Creepy - Grasshoppers and Mountain Cats

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

Grasshoppers and Mountain Cats***Written by: Rhonda Parrish and Narrated by: Danielle Hewitt***Bonus Episode: "The Locksmith" written by: Matheus Gamarra***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.

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Listen, stuff's happening here at camp. I have some feels about it. I don't want to get into it. You'll hear it soon enough if I ever get out of here. African alligators. Now 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. He presents grasshoppers and mountain cats.

Written by Rhonda Parrish and narrated by Daniel Hewitt. There's something about being awake before everyone else. Noises seem muffled. Everything is dimly lit, and you move more carefully, so as not to disturb those who are still sleeping. That same feeling envelops me now, which is ridiculous. It is the middle of the afternoon, and I am sitting in my idling car looking down the long, twisting driveway to the farm nestled below. But that feeling, that cautious, muffled feeling of not wanting to wake what lay dormant, that feeling persists, I'd wondered, hoped perhaps.

that the farm would have been diminished by time, as so many other bits of my childhood had. On my way here, I'd gone to see the rocks which had seemed immense and dangerous when I climbed on them as a child, and they'd been a fraction of the size they'd been in my memory, and the plaque giving them the name Old Woman's Buffalo Jump, and declaring them a national historical site,

had somehow shrunk them even more. But not the farm. The farm was just as I'd remembered it. Here at the top of the long driveway, I was at the same level as all the crops. Wheat swept away in three directions, and canola in the fourth. Same as always,

except, of course, they called the canola rape the last time I'd been here. Change the name, but not the crop. Like cutting the moldy part off of a block, of cheese. You couldn't see the rot there anymore. But that didn't mean it wasn't. Didn't mean it hadn't sunk its poisonous tendrils down deep into the core of things. What did it matter to change the name of a thing if everything else stayed the same? And it had. I let my gaze travel down the length of the driveway, which curves slowly back and forth, around three separate dugouts on the south side as it

descends into the hollow that contains the farm. To the north is a steep drop-off down to the bog. I suppose that isn't the technical term for it, but it's what we'd always called it. Now, as an adult, I wonder if maybe it wasn't actually a septic field. If it was, though, surely we wouldn't have been left playing in it, but then I think, turning my eyes. toward the farmhouse and all its outbuildings. It's not as though the adults in my life had excelled at good judgment. The orchard spreads out behind the farmhouse. From here, the trees look twisted and shrunken,

a reft of leaves on this late autumn afternoon. Between them and the house, I can't be sure. But I think I can almost make out the shape of a cage. Some cages you can see. and some you can. Years of support groups had introduced me to the idea that addicts were sort of like, likeanthropes, except that it wasn't the moon, but rather their drug of choice that made them turn. They could be perfectly normal one minute, and then snap.

As soon as their tank got topped up to full, they would switch and become a different, monstrous version of themselves. Grandpa had never been like that. Alcohol didn't make him into something he wasn't. It didn't flip a switch in him. Rather, it distilled him down to his essence, concentrated him. He was always a bad man. But when he was drinking, he was ugly bad. Twisted bad.

The orchard out back of the farmhouse was the only one in the country. Hell, it might be the only one in the province for all I know. The farm was nestled into that little valley just so, and it created a unique climate, a microclimate I'd heard it called when I was raised and all grown up, that wouldn't allow the fruit trees to flourish. He had several varieties of apples back there, full-sized. Not just the sour crab versions, berry bushes,

and even one wizened old pear tree that never flowered, but never died either. he took care of those trees like they were his own family watering pruning hell he even talked to them my sister relana and i had a secret hiding spot in the long long grasses at the edge of the orchard we'd lie there and watch him walk through the trees talking to them and tugging on their leaves he'd shown such kindness to them they might as well have been what he loved most in the world but even so i'd watched him piss on them whenever the urge took him so that showed just what his love was worth he could have sold the fruit harvest for enough to nearly match what the real crops made but he refused wouldn't even put a single fruit into the fall fair even though he was sure to win all his categories what with there being no competition to speak of he kept them all every Apple. And every year as autumn turned into winter, he'd be down in the Quonset, turning them all to cider. He worked harder at that than at any other time of year, and he wouldn't accept any help either.

You'd find some way to ruin it, he'd say. And that was on a good day. On a bad day, he'd backhand you for daring to suggest you assist. Most people didn't make that mistake more than once. But Alana wasn't most people. For some reason, she really wanted to help. I expect it was because she wanted Grandpa to like her, but Grandpa didn't like anything except his fruit. And them only because they'd make the cider that kept his tank topped all winter long. Well, except maybe the Mountain Cat. I guess he probably liked her well enough. At least until the end, Cleopatra was beautiful when she first arrived. She was a mountain cat, all sleek lines and feline beauty.

Her coat was the color of toasted marshmallows, and she paced around the cage with a grace I could recognize and appreciate, even at seven. There was no mistaking it. She was gorgeous. But she'd kill you as soon as look at you. maybe that's why grandpa liked her i don't know where she came from i was young and a girl nobody told me anything but they parked her cage out back between the house and the orchard and i used to like to go out there and watch her i'd lean against the giant silver propane tank warm from the sun and watch her pace back and forth across the front of the cage

some days when it was really hot, she couldn't be bothered to move. She'd just lie back on the perch, tucked into the back corner. It was painted green, so I think it was meant to look like a tree, but it didn't. It looked like plywood that had been painted green. Cleopatra seemed to enjoy it, though. She'd sprawl out across it, like a picture I once saw of her namesake, splayed across a chaise. On those days, I'd sit in the shadow of the tank and just watch her,

watch the lazy way she blinked, or the rise and fall of her sides as she breathed. I got out of the car. The hollow clunk of my closing door sounded both familiar and lonely. How many times had I come home, climbed out of the back of the family car, and heard that sound in my wake. How many times?

had I been happy, excited about my day, in the evening that lay in wait. And how many times, depressed and lonely? The latter numbers far outweighed the former. Sad memories suffocated the much fewer, happy ones. As I walk around the truck, a grasshopper leaps out of my path and I smile. Those were happy memories. catching grasshoppers with my sister. They'd been much more plentiful back then, grasshoppers.

Whenever Alana and I would walk through the tall grass that surrounded the yard proper and boarded the area between it and the orchard, the grasshoppers would leap and bound in front of us. I'd always hated it when they landed on me. But never minded when it was me who cupped my hands around them. It was still skinned to. skin, but there was a difference in agency, in power. I was in control then, and I liked it.

Alana and I had filled a one-liter Bix jar with grasshoppers one day. There had been so many they'd been pressed against the glass, climbing over one another in a desperate attempt to break free. We'd tossed some blades of grass in his food and stabbed air holes in the lid with a screwdriver. We hadn't meant to be cruel. But we'd forgotten the jar in the hot summer sun, and by the time we found it again, several days later, there was nothing to be done but to unscrew the lid and turn it upside down to dump out the bodies. I remember looking down and seeing one grasshopper, out of the multitude, still alive. It lay there, amongst its brethren, looking pretty beaten up.

But its intent I were still turning, and after a moment, it gathered its legs beneath it and hopped away. I pull my stuff out of the trunk and close it with the same hollow thunking sound the door had made. Who'd have ever thought I would ever relate to a grasshopper? Some days were better than others,

but weekends were always bad. On weekends, I used to take my pillows and blankets and sleep in my closet. I'd bring all my stuffed animals in with me, using them to build a little sound barrier, a little cave, where I could be alone and block out the rest of the world. I didn't let anyone in, not even Alana. Somehow I knew that if I shared my secret hideaway with anyone, it would deplete its magic, that Grandpa would be able to find me there, as it was that only helped at night during the day i couldn't hide away in the same way i tried once but mom had come looking for me and forced me outside to get some fresh air so those rules had been established too at night i could

hide but during the day i endured just like everyone else mom always got the worst of it though Sure, Grandpa would snap and snarl at me in Alana. And once, when I tripped and stumbled into the table where he was drinking, spilling his cider across the scarred wooden surface, he'd grabbed my arm and shook me so hard I bit my tongue, and my mouth filled up with blood. But Mom still got the worst of it. Grandpa would take a swipe at her for no reason.

other than that he felt like it. And he never called her by her name, unless he was drinking. He only called her stupid or ugly, or his favorite, useless. Alana and I could stay out of his way, more or less, leaping from his path before he reached us.

But Mom didn't have the knack and always seemed to land right on him. At first, Grandpa bought goats and pigs to feed Cleo. He'd bring them home alive, tied standing up on the bed of his half-ton. Ropes stretched from them to the end of the four corners, keeping them still and safe, until he killed them. Usually he did it quickly.

A bullet to the head or a knife across the throat. Usually. That one afternoon, though, he'd been drunk when he got out of the truck. It was there, in the way he moved his limbs, in the glassy glare of his eyes, and the upturned snarl of his face. Drunk already, and in a mood. I knew someone was going to pay for it, and I didn't want it to be me, so I backed slowly into the tall grass before he had a chance to see me. It tickled my bare legs as I moved into it. And once it fully surrounded me,

I lay down on my belly to better hide myself. Still, I wanted to see what happened next. So I crawled on my belly through the grass until I was lying along the fence line, parallel to the cage. My bare feet pressed against the rough wood of a fence post as I reached beneath my belly to remove the stone that was poking me. I rolled it away, careful not to move the grass too much. I didn't want Grandpa or Cleo to spot me.

When Grandpa came into view, it wasn't with a haunch thrown over his shoulder as I'd expected. The pig was still alive. Grandpa had a rope wrapped around its neck like a leash. Only this pig wasn't happily trotting beside him like a dog might. its eyes were wide and rolled so far back in its head i could mostly just see white and a tiny bit of black it was huffing and snorting and squealing pulling back against the rope digging in its hooves and even trying to sit down to resist grandpa's pulling grandpa was a strong man wiry but strong still the pig was winning and great furrows of earth were being dug up as it struggled against the rope. Cleo was intrigued. I could see her nostrils working as she approached the front of the cage.

And then she started pacing, stalking the poor little pig that was being led toward her. She was no longer sleek and beautiful, but filthy and wasted, with scabs on her body and fur falling out in patches. But she was still death. and the pig knew it. The pig went wild, flailing back and forth, spitting and twisting to try and bite the rope. And Grandpa kept pulling. The pig wasn't moving any longer, but I could see the rope tightening around its throat, more and more. Slaughter was just a part of living out in the country, and even then, as a child, I'd seen it plenty of time.

But usually, it was clean, almost clinical. It made me a little sad in the moment, but it was just how things were. But this was nothing like the dispassionate killings I'd seen before. This was cruel. And the word, one I'd learned from Sunday school, but never quite had an understanding of before, came unbidden into my mind. Evil. Bile rose in my throat and tears to my eyes.

I wanted to spring from the grass, to shout and tell him to leave the pig alone. But I didn't. Of course I didn't. And the pig was squealing, and grandpa was cursing, and Cleo was stalking. And then it all just stopped. The pig fell over with a heavy thud. I might have thought it was dead, but I could see its chest heaving, struggling to draw in air. Grandpa stared at it in silence.

I stared at Grandpa. And then Grandpa tried to drag the unconscious pig by the rope, but it wouldn't budge. So he moved around the back of the animal and began to push. It was his turn to dig his feet in, and he did. I felt like I was holding my breath. So shallowly was I breathing. I wanted the pig to be faking, wanted him to spring up now that Grandpa wasn't holding the rope any longer,

spring up and bolt away. Into the orchard, into freedom. But he didn't. Instead, a foul odor filled the air, and Grandpa's cursing reached epic levels. He screamed and shouted, stood and flailed his arms around. Then he kicked the pig in the rear end with his pointy-toed boots

and wiped his hands angrily across the grass. The unconscious pig had shit on him. The screen door opens without a sound, and the storm door sticks in exactly the same way I remembered from so many years ago. I bump it with my hip, and it gives way. Entering the house is like going back in time. except dirtier and emptier. It's the same gray-blue carpet in the little front entranceway.

Directly in front of me are the stairs to the basement. And to the left, the two steps up to the kitchen, catching sight of movement out of the corner of my eye. I squint down into the darkness, but there's nothing there. Nothing more than mice and memories anyway. The kitchen floors are filthy, and strown with remnants of God only knows how many bush parties.

Miraculously, the cupboard doors are all still there, though many hang open and give the kitchen the look of a hockey smile. I look into my mother's room, just off the kitchen. The plaster is broken on the walls, revealing the lathing beneath, and a giant sheet of shredded plastic dangles from the ceiling. A handful of acoustic tiles, the only thing keeping it from falling to the ground. The small window, which looked out at the propane tank and Cleo's cage, is smashed. But no breeze disturbs the wisp of curtains that hang in front of it.

I don't go look through the window. I'll see it when I see it. But first I need to go upstairs, to my old bedroom. I don't know what woke me. I'd been sleeping snugly in my closet nest, surrounded by the unblinking eyes of my stuffed animals, curled up like a puppy beneath my quilt. It was pulled over my head,

cocooning me in heavy darkness. It had been a hot week, so I was a sweaty mess. But still, I preferred my cocoon to being outside of it. Grandpa had been out all night long for the past four days, drinking and making a racket outside. But deep in my blanket nest, all I could hear was the sound of my own breathing. Still, something had woken me.

There it was again. The rattle of my bedroom's door handle. Then the soft clicking sound of it opening. And the pat pat of Alana's feet on the wood floor. She was wearing footy pajamas, the kind with the plastic undersides. and I could hear them whisper against my floorboards. I was wearing footy pajamas too,

but I'd grown too big for them over the summer, and Mom had cut the feet off. They were far less fun now, but still warm and snugly. I was envious of Alana's feet being covered, and loathed to break the magical barrier that protected me inside my closet. So I held my breath,

and I hoped she wouldn't find me. Jess, she whispered, and I heard her move over to my empty bed. Can I sleep with? Carefully, I slipped a handout from under the blanket. My closet door was the same as my bedroom one, complete with the turning knob in the keyhole. I grasped the knob, its brass cool and smooth against my palm, and pulled, holding it closed. Realizing I wasn't in my bed, Alana came over to my closet and tried to turn the knob, but it wouldn't budge. Jess, I want to sleep.

I could hear him, the muffled cursing and banging coming from downstairs. Alana's room was right at the top of the stairs while mine was down the hallway. It was no wonder she'd heard him first. He was definitely growing louder, though, winding himself up to a great explosion. but I couldn't let her in. Letting her in would break the spell. I didn't answer her. Just held the door closed

with all of my seven-year-old strength. She stopped in mid-sentence, and I felt her grip on the knob loosen. There was a sound of movement, but not of retreat. She was still, right outside the door, breathing, waiting. A long moment passed,

in which Grandpa stomped and snorted downstairs. And then I felt Alana released the doorknob completely and listened as her plastic bottom feet shushed out the door. I knew where she was going and hoped she could stay out of Grandpa's way for long enough to get there. The closet is smaller than I remembered, more pathetic. There is nothing left to remind me of the sanctuary it had been for young me on so many nights.

The magic, if there had been, been any magic was long gone. Now there is a piece of what looks like a broken bong and a discarded condom curled up on the corner beside it. A yowling scream, like one of Cleo's roars, echoes through the house and I freeze in my tracks, holding my breath, waiting for it to repeat. It doesn't. Must have been the wind tearing through a crack in the windows, the cracks in the walls. i recall how still the curtains were in mom's old room hanging in front of the broken window but dismissed the image with a shake of my head sudden bursts of wind happened on the prairies even in the hollows still a new sense of urgency stirs me out of nostalgia into action the fumes sting my eyes as i douse it all of it with gasoline i cover the floor and splash up the walls. And then I make a trail out of the room, following the path Alana would have taken that

night. Out of the bedroom, down the hall. I pause at the top of the stairs near the bathroom, and more poignantly, Alana's bedroom. Stealing myself, I look inside. There's no furniture left in it, nothing but the random detress left behind after teenage parties. But I could still tell it had been a young child's room. Even a stranger would be able to. The bottom half of the walls were painted pastel green, and the top half a soft pink. Carousel horses pranced around the border between the two. I remembered mom, heavy with her pregnancy, painting those horses, and talking about how it was going to be once the new baby came. She'd been so proud of the space she made for her. so full of dreams and plans.

And for that time, that brief window, when mom had been expecting Alana. Grandpa had behaved himself. He'd still been an old grump, but he'd been sober. And that made a difference. Then when Alana was only a few weeks old, the news had come about Dad. He'd been working for an oil company somewhere,

somewhere not here. and there had been an accident. He wouldn't be coming home. Grandpa had started drinking again, and if mom had ever had the ability to stay out of his path, she lost it once his son died. She just didn't have it in her to leap anymore. I splashed the gasoline into Ilana's room for good measure,

and then continued to stream it in the hall. As I turned to go down the stairs, I feel eyes on me. and look anxiously over my shoulder. There's no one there. Nothing there. But I still feel as though I'm being watched, as though I'm being stalked.

The first Jerry can runs out as I return to the main level. So I toss it into the kitchen, open the second, and turned right into the dining room. After giving it a good, long soaking, I head for the front door, something warm stirs against the back of my knees. Just the wind, I tell myself again.

Even though it feels more like breath than wind, I move quickly out the door, out of the shadows of the house and onto the porch. Here, the fading sunlight and the warmth, give me the courage to look back at the stream of gasoline that leads out of the shadows to my feet. Makes it possible to explain away the tracks in the gasoline. which look like they belong to a big cat. To tell myself it's just the result of an uneven floor.

Shadows in a powerful imagination. The entirety of the porch is splashed in a moment, and then it's time for me to step off the stairs and into the sea of grass which surrounds the house. Back in the day, the area immediately surrounding the house had been kept mowed, but now it had been left to grow wild, and the grass is almost as high. is my waist. I am loath to step into it, as much as I want to get away from the open doorway,

and I know there's nothing to fear there. The most dangerous thing that could be hiding is a skunk. I still hesitate, torn between two unknowns. The sun has moved in the sky, and the gasoline fumes are making me lightheaded by the time I'm ready to take those last steps. The pig shitting on grandpa was the final straw, the ultimate insult. When I saw it happen, I knew what was going to come next. I wish I'd been able to stop it. I wish anyone had been able to stop it. But that pig's fate was sealed.

He was still breathing when Grandpa finally maneuvered him between the two doors that led into Cleo's enclosure. Cleo had jumped onto her perch as he'd approached. Even she knew to keep away from Grandpa when she could. But she slowly unfurled herself and slunk down to investigate just as Grandpa gave the pig one last shove into her enclosure and closed the first door behind himself. He was barely out of the second before Cleo attacked. The pig, who had been barely aware, hardly conscious, made one horrible scream, a heart-wrenching scream. a heart-wrenching squeal like metal-on-metal that would forever be branded in my brain.

And then he fell silent. Cleo tore him apart. It was eerily quiet. There was only the sound of her huffing and tearing and chewing. Blood and gore spattered the cage and dripped from her muzzle while Grandpa leaned against the propane tank, with his arms crossed over his chest, and smiled with smug satisfaction. When I finally step off the front of her, front steps, and into the long grass it feels like jumping off a dock and into a lake.

Going from one world to another. In that first world, the porch world, I am a fully grown adult, with a family of my own and a successful legal practice. In that world, I live in the city, where I've just finally buried my grandfather, who'd wasted away in a nursing home for a decade. to Henri to die until he was old and decrepit, and accepted this farm, which I haven't seen in 20 years as my inheritance. A farm perhaps best left alone to Vandals, the elements, and the past. A symbol of a Gargarian decay, standing in the grass, though, I'm suddenly a child again.

Terrified, hiding in the closet and counting on magic to protect me. I am helpless and alone. After the day with the pig, Grandpa fed Cleo less and less. I heard him and Mom argue about it once. Mom said if he couldn't take care of an animal, he ought to give it to someone who could. And he said, what the fuck did she know anyway? She was just a useless cunt,

who should learn to take better care of her whelps and keep her nose out of his business. Each step across the front of the house feels like a battle, but I win them, one after another, and continue to trail the gasoline behind me. When I reach the corner, I don't hesitate. In fact, I speed up and smile wryly as a grasshopper jumps out of my path. And there it is.

The cage. The only person who should have been out that night was Grandpa. Mom couldn't have possibly known that I wouldn't let Alana into my closet. Couldn't possibly have known about her secret hiding spot out in the orchard. Only she and I knew about that. And I'd never tell. Only the bars remain, like some rusted out skeleton. The floor, Cleo's perch, even the doors are all missing.

Still as I approach, I feel as I had when I was living. eyeing it warily, uncertain how much to trust that the bars would keep me safe from Cleo, would keep Cleo on the other side. My heart thuds in my chest, and the hand holding the slowly emptying gas can starts to tremble. I pause, grabbing the handle of the Jerry can with both hands, and breathing slow, like the parade of psychiatrists I'd seen over my lifetime had taught me. In. Two, three, four, five, six. Hold. Out. Two, three, four, five, six. In. There were no trials. Cleo was hunted and shot. And mom? Well, she wasn't fit, they said. Sent her to a hospital. and me to live with her sister.

And of course, she hadn't meant for that to happen to Alana. When she'd opened the doors to Cleo's cage, Cleo, who was starved and half crazy herself by then, it was Grandpa, she thought, would be outwondering in the darkness. I heard the abbreviated scream, even from within my closet. And I knew what it was. I couldn't possibly have known. And yet I did.

And that scream shattered the spell that had protected me, safe in the embrace of my stuffed animals and my quilt, shattered my life. I bolted from the closet and tumbled down the stairs. But Mom wouldn't let me out to see. Wouldn't let me out to try and save her. Mom died in the psychiatric facility three years later, released herself.

She called it in her final letter to me. I was 11. The propane tank is gone, but the concrete slab it had been mounted on is still there. I stand on it and listen to the frogs and the cricket sing. The house on my left is empty and gaping. The window's broken. The walls stripped of all their paint and weathered to dress.

The orchard to my right is overgrown The bows that I can see broken and twisted It is autumn There ought to be fruit, but there isn't There is as barren as the rest of the homestead Soon it will be night And I want to be gone by then To watch the flames from the top of the driveway

Before I turn my back and leave forever The fire won't burn the bars of course But That is hardly the point, is it? I approached the cage. Walking through the empty doorways with the same enthusiasm I'd show if they were the gaping maw of some giant beast, which is what they feel like.

I rush to empty the rest of the gas can, though I lie to myself and say it's because the night is falling. And not because I'm still, even now, terrified of this place. Is that the faint odor of cat piss? Even now? Even beneath the sharp scent of the gasoline? Surely not. Surely.

Not. My steps are double time when I flee the cage. I sprint through the long grass back to the front of the house. I pull his lighter from my pocket. Grandpa's. A zippo with a sprawling tiger across to its top. front. It isn't a cougar, true enough. But the fact he would have a big cat on his lighter, the one he carried in his shirt pocket against his heart until the very day he died. The fact that

he would make that choice after everything that had happened, I flipped the lid open, thumb the wheel, throw it. The gasoline catches with a wump that knocks the air. The gasoline catches with a wump that knocks the from my lungs. They say cougars attack from behind, knocking their victims to the ground and driving the air from there. The fire zips toward the house. Dry, old, empty. It is engulfed in a matter of moments. I want to see the cage, to watch the flames dance between the bars, but don't dare. The long grass will be burning too. I could hear mom's voice screaming, as she had that night.

Not you too. I won't lose you, too. The flames roar, like a big cat, but I turned my back on them. In my car, when I reversed to turn around and go up the drive, I pause to watch the place burn. But it is difficult to see. see clearly through the bug smears, mostly grasshoppers on my windshield. I turn on the washer, fluid, and wipers, wait until they've done their work, and I can see what I need to see, and then I drive away. For your bonus episode, Creepy Presents, The Locksmith, written by Matthias Gamara.

Locksmithing has been a trade of my family for, I don't even know how much. many generations. I've been working as one since I was a kid, helping my father and grandfather. I learned all the secrets and methods of the job, studied out to install, break, assemble, and disassemble all kinds of locks. I could easily disassemble the lock of a bank vault if given the right tools, money, and legal permit. I've unlocked hundreds of doors and cars, installed hundreds of new locks, fabricated thousands of keys, and take pride in saying, I have never, ever used my knowledge for criminal ends, as so many locksmiths in my region secretly do. I've successfully and financially sustained myself and my family with locksmithing for almost 30 years.

And yet, I'm closing my workshop tomorrow and already sending the documents to work with my wife and her bakery. The reason that made me quit locksmithing is simple. I can't do it anymore after my last job. I tried. I really did. But after that fateful assignment six months ago, I realized that it's not for me anymore. Every time I open a stuck door, I have flashbacks.

My heart starts racing and my eyes ache. I can once again see those cursed angles. Don't get me wrong. I love locksmithing. It's the only thing I'm really good at. It's something that gives me great pride. I'd even start teaching my daughter on the basics. She enjoys it as much as I do.

And it'll be hard telling everyone I'm quitting. Tell my wife, my daughter, my clients, my friends, none of them will understand. And for their own sake, it must remain that way. I've already told my dad, he's incredulous. I said I'd be quitting the craft. He was not only my most important mentor, but my inspiration and role model. His body's not even a husk of what he once was, but his mind is still sharp. I knew from the start that this would be the hardest conversation to all, so I decided it should be the first.

I approached him in his bed in our living room, where it's easier for us to take care of him since he can't climb stairs or live alone anymore. And told him about everything. Father went from disapproving to fully supporting me. But he also said something I hadn't considered. No one but him must know. Ultimately, I decided not to follow his counsel. For the first time since forever.

We locksmiths know how to deal with stuff we're not supposed to see. Our work is about locking places Sometimes it's about keeping things in And sometimes about keeping things out Locksmithing is synonymous With security and privacy But it's hard to keep something so Perspective changing to yourself

So I decided to write it down One day maybe I'll have enough courage to share it to my family Or even the world I haven't even decided what fake story I'll use to explain my abandonment of the lockspitting business to all my former clients and acquaintances. Let's go back to the beginning. Six months ago, I was called by Greg Becker to unlock a locked door in his property. Now, Greg Becker never been a popular or particularly well-respected man. He's in his late 70s, and since I was a child, I heard rumors about his weird, a cult.

Altist practices. Unsubstantiated rumors, I thought. Until Greg called me urgently at 2 a.m., saying he needed help getting into his house. I was already sleeping. The phone woke me up. I tried to dissuade him, saying my prices in the graveyard hours were exorbitantly higher than in the daytime hours. The old man was adamant, claiming it was an emergency. I dressed up. I dressed up. packed my tools, apologized to my wife for leaving the middle of the night like this, entered my pickup and drove to his property. Oh, Greg Becker had a pretty house. Be it a bit rustic. I was located at the edge of town, almost in the rural zone.

I parked my vehicle there and exited it. Greg Becker was on his porch carrying a lamplight, yet I could clearly see that the door of his house was open. I angrily questioned him why he didn't call me to tell me he already found a way in, but he visibly replied that he actually needed me for something else. More often than not, that means trouble. So I was already going back to my truck when he offered a thousand bucks. That was what I made in an entire week of hard work, so I couldn't refuse. I followed Greg cautiously through the overgrown grass to a barn located a couple hundred yards behind his house.

If the old man's house was rustic, then the barn was outright to crepe. The wooden structure seemed like it had been there for decades without any repairs or restorations. There's no paint, and the whole thing was falling apart. He pointed the lamplight at the entrance to the barn, and I immediately saw how it stood out from the rest of the building. It looked more like the entrance to a bank vault than a quasi-abandoned barn. Hell, I'd seen bank faults that were easier to break. into than that barn. I tried questioning him what that was, but Greg refused to answer me.

I said it'd be easier to break the wall, which was already falling apart. But he reminded me about the thousand dollars. Beggars can't be choosers. I asked if he could at least bring me something I could sit on, as it would take a while. This time he complied, and a few minutes later I had already set up my stuff on the ground and was working. It wasn't easy. It was dark and I was sleepy.

I asked for a coffee. And Greg simply left me there and disappeared into his house. At first I thought he was making one for me. After 40 minutes, I realized that jerkass had probably gone to sleep. That door had 100 different locks. One fucking hundred different locks. That meant that crazy old man had to carry one hundred different keys. When I thought about it, the less sense it all made.

The door was clearly new, impeccably clean. Even if everything around was old and falling apart. After a handful of hours, the sun was rising. Yet it only unlocked five locks. Whoever built the door was either a perfectionist or a psychopath. Or both. Greg Becker appeared, wearing pajamas and carrying two cups of steamy coffee. I asked him where the fuck he was, and he just casually said he went for a nap.

I was furious by that point. So I stood up and told him that if you wanted someone to open the door, he needed to at least show some fucking respect. The old man sneered at me and just said, $5,000. I was starting to doubt him. So I demanded that he paid me half first. Craig went inside the house and came back with an envelope full of money.

I started working back on the door right away. The worst part was not the unending locks, the disrespectful client, the mysteries surrounding that entrance, or the scalding hot sun in the sky. It was a maddening boredom of it all. Becker refused to talk to me because he said the job demanded discretion. There was no sound whatsoever. and my phone had no signal. I didn't even know how he managed to call me there.

I hadn't picked the signal ever since my car drove into that street. I didn't even have a watch, so the sole indicator of the time was the position of the sun. Around two in the afternoon, I'd unlock 17 locks. Greg Becker appeared to check on my progress, and I told him I was starving, that I needed to go home to rest a little bit. Greg wasn't happy, but he said that he needed me, so he just asked that I was back before midnight.

I went home. My wife was pissed, but after I'd shown her the money, she reluctantly agreed to let me keep working on Becker's store. I didn't sleep all that afternoon. I kept having this weird dream about Becker, years younger, carrying lots of bloody plastic bags into the barn. In the end of the dream, I saw myself opening the door, only for him to appear behind me and beat me to death with a baseball bat. The nightmares were unnerving, but I attributed them to stress. At 6 p.m. I was back on Greg Becker's property, but this time I brought 20 hours to download a podcast. Greg handed me a cup of coffee, his lamplight, and said he'd check up on me in the morning.

I started working again. On the first night, the experience was stressful. But that night, it was somehow dreadful. I kept having this irrational instinct that made me check behind my back all the time. Considering his property was his house, his barn, and a big, dark, endless open field of overgrown grass and nothingness. There wasn't even a moon that night. I kept working on the door, promising myself I wouldn't work.

year after the sunset. I unlocked another lock. That was number 21. I heard the house door opening. Becker was coming towards me, carrying two cups coffee. Something was wrong. The sun was already shining. I'd unlocked 32 of the locks.

Had my automatic mode fully taken over? I looked at my phone. I'd only listen. to three hours of podcasts. Something was very wrong. I felt like this barn was wrong. This door. It was evil somehow.

Becker handed me a cup of coffee, and I refused. I had this feeling that he wasn't trustworthy. He simply smiled and went back into his house. I continued my work. But even more than during the night, I was feeling well. watched when I unlocked the 46th lock, around two in the afternoon. I heard a loud scream coming from inside the barn, and I almost broke one of my tools due to

the fright. Enough was enough. I went to Becker's house and knocked on the door. He came out, that smug smile on his face. I told him about the scream and asked what the hell was going on. He told me that I should go. go home, eat something, and rest a little bit until tomorrow, as I'd been working all night. I went back home, unlocked my own door.

And then I was back on the barn. Greg was running towards me, carrying a baseball bat. I woke up screaming, covered in sweat. My wife asked me what was going on, what happened? I told her about my nightmare. But what really freaked me out then? was not remembering what exactly I lied down to sleep. She said that ever since I started this job for Greg Becker,

I've been acting strangely, like something was bothering me. I replied that something was indeed bothering me, but I couldn't figure out what it was yet. She said that I should stop, that I should give the man his money back and forget about all this. And I agreed with her, but somehow I couldn't stop now.

Even before the sun rose, I'd already packed my stuff and was driving to Greg's property. This time I promised myself things would be different. I'd end the job, get my money, and never pick up a call from Becker again. I went towards the barn door and started working on it immediately. Putting on my earphones and listening to the content, I downloaded. It was only after Becker appeared carrying two cups of coffee that I realized. I'd left my phone in my car. And that meant that the voices I was listening to were,

I quickly removed my earbuds and looked around, horrified. The door. The voices were coming from behind the door. Becker approached me and asked if I was okay. I tried to fake a smile and answer that I was, but my head was slowly shaking and my forehead was sweating so much that no matter what I said, he'd know the answer was a blatant.

No. He then chuckled and went back inside his home. I decided that I didn't care at all for him or his weird antics. But I needed to open that door. I had already done 60 of the locks. Around 3 in the afternoon, he asked if I wanted something to eat. I didn't hear him coming, but I didn't care. I just shouted for him to leave me alone and went back to my work. 71, I muttered. At 9 p.m. the sun had already sat, and I was starving and thirsty, and he didn't go to the bathroom. But I couldn't stop. Not when I was this close.

They agreed with me. Everyone was rooting for me to unlock the door. Becker once again appeared. I wasn't smiling this time. He didn't have his usual smugness. He looked concerned. and asked what was that on my hands. It was then that I noticed that my hands were covered in a thick black liquid.

A liquid that was coming from all the locks. I screamed and asked with all my lungs, why the hell he was doing this to me? Becker ran away towards the house screaming, he called 911. And I started working again. 79. And then I smashed his head with a baseball bat. 82. Then I started working again on the door.

I needed to open that door. I needed to open that door. Eighty-five. The sun rose. I'd eaten something. Not sure what. Maybe there was something in the old man's kitchen. I didn't know.

Still don't. 95, midday. There was blood everywhere, leaking from the door, I think. Greg Becker brought me a cup of coffee. I think it was him at least. 98, 99, 100, slowly. My eyes started bleeding, and I saw something. It wasn't the barn.

I saw a strange, nonsensical version of my house. My father, my wife, my kids, all of them made of weird, strange angles. None of them living, mere objects, animated. Four-dimensional objects. In fact, none of the angles in anything made sense. they were all straight and curved at the same time and I saw something in the sky being of incomprehensible utmost darkness they whatever it was started talking my ears started bleeding they told me about a world a world of false geometry of darkness, death, and suffering.

A world where extreme violence was the solution to all mathematical questions. They asked me for my eyes. I was about to gouge them out when I saw Greg Becker. Years younger. Carrying a plastic bag. A plastic bag full of human organs. I looked around me. I was dehydrated.

hungry, covered in sweat, clearly having heat stroke. My head was aching like hell. I fell to the floor and when I picked myself up, I saw what was really behind the door. There were several bodies, all of them mutilated, with limbs broken or outright missing, and arranged in strange, bizarre geometric shapes. One of them was that of Greg Becker. closed the door and immediately all the locks locked themselves again. I went back to my car and then I went home. Luckily my wife wasn't home and no one saw that I was covered in blood, so I burnt my clothes and took a very long shower. My family questioned me where the hell I'd been. I was officially missing for days. The police had even gone to Becker's property to look

from me as I told my wife had gone there. Greg Becker was found dead. Due to natural causes, he didn't have a barn on his property. 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.

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