CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - "The family next door kept a man under their house" Creepypasta

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

CREEPYPASTA STORY►by Harambe_556: 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►Eryk Szczygieł: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1rzKGSUGGESTED 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-

Dan's parents told him to never go into the basement. I was over at his place the first time he tried to open that thick, dark oak door. I remember, who was seven at the time, I think, him flashing me that cheeky, lopsided smile before standing on his tiptoes and straining for the handle. I remember his dad snatching him away a second later and slamming him back down next to me with a force that brought tears into Dan's eyes. Mr. Johnson was a very big man, and although I'd known him all my life, he'd always been a slight source of fear for me.

As I grew older, this infantile nervousness around him subsided a little, but he always made me wary. Mr. Johnson knelt, gripping down his shoulders. His face was red with anger, but he also looked shaken. I noticed he was trembling almost as much as his son. Listen to me, Danny. His voice cut like a knife. You never, ever open that door. Do you understand me? Never.

I've told you before and I'll tell you again. Under no circumstances do you go in there? Then he bundled his snibbling son into a tight hug before inviting us to come watch cartoons. Afterwards, I'd asked Danny what was behind the door. He had told me, in a roundabout way, that it was his basement. He seemed only half interested in the conversation,

always distracted by the tinkle of an ice cream truck or an interesting stick. Danny's zealous imagination could take anything innocuous, anything every day, and turn it into something extraordinary. Sometimes I thought he could actually see the things he dreamed up. Danny and I had always been friends. We were never really given a choice in the matter. Our families neighboured each other directly and our parents had known each other since college. They just heaped the infant Danny and I together and waited for a bond to grow.

And there was a bond in the simplest sense. We were best friends. We were always together in the same class of school, in the same scout group. We even dug in and out of each other's homes like they were connected. For me, there didn't exist a life where Danny wasn't there together. get me into trouble, or to get me out of it. Of course, we had our differences. I was always the quiet one, good in school, rarely to be found without my nose in a book.

Indeed, if it hadn't been for the influence of the popular and gregarious Danny, I might as well have been subject to harsh teasing throughout my education. That was how our unspoken trade-off played out. Danny would vouch for me amongst our peers, seeing that I'd have been. I was invited the games of tag and birthday parties, and I would help Danny with his schoolwork. He never had a head for sums or science, but his weakest spot was English. Spelling, creative writing, a rare point of humiliation for Danny. He can never wrap his head around which words fit into which meaning, or which meaning fit to which word,

or what the word was for a particular meaning, etc., etc. Looking back, he was at least very dyslexic and probably had other conditions which meant he struggled in school. Sorry, let me get to the point. Danny's parents told him never to go into the basement. And, after that first incident, met by harsh parental discipline, he obeyed the command. Whenever we were at his house, we would stick strictly to his room or the lounge or the garden. but over time, as it always did, Danny's insatiable curiosity grew.

His eight-year-old brain feared punishment too much to try opening that door again without intel and what lay behind it, and any questions directed at his parents about the content of the basement, were either ignored or met with rebuking. His parents probably rightly realized that if Danny were to gain the smallest morsel of information about that room or catch the tiniest glimpse of what lay inside, then his wild imagination would create the other pieces of the puzzle,

causing his curiosity to become too much to bear. After a few months, Danny would often bring up the basement in conversation, presenting, in childish dialect, his latest speculations, and what could be in there to my appraising ear? An alien egg, a robot clone, a baby dragon. For my part, I was not terribly injured, interested in the content of my neighbour's basement, as well as being too timid to ever aid Danny in a break-in. Danny was convinced that his parents were hiding something in there, and he was precisely his parents'

cagingness in the face of his Inquisition, which strengthened his theory. His older brother, Aaron, 15, only laughed when Danny brought his theories to him and called him stupid. Then one day, something changed. That morning, when Danny came galloping from his front door to join me in our walk to school, there was a strange air about him. He kept shooting me sideways looks and suppressed smiles, as if he knew a secret and was bursting to tell. Of course, knowing Danny, his lips did not remain sealed.

There's a man in the basement. The words came tumbling out of his mouth in a pile, leaving him panting. He caught me off guard. My rational brain couldn't comprehend such an offload of information. What? What do you mean? I heard him whispering through the floor. He heard me and I unlocked the door.

Dad was at work. I opened the door and there was these dark steps and I could see a man down there and... Wait, wait, Danny, you saw a man in your basement? Yeah, yeah. I heard him whispering to the floor, whispering for help. Stop messing with me, man. No, I swear, I double, triple swear. Only this most sacred of oaths made me pause in my denial of Danny's story.

For the first time, I let the thought cross my mind. Was it true? I began to question him hesitantly. Slow down, what about your dad? I told you, Cam, he was working late. Your mom? She was home, but I couldn't just ignore it. She'll kill you if she catches you, man. She won't.

I shut the door. afterwards. So, he whispered through the floor. Yeah, he must have heard me walking around. The house was really quiet. I heard him whispering. I put my ear to the floor, near the mouldy floorboard. You know where I mean. And I could hear him. His voice was really scratchy, like he had a cold or something. He sounded pretty cuckoo, kept repeating himself, asking for help over and over, mumbling about being alone in the dark or something. I resign myself reluctantly to believe. "'Dud, that's really weird. "'You should tell your parents,' I advised.

"'Here's the thing, Cam,' Danny whispered, "'voice crackling with excitement. "'What if they're keeping him in there?' "'No, man, that's crazy. "'What are you?' "'You remember that film that Aaron showed us, "'the one mom got mad at him about? "'There was that guy, the mad scientist.

"'That's what I was going to say. "'The mad scientist. "'He kept those two dudes in his, basement, all chained up. He put that needle in them, you know, when their eyes exploded. Both of us paused to screw our faces up in disgust at the memory. And then he came with that knife, and they were screaming, and then Mom walked in and switched it off. What if that's what Mom and Dad are doing, keeping that man down in the basement? I took a moment to digest this. Think about it, Cam. All the facts add up. This was a catchphrase Danny had

turned off TV. Faced with Danny's, to me, flawless logic, I had no choice but to agree. Looking back, I find it strange, partially on my part, but more so on Danny's, how we were able to establish

such a mental disconnect, how we could wholeheartedly believe that Mr. and Mrs. Johnson were carrying out the actions of a serial killer, and yet harbour no ill feelings towards them. In Danny's case, love them. Our attitude towards them

did not change at all. Sometimes we forget how simple the mind of a child really is, how innocent, and conversely, how easy to shatter. Danny filled me in further, explaining how the man had been on all fours at the bottom of the dark steps and how thin and bony he had looked. Danny seemed to imply at one point that he had made direct eye contact with the man,

but he appeared to grow slightly uncomfortable at that point, quickly moving on with his description, of the event. He'd been about to go down those steps when he heard his mom calling him from upstairs. Then he had exited the basement, locking the door and replacing the key behind the toaster where he knew his dad kept it.

Over the next week, Danny updated me regularly. He'd been unable to find a moment where it was possible to open the door again, but he told me that at a few quiet moments in the evening he had whispered through the floor to the man and the man had occasionally whispered back. He was careful not to let his parents catch these strange conversations. Doing so would alert them to the fact that he knew their secret.

He was always vague about the exact contents of these talks to the floor. I took this as a way of him guarding his secret, like a serpent guarding his hoard of treasure. For that Sunday, Danny granted me access to the Treasure Cove. Like most Sundays, I arrived at his house early in the morning, ready for a day of cartoons and fort building. But as soon as Danny had closed the door to his bedroom, he explained that he had a new item on the agenda. You're going to talk to him today. I did not have to ask who he meant.

Looking back, I'm not even sure I wanted to take part in this eerie ritual. I'm sure I was terrified by the idea. of whispering to an unknown man underneath the floor. Danny led me downstairs, leading me over to the spot near the mouldy floorboard, his communication link. He bade me kneel down, put my ear to the floor and speak. As it was, I only had to listen. No sooner did my ear touch the floor than he was assailed by a strange sound,

almost like a stormy wind or nails on a blackboard. straining my hearing, I could make out sounds, then words, then sentences. My brain came to terms with the fact that it was all true, that there really was a man. This man, mere meters below me. I jumped with a start, heart suddenly racing, sending Danny into fits of giggles. But I wasn't laughing. There was something altogether not right about what was happening. My young mind couldn't place exactly, but it had something to do with that awful, rasping voice.

Slowly this time, I dits my head again, this time paying attention to what was being whispered to me. Hey, hey, you're still there. Help me. Please, kid, you got to help me. There's nothing down here but the shadows. Shadows all around. Help me, help me, help me, help, help, help. This frantic repetition did not come with a rise in pitch or even a wavering tone or consistency. The speaker spat the words out at a ferocious rate, concentrating only on clarity and speed. They whispered as someone who had learned that they must whisper, regardless of how much they want to scream. But slowly, as I listened to the repetition, the begging for aid, I detected a rising urgency. No

Was it Anger? Yes, it was discernible now A clear and growing hate behind those words Little turd Little asshole, I'm begging you, please Please, I'm begging you Come down here and help me

What are you doing? What are you doing? Help me, help me And then, as I listened in petrified silence Not breathing, just listening he began to say other things. I'm not going to repeat them. I haven't spent 20 years in therapy, trying to burn them from my mind to repeat them out loud. Just know that, from what he said and how he said it,

all I could think was that this man, this wretched thing below me, was the most desperate person I had ever come into contact with. To prostrate himself like that, to obey himself, to make himself little better than an animal. He made me think, that he was absolutely terrified out of his mind. I had heard enough.

I turned my ear away from that crack in the floor, and I made my mistake. I looked down. It was only for a second. A second was all it took. I saw his eye. In that dark crack, I saw what I first thought to be a fat cockroach

or a bulging woodlouse, some kind of rotund insect, bulbous and chittering. Then the ruptured, dirty brown shell-like eyelid opened. Time slowed down. The roomy red-tinted pupil, frantically flitting, resting on me. The eye was milky white, with collections of dank yellow goop collecting in the corners. Vains bulged across its surface, giving the impression that it was about to burst. I couldn't look away.

I felt like that blighted eye was staring straight into my soul like a madman, a wild thing. I fell back, letting out a cry of fear. I pushed past Danny, running out the front door, tears streaming down my cheeks.

I didn't stop until I was under the covers of my own bed, choking sobs, echoing into my pillow. I wouldn't tell my parents what was wrong. Looking back, I wish I had. After a while, guilt and boredom conquered my fear, and I returned to Danny's house. He let me in sheepishly, treading on eggshells around me, unsure of what had caused my reaction.

I found my outburst to be humiliating, and resolved myself to pretend nothing had happened. Yet, I still refused to look over at that door, or the spot on the floor where that voice had whispered to me. That evening, surely before I returned to my own home for supper, Danny and I sat on his bed, talking. What are you going to do? I asked. What do you mean? I mean, what are you going to do about him? A brief moment of hesitation, remembering that horrible eye emerging from the dark. Well, I'm... I'm... I'm... gee, man, I don't know. What do you mean? You're really going to let your parents just keep him down there. He doesn't sound like he's having fun.

You're right, Danny's eyes gleamed. I should rescue him. No, no, Danny, I meant like tell Mrs Carter or somebody. But Danny was far away, imagining himself playing the part of the hero, crowds thanking him, the president meeting, all the chocolate he could eat. I realized forlornly that he would not be persuaded. I'm going to get him out. I don't think that's such a good idea.

What about your parents, Danny? If they catch you, they won't catch me. I'm quick, and I've opened the door before, remember? Besides, Danny attempted a macho persona. What are they going to do? Ground me? No cartoons for a week? He scoffed.

Where before, punishment had been enough of the threat to deter him. It now was useless. Danny had too much to gain. No, Danny. I tempted to put into words a concept my young mind could not fully realize. Something unpleasant. A darkness hatching at the back of my brain. Something beyond being grounded.

Something beyond the simplistic idea that a parent loves you no matter what. I also think that I did not believe in my heart of hearts that Mr. and Mrs. Johnson were truly capable of holding someone in their basement against his will, that they were truly capable of hurting Danny. My warning came out as vague and feeble. I think that if they catch you, they're going to do something really bad. But Danny wasn't listening. He explained to me how, that night, after his parents had gone to bed, he would sneak

downstairs, grab the key from its hiding place behind the toaster, unlock the door, go down those dark, dark steps and bring the man in his basement into the light. He said that he would be extra careful, and if he heard his parents coming, he would just lock the door and hide. As I left that evening, he told me he would tell me all about his escapade the next morning and I walked to school. Looking back, I marvel at how we could have possibly thought that our daily routine would be the same. That night I was wrecked with fear Not the same fear as I'd felt after seeing the eye That was short and sharp and painful

Like an electric shock No, his fear was far worse It was slow and creeping Slithing around in the pit of my stomach Strangling me I didn't touch my food and was sent to bed early My parents thought I was ill Danis parents told him never to go into the

basement and the next day Danny was gone I waited for some time on the sidewalk outside his house praying to see that cheeky lopsided smile but he never came eventually mrs Johnson saw me through the front window and came out is Danny sick I asked I already knew though what was coming no we thought he had gone to yours A look of fear spread over Mrs Johnson's face And the nightmare began Over the next three months I got accustomed to seeing the flashing lights of police cars

And seeing cops coming and going through the Johnson's home At first the Johnsons were panicked There was no sign of the breaking The front door was still locked And the neighbourhood was so friendly Everyone knew each other There was absolutely nothing which could explain Danny's disappearance.

I remember after the first week, adults begun talking in hushed tones around me. That must have been when they made the development in the case. On the third day, the story made it unto the local news. The Johnsons were interviewed outside their home. In the short time, their initial panic had faded to anguish and despair, at least from the outside. Only I knew the truth. Danny had been caught. His parents had done something horrible to him.

If I had been afraid of Mr. Johnson before, I couldn't be in the same room as him now. I tried to tell anyone who would listen of my secret insight, but nobody would pay at any notice. Indeed, I was scolded by my parents for being insensitive and inappropriate. Over the years, I stopped trying to convince people. My pain just became a numb, Danny-shaped hole. But I never forgot.

When I was older, probably around 13, my mother decided it was time for me to know the truth of the case, what they had found at the end of the first week. She explained that Danny's house didn't have a basement. Behind that thick oak door, there was an old, unused supply closet. His parents told Danny to never, ever go in there because they stored bleach and other harmful chemicals

inside. Danny had never been told it was a basement. That was pure speculation become fact, a product of his troubles with words and his overactive imagination. Inside that closet, behind mops and boxes of clutter, the police had found a hole. The bricks and planks of one corner ripped away. In that hole, there was a dark, dark flight of steps formed from rubble and broken stones. The dark, dark steps led down into the large sewage tunnels directly beneath the Johnson's house. In the sewage tunnel, they found many things, a used mattress, a kitchen knife, and the opening that had been made in the top of the tunnel, the chair which had been used to reach the floorboards of Danny's living room to whisper through.

It was writing on the wall, scribblings about shadows and being alone in the dark. Danny hadn't been caught. Unfortunately for him, he had made it down there. The police searched the local sewage network and his reservoirs. Nothing. Eventually, they found the last clue they would ever find. Several miles away, an old decrepit storm drain. Danny's watch, half submerged in the mud and slime,

and a single bloody handprint made by a spruce. small hand against the wall of the drain, elongated along its length, where someone had fought desperately to not be dragged away. I was wrong. The voice I heard under the floor that day wasn't the voice of a man filled with terror. It was the voice of a man who was utterly, utterly deranged.