Creepy - Promises We Make In December: Part 3, Chapters 1-3

Episode Date: December 31, 2021

Written by: TW Grim and Narrated by: Joe Stofko***Find our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***You can also subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/creepypod***Sound Design by Pacific Obadiah***Title music by Alex Aldea***Intro/Outro Narration by Joe Stofko 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.

Welcome to the Bloody Disgusting 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 books. violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised.

The promises we make in December by T.W. Grimm. Part 3, Chapter 1. I apologize for the lengthy weight since the last entry in this confession. Unfortunately, I had to take a short break from writing to take care of a rather pressing matter. My ailing health. After the last writing session, I found myself too drunk to get to bed, so I crawled over to the couch in my office and passed out. I woke myself up in the early afternoon by projectile vomiting, a vile concoction of blood, mucus, and undigested booze all over my antique coffee table and the area rug beneath it.

Of course, it wasn't the first time that I have forcefully done. puked up the contents of my stomach. Far from it. And it wasn't even the first time that I vomited a substantial quantity of blood. This time, however, the vomiting was accompanied by a hot ripping pain in my guts that made me shriek at the top of my lungs. I slithered off the couch and started crawling for the door on limbs like strands of over-cooked spaghetti, moaning and crying and drooling snot down my chin.

I got halfway across the room before I was slammed with another wave of burning nausea, and this time it was all blood, a ghastly crimson splash of the stuff across the hardwood floor in front of me. Mary Ann heard the commotion and came running into the office with a bottle of windex, still quenched in one hand. She saw the blood and stopped dead in her tracks, her free hand flying up to her mouth to stifle an involuntary scream. Ambulence, I gasped,

and Marianne just kept staring, frozen in place by panic. The expression on her face was equal parts horror, pity, and disgust. She was looking at me. the way you'd look at a dog that had been run over and left to die on the side of the road, and somehow that was even worse than the searing pain in my midsection, even worse than being dead. I shouted, I said, call a fucking ambulance, and Marianne Flint dropping the windex onto the floor. She spun around and scuttled out of the room to make the call,

leaving me to writhe around in my own blood and bomb. She didn't come back until the EMTs showed up. I can't blame her. She's a good woman who has stoically done her job throughout the worst of my alcoholism, but Marianne is a housekeeper, not a doctor, a therapist or a spiritual healer. She shouldn't have to put up with this kind of bullshit. But this is what I do, isn't it? I wallow in my own bullshit, and I smear her on whoever makes the mistake of getting too close. It's been a lifelong habit of mine. Apparently, I've developed a number of extremely nasty stomach ulcers,

which will surely add to the fun I'm already having with the alcoholic hepatitis that is rapidly turning my liver into an inflamed, booze-soden lump of fatty tissue. Next stop on the liver disease express is cirrhosis. and this train moves fast, people. Before you know it, I'll find myself at the last stop. In my case, this will be a plain brass urn that will be claimed by my attorney,

who will then dispose of my ashes as he sees fit. He joked that he would sell them online in half-ounce increments and make a small fortune. I shrugged and told them to go right ahead. What will I care? That'll be dead. The worst thing about all this is that it might not be too late, even now. I could try to get better, but I just won't fucking stop. It's awful, isn't it?

To think that I could prevent my own destruction, but I just plain fucking won't. It's like I let go of the wheel while driving on the highway, and I'm getting my car wander in. oncoming traffic. Of course, I don't have to let that happen, and I don't even necessarily want to let that happen. But it is happening, and it's all because I just can't be bothered to grab the fucking steering wheel again. But enough of that. That's in the future, be it near or far, and I promised myself that I would finish dealing with the past. But first, a drink, to prepare me for what comes next, to settle the shaking in my hands so that I can finish what I have started.

Another drink? Because I'm tired. I'm so very tired. Part 3, Chapter 2. Grandma was released from the hospital two weeks before Christmas. One of my aunts offered to take her in until she was fully mobile again, but Grandma insisted on going back to her own home. Mom and my aunts worked out a schedule where they could take turns caring for her, but Mom was forced to take on the lion's share because she lived a lot closer and no longer had small children to raise. This meant that I was along with Dan a lot more than usual, which was as nerve-wracking as you'd imagine it to be. If he was hanging around the house, I'd hide in my room and work on my comic books, only venturing out if I had to use the bathroom

or quickly rave the kitchen. Dan was becoming increasingly more irritable and tense, as Christmas drew closer. On the infrequent occasions that we ate supper together, he would silently glare at me from across the kitchen table, chain smoking, and crushing the butts out on the one lonely, slice of pizza that sat on his plate. Our unnervingly quiet dinner is almost always consisted of a large pepperoni pizza from a shady little place in town called Gino's Italian eatery, a shabby little establishment that was long rumored to have ties to local hoodlums. Their pizza was thin, limp, it always tasted a little bit like charcoal.

I could tell, by the way, Dan stared at me during these tense suppers that he believed me to be the weak link in our three-person chain of secrets. I could see the brutal conclusion to a nagging line of thought slowly forming behind those bright blue eyes. A final answer to a bothersome question. It frightened me badly. He crushed out his fifth smoke in a row on the greasy slice on his plate and grumbled,

This pizza ain't worth a shit. Worst I ever had. Gino just don't give a shit anymore. He's going to retire soon. Cancer. I was unsure of what to say to this, so I ventured, well, shouldn't he retire now if he's sick with cancer? Why wait?

Dan grinned down at his plate and pushed it away. Nah, kid, it ain't like that. Guys like Gino retired. when they kicked a bucket. There ain't no such thing as a retirement plan for a two-bit crook. He looked up, still grinning, and his eyes bored smoking holes through my head.

Not me, though. I ain't going out like that. I'm going to make my money fast and retire young. Move to Cuba or somewhere like that. Just live life easy and enjoy the view. That's the plan anyway. Dan laced his fingers together. on the table and leaned forward, pinning me to my chair with the intensity of his glare. The thing is, sometimes I wonder if there may be any roadblock or two along the way,

some loose ends slapping around, making a nuisance of themselves. I can't have that, Johnny, not me. If there's a bump in the road ahead, I'm going to drop the blade smooth the fucker out. You know what I mean? I just scraped that bit smooth, because nothing. Nothing's going to stop me in this life. Nothing. I chewed my bland limp pizza and waited to see what would come next. Dan relaxed back in his chair and lit another cigarette. See, I got certain terms and conditions I live by,

but my lawyer says I did everything right, and they're going to expire soon. Now, when that happens, I'm gone. I'm going to set up shop someplace where there ain't no goddamn cornfields and live large. You and your mock can sink or swim after I'm gone. I don't care. The gravy train will be over. He squinted through the smoke and shook his head in mock sorrow. I know you ain't going to miss me, and the feeling's mutual. But we can all make good with this situation, long as you don't get any stupid ideas in your head. you don't tell nobody how things get run in this house.

You don't tell nobody nothing. Keep your head down. And I'll be out of here before you know it. That's a promise. Good. I can't wait till you're gone. The words were out of my mouth before I could stop him. Dan looked almost shocked to finally hear me speak against him.

I cringed and waited for his retaliation. Dan mulled over what I had just said, and after a tense moment he shrugged his shoulders and lit another smoke. You're nothing to me, kid, nothing at all. Take the rest of the pizza and fuck off. Go color your little picture books. Once I was safely hidden away in my bedroom, I started to jump around for joy and ecstatically hugged my pillow.

I was elated. Dan would be on his way soon and we could move on. I didn't care if we ended up being dirt poor again. We could eat hot dogs for the rest of our natural lives for all I cared. It wouldn't matter, as long as we were free. Out of nowhere, an image of the shed outback popped into my head, and it sent an inexplicable chill down my spine. The shed was a decrepit, sagging little structure,

where my father had kept his tools and worked on various projects on Sunday afternoons when the weather was fine. Since his death, it mainly served as a place to store our old push-mower. I almost never thought about the shed. I didn't have any reason to go in there. His mom had not yet deemed me old enough to mow the lawn without suffering my toes and or doing a generally shitty job of it. I didn't know why I was thinking about it now out of the blue, or why it might create such a disquieting sense of dread in my heart. My mouth went dry with the acrid grit of cold dust, and for a brief moment I could feel a disturbing presence in my mind,

an unseen figure dressed in suffocating layers of darkness and grinning a dread rotten grin. Out loud I told the empty room, I think the time has almost come, and I shivered. The shiver ended with a powerful sound, the powerful sneeze. I was suddenly racked with a teeth-chattering bout of the chills, and I sneezed again. I sat down on my bed and crawled under the covers, feeling weak, disoriented, and very, very tired. I fell asleep with my lamp on, and when mom came in to wake me up in the morning,

I was sick as a dog with the flu. Part 3 Chapter 3 day started with a heavy, insistent knock on the door at just before nine in the morning. I was sitting at the kitchen table and pecking away at a bowl of curios with mom sitting across from me doing the same with a slice of toast. We exchanged a puzzled glance, and mom got up to see who it was. I trailed behind her, feeling vulnerable and self-conscious in my pajamas. Mom opened the door to the end of the chain, and Moses pressed his broad, hairy face into the opening. He looked tired and extremely short on patience. Let me in, he rumbled.

Gotta talk to Digger. I'm sorry, Dan's not up yet, Mom ventured carefully, but I can tell him you were here? No, he can get the fuck out of bed and talk to me right now. Moses growled. I don't have time to give a fuck about making nice with you, woman. Open the door. Mom's hands were trembling slightly as she slid back the chain. I quickly slunk away to hide in the kitchen.

I had a habit of making myself scarce whenever Moses stopped by for a visit. He gave me the willies. It was more than just his immense stature or his intimidating appearance. that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck when he was around. Moses was one of those feral men who seemed to radiate a powerful aura of wildness, and it frightened me. Moses wasn't evil exactly. He just didn't care about the concept of right and wrong.

He did what he had to do to get the results he wished to achieve. The question, is this right? never entered his mind. There were only actions and reactions, problems and solutions, and today there was a problem. I hid behind the fridge and listened intently. I heard Dan come stumbling down the creaking stairs. He grumbled,

I hope this is important, boss, because I don't usually see this time of day, if you know what I mean. Shut up, Moses snarled, and Dan closed. closed his mouth so fast that I heard his teeth clicked together. We gotta talk. Let's go to the office. Their heavy footfalls crossed the living room.

When I heard the office door clunk shut, I let out a small sigh of relief that turned into a coughing fit. I was a week into my bout with the flu, and I was still pretty sick. I sat back down at the table and packed at my Cheerio some more. But I didn't have any appetite. I felt a general unease stirring in my guts. Something was in the air, a sense of impending disaster. An errant image of the shed out back skittered across my mind and was gone in a flash, making me shake my head and rub my eyes.

You okay, honey? Mom asked. I shrugged. I wasn't okay, but that was nothing new. Neither one of us was okay, and we hadn't been for a long time. I couldn't even remember what it felt like to be okay in a world where nothing made sense and cruelty was the norm. I'm just not feeling good, I muttered.

Mom let it be. I think she felt it too, a thick pall of dread that was settling over the house like an invisible fog. She threw her toast in the garbage and lit a cigarette. instead. The office door banged open, making me flinch, and Moses strode past the kitchen with Dan hurrying behind him. I heard Moses stop at the front door and say, Don't even think of trying to weasel your way out of this. It's too late. Dan said, I'll do it. You know I will. I heard the screen door slam shot. Dan wandered into the kitchen and a few seconds later,

with a cloudy, distant look in his eye, as if he were having a hard time processing some particularly bad news. He poured himself a mug of coffee and trying to sound nonchalant, he asked, You're going over to see Granny today, aren't you, Nora? What time you're heading back? Well, it's Christmas Eve, so I was hoping to get back here by five. Are you going to be around tonight? Her tone indicated that she'd prefer it if he made himself scarce.

At this point, Mom only tolerated his presence because she didn't have any other choice. Dan grimaced down at his coffee and said, I doubt it. I've got some business to take care of. Trying to sound casual, he added, maybe you should take the kid with you when you go. He's been moping around and feeling sorry for himself all week. I think he could use a change of seeing. Dane went back to the office and Mom stared after him.

She looked troubled. She turned to me and said, Well, did you want to go to Grandma's today or would you rather stay here? I shrugged. I don't know if I should go anywhere. I don't feel so great. Mom looked back at the office door again. Her brow creased by a faint frown.

I don't know either, honey. Why don't you go lay down for a bit? I'll come up and check on you in a while and get some rest. I felt too unsettled to sleep, but the sickness won in the end, and I woke up in the early afternoon to the grating hack of my own raspy cough. I was aching all over. I went looking for mom and discovered that I was alone in the house. She had decided to let me sleep and went off to Grandma's house without me.

Dan's Camero wasn't in the driveway either. I choked down some cough syrup and stretched out on the couch to watch some TV while I waited for her to come home. The Christmas tree was twinkling away in the corner of the room. A big, fancy new tree that Dan had dragged in one night with the sickly sweet stench of another woman's perfume, still clinging to his shirt. He set it up all by himself, drunk and humming away to him.

himself tomblessly while my mom sat on the couch and stared off into nothing with red miserable eyes. I watched the tree twinkle away in the corner, and the cough syrup made my eyes grow heavy. I slipped off into a light doze without even knowing that it was happening. I jerked awake to the sound of the phone ringing. It was ten after four, and the interior of the house was becoming dim, and murder of the house was becoming dim, and murder. with the oncoming twilight. I picked up the handset and graded, Hello, and a voice that sounded like a rusty hinge.

It was my mom. She said, Honey, I don't know how to say this, but it looks like I'm going to be stuck here for a while. Maybe even overnight. I'm really sorry, Johnny, but this storm kind of snuck up on us and it's already crazy out there.

I pulled back the curtains with my free hand to have a look out the big, picture window in the living room. The world outside the glass had been obscured by a rapidly swirling blanket of white. I couldn't see much farther than the ditch on the other side of the road. I let out a little whistle of surprise. Oh, wow. I didn't even realize it was snowing out. Yeah, okay. That's all right. I'll guess I'll be fine. I won't be there to make supper, but there's a cheese and the cracker plate in the fridge for when you get hungry, Polish sausage and olives and all that stuff.

She sighed and let out a loud sniff. I'm so sorry, hon. I feel real guilty leaving you there all by yourself on Christmas Eve. I should have brought you with me, I guess. She paused, then added. I mean, you are alone, right, aren't you, or is Dan there with you? No, just me, I said. and mom let out another sigh.

This one, a sigh of relief. Good. I don't think he'll be around tonight. He left after you went up to bed. If he does come back, just hide in your room, okay? Stay out of his way. Before I could stop myself, I blurted. Dan said that he's going to be leaving soon.

He told me that last week, and I think he was serious. We just have to hold on a little longer, and he'll be gone. Mom went silent on the other end of the line. Finally, she murmured. Well, Merry Christmas to us, then, I guess. We'll just keep our fingers crossed, and maybe we'll get through this after all. I heard Grandma call for her in the background, and Mom said, I have to go now, Johnny. Listen, you can do whatever you want tonight, okay? You can watch TV as late as you want. Whatever you want to do. I'll see you when I can make it home.

She cleared her throat, and her voice lower, she said, "'Just keep an ear out for Dan. I don't know what's going on with him today, but I have a feeling you should steer clear of him tonight.' "'In my best big-boy voice,' I said, "'don't worry about me, ma. I'll be fine.' I didn't feel like a big boy, though. I felt very small and alone.

Well, okay then. Merry Christmas, honey. I'll see you soon. Impulsively, I hung up on her in mid-sentence. I don't think I was angry at her, not really. I just didn't want to hear her voice anymore, that's all. Her voice, her words, they were making me tired. The entire situation was making me tired, and I didn't want to be a part of it anymore. There was a loud clunk outside, and I froze. It sounded like the hood of the Camaro's trunk slamming shut. My first thought was, oh, crap, Dan's home, that's great. And I peeked out the living room window to see what he was doing out there. Dan wasn't alone. Moses was with him. And they were carrying something between them, struggling through the snow with a long, swaying object that looked like a rolled-up carpet.

As they got closer, I saw that the burden they were struggling with was actually Donnie, the third member of their illustrious drug-pushing trio. Donnie had been bound at the wrist and ankles with duct tape, and his customary ensemble of sky-blue jeans and denim jacket was red with blood. There was a plastic garbage bag tied over his head. I gawked at them in slack-jaw disbelief, as they trundled past the window, carrying their partner's limp body by the arms and ankles, as his head swung around like a tether ball at the end of his neck.

Their shuffling feet kicked up little puffs of snow as they made their way around to the backyard, eyes squinted and shoulders hunched against the icy lash of the wind. Moses glanced at the window briefly, and my heart lurched in my chest. I dropped to the floor and huddled beneath the window, with my heart pounding a wild rhythm against my ribcage. I knew that I was definitely not supposed to see what I had just seen. I was 100% positive that Donnie was no longer alive. Interrupting Dan while he was throwing himself a little afternoon party was one thing, but this?

This was murder. I thought of Dan's voice. floating up the stairs that night as I stood frozen behind my bedroom door, slurring over his words in a drunken rage, I'd kill you if that's what it came down to. I'll kill you both, and I'd fucking bury you. I cautiously tiptoed into the kitchen where the windows afforded a clear view of the backyard. Dan and his lumbering business associate wrestled Donnie's body over to the shed

and dragged him inside. It dawned on me that Dan was probably under the impression that I was at my grandmother's house with my mom. As they emerged from the shed, I realized that they would probably be heading into the house next to warm up, and I panicked. I ran for the stairs and barely managed to scurry into my room when the front door banged open, letting in a harsh blast of cold air and voices raised in a heated argument. I left my bedroom door open and warmed my way under the bed, scraping my back against the bottom of the frame in the process.

I held my breath and listened. We could have stashed him anywhere, fucking else, anywhere. Why the hell is he out there freezing fucking solid in my shed? Dan sounded like he was half in the bag and almost beside himself with anxiety. We're surrounded by woods and gullies for fuck's sake. Why do I got to keep him here? Would you shut the fuck up?

Moses roared, and there was a loud thunk as Dan bounced off a wall in the front hallway. Fuck you and fuck that snitch. He was selling weight to an undercover pig. How fucking dumb can you be? This is who you decided to do business with this fucking moron. That's why he's in your shed asshole, because he's your responsibility. Dan whined. Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do with him?

I can't bury him here. It's the middle of winter. What am I supposed to do? Shove him up your ass for all I care, Moses growled. Feed him to pigs. Melt him in a barrel of acid. I don't give a shit. Get rid of him.

And if you get caught. That jean jacket motherfucker is all yours, because if you mention my name, I'll cut your balls off. No joke. I'll cut them off and flush them down the fucking toilet. I felt a tickle in my chest, and my heart dropped clear down to my stomach. I was about to be racked by another one of my coughing fits, and there was no way to stop it. For a moment, I was caught between a memory and the present. I was simultaneously standing in my pajamas at the top of the stairs, fighting a sneeze as I watched my father get ready to leave for work, and crammed under my bed with my eyes tearing up, and my mouth jammed into the crook of my arm. Then the coughing fit came,

boiling out of my lungs with a force of a freight train, and I heard Dan bark, "'Ah, shit! You gotta be kidding me!' Booted feet pounded up the stairs, and I pressed myself against the wall, silently willing him to somehow overlook my hiding spot and leave me alone. I watched Dan's snake-skin boots enter the room and clomp over to my closet. The closet door opened and closed, and the boots turned to shuffle up to the bed, leaving behind a trail of wet footprints pressed deep into the cheap shag carpet.

I know you're under there, Johnny. Dan tried to sound calm and casual, but I could hear the tension in his words. Come on out, kiddo. There ain't nothing to worry about. I held my breath and kept silent. Dan grunted. Okay, then.

We'll do it the hard way. And he flung the bed across the room, sending it toppling into my dresser. I screamed and ran for the door. But Dan was as quick as a rattlesnake. He caught me by the hair and threw me into the wall. The impact knocked the wind out of me, and I dropped to my knees,

fighting for enough wind to get out another scream. Dan hauled me to my feet and dragged me down the stairs by my neck, kicking and gurgling and flailing from my life. He threw me down at Moses' feet and gasped, Look, what I just found, God damn it? What are you doing here, kid? Why didn't you leave with your mom?

I couldn't answer him. My throat was burning, and large, blurry black dots were dancing across my vision. Moses looked down at me with a flat, considering gaze. There was no pity in his eyes for the sobbing boy who lay curled up on the floor at his feet. I was a problem that needed to be solved and nothing more.

He said, Doesn't better now, does it? He saw something. He heard us talking. I can just tell by looking at him. He knows. Shit. Dan rubbed his temples and started the pace.

I can't believe this, you stupid little fucker. Why did you have to be here? Jesus, what am I going to tell Nora? That he ran away? She won't believe that. Fuck me. What a fucking mess. Moses nudged me with the toe of his boot and said,

We'll put him in the shed. He can keep Donny company until you figure this out. Dan hesitated. The last spark of his humanity was teetering on the brink of being extinguished, and he knew it. I could see it in his face. It's cold out there, he said. Maybe the basement.

I mean, why put him out there when, you know, we can, when... Dan trailed off, his words withering beneath the biker's unblinking stare. He looked down at the floor, and he put his head in his hands. Moses sighed. Digger, he's a kid. Do you really think he won't tell somebody? Do you really think you can just pinky swear on it with a little prick and we'll all pretend it didn't happen?

Dan took a deep breath, looked me in the face and said, Nah, he's got to go. I tried to crawl away, keening and sputtering for my mom, and Moses bent to scoop me up under his arm. He felt like he was made of iron beneath his leather jacket. He carried me out the front door, and the wind immediately mulled my flesh. I shivered in my thin sweater and cried out for help.

Moses gave me a brisk shake in mid-air, making my teeth clapped together painfully. That won't do you no good. No one's going to hear you. He threw open the shed door and tossed me inside. I hit the rotting plywood floor and rolled right into Donnie's cold, stiff corpse. The garbage bag had fallen off his head, and even in the fading gray light that filtered through the dirty windows. I could see the damage from the horrific beating he had suffered before he died. His entire head was one giant blood-crusted balloon of deep, in-dense and swollen flesh. One eye was puffed out to the size of a baseball,

and the other eyeball was laying against his cheek dangling at the end of a grisply little string of flesh from his eye socket. There was a small dark hole in the center of his fore. forehead. I knew without asking that it was a bullet hole. I uttered a high-pitched screech and scuttled away from the body on my hands and knees. I don't want to die, I wept. Please don't do this. Please. Moses stepped into the shed, ducking to avoid hitting his head on the frame, and he spat on the floor beside Donnie's corpse. Donnie was a snitch. He was going to give us up to sit. save his own ass instead of doing his time like a man. Moses frowned, indistain, and crouched down on one knee

beside me. He took hold of my chin with bloodstained fingers and forced me to look him in the eye. I put a gun in his face and we took him way out in the woods, out to where no one could hear him scream, put him in an old wash tub and filled it with water from the creek, froze his stupid ass in a block of ice, right up to his neck. He was crying and begging for his life the whole time, even when he was shivering so bad he could barely talk. He kept saying, I don't want to die, just like you did just now. You know what I told him? I told him that I don't give a fuck. Then I beat his fucking face in with a brick. I started to sob even harder, and Moses shook his head solemnly at my tears.

That won't do you any good, little man, because I don't give a fuck about you either. Moses rose to his feet and reached into his jacket. I cringed on the floor in front of him. I knew what was coming, and all I could think of was my mom, and how heartbroken she would be when I was gone. Would she ever suspect the truth, or would they just decide to simplify the situation and kill her too? Moses blinked in surprise and uttered a deep bull-throated laugh at the ceiling. He withdrew an empty hand out of his coat and said,

Well, shit. Left it on the back seat of the car. Been a long day, I guess. He had another small chuckle at his. own absent-mindedness and stomped back out into the driving snow. It was getting close to full dark outside, and Moses wasn't much more than a bulky silhouette in the door frame. For a second or two, his dark form reminded me of something dreadful from the past, a murky memory fragment from a long-forgotten dream, and I involuntarily released a hot stream of urine into my pants. I thought, But she never found it.

When the time comes, you need to remember that, Johnny. And it was my father's voice that I heard in my head, not my own. Something in a stagnant pond of long-forgotten memories began to bubble to the surface. Mom had cleaned out all of Dad's possessions in an effort to cleanse the tainted memory from our lives. But she had overlooked something. My father had said so. But what had he been talking about and why did it matter? I remembered, deaths laughing in anticipation of claiming me alongside my dad, taking us both with the same

tragedy. But there was something else, too, something that might save me if I could only remember what my father had said to me in a distant dream that had seemed far too real. I tried my best to block out the hot clinging sensation of my piss-soaked jeans and the sharp ache in my throat, and I concentrated on remembering his words, an urgent message spoken to me in a dream that wasn't a dream in the December of my innocence. Raising his voice to be heard over the wind, Moses said, I'm going to slap that padlock back on the latch, so don't bother trying to run away. this will all be over in a minute.

The door slammed shut, plunging me into near darkness. I tried to open the windows, but they were frozen shut. I only had a minute to save myself, too, at the most. I concentrated with all my might, and I thought, please, Dad, please help me. It's Christmas. It's time to come home. It's behind the door, I said out loud,

and everything suddenly clicked into place. Mom got rid of all his stuff, but she didn't look behind the door when she was cleaning out the shed. I felt around the wall beside the door, and I found it hanging there, cold and rigid beneath my fingers. There were two shallow grooves worn into the handle

from years of use. I pulled it off the nail it was hanging from and hefted it over my head, caught somewhere between fear and war. wonder. It had passed from my grandfather to my father when Grandpa died, a memento from old days that have long since slipped into the obscurity of the past. It was a pickax. I gave the pickax an experimental swing in the air. It felt heavy and awkward in my hands, but it felt powerful, too. Moses was huge and strong as a bull, but I,

had the element of surprise on my side, I knew that I would only have one shot, and it would have to count. I heard the padlock rattling in the latch on the other side of the door, and my breath caught in my throat. I closed my eyes and silently pleaded with my father to lend me a fraction of his strength and courage, if only for a few moments. The door began to swing open. I lifted the pickaxe over my head and coiled myself to strike. For even more from creepy, 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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