Creepy - Lights Out

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

Lights Out***Written by: Ridge Joliff***Content warning: animal euthanasia***Crush***Written by: Jimmy Ferrer and Narrated by: Megan McDuffee***Content warning: domestic abuse, suicide***Cadavr Opportunities Near You!***Written by: Lily Lachance and Narrated by: JV Hampton-VanSant***Content warning: suicide Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm John Grills from creepy, and I listen to the Be Afraid Podcast Network. No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastors 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. Hey everyone.

Looks like there were some more five-year- or more Patreon members that I still owe some mad at thanks to, so please join me in thanking, I'm Dead and Still Listening, Miguel Alvarado, Kimberly Cooper, Darling, and Dan de Leon. To see how you can support the show and get rewarded for it, please check out the donation to yours at patreon.com slash creepypod. First up, a grieving man mourning the death of his beloved dog discovers that something monstrous is stalking him through the darkness, forcing him to confront more than just its presence.

From writer Ridge Joloff, creepy presents, lights out. When the lights go out, so does the surety of my surroundings. I assume that I'm still in my living room, but for a moment there's no idea to know for sure. I focus on my other senses. The air smells like my living room. The faint smell of urine still lingers. I've gotten used to that smell. Tomorrow will be gone.

With both hands, I reach out into the darkness. That feels like my curtain. And my wall. I'm reminded of something I once heard from a documentary about deep sea creatures. It's estimated that a third of the animals on Earth have never ever been. seen sunlight. The fish and crustaceans at the bottom of the ocean live their entire lives in the dark. They don't stop swimming just because they can't see. So I start to walk. After two steps, my shin slams into the coffee table. Right where it bit me, or burned me or whatever it did,

I'm unnerved by the sound of my own gasp as it bounces off walls that could be sheetrock or limestone. My hand reaches into my pocket to take out my phone and turn on the flashlight, to prove to myself that this is still my house and not some hollow cave. But I stop myself. No light whatsoever. I can't even risk using the screen. I shuffle forward blindly, thinking that I'm probably walking through urine, then I remember.

After a couple of minutes, my eyes adjust to the darkness. I walk into the kitchen. Out of habit, I reach over and flip the switch on the wall. My eyes squint at the sudden brightness on my retinas. My fingers are still stuck to the plate to the light switch, but in my hysteria I can't seem to get them to swipe down and turn it off. A faint buzzing noise has entered the room. It could be the vibration of the bulbs overhead,

or it could be the surreal flutter of that wicked creature as it moves between realms. I look down. There it is, spread thin across the linoleum, the shape of me, imitating by frozen posture. For a moment as I watch it, it only exists as my shadow, a dark, flat, indistinct version of myself, and I wonder if my mind made the whole thing up. But then, just as the pain in my leg surges, the head swivels to face me, The palms rest on the floor and press the body up And now it stands in front of me

A faceless, silent silhouette It lunges at me My hands slide down Catching the switch just before the figure reaches me Safe darkness is here again I'm left alone to catch my breath as my eyes readjust And the framework of the kitchen slowly forms around me Alone

actually alone. For the first time in 17 years, I sit on the floor, my back leaning against the cabinets. I remember a Boy Scout's camping trip from when I was 12 years old. Our sculpt master led us on a hike through the forest in the middle of the night with no flashlights. In the beginning, I walked gingerly, tripping over roots, stretching my arms out in front of me to feel for branches. but by the end of the walk, I could see every loose twig on the ground. It takes almost an hour for the human eye to achieve night vision.

I wait until I can see details of the room that were previously invisible, the grout between the tiles, the buttons on the microwave. By the time I stand up, I have a plan. The first thing I do is go into the garage, open the circuit box, and turn off the main breaker. Now I can be sure I won't turn the lights on again. Then I walk through the living room, down the hall, through the bedroom, and into the bathroom. I fill the bathtub with blankets and pillows. I go back to the kitchen.

I grab a few bottles of water from the fridge and a box of protein bars from the pantry and bring them into the bathroom. Back to the kitchen one more time for aluminum foil. To the living room closet for two rolls of duct tape. Back to the bathroom. close the door. I taped the cracks above and below the door, then had a few layers all around the frame for good measure. There's a small window in the corner above the bathtub.

I cover it with several coats of foil and duct tape. I kick off my shoes and drop into my makeshift bathtub bed and hit the back of my head on the nozzle on the way down. Pain radiates from my skull, and I remember the strength of that mystical hand as it yanked on my hair. I gently run my fingers over the back of my head and find a tender, swollen bump. All I have to do is wait. I reach from my pocket again, wanting to check the time but decide against it.

I close my eyes and the darkness gets darker. My shin still smarts from the otherworldly wound eating away at my skin. I savour the pain. Most of me is glad this is happening. It feels like justice. Why should I get to be happy when my best friend is dead, especially since I was the one who made the call? When I shift my weight, my back pocket lets out a high-pitched squeal. I reach back and pull out a crinkly piece of plush.

My fingers trace the outlines of two pointed ears, then a snout, then a soft, flat midsection with four bubbles in a row, like oversized shirt buttons. I squeeze one and it squeaks again. This is Fred the Fox He was Lexi's favorite toy Right now Fred the Fox is wondering where his friend is gone I'm wondering where she is too I know where her body is

In a plastic bag curled up on the shelf with the refrigerator She hasn't even been cremated yet But where's my Lexi Where's the essence of her I want to die just so I can find out. The last time I saw her was when I gently placed her in the trunk of Elliot's car.

Elliot's a childhood friend who I recently reconnected with after more than 10 years. He also happens to be a vet. He offered to euthanize my best friend at cost. I opened my front door and he stepped inside and before I knew it I was distracting Lexi with chocolate chips while he jammed a needle into her back. the sedative work quicker than he said it would. I turned my head for a moment, and when I looked back, she had dropped onto her belly.

I held her for the second injection, and the third, and the fourth. Elliot kept saying that it would just take one more, that all dogs are different, that she would stop breathing at any moment, that she wasn't in any pain, that she was asleep, but it felt like she knew exactly what she was fighting against. And if her vision was good enough,

I think she would have looked to me right in my eye. The rise and fall of her little belly persisting through five shots, and her muscles and heart were quite strong, and suddenly it seemed premature, and all I could think was, what have I done? I looked at Elliot and thought, What have you allowed me to do? Why was her life in my hands when you're the one with a doctorate?

Then she went still, and his hand was on my shoulder, and he was telling me that she was gone, and her tongue, that little tongue that you could never manage to keep in her mouth, was turning blue. and I wondered if she would have wanted one more day. One more walk.

Was this what was best for her? Or did I just kill her because I was sick of cleaning up piss every morning? And then I cried. I cried harder than I have in 17 years and eight months. I cried like every tear was a token that she would take with her into the afterlife. like my tears were airline points redeemable on a flight through the cosmos. You deserve to sit first class, Lex. I hated myself for sending her away.

I haven't said these words out loud, because usually I would say them to Lexi. Anyone else would immediately try to console me. They would say that Lexi was blind and senile and that I should forgive myself. She wasn't herself anymore. they would say, but that would be easy for them to say. They weren't the ones who decided to stick her with that needle.

I was. As she fell asleep on my lap, it was me who Lexi thought didn't want her anymore. Besides, she sure looked like herself today. She looked like herself when we went for a walk this morning, and she raised her tiny head every time the wind blew, letting the soft air sift through her scraggly brown beard when I held her tiny still form this afternoon but she still looked like my dog

as small and soft as a child stuffed animal with the left ear that bent at its midpoint that ear will always remind me of the photo of baby Lexi taken days after we brought her home at the time both ears bent like that one of them would eventually lift into a point as she grew into an adult and her little bent ear would be the only characteristic that she would bring with her on a puppy hood. If it weren't for that ear, you would never guess that the puppy in that picture

was the same dog that died today. That photo was posted from a desktop computer because I was in middle school and wasn't allowed to have Facebook on my phone. Now, on Lexi's last day, I have a 401k, and I can't eat a slice of pizza without getting heartburn. She has been with me every day for most of my life. Eating when I eat, sleeping when I sleep. It only makes sense that I would die when she dies. Elliot stayed with me for a while. Then stood up and asked if I wanted to be the one to carry her out.

I stood in the driveway. My cheeks stinging with tears and watched him take her for her last car ride. When I came back in, the sun had almost fully set and the house was dark. I walked to Lexi's empty bed, picked up Fred the Fox, and put him in my back pocket. I flipped light switches as I moved throughout the house. First the hallway, then the bedroom. The place seemed too silent without the sound of Lexi's nails sliding over the floor. Wherever I went, she'd always followed closely on my heels, chasing my shadow.

Now, without her, the place was unbearably empty. but something else was following me. It felt like the anticipatory tension you get when you suddenly feel a presence behind you, a breath in the back of your neck that makes your hair stand up. Except that when I turned around and saw nothing but empty space, the feeling remained. As if the presence was so close behind me that it could turn when I turned and step when I step. and always stay on my back and out of my sight. I figured it was just Lexi.

Either my mind was stuck on the memory of her, or her soul was haunting me. I sat at the end of the bed and bent over to take off my shoes. As I sat up, a strange feeling came over me. Something about the space around me was wrong. I felt like I had been dropped into a virtual reality that was a near identical rendering of my house. Not quite an exact duplicate,

like there were one too many atoms of oxygen in the fabricated atmosphere. Looking to my left, I saw my shadow. It sat perfectly mimicking my posture. But it was doing just that. Mimicking. It wasn't just my shape cast over the mattress.

It was a creature. A creature with its own breath and its own thoughts. And the creature was doing its best to hide from me. I found the source of the strange feeling that had overcome me a moment earlier. I bent over to remove my shoes, and the sillet had bent over with me. And when I'd straightened, it had bent just an instant late in following. My eyes must have lingered on my shadow for a few seconds too long, because it quickly realized that it had been made.

The nose, the dark triangle that jutted out from the hat exactly as mine did, began to turn, then disappeared as the thing looked at me. Of course, I couldn't see it looking at me, judged solely by the shape of the head, it could have just as easily turned away from me. But somehow I knew that it was looking at me, and it knew that I knew. And that shared knowledge was as good as I called, contact. The head fell back and the jaw unlatched as if the thing was screaming, but the room

remained silent. The dark shape rocked back and forth as if trying to build the momentum to stand. As it did, it began to flicker, disappearing for a microsecond and then reanimating at a position slightly more erect. It flickered in and out over the mattress as I watched. My breath caught my stomach, and the speed of the flickering synchronized with my pounding heart. As it stood, it filled the space before me, becoming more tangible and three-dimensional. By the time the monster stood, it seemed as if it should have had a shadow of its own. Terrified, I tried to stand and backpedal at the same time. Instead, I tripped over the bed frame and fell hard on my back.

The shape stepped toward me and swiped at my face. I raised my hand to block the blow and its cold fingers grazed my forearm. I stood and ran down the hallway, through the living room, and out the front door. As I leapt down the stairs of the perch, I thought I should turn back and close the door. Lexi could get out and run into the street. Then I remembered. Reaching the end of the driveway, I careened down to the sidewalk. I felt a thing on every edge of me.

I saw it, two-dimensional once more, gliding over the grass to my right. I passed the streetlight and watched it flash ahead of me, then fall to my side and behind me. I looked down and saw the squares of cement zip beneath my feet like a treadmill. It was just like walking Lexi, but much, much faster. When I got to the strip mall at the end of the block, I broke right and headed for the darkness of the alleyway. Once I entered the blackness, I felt a presence of the block. of the thing vanish.

I stopped and put my arms over my head to catch my breath. I'd never been so happy to be without sight. The dark was concentrated at the end of the alley, and I walked toward it. The dumpsters that lined the walls were blocks of obsidian within the night, like black holes sprinkled throughout the universe. I wondered if this was what Lexi had seen toward the end, when the cataracts had rendered her own. almost completely blind as she paced around the living room while I slept.

Suddenly, crisp white light burst out from behind me. A floodlight hung halfway up the wall. The dumpsters became forest green and the ground beneath my feet shone with moisture. A dense, stark black shaped stretched over the pavement in front of me. Its hands reached forward and grasped invisible ledges on either side of its torso. It pressed itself up. flickering into existence and stood even with my eye line. I turned and ran, but my right leg was quickly swept out from under me,

and I slammed into the brightly lit asphalt. I rolled over onto my back. In my pocket, Fred the Fox let out a muffled, farcical squeak. I looked down. The arms of the monster were wrapped tightly around my ankle. Its hand reached beneath my pant leg, and its touch was so cold that it burned. The shape of its head was floating toward me.

The chin was so prominent, the cheek so sunken, that I could tell the face was expressionless. I closed my eyes, thinking maybe I don't need darkness, maybe as long as I can't see it, it doesn't exist. But the stinging burn continued to crawl up my leg, and I felt its cavernous eyes on me. Still as I felt it nearing me, I squeezed my eyes shut too afraid to watch what would happen next. Then the inside of my eyelids turned from red to black. The touch of the creature vanished, leaving a dull, throbbing burn. I opened my eyes and found more blackness. The motion sensing light had turned off.

It took me several moments to realize that I wasn't dying. I ran my hands over myself and was surprised to find my body intact. I brushed carefully over the wound on my leg and it ached sharply. Moving slowly so as to remain undetected by the light sensors, I slipped my phone out of my pocket and brought it to my face. The screen blasted me with light, and I covered most of the display with one hand while the other swiped down and lower the brightness. Dread came over me as I lay still,

expecting to feel the creature's touch at any moment. I held the phone above my head as I turned slowly, peeking out of the corner of my eye until I could see the pavement beneath me. There was the faintest of shadows, a round chin, a nose that poked out triangularly. My disheveled hair shook as I trembled. Turning back to my phone, I opened my messages and tapped on the first conversation I saw. Elliot, I typed one word, lowercased. Help.

The space behind the back of my head was no longer empty. I could almost hear the air leave, pushed to the side by something corporeal and intrusive. I felt a creature's firm grip on the back of my hair and my head slammed into the pavement. My eyes squeezed shut as I winced, but I felt the screen of the foam bounce gently against my thumb. I pressed the button on the side, and the screen went black. The grasp on my hair disappeared. I returned my phone to my pocket and rolled over under my stomach. For about five minutes I lay perfectly still in the dark,

hearing the occasional whoosh of tires on the street. The sound of scurrying animals seemed to surround me. The more I listened, the more present they were. My mind scrambled through ideas of what to do next. Throughout it all, I felt the heavy weight of grief on my organs. I lingered on the notion of drifting to sleep on the grimy pavement until sunrise, allowing the incubus to swallow me in my sleep. Finally, I found the resolve to move.

A deep inhale, a controlled exhale, as I leapt to my feet and ran for the mouth of the alley. The light flashed on after I took my first step and felt the thing chasing me once more. This time I ran with my eyes straight ahead, only looking at the ground in my periphery. I reached the house, leapt under the porch, and slipped inside, closing the door behind me. I grabbed the tall lamp in the corner of the living room and ran with it, yanking its cord from the outlet. I stopped at the kitchen door and turned off the light. As I turned ahead for the hallway, I found the thing crawling over the hardwood like a spider.

I darted around it. It swung out an arm and barely missed me. Dropping the lamp with a crash, I swiped at the switch in the hallway and then ran to the bedroom door, reaching inside and flipping the switch. The house was almost entirely dark, but not quite. The orange glow of the streetlights filled the window in the bedroom. The silhouette, barely visible now, skittered down the hall toward me. I ran into the bedroom and yanked the curtains closed,

losing the monster in the darkness. The window in the living room was larger than the one in the bedroom, and closer to the streetlight. The creature reappeared as an amorphous shape that glided over the floor behind me. As I ran to the window, I felt the thing's grip on my ankle. I fell forward but caught myself on the arm of the sofa. Oosing fingers spilled up my leg, merging with my skin. The mass of the dark body pressed heavily on my back.

I shivered as I felt the rush of whatever it is that it breathes, not air, certainly. Maybe radiation or light rays themselves. Whatever spews from its mouth ran over my ears as if it was trying to whisper something to me. I reached for the curtain nearest me and yankta closed. The room grew darker. The weight of the thing lightened, but it remained draped over me. There was a freezing blanket of dull pain that permeated every inch of exposed skin.

I felt my muscles weakened and the scalding burn of my leg dug deeper searching for bone I flung myself toward the other end of the couch and leaned over the back cushion in the near darkness I felt the fabric of the curtain in my hand I clung to it hoping the rod could support my weight

and slid it over the brightness of the window once again the creature was gone the malignant wound on my leg twinged but I didn't allow myself to sit. My eyes were on the wall to my right. A sliver of amber light was leaking out from the side of the curtain, illuminating the sleeve of a jacket that hung from the hook mounted there.

I pressed the edge of the curtain into the wall, and the light disappeared. I scooted the couch across the hardwood, so it pinned the curtain flush with the frame of the window. Making a slow 360-degree turn, I scanned their room for the most innocuous of light sources. A stray glare, a digital clock, the glowing switch of a power cord. There was nothing. I have been in darkness ever since. Here I lay in my dingy bath bed.

Every time I adjust my position, my hand finds a spot of slime or gunk. But still, I'm beginning to get tired. There's something relaxing about being tucked away in a small space, surrounded by complete darkness. The only thing left to do is hope that someone will find me. I have enough food and water for a few days. When I don't show up to work, they'll dig up my emergency contact information and call my mom.

When I don't hear her calls, she'll come check on me. There's a chance I'll be dead by then, turned rotten by whatever it is that's currently eating away at my leg. Eventually, I'll either be found, or I will die. Until then, I live like the fish at the bottom of the sea. The ones who have never seen their shadows,

I can still feel Lexi's fur on my wrist, where she rested her head for the last time. Her jaw slackened when her heart finally conceded to the drug and she drooled all over my sweatpants. Seventeen years, evaporated before my eyes. And for a moment I thought I might wake up from a dream and be 13 again, living in a western town. But I didn't. I was still here.

But she was gone. Lights out. Sleep slowly overtakes me, and I'm reminded of moments with her. Not of her whining in the night or staring blankly at the wall. I remember her at bath time when she ran wild circles in the living. room, drying her damp ears on the carpet, and then sitting properly at my feet, waiting for me to brush her hair. Lexi digging through a pile of squeaky toys, looking for Fred the Fox. Lexi curled up on the couch next to me, fast asleep, leaning her tiny frame against my

hip, for the first time today, instead of thinking of her pain, wondering what went through her head in her final moments, whether she was at peace, or thought I betrayed her, instead of speculating on the nebulous afterlife of dog's spirit. I soak in the warmth of every good day we had together. I picture her toothless smile. I thank her for chasing away my shadow for all these years. A sudden burst of grief squeezes my abdomen and the tears start once more.

I remember what Elliot said this afternoon. When I was having doubts, considering calling it off. He said that she was confused and in pain, and in a moment her pain would be gone, but it would have to go somewhere. It would be transferred to me in the form of sorrow and guilt, and it would be agonizing.

I had an opportunity to take her pain. I'll take this pain from you, Lex. I'll take it from you seven days a week. When I wake up, there's no way of knowing how long I've slept. If the tape over the window and the door does its job, I will not know when the sun rises. I pull my phone out of my pocket and stop myself just before I bring it to my face. I reach out and place it on the counter, careful not to turn the screen on. Outside cars was by on the street, creating a somniferous soundtrack.

I close my eyes and listen. then I hear another noise. Suddenly a revelation enters my mind. My mind which to this point has only been half awake but is now alert and focused. I didn't wake up on my own. I was stirred awake by a sound. Maybe it was the sound that I hear now. Something like footsteps at the far end of the house or maybe it was another sound,

the sound of a curtain rod striking hardwood after being ripped from its anchors, rattling the rest in front of a brightly lit window. A window that is like a portal to a world where the moon never rises. The footsteps are in the hallway now. I imagine the creature walking tall, having just deceived darkness. It opens doors as it walks, entering the second bedroom to search beneath the bed and tear the blinds off the windows. Back in the hallway, it heads for my bedroom door,

every step heavier and more real. I hear my bedroom door swing open. It walks through the window to pull open the curtains. The footsteps are louder, but steady. Although it knows I'm cornered, it doesn't gain speed. The doorknob squeaks. My eyes are so well adjusted to the darkness, that I can see it turn.

The door begins to budge but stops abruptly as the tape around the frame catches it. On the other side, something presses harder, measuring its force. The silent air fills with crinkles and snaps as the tape slowly gives way.

The first splinters of light cut through the adhesive. The door swings open with a loud ripping sound. The thing that opened it is unmistakably human. He takes up about three quarters of the door frame. The top of his head is balding, but I'll always recognize his face.

To me, he looks exactly the same as he did when Lexi was a puppy. Elliot steps into the doorway and asks if I'm okay. He holds his phone out in front of him with the back facing me, shooting from it as a blinding beam of white LED light. I climb out of the tub and reach for the phone, but I'm too late. I can feel a third presence in the room with us. Elliot's eyes moved to the wall behind me. A vast circle of light is painted on the cream-colored ceramic above the tub.

At the center of the circle is a shadow, but not my shadow. This is a deep, floating absence of light with well-defined edges. in the shape of a bell. A buzzing sound emits from it, like that of a dying fluorescent light. And compared to the silence that filled the room seconds ago, it is deafening in my ears. It disappears, leaving nothing but pure light in its wake,

and then reappears. It blinks in and out, slowly at first. In and out. In. and out. Gradually, it picks up speed. In and out. In and out. In and out. In and out. Until its rapid flicker is barely detectable. Curved horns grow out from the top of it. Slender claw-like hands sprout from either side, followed by a long cloak. Two holes of light appear at the center of its head with black dots in their centers, eyes and pupils staring directly at me. The shadow

lifts its leg and lands a heavy black boot in the tub. It stands before me, as tall as the ceiling. Behind me, Elliot says, what the fuck? The creature, holding me with its eyes, steps out of the bathtub and places a hand on my shoulder. Its freezing fingers burn me through my shirt. Wait. Wait up, Lex. I'm right behind you. And next, a badly injured concert musician recovering in her boyfriend's home begins encountering a terrifying entity on the stairs, eventually realizing the identity of the ghost. From writer Jimmy Ferreira and narrated by Megan McDuffie. Creepy Presents. Crush. Concerts are a special place. You can let loose, forget your worries, and just vibe.

Goosepumps peaking as a chord of music hits you just right. You close your eyes and a shiver runs through your body, hair on your arms and necks standing taut. A drug-free euphoria, if you so choose, brought to you by a symphony of sound. Shame how many people lose themselves in these moments so deeply that their abandoned inhibitions make them lose track of their surroundings. Awful events arising out of the chaos. You would think that active shooter events would be the deadliest at con-esionableness at concerts or festivals, but that simply isn't true. In moments where large crowds lose control, something as simple as movement can be devastating. When a gathering gets crowded enough,

a dense sea of people shoulder to shoulder, people are pressed against one another and swept up in the motion of the crowd, unable to resist the flow. It's called a crowd crush. Think of it as a frightening cascade of flesh and force. When the movement within a dense crowd becomes uncontrollable, throwing people around with abandon. Mass times, velocity resulting in force, compounding hundreds, thousands of times. The result is a pressure and force so massive, so fast that it's impossible to react. No way to avoid the chain of destruction. People are smashed together so hard and so fast that the immense pressure can cause them to be crushed instantly, choke to death while still on their feet, dead before you even hit the ground. For example, the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017 had a death toll of 60.

The sole Halloween crush in 2022 claimed 159 lives. There are thousands of deaths like this that have been documented, even in just the span of the last 10 years. I never thought it could happen to me. I had been on the music scene for years and had gained a healthy following. I'd done some collabs with great artists and even started getting invited to do shows alongside bigger names. I was invited to a larger music festival and decided to do something special. My fans had planned something nice for me to celebrate how I blew up, so I wanted to give back. I was going to set up my gear in the crowd. This would let my fans rock out with me up close and

personal, a risk for any artist, but I wanted to do it. I was amazed at the turnout, people shoulder to shoulder as far as the eye could see. I was mid-set and the crowd was bouncing, dancing and singing along. It reached a flow state where I became the music, lost in the moment, giving back every ounce of energy the crowd was giving me. It was when people started coming from the other stages and converging towards me that it all went wrong.

I noticed all too late that the crowd seemed to move more like a wave than a gathering of people. Gone were the individual moments. Now it was a unified mass of flesh and blood crashing together into a singular point. Me. I was told by doctors that the only reason I wasn't instantly crushed to death

was that my keyboard set up in front of me gave my body somewhere to go. And that didn't save my hips and ribs, though. My hips were crushed in four places, and I couldn't walk. I had broken every rib on my right side because of how my torso was compressed by the crowd, so it hurt to breathe.

A good part of my collarbone and shoulder girdle on my left side was also torn up. I was grateful I'd survived. Others were not so lucky. I would be wheelchair bound for a bit as I would need to go through physical therapy for a while before I could walk again. At least I could still sing. It wasn't the most comfortable experience. The pain was intense, but I wasn't giving it my passion no matter the cost. At the time, I chose to stay with my boyfriend instead of being home by myself and struggling for the sake of struggling. He had a sweet dog named Blue, an Australian Cattle Dog who couldn't help but bark at every single solitary human being that visited, casually passed the house, delivered the mail, existed, and so on. He wasn't

dangerous, more like he was a smoke alarm for the presence of others. It was useful, especially in my injured state, giving me more time to get to the door as he'd start barking before people even got to the driveway. The house was split in three levels, basement, first floor, second floor, that left me essentially stranded on the first floor of the home as going up and downstairs was a no-go. This meant I ate, slept, showered, all within 50 feet or so. My boyfriend tried bringing me upstairs once, but when he tried to lift me, my ribs screamed with a stabbing, burning pain. I wanted to scream, but my body gave a deep, involuntary gasp that gave my boyfriend the cue to put me down immediately. Sleep was a struggle.

No matter what position I lay in, I was in some sort of shooting pain. I've always been a side sleeper, but the extreme pain I felt lying on either side made it impossible. I'd also liked sleeping face down, but putting my weight on my ribs was also a no-go. All I could do was lie uncomfortably on my back and stare at the ceiling, hoping I'd pass out from exhaustion. Days passed like this, leaving me delirious, which ironically was fantastic for my creativity. I found myself recording ideas night after night instead of sleeping. But with the fantastic ideas, the delusions brought me. Anxiety followed.

I started seeing movement in the corner of my eyes. It was small blurs of motion at first, but then manifested as shadows. I'd begun to learn to ignore these. I knew in my insomnia-driven state that these were obviously hallucinations, just visual artifacts of sleep deprivation. It was until one night where it was just a little. Blue and I. My boyfriend had to leave for a few days for work. I assured him that I'd be okay. I asked him to leave the dog as a pre-doorbell doorbell. He understood. It was 2 a.m. and I was mid-recording session when I started

to drift off. The way I was set up, I had my back to the doorway with the staircase leading upstairs on the other side. My eyelids felt heavy. My head started to nod. Suddenly I heard Blue growling. It was deep, aggressive. Nothing I'd ever heard. him do before. I could hear him in the doorway. Sounded like he was growling up the steps. As I covered before, he doesn't just make noise for the sake of it. He reacts to people specifically. Shivers shot through my body when my brain solved the equation. Someone was in the house. My body froze up stiff. I could not gather the courage took all blue to me or turn and look. I could not fight off an intruder if push came to shove. I had always been small.

Thin, but broken as I was, I would put up even less of a fight. Thoughts burned through my mind of what could happen to me. Stomach acid crawled at my throat as I held my breath. I had already beat death once. The chance of escaping death's clutches twice was far outside of the luck I typically had. Even worse. What if they decided not to kill me? To do much, much worse.

Blue's growl became deeper. Gutterall, my only mental reprieve was the, I did not hear any footsteps. Were they just standing there at the top of the steps looking down? Did they know I was here? All I could do was run scenarios in my head. I heard the dog start to bark and my heart pumped even harder. The blood rushing through my body amplified all of the pain I was experiencing.

I wanted to scream, cry, call for help, but I did nothing. Of every night this could have happened, why this one? All the stars aligned to possibly make this the worst. of my life. I imagined a man running down the stairs. I would hear the dog yelping in pain, then silence, then heavy fast footsteps running into the room, and I'd feel a hand on my shoulder before feeling a sharp pain in my neck. I imagined gunshots. I imagined being strangled, violated, tortured. That's all I could do for a long time. Imagine. I reached down and tried to slowly turn my wheelchair when it gave out a god-forsaken squeak.

The first noise I had made, and it would certainly have been loud enough for the invader to hear. Blue finally redirected his attention to the front door. I jumped to my chair when I heard a knock at the front door. I wish I hadn't, because the pain was so wretched that I started to cry. I wheeled myself over to the door and looked through the glass panes on the side to see that it was my boyfriend's neighbor, Daniel. A kind old man, but still built like a lumberjack, even at his advance.

age. I opened the door and Daniel immediately looked concerned, asking if I was okay. I gave him a brief summary of my injuries, the incident, and then the dog's behavior that night. He asked if I'd like him to check around the house for me. Asked if it would put me at ease. I gratefully accepted. I was calm until I heard him going up the steps. I called out to him and emphasized that upstairs is exactly where the dog was barking towards. I heard him walking about, but I sat so still. like waiting for a bomb to go off that never came. Well, I didn't find nothing, he said, matter-of-factly. I let out the breath I'd held the whole time he was up there.

I thanked him and breathed a sigh of relief. He asked if I wanted to stay with him and his wife for the night. I wanted to say yes, but I didn't want to impose. I hardly knew them myself and didn't want to make that type of impression. It was one more day before my boyfriend came back, so I wanted to tough it out. I'd survived two traumatizing experiences in a short span of time. It had to be the end of it, right? I didn't sleep that night.

My adrenaline had boosted my wakefulness into overdrive. I found myself flinching at noises and then chastising myself for being so jumpy. Not only was it not helping me calm down, it was also putting me in pretty severe pain. I was happy the next day when after nightfall I started nodding off again. I was able to get myself onto the couch this time. I successfully set up my pillow and wrapped myself in a soft fuzzy blanket. I threw on the TV for some background noise and hoped that I'd drift off, waking up to a friendly face in the morning. I slipped into sleep without knowing it.

I woke to barking. I looked over at the digital clock by the TV that had turned itself off, the white numbers 2 a.m. shown at me. The first assumption was that maybe the neighbor was checking in again, or maybe the dog had been barking for a while before I woke up, pushed myself up and noticed the dog wasn't barking at the door he was barking at the stairs i pulled myself into the wheelchair and grabbed the chef's knife i'd left by my side in case i slowly rolled towards the dog the squeaking wheels betraying any stealth i tried to have the dog moved forward upper body on the steps growling and barking with a viciousness i'd never seen when i was finally able to turn the corner i flipped on the light switch to my dismay the lights did not turn on

The stairs were so much darker than any time before. When my eyes adjusted, I was struck with terror. I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing. The shadow was that of a man, that much was obvious. Their neck, though, was so long. If they stood six feet tall normally, his neck alone would make him close to seven feet. I fell back, trying to roll away from the stairs, and fell out of my chair, my chest hitting the ground. My broken ribs screaming.

I screamed hysterically. as I pulled myself toward the front door. Whatever it was, I was desperate to get away. I looked back to see that it had not moved. Its fate looked as if they were floating. The thing slowly craned its head towards me. I could not see its features in the darkness, but I was sure that it was staring right at me.

Suddenly, I felt as though my whole body was being squeezed, the feeling of being crushed happening all over again. Much slower and more agonizing than the first time. my body succumbed to the pain and I fell unconscious. I was woken by the pain of being lifted back into my chair. My boyfriend had come back home and found me on the floor, completely knocked out. He asked what happened and I didn't bother lying. I told him everything that happened in the two days he was gone.

I noticed his lips thinning when I mentioned the entity. Stopped explaining immediately and made him explain. He told me that ten years ago, his grandfather had hung himself. above the steps and wasn't found for days. My grandmother was on a trip with her friends at the time. His neck was stretched exactly as I had described. His feet were hanging just shy of a step. He said that his grandfather was a miserable man, hated animals, and had an overall horrendous reputation of being violent, which is why he didn't question his grandmother's relief after his death. She did say that she wanted to move frequently and never went near the stairs.

She actually ended up staying on the first floor until she moved into a retirement community and left the house to his parents. Showed me a photo of his grandmother when she was young, and I looked a lot like she did back then. I asked about the time, as it had happened at 2 a.m. both times. He hesitantly told me that the medical examiner determined he did indeed hang himself at approximately 2 a.m. I went back to the hospital, and they told me that I had likely exacerbated my injuries in the fall. But I knew the truth. I felt those dead eyes on me. I felt my body being crushed by the entity that saw me as a simulacrum of his young wife,

the woman who happily abandoned her abuser in death. He saw in me one more chance to gain control. With everything he had, he reached out and held me in his grasp, crushing me, hoping that I would never escape his clutches. Needless to say, when I was discharged from the hospital, I opted to go back to my own home and stay by myself after that. What's the worst that could happen? And finally, a worker is tasked with collecting human remains in a dystopian America,

where increasingly horrific cadaver removal jobs revealed just how disposable ordinary people have become. From writer Lily LaChance, and narrated by J.V. Hampton Van Sant. Creepy Presents Codaver Opportunities Near You. Welcome to cadaver, the world's premium cadaver removal opportunity portal. Now that the new founding fathers have disbanded all that pesky health services bureaucracy, it's up to the hardworking folks like yourself to help your local community and businesses get rid of human cadavers, possibly human decomposing remains, maybe human roadkill piling up on the toll highways you can't afford to drive on,

and the assorted piles of putrefied flesh typically found right outside large warehouses just beyond the barbed wire fence. Are you ready to make some coin and collect some cadavers? Sure you are, because it's either that or working in the uranium mines. And you know what's good for you, don't you? Don't you?

Footnote. Cadaver opportunities do not constitute a full, full-time job, regardless of how many hours you work. Inquiring about benefits will result in a permanent ban from all future cadaver opportunities. Here are today's opportunities. Opportunity A perforated pile of pesky pro-piece protesters. Some goody-to-shoe slackers in your area had assembled to protest a job-creating,

safety-promoting all-American defense contractor. Their hurtful words, loud chants, and homemade posters constituted verbal assault on the company's self-aware security system. It decided to exercise its personhood and write to self-defense by testing some of the company's latest and greatest munitions on that mob of mean offenders. The resulting data was invaluable. for the country's investors and R&D department.

But the pile of putrefying flesh in their parking lot sure is a huge eyesore. And it sure as heck not getting better, folks. No surrey. Make sure to bring your own equipment. We recommend tarp, vacuum cleaners, and buckets. Just to be safe, don't wear any tie-dye, Birkenstocks, or any clothing featuring any slogans or writing. That includes, but is not limited to, hats and visible tattoos.

Tattoos that are concealed by your clothing may be visible to the security system's enhanced vision. So maybe skip this assignment if you have some, or any really, pro-piece, anti-corporate tattoos on your person. Or don't. The company still has lots of brand new munitions that haven't yet been tested in the field. Payment. $10 per bucket of flesh. Bonus. It is extremely unlikely, given the shrapnel distribution, but any jewelry and credit cards you can dig out of the organic matter are yours to keep. Opportunity concealed compounds COVID-37 casualties. Yet another local group had tried to strike out on their own

and start a new life for themselves in an isolated rural compound. Some people simply can't bring themselves to be grateful for the new founding fathers and their friendly, crime-fighting robodog patrols. Those anti-patriots had decided to live off the city. the grid instead of paying for the latest round of annual vaccines, which had a very reasonable 25-year repayment plan. And you know what they say. No man is an island. No compound is uncompromised. After a late-night visit from an unmarked and camouflaged delivery drone, the compound's population started dwindling. And now that population is yours to collapse.

Bring your own disinfectant, and make sure to very carefully inspect every last nook, cranny, and hidey-hole for cadavers of every size. Those antipatriates sure were sneaky. We wouldn't put it past them to have died in the least convenient places, if only despite whomever moves in next. When the compound's new owners acquire what's left of the compound, they will not appreciate any unpleasant leftovers in their charming, rustic vacation property. Oh, and watch out for traps, tripwires, landmines, and the like. Those antipatriates were not team players, and in their final moments, they almost certainly decided to make things difficult on good, honest,

hard-working cadaver removal specialists such as yourself. Good luck with all that. Payment. $25 per cadaver. Bonus. If you act fast, you may still harvest some of the internal organs before necrosis fully sets in. That will give you an exciting entry point into the medical gray market, and we at Cadaver LLC applaud your exciting new business venture. If you fail to find any salvageable internal organs, consider cleaning and reselling the intact skeletons

to private collectors and or medical schools. Please note that any landmines and or lethal traps you manage to find and disarm will have to be surrendered to the authorities immediately. Carrying such objects on your person will be grounds to immediate execution by your friendly neighborhood Robo Dog Patrol squads. Opportunity Rainbows and Retirement Community New, exciting, and groundbreaking technology

always goes through some growing pains. Sometimes, honest mistakes happen. Oftentimes, it's easier to just quietly patch up those mistakes instead of fixing them outright. To put this in words you may understand, the creators of this new, fully automated retirement community may have, possibly, maybe, hypothetically, forgotten that old people tend to die

and that their cadavers need to be disposed of. That was a real oopsie-dazy. On the upside, the residents who haven't yet died have become too horrified to file any of their annoying quality of life complaints to the company's hotline. Apparently, having the corpse of your next-door neighbor wheeled next to you for every meal, bingo game, and mandatory pool aerobics will do that to you. That right there is a fascinating factoid that will almost certainly boost the company's bottom line. In any case, this exciting opportunity could turn into a recurring source of income for you.

Please note that after the initial cleanup, weekly visits are likely, but not guaranteed, to result in more cadavers. Please avoid removing the still-breathing but unresponsive patients. Their time will come, trust us. Please do not attempt to generate more cadavers if you don't find any ready-made ones on your subsequent visits. The facility has excellent surveillance measures. Payment $15 per cadaver Bonus, help yourself to all the cookies and orange juice in the cafeteria.

Also, any jewelry or keepsakes you find on the cadavers are your. to keep as well. If you can extract their titanium hip replacements, those are yours to keep, too. Keep that up, my entrepreneurial friend, and you might even pay off your citizenship debt. Wouldn't that be neat? Opportunity. Fatal Fast Food Taster Fiasco We at Cadaver LLC pride ourselves on being much safer than other. gig platforms. Certainly safer than those uranium mines. That minor work app has nothing on us. We are happy to have you at our disposal for all of our disposal needs, and we hope that you, in turn, appreciate just how fortunate you are to work for us. Have you appreciated your work giver today?

You're always there employer. sole source of income, your reason for living? Remember your place in the food chain, you bottom-dwelling contractor you. Here is one fine example. The local branch of Yummy Yum-Yums, a nutrition startup, recently experienced an unfortunate safety incident involving 25 food tasters. Those gig workers ingested a highly experimental compound that wreaked chaos on their digestive tracks and resulted in 100% fatality rate within minutes, which, frankly, was rather impressive, actually. All the other CEOs were so jealous.

In the aftermath of that regrettable but nonetheless remarkable incident, Yummy Yum Yum's has decided to become a bio-weapons manufacturer. But, in the meanwhile, though, they really need somebody to come and clear their conference room of all the rapidly putrefying cadavers and all their biological excretions. Payment. $20 per cadaver. $2 per every decontaminated square foot of floor, wall, and ceiling. Safety note. Don't eat the cookies. These cadaver's internal organs are no good for anybody, and all their clothes are too soiled to resell at third-hand stores. However, please feel free to help yourself to their wallets, we recommend bringing gloves, and to the office chairs that will be good as new after some decontamination and or upholstering. Hey, that's yet another new business idea for you.

Who loves you? Cadaver LLC. That's who. Opportunity. Former cadaver workers at the remarkably rogue Robo Dog Factory. There was an unfortunate malware attack at the local robot manufacturer facility. North Korean hackers successfully took over the controls of every Robo Dog on the premises, and when the CEO refused to pay ransom, the America-hating evildoers programmed the robodogs to kill on site, turning the entire facility into a grim warning to their future ransom victims. However, given that the CEO was working remotely from his secret bunker hundreds of miles away,

the efficacy of that warning is yet to be determined. Within hours, all the workers and office personnel located inside the factory turned into cadaver LLC opportunities, which lured are valued gig workers onto the premises. Right toward the lurking, hacked, homicidal, robo dogs programmed to kill on site. As you might imagine, that generated an even higher. cadaver count, attracting yet more gig workers. And well, we're sure even you can see the nature of the problem we have on our hands here. As of right now, there are 471 cadavers on the premises. That presents an amazing opportunity to an enterprising cadaver specialist such as yourself. There is an additional

$10,000 bonus if you manage to reach the manual shot-off panel in the factory's sub-basement to deactivate all the robodogs through their built-in kill switch. Please note, the deactivation may not be immediate. Please find a good hiding spot until deactivation completes. Please consider adding a beneficiary to your cadaver account settings. And look, sure, some of those. more recent cadavers may have been your friends, frenemies, lovers, unrequited crushes, and or relatives. But you are smarter than them. Better, stronger, faster, probably even faster

than the robodogs. Just imagine how you would spend all that reward money. We at Cadaver LLC salute you and wish you good luck. Godspeed, bon chance, And may the wind be ever wayward. Payment. $20 per cadaver. Bonus. You may keep all the wallets, jewelry, and equipment from the cadavers of those lesser-inferior cadaver LLC gig workers. Upgrade your toolkit by turning their losses into your gain.

Opportunity. Corpcer LLC Corporate HQ. The business world is ruthless, competitive, and unforgiving. Frankly, you don't want to get into the big leagues. Remain a good little gig worker, know your place in the world, don't ask any pesky questions, and don't start any trouble. Take solace and comfort in the knowledge that you are reasonably safe and that your job cannot be outsourced.

Ha ha ha, ha. How we tried. Oh, how we tried. Do not criticize the new founding fathers. Do not try to form a union. Do not flee from the sudden cadaver accumulation that just so happens to occur in the union committee meeting hall. Do not seek out other survivors who, just like you, were too lazy or tardy to make it there on time.

And really, is that so much to ask for? To arrive on time to an important meeting? Ah, you have no idea how much that operation cost us. Do not join forces with your fellow survivors to attempt to attempt to. to compete with cadaver LLC. Do not start a rival company with a stupid name like Corpser LLC. And if you manage to incorporate, then do not accept an unexpected pizza delivery that just happens to have everyone's favorite toppings.

Do not act all shocked when the poison kicks in. Do not cry like a little baby all. curled up and vomiting and peeing and defecating all at once as the last of the light fades away, and as the laughter of our CEO booms through the speakers concealed in the pizza boxes, making it the last thing you ever experience in your miserable waste of life. Payment $30 per cadaver Don't eat the pizza.

bonus, everything you can loot. The internal organs and clothes are no longer salvageable, but all their personal possessions, computer equipment, office furniture, and copper wiring are yours. Happy looting. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit creepypod.com. You can also follow us at CreepyPod on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are done so through Creative Commons Share-A-Lite licensing

or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the creepy podcast production team and the stories author.