Creepy - Happy Sun Daycare

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Written by: Chelsea.adams.524***https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/Happy_Sun_DaycareContent is available under CC BY-SA***The Tears Cosmic***Written by: Joshua Bryant and Narrated by: Rissa Montanez***The Lanterns of Hollow Creek***Written by: Angela Campbell and Narrated by: Michelle Kane***Wastes Beyond Wastes***Written by: Leon Saul and Narrated by: JV Hampton-VanSant***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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This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastures 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 Happy Sun Baycare Written by Chelsea Adams 524.

Just a few miles outside of my town sitting an old country high house. house. They'd been converted into a daycare where parents would drop off their kids in the morning and pick them up in the evening. However, said daycare had been out of business for a few years now. There was a signpost in the front yard just a few feet from the house that read, Happy Sun Daycare, with a cute-looking cartoony sun painted on it. Within the fenced-off backyard stood playground equipment that had fallen into disrepair and began to rust. A slide, a couple of swing sets, a monkey bars, and a merry-go-round were once covered by swarms of children as they ran and played in the outdoors. They had since become perches for the local birds and squirrels and were swarmed by ants rather than children.

I decided to write a report on the Happy Sunday Care for the news blog I worked for. For one thing, several people around today had gone to that daycare. I figured it might make for an interesting story to read about their experiences there, and if it affected their later life in any way. The other reason wasn't quite so innocent. There'd always been concerned parents who'd fret over leaving their child and someone else's care.

It was about that constant worry over how safe their sons and daughters were, especially with all the horror stories posted online about various daycare-related tragedies. For my report, I decided I'd interview both employees and people who'd gone to daycare's children. I wanted to get as many different points of view as possible, so it wouldn't seem too terribly biased. Of course, I agreed not to use real names for the sake of their privacy.

The first person I interviewed was a middle-aged woman who looked after the infants at the daycare. For the sake of her privacy, we'll just call her Margaret. What was it like working at the daycare? I asked her. She replied, Oh, it wasn't anything too spectacular, just your typical day of working with children or babies in my case. I see, I said before I asked. Have you had any problems while working there? Margaret shook her head.

With the babies? Of course not. They could be fussy, but they weren't any trouble at all. The children were another story. This piqued my interest. Were the children that attended Happy Sun Daycare too much for the employees to handle? Or could it be that there were cases of abuse going on that had been kept secret until now? I had to find out.

Why might that be? I asked. Well, Margaret paused for a second, Zelsho was apprehensive about speaking to me. There were times when I heard muffled squealing. No, not squealing. screaming. At first I thought it was just the children pretending to be scared, but the more I heard it, the more I realized those screams were real, that something was terrifying or possibly even hurting them.

Did you ever see any children get hurt? Margaret nodded. Yes. Most of them were just usual scrapes and bruises you'd expect to find on a child who fell well playing or bumped his head trying to show off to his or friends. some of them though seemed off to me every so often i'd see a child walk past on the way to the nurse's office and each time the child looked like you've been scratched or even bitten children scratched or bitten that would be cause for alarm for anyone perhaps some wild animal had decided to make its home near the daycare and curious children had gotten too close maybe a stray dog had wandered into the playground and some poor unknown kid wanted to pet it.

Were there any animals in the area? I decided to ask. Stray dogs, raccoons, perhaps a possum's nest? I doubt it. Pets weren't allowed at the daycare and traps were set up at night to keep any wildlife away. There might have been a dog roaming around the area. Margaret shook her head. I pointed out.

Perhaps it was the dog that had bitten those children. Oh, I only heard the dog, she told me. I'd never actually seen it. All I'd ever experienced was the occasional growl, snarl, or howl. So, Margaret had only heard what sounded like a dog. I couldn't rule out the possibility that perhaps she'd mistaken some noise she'd heard for that of a dog. Maybe she'd heard some children that were only pretending to be dogs and mistook them for a real one. Maybe she'd heard the wind and thought it was a hot.

If that were the case, it would explain the scratches and bites she'd seen on some of the children. It wasn't too out of the realm of possibility that a child could have simply scratched their arm on a branch or part of a fence by accident. Although it sounded like a dog's growl to her, Margaret could have reached the conclusion that the children were being attacked by some sort of cane line. Still, I had to learn more about the daycare. With the possibility of a cover-up regarding a series of dogs, I figured the next person the interview would be a former attendee.

Perhaps one of them would have childhood memories that could potentially shed some light on what Margaret had mentioned. After doing some background checks, I managed to find a young man who went to Happy Sunday care when he was around five or six. Let's just call him Scott. I found Scott working at a local butcher shop. I had to wait until the end of his shift was over before I could start the interview. luckily it wasn't too long of a wait and it gave me some time to consider what to ask him.

Do you remember anything about Happy Sun Daycare? I asked. I know it was long time ago, but perhaps you can recall something. Scott thought for a moment before applying, Not much. I was only five, maybe six when I went. I can remember just doing what kids do at that age. Playing finger painting, watching cartoons, that kind of stuff. I nodded. Were you a good kid? For the most part, he admitted. Occasionally I get into some trouble.

Nothing too serious, though. Just your typical kid fussiness. You know, not wanting to take naps, refusing to eat veggies, that sort of thing. I see. I replied as I wrote down what he told me in a notepad. And was the daycare fair in how they disciplined you? Eh, somewhat.

All I ever got was a scolding and the occasional time out. They made you sit in a corner for a few minutes until they felt you were ready to join the other kids. No, you were lucky if that was all you got, Scott pointed out. What Scott said baffled me a bit. They were lucky. How? I began to wonder if perhaps there had been more severe punishments for the more unruly children that attended the daycare. Could there have been some of them?

sort of more controversial form of punishment that the employees at Happy Sunday Care use that they didn't want known to the public? I had to know. What exactly do you mean? For a brief moment, Scott gave a shudder. He seemed to have recalled something from his childhood that potentially frightened him and affected his adulthood as well. The kids who got into real trouble were sent into the gray door. Scott heaved to heavy side. I've never been in there myself. I know a few kids that had. Ones it would get into fights or throw huge tantrums.

They'd end up going into that room. I don't know what happened in there. They'd always come out shaking with wide eyes. A few would break down crying. Someone would scream. One kid even threw up before passing out. I frowned slightly. What sorts of horrors have been conducted in the room

that had been nicknamed the Grey Door. I then remembered what Margaret had told me and decided to check for a connection with her story in Scots. Did the children have any scratches or bites on them? I asked. And did you hear any strange noises? He nodded.

A few kids had scratches on them after they left the Grey Door. But I thought they got them before and I just didn't notice them at first. they could have tripped or something. I did hear some heavy breathing. That could have just been some kid panting from running around. Hard to say for sure. First, Margaret said she thought she heard a dog snarling,

and now Scott was saying he'd heard heavy breathing. With the strange noises, mysterious scratches on misbehaving children and the mystery of the gray door room, I couldn't help but wonder what it was that Happy Sunday Acre had been hiding all these years. I thanked Scott for taking the time to speak to me before moving on to the next person interview. With my curiosity regarding the grade door still heightened, I figured the next person to speak to should be one of the more trouble-making attendees of the daycare.

I had to know more about what was inside that room, and perhaps one of them could tell me. After doing more background checks, I managed to track down a young woman who will refer to as Alice. She'd been arrested two weeks ago for spraying graffiti and was charged with vandalism. Rather than spend time in jail, she agreed to do four months of community service. From what I read about her records, it seemed this wasn't the first time she'd gotten into trouble with the law. Were you always this much trouble? I asked her. Alice shrugged.

Maybe. I wasn't sure how easy it would be to get answers I wanted from her. She seemed like the type would only cooperate if she'd get something out of it, like less time behind bars. I need to know about Happy Sun Daycare, I asked her. Do you remember anything about the gray door? For a brief second, a hint of fear flashed in her eyes. Her face became pale, as a few beads of sweat trickled down her forehead. That was a long time ago, Alice pointed out.

I replied, Surely you must remember something. Records show you were ten when you attended. Are you sure you can't recall anything? Alice took a few deep breaths and began to regain her composure. If the mere mention of the gray door room was enough to put fear into her after all those years, I couldn't help but dread what horrors she could have experienced. Here was someone who had run-ins with the law,

someone who'd been arrested for various crimes, primarily theft, vandalism, and trespassing. And yet, it was something from her childhood that caused the most fear being punished. Why? Okay. I'll tell you. But you got a promise never to say that I told you anything. Got it? Now aside. I assured her, I won't reveal any names. They'll be strictly confidential. You see, I was playing outside in the playground, she began to explain. I remember wanting to play on the swings. Another kid claimed he'd already gotten first dibs to play on them. Before I knew it, we were having a big argument.

I lost control. Next thing I knew, he was on the ground crying. I must have pushed him when we were arguing. One of the teachers came up and grabbed me by the arm and drake me inside. She told me that I'd be taken into what the other kids called the gray door room as punishment. What's inside the room? I asked in anticipation. Alice took another deep breath and let out a shutter and a sigh.

The room was mostly empty. I remember the floor was nothing but dirt ground, and the only light was a dingy old bulb that barely lit anything up. The teacher just shoved me in and slammed the door shut. At first I tried pounding on the door and screaming. I cried out for anyone to open it. It was so dark and cold and I was so scared. And I heard something.

Something was behind me. I turned around and I remember screaming louder than I'd ever screamed in my life. I frowned and concerned. What did you see? It was a dog. Or at least I think it was a dog. She choked back a few tears. I didn't get a good look at it since it was so dark.

All I remember was that it was the biggest and ugliest dog I had ever seen. The thing had glowing yellow eyes, huge sharp teeth and was covered in black, shaky fur. Before I knew it, it snarled and lunged. at me. I ran around as fast as I could, screaming and begging for anyone to come and save me. They grabbed onto my skirt with its teeth and tried to pull me towards it. I tripped and fell, but I managed to kick it in the face a couple of times to get it to let go. Then it lunged at me again. But luckily for me, the door finally opened and one of the teachers pulled me out of the room and slammed the door shut before the dog could get me again.

So there was a dog after all. The stories were all starting to come together. Margaret's story about hearing screams and growling. Scott's story about horrified kids who'd been sent to the gray door room. And now there's Alice's story about being sent to that room and attacked by some sort of large, vicious dog. Still, I had to know more. Why did they use a dog? Why did they cover it up?

Perhaps the people working at Happy Sun Daycare were afraid that such a punishment would be too extreme to use on children. Or maybe they feared being sued by some animal rights group. I thanked Alice for her time and set forth to find the next person to talk to. Maybe it would be another one of the employees. If I was lucky, I might be able to get one of them to reveal the truth about what was going on in the gray door room. Once again, I began searching through the records for anyone. who had worked at the Happy Sun Daycare. It took some time to find someone who was willing to talk to me.

Most former employees I asked were either too busy or simply didn't want to give an answer. A few of them directed various profanities at me as well. I couldn't tell if they were angry that I'd learned about what was going on all those years ago, or if they were afraid of what might happen if they revealed any more secrets to me. Still, I managed to track down at least one person who was willing to tell me. his experience is working at Happy Sun Daycare. Mr. Smith, as we'll call him, worked as a janitor at the daycare

back when he was still running. He'd managed to get the job because his aunt was in charge in one of the head offices there as well. However, Mr. Smith had moved to another town since the daycare closed years ago. This meant I couldn't interview him in person, so we sent each other emails instead.

Mr. Smith explained that he'd been dealing with some form of narcolepsy since he was a teenager and had a history of sleepwalking as well. Doctors couldn't figure out what was causing his condition, but they couldn't find any other adverse health effects linked to it either. This still made it difficult for him to find work, though. He told me that he was grateful that his aunt managed to get him a job at Happy Sunday Care.

I had so many questions. And, well, I wasn't sure which one to ask first. After I got his first response, I wrote back to him. I wanted to know how he was able to hold his job despite his condition. Was he on medication for it? How did the other employees and children treat him? A couple days passed before I got any response for him. I quickly opened the latest email response for Mr. Smith and began to read.

He replied that his aunt would mix him a special herbal tea for him that would help keep his narcolepsy in check. She apparently strongly believed in herbal medicine and said that it was better than any standard medicine on the market. Mr. Smith wrote about how the tea was quite bitter and how he hated drinking it, but that he had to drink it if he wanted to keep his job. Though on occasion, his aunt would run out of the leaves needed for the tea

and he'd end up falling asleep. This prompted another employee to go and make sure he didn't accidentally hurt himself or others. As for how others treated him, Mr. Smith explained in his letter that the children were generally very nice to him. Most of them were quite curious when to ask him lots of questions while he worked. A few would act as a nuisance, but he didn't recall any of them being too much trouble. On the other hand, the other employees seemed to have a sense of uneasiness around him. He explained how he felt that they seemed extremely cautious around him.

Also, he pointed out that his aunt always kept a close eye on him. He wasn't sure if this was due to his condition or for some other reason, though. That just caused more questions to form in my mind. Why were the other employees uneasy around him? Was it because he was the nephew of one of the higher-ups? Or was there another reason? And there was the matter of his aunt keeping a close eye on him. Maybe they were trying to keep the whole issue regarding the gray door room a secret from him.

Perhaps they were afraid that he'd find out about the same. the dog and would contact the police. I had to know if he knew something about the room. I quickly wrote a reply and asked if you knew anything about a large empty room and that children being attacked by some sort of dog. Another couple of days passed before I got another response from Mr. Smith. I opened the reply and began to read. He said that he didn't remember any kind of dog at the daycare.

In fact, he pointed out that animals weren't allowed on the property and that he would set traps to keep the squirrels and mice out. His aunt was very strict about no pets being allowed as well. Most likely it was due to any potential allergies kids might have. Mr. Smith explained in his reply that perhaps a dog that Alice claimed to attack her was just someone in a cheap-looking dog costume, that the room had perhaps been kept barely lit so the kids in there wouldn't realize it was fake, and the scratches and bites were just a result of them tripping and accidentally scratching themselves.

To my surprise, he'd been in the Grey Door Room himself several times as well. Strangely, he pointed out that it was always when he hadn't had any tea to drink. He'd wake up in the room. He wasn't sure if anyone had moved him there so that he could sleep without being in anyone's way, or if he'd been sleepwalking again and just stumbled in there by mistake. Mr. Smith explained that the room was originally going to be a large storage closet for various arts and crafts-related supplies. but was never finished due to budget cuts. He wrote in his reply that his aunt didn't want the area to go to waste,

so they decided to use it as a means to punish misbehaving children. In his opinion, someone probably bought a dog costume and would wear it while terrorizing any children sent into the room as a means of instilling the fear of punishment. I sent one last email to Mr. Smith thanking him for taking the time to reply to my messages. The whole thing about Happy Sun Day Day, care was starting to come together.

From what I gathered via the various interviews from both students and employees, children who misbehaved were sent to a large empty space called the gray door room. There was a dog, or possibly just someone in a dog costume, that would chase any children sent in there. Finally, said Childry pulled the safety before the dog could cause any serious harm. There was only one thing left to do. I was going to head inside Happy Sun Daycare and investigate. the infamous gray doorroom for myself.

I had to see for myself if there was anything that could solve this strange cover-up. Several minutes passed as I drove out into the countryside towards the abandoned building. I parked the car in the front driveway and took a few deep breaths. The front door was unlocked, which was lucky for me. I gently pushed it open and began to look inside. The interior was dingy and covered in a layer of dust. Cobwebs spread over various desks. chairs that hadn't been used in quite some time.

A musty smell filled the house and mixed with the odor of feces and urine from the rats that now made the place their home. It was nauseating to say the least. After I explored several different areas, I soon found the foreboding gray door that was said to lead to the dreaded room. The door was quite heavy, and it took me several tries before I managed to force it open. Just like how Alice had described, the room was dark and empty. with a dirt floor and a dingy bulb.

Said bulb had burnt out long ago, so I used an old desk to prop the door open in order to see anything. I could see faint bloodstains on the ground and on the wall, but I couldn't tell who or what the blood belonged to. There were strange markings on the wall as well. I took a closer look and could have sworn they resemble claw marks of some sort.

As I continued to examine the room, I noticed various footprints. in the dirt. Many were faded or had been trampled over one another, but I could still make out a few. Most of them were the footprints of children. They looked like their makers had been running away from something. There was one other distinct set of footprints that caught my attention. I examined them closely. I could definitely make out the distinctive footpads, claws, and individual toes on at least one of the prints. This wasn't some person in a cheap cost. Happy Sun Daycare had been using a dog to terrorize children.

I had to let people know what they've been hiding for all those years. However, as I made my way out of the daycare into my car, there was one aspect about those footprints that made me uneasy. Since when did dogs walk on two legs? Creepy presents The Tears Cosmic Written by Joshua Bryant and narrated by Rissomontanez.

I was out for a walk. The woods were nice that day. The trees were green, the birds were flitting all over, going from branch to branch, and it wasn't silent. No woodland in late spring should be silent.

I was heading for the clearing just before the hills. The grass grew high there, and I wanted to hear the breeze stirring the blades. And secretly, I wanted to see the hole again. Ron didn't like me going to the hole. I always had bad dreams afterward. At least, that's what he said. I didn't really consider them bad dreams. They would just make my heart race. Just make me scream. and that's not the same thing as a bad dream. I made my way out of the trees and looked into the clearing. The sun gleamed over it and it looked like an ocean.

I plucked a blade of grass and put it between my lips. It tasted as green as it looked. I walked into the field, minding where I placed my feet. For all I knew, there could have been more holes at that point. and I didn't want to step into one. That was when I heard someone talking. I stopped and looked around, alert and apprehensive. I don't like people.

Other than Ron, that is. I saw them. Their backs returned to me and they were wearing flannel shirts and had on wide brimmed hats. There were two. One was kneeling down, and the other stood a few feet behind, fiddling when something in his hands. They were by the hole. I stood still and considered

turning around, but Ron was supposed to be out late, and that's precisely why I was able to go out to the hole. He wouldn't be out late the next day. I chewed on the grass blade, and then I jumped. One of the two people were calling out to me. I looked up at them, and it was a woman speaking to me. She was smiling and walking towards me. The man, the one that had been fiddling, was still by the whole but was now facing me. Both of them were glasses. The woman seemed friendly enough.

She was older than me, but didn't have that look to her that most people older than me have. She looked me in the eye. So I let her get close. She told me her name, we shook hands, and then she asked if I lived around here. I nodded and told her about the property, and then she asked if I knew anything about the hole.

I got quiet. I know that a person can't really own something like the hole, but I had found it. I had spent a lot of time with it, so despite knowing otherwise, I felt that the whole was mine. My secret. A woman sort of laughed and patted my shoulder.

Then she asked if I wanted to see it. I nodded and we walked over. The man smiled at me too, but it was fake. It didn't reach his eyes. He offered his hand, but I didn't shake it. The whole woman. was still there, just like I remembered it. I squat down and smiled. It was perfectly round, big enough to swallow a cantalope and blacker than charcoal. I had no idea how deep it ran,

but I'd like to imagine it went all the way to the core of the earth. Maybe beyond. The woman was going on and on about things that I didn't care about. The man was taking pictures. He asked if it was okay if he got me in the shots. I didn't answer. The cloud passed in front of the sun and things became cooler. I got a chill. And then I looked at my watch. It was almost time. I stood up and began stepping backwards so fast, I guess it startled the man and woman. She asked me what I was doing. I couldn't keep it from them and I was really excited. It had been so long since the last time I seen it and it was fun to have two newcomers about to witness it for the first time. So I told them all about it. Told them in just two minutes, it was going to happen. Told them to stand back and watch.

The man snorted and looked at the woman from under his eyebrows, but she was quiet. Her eyes were studying mine. I met her halfway and told her that I don't lie. He snorted again. She clapped her hands and said something about getting equipment from their truck. She told the man to stay and get pictures, and then she ran off. The grass swish, swish, swishing against her legs on the way. He called out to her, but she didn't turn back. He shook his head and came over to stand by me. I had. I looked at my watch. One minute left. I took the grass blade from between my lips,

looked at the chewed bits, and then flicked it away. The man was standing a little too close, so I sidestepped a couple feet. He mumbled something. I counted the seconds. I looked up at the smooth gray underside of the cloud above us, and I said, she won't make it back in time.

He may have responded, I don't know, I was too focused on the sensation that came before. The air dried. The breeze died. All the animal sounds ceased. And I took a deep... The light seemed to change, seemed to grow slightly brighter for only a moment. There was a hum and all the fine hairs of... my arms and legs rose up and stood straight out. The smell of charred dirt filled my nostrils, and I felt something like a burst of air

or a clap of silent thunder moved through me. And just like that, it was over. A perfect circle of sunlight came down through a perfect circle made in the cloud, and it went right into the whole. The whole time it was happening, the man had been clicking away at his camera. Now, he stumbled backward, grabbed at his lips a moment before,

hunching forward and spitting out his lunch. I was running fingers through my hair, smoothing it out, feeling my heart pulsing hard in my chest. The woman was running back, carrying a big black bag in shouting. She was asking if she had missed. it. The man was still heaving. And I told her that she had. Disappointed, she looked up at the sky and

threw the bag onto the ground. Her eyes traveled to the hole, and she knelt beside it. She probe at it with fingers, smelled the dark soot. She wagged her head side to side, then she asked the man if he got any pictures. He said he didn't know. His voice hoarse. His eyes filled with tears. I smirked at him. The woman held her hand out for the camera,

and he gave it to her. I moved behind her and leaned over her shoulder looking at the pictures on the screen. Many of them were of the whole, taken earlier in the day. She went through, these impatiently. And I hummed a little, waiting because I knew the good ones were coming up soon. She gasped, held a hand to her mouth, and I giggled. The pictures he had taken when it was

happening revealed what we couldn't see with our own eyes. It was wonderful. The first picture showed a long, bright line of a strange color descending. The next showed it striking the hole. The picture after that was pure, blurry whiteness and nothing else. The final one showed the field and the hole again, but there were thousands of tiny twisting shapes that permeated the air in every color of the rainbow. The woman looked at the picture. pictures again and again. She made weird noises with her throat, but was too awestruck to actually

say anything. I looked at my watch, saw the time, and yelped. I had to get back home. I started running off, and the woman told me to wait. I shout back that I couldn't. I looked over my shoulder at them one last time before going back into the trees. The woman had stood up and was staring at the sky. The man had sat down and was cradling his head. I went home. I stayed up until Ron returned. I could tell he had been drinking by the way he parked the truck. I listened to him, stumble up the porch steps, and struggle to unlock the door. I pulled the blankets up tight around my chin, closed my eyes, and pretended to be fast asleep. Even drunk, Ron would have suspected something if he saw I was awake. He came down the hall, kicked his boots off at the bedroom door,

and slumped into bed beside me. He planted a wet kiss on my cheek and I almost laughed. But I held it in. It was hard, but I waited quietly the whole five minutes it took Ron to fall asleep. Then I slipped out from under the covers and tiptoed out of the room. I took one last look at Ron's sleeping form before making my way to the living room. I laid down on the couch and pulled back the cushions over my body for warmth. I took a very long, very deep breath, closed my eyes, and I let the waiting dream take me. Every time the dreams take me, it is a very long. if I just blink and I have become something else. It's as if one moment. I am within my own skin,

and the next there is no skin. It is such a disconcerting feeling, and I have never once gotten used to it. Then I start seeing things. The first time I had only seen a cluster of huge orange lights hanging in darkness below me. That had been enough. to wake me up, sweating. But after that, I started seeing more and more. The dream I had that night on the couch started out just like all the others. The orange lights blazing in the distance. My vision moved to the left, and I saw great porcelain white columns moving over nothingness, going horizontally away from a vivid blue illumination. To the right, I saw the exhumal. I saw the exact same thing. I looked down, though not by any choice of mine. I was moving along one of these

white columns, and it was barely white enough for me. I didn't have legs. I seemed to be gliding, to either side of the column. I could see that below there was a terrible vastness that gleamed dimly with distant stars. My body began trembling. humbling violently. I looked to the left, to the right, back down again. I was fighting against something, straining at some form of bondage. I felt myself screaming. And I looked down one more time, and the column was growing thinner and thinner. I couldn't stop myself. I just kept going forward. The column became a rail, became a toothpick, became a wire, until the column. finally it was gone and I was falling. The longer I fell, the faster I went. The blue glow turned

into a blur then dissipated altogether. The orange lights shrunk until they were mere specks amidst the surrounding black. I felt my body stretching out, compacting tighter and tighter. Screaming was impossible, but the need for it only mounted with each passing moment. my vision diminished until I could only see streaks of colors that I couldn't name. That was when I finally woke up. I jerked up, but my legs and arms were flopping around by themselves. I tried to speak and only moaned. I fell off the couch and landed painfully on the floor.

It took a lot of focus to be able to get back to feeling right. The whole time I was scared, Ron would wake up and find me. But he didn't. He must have been really wasted. The first thing I did when I was normal again was go to the kitchen and drink a bottle of water. The dreams were usually like that.

Sometimes they were more fearful, other times more subdued. But they were all about the same thing. It was a miserable and electrifying experience. I wondered as I sat on the kitchen floor and wiped sweat off my cheeks how that man with the camera was taking it. I laughed a little. He probably hasn't stopped screaming yet. I went back to bed.

Ron was just as I had left him. I fell back into sleep in this time, dreamlessly. When I awoke, it was to the sound of Ron's alarm ringing. He sat up, groaning and pawing at his head. He slammed a fist into the bedside clock and stomped to the bathroom. I got up, buzzing in that warm, sleepy way, and went to the kitchen to make us breakfast. After we had eaten and Ron had gotten ready, he kissed me goodbye and left for work. I watched his blue pickup rattle down the road and disappear beyond the hills.

I went back inside, thinking about what I wanted to do next. This didn't last long. A knock at the door interrupted me. I had been pacing up and down the living room when the knock had resounded. I froze in my tracks and instantly thought about pretending that no one was home. But the knock came again, and my curiosity took me by the nose. I walked to the door and peeked through its diamond-shaped window. I gasp a little.

It was the old woman from the day before, and she was very grave. I unlocked the door and cracked it a little. Our eyes met and she smiled again, but this time it was pulled tight with anxiety. She greeted me, shook my hand again, and I noticed her palm was sweaty. Then she asked if I could come back to the hole with her. I shook my head, explaining that I couldn't on account of Ron. The hole was too far. far a walk for me to get back in time without him knowing where I went.

The woman nodded, but I could tell she wasn't satisfied. Her smile had fallen to pieces. She said she could drive me there in her truck. I looked over her shoulder and saw a brand new white pickup glowing in the sunshine. The windows were black as sunglasses. She had left the door open. I told her again that I could. She took her glasses off and rubbed the lenses with her shirt.

She started telling me about how the man she was with refused to go back. She said he had a crippling experience last night. I nodded. She said she wanted an eyewitness to what had happened. Then she wanted to interview me. I thought about it. With her truck, I could definitely get to the hole and back again without Ron finding out.

And I really did want to see the hole again. I told the woman that I would go. She sighed a big sigh and I ran off to get the house keys. We got into her truck and we set off down the road. In the back seat, there were huge piles of black bags. Some had wheels. Others had steel antenna poking out of their unzipped flag. I wanted to ask what it was all for, but the woman was so grim-looking I thought I'd better not.

Instead, I reached up and turned on the radio. She made a click with her tongue and lips and turned the volume almost to zero. So I turned it back off. I lacked her a lot less than I had the day before. When we had driven down the roadways, she pulled off onto the shoulder and parked. We got out and she began unloading some of the bags. She strapped several over her shoulders and handed me a couple. After that, she pulled this little remote from her pocket with a screen on it.

She turned a switch on its side and it immediately started beeping. Without saying anything at all, she began walking into the trees. And I followed. I had never approached the clearing where the whole. was from this side of the woods. The trees were just as tangled and just as vibrant, but the ground was less even. The woman stumbled a lot,

and with all of her bags, she got really red-faced and started sweating through her clothes. I thought about helping her. But her mood put me off. Despite the slow pace we had to go at, we made it to the clearing within ten minutes. There were no clouds, and there was no breeze. So the mid-morning sun was really heavy.

We set all the women's equipment down by the hole, and I trotted off to lay down in the shade of the trees. The woman was unzipping bags and pulling out metal boxes and cameras and cylinders that stood on thin tripods. One of the cylinders she had placed beside the hole would not stand up straight. It kept losing balance and falling across the hole. This was frustrating her, and I thought that maybe she would pick the thing up and throw it away. But she didn't.

I looked at my watch and saw that we still had an hour until it would happen. So I made a pillow out of my hands and took a nap. I didn't see any reason for the woman's intensity. It was a pretty nice day, and she was going to get what she wanted, so. Why be so fussy about it? I guess some people are just like that, though. She woke me up by tapping me with the toe of her hiking boots. I rubbed my eyes and looked up at her.

Her hands were on her hips, and she asked if it would be happening soon. I glanced at my watch and stood up. I nodded. She asked, how long exactly? I told her and we walked to the hole. Her strides were long and tore at the grass like sweeping hammers. She knelt by all her equipment and began flicking switches and pressing buttons. They blinked with little lights and made slight humming sounds.

The troublesome cylinder fell again and she cursed at it under her breath. She reset it and almost stood up, but stopped, perhaps thinking it was best to stay in case it kept falling. I looked at my watch and then at the sky. The time was going fast. I didn't think she should stay that close, but... I didn't like arguing so. I didn't say so.

She looked over at me and demanded to know if it was almost time. I didn't answer. The sensation did that for me. The moisture in the air faded. All noises fell silent. I held my hands tightly. The cylinder fell and the woman reached for it. I let out a small scream,

but her hand was already going over the hole. And then it happened. The light brightened. The woman began shrieking, like a whip. She snapped up, her arms held straight out from her body. Her face was turned upwards and her mouth was so wide, I could have crawled inside. Her skin was glowing from within,

and the radiance was becoming more and more brilliant with each second. Her screams grew louder and louder, her voice warping into something like a bellowing cavern. I had to cover my ears. I had to close my eyes. I felt an incredible heat. I smelled burning clothes, and I heard a voice so alien and so monstrous, I can hardly describe it.

It screeched words that couldn't be formed with human lips, but I knew they were words of agony. Then like a match being blown out, it was over. I opened my eyes, wipe the tears off my cheeks. The day was normal again, except that there was something misshaped in laying, beside the woman's melted equipment. Cautiously, I walked over to it. The woman was unrecognizable.

She was drawn up like a snake's shedded skin. Her arms and legs blackened and curled up tightly against her body. Her face was just a pile of wrinkles. Her eye sockets wide and steaming and empty. I kneel beside her. I touch her cheek gently. And like blowing on a dandelion, she began crumbling and drifting into the air.

She sparkled a million different colors. It was really beautiful. Creepy Presents, The Lanterns of Hollow Creek, written by Angela Campbell, and narrated by Michelle Kane. I used to think Halloween was stupid. That might sound strange for a woman in her mid-20s, but growing up in Hollow Creek, it was just another night.

A quiet one, really. The town didn't go all out with decorations or candy like most places. In fact, most of us avoided Halloween altogether. You see, Hollow Creek has an urban legend, a ghost story that gets passed from family to family. And while most towns spin these tales to scare kids and keep them from causing trouble, this one's different. At least it felt different to me. It wasn't the kind of story people told around a campfire or in hushed whispers at sleepovers. In Hollow Creek, it was more like a warning.

When I was a little girl, my grandma would talk about the lights every Halloween, about how they lured innocent children. and adults to their doom. Supposedly, they hunted for victims every night in October, before disappearing until the next year. Oh, me ma, God, I miss her. She used to bake the best pumpkin pie, and she'd let me dress her white cat tundra up in silly costumes when I was little. I loved me, Ma, so I wholeheartedly believed the story until I hit like junior high. To be honest, after that, I thought it was a myth. In Hollow Creek, the lanterns are common knowledge, although not a subject of public conversation.

Even now, I'm not sure what happened was real, or if it was just a dream, or worse, if I'm still trapped inside it. It all started three nights ago, a few days before Halloween. I'd already been having trouble sleeping, I had this uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, like something bad was about to happen. Although I couldn't quite place why I felt that way. I didn't normally suffer from anxiety, but work had been grating on my nerves,

deadlines looming and projects piling up, so I put it down to that. When my friend Marcy invited me to a Halloween party, I figured why not? I hoped it would distract me from my everyday problems. The party was at an activity center on the edge of town. Nothing fancy. Marcy was dressed like a vampire, and I threw on a last-minute witch costume. The kind you can buy for 20 bucks at almost any store? It wasn't much, but it helped me fit in. The night blurred together. Too many drinks, too many faces, and too much noise. When midnight rolled around, I was more than ready to leave, but of course, Marcy had clung on to some poor guy, dressed as a cowboy, and pretty much told me I was on my own at that point. I slipped out of the center and began walking. I figured I could make the trek to my apartment without too much effort, and the walk would help clear the fog from ahead. That's when I saw them.

At first, I thought they were party decorations, or maybe some part of a Halloween prank? probably teenagers, trying to lure drunk partygoers into an alley so they could jump out in screen costume and give them a good scare. However, I began to clue in that the lights weren't exactly natural. I don't really know how to describe them. It was more of a feeling, I guess. I felt almost as if I were in a trance, and I had no choice but to see where they led me. As I neared the edge of town, the houses,

became more spaced out, and I found myself walking past Hollow Creek Cemetery. That's when the glow became more defined, flickering orange lights floating among the trees lining the graveyard. The lanterns. I froze. There they were, just like in the stories Mi Ma Ma had told me. Four of them, bobbing and swaying, as if being carried by invisible hands. The lanterns weren't made of paper or glass or even metal. Oh no, they were carved from pumpkins. Their jagged faces leered at me with hollowed out eyes and wicked grins. The old legend ran through my mind.

The lanterns of Hollow Creek appear every October, searching for souls to guide into the dark. Whatever you do, ignore them or you'll never be seen again. When I'd grown older and I'd asked Meemaw why the lanterns only appeared in October, she'd told me it dated back to the town's founders. Something about a curse placed on the land because they'd stolen the land from an old woman, a woman many believed to be practicing witchcraft. A woman who had also mysteriously disappeared soon after. Right around Halloween. Ma Ma Ma Ma Maugh had speculated the town's founders had buried her alive somewhere on the

property. But of course, she didn't know that for sure. No one living did. I shook my head. This had to be a joke. Kids from town, maybe, messing around. But there was something unusual about these lanterns. They didn't move like they were being carried by someone. No footsteps, no shadows. They just floated. Against my better judgment, I moved. closer. The closer I got, the colder the air became. My breath clouded in front of me, despite it being an unusually warm October night. And that's when I heard it. A soft, eerie hum, like a distant melody carried on the wind. It was faint, but it tugged at something deep inside me. I took another step toward the lanterns, then another. My feet to be. My feet

moved without my permission, as if they were being pulled by some unseen force. The humming grew louder, more distinct, like voices harmonizing in an ancient forgotten language. It wasn't just sound, it was a feeling, a vibration deep in my bones. One of the lanterns drifted toward me, its uneven grin stretched wider, and its hollow eyes stared straight into mine. I could see the candle flickering inside it, but something was wrong. The light wasn't natural. It was dark, a flame that seemed to eat the darkness around it, not push it away. Hello? I whispered, though I don't know why. I wasn't expecting a response, but in that moment, I felt watched, as if the lanterns weren't just objects but sentient things, aware of me in a way

I couldn't explain. I wanted to run, but my legs wouldn't listen. The cold intensified and the air around me thickened, heavy like syrup. The hum was inside my head now, vibrating behind my eyes. I blinked and suddenly I wasn't standing in the graveyard anymore. The world around me had shifted. I was in the woods. The trees loomed overhead, their twisted branches blocking out the moon. Shadows stretched long and deep, swallowing everything they touched. The lanterns were still there, circling me.

Their light casting grotesque, dancing shadows, the forest floor. Where am I? My voice sounded distant, swallowed by the thick fog that clung to the ground. I didn't recognize this part of the woods. I should have been terrified, but the humming had grown soothing, almost comforting. It wrapped around me like a blanket, urging me to follow. And I did.

I walked deeper into the woods, following the land. lanterns as they bobbed and weaved through the trees. My mind screamed at me to stop, turn back, but my body was no longer my own. I was being led, pulled along by some invisible tether. Eventually the trees thinned, and I found myself standing at the edge of a large clearing. In the center of the clearing stood an old decrepit house. Its windows were shattered, the roof, sagging in on itself. The place reeked of decay and abandonment. The lanterns floated to the porch, hovering there as if waiting for me to follow. I hesitated, fear finally clawing its way to the surface. My heart pounded in my chest, and for the first time since I saw the lanterns,

I tried to resist. But it was too late. My feet moved on their own, carrying me toward the house. The door creaked open as I approached, revealing nothing but darkness beyond. The lanterns floated inside, disappearing into the void. And like a moth drawn to the flame, I stepped across the threshold. The door slammed shut behind me. Inside, the house was cold, freezing. The air smelled of mold and something else, something metallic, like blood. My eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness, but I could make out shapes in the shadows. Furniture, long abandoned and covered in dust, sat in the corners. The wallpaper peeled from the walls, revealing dark, damp wood beneath.

And then I saw her. A figure stood at the far end of the room. She was barely visible, cloaked in shadow, but I could feel her eyes on me, watching, waiting. The humming stopped, and in the sudden silence my heart thundered in my ears. Who are you? My voice came out in a shaky whisper. The figure didn't move, but I could feel her presence now filling the room with a suffocating weight. Slowly the lanterns floated to her, their eerie light illuminating her face.

She was gaunt, her skin pale and stretched tight over her bones. Her eyes were black pits, bottomless and empty. She smiled, a grotesque wide grin that split her face in two. Been waiting for you. She rasped. Her voice like dry leaves scraping against stone. My breath caught in my throat. Every instinct screamed at me to run, but my legs were rooted to the spot. She moved closer, her bony fingers reaching for me. I wanted to scream, to fight, but I was paralyzed by terror. I've been waiting for so long. As the woman crept toward me, something crunched beneath her feet, drawing my gaze downward. And the soft glow I could see human bones lining the floor.

The shock helped me mobilize my frozen muscles, and I gasped and stepped back. She shrieked an ear-piercing complaint as she lunged for me, her gnarled fingers boasting dagger-like nails, nails that scraped my forearm and drew blood as she almost managed to grab my limb. Almost. Perhaps fate or a son. Something else was on my side that night, because out of nowhere, a white blur flew between us. A cat, I realized, and its target became apparent. The animal's own sharp claws grasped onto one of the lanterns,

causing the old woman to shriek again, this time in pain. The cat sank its teeth into the flesh of the grotesque lantern, drawing red liquid from within its now rotting flesh. The other lanterns flared, their light growing brighter and brighter until it seared my vision. I squeezed my eyes shut, and when I opened them again, I was standing in the graveyard. I don't know how I got back or how long I'd been gone, but when I looked around, the lanterns weren't there anymore. The woods, the house, the woman, and even the cat, all gone. It was just me. standing in front of the cemetery gates, as if nothing had happened. But I know better.

My arm is still wrapped in gauze where three of the old woman's fingernails marked me. I can also still hear the humming in the back of my mind, soft and distant, but always there. And sometimes at night I see them again, the lanterns, floating just at the eddy. to the woods, waiting, for someone else, or maybe they're waiting for me to come back. Today is Halloween. I plan to stay inside, curtains drawn, lights off. But no matter how hard I try to ignore it, I can still feel them, watching, waiting, always waiting. And I know, deep down, if I were to see the lanterns tonight, I'd follow them. Creepy presents Wastes Beyond Waste, written by Leon Saul, and narrated by J.V. Hampton Van Sant.

Against the wind, it trudges like a wooden wind-up toy. Leathered skin dappled with fresh snow. A sinewy tongue lulls out of the mutilated mouth, which is frozen in a rictus. Snowflakes land on the gray, ropy muscle, dissolve on its stippled black surface. Below, a line of smoke unravels in the snow-filled sky. The creature stops. Its eyes spark like embers in the sock. of a cadaverous face. Weezing with anticipation,

it picks its way down the slope of the mountain, heading towards the pine structure, emitting the smoke, and leaving in its wake a spore of crimson footprints in the snow. Josh claps his hands over his ears, trying to block out the shouting from downstairs. The deep base of his father's voice,

vibrates the floor beneath his feet. A shrill venomous hiss follows. They've been going at it for 30 minutes now. Josh knew this whole vacation was a waste. No amount of snowboarding or sipping on hot chocolate in front of the fire was going to fix things between his mom and dad. It was over. The last couple of years, their marriage had,

soured into a bitter union of mutual resentment, and at times, violence. Josh remembers the bruise shadowing his mom's right eye three weeks ago, a livid violet, just visible beneath the makeup. Later, he overheard her in the garage talking on the phone to Aunt Cindy while dad was out somewhere, probably with that tall red-headed woman from his work. Listening to her hushed, sobbing plans of leaving him, whispered revelations of drinking and hitting, an escalation of abuse. Divorce was all but certain. Josh just hopes it will be quick. Praise there won't be any ugly custody battle like what happened with his best friend Julian. With a twist of nausea in his stomach, he figures Dad'll probably be a little bit of.

fight for custody, if for no other reason than to spite his mom. Most of the fighting revolves around her lack of mothering skills, how she lets Josh meet up with Julian after school without checking to see if he's done his homework, or allows him to play GTA and Fortnite when video games only rot a kid's brain. His dad's the most cold-hearted prick he knows. He hopes, begs for his mom to get full custody. And his time with dad will be limited to once a week, overnights, and weekends.

That he could live with. A husky snarl, followed by a harsh owl-like shriek, rumbles from below. Josh cups his ears harder, humming to himself to cancel out the sounds of mounting hostility. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes. He sniffs as he squeezes them shut, lets twin salt trails run down his face. Just let this miserable vacation be over already. The tradition of renting a cabin in Mammoth over President's Day weekend

is one they'd had since Josh was little. It used to be something to look forward to, skiing and snowboarding, hiking the glistening white trails, but not anymore. He imagines his parents thought the forced family time would somehow fix things, bring them all closer together. Yeah, right. Wind groans through the window panes, rattling the glass. Josh glances outside and sees past intricate whirls of ice snow,

falling heavily. The sky, a frenzy of chalk white flakes. Cold seeps through the glass. Feeling a chill, he tugs on the sleeves of his fisherman's sweater, nodded and shrunken over the years. But the frayed cotton bounces back over his bird-like wrists. Sighing, he gazes past his ghost-like reflection. Beyond the falling sun,

snow, a figure appears on the upper ridge, stumbling down the slope. A man? It moves stiffly, like a zombie or an animatronic scarecrow at a two-bit carnival. Josh Squintz cups his hands around the chilled glass of the window. The figure's tall, pale as a skinned tree branch, and unknowingly. It trails a zagging line of footprints behind it. In the noonday sun, the footprints look red, bright red, almost like... His heart skips a beat, as the figure lurches closer, reeling drunkenly, like his uncle Wyatt after a few too many Budweiser's at Christmas. Josh's eyes widen when he sees the person isn't wearing any clothes. Just naked.

In the middle of February? No, the man, if it is a man, he then thinks with an absurd shiver, would freeze to death. The closer the figure gets, the more unnatural. it looks, skeletalty thin, skin gray and leathery, like a twist of jerky. It reminds Josh of the Egyptian priestess he once saw in a glass tomb in St. Louis Science Center, modeled in places like bruises on old fruit, places where the gauze gray flesh had rotted or been torn off or eaten. Goose flesh pebbles his skin, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

He wonders if his parents are seeing this, this thing approaching their cabin, or if they're too busy yelling at each other still. He doesn't hear anything from downstairs. His ears feel weirdly blocked, like they're stuck. stuffed with cotton. He should definitely run down there and warn them that, what, a walking skeleton man is lumbering towards their cabin? A skinny, tall, naked man or woman, whatever it is, it's incredibly old and is just staggering

down the slope in snowy sub-zero weather. Josh feels lightheaded, sick to his stomach. This is bad, he thinks, and realizes he's sweating. Mouth dry, he can't work up enough saliva to utter a sound. He sits frozen on the edge of the mattress, watching in mute paralysis as the figure, looking more and more like a haggard old man, nude, and sickly gray, bits of flesh definitely missing. Oh, fuck, eyes sunken, but somehow glowing.

It gets closer, slowly, steadily. We need to. The thought sets his heart trip-hammering, and then the thing is mere feet from the front door. On the stoop, it glances up, catching Josh's gaze in the window. His guts turned to liquid. Eyes glowing, like crimson coals, recessed in the skull-like face, stare up at him, and the mouth. Oh my God, where are its lips?

Seems to leer in a horrid oblong smile, which finally makes him scream. The trapper and his son huddle on splintered wooden floor. Knees drawn up, bodies pressed together for warmth. Wind rafts through the holes in the cabin ceiling, and errant snowflakes flitter in the murky light. Weak and pale, the boy convulses with hunger pangs against his father's side. When he shifts position, brushing against his father's side, when he shifts position, brushing against the rent in the trapper's snow-crusted coat, he hisses in pain. He can't recall how long they've been holed up in the abandoned cabin. How many days have elapsed since evading the attack on their camp? Visions of the Indian War Party flare like musket fire in his mind's eye. His brother-in-law Jude,

bleeding out of his torn mouth, moans wheezing through broken and bloody teeth, his life-force ebbing. The image stuck like a splinter in his mind's eye as the trapper hauled his son from the carnage, stumbling through knee-high drifts, while the sounds of clashing and dying tolled in his ears. Somehow they made it out. fled north into the dark mountain pass. All they could think of was escape.

Getting the boy to safety, evading the natives who swore revenge for the rape and murder of one of their own, the village chief's daughter, a girl close to Henry's age. A part of the trapper understood their rage, as he would do the very same to ensure their survival. Banshee-like, the blizzard whales, a hollow cry. The cabin has no doors or windows, only holes, some large enough for a man to enter. Through them, snow dances maddeningly white.

Two days ago, by the trapper's estimation, he tried patching the dilapidated ceiling, but the strips of oxhide did little to prevent the cold from invading the cabin's interior. A groan issues from nearby, and the trapper realizes it's the boy's stomach. Dolfully, he holds him tighter and says for the dozenth time, Soon, Henry, the storm will clear soon. The boy makes no response, only shivers, lips, trembling. To their right, in the cabin's murk, a lake of vomit congeals. The result of trying to eat boiled oxhide. The hunter grimaces, recalling how the strips

dissolved into a repulsive glue-like jelly when stuck to the roof of his mouth, made them both violently ill. Afterward, his son sobbed, clutching his stomach in pain. Hating himself for not putting up a stronger front, the trapper could only cry along with him. We're going to die. The boy spluttered between faint gasps. The trapper could not bring himself to correct him. Days later, he unearthed from this frozen drifts the skeleton of a small pony. Boiling the bones on the iron stove, they turned.

soft and brittle, crumbled in his mouth like clots of sun-dried manure. Father and son wretched in the same corner as before, adding to the shared lake of icy vomit. The trapper eyes the pale, semi-solid matter now, and wonders how long before they'll be tempted to eat it. In delirium, the boy shakes, squeezing his hand, oh, and he wants. Over the shuddering shoulder, the trapper whispers in his son's ear, reddened from the cold. Soon. By the time Josh explodes through the door onto the upstairs landing, it's halfway inside.

Framed in the entrance, the heavy oak door askew ripped off its hinges, is a living skeleton. Snowflakes blow behind it, eddying. around the emaciated frame. With gnarled feet, it totters inside. A rancid stench immediately fills the cabin, like something dead and rotting. Josh's parents scream, no longer at each other, as the thing, easily eight feet tall,

shuffles into the foyer. A hideous warble escapes the ragged oval of its mouth. As it lurches closer, Josh sees areas of missing flesh in its desiccated hide, a freakish jigsaw puzzle. His lips are gone, chewed away, so that the teeth are exposed in a peeled-back grimace. With a shout, his father lunges, and Josh cries out as a deformed arm extends and knocks him down. and then, with surprising agility, how does something so old move so fast? The monster strikes.

Josh and his father both scream. The knobs of its spines jut like knuckles as the creature kneels over his father. Whose usually powerful voice is now muffled by a splayed skeletal hand, then takes a hungry bite out of his throat. When the humanoid creature lifts its head, it sneers liplessly, the frozen grimace of the teeth and gums glistening with dark blood. Josh can't look. He buries his face in his mother's shoulder as the slurping, snuffling sounds continue,

mingled with the ragged wheezing and low gargling coming from his father as he loses blood. Then suddenly, the weight of the weight of the body of, his mother is displaced. Josh's eyes fly open. The creature has her in its clawed hands, which have extended bonelessly like putty, reeling her in. Effortlessly, it holds her, twists a hank of auburn hair. Screams echo around the cabin as it takes deep bites out of her face. face. Rocking in a shivery ball, Josh nearly faints, arms clamped hard against his temples, eyes squeezed shut as the sounds of screaming and crying, ripping, snorting and chewing, resound in the confined cabin space. For what feels like hours, the sounds fade. All he hears now is the

patter of feet sliding across vicious fluid on the hardwood floor. When he dares to look, his gorge rises, puk, cresting his tonsils, threatening to erupt out of his mouth, when he sees what becomes of his parents. Amid the welter of torn flesh and bloody dismantled bones, the thing stares, its eyes abyssal black holes, clots of tissue snarled in its teeth. Josh wretches. Doubled over, he feels relief in throwing up, knowing that the end is near. Mirrored in the waves of vomit on the wooden floor, his weak reflection ripples.

Again, he hears the squeak of feet wading through blood. through the remains of mom and dad. Together again, he muses with a hideous urge to laugh. One big, happy family. And he closes his eyes and waits for the thing to take him in its jaws and eat him alive. His son's eyes roll around under clothes lids. Spasms rock the shivering frame, and the trapper holds him, knowing what the boy is experiencing. Hallucinations.

He too has experienced them, recalling how, hours earlier, the image of his wife appeared over the coarse slats of the cabin floor. Half nude, the dome of her abdomen covered in veins. She rubbed her swollen belly with tapered hands, hummed a melody at once lulling and foreign to the trapper's ears. Eat, the words echoed. If the trapper had any belief in the hereafter, that the vision floating before him was a phantasm of his dead wife, had even the slightest,

conviction, there was something, anything, beyond this miserable, hard-scrabble existence, he'd find a way to expedite their end, so that he and the boy could be joined with her. But he doesn't believe that. In his heart, he knows the finality of death. There will be no reunions, no drifting through a few. ethereal plains, only darkness, and the cold, hard, ground. From his reverie, he wakens to shrill winds vortexing through holes in the cabin's walls, also a heaviness at his side, radiating its own peculiar coldness. instantly he knows the boy is gone

off to join his mother in the darkness and the cold after a time he musters strength to bury the boy in the drifts outside hating himself for rushing the urs at ceremony shoulders hunched against the wind he looked to the ground hitches a pained breath. I couldn't protect him, Helen, he says to himself, eyes swelling with tears, which prism the snowy peaks surrounding the cabins.

The following days, he subsists on the remaining oxhide. His stomach spasms, clenching as the glue-like substance seals to the roof of his mouth. It's no use. He'll starve or freeze to death, whichever comes first, and then join his wife and son in the darkness. The cold and pitiless darkness. He finds solace in the thought. But his core revolts.

Fire racks inside of his body. Again, the vision of his wife appears. a plume of smoke in the cabin's shadowy corner. Eat. The words are gentle, yet urgent. Don't let the cold and the darkness have you too. The trapper shakes his head, squeezes his welling eyes shut. It's the only way, love.

Otherwise, you'll die. and there will be no one. Tears track down the trapper's grizzled face, which feels gaunt and stiff, sore as an open wound. His stomach contracts, heaves. With a groan, he lifts himself off the floor, which is wet from snow blown in through the riddled roof.

As if by some unseen hand, He drifts to the door. His conscious mind seated to a primal driving force. Outside, the day is white, blindingly so, but cold as outer space. Wind drives snowflakes horizontal, and the crystals cling to him, snag fatly in his hair, his beard, as he staggers through the, shifting moonscape. Rigidly, he claws through the drift

marked with a leaning, knotted stick on the eastern side of the cabin. His entire body is numb. Hands bloodless blocks of ice. Wind lifts the snow, slapping his face like a jeering child. Through the swirling flakes, he squinted.

Peers into the cave he's creating with his numb and reddened fingers. A flash of soddened fur. Snow spreads like wings to either side of him as he digs out more of the powder with his clawed hands. Brushing away fine crystal shards, he sees it then, framed in white, The oval of a cherub's face. Eyes closed, lashes rimmed with flakes.

The cold has preserved him perfectly. Choking on a sob, the trapper hauls the corpse out of its icy tomb and bears the body inside. Lays it in the center of the cold wooden floor. Tears cascade carelessly now, But the trapper remembers what the vision of his wife had said, You have no choice, love, but to live. The hand that saws off a chunk of the boy's calf is not his hand.

He observes the action as from a distance. Here's the horrible hacking, sees the marbled flesh part, and then somnambulistically brings the morsel to his mouth. His hunger is not localized. It radiates through every inch of him, like blood from the ventricles of a heart. When he brings the hunk of meat to his lips, the stench of blood hits his nostrils. His gorge rises, but he forces his. stomach down. In his mouth the frigid goblet of flesh warms, and blood, salty and thick, suffuses his

glands and drips down his throat. Swallowing, his body accepts the sustenance. He doesn't look at the corpse or at the ragged, dripping shred in his hands as he eats. Henry would understand, the trapper tells himself. But the thought is numb, a frozen thing. After what feels like hours, he collapses to the ground. His hands are red. Pushing weakly off the floorboards, he attempts to stumble outside to wipe them in the snow,

clean the skin so he doesn't have to look at those bloody, stains on his fingers. Lurching through a hole in the wall, he's sprayed by an army of bone-white particles. He falls to his knees and jams both fists into a bank of snow. It swallows the crimson caked balls of flesh. Eyes closed, he flexes his fingers, wiggling them in the icy dune, and then removes his hands to see that, of course, they are still red, but not the lurid crimson of earlier, a duller pink. He's about to plunge them in again, when a fist of torment seizes him. Hissing through gritted teeth, he collapses in the snow.

This is new. Unlike the starvation that's preyed on him and the boy for weeks, this is sharp and hot, metallic, like scissors slicing up his insides. On the ground he writhes in agony, arms flail towards the sky. With blurring vision, he sees the flesh of his hands lose color. The skin models turning ground. ripping in spots as the bones lengthen and crack. The starvation that blooms now is unlike anything he's ever experienced.

On instinct, he bites down on the first thing he can to appease this new hunger. Sharpened fangs pierce into his wizened bottom lip. The tissue splits easily, pulverizing under his gnashing teeth. The shreds do little to allay the pain. He shoves his fingers deep into his mouth, then avidly raking the tips with his teeth, stripping and swallowing what meat he can, till nothing remains but five gleaming. blood-slicked bones. Then, rising unsteadily to his new height,

unraveling his twisted new spine, he gazes downward. Eat! The directive comes from somewhere deep in his gelid core. An assault of wind wafts the stand, of blood into his sinuses. His nostrils quiver as he peers down into the snowy crater at his feet, at what lies within it. He instantly sets back to work, consuming the rest of the flesh raw, until the meat is stripped and all that remains of his son is a pool of sodden clothes,

settled over a clump of crimson bones. The creature watches the boy flee the cabin. Every pit of organic matter had been consumed. Eyes, lips, ears, rib cartilage, muscle tendon. It doesn't know why it let the child go. It hungers still, despite, The ravenous repast. A look in the boy's eyes had awakened something,

a species of emotion, long frozen in the ice block of its heart. After licking clean the floorboards, only bones remained, clattering as the creature brushes past towards the void where the door had stood, and out of the cabin into the sunlight. Heavy wind assails it.

Snowflakes sting the ragged rictus grin of its mouth. Senting something, it traces its steps back onto the ridge. Food there, perhaps a deer. Embraced by the cold. it lumbers off into the wastes. 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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