CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - "I’m a lifeguard for a pool that is only open at night. I was sworn to keep its secrets" Creepypasta

Episode Date: December 19, 2021

AUTHOR'S STORIES► https://www.reddit.com/user/Darkly_Ga...CREEPYPASTA STORY►by Darkly_Gathers: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comm...Creepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO-SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd...iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...CREEPY THUMBNAIL ART BY►Vladimir Matyukhin FT: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/5B...SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS-►"Good Places to Start"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7YCb...►"Personal Favourites"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEa2R...►"Written by me"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX6RA...►"Long Stories"- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...FOLLOW ME ON-►Twitter: https://twitter.com/Creeps_McPasta►Instagram: https://instagram.com/creepsmcpasta/►Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/creepsmcpasta►Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CreepsMcPastaCREEPYPASTA MUSIC/ SFX- ►http://bit.ly/Audionic ♪►http://bit.ly/Myuusic ♪►http://bit.ly/incompt ♪►http://bit.ly/EpidemicM ♪-This creepypasta is for entertainment purposes only-

The pool complex I work at is pretty typical. It's not in the centre of the city. It's closer to the edge, and as such has loads of space to work with. There are gyms and courts and several large pools that is comprised of, all interconnected with warm and pleasantly humid plexiglass tunnels, extra appreciated at this time of year. Sometimes as I'm walking through one such tunnel in my shorts, sandals and lifeguard shirt.

I'll catch a glimpse of someone outside, shivering through their coat in the snow. And I can't help but feel relieved to be on this side of the glass. My boss is an eccentric lady, the manager. She laughs and smiles a lot, but damn if she doesn't always look so tired.

It's like I can see the stress aging her in actual real time. She needs to take it a little easier, is what I think. We're just leisure facility workers after all. I consider telling her this in a meeting she's called me into. I'm not concerned. We get unwell and I'm a good employee.

I try to think of a diplomatic way to word my sentiments, but she begins to speak before I have a chance. How long have you been working here now, Dan? She asks me, tapping her finger against the desk. About a year, I think. I reply, and there is a pause. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something suddenly changes. The atmosphere becomes a little more strained, a little more tense.

I shift uncomfortably. Kate, my boss, glances up from the desk and over my shoulder. I turn around to see one of my colleagues behind me through the open doorway. Nice guy. He's been here longer than me, I think. But the moment my eyes meet his, He turns away, and heads off and away out of sight. I look back to Kate, and the silence stretches on.

I manage an awkward laugh, but she does not smile with me now. Employees that have been with us for as long as you have done are given the opportunity to earn a little extra money. Oh, okay, a reply, eyebrows raised. She rubs her wrist absentmindedly, rubbing her thumb over the view. she has tattooed there as she looks at the wall in thought. We run night sessions here sometimes. Did you know that?

She says, still not looking directly at me. For real? I ponder this. No, no, I didn't. Is this a recent thing? No, she replies and does not elaborate any further. More silence. I shift with discomfort in my seat. The air is, as it always is,

in the complex, humid, but goosebumps shoot up across my arms regardless. Kate, is everything okay? She rises from a chair. Come with me, please. Silently I stand and I follow on beside her as we walk through the complex. The complex stays open pretty late into the night, for the gyms at least, but the pools will be closing in about ten minutes. It's dark

And aside from the falling snow I cannot see much of anything beyond the grass When we pass through the tunnels Dan Once employees have been with us for a year Then their hours get reduced somewhat I start to protest With surprise

But she quiets me Don't panic Your pay remains the same It goes up actually But once a week We need you to spend a few hours In the night pool I tried to process this.

A few hours at night? Why haven't I heard anything about this? As I said, it's just once a week. She leads me down corridor after corridor through a set of locker rooms and past our least popular pool. Nothing wrong with the pool itself. It's just an unusual shape

and a little further out of the way than the other three. Kate leads me through one of the doors at the back, past steaming pipes and whirring ferns. filters. Around a corner we go, beneath a blinking emergency exit sign, and I find myself starting to get a little anxious. My gut is telling me something, but I don't know how to respond. So this... this is the way to the night pool, then, I ask. That's right, she says, quietly. A pool that I didn't know about, until just now. For a session I didn't know even existed. Kate says nothing

And we find ourselves At the top of a tarred staircase One that leads down and down Into the humid gloom Kate waves on the top step She grips tight to the metal rail Then with a slow sigh She descends

And against my better judgment I follow Down Into the dark Kate sandals clack against the tile As we go down and mine echo softly behind as I follow. This is pretty creepy, you know, I say, with a weak chuckle.

But again, I receive no reply. My breathing becomes shallow. Kate, I say to nothing. God damn it, Kate? I'm sorry about this, Dan, she mutters. I'm sorry, alright, but this is what we need from you. And we arrive at last at the base of the stairs before an open, tiled arch in the wall. The world beyond is red, low, gloomy red, as the room is awash in nothing

but red light. Jeez, I murmur and disbelief, stepping forwards, and together with Kate, we step through the secretive underground pool. A deep, soft humming sound rumbles overhead through the pipework. Water drips from somewhere unseen. I look around and try to take it all in. There stands a lone lifeguard chair by the edge of the pool. There are some lockers against one wall, and as for the pool itself, the pool is rectangular, as one would expect, and the water is dark, black almost in this light. But the most curious part are the seven rivers. The pool, despite at its core looking much the same as any other,

has seven off-shooting waterways. They stretch off and away through gaps in the tiled walls, through watery tunnels leading away into the dark. Kate, come on. What is this place? Kate grabs me suddenly by the shoulders, and I swear an alarm, heart pounding in fear. Dan, she says, arise staring desperately into mine.

Just do your job, just for two hours. Just sit in that chair and do your job. You must, you hear me. you must. And she speaks with such cold conviction, such force of will, that I cannot help but be swayed to believe what she is saying. So, I just sit there and... And what?

And do your job, she says again, releasing me. She's shaking. Two hours tonight. The next week I'll need you to do two more. You'll have greater flexibility with your daytime hours. and you won't need to come in quite so much either. Thank you. I'll be upstairs if you need me.

Wait, that's it. You won't be down here right now, alone? Kate looks away and wipes her eyes. She starts to walk back to the arch. Kate, wait, is this a joke, a prank? She shoots a look back at me over her shoulder. Her expression makes it very clear that this is no joke. "'Two hours, Dan,' she says, as the pipes hiss and the filter hungrily gurgles in the gloom.

"'Just two hours. Then I'll see you upstairs, and you can go home. "'And with that, she departs, leaving me alone in the underground pool bathed in red. "'I stand there for a minute, just gobsmacked, unsure what to do. "'This is insane. This creepy-ass pool all. all empty and alone down here in the darkness. I lock around once again at the seven tunnels. Where the hell do those even lead? I wonder out loud.

I lock over to the lifeguard chair, a still and silent sentinel above the dark water, and I glance to my watch. Two hours. She wants you down here for two hours. I wander over to the chair, my footsteps suddenly sounding much louder in the eerie quiet. The water lapsed and churns softly against the rim of the pool near my feet.

This is crazy. This must be a joke, surely. I should just go back upstairs and refuse. But I don't. Something about Kate's manner really frightened me. So I'll just do it this once. See what the big deal is. And then make a decision from there.

So I clamber up into the lifeguard chair and settle myself into place. the lone watcher over a sea of black and red the water churns the humidity pinpricks my skin with sweat and I watch I watch the water as is my duty nothing happens by the way not this first time

I start to feel a little queasy as the hours draw to a close but I put that down to just a little dehydration and when my time is finally done I jump from the chair and hasten away not wishing to spend an extra second in this unsettling place Kate is gone by the time I return upstairs and through the complex to her office so I simply go home and bring it up with her the following day

Kate I tell her I don't want to do this you can keep the pay in the flexible hours just don't send me back down there again Dan I'm not going to discuss this with you any further I'm sorry but this is just the way it is. Kate, look, it creeps me out right. I don't. You will go down again.

No, I won't. Yes, she shouts, you will. Slamming a hand down onto a desk and silence falls in the immediate area. She pauses and bursts into tears with her hands in her face. I don't bother saying anything further. I just walk out. What is there to say? I speak to one of my colleagues a little later that day.

A guy called Rex. I ask him about the pool. And if he has any answers for me. You just have to do it, he mutters, eyes downcast. If you don't, then it'll fall to somebody else, right? How long has Francesco been working here? You like her, right? I stutter in reply.

I mean, I don't know about that. How long has she been working here now, man? well about 11 months I guess 11 months yeah that's right Rex doesn't say another word he just rubbed his wrist and thought I look down and make the connection

for the first real time that is the exact same place as Kate's it's of three eyes positioned next to each other three I mean to ask him about it but he just claps me on the back and strides away

So, a week passes and I find myself again at the top of those gloomy stairs, the ones descending down into the red shade. I scratched my arm in thought, paused, considering. Is my job really worth it, I think to myself. Is it worth it to go back down to that awful place? You're joking, right, comes to rebuttal. It's two hours of sitting on your ass. Two hours and you get to keep one of the best jobs you've ever. I had. You like it here. You've just been given a raise. It's two hours in a red room. Man up and get the hell down.

Fine, I think to myself, steadily descending the tile stairs. But there's something else going on here. Something not right. And I'll find out what it is. Kate barely looks me in the eyes these days. Something's seriously up with her. And it's scaring me. I take a deep breath as the levels of light lower and shift to a more total foreboding red. I step down under the damp-tiled floor of the lowermost level and walk cautiously through the arch and into the pool room. As before, entirely empty. One pool with seven offshooting rivers,

rivers that run through tunnels in the tile, leading away through the dark, and the lifeguard chair, waiting patiently for my arrival. I head over and climb on it, sitting with a small sigh and my hands clasped, I look out over the face of the water. Dark, black. It swallows the feeble red light and softly churns to many more, perhaps. I stare at the water, waiting and willing the time to go faster.

Until I zone out. Movement. I am shocked from my water. a careless dozing by what I assumed to be movement in the water. In a panic, I grip the sides of the chair and lean forward, eyes wide and staring at the very center of the pool. My heartbeat suddenly rapid and painful. I wait and I watch, waiting for confirmation of what it is I saw, hoping beyond hope that it was nothing more than my imagination. I stare at the spot in the pool for a minute or more.

and just as my heart is beginning to slow and I'm allowing myself to relax I see it again it's subtle but it's there a small splash in the water a ripple and a churn damn I mumble then a little louder

damn it damn it damn it it's just a filter perhaps bubbling from the bottom of the pool but as if in response to this thought the splash comes again and are watching cold horror as the water rises and steam drifts from the pool's surface. A long dark shape slithers its way through the red shadow towards me.

Then slinks back down and into the deep. Screw this. I have ten minutes left on the clock by my count, but I'm done, I'm out. I leap from the lifeguard chair and stagger my way across a slippery poolside tile back through the arch to the steamy underground backrooms and up the stairs and into the complex, racing through corridor after corridor.

Kate is still here tonight, it seems. I find upon my rival at her office, red face and breath shallow. What the hell is this Kate? I shouted her. Tell me, tell me what the hell is going on. You think I wanted this? She mutters in a low voice, leaning forwards.

She doesn't seem surprised by my outburst in the slightest. You think I wanted to be a part of this hell, Dan? She scratches at the V tattoo she has in her wrist We do her duty as lifeguards As lifeguards I allow myself a laugh and throw out my hands This is insane Tell me Kate what exactly is in the pool below a complex

She looks at me Then looks at a watch You left your position early She says No one is watching the pool No one is watching the I begin incredulous Then I stop

close my eyes and take a breath. Kate, I say to her, I quit. And without another word, I turn and stride from her office. I leave the complex behind, shivering in the snow. And despite how much I used to love my job, I intend to never return. I intend. That night I suffer from terrible, terrible nightmares.

In them, I found myself struggling to breathe, coughing and spluttering. My lungs filling up with putrid, dark water as I scrabble for the surface. The surface that only ever gets further and further away. This direction keeps changing. And I'm being watched. They're watching me through the water. I lose count how many times I awake during the night. And by 5 a.m., I'm too terrified to return to sleep.

I spend the next day seeking new employment. But that night, the dreams are the same, if not worse. The next night, they come back, renewed. And the night after that. I find myself unable to stay awake during the day. The dreams find me at any hour. I'm too exhausted to cook proper meals. I stop trusting myself to drive my car.

And when I can take it no more, I'm right back in Kate's office, disheveled and desperate. And I ask her, How do I make them stop? How do I stop the dreams? She stands and steps over to me. She draws me into a hug. Just do your job, she says softly.

You're a lifeguard. Then she says, I'm sorry, Dan. I'm so, so sorry. There is no other way. So, I return to my job. Once a week, I do my shift. in that awful, monstrous subterranean pool. Sometimes the water remains still.

Sometimes the nights are entirely uneventful. And sometimes I see shapes stithing around in the darkness, disrupting the pool surface. And my greatest fear remains that one day, one of the things in the water is going to clamber up onto the tile and I will not be able to summon the constitution to escape.

The nightmares only come the night before my shift these days. and they're not as intense. But I can handle that. I can deal with it. They are only as heavy as it's needed, I suppose, to remind me to do my duty, to do my job, to watch the water,

week after week. My duty goes on. How long do I have to do this? I ask Kate. I ask Rex. I ask the others who have been here longer than myself. But none of them give me an answer. And one day something happens that is worse than my greatest fear,

worse than one of the things in the darkness climbing up into the light. And it's so predictable, I can't believe I didn't see it coming, so classically painfully obvious that I consider myself an idiot for not preparing for it sooner. I am forced to do my job, my job as a lifeguard, because one terrible night I see a boy in the water. It begins as any other I'm uncomfortable and scared

As I sit in my chair As I watch the water quietly churn And listen to the pipes above me hiss and rumble Perhaps it's going to be another quiet night I hope preemptively Perhaps there will be no disturbances tonight And that's when I see him That's when I see the boy

A kid A human boy just drifting through one of the tunnels down one of the rivers and into the center of the pool, paddling and pulled along by an impossible current, one that I cannot see. Help, he cries out, and I can see the fear on his face, washed in red. Dad, Dad, where are you? I can't believe what I'm seeing. Hey, I shout. Hey, kid, over here.

But the boy does not react to my voice. He simply looks all around himself, spinning in a circle. calling out for his father. Dad, where are you? His voice echoes around the tarred walls as the deep red light shimmers across the face of the water. Kid, hey kid!

I try blowing my whistle. He does not react. I jumped down from the chair to the tile and wave my arms, but the kid just can't see me. It is if he's looking right through me when he turns my way and the poor little lad starts the cough.

He's sweeps. wallowing mouthfuls of water, and he splutters and chokes. His strokes become more erratic as he keeps on calling for help. He is drowning, and the only one who can save him is me. My blood runs cold as I see further disturbances in the water at the far edges, dark and slithering shapes, and Kate's voice blairs like a siren through my head. Do your job, as a lifeguard, you must do your job. Time seems to slow a little.

I watch as the boy starts struggling for real, as it begins to dip below the water, splashing and crying out for help. For help. But of course, I'm the only one who can hear him. I grit my teeth. With jaw set, my blood, once cold, now surging, fires me up with a blast of adrenaline. I take a long step forwards, then another. It feels slow, but I'm moving fast.

I can tell. I follow procedure without even realising Three quick blast of the whistle And I've shut myself forwards from the edge of the pool I'm diving forwards Leaping from the edge and out towards the darkness of the unknown The boy is just a few feet ahead He draws closer and closer

And I hit the water with a great splash And a rush of bubbles burst up past my ears For a moment I'm trapped in time I'm adrift in the void, lost and alone in the watery darkness. The pool is impossibly, unfathomably deep. I cannot see the bottom. Something massive and slow lurks far below me,

a shadowed thing that writhes with motions like the waves of a dark sea against the bitter shore. And I know that whatever it is can see me. All around in the water, the slithery shapes draw closed. Time returns to its regular speed, and I burst up for air and power through the darkness towards my target, towards the boy, lost, alone and in need of help. I've got you, I splutter as I shake off the void and grab him beneath the arms. Immediately turning, I power my way towards the edge with a boy trembling and shaking behind me, arms and legs pumping as fast as I am able. Though I cannot lose that terrible feeling of being flanked by the things in the water. getting closer and closer, closer, and closer.

I do not know what would happen if they were to reach me, but they do not. Not today at least. I reached the edge, and with a roar of strength, I bring round the boy and holding him to my chest, I clamber, clums thee up and onto the side. I roll away from the edge of the pool, still clutching him as I tried to put as much distance between us

and the water as I'm able. Shooting her look back reveals those menacing dark shapes sling quietly back into the depths and I come to an exhausted halt looking down at the boy and moving to help him sit up as I catch my breath

but there is no boy not anymore just a boy-sized shape comprised entirely of water and the second that I comprehend this fact the water acts as one would expect it to it just melts right through my hands splashing down across the tiles and washing over and away

a solid and then formless gone still panting I push myself up to the wall I rest myself against it soaked and I just sit there for a while processing trying to think to put it all together and failing feeling a little itch of my wrist

I look down and there forming before my eyes beneath the pool's red glow. There's an eye, a thin, dark, Roman numeral one. It looks just like, her tattoo. What does it mean? I asked Kate upon the completion of my shift.

I stand before her, bedraggled and afraid at the complex entrance. I had to rush out to catch her before she left. The snow barrels down and the Arctic wind burns my wet skin. But I don't care. Not in this moment. The lights through the complex doors behind me Send my shadow out long across the snow And illuminates Kate's face

And shines in her eyes Eyes that look sadly back into mine The wind sends the tails of her coat billowing out to the side What does it mean? I shout above the gale Showing her my wrist And she draws down her sleeve to reveal her own The V

The Roman numeral 5 Seven souls, she whispers, in a voice I can barely hear. Seven rivers, seven tunnels and seven souls to be saved. And then we can be free. I don't understand. Kate, please. Seven souls, Daniel, she says as she looks back up at me. And a voice rich with sorrow, an apology with warning and with hope.

save seven souls and your duty is done we are the sentinels and the lives are ours to guard without another word she turns and walks away and into the storm