Creepy - Fear Vault

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

Fear Vault***Written by: Eulogio R. Villaseñor and Narrated by: Danielle Hewitt***Rustling in the Dark***Written by: Jon Adcock***Calcium***Written by: Jacob Steven Mohr and Narrated by: Owen McCuen***Kirkegrim***Written by: Dannye Chase and Narrated by: Nichole Goodnight***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.

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 and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Creepy presents. Fear Vault.

Written by Alochio R. Belisignor. And narrated by Danielle Hewitt. This is a warning to anyone considering a subscription to Fear Vault. I'm hoping that this Reddit forum will allow me to get the warning out to everyone. Every other social media app has removed my post. So this is my last hope. I don't know how much longer I have. Fear Vault is evil and has destroyed my life.

I was home alone scrolling TikTok. I've always been an introvert, so being alone is normal. I did have a few people in my life. Don't think I'm just some loser. I lived with my roommate in a two-room apartment. I also have a dog. I guess. I mean I had a dog, but that's jumping ahead.

Anyway, I was scrolling through TikTok and got to an ad for Fear Vault. It caught my attention because I love everything horror. The ad was simply a slow zoom into a wooden box sitting on what looked like a stone altar. The wood of the box looked aged and rotten. And the lid, at a face engraved, that reminded me of the Necronomicon from Evil Day. Ed. Text on the screen read, Make a pact with us for your monthly subscription of fear.

Then audio of Vincent Price's laugh from Thriller, Laid as text came on the screen in a bleeding font that read, Click the link in our bio. I know the algorithm shows you stuff similar to the videos you've already liked. But every few videos, the Fear Vault ad would come up again. It seemed like overkill, but I figured it was just their marketing cam. campaign. Finally, after a few more times of it popping up again, I gave in and went to the bio.

There was only one link, so I clicked it. The website was everything you would expect. Black and white pictures that looked like old asylum and medical facility patients, illustrations of demons and other evil-looking creatures, occult ruins and symbols. It was pretty awesome for a horror fan like me. As I scrolled down the page, there were multiple buttons that said to click to subscribe to Fear Vault. At the bottom of the page was a link that read, What is Fear Vault? I clicked.

It took me to another web page which had one sentence that didn't add any more context. I'm sure it was purposely left vague to build curiosity. Just like the ad on TikTok, it simply said that it was a monthly subscription to Fear. There were no examples of previous. boxes, hints at what to expect, or reviews from other customers. However, there were pricing options. It was $13 for one month, $130 for a year, and $66666 for five years. The prices fit the theme. No one could say they weren't committed to it. I was definitely curious. I used to get loot crate and I have a current subscription to Barkbox, so I'm no stranger to subscription boxes.

but I really wanted to know if Fear Vault was going to be worth the money, especially since each subscription renewed with auto payment at the end of each term unless canceled. I did a quick Google search and found nothing. Even though I am cautious of scams, my curiosity was really starting to get the best of me. What was this thing all about? I went back to the web page and scrolled up and down trying to see if I missed anything. Finally, I decided to give it a try for a while. one month. What's the worst that could happen? I figured if nothing else, I could add whatever

they sent me to my horror collection. So I clicked on the link for one month pricing and entered all the information that it asked for. Then I hesitated when a new screen came up. It was an all-black background with images of blood splatters and drips. The text read, Are you sure you can handle Fear Vault? There were two buttons below. One read, I can't handle it. The other read, I enter into a pact with Fear Vault. Like I said, they were committed to the theme. I figured what the hell, and clicked on the enter a pact button.

A graphic plate of blood pouring down the screen, and the same Vincent Price laugh from the TikTok ad played. Then text popped up that read, Thank you for making a pact with us. We'll see you. soon. I close the page. And to tell you the truth, pretty much forgot about it until it arrived a week later. I'm heading out, my roommate Rachel said as she pulled the front door of our apartment open and looked back at me. I'll be back before morning, but don't wait up. She had a smirk on her

face. She was prettier than me, but we looked similar. Sometimes people mistook us for sisters. We both had blonde hair and her around the same height. She had more curves in the right places, where I was more thin and awkward. Sounds like Eddie's going to have a great night. I smirked back and raised my eyebrow to mock judgment. We both laughed. We had been friends since high school, which had only been a few years previous. As she stepped out the door, she stumbled over something that had been sitting outside the door. What the hell? She reached down and picked up a box that was about half the of a shoebox. I recognized it immediately.

It looked just like the box in the TikTok ad. It was my Fear Vault box. Rachel held it out to me. This must be yours. A corner of her pouty lips curled up as she mocked, judged, my newest horror choice. I took it from her. The box had a weight to it that seemed heavier

than it should have. It felt like cardboard, instead of the old rotted wood it was made. to look like. The necronomicon-like face looked up at me from the top of the box. Well, it looks like you're going to have a great night, too. Rachel's voice snapped me out of the trance I'd started to fall into. I looked up to see her smirk again. Have fun, she said as she closed the door behind her. I turned back toward the rest of the apartment and my leg bumped up against Brewster, my golden retriever. I should have expected it. He follows me everywhere I go around the apartment.

Brewster sniffed at the box in my hands, then backed away eyeing the box. This should have probably been my first clue that something was wrong. But I was more curious than alarmed. As I made my way to the couch, I slightly shook the box. Nothing rattled around inside, so I turned it upside down. The effect of the old rotten wood covered the entire box except the face on top. That looked like weathered skin that had been stretched to cover the lid. It had hinges about a third of the way down, what seemed to be the back of the box,

so I could tell the top lifted open. There was some sort of wax seal on the front of the box that seemed to hold the lid closed. Writing in the wax read, Fear Vault, and below that, open at your own risk. I set the box on the coffee table in front of me and sat at the edge of the couch. Brewster sat to my right but stayed back. usually he'd be right next to me. What is it, boy? I asked. He looked away from the box to me and barked,

then went back to staring at the box and panting. I leaned forward on the couch and picked at the wax seal with my fingers. It was fastened well and didn't seem to want to come loose. I was able to work a fingernail underneath one side when something stabbed under my fingernail. I reeled back in pain, my fingernail breaking the wax seal free. Looking down at my finger, I saw blood begin to seep out from under the nail.

Suddenly, the lid sprang open, swinging back and hitting against the coffee table. It startled me so much that I jumped back against the couch, a scream erupting from me. Brewster's repeated barking replaced my scream. His pose was defensive as he focused at the now-open box. I stared at him, trying to catch the breath that had been expelled from me. I could see movement from the box out of the corner of my eye. I turned to gaze at it, my heart feeling as if it were trying to escape my chest. A mist was spilling over the sides of the box,

and as much as I wanted to examine it to see how they were able to pull off the effect, I felt that something wasn't right. I tried to calm down. There had to be an explanation to what just happened. Maybe a spring-loaded lid that triggered a small fog machine in it. inside? But the mist didn't seem to be stopping. It was beginning to cover our entire living room floor. Brewster continued barking, now focusing on the mist as he backed away from it. After my heartbeat began to slow, I took a deep breath and leaned toward the box. It had been a good scare,

and I wanted to see how it had been accomplished. I was especially curious since the mist was still pouring from the box, even though it seemed to have covered the entire floor of the apartment about a foot high. I reached for it with one hand in an attempt to pick it up. Suddenly, some kind of creature sprang from it, flying toward my face, making a sound that was both a high-pitched scream and a low-pitch hum. I brought my hands up out of instinct, knocking it to my right, where it disappeared into the fog layer on the floor with a thud. I jumped up onto the couch. standing on the cushions and watching for movement in the mist. Roosters barking echoed from somewhere in the direction of the front door.

Whatever it had been didn't make sense to my mind. It had been twice the size of the box it jumped out of. The short glimpse I had of it brought to mind a large rat and a giant spider mixed together somehow. But with a mouth bigger than either of those creatures. It had too many legs and a long, thin tail. its body had felt like thick and bristly fur. Something moved across my right arm. Another scream escaped my throat as I slapped at it with my left hand.

Nothing there but blood. The creature had torn a small gash in my forearm, and I had been feeling the blood running down my arm. The pain began to register. I was wrenched back to the apartment by the sound of clicking on the hardwood floor. There were too many legs. I could see movement in the fog layer as the clicking moved from beside the couch away from me toward the front door. It was going for Brewster.

I jumped from the couch, the lower part of my legs disappearing into the mist. As my feet touched the floor, the lights of the apartment went out. I was swallowed by the darkness, and another scream spilled from me. My feet slipped from the floor, and I felt my face replaced them as it slammed against it. I was laying in the darkness on the ground trying to make sense of what had just occurred. It was a slight stink of sulfur, and I could hear clicking and scratching and barking. Brewster! I was on my feet, dizzy, but moving toward the front door.

It was a small apartment, so that was a short distance. I pulled my phone from my pocket to use the flashlight. When Brewster's barking stopped. The clicking and scratching had also stopped. I turned the flashlight on and pointed it toward the front door. The mist was receding, and I could see Brewster curled into a tight ball against the bottom of the door. The lower part of the door had been shredded where he had been trying to claw his way out. I eased my way toward him, listening for the clicking or any other movement.

His body didn't show any signs of movement. not even from breathing. My chest suddenly felt hot, and my heart seemed to be too big for my chest. I felt tears on my cheeks as I dropped down beside him. I placed a hand on the side of his chest, and he made a slight whimper. I began to sob, my body trembling, as I prayed that I hadn't just witnessed the last of his air leaving him. Then his chest slightly rose again, and he gave out of him. another wine. The lights came back on, and I could see his eyes rolling around in their sockets.

I quickly searched his body for any signs of damage and found nothing external. Drul dripped from his mouth, but he had a low heartbeat. I grabbed my car key from the entry table and scooped him into my arms and then rushed out the door. I don't know if that thing was still in my apartment, but Brewster needed help. I sat in my car in the parking lot of the veterinarian hospital sobbing. Brewster was still alive, but he had suffered a heart attack from the stress of whatever had been in our apartment. I was still trying to figure out how Fear Vault could have pulled it off. Maybe it was a robot of some sort, designed to leap out and run around the floor. Either way, Fear Vault owed me an explanation and compensation for Brewster. I hadn't lost him completely.

He was still alive. The vet wanted to keep him for a monitoring purposes. He had said that the survival rate of a heart attack in dogs was less than 10%. Once I got control of myself, I headed for home. I wasn't sure if that thing was still there, or if it was real or not, but I was exhausted and had nowhere else I could think to go at that time a night. I never fully stopped crying, and every time I was stopped at a stoplight, it gave me enough time to think about Brewster. The thought of losing him kept creeping in. A block from my apartment complex, I was stopped by another red light. My forearm was throbbing where that thing had cut it. The vet had cleaned and wrapped it for me because he didn't want it to get infected. I had music

playing as a distraction, but it seemed to be playing far away, as if I was hearing it through a veil curtain. My eyesight also began to blur from the tears that were starting again. That was when I first saw it in the rearview mirror, a dark figure standing behind my car. It seemed too tall, and the head was odd-shaped. I wiped the tears from my eyes and turned around to look over my shoulder. Of course, it was gone. I looked around trying to see if it was somewhere else outside my car, and I couldn't see the figure anywhere. In my mind, I pictured him crouched somewhere outside of my car just out of view. Then again, after the night that I was having, the figure could have just been in my imagination.

The light turned green, so I continued toward home. I hit the remote that opened the gate to the apartments. The street and parking lot lights seemed darker than normal. They were on, but the area seemed dim. As I turned into the apartment driveway, my headlights flashed across another figure. It looked like the same figure. There was no way it could have gotten to the edge of the driveway before I did. Even though the lights were on this figure for a brief moment, I was able to see more details.

It was wearing a cloak that was closed in the front, covering its body. And it was wearing a mask on its head that looked like a goat head with oddly twisted. horns. I drove through the gate and across the parking lot quickly as I picked up my phone from the cup holder at a ben-in. I was watching the gate in the rearview mirror to see if the figure came in the gate before it closed. My car lurched over a speed bump that I'd forgotten was there. My phone fell from my hand to the passenger floorboard. I tried to pick it up, but it was just out of reach unless I gave up control of the car. I looked back up to the rearview mirror and the gate was already closed.

I looked back over my shoulder to try to see where the figure was. I couldn't quite tell if the shadow outside of the gate was it, but I didn't see it anywhere inside the gate. I reached my parking space as fast as I could and parked, then picked my phone up. I dialed 911 as I opened my door. The interior of the car lit up, and I saw something behind me in the rearview mirror.

It was the goat head. I burst out of the car looking back, over my shoulder as I ran for the apartment stairs. The driver's side door hung open, so the interior light was still on. The figure was just sitting there in the back seat not moving at all. How had it gotten there? I ran up the stairs as fast as I could. My keys were in my hand so I was able to unlock the door and get inside quickly. I slammed the door shut and locked it. Then looked down at the phone in my hand and realized I hadn't pushed the call button. I tapped it now as I took a few steps to the living room and brought the phone to my ear.

All of the apartment lights were off, so I turned the living room lights on. The Fear Vault box was still sitting on the coffee table, but the lid was closed. I knew I hadn't closed it because I had run out too fast. I also hadn't turned off the light. The 911 operator answered, and I told him that someone had followed me home, and had been in the backseat of my car. I tried to explain the events of the night, even though I still didn't fully understand them.

I was pacing back and forth in the living room as I talked, and I heard a door open behind me. I screamed and turned to see why the door was opening as I backed toward the front door. It was Rachel. What's wrong? Her eyes were wide with surprise. Why are you crying?

I was so confused. Rachel was in her sleep tank top and shorts. What are you doing here? I asked through the hand that was covering my mouth. I got home earlier than I planned. What's wrong? What's going on? She had already made it across the room and was reaching for me.

The 911 operator was asking who I was talking to, and if the person who followed me home had gotten inside. I told him that it was my roommate, and he said a unit was on the way to make sure everything was okay. He said he would stay on the phone until they got there. Rachel hugged me the best she could while I held the phone to my ear. I couldn't control my emotions anymore. My body shook as I sobbed into her shoulder.

It's okay, Rachel rubbed my head around my ponytail. It'll be all right. Then, my bedroom door swung open. I looked over Rachel's shoulder to see the figure in the doorway of my room. The goathead mask looked as if it had been an actual goathead that had been severed and hollowed out to be used as a mask. Thick blood had coagulated around the edges of the neck and soaked the top of the dark cloak that hung around its body. The head had two sets of horns. One set that stuck straight out to both sides, and the other set twisted at odd angles back around toward each other.

It raised two claws out toward us. I screamed and pulled away from Rachel. she turned to see what was behind her. The figure moved too fast for us to react. It seemed to glide instead of run. It grabbed Rachel around the waist with one arm and grasped her hair in its other cloth. She screamed and struggled.

She hadn't had time to see what had a hold of her. And the confusion showed on her face. The kitchen was separated from the living room by a counter that was behind the couch. I grabbed a knife from the knife block on the counter and rushed toward the figure and Rachel. I slashed it against the arm that was around her waist, and the figure loosened its grip enough for her to get her body free. Let her go! I screamed, slashing the knife at the same arm because it was the closest thing to me. Rachel tried to twist away from it, but it still held a clawful of her hair.

The figure pulled her to the side by her hair, whipping her against the. The wall? This made an opening where I could stab the knife into the center of its body. It let out a sound that almost immobilized me. I don't even know how to describe it other than it seemed to fill my mind and started to numb my senses. I was barely able to break free of the deadening sound, letting go of the knife and leaving it protruding from the figure. I wrapped my arms around Rachel. She was no longer screaming and felt limp in my arms. I put one leg against the figure and leaned back trying to pull her free from the figure's grip. It didn't seem to be working at first.

And then she came free. We fell to the ground in front of the thing. Rachel was on top of me, not moving. Get away from us! I yelled, seeing that the creature still held the clawful of her hair that had torn free. leaving a small clump of bloody flesh still attached. I tried to roll Rachel to the side, but the figure sank a claw into her back and pulled her from me.

It tossed her to the other side of the living room where she fell in a heap on the floor. The smell of rotten meat came from the creature as it slowly moved toward me. I got to my feet and sprinted the few feet to the front door. As I unlocked the door, the figure made the same, paralyzing sound from before, causing me to halt and drop to my knees. I couldn't seem to do anything except for wait for whatever vile thing it had in store for me

as the edges of my vision started to blur. Then I heard banging, coming from the other side of the door. It swung open, barely missing me, and two police officers entered with their guns drawn. I slipped into darkness. Later, after waking up in the hospital, I was told that the police officers could tell there had been a struggle, but hadn't found anyone in our apartment except for Rachel and me. They believed that they had scared off whoever it was. Rachel was alive, but her legs were paralyzed from having part of her spine severed. Overall, I was okay. I had fainted from over-exertion and anxiety, but other than the cut on my arm had no other physical injuries. However, after his few days of trying to recover, I lost Brewster.

I'm heartbroken. I had tried to move back in with my parents since we had to give up the apartment. It triggered too many emotions in me, and Rachel had to relearn how to function without the use of her legs. The incident happened a month ago, and I figured it was all over. There haven't been any other occurrences since that night. That was until I received the alert that $13 had come out of my bank account. Because of all the recent changes, I had forgotten about the automatic renewal for Fear Vault.

I cannot find any information about Fear Vault online anywhere. There is no contact information so I can cancel. There is no trace of the site that I visited in my Google history. The police were also unable to find anything about Fear Vault. other than the box that had come, the automatic payment transaction history, I had no proof that it existed. Even the account the payment went to was untraceable.

The only thing I could do was have the bank cancel the payment. Of course, that would take two to four business days. When I received a text a few hours ago, I knew it was too late. The text came from a phone number that read, possibly Fear Vault. I didn't want to open the text, but I wanted to see if I could cancel somehow.

So I did. That was a mistake. The text message was a video. I pushed the triangle in the middle of the video to play it, and saw my dad, tied to a chair in a dark room that looked like it was in some abandoned building. The video slowly zoomed into my dad.

He was soaked with sweat and crying. There was some sort of contraption attached to his neck and chin. It had a slow-moving drill protruding from it that pointed down. He looked exhausted, and his head started to dip down. This allowed the drill to begin drilling into his chest. The drill bit looked long enough to pierce his heart if his head went all the way down. I saw the pain on his face as he did. jerked his head back up screaming. The video ended. A text message then popped up that read,

instructions to follow. I have been helplessly waiting for those instructions. All I can think about are the different torments that my father may be going through if he survived the drill. I don't know how much time I have. I don't know if I stopped the subscription by canceling the payment. I don't know if I will continue to be tortured every month. All I know is that you must not subscribe to Fear Vault. It is evil. He presents. Rustling in the Dark.

Written by John Edcock. A sound disturbed Russell's sleep. And like a swimmer surfacing in an ocean of molasses, he slowly woke. He passed out at his desk. head across his arms, and the first thing he was aware of was how stiff and sore his neck was. The second thing was that the room was pitch black. He woke the rest of the way with a start and knocked over the empty bottle of bourbon as he lunged for the lamp on his desk. Swearing softly, his urgency grew as the lamp clicked impotently without turning on.

He inked open his bottom desk drawer and, pulled out a flashlight. Darkness filled the room to its brim. It was a thick, smothering blanket, pressing down all around him as he fumbled with the flashlight. The switch was sticking like it was resisting the light. The beam finally lanced outwards, illuminating the dingy office of the prefab.

It revealed the chipped paint on the walls, the worn-out furniture, and the dirt and grime on everything. He played the light around the room. The squat shape in the corner was just a file cabinet, and the figure against the far wall was only the coat rack. A faint sound came from the area in front of his desk. He slowly leaned across it and pointed the flashlight at the floor.

Bear, his German Shepherd, stared up at him. Nearby was a pile of feces. He remembered opening the bourbon a few. hours after breakfast. Sorry, boy, he said, pulling some paper from his printer tray to clean up the mess. Bear made the noise again. It was a low growl, the sound reverberating in the silent office. The dog was tensely staring at the office door, raising his hackles and scooting backward.

Russell stopped and listened carefully. Was there a scrabbling just outside the door? Coop, that you? Russell slid open his top drawer and removed the Desert Eagle. Its weight was comforting in his hand. Cooper? He strained his ears, trying to discern any sound from the corridor. He laid the flashlight on the desk, its beam pointed at the door,

and walked as quietly as possible across. the room. Russell paused with his hand on the doorknob and then he inked the door open. The gun outstretched and ready. The doorway and corridor were empty. Cope, you in here? He called down the corridor. The generator's out again. When no one answered, he returned to get the flashlight and called bare to him. He took the eagle's holster from his bottom drawer and strapped it on. Before leaving the office, he dry swallow through Advil to help with the hangover. This was the lumber camp's administrative building,

a decrepit structure nestled in the heart of it dense old-growth forest. The building was a single-story prefab, its walls of faded shade of green, and the windows were grimy, letting it only a fraction of the moonlight. Along the corridor were two other offices besides his and coops. All were empty.

The dim light from the flashlight revealed to rickety desks and the papers stacked on them. There were no background noises with generator out, and an eerie silence, as thick as the darkness, hung in the air. It was quiet as a tomb. The only sounds were his heavy footfalls and the softer padding of bare at his side. The silence was so profound that it seemed to have a dense, weight, pressing down on Russell and Bear, making every sound they made seemed amplified and intrusive. Once outside, he sat on the steps to clear his head and let the Advil kick in. Bear settled uneasily at his side. The moon hung low in the night sky. A breeze twisted and wound

its way through the camp, and it felt good after the stuffy closeness of the offices. His body felt sluggish, and his mind was clouded with remnants of the previous days drinking. He vaguely remembered that a sound had awakened him, but he wasn't sure what had it been. Maybe it had just been bare, he thought. Russell was the camp's operation manager. He was over six feet, with a shaved head, a full sleep of tattoos on his right arm, and a physique that had once been muscular and hard, but age and heavy drinking had reduced it to flap and soft. Speak softly and carry a big gun was one of his favorite jokes.

But he wasn't constitutionally capable of speaking softly. Until now, he hadn't met a situation where bluster and intimidation couldn't get him what he wanted. The camp was a patchwork of light and dark. Here and there the full moon shone through the torn curtain of trees, making small pools of silvery light. The night held the rest of the camp in its embrace, and the darkness was dense and ponderous near the tree line.

It crouched there like a living thing made of midnight and soot, a presence that seemed to be watching, waiting. Russell stared into one of those ebony patches and couldn't shake the feeling that it stared back. The sensation of being watched was palpable, sending shivers down his spine. Cursing softly, he felt ashamed of his earlier panic when he woke in darkness. He was damned if his one take away from this job would be a fear of the dark. Russell rubbed his face and felt the three-day old stubble.

He needed a shave, and a shower, he thought, as he caught his booze and stale sweat, funk. A three-day bender will do that. He'd been drinking ever since he got the email from corporate putting him on a 30-day notice. 30 days, well, 27 days now to turn things around, or he was out of a job. 27 days, with no crew and broke down equipment to get the operation to full capacity. It would be hard to achieve under the best of circumstances, and this wasn't the best. The whole thing had been a shit show from the beginning. Growing up, the locals have been fed too many scary bedtime stories about the forest to want to work in it.

Russell had to import his workers, which became a revolving door as most quit after a month or two, troubled by the number of accidents or frustrated by the amount of downtime due to breakdowns. The last of the workers had quit last week, leaving only Russell and a few admin staff left. This was supposed to be the job where he would shine. the one that would get him that coveted promotion to some cushy corporate gig. Instead, he would be unemployed at the end of the month. His head throbbed slightly less, and he decided to check the generator before trying to get some sleep. He'd have coop work on it in the morning if he couldn't get it going.

Bear walked behind him as he made his way through the camp. The heavy equipment area was nearby. The harvesters, fell her bungee. And skitters sat in deep shadow, their silhouettes making them look like slumbering prehistoric beasts. Most of that were inoperable. Some forest firmen kept getting into the engines. They had set traps, strung up floodlights, and even posted guards.

But there were severed wires and chewed through hoses every morning. His fear of the dark was something new. But after the camp had been set up, Russell entered the forest one morning, determined to bring back a deer or wild boar to barbecue for the crew. He had walked for miles in an unsuccessful hunt for game. Everything had been quiet and still, unnervingly so. There wasn't even the sound of birds. After several hours, he gave up in frustration and turned back.

He had a compass and had marked his path with trail tape. but became hopelessly lost after a short time. When night fell, he walked through the dense forest with only his phone's flashlight lighting his way, a rustling in the dark around him as if he were being stalked. The light finally died, and he panicked, running recklessly through the trees, branches grabbed at him,

and the sounds in the underbrush increased. He stumbled into a small clearing and waited for dawn to break. shivering for more than just the chill in the night air. The thin light from the crescent moon drifted down around him. It illuminated the clearing but failed to penetrate the surrounding forest and its underbrush. The rustlings grew more intense and he could almost make out faint whispering sounds. It felt like a thousand eyes were watching him. He hadn't entered the forest after dark since.

And now, slept with the lights on. There was a faint banging from the shed. The door wasn't completely closed, and the breeze made it strike the doorframe repeatedly. Russell unholstered his gun and entered the shed cautiously, his flashlight sweeping over the barrels of diesel fuel stored throughout the front half. In the light, a spider web in the corner glistened like a scrap of lace made from starlight. The generator was behind what should have been a locked metal cage. The door to the enclosure was wide open, the padlock in pieces on the ground. The generator had been reduced to a pile of scrap metal.

A ball-peen hammer lay on the ground among the pieces of glass, metal, and torn out wires. He knelt and picked up the hammer, a smile slowly forming despite the white-hot fury welling up within him. There was nothing supernatural about this. This wasn't the work of some forest, gremlin. It was brute force. And Russell understood that very well. A town here disgruntled ex-employed entered the camp to fuck with him. To fuck with him.

They might have walked here, but they were leaving on a stretcher. He stood up, slipped the hammer under the holster strap opposite the gun, and went to look for him. Bear wasn't in sight. He called the dog's name and heard a faint wine beneath... He called the dog's name and heard a faint wine beneath the stairs. Cursing softly, Russell crouched and shine the light into the crawl space under the shed. Bear was huddled several feet away.

Russell grabbed at the dog's collar to drag him out, but Bear scooted further back, whimpering as he stayed out of Russell's reach. Damn it, Bear, come here! He hissed in frustration. The dog refused to move, and Russell finally gave up. Standing near the stairs, he steled himself, turned the flashlight off, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark. He took deep, slow breaths as he listened to the pounding of his heart.

Despite the chill in the air, sweat trickled down his back. As he stared out into the camp, The feeling of being watched grew more pronounced. The water tower loomed nearby, towering over everything as if it were one of the old-growth trees from the forest. A shadow separated from the umbra at the tower's base and ran towards the living areas. The bunk houses were in staggered rows, and the figure disappeared among them. Got you, asshole! Russell thought as he ran after it.

When he reached the admin's sleeping quarters, Russell pounded on the side of the building. Cope! Andy! Someone's in the camp! Montoya, I need some help! He pounded on the wall several more times and still got no response. Everyone had been hitting the bottle heavily, and Russell figured they were all passed out in their bunks. He turned the flashlight on and walked slowly along the rows, shining the light into the raven dark spaces between the bunkhouses. The camp was quiet.

The only sounds were the rustling of branches, the flapping of the tarps tied over some equipment, and a faint chittering from the forest. It was probably the vermin that kept getting into the engines. A sudden grating protest from a rusty hinge could be heard close by. He found the door at the end of the bunkhouse ajar. its hinge loudly complained as Russell pulled it open and entered. The room smelled of mildew, unwashed bedding, and a faint musky animal odor.

He shined the light around the room. There were five beds along each side of the room. Tattered curtains hung wimply from rusty rods above the two windows. The headboard of the nearest bed had cursed words in both English and Spanish carved into it. If you're in here, just give yourself. up. Russell called out. The more you piss me off, the worse it'll be for you. He walked the room length, aiming the light at the rafters overhead, then kneeling and directing

it at the spaces under the beds. All were empty. A large messy pile of bedding was at the far end of the room. He stood near it, reached out afoot, and methodically pressed down to see if someone was hiding under it before he checked the nearby storage closet. While he was doing that, the closet door hit him on the right side when it flew open. Russell fell across the nearest bed, his gun and flashlight skittering away. As he scrambled for the gun, running reverberated through the bunkhouse. He found his weapon, looked up, and saw a figure silhouetted in the doorway. It was small and slight.

By some trick of the moonlight, it looked misshapen. It was gone by the time Russell was. was able to raise his gun. He grabbed a flashlight and chased after it. The side of his face felt wet. He brushed the hand holding the gun across it. The back of his hand was covered in blood when it came away. His query was about to find out the meaning of the expression, payback is a bitch. The outhouses were nearby, almost at the edge of camp in the forest pressed close around them. The trees were soaked in shadow and darkness. The tendrils of mist curling around the ones further back, sheltered from the breeze.

The sound of someone running through the underbrush was clear, and, to his credit, Russell only paused briefly before he entered the forest in pursuit. The sounds led him deeper and deeper into the forest, and he followed them, driven by a white-hot rage and the desire to inflict some damage. At first it seemed like the trees were resisting him. and he had to push through them and was soon covered in scratches that bled freely. Eventually it became easier, and the sounds from the underbrush got closer. Russell was gaining on him.

He broke through the tree line and entered a large clearing. It was one of the areas they had harvested before everything went to hell. Three saplings were in the middle, surrounded by the stumps of harvested trees. Each was around six feet tall, with three spindly branches reaching toward an autumn moon that hung over the clearing like a tarnished coin. Russell dropped to his knees when he got close enough to see what they were. Coop, Andy, and Montoya stood before him. Each had vines as thick as boa constrictors wrapped around them, holding them in place. Their heads were thrown back, and a gnarled branch grew out of the same.

their mouths. Coop was the closest to him. His eyes were filled with horror and pleading, tears coursing down his face. There was a rustling in the darkness of the forest. Thin, slight, and distorted shapes came into the clearing and began surrounding him. He now knew what sound had awakened him. It had been screams. Creepy presents, calcium, written by Jacob Stephen Moore and narrated by Owen McKeown. Caleb, if you're watching all this, if you're listening, my dad's opening my mail again. I come downstairs and it's on the Formica coffee table, arranged neatly like it's been filed there. Three envelopes, bellies slit open, their guts stacked beside them, still folded.

Dear old dad's in the kitchen. He's doing the crossword, humming high up in his nose. He doesn't look up when I get to the living room, but I know he hears my bare foot on that one creaky stare at the bottom because his shoulders go tense, tight and huge across the back of that baby blue button down. I scoop up the carnage and slither to the kitchen. Don't say anything. Just hold the mail in my hand angled toward him.

I want him to know. That I see him, what he's doing, what he's been doing, like rubbing a dog's nose in its own filth. But dear old dad won't even cough. It's Saturday, but he's got a tie on anyhow, the solid red one with the gold stripe right at the tip. You remember that tie, Caleb? You loathe what we did with that tie. I break the silence.

I ask if any packages came for me. He finally turns his expression like sanded wood, and asks if I'm expecting something. I lie, saying no, just checking. He says if a package arrives, he'll look out for it. There's a shrug in his voice, but I hear craft beneath it. It's a game we're playing. His eyes glitter like dull crystals behind the mask of his glasses.

His lips are a pale pink crease. I rummage in the fridge, leaving dear old dad to his two downs and five acrosses. One quick slug from the milk carton, and I'm ready to slink back upstairs. I'm not hungry these days. Not since the night in the park. But when I turn to go, I hear him say there's a little sausage left in the pan. He can reheat it for me if I want. Somehow the thought of meat gets me salivating.

I scoop the lengths off the skillet bare-handed, shovel them into my mouth cold. They're burned, caked with dried grease. They taste like cool early morning. They taste like rushing out to meet the school bus. They taste like frost on weedy grass. I eat six of them and wipe my mouth. You opened my mail. It's an easy serve.

Dear old dad slaps it down without effort. My mistake, I'll do better. Then I'm heading back upstairs, finding the squeaking step at the bottom and grinding it under the ball of my foot until it shrieks. The sheen of the gold stripe on dear old dad, Tad's tie catches the light as I ascend, like a gold tooth in the back of a smile. I wave away your whispers, your urgent accusations.

You loved what I did to you with that tie. The boxes started coming middle of June, one week after Cabrini Park. And you managed it so cleverly, Caleb, right from the beginning, nondescript of brown parcels, packing peanuts, brimming inside, just enough of a scribble on the return label that it looks like somebody tried. But you always did this so dexterously. Secrets. Subterfuge. I can't pretend I'm surprised.

Wednesday. The first delivery is up on the townhouse stoop when I get off work at the butcher shop in that small hour of solitude I get before dear old dad drives up from his office job. I kick it with a toe. It rattles. a muffled styrofoamy sound. It's as big as a carry-on suitcase, just big enough to fill my arms when I haul it inside. Already I know better than to open it at the kitchen table.

Up the stairs on the bed with a woof sound. It's not heavy, but its weight still presses a dent in the mattress. My keys tear packing tape away and thin curling strips until the box, the gift, your gift, opens up like a bloom. Then I'm rooting blindly in the styrofoam peanuts until my fingernail scrape something rough and solid. I wrap my hand around a long, rigid shaft. I pull a femur, a man's femur, picked clean, bleached, sugar white, 100% human. I dump the box and do inventory.

One femur plus three bones in the right foot, two vertebrae, four ribs, and one guitar pick-shaped kneecap. They lay in a rough semi-circle. Can you complete this picture? But none of the pieces can act. The foot bones rattle in my hand like dice when I scoop them up. I fidget them, rub them together, their texture catches on the callus at the base of each finger.

Somehow the grisly truth of what I'm holding eludes me. They aren't a skeleton, after all, not a framework for muscle and skin and organs and yards and yards of capillaries. They aren't pieces of a human. They are only themselves. They are only bones. Dear old dad's key, struggling with the lock downstairs. I shoved the bones back in their box,

scrape the packing peanuts off the floor, and pile them on top. Then the whole thing's crammed in the bottom of my closet, covered by dirty clothes, and the door is shut tight. And yes, I can hear you already, Caleb. Your whisper tickling the hairs above my ears. Not words yet, but just your shuddering breath, just on the edge of uncontroll. The end of one thing, the start of another. But when dear old dad's heavy footsteps stop at my door, my heart rate doesn't flicker.

Why should it? I wrestle a laugh. There's no skeletons in my closet. Not yet, not quite. Think about hostage situations, Caleb. Deadlocks, log jams. Dear old dad fingering through my junk mail, my garbage, peering at my laptop when an alert goes across the screen.

Being so fucking attentive. I swear he's been on my laptop, even though I bring it with me whenever I leave the house, even though I scramble the password once a week. I pretend to care. so he feels engaged, so he looks where I want him looking. It was the pig who started it. This is him, barrel-chested and corn-fed tall, like a cartoon cop should look, leaning on the railing of the stoop when I opened the door,

like he's been there the whole fucking time. Uniform blue as the sky. His smiles tight and practiced, but my eyes drift again and again to the metal heft of his gun. I'm always flabbergasted at just how high they wear them, their pieces, how obvious they are, nestled snug against thick pig stomachs. He's looking for Eddie Rafferty, asking if he's in. That's my dad, I tell him. When the cop talks, I count all of his teeth, like he's a ventriloquist dummy with a loose hinge jaw. He's at work.

The cop looks down like he's consulting a clipboard, but there's nothing in his hands. The big fake smile doesn't drop a centimeter. He apologizes and said that he meant Eddie Jr. He eyes me curiously. I shrug. A bright pig. I try not to show the jolt on my face. Sure.

Okay. From there, it's all the questions I'd rehearsed for. About that week in June. About you. When had I seen you last? Where were we? what were we doing, who else was there. What was our relationship to each other?

You'd have been relieved, Caleb, and how easily the lie flows off my tongue. School friends, teammates, nothing salacious to get his pig blood pumping. Nothing of the truth. Nothing of the real you, the real me. He doesn't write any of it down. I picture him in the cruiser later,

mumbling into a tape recorder or scribbling notes in a spiral-bound book, too tiny for his farm-raised paws. After it's all done, he whips a card from his chest pocket and waggles it under my nose. He tells me, if I think of anything else, he'll be in touch. He's searching my face, looking for whatever guilt looks like on a face. But I'm thinking beautiful thoughts. How the late sun poured over the sloping dam wall. The cool, dark gray of the lake's flashing surface. The red tie, almost purple in the deepening twilight. I take the card and smile so wide my cheeks hurt. I just hope he's all right. Surely he'll leave then, but no. He lingers, just watching me. My nerves scream to sink back into the house,

into the comfort of behind closed doors. But I won't retreat. I let him stare into. I let him stare into me, even though the sun's behind him, pinging off car windshields in the parking lot and knifing my eyes. I hold my ground. Then he asked me one more thing. He asks if Caleb is seeing anyone, a girlfriend he should talk to. That's when dear old dad comes up the walk. I don't know what he sees on my face, what he thinks he sees. But our eyes lock, and there's a hint of light in his, some animal intelligence I've never spotted there before. The cop leaves without an answer, lifting his chin as dear old dad waddles past. And I'm up in my room.

Music turned way up, lights turned way down. The sullen hormonal teen. I slip it on like a Halloween costume. I ignore his first knock and the second. But I know. This new paradigm, this top-to-bottom reorganization of the world, They won't be ignored. And when the intrusions start, the snooping, the sudden interest in my daily banal thoughts,

my fucking feelings, I know. He's a dog with a raw high bone, my dear old dad, and he'll chew and chew until he's chewed my whole life to bits. He won't ask the question. He doesn't talk about you. He wouldn't dare. So it's a staring contest we pretend we're not having. A comfortable stalemate.

For a while. But bathwater grows cold, coma patients get bed sores, anything can become intolerable, even a loving father who just wants to know how you're doing. Anything dissolves if you wait long enough. But we don't have to wait. We figured it out. How to bust a stalemate wide open. Didn't we, Caleb?

In my mind, it's still June, still dead dog summer. But the cop got his dates wrong. Late May was the last time anybody really saw you, Caleb. That night in the park, you were already gone. I hear you before I see you, coming up the long stone steps, cresting the damn wall. I catch your sneakers scraping the greenway cement under the scream of cicadas. Then you're there, a wash in muddy yellow streetlight,

waving mosquitoes out of your face. I swear you never looked better than that. Just a distant, uncertain shape, almost glowing, almost heavenly, not seeing me, never really seeing me. Ed? You hear? You look right and left, like a kid crossing the street. Then, completely oblivious, you start slowly towards me along the dam. I'm thinking about that last text again, Caleb. But really, I'm thinking about the spaces in between your texts, between calls and late-night encounters. Time engorging, filling empty nothing with itself, forcing me to plug gaps I never agreed to fill.

I tried returning space for space. But by the time I read, I want to talk face to face, there was nothing left worth saying. I texted back Saturday, midnight, Cabrini Park. My mind already made up solid. And now you're closer, so close I can see you sweat and hear you breathe. Even in the dark, it's too hot. Under the hot park lights, your face glistens like the surface of a lake, a dozen yards below us. Beads of perspiration marble your cheeks.

Here in hiding, my underarms and ass crack are swamps. The bugs are maddening. But I lie still. I let you come. Because listening to you breathe, nervous and flighty like you've got precognition, like you've seen all this happen before, I can tell already what you want to say. They won't be your words.

They'll be your mommy dearest, your dear old dads. They'll come from counselor Rick at school or your fucking priest. Or a lorry on the swim team who thinks I don't see her ass glancing when you heave out of the shallow end after the hundred butterfly, slick and shimmering. I know what words they slipped between your lips. I've got my answer ready. You pause, so close I could reach out, unknock the laces on your sneakers. Your breath catches. You're a deer scenting the air. You whisper my name to nothing, to nobody. Your phone, clutched in one clammy hand, goes up to your ear.

I don't know who you were going to call. It doesn't matter who. I'm rising up out of the grass. My blood is ocean waves in my ears between the echoing walls of my skull. You're turning toward me, slack-jawed, and the red tie is in my hand, and you're kissing it now, sucking it now, choking on it, gagging for it.

You love it. You love me. Not the first time and not the last. Clattering in my closet in the cramp of darkness. The muffled jangle of cardboard and long bones. It shakes the bifold door on its rolling rack. I know the gifts are yours. I always knew.

You were never hard to read. After July, the deliveries are biweekly. Small or large, heavier light, long and skinny or breadbox, squarish, always full of bones. Your bones. You gift me your tibias, your scapulas, your metatarsals. I assemble a xylophone of ribs, the minute machinery of your inner ears. You send your slack lower jaw shorn of teeth. Then, next week, a box with a baggie full of clicking yellow molars.

When your upper skull shows up four days later, I join it with its mandible, fitting your teeth into their grooves like pieces of a jigsaw. Your face reformed, I pressed your bared grin to my lips. I take you back. I accept your apology. When people say sins of the flesh, they mean meat, soft tissue, skin, tongues, genitals. We discover, together, the unyielding sensuality of bone. Now I sleep with a long, tapering fibula under my pillow.

I knit your right-hand bones together. I know their grip, gentle or demanding, across every inch of myself. Your skull leers from its shelf in the closet, gleefully watching. No eyelids. You can't take your eyes off me. I started folding my shirts to stow in dresser drawers. The boxes fill my closet, piled teeteringly high. Sometimes I consider consolidating,

picking one big package, filling it with all the pieces of you, crushing down the rest and hucking them in the basement behind the furnace. But I resist temptation. Every night I hear that clack, clack, clack like wind chimes. I don't think in numbers of bones anymore. I think of protein, collagen, and minerals. I think in ounces of calcium. I think of my father taking bolt cutters to the bike lock on the closet door,

you spilling out in pieces like dice across the floor. Or not in pieces at all. You, standing just on the other side of that door. Not with a skeleton's grin, but a blank all-to-snear. I know your gift is an apology, Caleb. But your whispers still accuse me, still molest me, still point bony fingers while your real finger bones snap and tumble in a shoebox. I ignore them, unless I want your hot breath on my shoulder. We don't need to talk.

Our relationship is completely physical now, see-through and open. It's enough. It's what we want. From that grin, I'd say we've never been happier. Then I come home from work and my bedroom doors off its hinges. Dear old dad. He knows. Thinks he knows.

It doesn't matter which. He's squatting near the open door frame, showing ass crack to the landing and stairs. His toolbox yawns behind him, jaw unjointed. His fingers are black with grease to the knuckle. The door is leaning against the wall by the bathroom. My bedroom light is on, and the ceiling fan is twirling. The closet door is just cracked in spite of the lock. What the fuck is this?

Dear old dad hears me come up, but he won't turn to look. He asks me not to swear. My fucking door's gone. My face feels stretched tight, flat on my skull. He forces a smile as if we're sharing a joke and asks if I want to help. I stare at him until he meets my gaze. His face is steak pink with exertion, but there's a deeper kind of fatigue underneath the glare of his work goggles. He says the door's been rattling in the frame, says it's keeping him up at night.

A lie, but a good one. I wonder when he got so good at it. Bullshit. But maybe it's not. I work a little cheek flesh between my top and bottom rows of teeth. How long? He shrugs. Could be a big job, he says.

Might need to reframe the whole door. Could be a week, maybe more. Dear old dad heaves to his feet. I remember him taller than me, but despite his bulk, he seems shrunken, diminished. Skeletal. He asked me if I want to talk. I'm busy. But it's like all the heat's been sucked out of my lungs.

I brushed past him into the... the room, but without the door, there's no finality to it. I'm a raw nerve end now. I'm exposed. Dear old dad stares at me through the doorway. He's an old man, hardly even there. Then he huffs his tools and lumbers away. I flop back on the bed, glaring at the fan. My energy spent. Round and around the world spins. I can hear dear old dad's boots treading down the stairs, avoiding the creaky step at the bottom, but still waking the dead. I hear his grunting breaths, his heavy hand on the rail. Then nothing.

I don't know how long I lie there before that last box catches my eye. Low and flat, like the very first, lying by the far corner of the closet door. I spring up from the mattress. The packing tapes torn cleanly with a kitchen knife or a box cutter, the cardboard flaps hanging slightly open. But the contents are undisturbed. I'm not breathing. I'm prying the flaps apart,

scattering styrofoam-like flower petals. And it, you, the last sculpted piece of you, seems to catapult into my hand. It's even already assembled. Your pelvis, Kalem. Hip bones and coxics and tailbone heavy in my hands and so warm, almost throbbing. And suddenly the closet door is thundering, wheel track loose and rattling,

shaking to pieces like your fists are smashing against it from the inside. You whisper. I lean back into you, shuddering. Your embrace is rigid, adamant. Your arms wrap around my shoulders. Humorai, radii, ulna. Lipless jaws scrape my. cheek, ribs invade my spine. You shouldn't be standing, your hips, your center, all still clutched

in my hands, but your voice, whistling between unmoving teeth, reminds me not to think of numbers of bones. Think instead of transformation, of renovation, of climax. Dear old dad calls up the stairs asking if I'm coming down. The end of one thing. The start of another. Caleb, if you can hear me, if you were ever really here, we're creeping down on sock feet. Your fingers dig under my collarbone. Your infernal breath moves the small hairs on my neck. We're one entity now. Skin across muscle across the bone. Our hips brush the railing. Our feet missed that one creaking stare before the bottom. Dear old dad in the kitchen again, everything repeats. He asks if I'm hungry without turning.

We're behind him in the den, slinking forward an exaggerated tiptoe. He shouldn't hear us. We're so quiet, so insubstantial, our feet don't even touch the vinyl plank floor. But he does, because his shoulders go tight across the back under his wife-beater, under the tight pale skin. His work goggles perch on his head. I imagine them filmed with sweat on the inside, the lens. is frosted. He turns, not enough, like a dog cocking its head. He asks me if I'm ready. He'd really like to talk. Then he loses steam and deflates. Like you did. On the table stands a

cup of milk half drunk. His fingers flutter, but don't touch it. Even the glass is sweating in this heat. He looks down as he tells me that he never said nothing about me. He, he Even when the cops came to the office, you press into me from behind. Your ribs yawn wide, puncturing my flanks and sliding beneath the skin. Now that rattle, that clack, clack, quiver inside me. You stretch me from within, filling me out, forcing me forward. He insists that I'm his son no matter what. Your pelvis is heavy and sharp in my hands, heavier than it looks.

22 pounds of bone in all. The sacrum, the pubic arch, the narrow blade of the coxics pointed down at dear old dad's bent forward neck. Protein, collagen, minerals. Calcium. A whisper of love hangs in the air, faint and uncertain, barely audible. I love you, dear old dad says. You know that, don't you? I do. And if he'd turned, if he'd just looked at me, it might have been different.

Then the room's just us. No telling where your bones stop and mine start. You're in me, pressed up against me, your chin digs against the hollow of my neck. I'm fishing in my pocket, finding that little blue card that's got the pig's name and serial number. I feel your jaw hinge open. I feed the cardboard between your teeth, listening as you chew it to pulp. The end of one thing. The start of another. And another.

And another. Fiber coats my tongue. Nobody would ever believe it anyway. Creepy Presents Kierkegram. Written by Danny Chase, and narrated by Nicole Goodnight. Mallory had a little brother for a while. She remembered him as a grasping, sticky thing

with fat fingers that were always wet. He loved her, she supposed. He always wanted to hold her hand, sit in her lap, press his warm, sweaty little body against her, dampening her clothes, slicking her skin. Joseph drowned at the age of six. It was an accident.

Mallory was nine. Too young to do it on purpose, but it laid the groundwork for everything that came after, because the absence of Joseph was a cool, breezy thing. Without him always grabbing her, Mallory could feel the rest of the world, the wind against her skin, the rough fabric of the couch cushions all to herself, the cold shock of ice and lemonade she didn't have to share. Mallory ran a boarding house, all starched linens and intricate lace with a bedroom upstairs for herself and three downstairs for ladies of good repute in need of an affordable place to live.

Mallory doaded on them, really. Everyone knew that. They were like her own sisters, or, as Mallory grew older, her daughters. When one got sick, everyone was grateful Mallory was there to tend to them. She would stand in the doorway to the bedroom with full compassion, watching the poor young ladies waste away, soothing them with her voice. It was all too easy, until Annette. Annette had dark hair that curled up slightly at the ends, bright blue eyes and the manner of a girl just reaching adulthood, shy, idolistic, credulous. In that, she was no different than the dozens of other young women who had passed through the boarding house, whether they left by foot or a funeral home. But the moment Annette walked into the parlor, Mallory caught sight of something alarming. Just above Annette's right wrist, there was a glob of red jam.

Mallory found herself unable to look away from it to the point where Annette noticed her staring. The girl blushed red and then shockingly stuck out her tongue and licked up the jam, leaving her wrist glistening with saliva, and, Mallory guessed, still sticky. It was unlucky for Mallory that she was so distracted by Annette's messy habits as a tenant that she failed to notice one other major difference between Annette and the other women that Mallory had killed.

Because, of course, Annette had been destined for the grave as soon as she licked up the jam on her wrist. Annette was, it turned out, quite unexpectedly intelligent. She alone guessed that the source of her continued illness was not some unnameable disease, but arsenic. Unfortunately for Annette, she did not discover this fact until it was too late to save her life. Unfortunately for Mallory, Annette made a futile attempt to flee her death

and Mallory's victory on her final night by rushing out of the house into the woods behind the boarding house. Without Annette's body, Mallory could not prove her death, and so would not take ownership of her possessions, or collect the life insurance she had so carefully taken out. Mallory was forced to give chase. It was near midnight, but there was a moon so bright the trees cast shadows. Mallory could hear Annette's ragged breathing and stumbling steps, but the tree branches grasped at Mallory's clothing, scraping her skin, slowing her down. gradually though the noises in front of mallory grew quieter and then there was silence annette had gone but whether she had passed into death or the deeper woods mallory couldn't tell she discovered the truth by tripping over something that gave slightly against her foot and then cushioned the fall she took annette's body mallory's hands held up by instinct to arrest her fall sunk into the damp forest soil

Mallory scrambled up and away from the body, but her skirt caught onto something and she fell again, this time landing next to Annette in the dirt. Their faces were turned towards each other as they lay there, and Mallory could see Annette was dead. She was dead, which made it impossible that the thing holding onto Mallory's skirt was not a tree branch, but Annette's hand. The fingers blanched white with how strongly they gripped. Terror flooded Mallory from her heart to her stomach, and she She wondered if that was how the arsenic felt, invading your body, killing you from the inside. She tore at her skirt, unable to free herself, falling again. She stopped struggling only when she felt Annette's other hand wrap around her wrist.

Annette's dead fingers were sticky with something, forced to damp or possibly the vomit she'd wretched up at the boarding house, her body trying desperately to expel the poison. Mallory lay down on the ground, dry-mouthed and panting, looking to Annette's face once more. Anette's eyes were still fixed in death, but her mouth opened and shut a few times with a smacking sound. Dead lungs forced air through her throat to form two words. Consecrated ground. Mallory began to operate then on two separate levels, even as she screamed internally wanting to tear Annette's hand to ribbons, she rose calmly and picked up the body, cradling it in her arms. Annette was still warm.

The damp tendrils of her black hair stuck to Mallory's neck. There was a churchyard not far from the boarding house, and Mallory walked there by the light of the moon, emerging from the trees with a dead body in her arms that stunk of vomit and sweat. When the low stone wall that bordered the graveyard became visible, Mallory nearly cried with relief. There was no one around, and the wall was short enough for Mallory to reach over. But just as she was about to drop Annette's,

body onto its desired resting place, Mallory heard a deep growling noise. Mallory's mind told her the sound came from a dog, but the shutter that ran through her, leaving her heart racing and her mouth dry, said it was something much worse. Mallory turned her head to see a creature illuminated in the moonlight, standing inside the graveyard with its front feet on the wall. The beast was large and covered in coarse black hair. Clumps of dirt clung to its claws as if it had just dug its way out of a grave. It had a dog's face with bared, yellowed teeth, but its eyes glowed red and orange like flames. It was a Kierkegrim, Mallory realized, a spectral black dog that guarded the graveyard against intruders, including the unconsecrated dead who desired entrance. It might have been a real dog at some point,

sacrificed and buried, or something that was never of this earth, arising by instinct where one world abutted another. The clean peace of consecrated ground against the bloody violence of the rubelled. rest of the world. Annette was the unconsecrated dead. Mallory looked around for a weapon and could see nothing, no loose stones or tree branches. Reluctantly, she hugged Annette's body tighter against her chest and turned away from the graveyard, back to the wood. A disappointed moaning sound came out of Annette's dead mouth, and she drooled fluid onto Mallory's chest. Mallory felt wetness on her own cheeks as well, and realized she was crying, holding her dead victim in her arms as if she was a lost lover whom Mallory could not bear to let go.

Mallory didn't even have a hand free to clean her own face. She was barely able to grasp a thick branch and drag it, along with Annette's body, back to the graveyard. Mallory looked grim in the face, fire eyes and pointed teeth, and swung the branch as hard as she could. Her aim was true. She hit the grim in the chest.

It made a yelping sound as its feet lost their grip on the wall, and it fell backwards into the graveyard. Mallory had Annette's body up on the wall with her next breath. the dripping head and shoulders sliding over and into the graveyard. As the body began to fall, Annette's fingers loosened their grip on Mallory's arms. But she didn't reach the ground. Instead, Mallory was startled by an arc of blood splattering a line across her chest, and she realized with a dull horror that it was Annette's blood,

not pumping from her heart, but expelled with such violence that it sprayed Mallory all the same. The Grimm's claws had carved through Annette's neck and shoulder. Mallory cried out in panic and yanked Annette's body back into her. arms. The wound had barely missed Annette's face, and if Annette were to be deformed, there would be no way to prove this was her body. No death certificate would be issued, and no payoff would come. Mallory managed to have to net over her shoulder, cradling her bleeding body protectively against her chest. That freed her right hand, and Mallory began her assault in earnest. The grim matched her attack with its own, growling and whining. Mallory's arms tore beneath its claws, her body wet now

with her own blood. The grim could catch the branch in its teeth, but it was unable to rip it from Mallory's grasp, and it took blow after blow to its face and chest. But it made no difference. No matter how hard Mallory struck how painfully the grim yelped, it showed no sign of damage, because how could you hurt something that was either dead or else had never lived at all? Mallory began to drift away from herself again to a curious place. A dream of death in a cold river, the water would wash everything away, and its blood and vomit, her sticky fingers. But the thought of a net still holding on to Mallory's corpse

was more than Mallory could bear. Salvation came to Mallory on this borderland between killing field and holy ground in the form of a priest, who emerged from the church to investigate the commotion in his graveyard. The battle eased as he came near, and for a moment, the man just stared at the scene, the blood and death and massive growling dog. Please!

Mallory begged. She fell to her knees and Annette's body slid down her shoulder and flopped onto the ground in front of the priest. Her white fingers still clutching tight against Mallory's arm. Absolution, Mallory whispered. The priest's gaze widened, but he knelt in the dirt, murmuring prayers barely audible over the sound of the Grimm's harsh panting and growling on the wall beside them. It seemed very dog-like at that moment, head tilted in a classic pose of canine curiosity. When the priest began to sprinkle holy water over the body, the Grimm ceased its warning snarls.

In a burst of strength, Mallory heaved Annette's body onto the wall, and now the Grimm made no move to stop her. As Annette's body crumpled onto consecrated ground, her fingers loosened on Mallory's arm, one by one. But it happened too slowly to prevent Mallory having to lean over the wall herself, crossing into the graveyard. Mallory didn't understand what had gone so horribly wrong until the grim bared its teeth and lunged for her. Mallory's battle wounds weren't just on her arms, she realized, and they weren't minor cuts.

Her clothing was soaked in blood, and she knew now much of it was her own. Behind Mallory, the priest began hastily reciting prayers for her, but the absolution never came. As Annette's fingers finally let go, the priest reached for Mallory, a gesture of comfort, perhaps. Mallory couldn't bear it. Not one more touch. Not one more awful sweaty hand. She flinched away and the blow from the grim that was meant for her fell onto the priest instead. His throat ripped out by the grim's claws.

The hapless priest fell to the ground, and Mallory landed beside him, both of them soon to be unconsecrated dead, with salvation available only if they would wrap their cold, dead fingers around someone else's arm. 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.