Creepy - Flora & The Fog

Episode Date: September 7, 2023

Flora***Written by: Paul Caseley and Narrated by: Nate DuFort***The Fog***Written by: Juan Cardenas and Narrated by: Alicia Atkins***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***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.

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. Be presents. Flora by Paul Casley. And narrated by Nate Dufort.

The plants around my house sing, or that's what it seems like to me. My family's lived on this same plot of land for generations, and we have farmed it diligently. The family motto's always been that if you look after the land, the land will look after you. To that end, from stonepicking with my father as a child, to tending the fields as an adult, I have worked the land. We grow cash crops, wheat, barley, corn of animal feed, those kinds of things, and as a result, the land had to be maintained and kept up. For 12 generations, we lived on this land and tended it.

My family was fully a part of the land and felt a deep connection to it. some in my family, left it to start their own farms or do something else entirely. But this land was always in our blood. For the last three generations, things became more difficult. It became necessary to find work to augment the farm. My grandfather built cars at a local car factory and tended the farm. My father went to university and became someone who designed those cars and would tend the farm. Now, I am urban planning.

and tend the farm. Yes, I do understand the irony of being an urban planning and not living somewhere urban, but it was always my hope to find a way to bring more of a country feel to the neighborhoods I designed. Once we hit the 21st century, the desire for a back-to-nature feel had grown significantly, and it seemed a perfect calling. What was best was that I could do most of my work at home, and on my own time, and then work the fields. I was putting in the same number of hours as my father and grandfather did, I suppose, but without having to commute quite as much. I know many people are also wondering,

how come you have to do another job when you're farming? The truth is that the small family farms don't stack up financially like they used to. In order to make ends meet and keep the farm, you have to have another place to earn money. About the only way I could make the amount of money needed to search. survive from the farm would be to sell it, and that was not an option. In addition to working off the farm for the last three generations, we had spent at least that long keeping outside interests from buying the farm and turning it into a subdivision

or condominiums or other such foolishness. Our way of procuring and building housing is stupid and short-sighted. Generally, builders find a huge tract of empty and flat land that is a current farm, buy it, and start building on it. This means that those houses, condominiums, apartment buildings, industrial factories, whatever, are all prime growing land, while the land that is less suitable for growing food is sitting empty and vacant. We basically are removing the land to grow food from doing that job and replacing it with nothing, which brings in factory farming that can do more growing on less space, but also cause more food recalls, to contamination. Anyway, my family has no plans to sell, no matter the incentive. This land was always

in our blood. This was something that the developers didn't understand when they came and tried to take our land. It was an early evening. The plants around us had just started their evening song, rustling in the wind in a way that I had never experienced anywhere else. I had my tea in hand and was sitting on the porch when they drove up. First of all, bothering someone after supper is just rude. Secondly, I did not invite these people on my land. When they approached me and tried to talk me into selling my land so they could stick up more cookie-cutter houses, I lost my temper.

The loss of farmland to housing is a blight all over the world. I understand people need places to live, but if we keep building on good growing land, we're going to have a food crisis, mark my words. I very firmly told the gentleman on my porch to leave my land and take his offers with him. I wouldn't be selling. Their response to my refusal, however,

chilled me to the bone, as they informed me they had found a way to get my land one way or another. I couldn't imagine what that could mean or how they could accomplish it, but I vowed the next morning to look into it. As the developer left, the plants around my home began to sway, rubbing together, making a cacophony of noise like I had never heard before. The man shouted back, strong breeze, as he drove away.

I stepped off the porch and looked at my weather vein and noticed it had not moved at all. The next morning, I contacted a friend of mine who was in the town's government, and they did some digging for me. Sure enough, someone had put in a planning proposal to run a highway extension through my farm. It was only at the preliminary stage, but town planning had received a request that morning to start pushing the proposal forward. The town would attempt to buy my family farm, and if I refused to sell, they would take it from me as a necessity to the betterment of the area. It was pretty easy to see the plan from there. The town would acquire the land, but not need at all for

the roadway and would sell the remainder to Mr. Developer. I would lose everything and probably be paid pennies for it. There were steps that had to be done first like land surveying, ecological impact, etc. But I had little doubt that these stages would mystically be approved with little opposition. Of course, there were all the classic ways to appeal and fight, but the issue with legal recourse is always the same. The cost. If I attempted to save my farm with lawyers, they would end up taking my farm in the end anyway to pay my lawyer fees. As a result, I did what my family had done for generations. I talked to the land. Anyone seeing me or hearing me would have thought I was bonkers,

standing out there in the middle of a field explaining the situation in full to my land my family had worked for a couple hundred years. But I knew the land was listening. My family had always respected the land, and I knew that the land respected me back. I doubted very much and wanted a spread of highway over top, with all those cars honking and belching fumes. I explained the implications of trash thrown out windows from the local fast food joints. I talked about how in spots no rain or sun would permeate the concrete and asphalt constructs. When I was done, the plants began their song again. I knew the land understood, and that it would formulate its own plan.

I was to cooperate to an extent, but not sell. Eventually, a land surveyor from the city arrived on my doorstep with the petition from the town. He was very clear that the petition hadn't passed yet, but was here to survey my land and that he was empowered by the town. He said that I could order him off my land, but that he would just end up coming back with someone from the local police service, and I was better off just letting him do his job. I shrugged and told him to go ahead and not to bother me. He thanked me and marched off into the field with his equipment, and that was the last I heard from him.

Only after the surveyor was missing for several days, despite me calling repeatedly about the city truck on my property, the local police force finally turned up on my front porch. I relayed what had happened and pointed the direction where he trudged into the field. They took dogs out and started to search. They found no traces or foul play. They only found his equipment sitting in the middle of a clearing. There were no footprints to speak of, no sign of blood or struggle. The missing man outweighed me by at least 30 kilograms,

so they doubted I could have done much without a struggle, and there was no evidence of my presence on his equipment. or in part of the field recently. They finally decided he had run off and left everything, perhaps after a mental break or something the like. One way or another, there was nothing to do but send out another surveyor. The town informed me that one would be out as soon as they bought new surveyor equipment. The stuff found on my property was impounded pending investigation

and found someone suitable. I would like to say that whatever happened save the farm, but they did send someone else within a few days who also disappeared. I know the land was doing what it could to protect itself, but it didn't necessarily see or care about the direct effects on me. The police arrived, searched, found about the same kind of scene as before, and took me into custody. Well, to be fair, they couldn't really arrest me.

They had no body, they had no evidence. All they had was motive. I will certainly admit to motive. Having said that, I will also say, though, that I would generally not kill someone for doing their job, or at all, really, maybe if I was being threatened. Anyway, they did release me, but the message was pretty clear that they were watching me. I couldn't fault them for their supposition, and I have little doubt that they thought I was crazy for saying the land was protecting itself. I did tell them they should send an armed escort for the next surveyor.

they sent in. I was also told the standard, don't leave town crap, but really, where was I going to go? The land was my home. I did get a chance to talk to my lawyer, and she more or less confirmed that the police had nothing, really, and that there was very little they could do. She said they would keep trying, and I told her that was stupid of them, to which she actually agreed. However, it had become more about pride than sense at this point. They wanted to wanted to prove they were in control and were willing to risk more people to do it. She did ask me if I knew what was going on. I just told her the land was protecting itself,

that I hadn't left the house during the events and questions, so I didn't know how it was doing it. She scribbled a few things in her legal notepad, probably that I was insane, nodded, and went on her way. I was told to just keep doing what I was doing. comply, be polite, and stay out of their way. They did send a police escort a few days later with a new surveyor. The woman with the surveying tools looked notably nervous.

If I'm being fair, I would have two. As she knocked at the door and served me her papers, I noticed she also couldn't make eye contact with me. She knew that this was wrong. The two police officers for their part eyed me suspiciously from the ground in front of my front porch, their hands resting on the butts of their holstered pistols. I shrugged and basically said,

Whatever, to them, and wave them away. They shrugged and trudged off into the field to start doing whatever surveyors did, and I went back to my coffee and my book, at least until the screaming started. I trudged outside as the sounds of screaming and struggle intensified. I would be lying if I said I ran, or even, and quicken my pace. These people had been warned repeatedly, and still kept returning.

As I walked, I heard what must have been a gunshot from a pistol. If I'm being honest, I've heard gunshot before, but a pistol sounds somewhat different from the shotgun I regularly used to deal with pests on the farm. Perhaps the fact that I didn't run in and try and save these people made me as culpable as whatever entity controlled the land I lived on. I don't know. I did know that I just wanted my family farm to remain a farm. As I neared the clearing and saw the struggle, I sat down in the dirt to watch.

One of the police officers struggled against the vine-like leaves wrapped around his throat to warn me away from the area. The look of shock and surprise was evident when I sat in the dirt, shrugging as I sat. The surveyor had already been cracked open, her lifeblood rushing into the ground at a torrent level. with a parched earth drinking her down. I imagine she was already dead looking at her pale and lifeless corpse suspended in mid-air. I had nothing against her, or these police.

I was well aware they were doing their jobs, but they did disturb the land, and the land reacted because of it. You know, this isn't your fault. I'm sure that the land understands that in some way, but I suppose that matters as much as it would to a whale seeking krill in the ocean. I said aloud. I fully understand you're just doing your job,

but sometimes people need to refuse to do things that aren't right, that aren't just. The police officer who had tried to send me away, bulge as I said this. He had thought me in danger, and perhaps now he thought I controlled the land and was making it do this. People always seem to believe that we as humans are so powerful

and can bend everything to our will. They forget that sometimes the way to peace is to submit, My family submitted to this land back in the early 1800s. We've been living here for that long. In the beginning, it was pretty isolated here, so when the land wanted to feed, it wasn't uncommon for my forebears to give it one of their own. As the surveyor was drained,

her lifeless husk of a body was dropped on the soil, and the land changed. I never understood if it changed to a substance like quicksand or whether a sinkhole opened up or if it was something else entirely. At any rate, it consumed the body, taking it deep inside it where it would never be seen again. The land removed all traces. As time went on, feeding the land got easier. I mean, the local settlement grew, and before all the doodads that track us, people would run off or get lost or whatever.

Law enforcement didn't try hard to find them. my family kept on ensuring the land was fed, and as a result, the land ensured we were fed. It was a reciprocal relationship, and quite beneficial. Few people would go missing a year, and that was the end of it. I watched as the policeman who tried to warn me was lifted higher, and the long, strong leaves of the land, wrapped around his upper and lower torso. After wrapping around him, they began the same motion that, someone would use to wring out a facecloth.

A resounding cracking noise was heard as his blood began to flow onto the ground. It disappeared almost as quickly as it hit the earth as the land lapped it up hungrily. The more recent times have been more difficult. Since I took over the farm, there are endless ways to track people, so feeding the land became more difficult. The land is fairly vast, though. So, as a result, some disappearing people along it had no idea they were actually here. At any rate, you lot have made things so much easier for me.

I don't need to find blood sacrifices for the land this year. If anything, you risk overfeeding it. I'm not sure what effect that'll have. I do know this is going to be an amazing year for crops. So for that, I thank you. The lifeless body of the first police officer hit the ground. and was quickly consumed as the screaming second one was hauled up in the air. The same events that took the surveyor and the first officer followed.

The screams didn't last long. It isn't me you have to get past, convince, or buy out in order to get this land. The land doesn't belong to me. My family belongs to the land. And, as you can see, it is much more powerful than I ever could be. I serve the land, and the land takes care of me. I have my doubts you'd be happy with any kind of road that could be planted along this field. I think most drivers might avoid it anyway.

The same is true of any house built here. I get the feeling that the homeowners wouldn't fare well. Seeing the last officer fall to ground and quickly disappear, I got up and ambled back to my house. the only house that the land would ever allow to be built on it. They might keep sending people out, but I knew eventually they would stop. In the end, you can fight against the land.

You can try to sculpt it and change it to your will, but it is permanent and never-ending. The land will always win in the end. Creepy presents The Fog, Written by Juan Cardenas, and narrated by Alicia Atkins. Lockdowns are a familiar entity to me by now. This one was different.

I started out pretty low-key. Even the tone of the broadcasters were sort of weak and unsure. Just vague notions of staying indoors because there was an issue with the air quality from the brush fires up north. The innocuous little warning came in on all of our phones. A little chime in a text box saying, saying everyone needed to be limiting their time outside. The air was bad for you. Stay indoors, and if you must go outside, avoid strenuous activities.

That was all. People went to work, and the little society of hours kept running as I took pictures of it from outside my floor to ceiling window in my apartment. The sky was darkening. A yellow fog hung around the buildings and gave everything a musty, almost grimy filter. I was thinking of making an exhibit out of it. Call it, New mustard gas city or something.

Then it started to escalate. Schools were closed. Parking rules stopped. Keeping windows shut now was compulsory. The experts were talking about particles, smog and the very real danger for those with breathing problems, and those lax little warnings were now serious. There was talks of wildfires raging in Canada that had spread into upstate New York,

and that it had burned and destroyed homes now, and caused a fatal explosion in what was once an indigenous heritage site. There were riots near there for some reason. My studio apartment is my sanctuary, my office, my entertainment center. It was cheap and useful, the two things I valued most, and I never wanted to leave as it was. Now there was a warning against doing so, so I stayed put with a vengeance. I felt a little bad because I sort of longed for the lockdown again.

I didn't like the guilt of people dying in the last one as I enjoyed solitude, but I thought this gas thing would be different. It wasn't. It was worse. The gas. It changes people. As I was staring out my window, trying to see past the yellow haze, trying to get a good view of the empty street.

streets, I had my camera aimed. It's awesome weight, and the click felt so satisfying. I saw a jogger. Several, actually. Two men and two women. I scoffed. There were always people flaunting regulations. The scene was pleasing, though, and I started to focus my camera.

I caught them mid-stride, gasping, coughing. They should have known better, running in this weather. the smallest of the ladies, a slim black-haired seemingly Asian lady, was holding her sides and doubled over. Her friends were recovering and were about to start to jog again when they stopped to tend to her. I couldn't hear anything except for a powerful scream, echoing in the empty, hazy sky. The small woman left forward to the closest person to her, a tan-skinned man with neat, clothes-cropped hair and strong physique. She quickly, efficiently, torn to his neck, taking a hunk of flesh into her mouth, chewing on it.

I could hear the other scream. The other man pulled the woman behind them. They must have been together because he really put himself in front of her without hesitation. The small frenzied woman swung her arms and gnashed her teeth at him. He was ready for and walloped her with several punches to her face. This didn't stop her, and she flung herself on him. I stood in shock. This must have been some sort of prank.

I looked for a camera crew, but when I heard a crack, and the small woman was pounding the other woman's head onto the pavement, past the body of her would-be defender, and an explosion of red specks, I knew it was no act. I took photos. I went to call. the police but froze. The small woman.

She was probably two blocks away from me in my vantage point, but she was standing perfectly still, staring at me. Even from this distance, I could tell her eyes were meeting mine. She was so small, but intimidating. Her arms just slightly shivering with pent-up rage. In her mouth was a wad of flesh that she chewed on messily. Bits were dribbling down her mouth and staining her sports bra darker and darker shades of red.

I didn't dare move. There was an impulsive, compressed energy to her stance. I felt like she would sprint towards me if I moved. Instead, I stood there for almost ten minutes when a dog walker approached. Only they weren't walking their dogs so much as dragging it. It was a silver-haired man dragging it. great Dane that struggled against his grip. The dog got to escape when the man let go of the lead and descended on the craze woman.

The two clawed each other, tore bits of each other's flesh. I even saw an exposed rib cage on her. I took a moment to draw my curtains. I found a little space to peer out on the side of the window. They were gone. I started to frantically make sure every lock was placed on my door. I then placed chairs, couches, and everything of weight in front of the door. I was lucky that I actually had a few windows,

just a slip of a thing in the bathroom that is perpetually locked and closed, though I reinforced it right now with duct tape and wands of towels. And, of course, my beautiful floor to-stealing window in the living room. It now felt like a vulnerability, though I was pretty high up. Either way, I obscured it with a room. extra towels and stapled the curtains to keep them shut. I immediately called the police once I felt safe inside my home. The cell lines were down. Shit. I turned the TV on for a while to see what was going on. There was an emergency broadcast notice on each channel. I would peer outside every few

hours. I kept trying other people. My mom, my dad, nobody answered. No network was working. No network was no Wi-Fi signal. I wheeled away the hours of daylight by reinforcing my barricade, peering out the window to the yellow cloud over the horizon and steadily losing my mind. It became evident around late afternoon that I hadn't eaten all day, and that the lights weren't turning on. I quickly checked the ice box. There were some sweet plums, cheese, turkey slices. Nothing else. Nothing that would rot. I managed to eat these for dinner. I luckily had some canned spaghetti, beans and corn in the pantry. I could stretch those out for days. Another small blessing. The water was still running. Not the hot water, but still. I only went to sleep

once I placed every bit of furniture, even a dresser, in front of that locked door, and then double and triple-checked my windows. That night, I dreamt of the roast chicken I was supposed to buy that afternoon for dinner. I was saving up for it. But then that chicken turned into bits of flesh that woman pulled off her friends, and I was chewing on blood and sinew and enjoying it. In my dream, I saw dozens upon dozens of other people where that woman was, standing out in the fog, staring into my window,

drooling the blood of their latest kills. Among them a tall, lanky figure, skeletal but with a deer's head and antlers walked, made of desiccated flesh and fur, like a poor taxidermy job combining a dead man and a deer. It was like a general addressing its troops. I woke up shivering and crying hysterically. After I calmed down,

I realized it wasn't quite. quiet. The apartment above and below me were exploding with sound. I heard the muffled sounds of arguing. The couple upstairs sometimes had shouting matches before, but this was different. One of them was screaming in agony, repeatedly growing louder and louder until I heard several sickening thuds on the ceiling. Then it grew quiet. Downstairs the screaming didn't stop until a full half an hour. Finally, I heard slow shuffling. I have never seen the people who live upstairs or downstairs, but I had heard them talk, move furniture, and the like.

Now there was pacing upstairs. I stayed quiet. In the absolute darkness, my imagination ran wild with the image of the eyes of the woman outside. Then I heard a stump. Then another. Then another. The creature upstairs was stomping on my ceiling from upstairs. I panicked.

Surely it couldn't get down here. I imagine there must have been concrete in between. Still, sound reverberated in the awful quiet of the night. It went on until morning. I never got used to it. I couldn't sleep or eat anymore. I imagined that the downstairs neighbor was probably climbing his or her furniture. to try and claw at my floor.

I knew that I shared this floor with at least four other residents, but I didn't know of them either, and I thankfully hadn't heard from them either. At around noon, the stomping ended. My ceiling was intact. Then I heard shuffling again, much slower. The creature must have really injured itself. I followed it,

and the shuffling creature was probably by its front door. I imagined it was trying to open its door. I don't know how smart these things are, but I hoped against all that doors would baffle them, especially locked ones. I prepared myself a meager meal of cold beans. I was drawn to the curtain. Without moving it very much, I stuck my gaze outside.

The fog was thicker than before. Everything was filtered yellow. It was like one of those films in Sepia. It was still like a sandstorm. Tears were filling my eyes again, but I composed myself. I stared outside more confidently. The tent was probably hiding my location. I stuck my camera up to the glass from my position

and used the zoom feature to peer further out. Again, it was too foggy. The buildings in the distance stood quiet in silhouette. I could hear nothing except what might have been at distant bellow, like a wolf hell, but definitely not a wolf. That's when I saw her again. She was closer than before, but the fog had kept her hidden. A breeze exposed her. She was standing in the middle of the street, staring at my direction again. She had her rib cage exposed, but she wasn't bleeding. Instead, in her arms and legs you could see the remnants of dried, dark

streaks of blood. Through my camera lens, I could see that on her head were two horn protrusions coming out of her skull. They looked like they were crooked antlers. She was bearing her teeth and not moving. I kept staring at her. Thoughts crossed my mind. What is that on her head? How is she still alive? I nearly dropped my camera when I saw what was in her hand. It was the whole skull of the gray-haired man who had been walking the dog. I could see, even through the fog, the very tip of the stem of a spine, his mouth wide open in a rictus silent scream. My door. Something was at my door. I ran from the window to my barricade. The door was locked, and nothing would be breached now. What would I do if they got through?

Where would I go? I had no one, I had nothing. I quickly went through my bathroom and kitchen cabinets. Kitchen knives. One pink hammer. It was funny at the time when I bought it. The thudding continued. My tears were flowing hard now, and I started gasping for air.

My asthma was acting up, probably from the stress. I stayed up all night listening to thumping at my door. I didn't eat. It was hard to have an appetite. I'd run out of my asthma medication, so I kept coughing. I was desperate to be quiet, like maybe the creature would give up if I thought no one was here. No such luck. I would fall asleep sitting up holding my weapons, sitting up with my back against the walls. I would have these terrifying dreams with the antler-skulled entity staring at me. When I woke up, I swore I saw. It, somewhere in the dark of the apartment.

I shuddered and gasped into a coughing fit. I nearly cut myself with the kitchen knife that I was grasping. The thought was almost thrilling. Then I stopped. I washed my face. The door was still being pounded on. It was daylight again. I went to peer out the window.

The fog was thick. I looked for the small woman again. She was nowhere to be seen. I scanned the horizon. The far buildings were smoking. Fires must be approaching. I used my camera again like a telescope. The smoke was thicker.

The wind was stronger. I could hear a whistle somewhere in my apartment. As I looked for the woman, the thumping at my door stopped, replaced by grunting. A loud sound like a watermelon. being squished. I knew flesh was being destroyed. I could almost taste it. The door smashed open.

I dropped my camera and rushed over to the entrance. The barricade was holding, but I knew it wouldn't be for more than a minute. It was over. It had been over for hours. I realized my asthma wasn't acting up. I didn't notice the whole place getting yellow. more and more. I realized that when I was dreaming of the antler-headed entity,

I wasn't dreaming of it. It was dreaming of me. It was warming itself into me like a parasite, growing more and more. The spirit was malicious, spiteful, hateful of humanity, and it was nesting in me, slowly, with every breath.

Did I really think that the old window was fully barricaded from just some towels and tape? It mocked me in my subconscious as I felt it rage. The sheer power had offered. The slight woman had that rage, too, and she was there. I saw a broken body at her feet. My upstairs neighbor, he had a leg so smashed and mangled from trying to break through the floor with his feet. His head was stomped into the ground, and his hands were stumps that oozed black and red. The woman from outside started to tear through the barricade,

sometimes impaling herself with a wooden shard as she smashed the chairs and shoved the couches. I let myself, all of myself go, and I met her. I was snarling, clawing, blind red with rage. I wanted to eat the inside of her skull. I shoved her horn head into the ground while I kneeled on her chest. I ripped the horns off, then jabbed them into her eye sockets. I felt a rush of giddy excitement tickled my stomach as I lapped up what came out of her sockets. She kept moving and clawing at me, so I stomped on her arms until they detached from her sides.

It took a moment to realize she had almost disemboweled me, but I let the red river drip out of my midsection. It didn't bother me. Besides, she tasted so delicious. I saw that spirit then, the antlered creature with rotting flesh. It egged me on silently as I ate the woman's flesh. I didn't feel afraid of the outside world. For a second, I paused when I saw my camera on the floor, broken into pieces. It was my last anchor to my human identity.

Then I stepped over it and walked out into the hallway to greet the yellow fog, breathe in the malevolence of the disturbed spirit, and seek out new victims to satiate my hunger. 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

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