Creepy - A Tenuous Band & He Will Always Be Leo To Me

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

A Tenuous Band***Written by: Troy Seate and Narrated by: Danielle Hewitt***He Will Always Be Leo To Me***Written by: No One of Consequence and Narrated by: Heather Thomas***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***Title music by Alex Aldea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the bloody disgusting network. No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of biopictions. Silence and explicit language.

Listener discretion is advised. He presents a tenuous band. Written by Troy Seat and narrated by Danielle Hewitt. The house stood expectantly. A property with a remarkable history of misfortune. It was dilapidated, long unused, dying, if not already dead. Most of its paint had peeled and turned into a dingy gray, giving the appearance of scaly skin.

Spiderwebs of cracked glass crawled along its window panes. A remaining shutter hung askew from a broken hinge. Some of the gutters around the eaves drooped loosely, bent and rusted, having long since lost their ability to catch water. To the side was the shell of an abandoned vehicle, and bleached lumber scattered in haphazard piles, all looking as forlorn as the house. Back in the day, Allison's father planted two saplings,

now overgrown and untended. Some of their twisted branches hung from the trunks like dismal dislocated arms. Others reached into the darkening sky like fingers of the damned. Two of them reaching out toward the house as if a skeletal mother were reaching for her stillborn child. She found little comfort in this creepy place, where within the house,

Death had once been its occupation, with its slanting angles and sloped roofs. The two-story structure stood against the horizon like a cardboard cutout in front of the diminishing light. She observed the dark windows, but not for long, fearing the sight of some unpleasant memory looking out. And yet, the house still hypnotized her, wanting her to look, revealing its past and hers. As if she were no longer. in the present. There had always been something abnormal about the place. Even before she and her sister were old enough to hear stories about ghost and goblins, Allison felt things she could not explain. And now, after so many years, she had returned to the old house, brooding and bleak in the wash of

Twilight, still holding its secrets and looking back at her, as if holding its breath to see what she might do. This was the moment of decision. Could she slip away before she was noticed? She'd returned to the place where she had grown up. A place with a mental door left ajar, a door her father and mother had died trying to close. Sight of the house made her shiver. She could never know all the actions that had occurred within its rooms,

but the house knew. There had been times when the dusky walls themselves seemed to breathe and were ready to reveal their secrets. Although the wooden porch drooped in places, it still cloaked the front of the house just as Allison remembered. She envisioned her mother sitting on the porch, her rocking chair creaking back and forth, a book face down in her lap,

her hands folded atop it, daydreaming about what her life might have been, while rustling wifts of her hair gently blew to and fro, like the lace curtains from an open window. Most surprising was the faint sound of wind chimes that had been removed from the porch even before Allison left, taken down after Margie's disappearance. Allison remembered sitting next to her sister on freshly painted steps. At ages six and eight, the little girls looked equally shiny and new in brightly colored

Easter dresses and shiny patent leather shoes. Margie held the doll that Allison coveted. Allison thought it was prettier than any of her own. But that's the way it's seemed to be Margie first and Allison second. When they played the little girl fantasy games, Margie was always the princess, and Allison was her lady in waiting. Worse yet, Allison had been convinced her parents only wanted one child, one golden-haired daughter to light up their lives, and that Allison was nothing more than an accident. The recollections flipped past like the pages of a storybook. Margie. Her laughter tinkling musically like the porch wind chimes. The favored child. The best loved. The most adored. The eldest. Allison observed the old house's facade one more

time, leering as she approached. If its silhouette was not intimidating enough, the knowledge that the cavernous dwelling once served as a funeral home was. That was before her family moved in. She used to sense a piteous despair moving through the rooms of the house that just felt wrong. Then there was the presence of others, even before she learned about the house's former use. The basement was where the bodies had been transformed into presentable corpses, suitable for public viewing, in the parlor above. Souls not remembered in life, only as ghosts. As a young girl, Allison had never gone down alone to stoke the coal furnace. It was bad enough knowing her mother or father or older sister

were down in that dark, shadowy place in the company of the ugly Leviathan. To her, the cellar door that led there was where the beast lurked. A monster with a hungry mouth that ravenously swallowed its dinner of coal or split wood. Its frightening metal tentacles crawled up to the heating ducts leading to the elevated floors.

From her bedroom on cold nights, She could hear it beckoning, with its blast of warm air, humming an unpleasant, insistent lullaby, capable of swallowing one soul. That was not the only vision of the house's interior. There were many, creating understandable apprehension. Why Allison had returned was of no importance. She was here, the final member of the family returning at long last.

and time to discover if the spirits of the dearly departed were still captives within the fiber of this haunted place. The front door was slightly ajar. The remnants of red paint darkened to the color of dried blood still remained.

But none of these portends were a barrier to her. Its hinges squealed as she entered. The interior, long given to dust and cobwebs, seemed barren at first. Allison reflected on things that had happened within this house. Absorbed the current aura and listened for ghosts. She could almost pick up a whiff of lingering thoughts and feelings. Was it the scurrying of mice she heard?

Or voices of old corpses creeping around? Footsteps treading on tired boards. Voices whispering as they plotted conspiracies. Allison wondered if the sounds kept most thrill seekers away. with the exception of some graffiti and the living-room light fixtures having been ripped from the ceiling there were few signs of trespass

empty candy wrappers were scattered about but neither vagrants nor horny teenagers would want to tarry here for long no more family portraits with bravely smiling faces in the darkened wood frames such relics from a troubled past were long gone the rooms however

were filled with ghosts of old furniture, except for the starkness of its tomb-like emptiness. The place had changed little. She began to recognize detail and sharp relief. Every deterioration stood out with almost hallucinatory clarity. Varnished tongue-and-groved wainscoting and patterned wallpaper was now dulled to a smoke-smudged oily tan. None of the latches on the cabinets quite closed.

Sorrowful sight to be sure. The dank musty smell of neglect was strong, but Allison adjusted to the sights and smells quickly. Within seconds she found her bearings, and the place began to produce a dream-like calm. She was alone in the house where she was born. Well, not quite alone. Persistent shadows sulked in the corners.

There was the constant undertone of whispering voices in the corridors and from vacant rooms. What do ghosts understand? What must they think when people look through them and lose their fragile illusion of still being alive? Are they looking for resolution to bring forth a final rest? She went to the stairway that led to the second floor and glided to the room that belonged to her sister. Although empty, Allison could easily imagine the way it had once been. Every edge in corner was sharp and clear, filled with pretty things she herself had admired,

a shrine to the dead princess. Growing up, Allison often felt helpless, unable to connect as Margie began blossoming into a young woman. As a teenager, Margie had friends of her own beyond the world of her sisters. She remembered pulling the traditional younger sister routine when Margie was asked to a dance. I don't ever want to go out with a stupid boy. Allison declared at the dinner table over a steaming bowl of tomato soup. She'd wanted to dump it on Margie's head. She wouldn't have looked so prissy then.

Still, she wished to be more like Margie. That might have solicited the affection her parents seemed to shower on her sister. Margie was 17 and Allison 15 at the time of the event. A mystery never solved. Margie was the apple of her parents' eye one day and non-existent the next. The wooded and watery areas in and around the town of Plainsville were searched. Investigators investigated. Search parties searched.

But all efforts failed to uncover a body. For a few months, calls would occasionally come in from people who claim to have seen Margie walking through a park, or loitering in a nearby town, or in the woods bordering railroad tracks. All, of course, or bogus. Derivative of urban legend.

There was never any closure. a concept that seemed laughable to Allison. At least, no one ever spoke about heaven having a new angel. On some level, people believe the worst thing their minds can imagine. A young girl in the bloom of life, taken by some loony, they theorized. It happened somewhere all the time. Allison's parents had dreadful fantasies of Margie carried off by a cruel and heartless man who defiled, killed, and buried her in some unknown place never.

to be found. They were sick with grief, and for a while, Allison thought it was exactly what they had coming. She had busied herself in her mother's garden during that terrible time, so as not to dwell on the thick permeating sadness surrounding the house any more than necessary. The family dynamic became as fragile as spun glass. No more perfect Margie. Only Allison, who could hear her mother's heartbroken sobs from behind a closed door. Her father would go dazed without speaking. They would sometimes wander out of a room, like an unfinished sentence, straining a tenuous band between the real and unreal, while Allison would sit with her mind and knots, searching for a way to be the new number one daughter. When her mother started spending large chunks of

time on the porch looking wistfully into space, her father took to crawling into a whiskey bottle. both thinking about how their lives had unraveled. The light had gone out of her parents' eyes and nothing Allison could do would rekindle it. No matter how hard Allison tried, she continued to feel inferior. It was clear she would never be Margie's equal in beauty or charm, forcing her further from normalcy,

hearing voices and seeing things out of the corner of her eye. The parents had lost something they could never get back. haunted by the black hole of absence and never healing from the shock of Margie's disappearance. They kept vigil the rest of their lives, never recovering from the loss, hoping she would magically return. The pain of discovery would be more bearable

than the pain of uncertainty. Her mother said. Allison was not uncertain. She had been aware of ghosts since she and Maggie first sat on either side of the Ouija board. The game's planchette practically flew around when they asked their questions. It had certainly been right about which of them would die first. After Margie was gone, Allison felt sure she saw her now and then,

hiding in a corner, or standing like a marble statue near a window, gazing with a sightless eyes upon a world taken from her. Although startling, Allison never screamed or said anything to anyone about these visions, as she wanted to believe it was her mind-playing truiting. tricks rather than black magic. Still, from the time Margie was gone and ever after, Allison looked at the house's windows differently, as if they were looking inward, keeping an eye on what she might do next. Gusts would flutter into the curtains as if ghosts were seeking entry from the outside. She got nervous whenever the furnace hummed with fire or belched out too much heat.

But the worst was when her father burned trash and newspaper. that produced bits of ash and char, she could see floating above the roof, dancing and fluttering in the air. It was a horrible reminder. There were times when Allison believed that the house might swallow her up with its smells and memories and general morbidity. She remained with her folks until she was out of school, old enough to find a job in another part of the country,

and escaped this home, filled with unhappy memories, ensnared with lost souls both living and dead. So the years wore on. She talked to her parents by phone, but rarely visited. When she did see them, the gray in their hair and their wrinkled features heavy with disappointment, withering away like houseplants deprived of water, it's too much to bear. The old house with its history and its memories were best left to those without her predilection for seeing and hearing strange things.

Allison left her sister's room and went down the hallway to the one that had been hers. She tried to recall the hopes and fears she'd experienced within its confines, while the murmurs of the others could be heard in the walls, still not free of the house's scrutiny. Another part of the house called to her like an irresistible pull of the tide. The underground basement, where the evil monster lived. She reluctantly made her way downstairs to the room that held her worst fears, a space suitable for both embalming and destroying.

It also held the secret that only she, and the furnace monster had knowledge of. For Allison, the past and present were beginning to mix together. She halfway expected to find the furnace glowing and groaning as it shoved hot air through its cylinders. For now, however, it was dark and quiet, as neglected as the rest of the old house. But the secret could not be forgotten. Wasn't that the real reason for her return? The secret. Yes, the one she shared with this despicable mass of metal. Margie had never run away. She'd been home the whole time.

First as charred bones and later as separated parts, buried around the property, bone by bone. Allison had killed her sister and stuffed her body in the furnace. Scenes from that fatal day flickered across her consciousness, like an old silent movie. At 15 years of age, she was tired of getting only the leftovers of affection. For the rest of her life,

she would have had to live up to the standard of her parents' sweet Margie, who could seemingly do no wrong. Allison had gone into the basement with her sister and knocked her out with iron tongs. It had been like clubbing a baby seal. She covered Margie's mouth in case she came to while Allison stuffed her into the large mouth of the giant beast.

She worked quickly at stoking the furnace with more coal, and leaving her sister to melt away in the conflagration. She shut off the flu in hopes the odor would not escape through the pipes and fill the house with the smell of cooking flesh. The intensity of the heat made quick work of Margie. Allison turned from the beast, but did not leave the basement right away. She considered all the cadavers that had occupied the spacious room way back. back then. She almost expected to see them lying about and wondered if any of them had been

burned victims. When someone was dead, it didn't matter how they met their end, did it? In the aftermath, it was a good thing Allison had shown an interest in gardening. It gave her a reason to spend so much time there disposing of bones. Initially, she'd escaped the torment of her actions. She never feared Margie's dead spirit or any of the others that whispered to her, because she didn't really believe the dead could harm the living. But her act had taken its toll. After leaving home, the years to follow were marked by an inscrutable depression and the bitter knowledge that loneliness would forever be her lot. She chose a path without the comforts and pitfalls of a husband or children. This led to a rather aimless, unfocused, life lacking the ability to find contentment, joy or warmth,

shuffling from one non-committal relationship to another. Generosity and selflessness were never in her character. Others told her she sometimes looked haunted. Maybe those people were able to see beyond her exterior, into her soul. Thanks in part to her actions, death still hovered about the old place. And now, Allison felt sure Margie was back along with the rest. She would have to face what she'd done. the act which had prevented her from the chance of a happy existence.

Moreover, she felt the house itself had come alive with her re-entry, and it needed to be fed. It was a new kind of reunion, here at the crime scene. And not unexpectedly, the iron monster in the basement suddenly belched and began to spring to life, a functioning entity complete unto itself. After Margie, had it developed a taste for something besides wooden coal? Would Allison be forced to relive the day she disposed of her sister? Her body leaving by way of the smokestack and the heating ducts?

Or would Allison be thrown into the fiery furnace and enter Hell's kingdom herself? She turned away from the monster and floated back up the stairs to the main floor where the window still watched. The moaning sounds and the walls continued, but now they sounded almost gleeful. What powers did this old household? How many ghosts? wanted its hallways. With a shock, Allison recognized the irony of it all now, how her return had come about. She, too, had passed from a physical existence, in a conflagration.

The tether binding her to life had not been severed peacefully, for she had been trapped in a burning house somewhere, dying in the most horrible of ways. How apropos with a final curtain of her life. If only all of it was just a terrible nightmare. But she knew the time for dreaming was passed. No, this was all too real, too vivid. These were no hallucinations. On this plane of existence, what she could see in here was real.

This was happening. Voices in the house and around its corners became more distinct, chanting, troubled voices, a chorus of the damned. Allison saw the first of them. Gazi figures with disembodied voices seemed to surround her. None were Margie, as she might have expected. The hair of one of the wraiths stood on end, and a long white burial garment trailed to the floor.

Her expression was one of betrayal, who knew how many spirits dwelt within the passages of time while the old house had stood witness. How many had been offended by now the new one, now amongst them, had done. all drawn to this place, where they had died or had been prepared for the hereafter. How spiteful might the waiting dead be? If alive, Allison would have screamed, knowing she might have to answer them all, one by one.

Never had she thought much about what she deprived her sister of. But what about now? When Allison was no longer anyone, as dead as the rest of the spirit she sensed around her. This was a new playing field, where the phantom. were equal to whatever she herself had become. Once again, the unexpected sound of the wind chimes. Once more, the voices became louder, accompanied by moans, layered and overlapping. And finally, rising up from the cellar was another figure.

The cacophony of voices raging through the old house faded into insignificance, as a more dominant presence took over. Allison felt fear, certainly. But extreme sadness washed over her as well. well. Her guilt did long last surfacing. All the birthdays Margie never saw. The rivers of hot tears Margie never shed over triumphs and tragedies. Allison remembered the little eight-year-old Margie in a yellow pinafore and the 17-year-old Margie in a felt skirt, ghosts that outlast all the other ones that never got the chance to fully live. She suddenly understood. It was Margie. Above the

blouse and felt skirt, her death ensemble, a translucent face levitated as shiny as candlewax. It possessed layer upon layer of emotions, truth and falsehood, youth and age, all going back to that moment when Margie was betrayed by her sister. Slowly and relentlessly, she floated toward Allison. I've been waiting, waiting, waiting, those brief words disintegrated. As the revenant began to hum highly shrill notes, Allison recognized from a children's song they used to sing. It brought a message of missed opportunities, suffering and madness. It was time for the younger sister's fate to be fulfilled.

I'm sorry for what I did, Margie. Allison's essence tried to articulate. Too late to be sorry, sister. Much too late. Was the unspoken response that floated along the ache, joints of the old house, dead for 30 years, and still the Queen Bee. Margie's clothes began to change. They turned from an array of colors to an ashy gray. Her face deteriorated into a lurid scow. Her eyes swimming black pupils. A miserable history from deep within the house began to rise up

through the floor like the smell of rot. A heavy moan of dread escaped Allison, for that was the only sound she had the ability to make. Something horrifying was pulling her toward darkness. The sooty remnants of Margie's scorched hair flowed around her head like a nest of long worms. Her arms extended out like soiled beckoning scarves, stretched forward, soon to wrap her sister in an embrace with hands, face, and body, now as charred as the clothes that had burned off of her, binding two spirits together for eternity.

The dead are patient. But the time had come. that moment when a being turns a light on in their soul and inspects it. Allison knew she had arrived at this place for a reckoning, as had many others. Even though they had been physically gone for years, they were all here now. Finally. Including bereaved parents who suffered knowledge of the truth when they died. The house was complete.

Her death had brought her back where so many dark spirits remained. especially the one of the girl she had betrayed. The structure felt like a great ma that had swallowed her whole, as Margie had at last, found her. Allison made no further attempts at contrition. She knew peace would never be part of her existence. Never, never, never, never.

An eternal shriek escaped her, audible only to the dead. She was in a place where souls wander and waited, and now she was one of them. The completion of some grand design, like closing a circle. The sound of the reawakened furnace mixed with the rusty laugh from Margie's ghost. Every element that should be there was present now. No further reason to exist. If anyone had been within a hundred yards of the old house that day, they would have smelled the electric stench of ozone and burning wood. It was a place where anything horrible was possible.

Absolutely anything. Creepy presents. He will always be Leo to me, written by no one of consequence, and narrated by Heather Thomas. College is supposed to be when we grow as people and find ourselves, but I'm still mostly the same person I was in high school. Timid and mousy, typical bookworm with glasses, ponytail,

and the grades that usually go with it. Obviously, I wasn't the most popular girl, but thankfully I wasn't bullied much either. I flew under the radar and remained unseen by the end crowd. Since middle school, I had one friend and he was a lot like me. Well, save for the ponytail in grades. Leo had been a geek that favored things like fantasy books, dungeons and dragons, anime characters with unrealistically large breasts, and flavored coffee. I had always hoped he'd developed feelings for me.

But judging by the anime he liked, my mosquito bites weren't going to be enough for him. I'm attending the local university on an academic scholarship, and I've developed a bit more physically. I probably won't ever be more than a B-cup, but I've heard lots of chestier girls complain about back issues, so I'm okay with it. Freshman year, I even sported a few tank tops to try drawing Leo's eye. It didn't work, so I quickly went back to my normal modest clothes. He was too busy with his studies to notice how I was changing. His parents struggled to save for tuition and made it very clear that he better take his studies seriously,

or there'd be hell to pay. While I was working toward a science degree, Leo was working on a literary one. He didn't want to be a teacher, but a professional writer. Ever since I'd known him, he was always writing short stories and novellas, all in the realm of fantasy. In my opinion, his work wasn't good.

But he did have a vivid imagination, especially when it came to sex scenes. I knew he was still a virgin, and those scenes certainly didn't hide it. I'm not one to talk, but the way he described certain things, it's obvious he had no personal experience. I would have offered to be his first, but I was just a friend to him. I wonder if he ever thought of me as a girl at all. During the summer between our freshman and sophomore year, Leo's life took an unexpected turn. For me, it wasn't a good thing, but it sure as hell was for him.

His parents won a $50 million lottery jackpot, and everything changed. He got a new car, clothes, an apartment near campus, huge allowance, and virtually overnight, a new personality. They say having money allows you to be the person you really are on the inside, and I tried really hard to accept what he was becoming. First to go were the baggy jeans and smart-ass t-shirts he always used to wear. I've never understood the appeal of skinny jeans. Sure, I've got a nice enough ass to pull them off, but I don't find them comfortable. I have no idea how someone with dangly bits can stand them, but Leo seemed to love them.

That in his Amber Crobby and Fitch button-up shirts. Those damn things are nearly as tight as the jeans, and it looked funny on him. At least he was skinny enough to pull the look off, but I couldn't get over how different he looked. Soon after came the fingerless gloves. And that threw me for a loop. I'm talking about cold weather cotton gloves that stop at the second knuckle,

leaving half the fingers exposed. It was in the 80s outside, so it had nothing to do with being cold, not unless he developed oenemia, but I'm sure that's something he would have told me. I mean, if he told me about the, the first time he sat on his hand long enough for it to go numb before touching himself, there wasn't much he wouldn't tell me. With the gloves came a stupid gray scarf. At least it was

made from a soft, thin material. I honestly can't fathom what went through his mind when he put it on, but it made him happy. I think the only part of his ensemble I didn't hate was the black fedora he always wore. Something about it complimented his face in a way that I don't understand. Now, if he was only wearing the fedora. No, never mind. I'm trying not to have those feelings anymore. Why? Well, let me go over the personality changes,

and it'll become obvious. Before the money, Leo was kind of goofy and fun to be around. We could be sitting at a cafe or lounging in the park and just talk for hours. He'd go on about one of his stories, or I'd help him with homework, so he'd have at least a passing grade. Sometimes we got together with a few buddies and played a D&D campaign.

Leo used to be standoffish with strangers, but he was always nice, especially with servers. Thanks to the money, he quickly turned into an entitled douchebag, no longer using please and thank you with not only servers, but everyone. Leo's political views changed nearly as much as his intense study habits did. With his parents no longer writing his ass about tuition costs, he started focusing more on his writing. Leo was bound and determined to become the next great author.

But I didn't see that happening. Sure, people love fantasy themes these days, but a detective specializing in demonology. It's been tried before, and even though that Keanu Reeves movie was pretty badass, the franchise failed. They turned it into a TV show, too, but it never got a second season.

Rumor is Keanu Reeves is going to reprise the role, but time will tell on that one. I was still managing something like a friendship with Leo, but that got harder once he got his hands on an old typewriter. He claimed it was going to change his writing and make it the best thing ever written. After completing the first chapter, he pestered me to read it.

I put him off two hours before I finally gave in, and it had nothing to do with my attraction. toward him. Outside of the physical, I didn't find him attractive by this point. Having read his work before, I wasn't expecting much from this latest dribble. However, once I started reading, I couldn't stop. Leo was able to articulate his thoughts in such a way that I couldn't help, but be impressed. It left me wanting more, but he said, you can't rush genius.

I was back to wanting to slap him. Every day I'd get a few new chapters, and with every line, I became more and more impressed with his work. Don't ask me what it was, but the writing did something to me that made me hungry for more. It was the best thing I'd read in my whole life, and I've read the great classics. The detective story blew them all out of the water. I'll say this, though, even knowing the nature of the story, it was starting to get dark.

Leo's descriptions of crime scenes started out lacking in detail, but he was soon describing scenes of explicit violence and disturbing detail, almost like he was really seeing it. Things on campus were getting a little strange, too. Late at night, I'd hear things outside my dorm that I hadn't heard before. Students out for a walk, probably on a study break and getting some fresh air, they would suddenly start running and screaming. This was becoming a nightly occurrence, and rumors were beginning to circulate.

No one ever got a good look at what was out there, but dark figures were lurking in the shadows. If you were alone and got too close, something would reach out and try to snatch you. So far, no one had been taken, but the administration urged students to stay indoors after dark. The only thing that would have gotten me out that late was Leo finishing his latest chapters. Oh, sorry. Leonardo. He wasn't going by Leo anymore. The hero was definitely turning into a dreamboat, even though Leo based him on himself. I didn't have to ask. I could tell by the physical description. If Leo started going to the gym and dressed for the part, he could be the physical embodiment of detective lions.

Aside from the devilish goatee, muscles, and tattoos, the description was spot on. even though the mental image of the detective I got from reading the manuscript was arousing enough to visit my dreams, it didn't change how I'd come to feel about Leo. The ugliness of his demeanor was too overpowering for me to get over, and it only got worse as time went on. Less than a week of using the typewriter, the Leo I knew was long gone. As the main character's personality developed, Leo was changing to becoming the detective in his book. If I hadn't known better, I'd have sworn the book was becoming reality.

My only contact with him dwindled down to when he finished the new chapters, and he'd call me to read them. I wouldn't go to his apartment anymore, but only meet with him in public places. I'd had enough of him raising his voice to me, getting impatient with me for reading too slowly for him. Most writers that get someone to read their work are looking for comments and critiques. I had nothing but compliments for him. Even that would send him on a tirade, saying his work deserved better praise than what I was giving. If the damn story hadn't been so addictive,

I'd have told him to go to hell and be done with him. At least in public, he'd stick with quietly harsh comments, but the look in his eyes said he wanted to hurt me. While I was in my advanced chemistry class, I got a text from Leo. He'd just finished the last three chapters and wanted me to read them. At this point, I honestly didn't know why he still wanted me to read his work.

Nothing I ever said to him was good enough, but I guess I was his real-life, Jessie. Sorry, she was a character in the story. Her main role seemed to be a combination of assistant and sounding board. Detective Lyons had a tendency to bounce ideas off her, reject her input, and later use her ideas as if he came up with them on his own. I found Leo at the coffee shop in the middle of campus.

There were easily 20 other students inside, but Leo was the only one with a table to himself. While others had their laptops, textbooks, and notepads, Leo was sitting there typing away on his antique typewriter. It was so out of place, but somehow the damn things suited him, and I hated that. He had become my least favorite person in the world, and I wanted nothing but bad things for him.

dreading the upcoming interaction that would ensue before getting to read, I decided to make Leo wait. I got in line with four people ahead of me and ordered my coffee. Another ten minutes went by before I got to his table. At some point he'd looked up from the typewriter and spotted me waiting. The daggers he was staring at me were so intense. I actually considered throwing my scalding hot coffee in his face, but I held back.

I hadn't gotten much sleep last night, mainly due to the idiots that hadn't heated the administrator's warning. At least three times I woke to screams coming from outside. It was almost enough to make me want to get a job just so I could afford an apartment off campus. My latest class this semester ended at three, and I'd be off campus long before nightfall. As I sat down, I expected some comment or warning about not making him wait again. Instead, he silently handed me a stack of papers and went back to typing. I could see he was on a roll and he didn't want to lose stride by berating me. It was a pleasant surprise.

After all the changes in the last few days, I had begun to believe yelling at me had become his favorite hobby. Leo was slightly hunched over. His movements were a bit erratic and jittery. Had I still given a shit about him, I'd have asked if he was strung out on drugs. As it was, I took a sip of my coffee and began to read. Detective Lyons was sitting at his favorite diner with Jesse, crime scene photos covering the table. Six people had been ritualistically tortured and killed,

offered as a blood sacrifice to some dark power. Something had been written in blood on the floor, and Jesse was busy using an old blue to translate the demonic language. It was long, tedious work, but that's why she was doing it instead of Detective Lyons. He couldn't be bothered with something as trivial as translating, even if it was rather important to the case. After what seemed like hours to Detective Lyons,

Jesse finally finished. He took her notepad and read over her work, but being the quick-acting, slow-thinking person he was, lions read it out loud. Before Jesse could stop him, purple lightning bolts crackled in the air. I dropped the manuscript when those same purple bolts started flashing in the coffee shop. Students scattered from the center of the room.

Some were smart enough to simply run the hell away. Out of nowhere, seven individuals appeared after particularly bright flash. They varied in height, but all were equally disturbing to look at. Dark flesh that looked charred from fire, hid under tan raw-hide leather clothing. human bones were displayed like jewelry, and their weapons looked to be made from sharpened femurs with fused vertebrae for handles. The one in the center stepped toward our table,

those shark-black eyes locked onto Leo. It got close enough to me that I could see their clothes were made from human skin, and the buttons holding this one's cloak together were molars. I was frozen in shock. These things were exactly as the, Leo described them in the story, down to the slightest detail. Leo grabbed the typewriter and tried to run,

but his direct route to the door had him practically going through me. The asshole caught me right in the chin with the damn typewriter and sent me to the floor. I could taste blood in my mouth and looked up to see the demon holding Leo in the air by the throat. In an oddly sensual voice, the thing told him that hell wanted him. and there would be no waiting. Of all the things to be worried about at that moment, my eyes shouldn't have locked onto the half-typed sheet still in the typewriter. Had he still been my Leo,

I might have tried to stop the demon from taking him. Instead, I grabbed hold of that sheet of paper and tried to tear it away before the demon hit me. The strength of that blow sent me skidding across the floor, and instead of taking the paper, I got the whole typewriter. I expected the demons to start tearing into the students that were still in the coffee shop,

but they didn't. Those purple bolts started flashing again, and after another blinding flash, they were all gone. Leo, too. The place was in chaos once the danger was gone, but I kept my cool. I grabbed up the manuscript,

including the half-written page, stashed it in my back and left the typewriter on the table. It didn't take very long for the police and emergency personnel to show up. Apparently I wasn't the only one injured, but I was the only one of them hurt by a demon. Turns out several of the students injured each other, trying to escape. When I was finally released, I got back to my dorm and immediately started reading the manuscript where I left off. I made sure to skip over the crackling bolts.

just in case it happened again. When the demons appeared in the diner, they abducted detective lions and dragged him through a portal to their particular slice of hell. The next several pages describes some of the worst scenes of torture I could ever imagine.

I'm talking a level of detail that left me tasting bile in the back of my throat. In the real world, there's only so much a person can take before passing out or dying from blood loss. it would appear that hell doesn't abide by the same rules we do. After every form of torture the demons inflicted on Detective Lyons,

his injuries would heal all by themselves and quickly. I always thought of healing powers to be rather painless, but Leo described it very differently. For lions, not only did the closing of skin and mending of bone cause further pain, it did nothing to get rid of the pain that was already there. When I got to the half-written page, I broke out into hysterical laughter. Leo made mention of Detective Lyons being no stranger to restraints and was always prepared for such an occasion.

Those were the last words on the page before the demon showed up. His story had truly become reality, and before he could write a way out of the endless torture session, Leo was dragged into a hell of his own creation. I'm actually glad he was self-centered enough to base the detective on himself. Who knows how many people would have died if the demon simply came to kill Leo. Yes, Leo, not Leonardo. Even though he turned into a loathsome piece of shit,

he will always be Leo to me. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit creepypod.com. You can also follow us at creepypod on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this

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