Creepy - My Childhood Town Isn't On Any Map & Housing Storage

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

My Childhood Town Isn't On Any Map***Written by: NomNomNomNation and Narrated by: JV Hampton-VanSant***Housing Storage***Written By: Steven Ritter and Narrated By: Alicia Atkins***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***Title music by Alex Aldea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Creepy presents. My childhood town isn't on any map. Written by Nom Nom Nom Nation.

And narrated by J.V. Hampton Van Sant. Sondre. A word used to describe the profound feeling of realizing every stranger around you has a life as complex and important as your own. It's also the name of the town I grew up in. Sonder lies on the eastern coast of the UK, on the north side of England. If you read Scotland, you've gone too far, but if you read Scarborough, you've not gone far enough. It sits somewhere between there, though I don't think anyone could be more specific.

You see, you can't find it on any map, printed or digital, new or old, colour-coded or satellite imagery. There is no sign of this town existing at all. If you pay enough attention online, you'll find the odd few people mentioning the place, like this that you're reading right now. Like a whisper passing by in a busy place, you'll only know it's there if you're looking for it. Yet to a vast majority of the world, Sonder is just a word. I was born there and raised within its confines. I moved away at 15, about 10 years ago. It was a peaceful seaside village, the type where everyone knows each other.

The typeware when someone hosts a get-together, all residents are invited. It was a close-knit community. I'll still remember it with mostly fond memories. The waves lapping onto the sand all through the night. The cobbled streets scorching your bare feet as you walked back from the beach on a summer's day. The dark woods that overlooked the tides. town from High Hill. High Hill is what we called the hill that stood next to Sonder. It blocked any chance of a view to other towns or cities. We resided in a valley at the edge of the sea,

and whilst we liked it there, it felt very secluded. The town had a few small businesses. My favorite was Uncle Pete's pizza. Everyone called him Uncle Pete, although he wasn't actually anybody's uncle. But his pizza place was perfectly between our home and my mum's pub. Every Friday, she would pick up a pizza on the way home. Absolutely no exceptions. Me and my older brother Jacob were always excited for this. Much of the town had been there for generations, the population naturally getting smaller as more and more of it became family.

But a few people would move there every now and then. All of them found the town in the same way, a leaflet coming through the letterbox while searching for somewhere to move. Every single time the same story. They were driven here by a house moving service. I guess with no directions or map it would be difficult to make your own way here. They were lovely, they really helped us, they would always say. Nobody ever really seemed to question it much. I mean, it's not like we were trapped.

We could leave whenever we wanted. Make no mistake, Sonder was no prison. It didn't even feel like one. It's just difficult to find, and leaving just felt icky, like you shouldn't do it. As the internet became mainstream, it became more and more obvious to people that the town was so hard to find. Suddenly, people had friends from outside of Sonder, but you were. they could never visit, because they could never seem to find their way in. GPS signal was weak, and opening any app on your phone that tracked your location wouldn't pinpoint you.

One truly odd thing about Sonder was the appliances. All of them had the same logo on somewhere. the letter V in a circle. Since leaving, I've tried to research this company, but to no avail. The moving company that people arrived in also had this logo on their vans. The town had its issues, none more known than the scream singers. At night, if you live, listened hard enough, you could hear them, a chilling, soft sound.

It was more like a distant scream, yet more melodic. Something enchanting yet fills you with dread. Nobody ever saw them, but someone in the town would go missing every now and then, maybe once or twice a year. Some lived alone and hadn't been seen in a few days before anyone realized. Some were cuddled up to their partner in bed only for their partner to wake up to them no longer in their arms. The only thing they had in common was that there was never any sign of entry or struggle. My entire life, I've known the echoes over the valley to mean no trouble.

But my mom used to tell me stories of when townsfolk thought they meant hope, a simpler time. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly when people made the connection between the disappearances and the whistles of the night. but they would always start a few weeks before a disappearance and stop the night after someone had gone missing. This had always intrigued me, but not as much as it did my brother. Jacob found it fascinating, perhaps because he had never had someone close to him taken, and didn't understand the pain? To him, it was just a mystery wrapped in questions. Some believed the scream singers to be the ones taking these people.

Some believed their calls to be a warning that something darker is coming. Whatever people believed their intentions to be, everyone knew that their somber singing over Sonder was only bad news. My fond memories of the town become clouded when the trauma of my final few days there enters my mind again. Years of therapy have helped me cope, but I feel talking about it publicly is the final thing that may bring me peace. As far as I know, I am the only person to have seen a scream singer, or at least the only living person. It was the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, the 21st of June. Sonder has always held a small festival on that day.

It dated back almost a century at the time, being the 97th consecutive solstice celebration. The festival took place not during those long sunlight hours, but as soon as the sun began to set and the longest day ceased at about 9.30 p.m. But the town of Sonder felt more melancholy than you. usual, especially for the festivities that were going on. The scream singers had started their wails again, about three weeks prior, getting louder and louder each passing night. Sure enough, about an hour after the festival began, you could faintly hear the noises again, piercing through the sweeter melodies of the festival and the chatter of the crowds.

People tried to ignore it, and continue the celebrations, but every time the wind blew, in just a particular way to make the noises more prominent, you could see the look on everyone's faces. The unspoken, silent fear, washing through the crowds like a wave. My mum's pub, really our family pub, was really, right at the festival. As such, the doors were wide open, and people kept coming in and out. It was always one of the busiest nights of the year.

Me and Jacob were sat drinking red wine. He was 17 and had a proper glass, but I still had half lemonade in mine. It was the only night of the year I was allowed to drink alcohol. The festival was still going strong, when Jacob had the idea to go a little out of town and get a better listen to the scream singers. I was hesitant, but I was always up for an adventure, so, half reluctantly, I agreed. We got a few streets away before the howling became louder than the music. We were stood in the perfect mix of unknown to one side and enjoyment to the other.

We should not have kept going, but we did. We reached the final building before the cobbled streets turned to grass and mud, and didn't stop there. Without saying a word to each other, it was like we knew what we were. wanted to do. We wanted to be the first people to have seen the scream singers, the first to understand them. We didn't know that only one of us would catch a glimpse. High Hill was steep, but not too steep. You didn't need your hands to climb it. It just took a lot of energy. Every now and then, we looked back at Sonder.

You would almost think it was a ghost town, from how dark it looked, if not for the bright festival right in the center. The only clue of any life all packed together. The sounds of cheering, singing, and music echoed up the hill. All the while, the sounds of ghostly whales echoed. down, a battle between good and evil, not seen, but only heard. As we reached the dark woods, we looked at each other. It felt like we hadn't spoken in ages, so I broke that. We're really doing this, Jacob nodded.

I knew he would. I just needed to say something, hearing nothing but garciful. screeches was driving me insane. We wandered around in there for what seemed like forever, though it was closer to maybe five minutes. Every slight crunch made me flinch and turn around. There was never anything there, but the haunting screams which were all around us. We reached a clearing,

and the sounds of the scream singers seemed louder, than ever. In the center of the clearing was a rock. About as tall as me and a little wider. Jacob held me, as he clearly could tell I was scared. It's all right. It's just sounds. There's nothing to be afraid of.

Maybe we should head back. His words didn't comfort me. They only told me one thing. He couldn't see. what I could see. Stood on the rock is something I will never get out of my mind. A tall, grey figure, about twice as tall as any human I'd ever seen. It had two arms, but only one hand.

The hand it had looked what I can only describe. as twisted? Its fingers wove together in a way that didn't make sense and certainly wasn't natural. The shape of it overall was human, but the proportions were all wrong. It had no eyes, at least not at first. I was terrified. looking at this thing, but the moment my heart truly dropped was when the eyes appeared. They slowly came out of its skin. There was no evidence that this creature should even have eyes.

There were no holes for them. But as its face opened in a mesmerizingly disturbing way, I saw two eyes slowly come forward. The face closed again with the eyes looking right at us. There were only two eyes. I counted them. One, two. Its face opened up again as it let out a horrific scream. I ran.

I run faster than I ever have before in my life, only occasionally looking behind me to make sure Jacob was running with me. He was, but he wasn't running from the scream singer. He was only running to catch up with me. He had no idea why I was so scared at that moment. We ran all the way down high hill, nearly tripping over. Running down a steep hill is difficult at the best of times. As we got back onto the cobbled streets, I turned around and looked back up at the woods.

No sign of anything chasing us, but the screams were still so loud, even down here. By this point, Jacob had caught up and was right behind me. He kept asking why I was running, but I was too shocked to answer him yet. We ran another street, and he reached out to hold me. I stopped running, and let him hug me. He told me that whatever I saw, it was going to be okay and that we were safe. I closed my eyes with tears streaming down my face. I opened my mouth and began to explain what I saw,

getting the words out between choking on my tears. It was this grey thing. On the rock, you could see the rock, right? Well, on top... I realized the howling had stopped. I opened my eyes. Jacob wasn't there. I was standing in the middle of the street with my arms out, hugging nobody.

I looked to my right, and I could see the festival. I felt empty and confused. I walked through the crowd, tears still streaming down my face. I found my mother at the bar, and she asked me where I had been, and if I knew where Jacob was. I told her everything, and she closed up for the night. We both knew that the scream singers had claimed their next victim. She wasn't angry at me for going into the woods.

She held me tight, and neither of us spoke a word. We just wept and wept until we were too tired and empty to weep anymore. The next day was Friday. I got out of bed in the morning after absolutely no sleep. My mum was downstairs packing boxes. She told me we were leaving that same day. Within an hour, we were in her car, driving away from home. We passed Uncle Pete's Pizza. I realized this was the first Friday in my life. life, we weren't eating from there. As we drove further away from the sea, and I saw outside of that small town for the first time, I already knew that leaving our life behind would not fix anything.

Sonder is still out there. I hope somebody can find it. Creepy presents. Housing Shortage. Written by Stephen Ritter and narrated by Alicia Atkins. Renting was impossible this year, buying even harder. Claire tried so hard to keep her tiny house by the river. But with her pay stagnant and her landlord just a little more impressed with her than she felt healthy, she hadn't been able to justify the cost, in coin or anything else. After a very uncomfortable discussion about her rent, she'd taken a long, sobbing walk,

tears blurring her vision as her feet led her where they would. Most of the next day had been spent at one inspection after another, but no matter how early she was, someone else always seemed to get the realtor's eye. Claire stumbled past rundown stores, tears in her eyes, only to stumble into the gutter, lying in front of her was a small handwritten poster for cheap apartments. One phone call later, and here she stood, in the lobby of an old building she must have driven past hundreds of times on her way to work, yet never noticed. Clare had parked in one of the empty spaces along the front of the building, leaving her bags

in the old green car for now. Her phone chimed loudly in the dusty lobby, and while the building manager had been polite, he had sounded elderly over the phone, so she was not surprised to read the terse cancellation message. Her mood improved dramatically, though, as she read the next message, telling her to grab keys from behind the desk for an apartment up on the seventh floor and head on up. In a mixture of relief and excitement, she practically vaulted over the dark wooden desk and found the keys right where the message told her, in an old-style cubbyhole, along with a quick welcome note. Claire contemplated grabbing her bags from the car, but an intense curiosity won out instead. dull brass buttons in the elevator gave her a little trouble at first, and she thought with deep satisfaction that for the price they had settled on, she'd happily repair the elevator

herself if it got too annoying. She stood in the dim lift, and then felt the motion as it lurched its way up the shaft. For a moment or two, the elevator hesitated unexpectedly, as she started feeling the first stirrings of alarm. Looking up to see an old speaker attached to the wood paneling on the ceiling, she wondered silently when the last time someone had been at the other end of that speaker was. As she was reaching for the call button, a second lurch sent the elevator rocketing up towards the correct level.

It felt too fast at first, then slowed with a broken sounding creak and a sharp off-note ping. Claire abruptly decided to take the stairs from now on. She took a deep breath as the old elevator door shuffled to one side in its geriatric way, then walked out into the corridor. She had been told over the phone that this once had been able to. a hotel, and suddenly it was becoming clear just how hotel-like the building still was. She thought the strip of carpet down the middle of the floor must have been exceptionally expensive

once, and along the walls were light fittings that would probably have gone for a fortune on an auction site. On each side of the elevator door, a red leather couch stood before an alcove, filled with a life-size bronze of a young woman. Although the lights behind them were no longer shining with vibrant life, Claire had the impression that this space had once been meant for those, who would have considered her a little more than a street picker. In truth, she felt slightly intimidated. She bit down on the feeling and set her teeth. She would get accustomed to living here.

With a glance at her key, she looked around for some indication of where her new rooms were. A small gold plaque on the wall indicated her floor number, seven, and that she should head around the building towards the back. And as her courage returned and she paced past the closed doors, she began to wonder about her neighbors. She wasn't the best at making friends at work, but no one here knew her at all,

so perhaps she might involve herself a little more. Claire turned around another dim corner, and in surprise, found herself staring at the inside of the doors of the elevators again. Spinning, she saw she was surrounded by the tight elevator box, realized that she must have been standing in the elevator the whole time, daydreaming about the whole thing. Her head felt shockingly foggy, she realized with dismay. With a ding, the elevator doors slid with a slight grind to the side.

She shook her head, trying to clear it, and stepped out into the hallway. With a sinking feeling, she looked ahead at a small golden plaque, with us in grade seven, then turned back towards the elevator doors, noting the statues again. Claire began to breathe faster, and she picked up her pace. She didn't know why she was experiencing such profound deja vu, but she just desperately wanted to get to her rooms now, and sit and look out of a window at something that felt real. This dim-closed hall was inducing a confusion,

in fact, a panic, she hadn't felt before. She turned the first corner, then another, passing rooms more and more rapidly. She turned again, but still couldn't find the room engraved with the same number as her key. She forced herself to take a deep breath, and as she reached the next corner, turned back towards the elevator, only to come face to face with herself. She looked down on herself, emaciated in gray, lying dead in the corridor. With a startled yelp, Claire jumped backwards, tripping over the deep carpet and fell into her back.

Above her was the flickering light of the elevator again. She lunged to the door and slammed a close button, wensing with a relief as the door shivered, then locked in place. She hesitantly pressed the ground floor button. If she had to sleep in her car, she would. Claire promised herself. The elevator hummed, then again set off with a jolt. The numbers next to the door counted backwards. She slumped, confused and shaking into the corner. The numbers seemed to move at a maddening pace, and she felt the anxiety build.

Her shoulders tensing, as the door crawled past two and then one. She stood as the elevator slowed and moved towards the door. Outside was freedom from her nightmare, surely. She would see that huge empty lobby again, have a clear line of sight all the way through the glass at the front of the building to her car. She got ready to sprint. A ding sounded, very loud to her now super-sensitive ears. The door heaved itself slowly to one side.

and behind it a small plaque made of gold on a hallway wall. She sobbed and closed the door again, only to have it open again. She tried again, and the door didn't even pretend to close this time. Nervously, she shuffled onto the now even darker hall. Feeling around in her pocket, her hand touched her phone, as she quickly tried to turn on her torch. With horror, she watched the screen stay a dead black. This time she could barely see the turn in the corridor ahead.

Straining her eyes, she forced her feet forward, only to shriek as she tripped over a hand sticking out from behind one of the now dull statues. She looked closer, a hand with her watch, her hand, her very dead hand. Apparently she had tried hiding behind the statue. It looked to be a very unsuccessful technique, she thought in some remote part of her mind. Claire backed up, feeling along the wall behind her, until she found a door. Without taking her eyes off the hand extended from behind the statue, she knocked frantically, desperately hoping that she was in the middle of some sort of mental break,

and that someone would open the door, call for help. But as she had expected, she heard no movement, felt no answering response. She jiggled the doorknob, as the hall grew visibly darker by the second. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the red carpet slowly fading into the darkness, the old fittings along the wall disappearing one by one into shadow. With one last violent shove, the door gave, as she stumbled inside the apartment, then slammed the door to the hallway closed. She sat on the floor, eyes closed, and slowly turned and lent her back against the hardwood

behind her. She lay there for a few minutes. She could hear a clock ticking in another. the room and a light creaking noise. Somewhere, a fan spun on its own lazy beat. Her eyes burnt as acidic tears burned down her face. She took another deep breath and forced her eyes open. Before her was someone's lounge room.

An old faded carpet covered the floor in dusty brown. A spiderweb strewn couch. A large wood-paneled box in the corner. The room had a coffee table aligned roughly. in the center, with old magazines, cups and a plate of what might have once looked like actual food rotting away. On one side of the room, a doorway opened to a small bathroom, dark, unhealthy looking water dripping from the faucet, to a stagnant pool of water in a rusty bathtub. On the other side, a different door opened to a bedroom vista, unmade bed occupying a large chunk

of the tiny room. What caught Claire's attention, though, was her corpse, slowly making loops around the room hung from the old wooden fan blades. At some point, it seems that her eye had popped from its socket. Claire ran to the bathroom, where she proceeded to vomit what felt like everything she'd ever eaten into a grimy toilet. Her composure slowly returned, and she stood up on wobbly feet, and turned back towards the main room again, where instead of a bathroom door, instead the elevator door pinged open. She sighed. Slumped across from the door, below a dull golden plaque.

Another dead her was covered in small scratches. Skin gray where the dried blood hadn't covered it. Claire took a few steps out again. She looked down the long corridor. This time a gray light filtering into gray mist letting her see for kilometers down a now seemingly infinite hall. At numerous points, she could see crumpled figures. She started running. Every few hundred steps was another room.

She desperately tried door after door. In some rooms she laid slumped on the couch. In others she had been attacked. Body curled up near the back empty window or behind a destroyed door. In one room, what was left of her was smeared up a wall and across the roof. Soon Claire started finding empty apartments. With an unhinged giggle, she realized that just like that, She'd solved accommodation for everyone in the city, and she could just get out of here to let them know.

She seemed to remember being desperate for a house, an apartment, anything with a roof, but it seemed there were our unlimited rooms for rent right here. Problem solved, right? After a while, her pace slowed, and she began walking again. One straight line, still dotted with her own decaying body every so often, over and over again. again. Hunger began nibbling at her, thirst quickly joining it. Claire walked through the dark hall, marking time only as over the hours the light would sometimes be dimmer, sometimes almost imperceptibly brighter. The more she walked, the more her feet hurt, and soon her shoes gave way. Her feet began to bleed in several places. When she needed sleep, she would crawl into whatever bed happened to be

available at the time. But with no food and no water, just the same apartment full of grime and death each night, she felt herself fading. Her mind felt full of mist. A deep beating headache drowned out the world around her, only stopping when in the distance she saw a dark, blurry shape. By this point, Claire was almost unable to process any sort of change around her. She picked up her pace, abruptly convinced she had found a way out of this single straight-line labyrinth she found herself in. Hope began to spread around her heart. Her feet lurched in an almost involuntary run, and she began sprinting forward. Closed doors joined together beside her, the carpet below her shifting slightly as her pace increased.

Her hope peaked, tears blurring her sight as she approached the dark shape near the end of the hall. As she approached, she slowed to a walk, then dropped to a walk. a snail's pace. She dropped to her knees. In front of Claire was a large pile of dead Claire's, each leaning against the next, until beyond them, a blank wall with nail marks tearing at the wallpaper. Claire fell forward and dragged herself to her place in the line. Outside the hotel, Claire pulled up in her rusty little car, excited at the prospect of seeing her new apartment. 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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