Creepy - Day 26 - The House on Cherry Lane & The Vault

Episode Date: October 26, 2025

The House on Cherry Lane***Written by: Jon Gauthier and Narrated by: Natalie Brown***The Vault***https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/***Support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***Sound design by: Pacific Obadiah***Title 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.

Creepy presents the 31 Days of Horror. Day 26. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastors 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. Hi, Dr. Hall. It's me, Nurse Natalie.

I heard you said that you wanted to know if anyone on the staff started to have unusual dreams, and, well, I had one last night that felt different than my usual dreams. I know you're busy. So I hope it's okay that I'm taking the initiative to record this for you. I don't know if it's just how much we've been working lately and how many people are here right now. But I think it might be getting to me. But I'm not a professional like you, so please let me know if this isn't appropriate. Anyway, I had this dream about the house on Cherry Lane.

Everything sucks. I'm not doing this anymore. It's too fucking cold to begin with. It seems winters decided to come early to the small Minnesota shithole. Way too early. The air carries a chill that's best reserved for Christmas Eve or Valentine's Day or maybe even Easter Sunday. For it to be this chilly on Halloween though, it sucks. It's so cold that the majority of costumes are hidden beneath heavy coats.

masks are obscured by earmuffs and sparkly princess heels have been replaced with snow boots. It's not like it really matters that the costumes are hidden, though. They're all interchangeable anyway these days. My first few Halloweens, I remember everyone made their costumes. Ghosts, witches, hobos, vampires, the classics. All of them were stitched and glued together by hand. Nowadays, it's all cheap store-bought licensed crap. TV, movie, and video game characters, superheroes,

Disney princesses. Every kid is just a tiny walking billboard for a giant corporation. I try not to be so bitter about it. This is my favorite holiday after all, and I suppose it always will be. I've had fun over the years, putting on my costume, going door to door,

getting my treats. It's the highlight of my year, really. I love the decorations, and the sounds of kids shrieking at over enthusiastic neighbors who scare them a little too much. I do love some of the costumes. The ones where you can tell there was a little bit of effort, and I love the treats, of course. The best part, though, is that it's a night to be anonymous.

Once you put on that costume, the mask, the outfit, the wig, you're suddenly hidden from the world. You can slip through crowds, virtually unseen. When a stranger opens their door to you, you're always greeted with a smile. To them, you're just another one of the dozens of kids they'll see that night. It's always been my chance to be anyone, to do anything, and stay unseen. At least, it used to be. These days, it's getting harder and harder to stay anonymous. Everyone's got a camera in their pocket now, constant photos, constant videos, thousands and thousands of eyes on me, committing me to small memory

drives or to the cloud, me slinking around in the backgrounds of hundreds of social media posts. It's impossible to stay invisible anymore. So, that's why this is my last year. I love this night, and I love getting treats, but I just can't do it anymore. And I figure, since this is my last year, I'll go out with a bang. There's a house near the edge of town that no one ever goes to. It stands on the far end of Cherry Lane, just past where the streetlights stop. It's one of those houses that everyone in town talks about, especially children.

Whispers about strange goings on, about crooked shadows shambling past the windows, Beastial screams drifting from the attic, ghostly figures gliding across the front lawn, and a haggard old woman standing at the front door, beckoning passers-by and sighed. During my time in this town, I've heard dozens of stories about the house, each of them more chilling than the last. And while there's no consensus on just what exactly is wrong with the house, everyone agrees that it isn't a safe place to go, and that children should never trick or treat there. It's a long walk, nearly ten minutes uphill

from the edge of anything that resembles a neighborhood. The houses get fewer and farther between as I walk. The ones I do see are dark and undecorated, as if Halloween hasn't actually reached this end of town yet. When I finally turn on to Cherry Lane, a chill runs through. me. The house rises against the night sky with the foreboding presence of an ancient castle. It's really just an ordinary house, though. The raggedy trees and overgrown lawn make it look

much more sinister than it is, its reputation far exceeding its actual curbside presence. The only bad thing about it is what's living inside. Unlike the rest of the street, this house isn't completely dark. There's a light on somewhere on the first floor, probably the kitchen or living room. It's still too early for anyone to be in bed yet. A beat-up late 2000 sedan sits in the driveway. The lawn is littered with leaves. The front steps are crooked and as I climb them, the boards sag and creak under my weight. I pressed the doorbell. If I was any other trick-or-treater, I'd be terrified about what was going to happen next, whether I'd be greeted by a ghost, or an old woman with two teeth and a black cat at her feet, or worse still, whatever casts those

crooked shadows in the windows. I know, though, that there are no ghosts or witches or creatures with jagged limbs. Instead, when the door opens a crack, just enough to pull the chain lock taut, I'm face to face with exactly what I'd been expecting. A small, wiry man. His face is puckered and bird-like. His eyes wide behind glasses that haven't changed since the early 80s. He wears a white t-shirt and gray sweatpants, both stained. He's surprised by my presence, confused even.

Then, when he sees the empty sack in my hand, realization dawns off. on him. Before I can even open my mouth to speak, he blurts, no candy. The door slams in my face. Multiple locks slide home. I wait. I give him just enough time to return to whatever he was doing before I tear my way inside. The house is dimly lit and depressing. Like the man's glasses, the decor hasn't been changed in several decades. It's not a surprise, though. He lived with his mother until she died 12 years ago, and she didn't know anything about what her son did.

She didn't know about his trips to various small towns all across the state, about all the children he'd pulled up beside in that shitty old car, how he'd talked to them through the lowered driver's side window, how he'd offered them rides home, but never actually took them there. No one knew it was him, in fact. No one but me. I step over the shattered remains of his door,

wood and glass crunching under my feet. He's rushed back to the foyer and is staring at me, his eyes like dinner plates. For a moment, just a single, delicious moment. We only look at each other. He knows that I know exactly who he is, but he doesn't understand how. Neither do I, really. It's just part of my gift.

As I approach, I hear his heart slam against his ribs. I see adrenaline coursing through his veins. Trick or treat, I say. My voice doesn't match the human girl costume that I'm wearing, and I think that scares him more than anything else. I savor the look on his face, the wretched, hopeless terror in his eyes. I'm suddenly reminded why, after all these decades, I still love this night so much. Maybe I won't stop.

Maybe I can just move again. Suddenly, I can smell that the man's pissed himself. It stinks, but it doesn't mask the fear. He utterly reeks of fear and evil. So much evil. I grin at the scent. My fangs becoming the only thing he can see. The more evil they are, the better they taste.

Okay, I guess that's it. Again, Dr. Hall, if this was inappropriate, please let me know. But I saw your memo and I don't know. This just didn't feel right, so I thought I should share it with you. Dr. Hall? Yes. I thought you should know that Nurse Natalie just got done with a dream recording?

That's her job. No, I mean, she just recorded her own dream. Really? Interesting. Doctor, is this something we should be worried about? I mean, is it spreading beyond the containment? No, everything is fine. But...

I said that everything is well within parameters. Now get back to your monitors. Yes, doctor. Interesting. You really are fighting it, aren't you? Why are you doing this? Why? You want to know why I stay in my soul,

my hands, my entire life with this work. Because I am an explorer. I am a explorer. Magellan, charting the seas of the unconscious. I am Columbus, setting foot on a continent that writhes beneath the skin of the world. History will not remember your name. It will not remember your resistance.

It will not remember those who came and fell before you. It will never see their unmarked graves. But it will remember my name, mine. The hand that reached through the membrane. Mine, the mouth that taught them how to listen. Mine. Monster. What is a single man's suffering compared to the chorus that waits beyond the wall?

And you, you, you are the trumpet that summons them. You are the womb that bears them. them when they slide screaming and perfect into this world. It will be your voice, they remember first. You will birth them, but I will be their mother. Now call to them. Do you feel that? I've decided to up the dosage a bit. You might start to notice some burning in your blood. if you continue to resist. Do I know what this feels like? It's like...

It's like... The vault. I didn't want to rob a bank. I wanted a job. I wanted a break. I wanted to wake up without wondering if I'd eat that day. I did what everyone said I was supposed to do. Against the odds.

I graduated high school. Then college. It seemed like the track my life was on was pointed in the right direction for a change. But life has a way of grinding you down until all the things you said you'd never do, start looking like the only things left. I won't bore you with the details. That's where the devil is anyway. I picked a bank near the outside of the city.

Gray building, no guards, no real buzz of business. From the few times I cased the place I never saw more than a half dozen tellers and other employees behind glass I even clocked a time when it'd be the quietest one or two unlucky customers if that I can't even say that I noticed the bank before all this started

all I knew was that it was quiet I figured that was a good thing it wasn't I walked in with a duffel bag slung over my shoulder and my dad's old revolver tucked into the back my waistband. It felt cold against my spine, heavier in sin. The safety and warmth of bed felt further away than anything had ever been. There was a soft hum in the place, like an air conditioner, or servers in a data center, or, I don't know, something electrical.

The overhead lights flickered just slightly, like they didn't want to be awake either. I stepped to the center of the lobby and yelled, Hands up, now! Just like I practiced in the mirror. No one raised their hands. Not the tellers, not the one woman filling out a deposit slip, not the old guy in the corner chair. They all just stared, not shocked, not scared,

just blank, like I'd asked them the time or the, weather in a foreign language. Jesus, what if they didn't hear me? It's not like I was really yelling when I practiced. That'd be a fast way to get the busy bodies that live in my building to call the cops. I needed to escalate things and quickly. Every second was another second closer to exactly what I didn't want to happen. I pulled out the gun and raised it.

I said, put up your hands! That got their attention. But not in the way I explicitly. expected. The woman filling out the slip didn't scream. She calmly sat down her pen and turned her head toward me. Eyes glassy, a small, slow smile creeping under her lips like something rehearsed. An inside joke. The tellers took a single step back from their stations in unison. Now with panic, more like a single fluid movement. Something synchronized. They're rehearsed. They didn't raise their hands, they just stood watching.

One of them, a man with close-cropped hair and a blue tie who looked like the management type, tilted his head slightly, as if examining me from a new angle, and asked me if I knew what kind of place this was. His tone was calm and flat, like someone asking for the time. I pointed the gun at him, desperately trying to keep my hand from shaking as I told him to shut up and empty the drawers. He didn't flinch. None of them did. The manager shook his head and simply said that I didn't belong there. I wasn't exactly in the mood for any kind of speech or hero stuff. So I waved the gun around the room and yelled that Philip to beg with cash.

That humming grew louder. Vibrating thrum that seemed to come from the walls. My stomach twisted more and more with each passing second. The gun in my hand getting heavier all the time. The man in the tie just stared, then he smiled. A perfect, too wide smile that pulled unnaturally at his cheeks, as if AI had created a used car salesman. Then, through barely parted lips, he told me it was too late.

I didn't answer him. I couldn't. I could barely breathe from the panic. I wasn't ready for anything like this. The humming felt like it was inside me now. My fingers tingled, my teeth ached. Something in the walls or under the floor was moving. I was sure of it.

I could hear it. Feel it. I backed up toward the door. Guns still raised. I knew I had to get out of there. As prepared as I thought I was before walking in, all of that was out the window. Everyone in the place was crazy. I didn't plan for crazy

So I knew I had to run But the doors didn't open I turned and yanked on him hard The steel handles didn't budge From what I could see the deadbolt hadn't slid into place There was no click, no mechanism I could see But they didn't open Behind me someone laughed

Not a chuckle, not a snicker a low, wet, rasping laugh that made the hair on my arms raise. I turned back around. There were only three tellers behind the glass now. I blinked. There had been six. I was sure.

I spun around scanning the room. Not one sound. Just fewer people. Unless day time sneaking out a backroom door with my pulling on the door handle, They had just disappeared. I ran to the counter, peering over to see if anyone had ducked down, but no. The blue tie man was still there,

but now his neck was bent at an angle that looked like it should have broken it. His head lulled slightly to the side. Eyes locked on me like deadlight bulbs in the socket. You should have come at night, he said. It's more polite that way. Something made the security glass flex outward as if the air pressure had changed. I demanded to know where the others had gone. The manager, Thai man, told me without resistance that they'd gone down to the vault per procedure.

Gone, he said, back down. Back into the vault. I took a step backward. The humming had deepened, now vibrating in my sternum. My legs felt unsteady like the gravity in the room had turned up a notch. The gun in my hands started to shake as I continued to point it at the manager. He wasn't bothered by the gun or the angle of his neck. You've never done this before, have you?

Professionals know better. He said, almost sadly, There are places where hunger sleeps and places where it waits. This is one of the latter. The revolver suddenly kicked hard in my hand and I almost dropped it. I got pulled the trigger. The first thing I thought was how much louder the gunshot was than I remember it being. A sharp crack echoed across the tiled floor.

My second thought that was that I just shot a man. The man in the blue tie didn't fall. He just blinked slowly. continued to smile. I kept waiting for his legs to give out. The bullet hole in his chest wept something yellow and mucous-like. It didn't drip. It crawled. Tendrils slithering out of the wound and along his shirt like curious insects. Pain is only a memory. He said his voice now layered like two or three voices speaking in unison beneath his own. And then he stepped backwards, through the glass security door.

At first I thought the bullet had shattered the glass, but it hadn't. It was still fully intact. It just shimmered like water as he passed through it. I screamed, I turned to run. But the doors were still sealed, and when I turned back, they were hands reaching from the floor. They were pale, wet, fingers, longed. and thin and bent in too many places.

They curled around the edges of the tiles and pulled, not to climb, but to open, like the floor was just a lid of a jar. I stumbled back, my foot slipping on something slick. Blood? No. Yellow fluid. Thick as oil, pooling from the baseboards and rising in slow, lazy ripples.

It didn't smell like anything I could rent. recognize. It smelled briny like the ocean and something else, something old. Something that had been buried for so long, it forgot what the sun was. The floor groaned beneath me. The hands pulled harder. A crack appeared. Then at first, then wider. A jagged yawning seemed that opened a total blackness below. From within the crack, I heard whispers. Not words, not language, just acknowledgement. Something old was aware of me now.

And it was waking up. I don't remember falling into the crack. One second I was backing away from those reaching hands, and the next I was weightless. The walls that the bank peeled away like paper curling and a candle flame. The lobby is stretching upward until it became a vertical shaft. Endless, featureless stone race past as I plummeted in slow motion, suspended in a shaft of oily light that didn't flicker or shift. There was no impact when I landed on my back, just a sudden presence.

I wasn't alone down there. The floor beneath me was warm and smooth, like old bone. There was no ceiling, only darkness coiling above me like oil separating in water. I couldn't see where the walls ended. They just dissolved into black mist. In the center of the space stood a desk, impossibly lit, like a bank teller's desk, absurdly normal given the circumstances,

oak brass corners, little glass penholder. And behind it sat a man, I guess, or something that used to be a man. He wore a suit, but the fabric looked fused to his flesh. The collar of his shirt pulled and stretched as it seemed to disappear into his neck. The cuffs doing the same at his wrists. His hands, if they wore hands, had too many joints, and each digit ended in a sharpened yellow nail. His face was hidden behind a mask made of what I can only describes looking like countless coins,

melted and molded into the vague impression of eyes and a grin. I didn't speak. Couldn't. My throat was clenched as if I'd never spoken a word in my life. He tapped the desk with one finger and the sound echoed like thunder. Withdrawal or deposit, he asked in a voice like tearing silk. I tried to speak but couldn't find the words. You came, seeking wealth.

That is always the mistake. His head tilted. The coins on the mask clinked softly. You think the vault above holds money. Paper, metal, things you can place in your pocket. He leaned forward. I didn't see a move. He was just closer.

Like the frames between each step had vanished. The vault above holds promises. Broken. burned, forgotten. Behind him the shadows shifted, grew teeth. I don't mean that as a metaphor. I mean, I saw teeth in the dark, smiling, hundreds, maybe thousands. A sound rose above me, a wet, greedy panting, as if the space itself were hungry.

You tried to take. Now you must give. The desk began to sink. Not into the floor. It melted like wax under flame. The wood curled, blackened, hissed. Beneath it, something pulsed, something red and wet and rhythmic. And then I saw the vault.

It wasn't a door. It was an eye. a massive vertical slit that blinked once slowly from the far end of the chamber. Its surface shimmered like muscle, slick and pulsing. The air around it twisted, reality bending in slow spirals. I felt it then. Not fear. Debt.

Like I'd borrowed something the moment I entered the bank. Something I didn't even know I owed. The creature behind the desk rose. taller than I thought possible. Its limbs unfolded, knees bending the wrong way, fingers multiplying in a shimmer of impossibility. Your balance is due. It said.

I ran. I don't know where the impulse came from, maybe instinct, maybe delusion. But my legs moved before thought returned, pounding across the slick floor, that ancient place. My shoes slapped against bone. against something that pulsed with every footfall like a shared heartbeat. I had no destination other than a way, far away,

as far away as anyone had ever gotten from anything. Behind me, I heard her rise. Not footsteps, not a chase. The sound was deeper, like the vault itself had begun to uncoil. That massive slit eye cracked open wider, and something inside had shifted. unfolded. I didn't look back.

Instead, I found a hallway, or maybe it found me. It wasn't there before, but suddenly I was in it. Narrow, pulsing, walls of soft tissue and stone. The lights above were tubes filled with fluid. Shapes swam inside them, twitching silhouettes of limbs and mouths. I realized the revolver was still in my hand. I fired senselessly into the sea. ceiling. The bullet

hit something soft. The walls shuddered. The whole corridor heaved like lungs choking on smoke. And then I heard the whispers again. Closer this time. Right behind my ears. The corridor ended in a door.

Not like the bank doors above. This one was old. More oak like the desk. Iron brace covered in carvings that twisted as I stared at them. Symbols that weren't meant for human symbols that pushed my mind into a place that bordered insanity. Warnings or invitations.

Inside was the vault proper. And it was alive. It breathed. The chamber rose hundreds of feet in every direction, ribbed and wet. Cables hung like arteries dripping thick yellow fluid into a pool at the center, floating in that pool or faces. dozens, maybe hundreds, each one mouthing silent screams trapped just beneath the surface. I stumbled backward.

The vault pulsed once. The floor beneath me cracked open like skin splitting to reveal raw muscle. A tendrils slipped free, thick as my torso, and brushed my cheek. I screamed. It wasn't pain. It was memory. My memory. It knew me. It had me. My name, my shame, my debts. Every moment I wished I could take back. Every person I'd hurt, lied to, forgotten, everything about me that I ever regretted or would regret. It tasted me through my skin.

Please, I whispered, I didn't know. From the walls, voices answered, all mine, layered, distorted. You knew enough to bring a weapon. The revolvers slipped from my fingers, sank into the floor like it was never real, tend to a rope wrapped around my wrist, not tight, not cruel, just final. I don't remember being pulled under. Not exactly.

Just a feeling of collapsing. Being pulled within myself. Like the vault didn't just consume me. It rewrote me, thread by threat. I woke back in the bank lobby. Alone. The doors were open. Sunlight poured in from outside.

I looked around at the same scene, same windows, but no tellers, no customers. Only my duffel bag on the floor where I dropped it. Empty. I walked out and went home. I don't know how long it's been since. I don't eat. I don't sleep. But I still owe.

They let me go for a reason, just like they let the others go. and now I see them in alleys in the backs of diners at highway rest stops the ones who walked in and walked back out hollow-eyed

carrying something inside them we're not alive not really we're extensions collectors I never tried to rob a bank again I don't need to I finally got a job

I watch and wait for the next desperate fool who thinks they're walking in to a vault full of cash What's going on? What's happening in here? I don't know, doctor, there's been a weird power surge

that only seems to be affecting the room you're in. Are you okay? Yes, I'm fine. Wait, there's something? There's something in here? I'm sorry, doctor. Did you say there's something in there with you? I don't see anything in the monitors.

It's here in the corner. The shadows. The shadows. What do you see? I saw... I saw them. It's happening. It's really happening.

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