? Let me try it, right? Because it's like, oh, absolutely. It's like kind of low stakes, right? I remember when I used to write like horror stories and stuff like that, I'd hear a cool concept and be like, can I do something with that?

Let me go see. So I think a lot of these creepypastas kind of do that. So in a way, I kind of feel the writer is testing their own writing of building out like you're inflicting the, the literal elements of the story, like a child who loved to tell stories, but you're also introducing some kind of themes, like it says, Boy Who Cried Wolf, or of someone that's always been obsessed with stories their whole life, so now they're just telling a different one. It lays the groundwork for a lot of stuff at once, and I think, I think it works. No, I think it does, too. I mean, I think that you're incredibly right, that especially,

especially, I know people say, they get mad when I say, especially, well, you know what, Fuck it. I'm going to keep saying it. Especially when you have the 12 years ago, right? I don't know what the how infamous R. Slash No Sleep was, but there's no way that people would probably look at it with the same regards as having actual published work or something. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's the same. It's the same kind of thing when people look at like YouTubers who make movies. Right. And then they're like, well, until you make that actual like network or studio produced film, that's what make it. That's what legitimizes it. so this is just a way for people to anomalous anomalously ummmlessly uh be like make these stories and there's really probably at the time there's really no kind of weight behind it you're just like oh i'm just doing this for fun

to see what you can do so it really does feel like these early days of stuff there really was just like a very pure like unfiltered way of testing out storytelling that's a good word for it it's pure it's just like here here's me you know all the i'm not worried about oh i can only have two paragraphs to set up this i can only have one here like they're they're just talking in the way they want to speak and i think that's why a lot of really interesting stuff came out of it definitely i mean like no gods no masters kind of uh approach of you don't have to like you're not doing it for anybody but yourself you know what i mean i think that that's really cool i agree all right go ahead from my introduction it is probably apparent that i moved

around the country quite a bit in my middle and high school years neither of my parents had anything to do with any branch of the armed forces, they simply didn't tend to hang around any given place for too long. I suppose it had some sort of effect on me, but I wasn't hurt by it or anything of the sort. Growing up, I was a complete ham. I made friends very easily, was often the class clown, and because of that, was often disliked by my teachers. Again, this was never an issue, as I was usually in another state by the time the next semester rolled around. Have you ever heard anyone refer to themselves as a ham? I've heard the phrase ham at up, but I've never heard ham it up, but I've never heard anyone say, I am a honey roasted ham.

I'm a bit of a clown. I'm a bit of a jokester. I'm a honey roasted ham. Me, I'm known as the hammer in these parts. I am the ham. People also call me Oscar Meyer. I'm a bit of a meat man myself. Yes, and my teachers, oh, they don't like it. Yes. Oh, you're talking about Jacoby? Yeah, he's just a ham. Me? Yes. I'm a ham. Hello. Don't confuse me with a turkey because I'm not. I'm a ham. I'm no bird. I'm a piggy. Okay. I'm, this is, this is going nowhere. I'm sorry. You just gave me flashbacks to a really funny story. So I haven't heard the name Jacoby in years.

When I was the sixth grade, I remember. So like, I was like Christian kid. I was homeschooled for a few years. in elementary schools, like, socially in like the, or sorry, seventh grade, I wasn't, like, up to date with, like, other guys my age. So I remember I was at a sleepover, and the other guys were talking about girls they thought were hot. And I was like, I thought girls were pretty, but I never, like, I was never, I'd say, like, physically attracted in the way that, like, most teenage boys are until, like, eighth grade, right? So anyway, seventh grade, they're asking, it's like, oh, who do you think's hot? So I made up, I literally did the, she goes to a different school thing. So I made up a girl and I gave her the name Jacoby because I heard that

name and just like just ticked the name out of the Ather. And I was like, yeah, she's, she's really hot. She goes to different school. So for the rest of seventh grade, those, because they immediately saw through it. They were immediately like this guy's never spoken to a woman. What are you talking about? They made fun of me constantly. And they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they knew that like my parents were like like religious and stuff so they kept me like like I'm gonna tell your mom that you said a girl was hot or whatever I'm like no please like I'm not a girl like don't tell my mom I like girls please she's real I swear her name my girlfriend's name Steve Wallace my girlfriend's name Steve Wallace when you said the name

Jacobi it shot spikes through me because I haven't heard that name and for a brief second I'm like, don't tell my mom. No, no, please. Don't tell her I like with it. She's real. Anything. She's real, I swear. Don't tell my mom's dead. Yeah, I had to share that.

I couldn't let that one go. That's a nice piece of, you know, that's a good piece of cringe. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. The author of The Showers is listening to this. Like, can they just read the story? Yeah, no shit.

No, they're probably listening to this. They're like, I too had a girl. friend name Jacoby. Yeah. I also think Jacobi's a man's name in the hindsight.

It absolutely is. I have a friend named Jacoby. It absolutely is a man's name. I swear I met a girl named Jacoby, which is why that thought. And Jacob is in the name.

It's basically Jacob with a Y. It's basically Jacobi. You're like, wait, that's not a girl's name. Okay, but there's like a, like, okay, you have Alex, and then you add an I.S, and it's a Lexus.

It's a girl's name. now like there's a ton of names like true true like don't true i don't know if jacobi sounds very feminine i she's real to me okay she's real to me she's real to me she goes to another school but she's really hot goes to a different school i remember she's very attractive while we're on this i remember the other guys would like told the girls in the class like hey he made up a girl that he thought's pretty so like the girls would bully me they'd be like oh like what's Jacoby look like.

Stop incriminating yourself. You're incriminating yourself. I literally, I was so scrawny and weird in seventh grade that I this is, I am incriminating.

Like I said, the pain medicine, don't hold this against me. God. It became regular. You're doing yourself such a hole. You're like, I shit my pants.

There was an empty trash can on the way to the, to the bathroom at school. And if I passed one of, the like eighth grade students going to or from the bathroom without saying a word without like making a fuss about they would just pick me up and put me in the trash can and just like i have i have no response i don't know how i'm supposed to this is this is so sad that's not even so unbelievably we'll move on but i promise that's not the worst of it that was the stuff that was funny there was other

stuff i got bullied a lot for being like for having i had a lisp and i liked dragon ball z i was not Yeah, and I made up women. I want to put you in a trash can right now without your talking about this. Yeah, okay, yeah, sorry. I want to pick you up and dunk in a trash can. This is why I prefaced the pain medicine, okay? Because I knew it would be, I knew I would overshare, okay?

I love, I love Vegeta and I love Goku so much, please. Also, have you seen a girl? That wasn't my list. My lips, my list was. Have you seen a, have you seen a seven foot tall woman named Jacoby walking around? I'm missing her I do like tall women

I've always like tall women okay so maybe I did say she would seven feet tall maybe that's how they saw through it I don't know a tall glass of water can we get back to the story I'm not even gonna like

can we get back to the story you're hijacking this and you're like telling your whole sad life right here I'm trying to remember where the hell we're at we're at my

my my my friend friendships were often fleeting. Okay, you're the one who said Jacoby. This is your fault. If you've used any other name, none of this would have happened.

Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't know. What is this podcast? I don't know. I'm lost. I'm literally doing a podcast with a guy high on fentanyl right now. I have no idea.

What the hell's going on? My friendships were often fleeting, as were any positive relationships that I ever had my teachers. Because of the events that followed, my memory of one teacher in particular is probably slightly skewed, but I will attempt to give the least biased version of our friendship that I can. I really hope this isn't another pedophile story. It's, God, it's every time we like, because I accidentally slipped into it. All the other ones, I have set up as landmines for Hunter, but I don't want to get tricked by you all. Every time that it's just like, it's an old,

all these stories always have to set it up where it's just like, yep, my name's Bryce. I'm eight and this is my relationship with a 42 year old man and you're just like what? What's going on and he's like, yeah, there was a weird clown. He was really scary. You're like, okay. All right.

Why do we always have to go here? Which to be fair, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's just see what happens with Mr. Mays here. I'm going to hold out hope that he's not that. I hope he's cool. Yeah. Mr. Mays was one of my social studies teachers in the early years of my high school experience. Being older now, I can understand how horrible children are to deal with around that age,

and I respect him to no ends for the way he was able to connect with his students. Okay, good. Thank God. I was about being older now, I see some problems, but no, he's like... Yeah, well, I'm still holding my breath. I don't trust his still. He seemed like one of us. He talked like us. made pop culture references that were current

listen to cool music and sometimes he would even say hell or damn while he was giving a passionate lecture about Native American history or something like that a teacher that swore even a little bit was the epitome of cool to a freshman in high school that's actually true I remember in high school I had some teachers that swore and I was like

I this is the coolest thing I've ever seen like yeah I think I heard one of my history teachers this is actually kind of fucked up I heard one of my history teachers back in the day when I was like, I think a freshman in high school, he was like, Robert E. Lee was the shit. And I was like, whoa, that's awesome. And then looking back on it, I'm like, is it cool to say

that a Confederate War general was the shit? You were so caught up with the swear. He said shit, that's awesome. Robert Lee is super cool. That's how you red pill like high school kids, you just swear

while talking about something else. They're like, base, base. A little hunter talking about based Confederate soldiers. Their flag sure is cool. My mom's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Other way, child, other way. My memories of Mr. Mays mostly stem from the way that he really got into anything that he was doing.

The instance that is still very vivid in my mind was, of course, around Halloween of my sophomore year. Mr. Mays had the typical teacher decorations around the classroom, smiling jack-o-lanards and black-cat cartoons, typical and boring in the minds of egotistic high school students. However, on the 31st of October, when most other teachers were rolling their eyes of the fact the teenagers still took dressing up in costume on Halloween seriously, Mr. Mays took the whole cool teacher thing to a new level.

We walked into the classroom and were surprised to find the blind straw on, sheets over the small windows, candles lighting the room, and a single, frowning Jacko-Landard sitting on a stool in the front of the desks. Mr. May said at his desk, just watching the students come into class and take their seats. You didn't have to ask anyone to be quiet because the moment everyone walked into the room, they were either too excited to care about petty conversations or too confused to bother with him. The students took their seats as Mr. Mays began his lecture. He spoke quietly to set the mood. and took a seat on a chair right next to the jack-o lantern in the center of the room.

Today is probably my favorite day of the year, class. Halloween is my favorite holiday. I don't want to share with you exactly why I love it so much. One girl raised her hand with a concerned look on her face. I'm pushing the due date for your papers next Tuesday, said Mr. Mays. Without bothering to look at the girl, we slowly put her hand down, looking around at the other students with a hint of embarrassment. God, what a she should.

he just shut her right the fuck down. Just like raise her hand up and she's like, okay, nerd. I remember we had one teacher in high school. He's looking back, he's one of the coolest teachers ever. He like, he was a literature teacher

and he had us read the road in high school, which is an insane book to get junior high school students read. But I remember reading McCarthy and then like developing a love for stories. I really attribute a lot of what he taught to where I am now. and I remember he had this policy that if any like student we couldn't game it but if naturally any student was like you forgot to take up the homework he'd be like that's lame

no homework like he would yeah I will say too that's kind of that's kind of sweet to get to let kids read Cormac McCarthy at an early age I think is I think is actually pretty fucking cool I remember so like heavy subject matter but I think I think uh obviously it's written by like I mean a literature savant so it's yeah it's I just think that kind of stuff is always also I think his stuff is hard reads but I would never say it's smut or it's like no gratuitous to be gratuit you know not at all like sure there's heavy themes in it but it's just good books with heavy themes uh I'll tell you this really quickly the moments that I kind of decided I wanted to dive into like why people tell stories and stuff like that we so it was

the road right and uh he had been a literature teacher for like 15 20 years and he said that he taught the road when he first started teaching but he hasn't taught the road in like the past like 10 years or whatever so he gets up there in class on the first day we're about to read it

and he says I'll let you all know I haven't read I haven't taught this book since my son was born so now I'm not just looking at it as a man in a wasteland I'm looking at it as a father seeing his son. Oh, sure. Sure. So he opens the book and he starts reading and he reads the line that says,

The father looked at his son that if his son were not the voice of God, then God never spoke. And as soon as he read it, he cried like a tear came out of his eye. And I remember seeing that and thinking, this book matters to that guy. I want to find out why. I want to read it myself. And I went home and read the whole book and one night became obsessed with it, wanted to get more into literature and now I'm here so yeah like teachers who actually care about their work and put themselves into it can have such a profound effect on kids oh absolutely you also

had a very mature response to that because remember one time we watched uh I think it was gone with the wind and it's the part where the woman rides the horse and dies and our teacher was crying and the entire class was just laughing at her I mean without without hesitation I think the woman says just like Paul and my teacher's like tearing up and crying and we're just like I mean like hysterically laughing it's like could not be polar up more polar opposite to your story okay I you know what without comment let's continue the class erupted in quiet cheers and Mr. Mays waited for the inevitable silence he began his story immediately after the classroom had calmed down.

I will attempt to recreate the amazing story that Mr. Mays told the class that day. The way in which he told this story rendered the horror junkie speechless and the rest of the class terrified. The same girl that had raised her hand to ask about the paper was holding her knees to her chest by the end of it, a look of terror on her face. The important thing to know was what the story was about. The specific slit my mind now and aren't too relevant. I'll try to recount the parts of the story that made.

matter the most, but don't hold me to it. Basically, Mr. Mason and his friends set out on a road trip around the country after graduating from college. It took a truck, loaded it with camping gear, and set out to site sea for the entire summer. The group went from the Poconos in New Jersey down to the coast of Florida, New Orleans to California, and up to Washington. From there, they went to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and then back home to New York. This concept of the freedom to travel anywhere had the entire class hooked in an instant. Mr. Mace was the coolest teacher ever, in my eyes. Being adventurous college kids, the group didn't bring a map. There were no time constraints, so they just kind of drove in the general direction that they wanted to go

and eventually found a town to stay in or someplace that looked interesting. He told us that after spending a week in Colorado, he and his friends had to travel through miles and miles of corn, plains, and more corn. He assumed that they were in either Nebraska or Kansas when they decided to pull their extra cash and stay in a hotel for a night. They settled into a motel in some town that Mr. Mays could barely remember the name of when one of his friends realized that they were somewhere near his grandfather's farm. He wasn't entirely sure where it was, but being adventurous college kids, they decided to get a quick refund from the motel and try to contact the friend's grandpa. They were unable to do.

get a hold of the grandpa on the phone, so the group figured it would be fun to just show up. Mr. May's friend was adamant that his grandparents would take them in and feed them without a moment of hesitation. So, the group set out with an hour of sunlight, seeking the salvation of a comfortable house to stay in. In Kansas or Nebraska, wherever it may have been, there aren't a whole lot of natural markers that could guide lost travelers, any directions given to someone who didn't live around the area basically amounted to go up a couple of miles to the corn, take a ride, and go down a dirt road to the other corn, there should be some wheat on your right. So, as is the case in most scary stories, the group got lost. Never wanting to admit defeat, they drove into the night, making wrong

turns every five minutes until they found themselves on a wooded road that Mr. May's friend was certain that his grandparents lived off of. Mr. Mays described the road as basically a dark path to hell. I wasn't entirely sure how true this was, because he got very excited and a bit ridiculous with his explanations of the trees that almost tried to grab the car and the red eyes of countless animals looking at them from the darkness. Regardless, the typical horror tropes worked on most of the class. Everyone was terrified. So the group of guys drove on this dark road for about 15 minutes before they came to a clearing and a small building with lights in it. And what seemed to be a silo.

They figured that, at the very least, the people who lived here would be able to help find where the guy's parents lived. The whole idea of, everyone knows everyone in these hick parts of the country, fueled his hope. They pulled the car up near the building, realizing when they were out of the car,

that it appeared to be like the kind of places where one would try to store a whole bunch of chickens. Not a home. Still, the lights were on, so they figured they would give it a try. They approached the building as a group, looking in the semi-open sliding door to find a big, empty room. Hanging fluorescent lights lit the room like it was daytime, and they couldn't see a soul. There were no cars, but one of Mr. May's friends was convinced he'd seen someone as they pulled up.

So they decided to go inside and see if there was an office or something where someone might still be working. Why else would they have this huge place lit up like that? There were no doors on the inside of the building. Again, it was just a giant empty hall. So the group roamed around the property and over towards the silo. As they got closer, they noticed what appeared to be a cellar door. At this point, I remember Mr. Mays telling the entire class to learn from his idiocy. He told us that he hadn't seen many horror movies before that time

and didn't think twice about approaching a creepy cellar door in the middle of a dark, scary, foreign place. He said that approaching the door was one of his biggest regrets. Mr. Mays let the whole class know that he was going to tell us as much as he deemed appropriate about the experience.

He felt that we were mature enough to handle it, but advised anyone that was squeamish to leave class early. Several students quietly gathered their things and walked out the door. A couple of them being stoners who saw this as an opportunity to smoke behind the school

before their next class. I didn't even give the announcement a second thought. Like I said, I was and am a sucker for this kind of stuff. And Mr. Mays was telling a story much better than anything I had ever conjured up. I wanted to learn from this guy, even though I didn't believe much of the story.

I think that people also, that maybe haven't grown up in the Midwest or people that have grown up in the Midwest will relate to this. But I'm from Missouri, right on the Kansas border as well. there's something that's like very eerie about like Midwest open pastures and cornfields and stuff. It's very much like the ocean. It's very easy to get lost in there. And it's like a big

sea of nothing. And it does sometimes like kind of stumble upon these houses and stuff like this old kind of building or whatever. It's so it's so uncanny in a lot of ways. Like it's obviously it's just like, oh, it's just farmland. It's a guy's farmhouse, whatever. But it's still just like so weird to think like it's almost like a small island in this like sea. of like blank empty I mean nothing I mean plants and all that kind of stuff and even I did that little description of him saying like when you went down

the roads and the trees are grabbing at us like before he's comment about the red eyes looking back at us I thought that was kind of peculiar because I've been down many you know just old dirt roads where the trees are kind of growing into almost the road itself so you're almost like your car is almost scraping past

some of these branches as well it's like they're trying to retake the ground there right like they're slowly approaching over it yeah you're also encroaching on something to where it's like these trees have not been trimmed you're kind of like you're you're going to some place where it's like no one cares to clean this up like there's not enough traffic to go through that would make this place a via you know like if even like people driving down at themselves and knocking the branches over or whatever it's just it's such an untapped part of like i don't know earth it's very it i i wish that more stories would

elicit more aesthetics from the Midwest. It's so empty and like just so void of life in a lot of places that I think it's such a perfect spot. There's something weird about like looping geometry almost or looping like landscape over and over, you know, where it does kind of become something you could easily be lost in. There's no place markers for it. It's a good setting for something like those it's also a lot more chaotic than something like the left right game where you know phoenix the city or like cities themselves are built on grid systems and stuff and while there's plots of land and farmlands and stuff like that there's so much stuff that isn't marked like manmade roads man made trails all kinds of stuff that's just completely hidden from um public maps or public

information and stuff so i don't know it's just it's very creepy but i'm i'm stoked i'm curious to see what's in the cellar yeah i'm i'm very invested It's rare that I get to read one of these for the show, and I don't know what's about to happen, so I'm excited. Yeah, I'm stoked. After the class had thinned a bit, Mr. Mays continued with the story. He told the remaining few that he and his friends opened that cellar door, releasing a smell that he only described as, the most putrid thing my senses have ever experienced. The group was no longer concerned with finding the owners of the property, but was now set on finding the source of that smell.

They went down the steps into the cellar, which was lit. by a single bulbs spaced sporadically along the ceiling of a long hallway. No one spoke. Things had gotten too strange. The walls were lined with metal sheeting, similar to the roofing on farms. The hallway itself was crooked, and the ceilings constantly lowered in rows, like a tunnel that was hastily dug and then never touched up. There were sections where the boys had to almost crouch in order to pass. Are we assuming that the lights are on there, or are they just looking at the empty

bulbs and they're just saying that's spaced. I think they're on because otherwise in a crawl space like this you couldn't see anything. It'd be pitch black. It's reading almost like a it's reading almost like a like kind of like a kill pig pen or something. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's reading very much like that for people that don't know that that they kind of used that kind of like edged very cheap thin middle siding and they just have the pigs go through there. But usually it's like you know, it's a slaughterhouse or something. The worst part, Mr. Mace told us, was that the light bulbs continuously flickered. There's your answer to if they're on or not.

Oh, okay, there you are you. Sometimes acting like a strobe light and making it very difficult to move through the winding and unstable hallways. In hindsight, he was certain that his mind was playing tricks on him, but he remembered seeing flashes of things that couldn't be there. He said that when you are that focused on something, or if you are that nervous, your mind can do that to you.

It can simply revolt, showing you things or people that aren't there. He continued to describe the hallway, and I was on the edge of my seat. The halls were windy and seemed to go on forever. Mr. May's guests, they were somewhere under the creepy forest they had driven through when they found a door, but he couldn't be sure. He said that they came upon a door after walking for what felt like a mile. It was simple and wooden, but it looked like it belonged outside of a suburban home. It had a nice design, seemed to be freshly painted red, and had a very nice knob and knocker on it.

It was a door that belongs at the entrance to a nice house, not one that should be sitting in a dirt tunnel in the middle of nowhere. His friend walked towards the door, moving carefully because of the flashing light bulb and increasingly, an increasing uncertainty about the stability of the surrounding walls. He turned to the group, the rest of which were nervous, at the very least, and attempted to lighten the mood with a laugh before he said,

I should probably knock first. Mr. May's friend grabbed the steel knocker and hit it against the door several times, mockingly, but quietly uttering... Is anyone home? The group waited about 30 seconds before their tension broke. A guy next to the door shrugged his shoulders and went to walk back to his friends, but as he did, the light bulb between them surged and exploded. The boy shielded their eyes and looked back to their lone friend by the door,

as he lowered his hands, One of the metal sheets of the makeshift roof dropped. The edge of the sheet fell directly on the boy's forehead, slicing it open, setting a wave of blood down his face. The impact apparently knocked him out, and he fell back against the door, knocking it open in the process. The entirety of the group rushed through the dim light to their friend, barely noticing the seemingly pitch-black room that now lay before them.

Mr. Mays was the first to make it to his friend's side. he lifted the guy's head to his arms, immediately taking off his jacket and putting it over his forehead to attempt to stop the bleeding. Once the group had calmed down, Mr. Mays noticed that the arm that had been bracing his friend's head was soaking wet. He was confused about this and was attempting to sort it out when one of his friends started talking. He said something along the lines of... The lights, we have to go. And Mr. Mays took notice. You know when you turn off a light and everything is almost pitch black?

except the light of the bulb dying out or cooling down it was like that but there were so many of them at least 20 light bulbs had lit the room seconds ago and now only looked like little stars in the darkness that was definitely terrifying but that wasn't the scariest thing there was still a very dim light coming from the hallway behind them though it was weak lit the room up just enough to see the shape of tens of people standing less than ten feet in front of them Oh shit. Mr. May's friend went to say something else as one of the bulbs to the right flicker to life. Let me interrupt at this point and say that Mr. Mays was a generally playful guy. He had that tone voice that makes you want to respond. Basically, he could say, let's go jump off a cliff, guys. And you would want to respond with,

All right, Mr. Mays, show us the way. That is a ridiculous statement, but it gets the point across. Oh, yeah, no shit. Hey, guys, let's go drunk driving. All right, I'm already drinking. Let's go jump off a cliff. All right. It's like, what are you talking about?

He'd follow him off a cliff? The fuck are you talking about, do you psychopath? Weirdo. I think he was just a normal guy. I don't give a fuck how cool the teacher is. I think you're the weird one. He's very much the weird guy. He's like, he's the best.

We had this guy. I would do whatever he said. When I was a kid, there was a teacher head name, Mr. Dykes, yes, I know. And he, uh, he would like always joke around with people and stuff. And there was, it's like this really kind of like weird kid in the class. But he would always like, he'd like, make fun of me Mr. Dykes. And he's like, no, I'm okay.

He's like, give me a nickname. Call me an idiot. And he would like scream that out in the class. And this is, the narrator is slowly becoming that guy. And I'm trying to not picture him, but it's becoming very hard. Do you know what happened to that guy? If he grew up after high school, this could be his story. Who knows?

I don't know. Who knows? He was a charismatic guy. The whole story up to this point had been told like a campfire story. He had the voice inflections of someone attempting to be mysterious and scary, which worked but was noticeable. At this point in his tale, I recalled that changing completely. He was no longer attempting to spook anyone.

I could tell that this section was difficult for him, either he was a very good actor, or it was really a terrifying memory for him to relive. He told us that the light bulb came to life and illuminated the group of people in front of him In the dim light he could see children At least 20 of them in just the visible light They were all dressed in nightgowns that looked to be tattered and torn

Staying dark with something Their hair was long Every single one of them looked like they had not had a haircut since birth Some of the children were almost completely obscured by the length of it every single one of them didn't appear to have seen a shower or a nice bath in their entire life. Mr. Mays told us that the most terrifying part of the whole thing was that none of the children were moving. They were all standing, staring, most of them only visible from the faint light reflecting off their eyes.

His whole group was paralyzed with fear for several seconds when they heard what sounded like an animal in the distance yelping. The way it was described was like, like the sound of a dog crying, multiplied by 10. This spurred the group to light, just as the children began to step forward. His friends grabbed the injured one and lifted him out of the room and ended the hallway in an instant. Mr. Mace took another second to move and had difficulty finding his bearings. He reached to his left in an attempt to find a wall to lean against and ended up finding a handle

then pulled hard, never losing his vision of the children. He bolted for the door right as he noticed what he had grabbed onto. A showerhead protruded from a cement wall, reaching maybe a foot into the room. There was something leaking from it, but it was too dimmed to tell what it was. He realized that it had been linking onto him, but he didn't care. There were now children stammering towards him as an animal cried in the distance, and his friends was seriously injured. As he left the room, he made a point to emphasize that he could make out several more showerheads on the wall

near the single dim light bulb. This is why I call the room the showers. Mr. Mays told the class, I was transfixed, setting as far forward as my desk would allow, bracing for more. I slammed the red door behind me. I ran through the hallway faster than I ever run before or since.

But it made back to the car. We drove out of there like a bat out of hill. A couple of students snickered at his use of the word hell. so when you're out trick-or-treating tonight make sure you know exactly where you're headed and don't go to any abandoned farhouses I mean there aren't many around here but you're all smart kids

except Jerry the class laughed in the mood lighten as the bell rang for passing period Mr. Mays turned the light on thanked everyone for listening reminded them about the paper due next week and told us to have a safe and happy Halloween students all around me were a buzz

with theories about the story they had just heard. I bet it was some sort of crazy Nazi hideout, said one girl. I'd say that there were all ghost babies and they were killed by a dog. Said another. I couldn't theorize in the slightest. I was still caught up in the moment.

The way that Mr. Mays had told that story in the detail that he included in it left me feeling like we didn't get the whole story. A couple days later, I stayed after class and asked him about how it really ended, What happened to his friend? He laughed and said that his friend was fine, and that it was honestly, he whispered this part.

Probably due to some of the drugs that we were doing at the time. Mr. Mays winked at me, as if to say, don't tell anyone about the drugs bit, kid. And I smiled and left. I lived in that town for another couple months, and then was rapidly moved halfway across the country to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I twisted the story around and told it around campfires as I got older,

and it was always a hit but always changed the ending letting the friend die of blood loss or for being dragged away by the children wasn't until college that i got a chance talk to mr mays again okay initially that what do you think so far how do you feel i'm i'm curious i feel like i mean he's right there's no way that's the full story and stuff and i think that mr maize is uh you know hiding probably some of the graphic stuff from the children and stuff and just you know what whatever, but I think we're getting ready to take our first big nose dive into some real shit that's getting ready to happen, especially like now he's in college, he's older, we're assuming that he's basically 18 to 21 years old here and he's running into his old, uh, his old, you know, freshman teacher from high school. Yeah. So I'm curious. I'm very curious to see what happened. What do you think about, um, so the way the story played out to me is they're going down the tunnel and then

the friend gets to a door the roofing falls on his head he knocks open the door and when they go to pick him up that's when he sees everyone is standing in the room past the door correct correct yeah

so it's there and there there was like the shitty metal like barn siding metal dropped hit the guy on the head he like blacks out from the gash in his head he falls to the door and from the light in you can just kind of barely see essentially 20 children with like nightgowns extremely long hair

and you can just kind of see the light in their eyes a little bit and they're kind of slowly moving towards them yeah i've got to say initially like um i really love the writing style i almost kind of forgot that i am reading a fictional story about another fictional story it felt like someone a real person recounting a story they heard right um it feels very legitimate very earned a lot lot of it. I like Mr. Mays as a character, um, especially that part where he's like, it was probably some of the drugs, if I'm being honest, you know, trying to play it off. But, uh, yeah, I'm sold on it so far. I'm hook line and singer. They did a nice, they did a nice thing here too where we, he's been very jokey the whole time and even the author made a note to be like,

oh, he, his tone changed, which when I was listening to it, I assume at first he's like, oh, this is a scary story from, you know, something happened to me, whatever. And then as he's recounting it. I think that even he himself got kind of lost and retelling it. And I think he's kind of reliving that terror. And he has to kind of snap himself back and be like, oh, but you know, we made it out and we had it. So I like that juxtaposition that happens there. But I think, I'm curious to hear what he says here when he sees him as a college student. Yeah. I went to college in Northern New York, not for any reasons associated with this story. College was a fun time for me. I continued being the same ham that I had always been there.

God, the fucking ham comment, dude. It's got to be regional. It has to be a regional. It has to be regional. It is, it has to be. It wasn't until sometime around my junior year that I ran into Mr. Mays at a bar that I frequent in. Initially, I couldn't be sure that the person I saw laying with his head buried in his arm at the bar was Mr. Mays. The only trait that grabbed my attention was a sweater that he used to wear on his birthday during class.

The shirt simply read, I'm the birthday boy. Well, that's sad. Mr. Mays is trash. sad by himself just hammered on his... With the shirt that says I'm the birthday boy That's the most depressing thing ever Man

I told my group of friends to grab a table And that I would join them in a second Then walked over to the man of the bar Mr. Mays I said and the man looked up The man took a second to look at my face Before he smiled Put a hand on my shoulder and said

Hey there son How have you been? I could smell some strong whiskey on his breath and his cheeks were flushed. Look in his eyes told me that he was three sheets to the wind and probably had no idea who I was. Mr. Mays, it's Jack. I was a student of yours for a couple semesters about six or so years ago.

His face changed a bit and a genuine look of recognition set in. Took a calmer tone, smiled and said, How you been, Jack? We talked for a solid 20 minutes. I told him what I had been doing for the last several years and he told me. Apparently he was still teaching at the same school doing the same old schick, as he called it. I asked if everything was all right, and he said that they were as good as they ever have been or were ever going to get. It took me a while to realize that I was an adult that was having a conversation with another adult.

Every time I had spoken to Mr. Mays previously, I had been in the student-teacher relationship. But now, I was just a guy having a drink with a friend at the bar. My friends eventually left, and I continued to drink with Mr. Mays. He told me all about his divorce and his kids, things I never would have asked or cared about previously, but now I cared. He was a real person to me, not just an idol anymore. This was a guy who had real problems, not the infallible teacher, that I once thought he was. It had been several hours before I even brought up his story about the showers.

I told them all about my history with urban legends and scary stories, and he just laughed. When I mentioned the story that he had told us years ago, he almost seemed uncomfortable. Finish his whiskey, signaled for another, and then turned to me and got very serious. Listen, Jack, I don't know why I kept telling that story year after year. His words were slurred, or my hearing was messed up. We were both sufficiently blitzed at this point. that was what my therapist told me to do when I was younger I had to tell people it

to come to grips with it or some shit took a big swig of his drink wait you're therapist I said Mr. Mays laughed heartily and looked at me of course Jack you think that something like that wouldn't fuck a person up I was confused but smiled nonetheless

things just got in very strange but I I mean you said you were all on drugs or something right no one was too terribly heard you were all okay right you got almost cartoonish with his sadness in the next several seconds of course we didn't Jack

why do you think I'm here right now I was puzzled quickly filled with a thousand questions I wanted to ask him but I let him carry on Tim fuck him he didn't make it Jack He laughed And his laugh turned suddenly to tears

Fucking took him They did I don't even know The cops told us we were just drunk And then he wandered off And got taken by wildlife But he didn't know He didn't see it Jack

I was absolutely stone face at this point Mr. Mays was carrying along Like I knew the actual story But I didn't His friend disappeared I didn't know I wish that they had found my body though Then we could have shown them

That's a bad place, Jack I don't know anything else to say It's a bad place Carried on for a couple minutes more about his friend And the fun that they had before they went on that trip And I let him talk There's only a few minutes later that his phone rang Hello sweetheart

I'll be out in a second I love you, baby Person on the other end hung up the phone Mr. Mays got up to leave It's been nice seeing you, Jackie You got a good head on your shoulders, boy Make sure you use it He began to walk out of the bar

Mr. Mays I yelled after him Yeah, Jack He turned back towards me Where'd you say all that shower business took place Where? Hell, didn't I mention it? It's somewhere

outside Broken Bo, Nebraska. Fucking hell on earth, if you ask me. Mr. Mace walked out of the bar after waving to me, running into the wall before eventually finding the door. That was the last time I would see him. I'd never be able to tell him the impact that he had on my life, or rather the impact that his story had on me. You never know about the trip we took after graduation,

almost mimicking the one he and his friends had made. He would never know that the things he saw at that place were real. Why? Well, he died about a month later, his liver failed on him. It's all right, though, because his family was with him in the hospital room. He got to die around people that cared about him, and that is all I can ask for a man like that. I experienced that place, too, several years later. That is where my story turns. The following is the story of how I came to find the showers, and why I will never ever go anywhere

near Nebraska ever again finish the story when I'm sober the memory is clear enough and that is the end of part Oh yeah Part one in I am ready That felt that felt good That it didn't felt you know

When it hits right And it's just kind of like Yeah that that's the natural conclusion For those end points that's a good setup for what's coming later yeah yeah yeah no i think that that's really really fun i i think um at first it was kind of it did have it's kind of interesting it had like a nice little uh what is it like uh it had like a nice way of like oh this does feel like it kind of like a child is writing this or like it has like a very kind of i would say albeit uh childish tone in a way not that the writing is

juvenile but like it's very lighthearted it didn't go really too anywhere too crazy whatever but But then by the end there, really did shift. I liked how, as he got older, too, it felt like even the tone of the writing was shifting. It felt it got like a little bit more dark, a little more serious. I really enjoyed that. Yeah, it went from like... Is this only two parts, do you know?

It's only two parts to my knowledge. Okay, all right. So, yeah, this is awesome. I'm very stoked. Yeah, the first part is him as a kid learning about it. Then part two is the actual journey. What I will say is I like, like you mentioned, there's more of a maturity to like the tone especially the subject matter because it goes from like oh it's cool he said hell or damn to like he died of liver failure you know he's he's on his birthday at a bar going to some girl in the parking lot who he may not know that well you know like it's a very different place uh but i like there's kind of there's a respect in the end like he died surrounded by his family which is all i could ask for a man like that that's like um that's a very

It's solemn, sure, but it's also almost, I don't even know how to phrase it. It feels like the way you would speak about some king or old legend, right? Well, definitely some of that you hold at high respect, which I think that they've done that they've done very well. One thing that he's done very well is stating how much that this person has made an impact on his life. And, you know, and even he has regurgitated that story. he made a the way that i like to have this story is piece together so far is he makes a very adamant thing about like oh i love urban legends i like you know i sway them to myself i you know i change them up and then after he hears this story even uh jack takes the story and he makes it

his own as well retells it kind of makes up his own endings and stuff but in a way too he then follows in mr may's footsteps that happened with his friend which this was the question i was was going to ask here. It's kind of a two-parter. Do you like the idea of Mr. Mays as a character? Because I like Mr. May's character a lot. I think that it's just a guy. You can tell he did something here, kind of a cool teacher, like the way he's set up. Do you think that, and yes, he was drunk as well, but him telling him the town feels, if it's such a pivotal and horrible thing, I feel like I'm like, why would this guy then tell him this, right? Obviously, he's drunk and stuff. But in a way, I'm like, it made me suspicious.

of him or his thing until they immediately shot down that idea with him dying a month later. I don't really know if we needed that. I was kind of hoping that it would just be like, oh, yeah, did I not tell you? And it would be some kind of weird setup for something else down the road. Did you like that whole sequence there? I did. But are you saying you think it would have worked better if he didn't tell him the location or if it didn't tell us he died? I'm saying that it's just oddly suspicious that a guy who's just like, this is like a horrible place.

it's fucked up right and then um he's like oh i didn't tell you where it was oh it was in this town outside of whatever it feels like if it's that horrible and he's like it's hell on earth it'd be like don't even because you're doing two things here you need to set up that mr maize is like don't fucking go there don't be me right but then when he dies you could have jack maybe like go to his funeral or something and they're like oh yeah he'd always talk about this town in Nebraska and then maybe someone else who would tell him right or i think that you need to just have him find it and then we just never hear of mr may i just don't know how I like him dying there.

Like, I don't know how necessary that is. Like, I feel like he could have just left and then Jack never saw him again or something. Yeah. Yeah, maybe he goes to the funeral. I get what you mean that if it's such a serious saying to him, why would he blurt that out? The only thing that I could excuse that as is it's describing Mr. Mays is super drunk. Like, it says that he runs into the wall before going to the door, right?

Yeah, no, he's, he's severely intoxicated. And that, and that's like reason enough. But to me, I'm just like, I kind of wish. wish that even Mr. Mays, it just, you kind of, like, it made me, I'm just like, God damn it, you some stupid drunk bastard. You know what I mean? Yeah. Which, which, you know, it's totally fine, but I would almost like Mr. Mays to just be like, just have that moment where he's just like, don't go. Like, don't even, I'm not going to tell you, don't worry about it. And it sends Jack into the spiraling thing of like, holy shit, I got to know what this place is.

Regardless, it was just a thought I had. I'm still completely bought in. It's awesome. I think that I get what you're saying. I kind of, I think I'd like it. If there was more ambiguity left, it's kind of open and shut. I like the kind of idea. It works for me, the idea of, like, Mr. May's kind of being, like, the mentor character that dies early and the story sort of sends the character on his journey or what have you. I think it works, but I think you're right. Maybe it would work better if he kind of kept that secret till he was dead.

And Jack finds out some other way. Yeah, I could see that. Just something. Just food for thought. Because I really, the story built up so far, and I'm so, excited to get into part two yeah but that was just one thing at the end of part one where I was just like ah you know I wish that there was um maybe more satisfying way where he would have found that place you know I'm just just a little food for thought but I I'm very bought in I'm very

excited and I you know part two this is the last part here so it's kind of crazy it's like I didn't know if we were getting ready to go into like a pen palette venture where it's six different many stories or whatever but no with just like last part here which I'm just assuming is Jack and his friend's adventure, so yeah, we'll have to see. Let's begin with part two. Part two. I'm awake now, semi-sober and ready to finish this for you guys, the internet and whoever cares to hear it. I didn't find out that Mr. Mays had passed away until a couple months after the funeral service. Initially, I was going to seek out his family in order to send my condolences. But it wasn't as if Mr. Mays and I were best friends or anything like that.

So I refrained. I continued through my college career and graduated a year or so after our bar meeting. Graduating with English as my major wasn't a mistake, but it wasn't exactly something that landed me any sort of immediate jobs after college. Okay, I like that for one, that the guy who wanted to be a storyteller and, like, was so obsessed with the story, kind of follows in the footsteps of the teacher almost, becomes an English teacher. Oh, sure. Yeah, that's Total sense. Perfect evolution there, yeah. Now, I had saved a pretty solid amount of money while I was in school and decided that I deserved a bit of a vacation, if you will. I took my spare cash, got together with my college buddy Steve, packed up and hit the road, aiming for somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.

I had lived near Littleton, Colorado when I was younger and remembered loving the area, so this destination was as good as any. The trip was a success. We made it somewhere around Estes Park, Colorado, and fell. a cheap cabin that we rented for about a month. The days were filled with lounging, hiking, and generally things that involved little to no work on our part. After our rental was through, we packed up again and headed on our way back east. Sometime during this trip, we had met up with a couple Estes Park natives in one of the local bars. We never typically hung out with them or anything like that. We just had conversations now and then over drinks and food. One night, these guys were paying their tab and packing up to leave awfully early.

They were usually there until the wee hours of the morning. When we questioned them about it, they told us that they were headed to a little get-together with some friends of theirs, and they invited us. Having nothing else to do, we hopped in the car and followed them to the party. The party itself was very low-key, and ultimately inconsequential to the story. However, the important thing about it was that at some point in the night, we were all sitting around the fire and swapping ghost stories. At this point in my life, I wasn't as much of a ham as I was in my younger years.

There's sprinkling that in there just for you, Hunter, just to bother you. I feel it. You know what, I like it now. Go ahead, hit me. Do it. But with a little bit of encouragement, I started on a couple of stories that I remember telling my youth. Eventually, I made it to Mr. May's story about showers. Every time that I had told it after hearing it from Mr. Mays, I had spliced it up a little bit. But out of some sort of some conscious respect for my former teacher,

I went straight into the version that he told my class in my sophomore year of high school. The group enjoyed my stories for the most part, the showers being the mutual favorite among the partygoers. Steve and I left for the cabinet at around 5 in the morning, and he asked me about the story on the drive home. I told him all about Mr. Mays, that class, my love for every day. everything horror related and whatnot. And he suggested that we try to find the place

on our return trip to New York. Initially, I was... You dumb bastard. What'd you say? I said, you dumb bastard. All right. Hold on, bro. If you and I were in this exact scenario, would one of us not be like,

well, we have to go find it? God. I mean, probably you, and I'd be like, you dumb bastard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what happened.

Yeah. Oh, I can't wait to see you in New Orleans. I can't wait to torment you with this stuff. Anyway, yeah, this is going to be, yeah, should we go down this creepy cave? I'm like, you dumb bastard. This is what I'm going to say every time, you dumb bastard. I love it in the fan art people draw of us. It's always you crying.

We're like doing something awful. Yeah, yeah. Keep it up, everyone. That feels very, that feels very real. It's very, very real. Keep traumatizing him, please. I enjoy it. it's not for you it's for me

initially I was reluctant simply because I didn't feel like aimlessly wandering through Nebraska for days looking for some old farm building that was probably demolished at this point but a couple of days before we left Colorado I told Steve that it sounded like fun we weren't going to be able to do

another trip like this for a long time so I figured that we might as well make the best of it somewhere in the back of my mind I thought of it as a little tribute to Mr. Mays a guy that in retrospect helped me realize that I wanted to be a writer. Anyway, I mean, I think that feels a little, I think that feels pretty fair.

I think that like, I mean, if you had a teacher come to you like that and say the story, right, and he is drunk, mind you. Yeah. Would you believe that story to be true or would you just kind of be like, you know, oh, that he's on hard times, whatever, he's an alcoholic. I mean, a month later, he died, his liver failed, right? Would you just assume that it's just playing or what, I mean, like, what, would you just be like, you know what I'm, what I would imagine?

if I heard this story as a kid and then years later he's like crying like no it's real my friend died I would think something actually happened I would think maybe there was a farmhouse maybe his friend died there I don't know if I'd believe the supernatural elements but maybe it was something that killed his friend

right that's what I would think something happened there was an accident basically so if you thought that the accident did happen I mean I guess I'm still bought into the idea of him being like yeah his friend got hurt and it was probably a bad deal.

It's not like they're going to go there and like, you know, disrespect the idea of like his friend's passing or something. But even just be there and be like, wow, this is what this is where it happened. You know what I mean? To pay some kind of respect or something. To me, that tracks with the guy who has been obsessed with this story for a long time. I kind of like that idea of him being like, oh, you know what? I'm going to go pay respect to this guy, you know,

and actually be able to experience that place in person and kind of like maybe following his footsteps. Because it would be different, I think, if he was like, Yeah, I believe in all the paranormal stuff. And then you're just like, well, why would you go then? You don't know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. I agree. I think so.

Anyway, we left Colorado and made the long, boring, and barren drive to Broken Bow, Nebraska, or hell on earth, as Mr. Mays had to put it. We found a motel in town and hung around for a couple of days, venturing out 100 miles or so in any given direction each day after that. I'd remember Mr. Mays telling us that it was somewhere outside a broken bow, but I don't think he got any more specific than that. We tried asking the townsfolk if they had any information about the showers, but we were usually met with blank stairs or eye-rolling

when we told them what exactly this place was. The only person who seemed to know anything about it was an older lady that worked at a gas station on the outskirts of town. I don't recall her name, but this woman was just one of those cheerful old people, very helpful and generally interested in what anyone had to say to her. Steve had started talking to her at checkout, and she asked about our license plate, commented about the fact that we're very far from home. We had nowhere in particular to be, so Steve and I ended up talking to this woman for about 15 minutes,

at which point we brought up our hunt for the place known as the showers. Initially, the name didn't ring any bells with the woman, which made sense, seen as Mr. Mays, had just given it the name after his experience there. When I began to describe the details that I remembered from his story, a friendly old woman interrupted me. Her gentleman was not scornful or mean in any way, but she became very tense and deliberate with her words from that point on.

People don't deal with anything relating to that sort of business around here anymore. That was all a long time ago. Following her statements, she attempted to be cheerful again, excusing herself to the restroom and wishing us the best on our return trip to New York. Okay, if this is

a Barrasca scenario, I didn't do it. Okay. No, but I'm wondering I'm wondering if there's maybe some sort of infamous family or something. Also, like, she's just like, excuse me, I have to go take a shit. She's like, have a good, have a good return trip. Because also one thing that I like. The children tunnels, not me.

The children tunnels? Yes, of course. To the bathroom I go. Yeah, now I'm going to go take my regular afternoon poop. the the thing about her though commenting like oh you guys are really far away from home is very suspicious

as soon as you read that I was like okay uh oh it can be it certainly can be and I had a bit of a tense there too but at the same time I've said that to people like I've been at a gas pump and seen someone with like a Pennsylvania tag and be like what brings you down this way or whatever

it's just a southern thing I think you creep yeah granted I'm a far place to be from your home there in Pennsylvania. What brings you down here? Now, if you wanted to go down to the bog,

feel free to peek around there late at night, friend. I'm just a regular citizen down here. Is that your impression to be? Do I have a Creole accent now? Is that what that was? Yeah, down y'all, we're going to go down to the swamp, and I wouldn't say old Mr. Weller's voice down there, but good luck now, Mr. Pennsylvania man.

Big city man coming on down to this year swamp, you see's. Oh, big city boy, awfully far from his hoity, to-y-to-y lofty-lifference. Big city-boy thinking he'll be coming down to this here swamp you here, see, and thinking he can't get by you see, but if old Mr. Welles sees, then, oh, great-than-boy. Yeah, don't say Mr. Welles name three times down by the bog. Mr. Welles don't like it when you say his name by the bog, city-boy. Yeah, but anyways, you take care now. That's what you sound like.

That's exactly. Average Isaiah gas station moment be like. I hate when people say like, oh, like when I have my Missouri place and I'm like, I had to drive to like L.A. When I first graduated college, people would be like, oh, Missouri. Well, you're very far out. And I'd be like, why the fuck does it matter to you? Leave me alone. I don't, who the fuck are you?

Yeah. They're trying to start a conversation. Good fucking observation, dude. Hey, what do you want my social security number next? You creep? They're trying to talk to you. What's your blood type? That's your second question you always ask people.

Oh, are you a universal donor? Mr. Wellers likes them universal donors, don't you know? Oh, typo-negative. Ah, his favorite blood type. Mr. Weller is going to be pleased when he hears about that. Mr. Willers going to be very excited He loves people

from Pennsylvania When Mr. Wellers gets his Universal donor blood time From Pennsylvania, you see It's a good season round here, you see He runs a plasma He runs a plasma blood bank Down there in the ball

They get down to the swamp And it's just like Oh, I'm Dr. Wellers I run a local blood clinic here Hey, how are you doing? Yeah, how are you? How are you? He's like very normal And you're in the, you're like behind it like an old oak tree.

What did I tell you? He loves you. No, no. You've not said Mr. Weller's name and he's come for your blood, boy. Now you're going to get a glass of orange juice because you donated plows. He that so's the wind reapeth the whirlwind boy, and you've kicked against the pricks one too many times for Mr. Wellers. Mr. Weller's going to go crazy in future episodes. like a little like paw patrol bandage

you're like no it wasn't that bad it's like beware boy Mr. Welland yeah be well of him no no what are we doing what we're adding more we're adding Lord to do the to the universe Mr. Weller will be

Mr. Weller is now our is now the creepcast Poultergeist he is the ghost he's just a blood bank guy he just worked out of it yeah I imagine he'll get legs we'll see I feel like in the future, as time goes on, we will, I have a feeling we'll experience Mr. Weller again soon enough. Okay.

All right. Thank you. Thank you for that idea, Hannah. No problem now, John. What, we had a point. Oh, the whole like talking to people. I had a conversation with something the other day because someone else had Tennessee tags. And he was like, oh, what brings you down this way?

And I'm like, ah, down here, blah, blah. And we started talking about Tennessee and stuff like that. It's just a not, you can have nice one minute conversations. strangers don't fucking look at my car anymore is what i would say okay are you i'm sorry are you from new york because you're acting like a yankee okay you know what maybe i am i'm like you know what why are you looking at my why did i or my license play was it that peculiar to you dude leave me alone i have a feeling a lot of people in chat are going to agree with me i think a lot of our commenters are going to be like yeah i if a guy came with me he's like oh that's because

that's because that's because you're afraid no that's because okay for the one i don't wife sure does look pretty in that passenger seat. No, no, no, no, no. You're describing two different things. You're describing, stop that. Stop doing the accent right now. Oh, no.

Stop. Mr. Well, I will tell Mr. Wells in this immediately. Well, I guess Mr. Werners back in town, no. No, there is a difference between someone going, oh, cool, it brings you this way. And someone going, your wife looking real pretty in that truck, boy. I don't, I don't see a delineation. I did not see. Any delineation at all.

What brings you to town? It's the same to me as, Oh, you have a pretty set of hands. That's the exact same thing to me. Your head would look great on my mantle. You got soft hands, boy. Yeah. Oh, that's a very tight fitting pair of blue jeans you have, dear friends.

This is a different kind of cowboy we're talking about now. I guess so. I guess so. Okay, all right. Where were we in the story? I think we're at... 20 minutes ago. Steve and I returned.

That author is like, good God. He's probably signing with me. And I imagine I want people to vocalize to make sure that they know that I... Don't talk to me whenever I'm at a gas station. I don't want short... You know what's nice for short talk, whatever? Is if, you know, you're passing by someone in a store.

I mean, you're doing whatever. If you're outside, don't... don't give me an observation that you've been like looking at me from afar that's what i don't like i think that's the i think that's the delineation you made an acute observation that like yes i am not from here why do you need to like vocalize that you know what i mean that's where i'm at i thought you're also whenever you get kidnapped whenever you get kidnapped whenever you get kidnapped i'm going to be like yeah no shit probably because he's a labrador and he's just like yeah oh yeah i'm not from here you're like oh happy go lucky oh yeah

Yeah, I'm not from here. Okay. No, I don't know anybody. I don't know a single person around here. No, pick a lane. I cannot be both Mr. Wellers is coming to collect his due and also like, oh, hi, dude, you got room in the back of your car?

Sure. I'll breathe into this rag. It depends on where you're at. It depends on where you're at. Okay. If I'm in your home city, I think that, yeah, you're trying to work people somewhere. As soon as we hang out together, I'm going to publicly embarrass you as much as possible. I'm going to, I'm going to walk up to strangers and be like, I'm a friend here wants to know about

your day or where you got that purse or something like that I'm gonna do that constantly I'm gonna say I'm like that's really funny because my friend's been taking Polaroid pictures of you for about three probably about 30 minutes and he keeps talking about his basement so I don't know what that means so feel free yeah no I yeah I want to know stuff but I just want you know this guy's been taking pictures of you all day check his phone check his phone as well say that's okay if I'm like

oh my friend here wants to talk to you're like he he's he he he's he's God easy good God God, let's just continue the story. No, no, what do you think you were implied with the Polaroid pictures? They're going to murder them. Oh, that's not as bad, debatably. Okay, all right. Anyway, Steve and I returned to the car.

Okay, for those, because it's been 20 minutes of Mr. Weller, so I'm just glad something took off the Jacoby story. Mm-hmm. Like, it's been 20 minutes since we last discussed it, but they went to the old lady who said, don't do that anymore and then they drive back so yeah she went to take a shit and now they're being like because she was the only person so far that i presume in this town of uh broken bow that has ever actually acknowledged the shower kind of thing or even just like not even particularly

just like oh the title the showers but like i'm guessing the cavernous thing or like the children because i'm assuming that they probably told them like oh you know it's a place there's like kids or like i assume that they probably told her a bit of the story and she made her uncomfortable Yeah, probably. I think they started to be like, oh, you know, it's like a long tunnel and there's like shower heads and she knows whatever's going on. Yeah. I assume that they would probably also say like, oh, there was children with nightgowns, like whatever like just giving her broad details. And there's, well, she clearly knows, I mean, but she probably.

Well, yeah, I mean, her even giving a reaction to that is crazy. Yeah. Steve and I returned to the car without a word. Both of us were thinking about what the lady had said. Again, she didn't seem to be angry at all. She just didn't want to hear another word about it. We were driving back to the hotel before Steve said something. I mean, if I had to live in a place associated with an urban legend or something like that,

I would totally mess with anyone who asked about it. I mean, eventually you'd get tired of people asking you about it. So you'd try to scare them to get them to shut up, wouldn't you? Oh, yeah. Steve's going to. Steve's having a tough time. That fucked with them for sure. I agreed with Steve and kept driving, but the whole experience wasn't sitting right with me. If this was some sort of well-known legend in the area, why did no one else in the town seem to know anything about it? But I managed to shrug it off.

Mind you, neither of us were scared of finding the showers. This little excursion on our road trip was more like a scavenger hunt, a cap-off to an overall relaxing vacation. Steve and I were basically like tourist, hunting for the site of which a famous movie was finished. filmed or something like that. We went into the whole situation with little to no expectations and a fleeting hope that we would be able to find this place. We spent another day in Broken Bo before we took our next trip out to try to find the showers. Nebraska isn't as terrible of a place as people make it out to be, but it really isn't all that exciting. We found a bar and spent some time there, and that was just about the extent of our activity on our quote

day off. When we did get back on the road, we decided that we would attempt to stay off of main roads for as much of the day as we could. I knew that there was no way that this place was going to be off the highway, and I remembered some detail about a dirt road in Mr. May's story, so we went looking for those. This was a fairly futile effort. Most of Nebraska is dirt roads. It was seven in the evening when we came upon a small but thick forest.

I used the term lightly, but for Nebraska, this place was like an oasis. The trees were full and thick, shrouding most of its insides in darkness. The sun was setting, and even though we had run into a few of those random crops of trees, we agreed that this one showed more promise than any of the others. There wasn't really a road, but there looked to be a path where a dirt road might have been at some point, so we drove along that. If the car was able to handle the Rocky Mountains, a dirt path in Nebraska wouldn't give us no trouble. We move slowly and carefully along this trail, making sure to clear any fallen trees in the road or rocks that would render the car useless, when the sun finished setting.

It was pretty dark in this place during the day, but when night came, it was something else entirely. I had an inkling at this point that we had found the right place, but I didn't want to jinx it, so we continued onward. I didn't realize it at the time, the little bits of light that managed to penetrate the canopy in this miniature forest, I actually did make it look as if the tree branches were trying to grab the car, just like Mr. Mason mentioned it in the story. I'm still convinced that he made up the part about the animal eyes, though. The most aggressive creature we saw in the woods was a dead rabbit on the side of the trail. I didn't have any obvious signs of death.

It just looked like it had simply lay down and never bothered to get up. We drove around to the darkness for quite a while before we found a clearing. We had to move several smaller clusters of branches out of the way before, but right in front of our exit was a giant dead monster of a tree. There was no way we were moving this one, so we got out and turned on the bright headlights and the hopes that it would illuminate the area in front of us. There was a feeling of excitement and strangely with fear

when I saw what lay 50 feet beyond the clearing. There, lit partially by the headlights from the car and the little bit of light from the crescent moon, is what appeared to be an old barn house. This wasn't a typical farmhouse. It was larger than the barns that I had seen in films and didn't have any sort of crest. It basically looked like a small warehouse. I wasn't entirely sure at this point if this was the place we were looking for,

but this was definitely the closest we had come. I moved through the brush until I was roughly 20 feet from the entrance, at which point all of the growth seemed to stop. I don't know if the owners had done something to the soil, but the whole structure had a border around it that was clear of any sort of. sort of plant life. I approached the entrance to the building, large sliding door, as Steve came up behind me with two flashlights in hand. So were you just going to run off into the place in the dark?

I gave a half-hearted chuckle and grabbed one of the lights from his hand. Mine was a little but pretty bright flashlight. It was the kind that hikers would most likely fasten into their backpacks, just in case they were stranded at night. It worked well enough. I grabbed the metal door with both hands, holding the flashlight with my mouth and gave it a tug. It moved slightly, creaked a little bit, but there was no way I was doing this by myself. Steve came up from behind, set his flashlight on the ground, grabbed the door, and said, one, two, three. We pulled at the door with all that we could muster. Once we had managed to move it a couple of inches, it must have latched back onto its tracks because it slid very

easily, stopping hard with the loud and echoing thud when it was completely open. Steve picked up his flashlight and walked behind me. I'd already moved inside. The inside of the structure was exceptionally bare, almost troublingly so. I wasn't entirely sure how far we were from the nearest home or small town, but there wasn't even the slightest bit of evidence that anyone had been in this building for years. There were no broken beer bottles or empty bags of chips. There weren't even any animal droppings or eager plants that managed to grow here. The room was expansive, larger than your average farm, but not the warehouse-sized monstrosity that I believe Mr. Mays had described in his story. I was sure that it was simply a holding area for farming equipment or something similar

at some point. Disappointed, I wandered near the entrance while Steve ventured into the expanse of darkness. As I was running over the details of the story of my mind, something struck me like a sack of bricks. In Mr. May's story, there was a silo near the barn. I ran outside, my eyes adjusting easily because of the very least it was brighter outside. I looked in all directions, running around the perimeter of the building. Surely, if there was ever a silo near this place, there'd be some evidence of it somewhere. But despite my hopes, there's nothing but a cluster of thick bushes on one side, brushing dirt everywhere, and the forest that we had come from. I walked back into the building, frustrated and tired. Steve was still excited, eagerly running

around the inside of the building. Even though I could just find a showerhead or a pipe. Then we'd know it was true. But just keep looking with me. I didn't want to ruin his excitement. I told Steve the story several times, but obviously he didn't realize that this just wasn't the place. The building was weird, yes. It was out of place and oddly pristine,

but it wasn't the location of the showers. I let him explore for a little bit before I call them over. This is probably as close as we were going to get, man. But this isn't it. Remember the silo? his face went from excitement to disappointment in an instant much like a young child who didn't get the presents he wanted on his birthday I patted him on the shoulder

this is still pretty cool though I mean we could still tell people that we found it I was reverting back to my old habits quickly Steve laughed yeah man I guess we could it is definitely creepy enough we should get some pictures as proof you know I agreed with him

I'm gonna go grab the camera really quick he said as he bolted out of the entrance of the building, I was left alone in the building. It was very quiet when I was alone in there. I could hear the faint sound of Steve running through the brush and to the car. Once he was far enough away, everything was quiet. I remember not even hearing the wind or the chirping or crickets as I walked deeper into the dark, flashlight in hand. I was convinced that there had to be something.

As I approached the far corner of the room, the sound of my feet scratching against the dirt was interrupted by a soft hollow thud. I stopped trying to figure out what it was. Put my foot down hard against the ground and hurt it again. I stomped one more time, realizing that the floor that I was standing on was covering something hollow. I walked to the wall of the room, looking carefully at the floor to try to spot any holes or gaps. As far as I had known, it was solid ground that this thing set atop, so I was convinced that I had found a hatch or a basement or something. I heard Steve coming back through the brush as I shouted, Steve! Come over here! It's hall!

As I went to say the word hollow, I hopped a little bit, hoping to recreate the sound so that he could be able to hear it upon entering the door. Second that my feet made contact with the floor, I felt like give out beneath me. The memory of the fall is a buzz, but I do recall hearing Wood Splinter. I remember seeing the light from Steve's flashlight falling away into complete darkness. It wasn't a long fall, but I just remember. must have fallen in a terrible position because I know that I lost consciousness for several seconds at least.

When I woke up, I was staring at a bright light. For an instant, I had thoughts about approaching the fabled light at the end of the tunnel. I was angry at myself. You died Nebraska, Jack? Wow. You do know how to fuck up. My self-depreciation in the afterlife was interrupted above what sounded like Steve's voice. Jesus, Jack!

Jack, can you hear me? Dude, wake up! Please wake up! I managed to lift my head up off the floor just enough for him to celebrate. The pain of my head was immense, but it was outweighed by the pain shooting through my knee. I knew I had a concussion, but the pain of my knee was just so much more pressing. I looked around until I found my tiny flashlight, set up and reassured Steve. I'm okay. I just hurt my knee.

I bumped my head, too, really hard. Thank fuck, man. I thought you were dead. Imagine that, though. Dying in fucking Nebraska, it'd be awful. His words made me laugh a little bit, but I stopped myself. Slightish shaking hurt my head and made me incredibly dizzy. I guess a rope?

What? Should I go get a rope to get you out of here, or do you see a ladder? I looked around the walls that set in front of me. They were smooth cement. There was no way that I was climbing out of here. Yeah, get the rope bag It's buried under all of our stuff I think it might be in my red climbing bag

But I'm not sure Steve nodded telling me to hang in there And that he would be back in a little bit And then he ran off The silence that followed was uncomfortable After the sound of Steve's feet Scraping the floor above me faded away I was only able to hear that buzzing

That occurs in the total silence intertwined With the pulsing in my head I pushed myself over to the nearest cement wall embrace myself against it, resting and breathing deep in an attempt to calm myself. The cement was unnaturally cold against my back. It was summer, so I only had a t-shirt on, but it felt like ice even through that. Again, this observation was primarily made after the fact. In the moment, it just felt good to lean against something. I sat there, waiting for Steve in this underground basement, and I began to feel uneasy.

I felt like an idiot for falling down here. I felt pain for my injuries as well. This all seemed to fade into one emotion in an instant when I heard what I could only identify as breathing somewhere to my left. I convinced myself that it was my injured mind playing tricks on me for a few moments until my mind decided to rapidly replay Mr. May's story. When I had first heard it in the classroom years before, I was more impressed than I was scared. But now, sitting in the dark basement in the middle of Nebraska, felt something that I hadn't felt in a long time. It couldn't even be summed up in the word fear. As I sat there, I felt all-encompassing dread. I pointed my flashlight to the left, the direction for which I thought I heard the sound.

The light didn't reach the other wall. It was too far away. But I was comforted to see absolutely nothing there. I breathed deeply for a couple more seconds before I heard another noise in the darkness. Very quick, and I cannot be sure that it wasn't my own body moving around without my noticing. but I thought that I had heard a scraping sound not ten feet in front of me. It sounded like the noise your feet make when you are walking across a dirt-covered floor. Before I could react, I heard the breathing to my left again, closer this time. There was no way this was real. I hadn't seen so much as a spider web in this building,

and now it was convincing myself that something next to me was breathing? I was angry at myself for getting so worked up. I told myself that the human brain is constantly hallucinating. I told myself that while in silence or darkness, the brain will make sounds to fill the gaps. Or make you think you see things that aren't there. I channeled my inner skeptic in order to call myself. It worked. It worked until I saw a flash of something in front of me.

I can't be entirely sure what it was, but I heard the accompanying sounds, feet scraping against the floor, and I began to swell with dread. I saw that the best course of action at this point was to turn off my flashlight, assuming that if they couldn't see me, couldn't get to me, whatever they might be. I turned off my flashlight and was left in complete and total darkness. The bulb of the flashlight faded as it cooled and I put it into my pocket, simultaneously pushing back against the cold cement wall in an attempt to stand. I managed to get up to my feet, well, foot,

and found that I couldn't stand to put any pressure on the injured knee. I limped to the corner humming to myself, trying to break the deafening silence. I called for Steve, as loud as I can manage, but heard no response. He's probably in the back of the car still hunting for the rope. There had to be a ladder, something, somewhere. I continued to hum, and my heartbeat, which had been beating almost out of my chest, slowed to a manageable rate. I moved along the cement wall, keeping my whole body against it and the weight off of my injured knee. I had traveled what I guessed to be about 10 feet when my head made contact with something in front of me.

I tumbled to the ground. My concussion must have amplified the pain because it was blinding. I reached both hands to my forehead when I felt something warm and wet with my fingers. I searched for a cut anywhere on my forehead, but couldn't find one. I just really searched for my flashlight as I set up and tried to get back against the wall. I grabbed the light of my right hand, bracing against the wall with the other. I turned it on and pointed it onto the darkness where I was just lined. The floor was wet.

The dirt had muddled the color of whatever the liquid was. I tried to get my eyes to focus on the puddle. I tried to convince myself that it was my blood when I saw another drop fall into the puddle. Words lack the ability to describe the way I felt when I heard the drip noise again and saw yet another tiny ball of liquid fall into the puddle. I think I knew even then exactly what the source was that I was endlessly trying to convince myself that I was wrong I lifted the flashlight up and pointed it at the source of the liquid

What stared back at me was a pipe that protruded at least a foot out from the cement wall The metal was rested and cracked Little bits of the liquid began to seep from them At the end of the pipe was a simple shower head Aimed down towards the ground you know yeah that's awesome yeah yeah that's pretty good you know that feeling when your stomach drops in this case i think mine literally oh yeah did because i vom oh that that was that was the story

what oh no i'm just listening oh oh sorry i thought you thought i asked you know when your stomach drops like uh like i personally was asking you i wasn't part of the story oh yeah no i I definitely do. Yeah, it's, I know the feeling. No, I think you're feeling.

Hold on. There's like a three. There's like, oh my God. Yeah, sorry. I'm just now realizing. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That was too good because I kept reading the words on screen and you're like, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well,

I was like, I was like, yeah. My stomach did drop. Wow. Wow. Wow, Isaiah.

Good point. I never thought of that. What do you think the liquid is? Do you think it's just blood? no because he says he wanted to convince himself it was blood I thought he said he wanted to convince himself that it was his blood that was his blood that could be some other blood I don't know yet honestly I have no clue could just be rusted water

from whatever was done down here sure I don't know we'll see you know that feeling when your stomach drops in this case I think mine literally did because I vomited immediately it got all over my shoe but that wasn't the least bit important at the I ignored the pain of my knee and shuffled along the wall as fast as I possibly could. I heard noises, but I can't be sure if it was just the sounds of my own movement or something around me. I managed to duck under the next shower head. This one was higher up on the wall and seemed to be leaking the same liquid that the other one was.

I felt like I was moving along something infinite. Every now and then I would have to duck or move under another metal bar, another showerhead. They began to pour more profusely. Liquid was too thick to come out easily. Broom began to smell. I remembered immediately the way that Mr. Mays had described it. I grabbed my shirt and put it over my nose, trucking onward. But it didn't stop the smell for an instant.

It smelled like vomit. It smelled like shit. It smelled like burnt hair. It smelled like rot. I was still moving against the wall when I fell into some sort of outlet. I hit the dirt ground hard, adrenaline coursing through my veins. The pain still managed to break through, though. My flashlight was still in my hand.

I aimed it and examined my surroundings. Setting in front of me was a doorway. There was a door there, though it looked aged now. It had a nice little design on it, a doorknob and a knocker that looked like a snarling demon. Red paint was peeling from it, flaking off and falling to the ground in front of me. I clumsily rose and busted through the door, narrowly missing a piece of hanging sheet metal in front of me. Ooh, I was crawling now. There was no way that I could run.

The walls and ceiling were lined with metal, kind that you would see on the roof of a farm. Large pieces of wood seemed to brace the sheets, holding this makeshift tunnel together. I couldn't risk sliding against that and possibly cutting myself on the metal or hitting the wood and causing a cave-in. So I crawled This is interesting He's going the opposite direction than Mr. Mays did Yeah

He's going to opposite direction I'm wondering Well I'll just I'll have a thought for afterwards But yeah I'll keep going I pulled myself for what felt like miles Running into walls every now and then Because the path seemed to curve like a snake

I had no idea where I was In relation to the hole that I had fallen through But I told myself That there was an exit at the end of this And had not been crawling I would have surely hurt myself far worse. There were parts of the tunnel in which the ceiling dipped down to maybe three feet above the ground. It hadn't caved in because the ceiling still lined it.

Someone had built it like this. This, again, is in hindsight. I didn't care at the time. I kept telling myself there was nothing behind me, but I swore that I heard feet scraping only a few inches behind my own. My jeans would brush against my legs every now and then, making it feel like someone was touching me. Even now, I still can't completely convince myself that someone wasn't.

I crawled and crawled until I reached an upslope. With joy, I looked ahead of me. There was a cellar door. The door was made of wood. I knew this because I could see the light through them. I couldn't be sure, but I thought it might have been the light from the car's headlights. As size all of that, I was just so immensely happy to find an exit. I crawled all the way to the door and threw my shoulder into it.

it budged but didn't open I began to scream but my throat seared with pain the most I can manage was a harsh crying noise sounded like a dying animal huh I'm just thinking like it sounded like a dying animal

that's the that's a weird way to phrase it because earlier in the story Mr. Mays heard a dying animal when the door was open to the showers oh sure yeah like that's it seems like a specific choice right it does i mean like it certainly does either are you trying

to assinuate that like a time parallel thing maybe you're like maybe that's just maybe that noise has happened i'm reading it more so i'm reading it that there are other people down here screaming and it's like for some reason what i don't know is like he's screaming and if he he's screaming like but i my throat uh steered with pain if he's screaming so much or being down there causes him to have some... I don't know, I'm kind of curious to kind of keep reading and see... Yeah, so anyway, just the phrasing of that interested me. Yeah, I mean, it is very almost serendipitous in a way.

Could be nothing, could be coincidence, but yeah, it just caught me for a second. I collapsed in exhaustion and pain, my eyes staring up at the slits of light before me. I was so close to being out of here, I could taste it. It was in that moment of silent defeat that I heard a noise that was, without question, something moving in the tunnel. It sounded like something was being dragged across the floor. It would move, pause for a second, and then move again. I had nothing left in my stomach to throw up, but I began to gag.

I gathered myself slightly and tried to steady my hand enough to focus the flashlight into the tunnel. That's also an interesting point before we get into the reveal. Have you ever been so scared you throw up? No. I don't think I have. I haven't. I'm wondering if he's if it's a matter or it's a mixture of tense emotions and also I'm guessing that the smell is just absolutely revolting. I mean, it's decaying bodies, which is horrible. I mean, like, spoiled rotten meat or something. Yeah. Because now whenever I heard the, uh, the showerhead thing, it almost made me think of like, um, like a meat grinder, how meat pours out of those holes like that. I was thinking like a whole body shoved through there, right? yeah and that's why I was like it's just like grease blood like I mean just basically liquefy like a liquefied body yeah like liquefied people or like some kind of animal right

being shoved through yeah yeah yeah but rotted old like it's like the become seepy you know almost like a corpse ran through that right what I saw I can still not rationalize I know what I saw but I cannot convince myself that it was actually there. I can't stop telling myself that I was hallucinating. I saw a child in a dirty sleeping gown. The gown was stained with something dark and brown, occasional splashes of a deep red. A child was extremely frail,

like the pictures that people might see of a Holocaust victim. I could only make out one eye, brightly reflecting the light of my flashlight, in between huge tufts of long, dirty hair. It reached down beyond the fingertips of the child, which were caked with dirt. The boy or girl, I'm not entirely sure which, moved towards me with difficulty. It wasn't breathing hard, but it seemed that every movement of every muscle took every ounce of strength the child had. The thing that froze me, though, was the eye.

It was only visible because it was reflecting my flashlight, but even in that glint, I could feel anger or deep hatred or something. something like that. This is the point in which the English language really lacks the right words to explain the situation. I could tell that the child meant me harm. Whether it was a hallucination or not, the thing was getting closer. I started to cry. I was getting closer and closer and I heard a voice from behind me. Hey, Jack, whispered the voice. It was Steve. I was certain. tried to talk back, fully intending to say, Open this up and give me right out of here right now.

However, given my current state, I am sure it just sounded like garbled nonsense. I clawed the door, pushing against it with everything that I had and finally breaking eye contact with the child. As I did this, the flashlight rolled down the slope, coming to rest somewhere near the child's feet. What do you see?

The voice asked. What are you talking about? I closed my eyes. I remember hearing a reply, along the lines of... Just look at it. Tell me what you see. My own screams of frustration drowned it out. I was mumbling like a maniac when the voice told me calmly.

Rest for a second. I'll get it. The statement took a second to settle in, at which point I closed my eyes tight. Steve, just do it, please. Please, just get it open, please. Just get me out of here. Steve! God damn it, open the fucking wooden door! Open my eyes for a split second to see nothing but black hair dangling in front of my face,

a small dwind of light hidden in the mess of tangles. I slammed my eyes shut and screamed with every ounce of energy I had. Open the fucking door! Door behind me gave way, and I fell onto the dirt, taking in a breath of fresh air. My eyes were still closed, but the first thing that I did scrambled to find the cellar door and close it. Once I had done that, I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. I saw the barn in front of me, illuminated by the headlights of the car. My head was pulsing with pain.

I was covered in dirt and liquids that I didn't even care to know the origin of. My knee was, at the very least, dislocated. But despite all of that, I was out of the tunnel. I took a deep breath, buried my head in my hands, and said, Steve, why didn't you just open the fucking door? I waited for her response, but none came. Steve, seriously I was fucking clawing and screaming for my life

I said as I looked behind me my stomach must have been on the verge of falling out of me at this point because it shifted again the only thing behind me was the large mass of bushes that I had seen while examining the perimeter of the building

I was angry Steve! This is not the fucking time come out of the fucking bushes man I was getting ready to ready to stand up when I heard a yell from the front of the building. A flashlight bobbed up and down in the semi-darkness. Steve was running into the open door of the structure, yelling my name and telling me not to worry.

I must have lost consciousness at that point. When I woke up, Steve was standing over me, desperately trying to wake me up. His words were almost incoherent, at least to my ears. He held to me to my feet and began to walk me into the car. As we walked away, saw my flashlight sitting just outside the cellar door. The light was fading. Steve brought me back to the car and then drove me to the nearest hospital. I fell asleep, but he told me that he drove around for an hour before he found a main road.

I don't think I ever told him the whole story. I believe he thinks that I was just injured from the fall. He never really asked about it, and we didn't stay in contact for much longer. It's not like we deliberately parted ways. We just sort of stopped hanging out after the trip and went our separate ways. I've never been able to fully understand what happened that night. There are many things that I can't explain a way as being hallucinations. There are still many things that don't make sense.

The showerheads were there, and they were leaking something. The door was real. The tunnel was real. Most everything else can be semi-rationalized if I can convince myself that I had a very bad concussion, a very, very bad concussion. But the one thing that I couldn't have imagined, was that Cellar door was locked

and then it suddenly wasn't. I'm still as skeptical as I have ever been but I believe in what happened to me at the showers. I'm not a hermit or a social recluse because of this. I drink a lot, but I am still functional. But I will never return to Nebraska. No one will ever be able to convince me otherwise. I don't watch horror movies either.

There is absolutely nothing entertaining about being so desperately scared. That's it, really. There's no typical ending for my story. I was changed by my experience, yeah. But there's no way to change anything about it or fight back against it. Can't even convince myself that I wasn't just seeing things. Believe me, I've been trying for years.

Prior to this, there was really no way to find any information on the showers. The legend didn't extend outside of the classroom of Mr. Mays. No one told stories like this to keep children away from a certain place or to scare them. It just wasn't known. I guess that's really the point of this whole story. I want people to know firsthand what this place is like. Maybe it is a drug's rationale, or the kid inside me wanting to spread these kinds of stories again.

I don't know. I don't care. But it's out there now, for people to mold and warp to their needs. most importantly it's finally out of my head it's getting late and I'm getting another drink cheers and that is the end of the showers

you know it's really interesting for a story that's so I mean 12 years that's insane long time ago right it seems like such a gripping tale you know at the beginning of this

story I talked about how the older stories really don't they they don't fuck with a lot of the fat right a lot of like really getting like really preambling and doing these things and it seems like i like that towards the at the beginning what it just kind of throws us in but being in those being in the tunnels down there i wanted to just like be down there a lot longer to experience more of that we have these creepy children and we don't really know where it goes and it leaves all these kind of ambiguous things up in the air which i think it's pretty fun but i think um I just, I wanted more.

I wanted to, I was so invested, really wanted to see what was going on. Also, to have him fall that much, to have it be pretty far down, if you think about it. If he fell from the floorboard all the way down to the ground and actually dislocated his knee, that'd be a pretty substantial drop. Yeah, if it was, I mean, he also says he landed weird. And it is, it is deep and or shallow enough, I should say, that Steve was able to jump back out. But yeah, it's sure. It's got to be significant if he didn't just go out, like, pull himself up out of that hole, right?

I could maybe like seven feet high or something like that. Sure. Yeah. To where it's like, it's, I'm not saying it's the deepest thing, but I do think it's deep enough to where, yes. Well, you could stay in up fully at first. Yeah, you can stay it up. I imagine it's like if you reach your hands up, you can touch it type thing. Sure.

Yeah. I think that it's, it's high enough to where if you didn't know you were falling and you didn't like have yourself properly set to like brace yourself you could fuck you could probably fuck up your knee so it's interesting i mean what's your takeaway what do you think man so i do first of all i love it i think i think it's really good um i'm kind of glad that well i don't know there there's a bunch of stories that i read when i was a kid that i didn't fully appreciate then but i do now like i think pin pal i think if i recall right i listened to that as a kid and didn't mean as much to me then as it did now or one of those stories so

I don't know if I would have appreciated this as much as a kid because I'd just be kind of like, oh, that's it, right? But we're really given everything we could have, right? About we're given the puzzle pieces, we're given the experience. I love the story a lot. I'm setting here, my mind's like racking itself theorizing what it all means, like what all happened. Yeah, I wonder how much the author knows versus I wonder if a story like this

comes about from just the idea of a showerhead leaking an unknown, almost mysterious like bile or something. And then, you know, just kind of like going from there. I wonder how much of it do they actually know? Because you have so many different things like the door, which is presumed, okay, let me ask you this then too. Do you think that that was the same place as Mr. Mays? Or do you think that just in this town specifically, there's multiple of them? Because it seems like the tunnels go on for how long are they interconnected? You know what I mean? as it feels like miles, but I don't think it's actually miles per se, right? Maybe one mile or something, but crawling that far?

No, no, no. I, yeah, I definitely think. I'm just wondering because the silo thing in particular kind of where I was like, well, the silos not even there. Because they're like, why would the silo be gone? So that's why I'm like, oh, I wonder if it was like an interchanging amount of tunnels. And then some of them have like weird tight crawl spaces to where you get out. sure that are kind of like interconnected between stuff especially the idea of i don't think that mr mays also put an emphasis on like the red door a red door because on this one in particular he was talking about the knob which um had some sort of demon face shape or something but he made it an emphasis jack did at least made an emphasis to talk about how the door was like flaking red paint pretty much and i feel like if the i feel like if it was a red door before i feel like mr may's

probably would have said, oh, there was a small red door just because it's so pronounced. Because whenever he was talking about it, I just imagined a regular wooden brown door. It's kind of what made me think. So the first thing that comes to mind is some. So I think there's definitely a supernatural element, right? At least a little bit. Because how else are things appearing than disappearing or how are they living down there without, you know, supposedly food or whatever? right that or it's some kind of cult who lives down in the tunnels

hmm because cult of children or do you think like a cult of people and they I think more like either they have children or the children are the things being summoned because they have the door that has as he describes it a knocker that looks like a demon right right and it leads to effectively like you described it a kill shoot right so and then there's like this fleshy fluid that comes out of the walls there's a lot of my mind's like concocting itself right now what what do you what do you think initial theory yeah it's difficult i think there's a lot of there's a lot of things um that are aesthetically put there that are fun but they don't really add up to anything that is leading my mind which

is is interesting because there's a couple things i mean like the nightgowns are such an out-of-date thing and have children just be there they're as deprived as a holocaust victim as he so put it um and their hair is so incredibly long so it's like they've been living essentially this way for how long underneath there i'm guessing that he means that the eye the glint of the eyes being you know angry or something i almost read that as if it was a blind eye like they've been living in the darkness because he didn't put emphasis on you know that like whenever Mr. May said the story. He was talking about how the lights were kind of like flickering on and off or whatever. And I'm guessing that you would have to assume that that was the same for this tunnel or he didn't really put an emphasis on the lights. I don't think he was, I think it was just a dark tunnel, right? I imagine it was a dark tunnel when he goes in again because everything's abandoned. Because when Mr. May's story, there were lights on around the barn and the door was locked. Like something was going on in there and they couldn't get in, right? So that explains why the lights are all. so on in the tunnel. So I would imagine it was dark in the tunnels when Jack goes to it

years later, unless, like you said, this is just a different tunnel system. It's a different location that maybe they're interconnected with. Yeah. I am in belief of that because I just feel like if it was the same, I feel like there would be more context clues that Jack himself would say, like oh i saw the lights that he said the lights were off this time or so you know i mean there would be more stuff of him trying to piece together that this was the place that he was looking for the thing that he's heard about and retold however many times in his life right um and the story is kind of taking a shape where i mean the barn itself is just an industrial farm equipment barn essentially which is for people that have never been one of those barns i mean it's basically just a giant

metal structure with uh cement flooring of some kind which in this case i'm guessing it's even just wooden flooring if he's able to bust through it but it kind of reminds me of this actually this cp story which is cp i think it's zero four zero jp and it's all about like a random structure built around a well where if you look if you look in the well that's when you become cursed so i'm almost wondering if these people in this town in some kind of vicinity and i you know i think you're right i don't think it has to be you know this massive massive thing but think about like even a five mile radius. It's a lot in terms of like tunnels and stuff and even just being around some kind of wooded area where you probably can't see the other structures. Who knows how close Mr. May's structure was

if it is a separate building and they are interconnected in that way. But to me, I almost, the way I'm deciphering it and the thing that I'm having the most fun thinking about is essentially some kind of pagan like religion or some kind of cult that you're saying that is underground that has been plague there and now they have people have built these structures on top of it to either contain it or to monitor it in some kind of way and that has like been like filtered out and I by by monitoring it I'm just mean like who knows maybe locals I mean this old woman is the only person that has that has any kind of resemblance of it so it's like maybe like back in the back in time it was like more monitored or people you know kept more of an eye on it but it's kind of faded through the generations of stuff or maybe they've assumed that it's it's kind of died out, but these doors, these interconnected doors, or even a door underground, it's just like, who builds that, right? Yeah.

Who knows? So it's, I don't know. Personally, I like to think that people built something on top of it, that it's a structure that existed underground and that they have been building it, um, regardless of the people that who set it up because, you know, you know, did the people who are also like, who were watching this thing, did they fabricate the lights around it to the door? or something where did the shower heads come from there's so many non sequitur like set pieces that just don't connect well to where i'm trying to find i'm trying to rationalize in my head and while

these visuals are cool i'm like i'm trying to like think of some kind of fun thing because the story is so ambiguous i'm trying to think of some fun thing that ties it all together but it's very hard because there's a lot of non sequitur set pieces that are going together i'm so fascinated there's a lot other visually a lot of good stuff Okay, so what do you think of this? What if the cult is summoning something or worshipping something or what have you? I'll take back what I said about the children maybe being the pieces of worship and say maybe they're just children of the cult, whatever. Maybe they're emaciated, kept it.

Maybe it's part of the ritual that you need to keep children around for it or whatever. The mention maze has of right before they leave, how they use. hear what sounds like an animal screaming, you know? He says like it sounds like a bunch of dogs. What if that is the creature being summoned back in the shower room? It could be. It very well could be. I mean, like

Maybe, okay. I think that's a fun. Oh, go ahead. When people get near the showers, because they have the ritual in place or whatever, maybe it requires someone from the outside to come in, right? They get near the showers and then in the demon room, which has like

a demon crest over the door, These shower heads begin to fill with rot, effectively like a fluid out of hell, a fluid out of damnation. The cult does whatever they do to create that using maybe human bodies or corpses, using the children. It fills the floor of the room with the rotted water, and then the demon they're trying to summon, rises out of it. Some kind of like, basically like summoning ritual or something. I feel like the kids are such an important. part of it of like it'd be kind of interesting if even the kids were like a just a different take on a paranormal entity like that because i don't think you would ever associate a demon looking like that but it's like uh them being trapped down there and the door being a seal itself like once you open the door they're able to get out and stuff i mean such an emphasis too on the them saying that the eyes you know that it wanted to harm me makes the children also feel so evil like i really didn't feel sympathetic i was just mostly terrified of the kids down there you know i mean yeah like they're a part of it almost yeah they feel like such a pivotal piece

of this kind of thing which who knows i mean it also which i don't know if you read read it like this too but it almost maybe think that like are the children even children are they just like do they have the appearance of children but who knows how old they are right because almost when he said that they were like you know so frail and stuff to me that also reads kind of like an extremely old person as well so I don't know I mean like they could have these kind of like you know some kind of

these entities trapped in time and they're kind of just physically decaying very slowly like almost like a fucking mummy or something I think it's kind of interesting but there's a lot there's just so much stuff of like very emphasis on like the demon head on the door

you know so many very peculiar things I kind of wish we had more I just want more you know and I think that if it was, if this story was written, God, I would say if the story was written in like 2017, I feel like you would, you would have had way more. I feel like, and I'm wondering this too. I wonder, you know, I wish I could go back and actually be a part of the culture of this at the time. But I wonder how much of this back in the day where it was like, oh, yeah, this was just the way, like the aesthetic, the kind of flow that people had where you're like, you want to be

short and sweet versus really getting into more and more or what? Two, another big aspect of it was if you make some details of your story unclear and people decide to talk about it, then that's going to boost your story, right? I mean, you see the same thing now with, like, look at indie video games, right? They all try to do what Five Nights and Freddy's did with being like having obscure lore that YouTubers talk about. It was the same thing back then, only they would talk about on like message boards and stuff.

Most of them were bad. like it would that's where beams come from of like the creature you know like really vague yeah where it's it's so ambiguous because at the point at a point when you do that ambiguity works so well in stories because the human your own human mind is going to conjure something that really fucks with you in particular which is sometimes whenever people are like oh i didn't like this ending because in your mind it was going somewhere else and it isn't as satisfying as it would have been in your mind if it would have been left kind of ambiguous but at the same time ambiguity can be an extreme crutch an extreme

stream crutch to where it feels cheap it cheapens it to such a degree um and i think and that's one thing too that you're right with like you know five nights of freddies even parts of like the backrooms and stuff or even uh other pieces of media online people love to theorize about like universes and worlds and stuff and like especially like environments you know conspiracies these kind of things and storytelling and i think it especially grabs uh people to have that discussion and i think one thing too that I wrote down when we were about halfway through um that I wanted to wait till we got to the end of was with stories like this which I'm unfamiliar and I could be you know saying

something that is already happens but do you think that there's a world here where people want to add on to these stories to where it's like so let's say somebody who isn't Clover or Dylan um our author here uh somebody else is like hey, I went to Broken Bow, Nebraska, and they write their own version of this years apart that is just inspired by the story. Because that was one thing where I was like, this is such an awesome opportunity to be to see other people be like, oh, I went to Broken Bow Nebraska, and this is what happened to me. And you kind of get to keep this, this story and this universe alive by doing so from different perspectives as well. And you get to add on to it in its own way, which granted, I don't think that, you know, you could, uh, You could have probably a lot of bad media that way, but I'd be curious just to hear other people's interpretations that are trying to pay homage and, like, add to the universe of something, you know, and it doesn't take away from the original story at all.

You could not read those and it would still make the original story just as good. Or if you're somebody like me and you just want to see more of this, I think it could be really interesting if there was talented writers out there who are just like, oh, you know, it's cool. All the hard work, too, of like conceptualizing something is done and I get to just add to whatever. um the story is do you think that would be kind of interesting or does that happen at all that that does happen there's a lot of um it's really like fan fiction out there you know of well well no no i don't mean that a bad way i mean like you know fans of the stories writing like oh here's my tale of what happened in this universe you know stuff like that i see um that kind of thing was pretty common. I can't recall any specifically that were that famous. Other than the author coming back

later, like The Showers actually has a sequel. The author came back and wrote a part three like years later. There's stuff like that. But I can't think of any examples where someone else wrote their own because there's like like the left right game i've heard that some people have made their own stories about that like within you know like oh this other group of people found the found the maps and you know started charting their own course things like that um so i think it's fairly common i'd be interested if any of them did well you know yeah i mean i just think that it's a thing where it's like if you could have a difference i mean 12 years is crazy you know there's been so much advancement into this subreddit into the even just like online

storytelling i think people are you know because people absorb these things people are more talented at writing and everything now too i think there's so much talent out there that it'd be kind of interesting you know and and not in a way where you're taking away from the original at all but i just i just wonder if there's a way especially when something is this ambiguous you obviously can't do that with pen pal or like a barasca like if you try doing a barasca i feel like you would just be like that's just it's just doesn't work you know but something that's this ambiguous and this kind of paranormal in a way i think they could take it a bunch of different ways, you know?

And I don't think that you do it from the perspective of Jack at all. I think you just put your own character into it. Because if you look at some of the comments here on the Reddit, so many people are like, I want to take a trip to Nebraska or whatever. It's the same kind of people that also are like, I want to do the left, right game myself, which granted, the left right game, I don't think you could do that one particularly either just because it's the exact same setup every time. So it would just be like new characters going through the same thing that we've heard of before,

without probably, you know, with just like slightly different results. But this one, it's just there's so much that is left on the table, so much that we don't know that you never know, you know. And if you do abide by the theory that there's different tunnels and there's different approaches you could take, it could just be interesting, you know, who knows? I'm looking at a, so I've been reading a bit while you were talking. So the author, five or six years after the showers came out,

he made a part three which most people on Reddit are saying isn't that good I read a quick synopsis of it and it's basically like he goes back to the showers years later and then the only extra thing he sees in the tunnels

is there's a deer in the tunnels which is implied to be some supernatural entity or whatever but this is interesting so someone points out and this is on an analysis on the No Sleep Podcast discussion. Subreddit.

Someone in the comments, Sorrel 25, points out that a couple years before the showers came out, there was an Ask Reddit post that said, The Shows outside of Hastings, Nebraska. My 12th grade teacher told a story

a few years ago about a place called The Showers. TLDR, he and his friends, went to a satanic ritual site in an old military barracks and heard strange voices. This is not the strange part, though. When he went back to the dorms with his friend and asked around about it

and got an identical response from everyone he asked, they all went pale wide and said something like, don't ever go there again. He said this, searched the internet about it, and couldn't find anything on it. Well, I busted out my internet skills and found this and this, and a few years ago,

I came across a website referencing it with much of the text blacked out. This has confused me for the past two three years. And then the this is that he links to are, uh, it looks like now deleted Yahoo post of other people who had a similar experience near Hastings, Nebraska. Hmm. So it looks like there's a chance. This is kind of based on a true story a little bit. And the idea that people near this town in Nebraska had an experience. like that.

Interesting. And it was described, it could not be accurate because it was just the way like a guy described as teacher, but said it was a satanic ritual site in an old military barracks.

Now clearly, there's some, you know, there's obviously a lot of, that's the inspiration for the story. It doesn't say anything about the silo or the tunnels, which by the way,

I don't think the silo was a silo. If it moved and there were no signs of it, it was maybe a storage for whatever the fluid that comes out of the showers were it was maybe some kind of holding maybe it was some kind of obelisk something they were using to worship whatever they were selling right and the teacher just assumed it to be a silo um yeah i don't think the silo was a silo sure i mean i'm i'm curious to hear what also the commenters say to

usually there's always a couple good there's comments that always have a lot of like really fun insider observations or takeaways and stuff so i'm pretty curious so the interesting points about the story that I want to mention are the old lady when they see her she says we don't do that anymore right so it is something that the town was

aware of even if it still doesn't go on and I think it involves some kind of death either they use dead bodies or the children were killed or something like that the other thing that I think is important is the scene when Jack is stuck in front

of the door to the tunnels or he's stuck inside of the door to the tunnels. And he hears what he thinks is Steve, remember? Right. So he's in the tunnels and he hears the voice say, hey, Jack. We later know that this is not Steve. So whatever this voice is, just said his name. It knows his name, right? So the voice says, what do you see? And then it says, just look at it. Tell me what you see. And then he starts screaming uh you know like get me out of here then the voice says rest for a second i'll get it then it says the statement took a second to settle in at which point i closed my eyes tight and then he starts screaming you know whimpering all that stuff he opens his eyes for a split second to

see nothing but hair which is a horrifying line right like it's in his face he can just see the hair right there you know right reminds me a lot of like the grudge type imagery right yeah definitely very creepy and very creepy and like imposing yeah and he sees a small glint of light from the eyes so then that's when he starts to scream and then falls out of the cellar door so maybe when this thing this girl or i don't know if it's a real child or if it's a demon or what but the thing that looks like a young girl or young boy is standing in front of him whatever spirit is in the tunnels or maybe the voice of the child or some entity in the tunnels is telling him to like look tell me what you see rest for a second it kind of feels like they want him to worship whatever is

being worshipped or they want him to join them or something it feels malicious with how calm it is like the whispering for sure it doesn't it doesn't feel good yes exactly so when this voice is saying what do you see oh just look at it tell me what you see I and then it says rest for a second I'll get it. It sounds to me like they're wanting him to look at this child and maybe become a part of the cult, worship whatever demon they're worshipping. But he fights against it, so they

let him out. Because remember, Steve wasn't there to unlock the door. The door just became unlocked. So it had to be by some supernatural means in the cave. So maybe because he wasn't willing to worship whatever showed up, they threw him out. Like he's not a part of

us, right? It's interesting. It's interesting. because that feels like a very, yeah, I don't, I don't know. It does feel particularly like something did let him out, like just mysteriously the thing wasn't locked anymore. Because even after that, he calls attention to it. He says, all I know is that the door was locked and then suddenly it wasn't, right? Yeah, exactly. And after he gets out, Steve is still running over to him.

So it had to be whatever entity was down there saying, look at it, rest for a second. So either there's two competing entities, there's two competing entities in the tunnel or because he wasn't willing, this one I think is more likely, he wasn't willing to worship or give in to whatever the present entity was that the children and the showers and everything are involved with, it doesn't want him anymore. Cast him out. If he won't worship, it doesn't want him in the congregation. If, you know, if that's the case, the two, because I can see how you could read it that way, if that's the case than two, I kind of wish that there was more trials of like them trying to. like pin him down to give into this thing but his like will to get out pushes him out of their grasp you know what I mean kind of have like have a bit more just because I feel like it's also not that it's a stretch but it feels like we're having to do all the heavy work of like

thinking of like these things you know what I mean and it's like as a reader I kind of you know you just I want that information or that kind of thing even if it is ambiguous to I don't have to feel like I'm reaching so hard for these explanations, I guess. But, you know, that's just, that's, that's, that's, that's my opinion. But, you know, it's, it's interesting. Like I said, I'm always, I'm always fascinated when I read, when I read the comments on these videos and stuff, um, people always have such good takes. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm curious to see what people say as well. I feel like, you know, a lot of people are going to line up with what you're saying, though, because I think that some kind of test, some kind of divine test of some kind,

or even demonic test of some kind of seems kind of interesting and plausible here. If it's a test, then that explains why it activates, or hold on, let's not say a test. If it is an outreach, if it is an invitation to join, then that explains why the showers start and everything kicks into gear when someone new steps in. So you think that the showers are only going on whenever people are coming in? You don't think that they're just continuously dripping. Every time it's described as, oh, I start to feel something wet. It gets more.

The showers are picking up pace, right? That's true. So. Do you think that at all? Do you think that the kids could be turning on the system somehow? It could be or their presence invokes it. Okay. Their presence is kind of the thing that's starting these things.

I'd be curious, too, if there was some kind of like, if we miss some kind of context clues as to like maybe what the showers could have been before like some kind of because if they're saying if what you're saying to the military bunker thing of the other story if that's if that kind of ties in it all then at least maybe it was like oh this were army barracks beforehand or something and then something maybe they unearth something mysterious of some way I don't know it's it's very interesting the this the site too of um I guess it just industrial showers is just such a there's just such a definitive thing of like you almost think of like gym class or something

every time I think of this kind of showers I think of like gym like old timey gym class stuff of like oh you know hit the showers or whatever is it what I always think of or like you know the same with like barracks or something it's like a very outdated source of like how people used to like do that kind of shit so I don't know it definitely makes it feel older it puts age on the tunnel in my opinion but who knows okay who knows it was a fun read Let me deliver a final theory. This is like crack to me. What if you have, it doesn't, you know what?

It doesn't even have to be a cult. Let's say it's an individual obsessed with it, right? He becomes obsessed with, because the only number of, no way, there's a scene where they're in the tunnel and he says he sees many people and children standing in front of them, right? Like 20. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When Mays is making it out.

Okay, so it is a cult. So let's say there is a cult in this small town who worships the devil, some pagan entity, something that isn't, you know, a common religion, right? So maybe the entity, maybe to summon it, it requires some level of blood or some level of rot or filth or whatever. So this cult, they begin to do their worship ceremonies by either collecting dead bodies. It doesn't even have to be humans. It can be dead bodies of pigs, cows. Like you said, it's an old farm, right? It has a kill shoot.

Maybe that's what the bodies are being used for. Probably not even alive, just rotten corpses. And I'm going to say they're kept in the silo or something like that, right? So once they have amassed enough flesh, and they conduct whatever. their normal ritual is, when Mays was there while the cult was still active, there was something going on in the barn that was locked up right with the lights on around it, and all of the vegetation around it was dead. I think what was happening in that barn was the original cult, right? Hmm. So, also think about this. If the way Mays described it is you go through the seller's

door next to the silo and you work your way for like a mile and then you come out at the shower room and then when jack does it years later he falls through the floor and he's in the shower room which is like 50 feet away from where the cellar door is right that just means the tunnel snake around a lot right that they're actually next to each other but there's just a lot of twist and turns to confuse people so all within this one property there's people conducting some kind of ritual within the barn that they use to summon something. Once they've conducted this ritual and they've brought about their god,

anytime someone new shows up to the area, fresh blood, so to speak, the entity makes itself known. The showers begin to run. In my theory, the rot fills up the bottom of the floor and then something comes out of the pool. I love the only description we get is it sounds like a dying dog.

It could be a Moloch-esque-esque creature. it could be a goat head, a horse head, a bullhead on like this twisted body. Sure. Like it could be the worst parts of your imagination, right? It rises up out of the water. And maybe these children we see, these children that are impossibly frail that never cut their hair and are so emaciated and dirty, there's no way they could live down there. Maybe those children aren't children.

Maybe those are the forerunners, so to speak, of whatever this entity is. maybe as the ritual begins they make their presence known and they're effectively the priest of this religion who bring converts over to the side of their god so what mr may saw when he originally went was an active ritual in practice he makes his way through the lit tunnels until he gets to the room that the worship is occurring in and he sees the cult members surrounded by these children wrought from hell so to speak these like spirits that look like small emaciated kids and the group gets away Mr. May said that that guy died maybe he just bled out maybe

the beast showed up and killed him for my theory I'm going to say that that guy bled out that the beast didn't kill him because what I think happened maybe his body was used for the rot pile if I'm right about that but he died of the injury he sustained from the roof falling in

they leave years later when Jack gets there the ritual is no longer taking place. The cult is inactive. There's not a single person he sees while he's there, but the supernatural children that were brought forward originally still inhabit the area and still continue the customs, even though the cult no longer can. We can assume they're dead gone. As the old lady at the gas station says, we don't do that anymore. So the cult's now gone, but the forerunners of this beast, the children are still in the tunnels. And once again,

anytime someone shows up, they turn up once again to offer them this new religion, going to Jack in the Tunnel saying, open your eyes, what do you see, rest well? And when he fights against it, they let him go. But because of what the cult did, that site underneath Broken Arrow, Nebraska, or sorry, underneath Broken Bow, Nebraska will always be the summoning grounds for whatever this crying monster is. Yeah, almost like a permanent altar kind of thing would be sick. Like they made it a hollowed ground and it won't go away.

And the silo, I think, disappearing is the, not only is the building that was previously had lights on and there was no grass around it and they thought they saw someone walk inside. Not only is that building being gone proof the cult isn't there, but the silo disappearing might be that the cult, like either the cult destroyed it or I think a cooler theory, maybe the cult angered the entity. and the entity dragged them and everything they had to hell or like it took them away, it killed them and it took the silo with it, right? Like it destroyed it from the ground so they're no longer worthy of it.

That's why there's not even a sign that a silo was ever there because it was a supernatural reclamation of it, so to speak. But even though the cult failed him, he's still looking for new converts within the tunnels. I kind of like the idea.

My mind was kind of going to, which that like, everything you said, I think, is really, really fun. My mind, I always like the idea of entities just like, like living in darkness. And by that I mean like, because we never like,

we never really push into the room and fully see past those 20 children. You know what I mean? We don't really know what's in the room past all that in the darkness. And I like to think that there's some kind of entity back in there that is like basically producing rot or something. Like I don't know where exactly. I don't know, my mind has it connected where the rot is exactly coming from, right? But all these, like, flesh and guts.

I like the idea of him making, whatever entity it is, making its children. And they're just like these sickly children made of rot, basically. And they harvest all of this dead meat and bile and bring it to him and, like, form them, like, almost like little mannequin dolls. And then he, like, is able to manifest life out of these, like, big stacks of, like, flesh. And then all of these, like, all of these, like, kids are just literally born from rot, which is also why the this tunnel smells so bad, not only from that, but the children moving perpetually smell fucking disgusting and they're just made of death themselves. I think that would be kind of sick too.

The children made of filth and their father, the architect who waits in the showers. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Some kind of weird thing like that. Yeah, I think that like you, and then like if they're born out of hate or some kind of evil nature, their eyes are perplexed with it. But then also it would kind of make sense too of like one of them is like, you know, one of them lets them out like maybe they're not inherently like uh evil or something or me you know

maybe it like just depends on which ones but people born of these things or whatever you know we never really know their intentions but just this thing lurking in the distance and creating it's like basically many children and stuff which i don't know if he goes to gap to get the nightgowns but he could go to gap i don't know dude knows what the nightgowns i'll say i like the i like the niche the story hits of being a like you're given a lot of clues but you're also given a lot of room to make your own theories i like it it feels it feels fun i do too i mean i think that what it does well is it effectively gives you great visuals of like visuals that are very very good hooks and what i what i think it does with that as well is you're able to run with those really

great visuals because they're so pronounced at the front of your head that your mind starts going wild with it. Like I said, I really do think that if this was written, even like six, seven years later, I think that the author would have gone crazy with like showing exactly what their intent was. And I'm very curious to see what, like what you're saying too, of like letting theories build. Because what, 12 years around this time, you're probably not wrong. That's like what is like FNAF that old. Fanaf is probably that old, right? Twelve years. man if it is 2012 or whatever

if it is I mean like that I mean that makes sense to have this kind of like world building 2014 man oh there you go well yeah 10 years old my word around that time I think like I'd be curious if it was

if that was like a very pronounced thing if there's people in their comment sections who were kind of around this time or remember stuff from this time I'd love to have any insight from people who were kind of active around when those kinds of stories were happening and if that was just kind of the flavor

of the times you know what I mean so I think it's great though I think this is cool it was a fun story I think that it's a this feels like a fun one uh as always too guys if there's any suggestions I I know people keep saying tales from the gas station people keep requesting that one um so I think we're definitely gonna switch up some stuff too and try to dive into different areas of uh horror stories as well so any suggestions always let us know but I'm stoked I you know as always we appreciate your support and also uh we uh are always always interested in just reading new shit that's like been my favorite thing about this podcast

is being able to just continuously dive into new facets of horror really really fun stories your favorite part isn't talking about old mr wellers mr weller willer will become a new staple he will become a a featured meme on this podcast for sure i will i will i will forcibly bring him into any kind of story at any given time but who knows when yeah it's like you know that you know in smiling friends the whole schmormu bit yeah yeah this cannot be undone yeah this cannot be undone except this time we don't even get to have a fake text to see uh if he's going to be in it it it will happen i will force this i don't feel good about it i'm i'm praying to god that it uh that it lands well mr weller

he must he must be with us it's just going to be t-shirt it's just a white haines t-shirt that says in Black Test Mr. Wellers. That's it. That's all you get. Mr. Weller, yeah, it could not be a cheaper shirt

and it will be $75. Not even a picture of him. It looks like the Supreme logo, just the word, Mr. Weller. Yeah. It really could not be a lazier design and we are doing

an extreme markup. So I don't know what I was supposed to tell you. But yeah, without further, is there anything else that you want to do or are we ready to hit the road?

I think that did it pretty well. Again, I really enjoyed this. story everyone go we'll link his Twitter or something or if I yeah we'll put all the all the links and stuff we'll be sure to put in the description as we always do so you know once again be sure to read it yourself who knows uh or even with some of the things too with the links uh I like to put I like to think that maybe people like follow along with us with a text as well yeah yeah we'll throw the original post down there show some support on the original post if we have the

socials as well be sure to check out the people's profile and maybe some of the stuff they're doing now. And again, that's Dylan Sindler. So thank you very much, Dylan, for a cool story. I liked it a lot. And it's also scary. So good job. We appreciate you, buddy. Well, until next time on Creepcast, we will see you. I guess when we see you. I was trying to think of an, uh, an outro, but I don't have it. When we see you. We'll see it when we see you. We'll see it. Are we, do we still say stay spooked? Is that our, is that our catchphrase or now? Did you say, stay spooked or stay spooky? Stay. Stay. Stay spooky. Stay spooked. Stay spooked. Stay scared. You're killing it. Good job.

We need to have a, we need to have, okay. Continue in terror. I guess have a, have a, have a, that's what we'll be in our poll. What's our, what's our log line out of here? Stay.