Creepy - Come Closer & Silent Descension

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

Come Closer***Written by: Adam Blanford and Narrated by: Jimmy Ferrer***Silent Descension***Written by: Brittany Noelle and Narrated by: Cole Burkhardt***Content Warning: Domestic and Child abuse, fire***Check out how to support the show and get rewarded at patreon.com/creepypod***Intro/outro music by: Alex Aldea 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 violence, Silence and explicit language.

Listener discretion is advised. Creepy presents. Come Closer. Written by Adam Blanford. And narrated by Jimmy Ferrer. I went out for a run, unwind, and get in shape. Little did I know that within 30 minutes I would be harassed, stalked, and end up running for my life. I decided to go that unseasonably warm evening in October to assuage my guilt for drinking and eating junk food all day.

When I checked my weather app, I saw that sunset was only 20 minutes away. No matter. I could stick to the trails and open space close to home. Even if the sun set, I didn't feel any danger running in the dark. It was familiar and safe. started my running playlist and set out on my run, and I hadn't made it five steps before I decided to trade distance for speed. If I couldn't run several miles before dark, then I would kickstart my metabolism by running as fast as possible. Legs pumping, I sprinted down Bentonhurst Drive

and made a sharp ride onto the trail leading into the open space. My body protested, particularly my two full stomach, but I ignored the discomfort and pushed forward. I sprinted down a path between two large ponds, up and down a series of small hills, past small stands of trees and a sea of tall grasses that lined the trail. In the fading golden light, I could see prairie dogs chirp angrily at me before diving into their holes. I extended my stride and pushed off with my toes to gain the tiniest bit of extra distance. My stomach roiled.

My chest strained. In my ears, one more time became my mantra as I pushed and pushed towards the one mile mark. And then, just like that, it was over. I hit the end of the trail where it met up with Wentworth, a well-lit and busy road. My digital watch sent the tiniest pulse. into my wrist to tell me I'd hit a mile running. Exhausted. I stopped and looked at the watch.

The readout said, Mile one, seven minutes, two seconds. I let out a whoop of satisfaction. This was better than I ever expected. Maybe I wasn't in such bad shape after all. After I regained my breath, I realized two things. One, I was totally spent, so running any more miles wasn't an option.

And two, it was night now. The second realization was a bit of a shock. I expected there to be more of a transition between twilight and night, but the sun had disappeared completely. Stars twinkled in the darkening sky, and a chill replaced the unseasonable warmth. The open space was now almost pitch black. Either I walked home on well-lit Wentworth Boulevard, which would be roundabout and take more time, or I could go home via the open space. I chose the ladder.

After all, what could go wrong? Setting out, I made one crucial decision that in retrospect probably saved my life. I didn't put my headphones back on. I let the wireless headphones hang around my neck as I walked. Pulse pounding music isn't as fun when you're walking. I walked back up the trail with the crunching of gravel under my running shoes, and the whisper of wind through the tall grass is my only accompaniment. Occasionally, headlights from the highway a hundred yards away would illuminate the path ahead for a few seconds, before leaving me in darkness again. Cresting a hill, I heard a faint murmur in the darkness ahead, nearly inaudible under the sounds of my footsteps and the whispering grass. After a few seconds, I realized it was someone talking. I couldn't make out the words,

but that didn't concern me. It was probably another person out for a stroll, who got caught in the dark like me. I paid it no mind and kept walking. I thought about what I would do when I went home. I had an audio drama script to write, and a show to mix in time for Halloween. A script was a showcase in which participants wrote, recorded, and mixed an audio play in the month of October. I had about ten pages left to write, and it would be done. The murmuring continued. It would go on for a few seconds.

Pause, then resume. Occasionally the speaker would put a sing-song intonation to their words. Even so, I didn't think anything of it. Any minute, the darkness would part to reveal a guy talking on his cell phone. or show soccer moms walking on the trail and talking, something benign. I thought about the show I was mixing. It was a horror comedy where a girl finds a laptop full of her mom's old voicemail exchanges with her mom's best friend. But the joke was that opening the laptop was like opening the Necronomicon, which unleashed the evil on the world.

I snapped back to reality. Shouldn't I be seeing someone by now? I thought. Even walking, I should see a figure on the trail. The voice was still murmuring in the dark, but its owner had been nowhere to be seen. Something didn't feel right. I had never really paid attention to my danger since before. But that day, for whatever reason, I did.

I stopped and peered ahead. Headlights from the highway blinded me, so I held my hand up to shield my eyes, like a sailor, peering out into a sea of darkness. The voice continued murmuring as I looked, and then it spoke six words from the darkness that I heard very clearly. I froze. The murmuring was strange, indistinct, but merely unsettling when it seemed to have no target. But now, standing in the dark, alone with an unseen speaker ahead of me.

I realized it was speaking to me. I took a small breath. My heart pounded in my chest. The voice repeated. I can see you. I could call out the speaker. Tell them I wanted no trouble. I could talk trash.

Call them out for being so cowardly to hide in the dark and issue taunts. But were they just taunts? Were they armed? Was there more than one of them out there? Too many unknown variables to risk it. A few seconds paused, then more insistently. I can see you. I spun on my heel instead,

looked at my cell phone still in its athletic armband. I pretended I hadn't heard the speaker. Maybe it was stupid to turn my back. I was standing on a nearly pitch black trail with an unseen opponent or opponents ahead left me with options. The voice spoke again, in clear command, low and imperious. I started walking away instead, gravel-crunching once again under my feet. I tried to control my breath, and will my pounding heart to slow. Come closer! The shout startled me, and I whirled around. No cars had passed

by for a while, and my eyes had adjusted somewhat to the darkness, enough to make out a vaguely human shape standing in the tall grass beside the trail. It had long legs, a squat torso, and long arms that hung well past its waist, giving it a simian quality, an oblong head like a watermelon, sat atop the torso. There didn't seem to be a neck, but it was the eyes that chilled. me, bright red eyes that pulsed in the slow, steady rhythm, almost like a heartbeat. Come closer! It hissed, angry that I had to fight it. Its mouth opened, and I saw a bright white, needle-sharp teeth.

I turned and sprinted, willing my tired legs to give me strength and speed that I had to needed. I pelted along the trail at top speed, with adrenaline overriding my exhaustion and giving me new life. The heavier, crunching gravel behind me told me it was getting closer. Come closer! It roared. I tensed to my muscles and willed myself to move faster. Closer. The words were closer now. I rounded a bend and saw the lights of Wentworth Boulevard a hundred yards ahead, so near and yet so far. I poured on more speed. Come closer! Heavy ragged breathing told me the thing was right behind me. Oh God. Oh God, oh God. I needed to get to the street. Find help. Find safety in numbers. My leg and arm muscles were

rock solid from the tension. I could feel the blood being forced out of my face. with strain, and I still pushed harder. I could hear the heavy rumble of its breathing, feel the impact of its feet on the gravel. It was directly behind me. I was doomed. I wouldn't make it into the street. Goose. Something sharp raked at my back, and it tore through my running shirt.

And I groaned at the acid. sting of needle-sharp claws tearing into my skin. I knew it was over. It would catch me and kill me just short of freedom. And then I was on the street. Batheed in the welcome glow of the street lamps. The footsteps behind me ceased, and the only sound was the frenzied slapping of my running shoes

on the concrete sidewalk. I tossed a glance behind and saw, nothing on the street. I slowed, peered again in the trail's gloom, and saw the pulsing red eyes. But they remained distant from me. It couldn't follow me. It didn't like the light. Or maybe it didn't want to be seen. Gulping air, I walked hurriedly back to my house, careful to always stay in the light. I decided not to really tell people. I knew there was no way in hell anyone would believe the truth of what I had seen. They'd look at my ripped shirt and needle-thin claw marks on my back and tell me I got chased by a coyote or wolf or other than large nocturnal animal.

The red eyes and screaming would be the result of an overactive imagination. Best to keep it quiet. I still walk on the trail occasionally. But I haven't seen the creature again. But every so often, when I'm walking the trails at dusk, I see a brief flash of reddish, pulsing orbs at the edge of my vision. Just for a second. And the faintest whisper in the grasses.

Creepy Presents Silent Descension, written by Brittany Noel. and narrated by Cole Burkart. That's your voice whispering, pleading at the back of your skull. You've been here before, sneaking through the shades and shadows of your childhood home. A ghost returned. Palm in your favorite zippo in your jacket pocket, you try to remember why you're back in the hallway this time,

after all these years. It's fuzzy, foreign. You statter between the paneled walls and crooked photos, your sneakers silent on the dust-thick carpet. Outside, thunder shakes in the world. In here, you force your breath to even out, despite your heart gearing up to run. You try to remember.

The first frame holds a grimy photo from grade school. Teachers called you charming. Missing front teeth, the same striped shirt every day. Until first grade, when Miss Foster complained about your smell, and your uncle complained about the goddamn school system, assholes more concerned with superficial looks than maths and sciences. Why does he waste his money on your schooling at all? He bought you a new shirt.

a black one, harder to tell when it goes weeks between washes. Your old bedroom doorknob doesn't turn. You have to continue down the hall. Further down, another photo smiles your way. You grimace, knowing the lie hidden behind those young eyes. Back then, you thought you could fake it. If anyone squinted hard enough, though, studied your face like an ancient text. they would see how little joy those eyes held.

Black as your new and only T-shirt. Held back a grade, smaller than the other kids, abandoned by your family. Happy wasn't in the cards for you. At the top of the stairs, a family portrait takes up most of the space on the back wall. Seven of you. A family you barely remember. All grinning as if someone just told a joke, laughter about to burst just as the camera snapped. You had two sisters, two brothers, even parents. The dark-eyed baby swaddled in your mother's arms, mirrors none of the mirth,

Only stoicism. Even then, you knew the future. You descend the stairs, and the board creaks three steps down. Bouncing on it once, you don't remember the groan in the wood. How long has it been since you've returned? Why did you come back here at all? Don't turn it. Neck hair is tickling.

You hurry further down. turning at the landing halfway, peer around the corner towards the front door. Several more pictures line the wall to your left. A chronicle. In the first, your broad-shouldered uncle gives the camera the middle finger, two cidorets in his mouth beneath his handlebar mustache. At his side, a soft-smiling woman leans back on a newly purchased cherry-red muscle car, brunette hair so brushed out and makes her face seem too small for her body. The next depicts the couple in the same moment, finding each other's eyes, swimming in each other's

lust. The next, they kiss, sharing something like love, but not quite. A shallow love. A shambled connection. You remembered it seeping into the family dinners, in front of the TV set, into your midnight stargazing on the roof. The house grew thick with shouts of desperate loneliness, fights to feel needed, anger and resentment hidden behind a mask of a happy couple. It's there, was always there, from the beginning, a sad shine in their eyes. When was the last time you saw your pretty aunt?

At the bottom of the stairs, you try to remember why you came here. Why you returned to such a wretched place, filled with rotting memories. Under your sneakers, a rough stain covers the wooden floor. Your neck creeps with nerves. The stairs creak behind. Fear lances through you. and with a gasp you rush to the front door. It's locked.

A key. You know there's a key somewhere. In the darkness, you search the table by the door, yanking drawers one by one. As the bottom drawer slides open, lightning flashes through the foyer, glinting briefly off the iron key. Older than the house. Older than the stars along your arms. arms, older than your uncle's first steps into your family's house, claiming it as his own.

The key feels cold and jagged-toothed in your shaking hand. You unlocked the door and push through into the roaring storm beyond. You're falling. Dust-thick carpet catches you, squishing under your sneakers. You catch your breath, blinking into the dark, and find the same framed photo hallway as before. Same dust, same dread. A faint sweetness rots the air. You don't plan on it.

You continue forward. Maybe you didn't sleep well, that's all. Why did you come here again? The photos continue the story. By middle school, you'd found your own way of clothing yourself. Stealing. From other kids, from the lost and found. Eventually from the mall, when you found friends old enough to drive.

Your home bleached hair spiked out from your skull like a mace. Ripped sleeves decorated slim but strong arms. No one messed with you, just like no one messed with your uncle. No one ever wanted to come around to your house. The entire town could smell the rot. By then, you'd grown accustomed to it, even liked it. Everyone left you alone. Everyone leaves, anyway.

Like moms and dads. Like siblings. Like aunts. Again, your bedroom is locked. Again, you palm the zippo inside a sweaty hand. You don't call out or turn around. The next photo hangs eerily askew. Your last school picture before you dropped out at 16.

Your middle finger dominates the frame. An auto reflects mirroring your uncle in behavior, in words. A note mailed from the principal, triggered the same school system rant from your uncle, How the government doesn't know how to take care of its citizens, worrying too much about climate change and not enough about the everyday man. Him. What about him? Nobody gives a damn. Nobody will ever give a damn.

We all end up alone. Swallowing hard, you head down the stairs, glaring at your family portrait, a happy love you've never known. Mounds hang open now, laughter bubbling forth, eyes piercing the canvas at you. Left behind, unwanted. Your mother's mirth is so consuming her eyes have closed, her grip loosening on your infant form in the photo. You're nearly falling out of frame. Creaking on the third step down, you hurry away from their laughing eyes,

glare at the three photos of your uncle hanging along the left wall. In the first, the old man shouts at the TV. The next, he backhands your aunt until her hair goes limp. In the end, he tips the front door so hard a hinge comes loose. You don't see your uncle for days after that. You caught a glimpse of life without him. of macaroni and cheese dinners, of fondly ruffled hair, your aunt's smile softened into genuine affection.

You fell asleep together on the couch, holding hands, hanging on to the moment the quiet bubble of this freedom, afraid to burst it with relieved voices. But he came back, like a moth drawn to the circularity. the loop of it all, the routine embedded in his skin, in your skin. When you reach the ground floor again, the stain spreads beneath your feet. Darker this time, tinged brown, maybe red. Why did you come back here?

A third step creaks behind you. You rush for the key in the bottom drawer, but it's not there. Every drawer proves empty, useless. You punch coats from the coat rack, knock over the entire thing, search pockets. You can't look back. There, car keys, your uncles. You try them all in the door, and it opens and you rush through, fixated on every breath you managed to suck in.

A nervous pulse sweats through your brain. body. That was too close. You shouldn't be here. If you turn back now, you're dead. The same dim hallway catches you. The same instinct tightens your neck and keeps you from turning around. You know he's back there. You shouldn't have come back. There's nothing left for you here. The photos blur as you blunder over squelching carpet, your miserable life, your inestapable descent, stealing your first car, chased by red and blues down a highway until you rolled it into a ditch. You avoided capture, but with a broken hand that never quite healed. Needles pierced your skin. Tattoos, drugs, both were only attempts to escape the inevitable. That smell, that sticky, sweet smell coats your sinuses, threatens to drown you.

Black colonies of vine-light tendrils twist over the carpet, slowly reaching for the walls of your childhood home. Every door in the hall remains locked. No escape. No way out other than down. Another photo blazes in your periphery. You glimpse bright blue eyes and curly blonde hair. An angel, a vision, a dream. Something more than a friend.

You want to linger, but can't. The loop is a trap. She can't get caught. Not like your aunt. She doesn't deserve that. You race down the stairs, creaking on the third step, abandoning the family photo hanging high above your head. The cry of a startled baby stops you. You twist, launching back, and hold out your arms just as the tightly wrapped bundle tumbles out of the photo. You're falling. An entire story, just a wailing,

baby. Your family laughs. Blood leaps from their eyes. You catch the blanket. The fabric falls limp. No baby. It's already blackened into a heavy, moldy pulp. The third step creaks and you launch down the stairs. Cross the red-blooming stain. Droars stand empty. coat pockets hang inside out. You find nothing but lint and a paper clip. You are no stranger to breaking and entering. Now it's time to break and exit. If you turn back, you're dead.

You fly through the door, praying for storm cloud painted skies. The hallway greets you. Every frame gone to black. Every photo scratched and hacked. Your own black burnt-out eyes glare out at you. Smiles carved over stowls, laughter smothering the shouts. They scream your story. Look at you, running from the darkness inside.

You hurry forward with sloshy steps, kicking ghastly scents into the air. The baseboards hide beneath blackened mold. The paneled walls fade under creeping infected vines. Someone scribbled over the angel's neck, marked it in red. Imprints of fingers steal her breath. In the large portrait, your babyless family laughs so hard blood spews from their joyous lips. Along the staircase, the photos show the inevitable. The rotten truth.

that marked your bones since birth. A bolting shadow waits at the top of a staircase. Your uncle, this staircase, on the third step. He pushes your aunt, and she tumbles. Frame to frame, stare to stare. Until her bloodied corporeal body crumbles on the floor, blocking your path to the front door. Cherry red blood spreads under her body,

hyper-realistic, staining your moldy shoes. And like that night, you bite back tears. You accept the dirty truth of the world. Everyone leaves. Everyone falls. You'll always be alone.

why did you come back here? Stealing one of the bobby pins from her matted hair, you escape through the door. Feel the electricity of the storm beyond. Do not turn her. This time, the frames smolder, no photos, just ash, consumed from the inside.

Fuzzy black mold replaces the carpet, and the walls decay under the coiling pressure of, vines crawling, creeping towards the ceiling. The rot is all consuming. But that's why you came back. You know what you've become. You know who you are at the churning, putrid, sickly bruised core, abandoned by happiness, sheltered by anger. You fight the tension in your back, crack your spine into submission and turn around. You face the final frame at the darkest end of the hallway. Vines slither across the mirror.

A grimace greets you in the glass, an arched brow. Your own coal-black eyes. Your reflection laughs, mirthless. You fell for it. In the mirror, you lift a zippo. Flick a flame to life with your broken hand. To the right, your uncle's bedroom door creaks open, revealing a softly snoring figure.

Your reflection smirks, naturally, no joy reaching your obsidian glare. The same trap over and over. You blink. The zippo appears in your hand, a yellow blue flame flickering in time with the thunder outside. No, you decide. Your reflection bulks, searches, reaches, and lifts from the floor

a red plastic canister without a cup. That sickly sweet smell. He understands. grins. You grin back. This loop ends with me. You drop the flame into the squishing gas-soaked carpet. 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 podcast are done so through creative common share-a-like licensing, or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the creepy podcast production team and the stories author.