Creepy - Road Trip & Write What You Know

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

Road Trip***Written by: Allie Harrison and Narrated by: Nichole Goodnight***Write What You Know***Written by: Cassandra O'Sullivan Sachar and Narrated by: Megan McDuffee***Support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***Sound design by: Pacific Obadiah***Title music by: Alex Aldea Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

No. 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 are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. He presents road trip, written by Allie Harrison and narrated by Nicole Goodnight. I have always loved road trips.

I mean, what's not to love about packing up the car with my favorite people, my favorite snacks, and heading out to see something new and breathe different air? And the new air I always want to breathe is at a place with either a beach or a pool. There has to be water involved. I keep telling myself I'm going to save up and get a nice pull in the backyard for the family, but that might take away the adventure of the overall road trips, so no, I haven't done that yet. And I probably never will, because my wife, Anne, and my kids have grown to love our road trips too. I know it sounds strange, but there seems to be more sibling rivalry and needless arguing on the 15-minute trips to the grocery store

than there are on our four- or five-hour trips to the beach or the lakehouse. The other thing I like to do to my family regarding our road trips is I keep our destination a secret. it. Why, you ask? Well, it certainly adds to the adventure and heightens the anticipation. It also cuts down on the number of times I get asked when we're going to get there. So this year, I reminded the family not to forget their swim gear. We loaded up into the packed car with enough snacks and drinks to get us through the next week, and we headed west. The first two hours were smooth and easy with a game of car bingo, and Anne telling me the latest statistics on what really kills a marriage. She read the so-called statistics in the latest magazine she received through the snail mail.

Anne likes getting what she calls fun mail, so she signs up to receive stuff instead of simply reading all the latest info on the internet. We stopped to fill the car and use the facilities. I splurged and bought each of the kids a frozen drink. We were on vacation after all. While the family was in the station checking out roadside treasures and getting their treats and the pump filled our transportation, I searched my phone. They didn't know, but we were about an hour from our destination beach house I rented for a week. The house was only two blocks off the beach. It would be an easy, fun walk with ice cream and coffee in between the house and the beach. But for now, I searched for things to see in between here and the house. I wanted this road trip

to last just a bit longer. I wanted to keep my family in the car together just a bit longer. The kids were growing so fast. And I knew it wouldn't be much longer until they found more interesting things to do in the summer than spend time with their mother and me tucked in the back seat on a road trip. In my phone search, I found what I thought would be a perfect little drive-thru, and it was only minutes off the beaten path to our beach house. And when I took an exit a short time later, the kids perked up, and I got the first question of, are we almost there yet?

I confirmed we were almost there, but there was something I wanted them to see first. As I maneuvered through the old iron arched gate, my wife looked at me and touched my arm. You're taking us to a cemetery? From the back seat, the kids piped in with their equal displeasure at going to a cemetery. I explained this wasn't just any old cemetery. This was a sculpture cemetery. Among the tombstones were art sculptures, and that we were just going to drive through,

see the art, and then we'd be at our destination. I pointed out one such sculpture of a woman and a little boy who appeared to be walking toward the front gate as I drove into the cemetery. See? They were perfect, beautiful sculptures. The stone woman was holding the hand of the little boy and the details of their facial features were amazing.

The little boy's head was turned slightly as if he watched us drive by and enter the cemetery. The woman wore a sundress of sorts. Of course, it was white to match her entire stone body, but the impression of it was clear. On the hand that held the hand of the little boy, I clearly saw impressions of her fingernails. Whoever sculpted the two of them did an amazing job.

In the seat behind me, the kids unbuckled their seatbelt to get a better look out the windows. For the first time ever, I didn't reprimend them. There was a stone sculpture of a teenage girl standing behind a headstone. Her hand was on the tombstone as if she was a part of the tombstone. There were three stone people,

a man and a woman with a child between them, near the edge of the narrow paved road on which I slowly maneuvered the car. The stone man appeared to be pulling the child. The woman was looking behind them. Of course, she wasn't really looking anywhere. She was stone. And except for being all white,

the three of them looked so real, as if the three of them as real people had been walking just like that and somehow suddenly turned to stone. This was amazing. It was as if the woman was looking behind them watching us approach. I could almost imagine her telling the man and child to watch out there's a car coming. And the man was looking down and speaking to the little girl telling her how important it was to stay safe from the cars as he led her along.

My kids were in awe, as was I. My wife, however, voiced this was just a bit too creepy. After all, these were perfectly beautiful sculptures. Why would any artist place them in a cemetery where people only go when someone dies or to visit someone who's dead? Why not place them in an art museum or a park? Or even in a grocery store parking lot where they'd be enjoyed by the living. My wife asked me how I knew about this place. I told her I googled it.

She became busy looking at our own phone and a moment later, replied that this place wasn't showing up anywhere on her phone. Our son from the back seat yelled out excitedly for us to look over there. I glanced in the rearview mirror to see him point out his window and I looked in that direction. I slowed the car as I stared at the sculpture of several children, all holding hands, all in various positions. The stone boy in the middle of the group appeared to be bending backwards as if he was being pooled from both directions and didn't know which way to go.

All of them appeared to be running, captured mid-stride, most with only one foot touching the grass. Our daughter pointed out one of the sculptured kids wore sneakers exactly like hers, but one of the sculpted girl's sneakers was untied. Someone should really tie that shoe so that little girl doesn't trip and fall. I wasn't sure why that strange thought popped into my head. The children weren't real. The girl's shoe was stone. The shoestring was stone. I couldn't tie it even if I tried. But boy, they looked so real, like a group of children joining hands trying to create a circle.

There was a small gap between the outraged hand of the girl on the end of the group and the next child. Had they all been holding hands when I first looked at them? I couldn't be sure. I took in other details. Even the ponytail trailing behind the head of one of the girls appeared to be flying behind her. It reminded me of last fall when I took the family to a nearby festival, and our daughter rode some fast, twirling ride. The ponytail of her beautiful red-blond hair trailed behind her like that. Exactly like that. For some reason, the memory sent a sick feeling to the pit of my stomach,

and I knew I needed to get my daughter out of here. Anne quietly asked that I drive us out of here. She didn't like the feel of this place. Truth be told, I didn't either. The air felt heavy here, and I didn't even have the windows rolled down. I recognized this feeling. I used to get the same feeling just before an asthma attack when I was a kid. It was a feeling the walls were closing in on me.

I didn't argue about leaving. Thinking the road just circled around and out, I maneuvered the car around another band with the intent of heading out the same way we drove in. Only I didn't see the entry gates. I saw endless old tombstones and another white sculpted person. This one was that of an old man kneeling before a grave. I was pretty sure we passed this way coming in. in. I should have seen that sculpted figure, but I didn't recall it. I didn't recall noticing that

man looking at me when I first noticed the sculpture either, but now he was. His stone head was turned, and I knew he stared right at me. I sped up just a bit to reach the next looping curve in the road, searching over the top of the tombstones for the tall iron gates. I still didn't see them. Anywhere. What I did see was a stone boy standing nearby waving to us, as if motioning us closer. Wasn't he one of the boys in the group of hand-holding children? How did he get over here? I didn't point him out to my family. I ignored the urge to get out and look at him closer and see if he was really the same figure. I just pressed on the accelerator more. We came to a crossroad surrounded by tombstones on all sides. Funny. I didn't recall passing any crossroad previously.

And Anne pointed and said she thought the gates to leave were that way. When I looked in the direction she pointed, I noticed another stone sculpture. It was a woman standing in front of a tombstone. She had a bouquet of flowers in one hand. She reached out with her other hand as if reaching for someone. Sunlight filtered through the trees and gave her more of a marbled appearance. As we approached this sculpture, I swear I even saw small bumps on the smooth cheeks of the woman's face that were surely tears. I felt a strong urge to wipe those tears away to comfort her, to hug her and to be with her. I tried to look away, tried to ignore that feeling. After all, stone. needed no company or comforting. When I looked at the woman again, her stonehead was turned.

Impossible, I know, but it was true. This time there was no doubt. She had somehow turned her stone head toward me. She stared at me, calling silently to me somehow. Anne implored that I get us out of there, but her voice sounded so far away, not in the seat next to me where I knew her to be. Yes, I needed to get us out of here. I needed to get myself out of here. I sped up more. At least I think I sped up more. Anne asked why I was slowing down, why I was stopping the car. I argued I wasn't. She argued I was.

I think she slapped my face, but I didn't feel it. I felt so disconnected. She asked why I was getting out. Where was I going? I think she was screaming at me. I think the kids were screaming too. I don't remember opening my car door. I don't remember moving at all.

My brain felt so fuzzy, my legs were heavy. I just knew I suddenly stood before that stone woman. The shade was delightfully cool and she was beautiful. I envisioned her hair being red and her eyes being vivid green. I felt the cool touch of her hand on my face. Out of the corner of my eye as my entire body became too heavy for me to move, I saw my wife driving my children away. Fast.

My children's faces were pressed against the closed window and their mouths were still open. I knew they were screaming, but I couldn't hear them. I heard nothing. The stone woman before me smiled as I felt her take my hand. Creepy presents. Write what you know. Written by Cassandra O'Sullivan Satcher.

And narrated by Megan McDuffie. He presses the blade into her smooth, creamy flesh, watching as the thin line of crimson snakes out and puddles. But how much blood was needed to puddle and was presses the most effective word there? What about slices instead? But she'd just used slice on the last page. Emma slouched over her laptop, defeated.

Her flow interrupted once again. Lately, no matter how hard she tried to summon the muse, sitting down at her workstation at the same time after getting home from her shift at the garden center, the words weren't coming. It was as if her imagination had hit a drought, even though she'd been blessed with heavy rain as long as she could remember. After Googling the properties of blood, but still not understanding what she needed to know, Emma checked her email.

Again, it was probably the 30th time that day, but there was nothing from any of the magazines where she'd submitted her work, even though the one had said they'd be back to her by now. The only message she'd received that day was a coupon for Sephora. She brought her phone out of the drawer, one of many ways she managed. to distractions during a writing session, and took a quick stroll through Instagram. Her high school and college classmates seemed to be doing great. Everyone was getting married, having babies, working impressive careers, and going on fabulous vacations. Yet here she was, home from a job that barely earned minimum wage, staring at a blinking

cursor. She waited for words that refused to arrive. Was she even meant to be a writer? She pictured the disappointed expression that hung on her mom's face whenever she asked for a career update. Emma knew her whole life that she wanted to be a novelist, but was realistic enough to understand that she needed a day job to pay the bills. She didn't want a job to define her or take over the way it had with some of her friends, like Lucy. Last time they hung out and Emma asked what she was working on, Lucy,

the same girl who used to fantasize about her first book launch, said she was too busy working at a PR firm and planning her wedding to write. While Emma mourned the loss of her friend's passion, a petty part of her felt superior for holding onto her dream. Maybe Lucy was happy to trade the uncertainty of writing success for a steady career with benefits, but Emma preferred being the starving artist. There was pride in that.

Writing was her identity. Well, it would be if she actually wrote, instead of sitting at her workstation watching raccoon videos on her phone. Letting out a sigh of frustration, Emma started swiping up to close out the app. As she did so, she caught a post from a famous writer she followed. It was a quote by Mark Twain superimposed on a background with a rainbow sherbert-hued sunset. Right what you know? She'd heard that advice about a million times before, but it struck a chord.

Emma's mind careened back to her fiction. workshop senior year of college, where her professor prattled on and on about the importance of verisimilitude in writing. Dr. Devine couldn't get enough of that word, rolling it off her tongue, stretching out the many syllables with each utterance, which she managed to drop into lectures at least once a week, bouncing about the classroom on the balls of her feet, bracelets jangling. She told the students they needed to ground their fiction in reality, balancing out the fantastical elements to lull readers into a suspension of disbelief. Then again, if Emma stuck to what she knew, like the quote suggested, everything she wrote would be boring. At 24, she hadn't led a very interesting

life, growing up with parents who loved her and a brother who was tolerable, but she'd stayed in the same small town since she was born, even attending college at the local university. She interacted largely with the same people and rarely varied her routine. Emma doubted very much that people wanted to read about young women with healthy childhoods who worked mundane jobs in garden centers. Therefore, it was up to her imagination, along with some help from Google, to fill in the many gaps to make her fiction come alive while staying believable. But she never forgot the importance of adding something from real life. Emma went outside to feel the wind in her hands. hair before writing about a character experiencing that. She liked going to the food court at the mall

to inhale the aromas and observe the display cases if she wrote about food. Hell, she'd even signed up and trained for a 10k so she could more accurately portray a character who was a track star. Sure, she'd done some research about running, but it wasn't the same as feeling the tightness in her asthmatic lungs or the cramps in her muscles as she pushed her body forward, despite protestations. to stop. Instead of writing about college-age girls falling in love with their roommates' brothers and other basic stuff, she challenged herself to write more of what she wanted to read. She loved horror and decided to experiment with darker writing. But how was she supposed to know what it felt like to kill? She wasn't going to casually take up murder to get answers, and her

online research only took her so far. Emma skimmed through the paltry three pages she had written over the course of the last week, though she'd set, and miserably failed at, a goal of a thousand words per day. Would it be more effective to switch to the victim's perspective? Granted, she had zero experience with getting kidnapped, but that might work better. Dr. Devine used to tell them that they should try something different if what they'd written wasn't working. Saving the document under another name, Emma went back through her prose, striving to get into the victim's head, into Kim's head. She needed to stop thinking of her as just the victim, but instead as the main character, granting life even as the killer planned to snuff it out.

When she got to the point where the killer tied Kim's hands together with rope and shoved her in the trunk of his car, Emma lay down on the floor, placing her hands behind her back, enacting the scene. She could smell the stale cigarette smoke infused into the carpet, and knew she could use that detail as her character's mind raced with possibilities of escape. But what would it feel like, having her wrists bound with rope? Scratchy, an uncomfortable, sure, but she could dig deeper than that. Wasting herself up, Emma walked into the kitchen and searched in the drunk drawer. She knew there was a stretch of rope in there, though she had no clue where it came from.

Maybe the previous resident of her apartment, the same one who left behind the lingering stench of smoke. Sitting down cross-legged, Emma attempted to tie her hands together in her lap. It would have been more authentic behind her back, but she wasn't a contortionist. Fumbling at first, one wrist continuing to slither out of the loop, she managed to tie a knot by holding the end of the rope between her knees and tugging. She closed her eyes to concentrate on the sensation. The rough fibers chafed the tender skin at the inside of her wrists, but that was only a minor inconvenience.

She could easily wriggle out from the restraint. It needed to be tighter. She tried sticking the end of the rope in the oven door, but it slid right out when she pulled, same as when she stuck it in her filing cabinet. This was stupid. Emma hadn't added a shred of authenticity to her writing or numbers to her word count. She should probably just go to bed and take another stab at it tomorrow after work. Then again, what was she doing with her life, if not to grind through the difficult times to improve her craft? Writing couldn't be something she allowed herself to abandon when the words weren't flowing. Try something different if it's not working.

She pictured Dr. Devine in the room with her, smiling and encouraging her. No, Emma would not be like Lucy, refusing to give up. She imagined how proud her professor would be when Emma emailed her with news of a publication. Kim's captivity would seem more realistic if Emma experienced some of the the difficulties the character was facing, lying on her living room floor with her hands tied together, even with the disgusting carpet in her face, wasn't enough. Ducked tape. Emma remembered seeing some in the junk drawer. Maybe the killer would put it over Kim's mouth so she couldn't scream. Cutting off a piece of about six inches, Emma placed it over her mouth and resumed her position on the

living room carpet, retying her hands and turning off the light. Okay, this was better. Dark, like it would be in the trunk of a car, but also with restricted breathing and the noxious odor of the duct tape. It reminded her of something. Neal polish-remover? Her heavy nostril only inhales and exhales resounded in her ears, and she thought about how Kim would hear that, as well. But her character would be concerned about the small space of the trunk, too, whereas Emma had her entire living room.

Getting up from her prone position, she peeked through the window. finally the sun was down only the fireflies blinking like christmas lights and lone street lamp glowed outside the apartment complex the night was a perfect cover for her self-imposed assignment on verisimilitude emma lifted the corner of the duct tape not wanting to risk a neighbor seeing what she was up to but it held fast to her skin no sense ripping it off only to reapply she'd remove it when her experiment concluded besides If she bumped into anyone, she could always cover her mouth with her hand. Grabbing her keys and the piece of rope, she locked the door and headed to the parking lot. Thankfully, she didn't encounter anyone. Her neighbors were likely enjoying the AC after another hot summer day. After checking that the coast was clear, she popped the trunk of her car and climbed inside,

pulling the lid closed behind her until she heard the click. If it weren't for the duct tape, limiting her movements, she would have smiled. description swirled in her head the perfect words and phrases rushing in hard and fast pouring out of her like water from a broken dam finally even though the trunk didn't seem airtight it had retained some of the day's heat and sweat pooled between her shoulder blades and leaked from her hair line when she got back to her laptop she'd catalog all of this her shortened breaths the heat Emma hadn't yet retied her hands but the pleasantness. All the better to understand Kim's predicament had commenced, her long legs cramping in the confined space. Now for her hands. She'd left part of the rope hanging out of the trunk so she could pull it tot. Though more arduous in the dark, her practice in the apartment paid off, and she managed to loop the ends together, tugging until she'd fashioned a steadfast knot. And then she leaned back, her brain brimming with more and more words,

Unable to utilize her sight in the near-pitch blackness, her other senses overcompensated. In addition to the discomfort of her wrists and legs, her tongue grazed the chemical taste of the duct tape, and her nose tingled from the faint and unexplained scent of mildew. In the silence of her cocoon, she could make out the steady ticks of her watch. Though she had placed herself in this situation, unlike her character, Emma felt she could much better relate now. Kim's troubles were largely hers as well, even though Emma's imprisonment was of her own volition. She lay there for several minutes, mentally recording the sensations, ripe with words to add verisimilitude to her fiction once she returned to her laptop. Confident her fingers would now fly over her keyboard with ease, Emma decided she'd done enough research.

though she wasn't generally claustrophobic, the inhibiting conditions of the stifling car, coupled with her nasal-only breathing, equated to a need for space and freedom. Flicking her wrists to undo the binding, Emma realized her right hand had fallen asleep, full of pins and needles. It hung limp, next to its mate, unable to function.

The simple knot she tied, held taut. A surge of heat coursed through her body at this inconvenience, but she knew she shouldn't allow herself to get flustered. She was fine. Everything was under control. Even with her hands bound, she could wiggle her way to the faintly glowing emergency lever and open the trunk. Emma arched her back and shimmied forward to close the short distance. As her stress level increased, her breaths quickened, becoming shallower. She longed for some refreshing night air.

The fingers on her right still useless, she stretched toward the lever with her non-dominate hand and yanked, anxious for the release that signaled the end to her ill-fated experiment. But the lever fell off, and she couldn't see or find any button beneath it to press. Tears pricking her eyes at the unluckiness, but also her own sheer foolishness. Emma concentrated on slowing her breathing, but she had worked herself up too much. She bent her head toward her hands, frantic to remove the duct tape. If she could breathe through her mouth, she'd calm down and think this through. but her sweaty fingers failed to grasp the edge adhered to her skin.

Tears streamed down her face, mingling with her sweat. Her body racking with sobs. She couldn't fully berth from her immobile lips. She reached down to the front pocket of her shorts, where she usually kept her phone, ready to call 911. Even if she couldn't talk, she could alert them to her distress with her muffled cries, and maybe she could text, fingertips touching only the empty pocket.

she remembered placing her phone back in the drawer to minimize distractions. As her heart hammered in fear, Emma's lungs swelled in her chest, the panic bringing on an asthma attack. She hadn't had one since that single time in middle school and only needed an inhaler in autumn during hay season. She never carried one with her and couldn't have accessed it even if she had. Fighting fruitlessly for a deeper breath, Emma felt her airway narrowing. her lungs shriveling. Her throat clogged with mucus she tried to expel with a cough, but the duct tape held fast over her mouth,

leaving it trapped inside her. The thin inhalations through her nose couldn't keep up with Emma's need for oxygen. Cheeks bulging, she choked as her fingernails scrambled for purchase on the tape. Emma's shoulders rose and fell with violent heaves, revving up faster and faster as the battle inside her raged on. Her thin frame bucked with a final wheeze, forcing Emma onto her back. The pressure of her butt landing on the carpeted floor pressed the trunk unlock button on her forgotten key fob,

which she'd placed in her back pocket. The trunk popped open. Emma's vacant eyes, if they could still see, would have imbibed the shooting star gliding across the night sky. A sign of good luck. Inside Emma's apartment, her computer dinged with an incoming email. while a literary magazine wanted to accept the short story she had submitted last month, it would have been her first publication. While she should have been signing her contract and sharing the good news with her favorite former professor,

Emma's body settled into the process of rigor mortis as her limbs began to stiffen. If only she could have written about that, an experience her body now knew, her writing would have shown with verisimilitude. 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 comments share-a-like licensing or with written consent from the authors.

No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise disbroadcast. distributed without the express written consent of the creepy podcast production team and the story's author.