Creepy - Day 32...

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

Haunted Houses***Written by: R.T. Raynaud***Content warning: child death***No Man's Land***https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/***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.

Fuck. Creepy presents. The 31 Days of Horror. Day 32. Haunted Houses. Written by R.T. Raynaud. T-minus 12 hours until Halloween. I'm still putting up my decorations.

I'm a big fan of Halloween generally, but not so much the decorating part of it. I'm typically more of a cardboard witch on the door and a jack-lantern. kind of guy when it comes to ringing in the holiday. But right now, I'm sinking my third of 12 headstones in my front yard. Common decency, it reads. That was the only one that kids let me name. No one wants to hear about your politics, Dad, Seth told me, seizing the spoon used to dig names in the styrofoam forms we were making headstones out of.

He and his younger sister Rachel promptly then gave the remaining stones cute pun names like, Frank N. Stein and Upton O'Good. To be fair, I did think Upton O'Good was pretty clever. The decorations were part of the haunted house we were doing for the neighborhood kids this year.

There'd been a compromise we made with Seth and Rachel after a bunch of kids went missing while trick-or-treating last year, Ronnie Stevens, Juliet Adams, Jaden Crawford, and Mike Paulson. They were a year or two older than my kids. But I was roughly familiar with them from the neighborhood. Good kids, I recall thinking,

though I did suspect Ronnie Stevens had something to do with the toilet papering of one of the trees in my yard three Halloweens ago. They were last seen trick-or-treating, but then never returned. My wife and I joined the search after they were discovered missing, spending the next two weeks walking through the woods in Henderson Park. At first, to find them in the case they had gone. gotten lost. And then to recover their bodies once enough time had gone by where it was safe to assume they were dead. The search of the area yielded nothing. It was as if they disappeared without a trace. And after an entire year of missing posters, billboards, radio ads, various

awareness drives, and offers of rewards for information, we were no closer to finding them. and because they were still missing and the case was still open the threat still existed as far as I was concerned my wife and I told the kids they couldn't go out trick-or-treating something they were unsurprisingly very pissed about but god bless them rather than sulk about it they put their minds together and dreamed up a solution hold a haunted house for the kids in the backyard while the adults could have a Halloween party inside. That way, all the kids could do Halloween stuff and the parents could have their own fun while knowing their kids were fully supervised.

Since we had one of the bigger properties in the neighborhood, with a completely fenced-in backyard, it made sense to do it here. The likelihood of some boogeyman snatching kids up out of my backyard under the noses of an entire neighborhood of parents seemed remote. The kids even came up with the design. A ghost-filled graveyard. in the front, with a dark path extending through our front gate and into the backyard, where I would build a maze with a series of walls the kids would decorate with scary shit.

And at the end of the haunted maze? A party. Complete with a bowl full of candy for the kids and a Halloween-themed cocktail for the adults. I thought the idea was brilliant. While the plan was fixing to include a pretty labor-intensive effort on my end, I figured it sure as hell beat the idea of me escorting my pre-teens around the neighborhood. all night, and my wife was pretty stoked about the idea of hosting a theme party. She's something of an Ina Garden fan girl.

I'm in the middle of sinking the headstone when I glance up at the house across the street. Old Jerry's house. We all know to stay away from old Jerry's house. At the outset, I mean that in a very practical sense, it does not appear very structurally sound. Old Jerry has spent absolutely zero effort in repairing and maintaining the building for as long as I've lived next to him. I'm no engineer, but even I can see that the framing of the house has picked up a twist, and the roof has a pretty serious downward bow.

It's really only a matter of time before it just collapses, likely bringing an end to the strange tale of old Jerry when it does. How the actual house is escaped being condemned and knock down this, far as a mystery. His boat, the entire place smells like a garbage dump. The smell luckily doesn't reach all the way over to my house. But the entire neighborhood makes it a point to walk on the sidewalk in front of my house. Using the sidewalk in front of old Jerry's house will sing your nose hair.

But beyond the obvious structural and olfactory issues, old Jerry's a fucking creep. He's this weird old man who lives alone and typically spends his afternoon sitting on his front porch, eating what looks like shredded raw meat out of a metal ammo can with a fork, staring crazily at passers-by and muttering nonsense to himself. He has no family that I've ever seen. No friends, no visitors. I don't even see him get packages or mail. He doesn't own a car.

Not that that matters much. He never leaves his house. For real. I have no idea how he provides for himself. I must admit, though, relative to some other types of crazy folks out there, old Jerry seems more or less harmless. To the extent I've exchanged words with him at all, it's usually something cordial. How are you? Nice weather we're having. Have a good day. And I've never seen him do anything completely out of line, like Flash's dick or try to strike up questionable conversations with any neighborhood kids.

I think as long as we stay out of each other's way, we'll both be fine. As I glance at the house, I see the man himself, old Jerry, staring at me from the second floor window. I can only barely see him, the ratty curtains flanking each side of the window obscure most of his body. But his face peeks out from between them clear as day. He has this blank, expressionless look on his face. He doesn't move. He doesn't blink. He just stares.

My flesh starts crawling. I can finish putting these up later, I think, to myself. I finish sinking the fake headstone into my front yard, pick up my tools, and go back into my house. Several hours later, I'm inside my house watching TV. My wife walks into the room with a puzzled look on her face. Nate, she asks. I was out front.

Why are the Halloween decorations not up yet? I thought you said you were going to finish that today? Old Jerry, I respond. What about him? It was staring at me. It was creeping me out. My answer apparently does not satisfy her. My wife's puzzled look didn't change any.

Does this mean that the haunted house were setting up for tomorrow is off? She asks. It's a rhetorical question. No sooner had my wife and I agreed to hold it. We started getting RSVPs from other families in the neighborhood with offers to help pay for the party. Apparently other parents had come to the same conclusion we had about not letting their kids trick or treat, and we're searching for a safe alternative. The haunted house idea quickly caught on.

Seventeen families were now planning on coming. And those were just to people who had RSVPed. We expected more would show up once people realized where the rest of the neighborhood had gone. And not for nothing. I had spent the last two weeks building a plywood maze in my backyard. Obviously, we couldn't cancel now. Least of all, because the weirdo across the street

kept looking at me as I set up the final touches. No, honey, of course not. I'll go set them up. I tell her as I rise from my recliner. I grab my tools out of the basement and head back outside. As soon as I get outside, I check old. Jerry's house to see if he's still there. Darker now than it been earlier.

I can't see anything in the second floor window anymore. I sat to work, convinced the old bastard is busy elsewhere. I finished the graveyard in about an hour or so. My work completed, I bring my tools back into the house, grab a beer from the fridge, and come back out on the porch to admire my handiwork. Nate, you've done it again. This haunted house is fucking awesome. Halloween comes the next day.

I spend most of the day with the kids fine-tuning the decorations in the haunted maze for the party later. Fake spider webs? Check. Fog machine? Check. Outdoor speakers playing creepy music? Animatronic evil clown who pops out from a box laughing maniacally

as soon as someone trips its motion sensor? In the process of fine-tuning, I walk through my front yard and glanced at old Jerry's house. I see him standing in the second floor window, staring at me once again. What the fuck is his problem? It's really starting to annoy me that I'm under surveillance. But I'm too busy to stop and address the creepy neighbor

beyond giving him a disapproving stare and shrug back in his direction. He does not respond to me, but I rather discontinue staring. Before I know what the sun is stirring to set, people start to arrive soon. I walk out onto my front porch to make a final inspection of the graveyard. I glance once more at old Jerry's house. I can't see him in the window anymore. Something that gives me relief.

Satisfied that he's gone, I beck in my family to join me on the front porch to see me turn the lights on out front. It's showtime. I say to my wife as I pressed the switch on the search protector everything was plugged into. My front yard explodes with fog, eerie red lighting, and uneasy sounds of children laughing, creaking metal gates, blowing wind, and rattling chains. My kids gasp and squeal at how effective the scene is. My wife pats me on the back and smiles at me. I am totally getting a blowjob tonight.

I smile back at her. The front yard lighting bays old Jerry's house in a red glow, suddenly illuminating old Jerry's face, which I see is once more in the second floor window. I wouldn't have thought it possible beforehand, but the red lighting makes old Jerry's blank, dead eye look even worse. But it dawns on me that old Jerry had probably been standing there for much longer than I'd realized. I just wasn't able to see him because of the angle of the sun.

Hell, he could have been there this whole time. Watching me, my family, put this haunted house together and creep. And now he was standing there watching the front of the haunted house, where the neighborhood was soon to arrive. For a neighborhood still reeling from four missing trick-or-treaters, a year before. Old Jerry sure wasn't doing anything to allay the fear of a boogeyman. Jesus, he is creepy, my wife says to me. She'd apparently notice old Jerry too. You're right. I wouldn't want it to set up decorations with that guy looking at me the entire

time either. It's worse with the red lighting. But yeah, he doesn't look like he's moved since I saw him there yesterday. I think that might be the most unsettling part of it. I tell her. I hope he doesn't stay there all night. The haunted house is creepy enough as is, she responds. I was thinking the same thing. I'm going to go talk to him. It really needs to stop for everyone's peace of mind.

I say stepping off the front porch heading toward old Jerry. Okay, babe, be careful. That place is fixing to come down any day now. My wife counsels as I leave. Don't I know it? I say over my shoulder back at her. I cross the street, walk on to old Jerry's front porch and knock on his front door. Knock, knock, knock, knock.

I wait. No answer. I don't even hear movement on the other side of the door. Knock, knock, knock. Again, no answer, no movement. I try the doorknob, which I'm surprised to find turns freely. I turn the knob and push open the door. It opens on a filthy front living room.

I can see various pieces of garbage freely strewn about the floor. There's also a smell wafting out from inside. Something I'd guess is a combination of mildew, shit, and rotting meat. Jerry? I call into the open door. No response. Jerry! I call again.

Again, louder this time. Again, no response. At this point, I'm a little concerned. I look back across the street of my wife, who was gesticulating at me ferociously to get old Jerry to agree to stop. Almost instinctually, I gesture back to denote that I don't know what to do. I mean, I did not want to go in there. Place could fall in on me any moment.

And there could be all sorts of weird shit I'd like to live my life. life not seeing. You know what I mean? Or who knows? Me being in his personal space to make the guy click out and attack me. But on the other hand, he could be hurt. He did have quite a blank look standing in the window.

He could be having a stroke or something. Weird or not, the guy doesn't deserve to suffer just because he lives alone. Then when I could help him simply by following up, Fuck it. I push open the door a little more and slip inside. Hey, Jerry! You all right? I'm coming in!

I say loudly. Not yelling, mind you, but loudly. I want to give him as much warning about my presence as I could. I walk into the front living room. The powerful smell of vomit hits me. I'm instantly regretting having ate so much Halloween candy over the the course of the day. My digestive track not being as stable as it otherwise might have been. I choke it back. Moving inside the doorway, I step on a piece of paper, which crinkles under my

foot. Sound draws my attention down to it. I lift my foot. Condemned, the piece of paper reads in large, bold font. It's a city notice, instructing Jerry to vacate the premises. Mystery no more. The house actually has been condemned. Jair? I say, again loudly. I start walking to the second floor staircase and then proceed up while I call out at intervals.

Hello, Jerry. Don't be alarmed. I'm just here to check on you. Jer? It's Nate from across the street. I get no response. I reached the top of the staircase, turn a corner, and proceed down a hallway towards a back bedroom my figure has the second floor window he was looking out of. Jerry, you up here? The doors of the room off the hallway leading to the back bedroom are open.

As I walk down the hallway, I glance in them. Each room looks like it's been through a flood. Piles are upturned and broken furniture, intermingled with loose garbage and debris, strewn about. And everything is coated with this thick brown gunk. It's on the walls, the ceiling, floor. Morbid curiosity getting the better of me. I run a finger through it on the wall. It's greasy and smells awful. I instantly regret doing it and quickly wipe my finger on my clothes, which I'll obviously need to change now. I should probably burn this entire outfit after I'm done here. I make it to the back bedroom. The bedroom door is a jar, and I can see that the

room is filled with red light for my front yard display. I push the door open, which creaks loudly as it swings. Jerry? The back bedroom is in the same shape as the rooms I pass to get here, save for one difference. A body hangs from a noose in front of the window. It takes me a moment to process what I'm seeing, but when I finally understand what I'm looking at, the realization crashes over me. Looks like Jerry's killed himself. It's been hanging there for at least two days. Been hanging here.

While across the street, I sunk headstones into my front yard. I was cursing him for being a fucking creep when all this time, it had been his corpse staring at me. Oh, Jerry. I say muted. More to myself than anything. I walk further into the room over the strewn garbage and debris to confirm my suspicions. Reaching Jerry's body, I confirm that he is, in fact, dead.

I look out the window. My wife is standing on my front porch concerned with the kids standing beside her. Hoping to keep my kids from seeing more of a dead guy than they already have, I pull the curtains closed. As I move the curtains, a piece of paper falls from the window sill onto the ground. I pick it up. It has a message, scratchly written.

Get fucked, pigs. It reads. That's a pretty gritty suicide note. I guess he didn't take too kindly to being kicked out of his home. I look at his face and his blank. stare. Pity flashes in my brain. It's only then I looked down and see the skeleton mask in his hand. He'd been holding it the whole time. I just hadn't noticed it before now. I reached down and grabbed a mask, pulling it out of Jerry's death grip. Jerry's body swings slightly as it slips from his hand.

I look at the mask. I have seen it thousands of times before. on missing persons posters and billboards. It's Jaden Crawford's mask. He was one of the missing kids. He was wearing this when he went missing last year. What was Jerry doing with it? The thought so quickly followed by the obvious. Jerry took those kids.

My mouth goes gape. I stepped backwards onto some debris sitting on the floor. floor. It causes me to slip and I fall into something that may have once been a sofa. The brown gunk layer on the sofa smears all over me. I'm now covered in this shit. I recover my feet and continue backing away from Jerry. I need to get the fuck out of here. My mind and body steal itself for the mad dash to the front door I'm about to make. Then another thought hits me. They could still be here. Jaden?

I call out. Hey, Jaden, you hear, buddy? I run out of the room and into the hallway. I check every room on my way to the staircase, nervously calling Jaden's name and every room I poked my head into. Finding nobody, I fly down the stairs to the first floor. Jaden! I yell before hurriedly running from room to room.

All empty. Until I get to the basement door off of the kitchen. And its huge padlock. I look around. I find a hammer sitting on a side table in the kitchen. I grab it and use it to pry the faceplate of the door latch off. The shoddy state of the door makes it disintegrate the moment I begin prying with the hammer's claw. Much easier than going through that padlock.

I open the door and get on the staircase. Jaden? Kids! Are you down here? I call. No response. I hit the light on the side of the stairwell. The lights in the basement flicker and then come on.

I slowly descend the stops, dreading what I'm going to find down here. I reach the landing. The basement is a mid-sized concrete room. The walls are lined with metal shelving, holding dozens of mason jars. I'm not sure what's inside them exactly, but they look like specimen jars at the natural history. museum. But my attention is drawn by the existence of a workbench over in the corner of the room with various power tools on it. The entire bench is covered in a reddish brown liquid. It looks like blood. No, that is fucking blood. It covers the entire workbench. The walls behind it,

the floor beneath it. The bloody dragg marks on the floor lead from the workbench to the door to an adjacent room. Jaden! Kids! I call hurrying over to the door and throwing it open. It's pitch black in the room. Though I can hear a slight mechanical whine, I feel the wall for a light switch,

which I flipped the moment I find it. The singular overhead light in the middle of the room switches on, showing the window this room to be smaller than the rest of the basement. The walls and ceilings are covered in eggshell mattress covers and cardboard. The first thing I notice is the refrigerator, along with the coffin freezer right next to it. The wine I'm hearing is their compressors, but then my attention is drawn back to the bloody drag marks on the floor, which tracked to a table in the middle of the room. On which a small form lies, it looks like an incorrectly assembled mannequin in the light. A small tray table sits adjacent.

I see a hacksaw. I see a cleaver. I see a four-pound sledgehammer. They glint down the tray table in the overhead light. I rush over to the table. Holy shit. It's Juliet Adams. Or what's left of her, that is.

She's emaciated and strapped to the table at the waist. Her body, or torso, is covered in cuts, bruises, and burns. but as for her limbs, I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around what I'm seeing. Some limbs are missing. Others have been broken and healed in awkward positions. The whole tableau looks like some fucked up piece of modern art. The grotesque inhumanity of the moment overcomes my power's observation. The more I see, the less I want to.

I focus all my attention on her face to avoid fully comprehending with the rest of the scene. You poor kid. I say low. Almost in response, she coughs. I scream and jump back. Holy fucking shit! She's fucking alive? Based on her appearance and the circumstances, I just assume she was dead.

Juliet! I yell, touching her shoulder and gently shaking her. Juliet, wake up. She groaned slightly, an eye half open, but she doesn't appear to be cognizant of anything. I terrored her restraint. After a moment, she's free. I pick her up in my arms and turn to the door. I'm at the basement stairs in five steps, up the basement stairs and another five.

I sprinted to the exit with Juliet in my arms before bounding down as porch steps. I feel almost weightless as I hit fresh air. I see my wife still standing on my porch. Her face reads Concerned Confusion. She directs the kids to stand behind her out of instinct. Sheila, call 911! I scream mid-stride. What's wrong?

She responds. Fucking call 911 now! I scream back. I'm still running. I'm in the middle of the road right now, quickly closing on my house. I watch the color drain from my wife's face as she realizes what I'm holding. Seth, help your father. Rachel, come with me. I hear her say.

She grabs Rachel's hand and drags her through the front door. Seth, get the door! I yell. He catches the door and my wife left swinging. His face is in straight panic mode. A few strides more and I'm on to my porch and through the front door. Seth, get a blanket and some water. I bark.

I put Juliet down onto our living room couch. She's not responsive, but she's still breathing. Seth runs to the linen closet and gives me a comforter before going into the kitchen. I spread the comforter over her, trying to tuck her in as much as I can. After a moment Seth enters from the kitchen with a glass of water, I reach out for it and he hands it to me. His hands shake violently, spilling some of the water on me as I grab it. I hold it up to her lips.

She does not respond to the offered drink. Dad? Is that Juliet? Seth asks. He's wide-eyed, looks like he's running on nothing but command, discipline, and adrenaline. I turn away from Juliet and grab onto Seth's hands. I look him in the eyes, trying to comb him down. Looks like it's son. Hey, listen.

Your sister shouldn't be seeing this. And frankly, neither should you. We'll make sure Juliet is looked after. Go find your sister and bring her someplace out of the way until we can sort this out. Is she going to be all right? He says, not seeming to register what I'm telling him to do. Seth, now. I respond sternly.

He departs back into the kitchen, crossing by my wife as she's coming out. My wife's face is still ghost white. Oh my God, Nate. Oh my God, it's juliet, Nate, she says. I know, I know she's alive. He kept her alive. A whole year. I say back.

The stress deepens my voice. I'm on the brink of yelling. You call 911? They're on their way. I told them to hurry, she tells me. Her voice cracks as she does. I look up at her and see her on the edge of fainting. I stand up and give her a hug.

We found them, babe. We found them, I say. Sheila quickly nods her head and starts crying. It takes about five minutes for the police to arrive. One car, two, three, four, five, six. They screeched to a stop in the middle of the street. The police secure my house first, asking me and my family if we're all right, something we all confirm.

If I'm being honest, I think we're all pretty fucking far from all right. But all things considered, we can wait. I tell them briefly who I found, where I found her, what I saw. Most of the cops don't even wait for me to finish speaking before they bound out in my front door. The moment I say the words Old Jerry's house, I watch most of them sprint to their patrol cars, pop their trunks, pull out rifles, shotguns, and a shield, and descend on the house across the street. A number of them kick in his front door on streamings. side. At some point in the process, ambulances show up, as does the fire department.

The street in front of the house is covered with first responders. The red and blue flashing lights completely drowned out the red mood lighting that set up for the graveyard out front. Even the buildings department eventually shows up, something I figure has to do with the state of disrepair of the house. Guess arriving at my haunted house gets stopped at the corner by police tape. All this response would have drawn a great deal of notice even on a good day. The fact that almost the entire neighborhood was already scheduled to come here anyways turns this whole scene into a carnival.

The EMT's low Juliet up onto a stretcher and put her into the ambulance as fast as they can. It doesn't wait for anything. The moment the rear doors close, it speeds off, full lights and sirens as the crowd gathering hurries out of its way to avoid being run over. Another pair of EMTs sit me down on the step of an ambulance and rat me in a space blanket while they check me out. Out of an abundance of caution, they tell me. The exam over, they hand me a box of sanitizing wipes, gesturing the brown shit that I got all over my arms, neck, and face when I fell in the house.

Do you know what this crap is? I ask, taking a handful of wipes and wiping my neck. Judging from the smell and what the cops are telling me, my guess, one of the EMT says, would be putrified bodily fluids. Excuse me? I ask. I heard him fine. I'm hoping for a different answer.

Blood, sweat, bile, mucus, probably urine and feces too. As a body will decompose, it looks screed all that shit. which will then coagulate and putrify, he says. I regret asking. But it was all over the house. The floors, the furniture, the walls were soaked with this stuff, I tell him. DMT's glance at one another before both looking at me blankly. How much fluid could three kids have in them?

The grotesqueness of the question hits me the moment I ask it. There's going to be a hell of a lot more than three kids dead in there, the EMT says. I stopped talking. A hell of a lot more than three kids dead. I stand up from the ambulance and shrug off the space blanket. I walk up my steps through my front door and start ascending the stairs to the second floor on my house. Passing my wife in the process, I tell her that I'll be in the shower. If anybody else needs me, I scrub my body until my hot water runs out.

After an hour or so, the exigency of the situation is worn off. The ambulances leave, as to the fire department, buildings department, and most of the cop cars. I watch silently from my front porch as a few other cars arrive, occupied by people wearing rubber gloves, respirators, and windbreakers with the letters CSI sprawled across. the back. They go inside while a cop stands on the porch holding a clipboard. I see camera flashes through the windows. A shit ton of camera flashes. It reminds me of a rave. A couple minutes later, a white van with a corner seal pulls up. Two orderlies dressed in white exit the van, open up the back doors and pull out a stretcher. They too go inside.

Old Jerry's face had been in the window this whole time. The cops had left it up, not to disturb the crime scene until the investigation's over, I imagine. Shortly after the orderlies go into the house, though, they finally take Old Jerry down. The orderlies emerge from the house, rolling a black body bag strapped to the stretcher between them. They insert the stretcher into the back of the van and depart. As the van pulls away, I notice Lieutenant Clyde Goodley walking up the path to my first. front door, negotiating around the gravestones I sunk in the front yard. He lives in the neighborhood.

We're not friends in the traditional sense. Him and I would probably never go out for beers or anything. Poor friendly enough. His kids had been among those invited to my haunted house. He hadn't been able to come because he was supposed to work. Ironic. Nate, how are you doing? He asks me, putting a foot down the first of my front steps and a hand on the railing, but not moving any closer.

Pretty weirded out, Clyde. I respond. You guys looking to finish up? Oh, hell no. We're going to be camped out here for the next week going through that house. He says, Well, if any of your boys need coffee or to use the bathroom, our house is open. I tell him in response.

I hope it sounds cordial, it comes out robotic. That's mighty nice, you Nate. I'll circulate the offer. I'm pretty sure a few of them might take you up on it. There's a pregnant pause. We've had our suspicions about O'Jerry for quite a while. Nothing even remotely resembling this. But once those kids went missing, he was one of the first people we talked to.

Kind of one of the problems we talked to. Kind of one of the problems. problems of being known as a neighborhood weirdo, huh? When kids go missing, cops always want to talk to you. He told us to go fuck ourselves, and we've been going round and round with him since. There was too much pointing to Jerry, but not enough for a warrant. Last month we called buildings out to look at the house, and they condemned it. I mean, the house was a danger.

But we also wanted to take a look inside, you know what I mean? We were fixing to escort him out next week, Clyde tells me. He knew you were about to find out about everything, I offer. That's about the size of it, I reckon. Old Jerry left Juliet to die in that basement and took the quick way out. If you hadn't poked your head in there, we probably wouldn't have found her until it was much too late. Clyde says, how is she doing? I ask.

It's going to be a long haul. She was in a real bad way down there. From what the doc was saying, he did some unspeakable things to that little girl. No shit. I resist the innate urge to ask more specifics. I'd seen enough already. I prefer to keep the rest of a nebulous. Is she going to make it?

I ask. I wouldn't bet the mortgage on it. Doc says she's about his run through with shocks anybody's ever seen. He says that if she makes it through this week, that's when everyone can start talking about getting her better. For now? I don't know.

He trails off. Any word on the other kids? I ask. Clyde just closes his eyes and shakes his head. Judging by Jaden's mask, I'm pretty sure they're in there somewhere, but I'll be frank, Nate. That's not even going to be the half of it. There's no telling how many dead people were going to pull out of that house. There were some 200 specimen jars filled with various human body parts in them in the basement.

Could be from the same person. Could be from different people. No way for us to tell yet. He had dresser drawers full other people's property. We have shallow graves in the backyard, body parts stuffed into refrigerators. It's fucking nightmare fuel. Clyde trails off again. I look back in my front yard.

The fake gravestones feel obscene now. Clyde continues, for fuck's sake. We found two cigar boxes filled to the brim with teeth. If the average person has 30 teeth, what we found could be from hundreds of people. Hundreds? I'm not even sure where they could all come from. There aren't even enough missing people in this state for that many teeth. We have to DNA test them to figure out specifics, but by sheer number, it'll be up there.

One of my guys suggested that he might have been grave robbing. I'm just hoping that they aren't all human. Maybe he's just been doing it for a while, I comment. Yeah, we thought of that too, Clyde says. I remember the room I found Juliette and both had a refrigerator and a freezer. Why refrigerate body parts? I wonder aloud. He was eating them.

Crime scene found a femur in the trash with gnaw marks. memories of old Jerry staring at me from his front porch while eating what I thought had been raw meat flash in my mind. Jesus fucking Christ, Clyde, I say, this is too much. Hey, listen, Nate, that's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. Clyde says ascending my porch steps, holding out a small piece of paper to me. I grab it and look at it. It's a business card. Dr. Nancy McManus, PhD, reads, along with the phone number,

I know you saw some pretty haggard shit in there. And I'm not going to lie. As we sort everything out, this is probably going to get worse before it gets any better. You may want to go talk to someone about it. Don't let it get the better of you. Clyde says, his face reads pity and concern. I've seen it happen before. "'Thanks, Clyde,' I say, putting the card in my pocket.

"'You're welcome, Nate.' "'Clyde says, walking back down my front steps. "'For now I have a bunch of people I'm going to need to talk to. "'Do you take care of yourself?' "'He turns and walks back towards the street. "'You too,' I say after him, "'sheila comes out of the front door and hands me a tumbler full of whiskey. I grab it thankfully and take a mouthful.

What did he say? She asks. Specifics. We'll talk about it later. For now, I need a breather. I tell her, followed with another pull out of my glass. She rubs my back, turns me towards the front door and marches me inside. I need to pull these decorations down as soon as fucking possible.

That has to be it. That has to be. I've said all the stories. It has to be over. For your bonus episode, creepy presents. No Man's Land. Have you ever watched a horror movie series and thought to yourself, why do you keep going there?

Why do people keep camping in Crystal Lake? Why does anyone still live on Elm Street? Why don't they just tear down? the Myers house. How many people need to die before people give up and stop going to a place? How many lives need to be lost before the authority step in and say, okay, this place is off limits. Turns out it takes a whole lot of dying before anyone really does anything about it.

People in movies go back because there's money for the studios and killing off a new batch of teens. People don't go back to my hometown. Not anymore. Baltimore, Dallas, Philly, Detroit, all have high death rates. The highest in the world are in Mexico, topping out at about 180 murders per 100,000 people. Not even close to my hometown of Clayton's Grove, whose murder rate has slowly been rising towards 100% over the last 30 years. Don't bother looking on a map.

You won't find it, even if you knew where it was. supposed to be. That's right. We've been taken off all the maps. You won't see its name on any physical map printed after 1990. I was seven years old in 1987. It was a year that the Giants won the Super Bowl. The Simpsons debuted on the Tracy Oman show. Full House debuted on ABC. The stock market crashed on October 19th and the Minnesota Twins won their first world series. I didn't really care about the twins winning, but it stands out because it was the day before it all started. This was back when the World Series could go seven games and still be done in October.

The morning of October 26, 1987. In and of themselves, those I mentioned are the events that really would have impacted my life that year. The moments of nostalgia I would think about randomly seeing some be you were remember when, post on social media? I would have, at least, if it weren't for all the murders. The first was Albert Hancock, age 83. He lived in Clayton's Grove's whole life. Everyone knew him. I'm not going to pretend like he was the nicest old man there ever was, but he and his wife Helen were a sweet old couple. They'd sit on their front porch during Halloween with a big bull

candy. Good stuff, too, not the typical old person generic candy. And later in the night, they didn't even turn away the teens, sitting out there until the bowl was empty. Everyone left their house alone. Even the most criminally minded kids left their pumpkins unsmashed, trees free of toilet paper and siding clean of eggs. So people noticed right away when it was only Helen sitting on the front porch that year. It wasn't Halloween, so no one had any reason to walk up to the house or even pay that close of attention. But Ellen had decided to later pumpkins early that year.

They figured it took over an hour before anyone noticed Albert's severed head on the front step next to a cluster of pumpkins. The top of his head had been cut off and a candle placed inside. Rumor has it? The candle even made the eyes glow. When the cops came to take her away, rumor has it that Helm didn't say a word. And when I asked if she'd killed Albert, she said yes.

When asked why, she just shrugged. Somehow she managed to cut her wrists in the holding cell that night. It was all anyone could talk about for 24 hours until the local police were called out to the pond by hysterical fishermen who couldn't put enough words together to give the already rattled cops a heads up before they saw what they saw. There, not more than a foot underneath the surface of the water, was a face staring up at them. And a few feet away from that, slightly deeper, was another face, hair floating in front, obscuring who it was. And next to that face was another, and another, and another, and another.

In total there were eight bodies, accounting for the entire Rhodes family. Mark, Shelley, and their six children, ages three to sixteen. While their hands were all free, their feet were each tied to a piece of rope attached to a concrete cinder block. it's estimated that they've been underwater for at least six hours. Their small fishing boat was found washed ash ashore on the other side of the pond. Without any other evidence, it's believed that the parents were the perpetrators, but no one really knows for sure. Word had it, and when the coroner looked at the bodies,

there were no signs of struggle at all for many of them. Then, the death stopped. The next year, it started a week sooner. The first death being reported on October 19th. Hank Reynolds ended up in Woodchipper, spraying his ground-up remains onto a pile of sawdust, pink mist wafting through the air. And deaths continued every day until Halloween.

No one knew who was doing it. Like something out of a horror movie. The next year lasts at a week. longer. Going into November, his first responders found Kimberly Johnson run through the spikes of a wrought iron property fence. Near as anyone could tell, she either fell or was thrown out of her second-story window. And she didn't die right away. Even more confusing, they saw that she'd played three games of tick-tac-toe against herself, using her own blood on the sidewalk. before she finally gave up the ghost.

They figured it was shock. No prints were found at the scene other than Kim's. However it happened, the people of Clayton's groves seemed to be cursed to die. So, how am I here to tell you any of this? How did I break the spell? How did I escape? A mistake.

I can't say I remember much of that night. I think I remember slightly. Splashing sounds, sounds that turned out to be my mom being drowned in the bathtub. My father was doused with gasoline and set on fire, but not before I was stabbed 17 times. Believe it or not, they didn't hit any major organs. And I just lay there, bleeding to death. His dad was lit up well in the living room. I remember a shadow over. me, but I don't remember being afraid, like I expected it or at least accepted it. That being there in that town meant that I was supposed to die eventually.

Our neighbor, Ted, saw the fire and ran to the house. He said later that Dad was just sitting in his chair on fire. That even turned to look at Ted as he burst through the front door, but He didn't get up or anything. He just sat there as his flesh burned away to ash. He ran upstairs, saw Mom dead in the bath, then found me on the bed, evidently still breathing. But I didn't survive because of whoever tried to kill me's mistake.

I survived because of the 911 dispatch officer sending me to the wrong hospital, one that was outside of town, where my wounds were patched up and I, I solely rehab back to as close to normal as I'll ever be. See, if I'd stayed in town, I might end up living with friends or something after getting out. But CPS got in touch with some relatives a few states away and ended up living with them a few years until I went off to college. If I'd stayed in town, I know I would have never left. Now, I don't know how you might find a way into our town, but I suggest if you see anyone,

leave them alone and run. They don't want you there. See, the people who live there are content in one form or another to stay there and die. They know their fate, practically standing in line for slaughter. It's like they want it, they need it, even if they didn't.

They don't have much choice. See, after a few years at deaths, the feds were brought in. And let's say someone didn't take too kindly to strangers, leaving a half dozen men and women staked on the outskirts of town. And I mean that, literally. Vlad the Impaler style. Their bodies run through, in their assholes, out their mouths, if you'll forgive me

for being too crass. And at the base of each stake, was a local, with her throat slashed. If that was the end of federal interference, it would have been way too much foresight for any government to have ever shown. As I can tell, it took nearly 50 deaths of state and federal agents and almost 200 locals before they finally gave up five years later. It threw their hands in the air and officially said, fuck it to Clayton's Grove. They didn't know who was doing the killings or why. But they didn't want anything to do with it anymore. It didn't take long for it to happen year-round at random intervals,

not just around Halloween. Seemed to get longer every year. One unusually long stint of people not dying was broken when someone drove a bulldozer through the local daycare during nap time. Over a dozen people died from arsenic-laced cookies at the annual church bake sale. When the cops got there, they also found Anne Daly on the cross over the altar at the Lutheran Church. A bunch of nails shot through her left hand and arm. Her body just sort of dangling there in a half crucifixion.

There was a nail gun on the ground under her. Damn to sing was the only prince on the nail gun were hers. Something happened to the locals. We all knew it was wrong. Panicked when it would happen to us. Scramble to save lives as best we could, but... No one ever seemed to be. survive, except me. Some think we have a serial killer or a cult of serial killers. After

Anne Daly, some started to think these weren't really murders as much as suicides, like some kind of mass hallucination, trying to make a show of it. People were infected with some kind of disease that rots at the common sense part of our brains and makes us do horrible things to each other. But no one really knows. So they won't let us leave. The city limits are closely monitored. National Guard actually has a patrol just in case anyone tries to leave for fear of spread and whatever got into us.

Anything going in or out is closely checked. Even delivery trucks are stopped at the edge of town. People got unload and walked back by hand. Probably would have done better to just drop a bomb on the town and be done with it. I know that sounds terrible. Oh, it's still there. Numbers dwindle in a little more and a little more each year. Not too many kids left to grow up and replace anyone.

Outsiders are killed or die or whatever. Locals wait to die or be killed more and more each year. The town went from a population of over 7,000, down to about 900 as far as I can tell. Getting closer and closer to that 100% death rate. I'm not telling you all this to scare you, or even warn you off of fighting Clayton's Grove, with the rise of urban explorers and social media influencers who look for abandoned towns and stuff like that.

I think it's already gone way past the point of warning. Have you watched the news over the last few years? The rise in violence, hate, general anger across the board? I can't say for sure because I don't really know what happened to us way back when. But I'm starting to think that maybe whatever started on that fall evening in 1987 in my hometown has spread. And I don't know if it has anything to do with the moon or what. But how it gets worse throughout Halloween? So if you see someone staring a little too long or walking toward you a little too far,

Run. Maybe you'll risk looking stupid. But then again, maybe it'll save your life. And when it comes down to it, do you really want to spend the rest of your life trapped in a place you should have known better than to have gone to? Wait, wait, are you talking to me? John, John, are you leaving? You can't leave?

You can't leave. No, no. I told all the stories. There's still one more story. Yours. And we want to keep it. No. No!

John? John? Where do you think you're going? 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 rebroad. or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the creepy podcast production team and the stories author.