Creepy - An Empty Prison

Episode Date: January 20, 2020

There are worse things than prison...***Written by Matt Dymerski and narrated by Jimmy Ferrer, Owen McCuen, Gabriella Ferrer, Steve Blizin, Nate Dufort, and Alicia Atkins***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***You can also subscribe to us on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/creepypod***Co-Produced by Steve Blizin and Jimmy Ferrer***Sound Design by Steve Blizin***Title music by Alex Aldea***Intro/Outro Narration by Joe Stofko 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.

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This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastas 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 violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Creepy presents an empty prison. Written by Matt Demoski and narrated by Jimmy Ferrer, Oa McCune,

Gabriella Ferrer, Steve Blizzin, Nate DuFort, and Alicia Atkins. A single day added onto my sentence meant the difference between a normal jail and the unending nightmare of Pembina prison. I was supposed to get 364 days. That was the deal. But the judge didn't like my attitude.

Whatever how that meant. So, he'd mean. He made it 365. Boom. One year was the minimum for prison. My lawyer made a stink and a half, but it didn't do any good. It's not his fault. In fact, he's the one who's going to release a statement to the press.

Or leak it online if the Guardian Corrections Group, GCG, tries to get an injunction on us. People have to know what happened at Pembina Prison. I'm going to put it right out there and tell you that it was haunted. You think I'm joking, nuts or lying, but you have no idea. Haunted prisons aren't anything like you imagine. Those places that advertise themselves and give people tours or sick jokes compared to the real thing. It got so bad. bad that you can actually look up GCG's official filings for Chapter 11.

That shit put them out of business on their very first prison. And right there on the briefs, using an early statute of North Dakota law from 1857, to file an insurance claim, it says, site of Pembina prison, confirmed by governor's office, and two notary public. witnessing in person to be afflicted by supernatural such that continued business is impossible. It wasn't the first time the prison was close for that reason either, but Leach's kept buying it and reopening it, hoping to make a buck off the common man. And I was shoved into that hellhole without knowing the history even a single bit. Don't get me wrong.

The building itself wasn't so bad, especially for something straight out of 1853. It was a big stone cube that was a squat, heavy, and cramped, but way less sealed off than modern prisons. We could see a lot of the cells around us. There was only one main hallway per floor, and we were close enough to pass things between the bars. and have some real human interaction. It could have been worse. There were five floors and capacity for 500 prisoners. When I first got there, I had a bunch of summaries.

I heard there were 2,000 guys locked up. And I believed it. But that soon changed. I didn't talk to anyone for the first three weeks. I'd never been to real prison before. and I was messed up over it. I didn't want to accept that I would be in that place and stuck with three other guys in myself for an entire year.

The whole prison seemed full of feral men. The bottom floor would start screaming and hollering and panicking in the middle of the night all at once. We were on the top floor, but we can hear their screams echoing through the open old layouts like they were right there with. us.

I just thought the prisoners on the bottom floor were all nuts, until the guards weren't there to wake us up the first day of my fourth week. When I woke up in my corner without some asshole guard banging on the bars of our cell, I finally had to talk. I asked one of my cellmates, Dante, what was going on? And I'll never forget the fear in his voice, as he said something that should have made us all incredibly happy. Guards are all gone, man.

The prisoners were talking quietly between the cells and loudly between the floors through various whispers and shouts. But the most we could figure out was that something on the first floor had made them all quit in protest. Sure, it must have been the crazy screaming like that during the night, right? Except none of us could get any word from the bottom floor. It was dead silent down there. The guys on the second called out for hours. Someone was down there, they said, because they can hear shuffling footsteps,

walking around at random every so often. But whoever it was, never said a single word. That was the first time Dante mentioned the crazy stories from the first floor. He muttered that he hoped none of it was true. But when I asked about it, he just shook his hand. Nothing, man. None of it ever made sense. We were a little worried as the day we're on and nobody came to let us out for breakfast. And then nobody came to let us out for lunch.

The time we usually got to spend outside in the yard came and went. People began getting restless. The cell to our left, Dante's friend Will, began telling guys to pass the word that we should all calm down and start sharing any food that we had holed away. I remember asking Dante, is it really that bad? They denied meals and yard time for a day or two before. He told me. But the other two guys in our cell didn't look convinced. One of them said,

But not like this. They made damn sure we knew what we did. They never just up and laughed. Someone handed us pieces of crusty old bread through the bars. It was much appreciated. And the new guards didn't show up for work for another full day. We got plenty of yard time that day from these new guys. But they seemed more confused than us.

We all watched from a distance as well as to guard about what happened. The guard shrugged. I don't know. GCG was paying a premium for fast hires, so. I signed up. What about the prisoners on the first floor? Well asked. We could still hear him shuffling around down there.

We looked on the way out to the yard. We couldn't see anyone. Huh? The guard frowned. Nobody in there. They all got transferred. Transfer. What the hell does that mean?

It means D-O-C-R took them back, returned to state custody, since the company couldn't handle them. That made sense. If the floor had been full of nut jobs, the North Dakota's first local private prison company hardly had the experience to handle them. But these new guys didn't even have the skills to handle us. There were half as many guards as before, and they didn't know the routines or who the dangerous ones were among us.

And as a result, they were distant, scared, and forceful. All except one guy. Kellan. Kellyn wasn't the first guard to treat us like human beings. But by then, he was the only one around. He traded jokes while in the yard, never hit us, and looked us in the eyes when he talked. He went and he found some paperwork to confirm the crazies that had actually been transferred. But it took three months to get that info out of GCG.

By the time he told us he'd heard back. We'd sort of forgotten the whole thing. Two nights later, maybe two hours past lights out. The guys on the second floor began screaming. Dante leapt up and fell on one of our cellmates by accident before shouting... That! Shit! Must be a fire!

Other guys in our row began banging on the bars and shouting for the guards. But the uniforms charged past and headed downstairs without talking to us. We could hear them shouting orders down below. and then yelling in confusion. The person's screams were clearer coming from the second, and it sounded like they were terrified if something in particular wanted help. The sounds of the gates being slammed and people running reached us after about ten minutes of shouting, and then it was silent.

We sat in the dark waiting and listened until morning. When the new shift came in, they were surprised and confused, and Kellen came by and and ask what had happened. We told him what he knew, but he'd shown up and found open gates and an empty second floor. There was no indication what had happened, but he promised to check with corporate and figure out if the absent prisoners had been rapidly transferred again. Dante gripped the bars and made sure Kellan was looking at him. Please find out who the hell is walking around down here at night.

Helen blinked at that. I mean, I'm dayshyiped, so I don't know what I can do, but what do you mean? The prisoners are gone. Dante told him fiercely, but quietly. But the guys on the third floor said they still hear someone. Maybe two or three someone's. Shuffle in their feet every hour or so till morning. I guess I could go look right now.

Dante reached through the bars and grabbed his uniform. Something which usually got us a beating. Hear me, do not go in there by yourself. Stay in the stairwell unless someone's with you. Callan nodded fearfully. It looked like he finally understood how spook we were. We waved another guard off and Dante let go. But nothing more came of it for a whole season.

The night shift had quit. More guards got hired and an even higher penny. Callan and another uniform scoped out of the night shift. the first two floors, but found nothing. Dante thought it was because they were looking during the day, but he wasn't about to ask our only friend to risk himself. It was maybe three months later, yeah. I was halfway through my sentence, and I had taken up drawing so I had a pen and paper. When we woke up in the middle of the night, to everyone on the third four screaming in absolute panic. This time we were looking at the same. We were

less scared during the event itself. Will Offer to Guard racing past 500 bucks from his commissary account for man would come back and tell them what was going on. Dante listened intently, trying to hear individuals screams from the third floor over everyone else's shouting and confusion. I wrote down any words he thought he heard. This is what I wrote down. God, let us out. We weren't as scared when it was happening because we lived through it twice before.

But this time, the long-term fear was so much deeper. Now we knew for sure that it was going to happen again. And any prisoners that had the means began lowering up and doing everything they could to transfer to other prisons, even if it meant worse conditions. The problem was North Dakota prison system was already overflowing. which was the whole reason GCG got started in the first place. So every guy that got out meant it was much harder for the rest of us. Both of our cellmates transferred, giving us more space.

So that was nice. But it was a small consolation. Apparently, word had started to spread on the outside. And GCG's solution, instead of paying the guards even more, was to stop having a night shift at all. except for just one poor guy. Kellen was a bit miffed he hadn't gotten raised out of the whole thing, but he was starting to believe us that something was going on.

By then, he'd been around a while, and he knew we weren't bullshitters, and too many of the other prisoners had told him they'd heard someone walking around on the first, second, and third floors at random during the night. It was just a few steps, sometimes as many as twenty. but it only happened every so often. And only once had it been long enough that you thought it'd stopped for good. One guy on the fourth floor said he'd heard a full run from one end of the third floor hallway to the other. Clear enough that he expected a guard to come charging up the stairwell, but no one had appeared.

He slid his wrist and got transferred out on medically the next day, so he took him serious. All of that was enough to get Kellyn to. start doing some research on the outside. He came to us on the seventh month of my sentence with a pale face. Besides us at the bars, Will asked. Hey, what's the word? Callan seemed grim. A lot of bullshit out there, but this place is mentioned a lot. It's been closed before, but I keep getting stonewalled when I ask for the historical documents. Thing is, I don't think the prison itself is the problem.

Get this. He pulled out a notepad for reference. Two Canadian priests, father's Norbert Provencher and severe Dumlin, visited Pembina in 1818, before it was even an official township. That was back when the Hudson's Bay Company

was big around these parts. That's how long ago it was. Pembina was the biggest town in North Dakota then, so the trading post was full. So the priests chose to sleep outside where the Pembina River meets the Red River. The folktale has it that a vision of a rotting woman came in the night and stole Provencher's life. The two men bartered with her to split the remaining life between them, consigning both to live only 35 more years instead of the 70 that Severe had left.

Severe got an extra month and 20 days as a gift from his friend for his sacrifice. He paused, as if we might get the obvious outcome. They both died 35 years later. I knew Pembina had a horrible problem, but that didn't mean I had to believe everything. Let me guess. A month and 20 days apart? Dante snorted. It's true, dude. Callan insisted.

The dates of death are right there on Wikipedia. But get this. 35 years after 1818 made their death year 1853. The year this prison was built. And the place they camped that night, by the meeting of the rivers? I didn't know what it meant,

but I was beginning to feel very uneasy. It's right here, isn't it, dead serious? I think there's some shit here. ancient shit. I asked a guy I know. He's got Chippewa relatives over at Turtle Mountain. They know the history of the Red River better than anyone else. He said his uncle told him to never sleep at the meeting of the Red River and the Pembina River. He said something lives here, under the ground, and awakens with the changing of the seasons. We were silent for a beat after that. It was folktale nonsense.

But it was as good theory as any. Whatever it was, it was going to come back. And he wasn't friendly. We'll still talk to Kellynne for another few minutes. But Dante was silent. After he was gone, I asked him. What's wrong? He sat on one of the now unused bunksson told me.

I got another five years in here. And I got no money for a lawyer. Your sentence will be up before it reaches us, and I'll be here alone. Will it? There was no way to be sure. It'll be back in two months before the fourth floor, and then three months after that, for us. I could get out a week before or a day too late.

It doesn't seem to be exact. He just looked at the floor. What I mean is, I hope you get out before it comes. Oh. I wasn't sure what else to say after that, so I just sat in my corner like I always did. It wasn't too much after that when I heard GCG was going under. The mad rush of transfer had pissed off the state and lost the company of vital contract for a second location, and investors had pulled out or something.

The number of guards was cut and then slashed, and Kellan took a pay hit to stay on as the only guy on day shift. There's only two prisoners left on the fourth floor. He told the 20 of us remaining, as the general week we expected it to have been approached. I feel like I should stay late just to see what the hell is going to go on down there. But the former guards I asked about it are all terrified as hell when refused to talk. Some got violent just because I asked. It's cool.

Will told him. You got a kid at home. Don't be here for it. The 20 of us left on the fifth floor sat in ourselves once night fell, praying and listening. On Monday night, nothing happened. The two guys below occasionally shouted up to us that everything was clear. On Tuesday night, nothing happened. The strain was growing, though.

We could sometimes hear them breathing rapidly down there. I could only imagine the adrenaline rushing through them every minute until dawn. On Wednesday night, nothing happened yet. Something had changed in the air. The prison was much quieter now, that 2,000 men had become 22. And I thought I could feel a subtle sort of heartbeat in the air, pounding against reality like it was a thin sheet of paper, Dante whispered. None of us were willing to speak louder than that.

On Thursday night, the heartbeat became a feeling of footsteps, approaching from a great distance. Guys! Will shouted from his son. You good down there? Still here. One respondent from down the boat. I can feel it. It's at the door.

It's knocking. What the hell's that supposed to mean? Man Blow did not respond. Friday night. That was the night it would have it. All day. the two guys on the fourth pulled and clanged on their bars, begging to be let out. Kellen was torn. After two hours listening to that pleading, came up with an idea,

and transferred both of them up to our floor. If nobody's on four, then we'll all be safe, right? Out loud, we agreed, but we were kidding ourselves. When the night guard showed up, he freaked and took the two men back down. He said out loud where we were all thinking. Nobody's on four. Then I'll just come right to five and get us all. What the hell was Kellyn thinking?

We had to listen to hours of sobbing that evening. It was the hardest trial of my life. I wanted to call out to the night guard. I wanted to ask him to get those men out of there. But if I did, I knew whatever was coming. was coming, we'll find all of us instead. The moment it happened was like a cold hand on my shoulder. What's going on down there? The man who was not sobbing called back. It's changing. Will demanded. What's happening? Tell us. Red?

It's red! What's red? Will yelled insistently. God damn it, what's red? We stared down the hallway at the night guard who stood, listening with fear. The screaming began a few seconds later. This time, only one floor above. We could clearly hear their every word. The sobbing prisoner shrieked. The man who'd been communicating with us began a coherently raging with fear against the bars.

Then, strangely, he stopped. The 20 of us clung to our bars. Unable to help, unable to flee. Many of us cried, but we were otherwise silent, for to yell would be to drown out the last words of them in below. But they were eerily quiet for the next two hours. We waited and strained silence as random footsteps traversed the fourth floor every so often. What was happening?

For the first time, the victims of whatever was going down below had chosen to be quiet instead of yelling for help. Why would that make things different? At long last, the sobbing man broke the silence. Shut up, it'll see you. Distracted. Hit your bars. Sound of clanging echoed up the stairwell. The sobbing man said with terror, Jesus Christ, do something!

We were no longer silent. We echoed that sentiment, loudly and repeatedly to the guard. Do something. You just stood there. He just stood there, literally quaking in his boots. Will screamed at him. Snap out of it! The other guards and prisoners got away you can too.

Whatever it is, it won't follow you if you let them out and leave. I shouted, the gun of tie down there. Dante threw his shoe, and the impact finally snapped the man out of his terror. The guard ran to the stairwell and descended. The first thing we heard him saying was a tauter. Taken aback. Mary, Mother of Christ! And the sobbing man again.

The other prisoner wasn't talking for some reason. We could hear as gasping terror, but that too went quiet. Then we heard a buzzer, and all the gates on four slammed loudly open. The sounds are panting running, and someone dragging something followed. And the prison went silent.

Just like that, We were all alone again. The formerly crowded prison now felt terrifyingly large, and empty with only 20 of us and no guards. That night, the unmistakable sound of footsteps echoed from down below. I counted time as best as I could. Forty minutes. Then someone took three steps out of a cell and into the hall.

hallway. An hour and six minutes. Someone ran ten steps along the hallway and stopped abruptly. 28 minutes. And the footsteps approached the stairwell. But then turned into a cello on silent one silent. Thing was. Whoever it was sounded barefoot, and the starting and stopping of locations did not match. Where they ended was often nowhere near where they began again later. By the time dawn came, we were scared in emotionless, terrified silence, and it took Callan's arrival for us to begin stirring again. With GCG and bankruptcy court, we no longer had a night guard at all. If it came for us, there would be nobody to let us out of ourselves like everyone else.

We hardly talked, and we hardly ate. Each passing day was a grain of sand falling through a hundred feet. hourglass marking our executions. Our fellows began confessing the crimes they haven't even committed just to get transferred to Supermax out of state. The only option left. Well, that... Suicide attempts.

One by one, Calan escorted and dragged guys out of their floor. Twenty became fifteen. Then ten. It was just me and Dante. With Will, still and the cell to our left. The three of us in Kellan, four men waiting for doom. We sat playing card games in the weeks leading up to it. It would be one full year for me in that place, but I could swear I'd spent a lifetime

in that cell. I couldn't think. I couldn't remember life before. Couldn't imagine surviving after. Every day, I prayed for a transfer to come in. North Dakota had gotten sick of our shit, and the judges had stopped hearing cases from Pembina prison. They didn't know.

There were only three of us left. Nobody knew. We contacted the media. We phoned the governor's office. We made a ruckus. That was worse than nobody knowing. It turned out. Nobody cared.

Two. There was nobody higher up at GCD following the situation. and Kellan couldn't get anybody on the phone. Payroll, meaning just his paycheck, was being handled by a third-party disbursement company that couldn't answer questions about ongoing proceedings. On Monday night, nothing happened. We were like statues in ourselves, alone,

waiting for a sign of executioner's approach. When Don came, we sighed and began moving again. Dante asked, You get on Friday? I nodded. If things went like before, I would be released the day off. As long as I left before sundown, I would be all right. Tuesday night.

Nothing happened. Two for two. Just one more. Just one more day. Set through the darkness until... No! The feeling of the prison had changed around us. A subtle heartbeat seemed to pulse against our...

faces and ears and eyes. Had I calm a day earlier in the week than last time that morning. Well patted my arm as we both leaned out the bars. Sorry, man. Dante just shook his head angrily. I wasn't going to get out in time. On Wednesday night, the heartbeat became the sound of footsteps approaching from some unfathomable distance.

I think I stood at the bars of ourselves for that entire day. Fingers wrapped around the metal with force to match the tension in the airs and in our minds. This couldn't happen. This wouldn't happen. My lawyer would walk in and tell me I'd gotten the judge's unfair addition of extra day removed. One day. One goddamn day. Even if I'd spent the whole year in this prison, one day still meant life or death. Let me out.

Let me the hell out! For God's sake! But no one cared. And nobody would listen. I'd like to tell you that Kellynne stayed late that night. I'd like to tell you that when the entire floor began to glow red, the hallway, the cells, the sown itself, whatever ungodly abomination and the earth began awake upon the changing of the season,

as distant footsteps became a traveler at the door of our minds. I'd like to tell you that Kellynne was there, and hit the button and let us out. I'd like to tell you that I didn't see anything, and that I'm not permanently a broken man. I didn't claw the walls of my cell as it approached slowly, moving a few steps every 20 to 70 minutes. I'd like to tell you that all three of us were able to run away

and escape that horror upon reality, with its rotting hands and blind eyes. radiating crimson light as it searched for us at random. But I can't give you a satisfying end of the story. The disbursement company fired Kellyn and changed the locks of the property. According to the paperwork, all the prisoners had been moved, and they thought he'd been getting paid for guarding an empty prison. It left us in there for 11 days before the error was found,

which meant 11 nights with that thing. For 11 days, we starved. For 11 nights, we sat absolutely still, not daring to move or breathe or even look left or right. It knew where we were, generally. It stood right outside ourselves for hours, and sometimes walked right through the bars and grasped the beds around us, daring us to make the slightest motion. When you spent six hours staring into the blind. crimson eyes of a rotting demon, unable to blink your eyes for the fear that it will hear the air of your lashes move.

When you've seen what it's seen, the worlds that has walked reflected in hell is red. You'll understand. I'd like to tell you that Kellyn actually existed. I'd like to tell you that we had a friend among the guards. That it wasn't all bad. I'd like to tell you that I wasn't traumatized by the people. the hell I went through. Being left to rot and left to die, there's nothing more than a number in some corporations book. For more information, including pictures and videos of the stories told on this podcast, or to suggest stories for future episodes, please visit us at CreepyPod on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. All stories told on this podcast can be found at creepypasta wikiya.com

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