Creepy - Root System & Lost And Found At The Plaza Hotel

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Root System***Written by: AM Sutter and Narrated by: Heather Thomas***Content Warning: Infertility***Lost And Found At The Plaza Hotel ***Written by: Lara Hussain and Narrated by: JV Hampton-VanSant***Support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***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. Creepy presents. Root System.

Written by A.M. Sutter. And narrated by Heather Thomas. When we first move into the old house, you laugh at my unease over the dirt patch in the corner of the basement. I don't like that the concrete just stops, leaving a bare natural spot of earth where just anything could creep into our home if it burrowed deep enough.

You joke that you will plant a little garden in the dank space If that would make me feel better I think of my grandmother's stories from when I was young Of magical plants that birthed wealth in animals and children I'm too busy imagining it all That I don't hear the mirth behind your words When I say it would You laugh and tell me nothing could grow down there

For a moment I feel foolish but you plant a beautiful garden for me outside around the old wooden siding. And I think I shouldn't be upset over a small thing when you did such a big gesture and return. I still don't like going into the basement, but sometimes I sneak down to look at the naked bones of our homes foundation to make sure nothing has started to unearth itself from the undug grave. You hold my hand as I sit back on the table,

the thin paper tearing beneath the straining of my muscles, the harsh slide of my skin. I don't know if I actually want you to be here. Somehow with my knees bent and thighs tense, it is so much more intimate than being with you. Embarrassment squirtes high across my cheekbones, but the doctor is impassive, talking more to you than me.

And I tell myself to lie back and breathe out the shame. You don't say much on the ride home, and I don't either, not until we pull into the driveway of our salt box. When we get out of the car, I look at the garden and ask if you think some ivy would look good on the faded siding.

I think it would. Shaking your head, you tell me it will ruin the foundation. I don't respond, just go upstairs to take a shower and watch blood swirl among the water, the ghost of hard metal and coarse swabs. The garden blooms like a firecracker in summer,

a mix of blues and reds and yellows that sense sparks in the corner of my vision wherever I turn. You hunch over a cluster of purple hydrangeas as I watch, seeming to order them into line with gloved hands and bulky shears. Looking up at the wood siding, I ask you again about planting ivy. I think the bright green would look good as it pulled its way toward the roof, covering the ugly wood that must be rotting under its surface. I picture a swarming mob of termites living in that wood.

Their bulbous pale bellies pulsing as, ever starving. They consume the planks before bursting into our home through the dirt in the basement. I like to think the ivy would block their ingress, would strangle them from me and its leaves. You roll your eyes as you turn toward me, and I know the lecture you're about to give before you, even open your mouth. But my phone rings and interrupts your thought.

I take the call from the doctor in the middle of the garden with you and the plants watching me. Later, during a fight over something trivial, you tell me you don't understand why I'm upset about the news, when I was never sure I wanted children in the first place. I tell you it's that I don't have a choice in the matter anymore, that I wanted to be the one to be able to decide. Not a faceless voice over the phone telling me about test results I hadn't even known they'd submitted.

You ask what you can do to make it better then. And I don't know what to tell you. I think I just want you to tell me that I'm right. It's not fair. But I don't know how to express that to you. Instead, I say that I just want you to care. And you snap at me. Anger and something else are stormy in your eyes.

When you tell me to get over it, I would say your look was one of despair. But you didn't want children either. That's what you always told me. My grandmother sends me seeds. White gladiolus, the package reads, A morning flower. You take one look at the back of the small packet and tell me you won't plant them. It's too late in the season, apparently.

They won't survive the upcoming frost. I ask if we can plant them in the spring then, and you give a non-committal grunt low in your throat that tells me you hope I'll forget by then. It's a garden for me, but I don't know what flowers grow best together, so instead I bury them in the cold dirt of the basement on a morning when you're still in bed.

I don't know how deep to plant them or how much water they'll need. I think I realize that they'll never grow without sunlight, but I can't just throw them away. I dump a cup of tepid water on the scarred dirt and shrug to the empty air. Maybe even if something can't grow, the seeds will keep things from tunneling in. I lean the shuffle against the cool wall

and turn off the lights on my way back up. As I'm closing the door, you ask me what I was doing down there. I'm not sure why I don't tell you outright. embarrassment maybe definitely shame i stand with my back pressed against the door as if to bar your entrance i don't want you to see the freshly disturbed dirt i don't want your jokes and that little head shake you do when you think i'm being unreasonable so i tell you i was just tidying up and push past you the dare for you to doubt me hangs between us a fragile spider's thread You grunt and let the argument drop. I wish you'd fight more. I forget all about the seeds until several weeks later.

A large box balanced against my waist, I fumble for the basement lights and take the stairs one at a time. The container of old clothes slides on top of a beaten table, and I sigh at the loss of weight against my hip. I turn around to go back upstairs, hoping to avoid looking at the dirt plot. I find that to be impossible, for the seeds have sprouted. The gladiolus is white, gloated, and huge. The tower of flowers almost reaches to the cobwebbed ceiling, each leaf the size of my hand.

One bud toward the middle of the column is monstrous, not yet bloomed. It hangs heavy under its own weight. The petals strain against the flower's contents, and I take one cautious step. toward the stairs. Whatever is within the flower begins to writhe, and I begin to scream. You take the steps three at a time, nearly crashing into the wall as you sprint toward my fear,

but you stay upright and wrap your arms around me. You're frozen by your disbelief, and I fleetingly find it frustrating that this is all you'll do to try to save me. The flower opens with a squelching tear and a small body falls to the ground. Naked limbs, crooked and folded.

The figure is a child, about five or six years old. She shivers and curls around herself as the plant withers and dies behind her. Then she opens pale eyes that meet ours and sticks her thumb in her mouth. You ask me what just happened? As if I could offer any explanation. Perhaps we should ask

the thing laying at our feet. Better yet, I think we should dump her outside and lock the doors. Whatever she is, wherever she came from, doesn't matter. She isn't like the children born of flowers in my grandmother's stories. Her gaze doesn't track normally, seeming to follow my pulse point instead of my eyes. Something is wrong with her, but I'm sure you notice too. I'll get a blanket for the child, you say, and your words carry more emotion than I've heard in weeks from you. You disappear upstairs, leaving me alone with her. She grabs at my pant leg and sits on the floor, covered in a viscous, sticky fluid. It smells sweet like sap, looks browned red, like blood. You tell me to watch her while you run to the store and get clothes. Though I try to argue with you,

I can see you won't switch places, and so I am left with a mute child born from a terrible flower that grew in my basement. She huddles on the couch under the blanket you dragged from our closet. It's my mother's knitting, and I'm sure the child is getting it dirty. Are you warm enough? I ask when the silence becomes overwhelming. She blankly stares at me, and a tiny hand peeks out to tease the loose threads of the quilt. Trying to bite back my words, I watch as she picks at one until it snags and tears. Stop that, I snap. You'll ruin it. She flinches at my rebuke, and the hand digs back into the folds like a worm, burrowing into dank earth. I sit in the chair across from her, unwilling to share the couch, and we stare at each other in silence until you struggle through the front door with several large bags of children's clothing.

I will not be petty and think about the new charges on our card. Instead, I get up to greet you, but your attention is on the child. Daddy! She joyously cries at your return, and I don't know where she would have learned that word. How could she know any words? You don't seem to share my disquiet. Instead, you appear almost happy, rubbing a towel over her hair to remove the remaining sap, and showing her how to put on her starch jeans and pink shirt.

You tie her shoelaces for her while she kicks against the couch cushion. I feel like an outsider in this small room. You suggest we make dinner in celebration, and you take out the stakes I was saving for our anniversary. I don't even know if the child can eat, if she has a digestive tract, and I tell you we shouldn't waste that on her. Your skin creases a little.

around the eyes, as if you're disappointed in me, and you shake your head. When we crowd around the small table only built for two, you seem euphoric. The child balances on a chair packed with pillows so that she can reach, and you cut up half your steak into small bites for her. Most of the meat ends up on her lap and new shirt, but white, crooked teeth chew eagerly. She swallows just like you and breaks into a smile. that has you captivated. After dinner, you suggest I put her to bed. Go to your room, I say, trying to inject as much compassion as possible to override the disgust

that swims in the undercurrent of my words. I'll be there soon. The child understands well enough, even if she barely speaks, and she sprints off to the mattress and sheets you scrape together into the spare room. I turn to you after she's gone. What are we doing? I ask. Why do I feel crazy when you're the one acting irrationally at an irrational situation?

This is impossible. We need to tell someone about what happened. Just appreciate the miracle. You say to me, I want to tell you that I didn't ask for one. Go help her get ready. You add, and kiss me with an attentiveness. I haven't seen in weeks.

I can't say no to that, so I go to her. The child doesn't say a word to me as I pull off her shirt and pants, but she smiles and stares with eyes that seem too big for her face. I study her body as I help her, but she seems to have every part she should.

Her skin isn't made of bark. I can feel a heartbeat when I place an ear against her chest. Maybe I should do what you say and just appreciate the miracle. When I bend down to untie her new shoes, pull off her crisp socks, her toenails seem to have a slight green tinge to them.

The child has started to grow roots. When she goes barefoot, I see them curled around the base of her toenails, pale, white, fleshy growths that twist and curl under the ridges of her skin. When I tell you, you give me a look I can't entirely read, but it scares me. You've never looked at me that way before,

like you're disgusted. Your expression has a physical weight to it, and it pushes me back out of the kitchen. The child comes up to me in the hall and tugs at my shirt, silently asking me what's wrong. I try to meet her eyes and not stare at the twitching under the skin of her heels. She pulls again, and I shake my head.

Nothing. I assure her. It looks like maggots swirling under her skin. Nothing. I wake up that night to an itching pull at my skin. I open my eyes and look into the pale gaze of the child. Her small fingers are playing with mine, lazily tracing the ridges and valleys of my knuckles.

Roots just as pale as her eyes emerge from splits in her palms and are feeling their way along my wrist. A few dig at my skin, trying to burrow through soft flesh. I seem to seek out the hot pulse of my vessels. I blink, clearing the thick film of dreams away, and one root pierces down, drawing a small drop of flood to the surface. It drinks the liquid greedily, and I scream. Flailing, I reach out with my free hand and push her back,

ripping the plant out at its anchor. She begins to cry as she falls onto her back, and you choose this moment to violently come awake. You shout, confused, and still half asleep, and she crawls across the floor to your side of the bed. Daddy! She sobs, the earth-rending tantrum of a small being. Daddy! She calls again. That single word she seems to know and climbs up into bed next to you.

What's going on? You ask. floundering for the lamp, and look over at me. I have a palm wrapped tightly against my wrist, feeling the burn of blood underneath the pressure, smelling the metal tang as it pollutes the air. What did you do? You accuse.

I squeeze my arm tighter, and how dare you? How dare you? The blood pulls and dries along the folds of my hand, and I know you can see it leaking from my grip, squeezing between my clenched fingers. I let my hand fall so you can see my arm. In the harsh light, the puncture wound looks minuscule. It still throbs in time with my heartbeat,

and my blood still sluggishly flows from it. Still, I can see the judgment in the way you study it. At my silent accusation, the child presses her face into your arm and whimpers. You shush her, a quiet cooing that plumbed. pulls at something in me deeper than the roots did. And it hurts. I'm going to put her to bed.

You pull the covers back in our bed, letting the chill in, and hoist her against your chest and shoulder. She wraps small hands around your neck, and avoids looking at me. When you finally come back to bed, you don't say anything. Just pull up the comforter and turn out the light. Between your scorn and listening for the return of the child, I can't fall asleep.

I think it would be easier to get you to see her for what she is if the child was anything but average. If she was nauseatingly ugly, preternaturally beautiful. Instead, she remains disturbingly bland for how she came into being. Her eyes are pale, her skin almost as white as the gladiolis she birthed from.

But other than that, she looks like she could have come from me and you. I know what you would say at that thought, and that's not why I feel sick whenever she comes up and tries to slide her tiny fingers in between mine. Her skin smells like leaves, her hair like dirt. When I try to explain it to you again later, you tell me that I'm being unreasonable,

that I'm being cruel. Your expression strikes hotter than your words. You must hate me, whether because of my first, feelings toward the child, or because I couldn't give you one myself. I don't know. I say you're the one being unreasonable. You say we'll talk about it tomorrow, and you leave me alone in the bedroom. You go into the child's room for the night. When I see you in the bathroom the morning after, some of her roots disappear up your pant leg. For a moment, I stand frozen in the hallway. The chute's Trail behind you and across my path.

They weave a maze of dizzying patterns across the linoleum. There's a soft sucking sound as I tiptoe around them, like they are drinking, like they are parched, and have found an oasis. I corner the child in the kitchen while you're outside in the garden. Her roots are pulsing, seeming to suck at something, and the thought that it might be your blood

makes me irrationally angry. Let him go, I say. The shovel hasn't been used since I first planted the seeds, and the aged dirt flakes and falls off the blade to mar the floor. Making sure the light catches on the sharp edges, I shake the tool at her. I don't really want to hurt her, and I'm hoping she's young and stupid enough to believe that hollow threat.

She looks down at her feet, where the roots have torn holes in her new shoes, and I think finally she'll let you go and leave us. What the hell is going on? Spinning to face the hallway, I find you looming in the threshold. For the first time, I'm scared of you. I'm suddenly aware of our height difference, of the size of your hands, of the rage across your features.

I grip the shovel tighter. Why won't you see? I cry and gesture at plant limbs entwining your legs and chest. They nestle in your hair, and I don't know how you can't see them, how you possibly couldn't feel them. One probes the space above your collarbone, feeling for your heart. And I make my choice. You might not appreciate that I'm trying to save us, but that won't stop me. I raise the shovel high and bring it down towards the child's face.

I want to say that she tugged at the roots connecting you, pulling you in front of her. but I need to be honest with myself, no matter how hard it may be. You stepped in front, shielded her small body, and the arc of the shovel was higher than I had intended. I didn't know a skull could cave like that. The child screams. So do I. You drop where you stand. Your fingers twitch and blood leaks, heavy and thick from the crumpled side of your head. I think as I kneel in the tacky pool of your fluids that if you hadn't shielded her, everything would have been fine. But instead, here we are.

And I don't know what to do. You decide for the both of us. Muscle spasms slowing, your one eye intact goes glassy. There's a heaving, shuddering, quaking throughout your whole frame, and then you're still. And I understand what has happened. The child doesn't. Her cries swell to the foreground.

Daddy? Shut up! I tell her. Just shut the fuck up! My outburst silences her like a physical blow. She slaps both tiny hands over her mouth, eyes wide. She must know it's her fault. She must.

But she looks at me like I'm the monster. And it makes me hate her more for it, gathering you under your armpits, I tug you toward the basement. I've finally found a use for that horrid dirt patch. You're so heavy, and my socks are slipping in the cooling steam of your blood. A child trails after us, the white of her roots staining a deep brown in the mess. They're still attached to you, still pulsing under the hem of your jeans. And for a moment, I think about severing the link with the sharp edge of the chest.

with the sharp edge of the shovel, but I don't think I have the energy to let you go again, so I avert my eyes to the glistening splinters of your skull, visible through torn skin. It's easier to look at. Pulling you toward the basement, I see the child following us out of the corner of my eye. Terrified.

She doesn't seem to want to be near me, but her roots haven't released her from your body, and so she comes with us. The trail of blood is a jagged, bright staccato down the stairs, while the shovel is dark and crusted with new dirt. I'm covered in your blood and my sweat in the soil of the basement floor. It's taken hours just to get a whole big enough and deep enough to contain what remains of you. The child waits right behind me, and though she hasn't uttered a word since we came down into the bowels of the house, she continues to cry. Tears stain her pale face, a speckled red, and she is ugly in her grief, not like me.

You'd be proud, how dignified I've remained. Even though I want to break down and sob over your chest like a professional whaler, I will not do that to you. I respect you, both in life and death. Unlike her, I bend down to pull you toward the grave, and something twitches under your shirt, a thick root pushes out from your collar and searches for my pulse point.

Grabbing it with a blistered hand, I viciously tug it until it snaps off. The child whimper's in pain, but her shoots do not stop searching. I turn toward her and snarl. Release him, or I'll bear you with him. I mean it as an empty threat. I just want her to let you go,

to give you back to me. I want her to stumble out of the house and leave us alone. Let me lie down at night alone with my sins. Let you rest in peace. Instead, she rubs a tight fist against splotchy cheeks and reaches out to grasp your palm. I've given her all the warning I'm willing to. One more heave and I let your upper body tumble into the grave.

The force rips your hand free from her grip, and your legs follow. folding you over at the hips like an abandoned doll. The child looks down at her empty hand, then her gaze follows her shoots to where they plummet into the claustrophobic hole. She flounders down into the pit, her small feet waving in the air before she drops,

and when she presses her face into your belly, tears carving soft trails over plump skin, your body seems to wrap around her. I tell myself it's her roots. pulling you around like a marionette. I think instead about how maybe I didn't account for your own grief. But that's what happens when two people fall apart. They stop listening to the things, the silence tells them.

It's all right, though, because as I start to fill in the hole, I see her curl closely against your chest. Her roots are starting to grow into the skin of your neck, following the veins and arteries to your heart. She'll be with you now. You'll always be together. There is English ivy growing through a crack in the newly poured basement cement. I'm not sure where it came from.

Perhaps it had hidden away in my grandmother's flowers, or how it grows, deep in the darkness. But nothing else sprouts from it, and it gives the basement a calming feel. Makes it so I don't feel that sickening dread every time I look in that corner. where the concrete is just a bit whiter than the surrounding floor. I've started bringing a lamp down so it has more light, a bright hot bulb made for greenhouses,

or so the box tells me. I've begun to play at music and talk to it when I'm packing boxes and sorting through old trash bags of junk. It's easy to raise, to nurture, and I can't help but feel pride whenever I notice it's grown taller, inching its way along the wall. toward the ceiling. The officer that helped me file a missing person's report for you comes around to check up on me. We've started having dinner on Wednesdays and coffee on the weekends.

He's handy and fixes the half-shut cabinet and the loose drawer handle for me. His name is Howell, and while he doesn't know his way around a garden to save his soul, he does know how to change my car's oil and when to keep the argument alive. doesn't have the green thumb you had. But yours is doing just fine, clutched around small fingers. At least the ivy seems to think so. Howell says I should pull it up, tug at each and every vine, and toss it in the trash. He says I should consider breaking apart the concrete to dig up the plant at its root. I rather like it, and I tell him as much. He says if the root system takes hold underneath, it could crack the cornerstones of the house, that it could destroy the foundation,

but I will not remove it. The foundation of my house is strong, and I have buried far worse beneath it. Creepy Presents Lost and Found at the Plaza Hotel, written by Lara Hussein, and narrated by J.V. Hampton, Van Sant. loss was on the horizon, gusty and shocking in its chill. When, my black and white collie, must have sensed it too. He pulled against the leash on our pre-dawn walk. We were packed for a road trip to Grandma's farm, our first time since taking the fancy job up north. It was a two-day drive to the farm.

Home to tall grasses and ornery cows, but not Grandma, not anymore. Clouds unfurled, low, and dark, as we rolled out of the city. Wind howled and pulled at the car. We raced the storm all the way to New Mexico. The storm won. By the time we arrived in the tiny town of Las Vargas. The world was crystalline, streaks of precipitation frozen sideways on signposts and trees.

I switched to all-wheel drive to navigate past Adobe homes and closed businesses. The Plaza Hotel was the only building in the town square with signs of life within. Warm yellow spilled from the windows of the hotel's entrance, flooding the ice-gray sidewalk. Only ravens were out, blackbirds the size of well-fed house cats, gawking and screaming, despite the cold, or perhaps because of it. I breathed a sigh of relief, peeled my fingers from the steering wheel, and shouldered my overnight bag in the inky night. Come on, Wynne, I said, seeing the words puff from my lips. We're here. Wyn took a moment to relieve himself.

The Raven's cries echoed across the empty plaza. I ducked when one swooped low and a few of the birds tittered maniacly. Wyn, tethered by his leash, barked a warning and then circumnavigated the area with his nose. At the empty gazebo in its center, he relieved himself again. The ravens were perched across the hotel's shadowed facade, on cornerstones and window ledges. In what seemed like a coordinated attack at the entrance, they swooped overhead, squawking,

rah, rah, with abandon. I screamed and covered my head. Wind snarled as we raced to the door, passing the past-due Halloween display that included at least a dozen rotting pumpkins. Ragged holes had been pecked in the gourds and their insides, slippery seeds and orange slime spilled like guts onto the sidewalk. We could still hear the birds battle cries after I pulled Wynn across the threshold and slammed the door closed behind us. The lobby echoed with quiet. What is wrong with those birds? I whispered. The expansive entry hall was outfitted with silk rugs, high-backed Queen Anne chairs,

and a center table topped with a fresh flower arrangement the size of a toddler. It smelled like a grandmother's house. The stuffy kind. that likes fresh lilies and has an affinity for mothballs. Not my grandmas. Her house smelled like snickerdoodles, old books, and burnt coffee. With a pang of sadness, I hoped it still smelled like that. The service bell at the deserted check-in desk rang with a satisfying ping when I tapped it.

I waited for a heartbeat. Then another. When no one showed, I walked to the other side of the entry hall to check out the bar. It was late, hours after sun had set. But there were a few stragglers hunched over foamy glasses and crystal tumblers filled with golden brown liquid, two fingers high. After my second ring at the bell, a man appeared wearing a curling, well-groomed mustache, and black suspenders over a maroon Oxford shirt.

The hotel's gold logo was embroidered on the pocket. Welcome to the Plaza Hotel, he said. You must be Miss Maybaum, and you'll be staying with us for one evening? Yes, just Wynne and me here, I said with a kernel of irritation. The way he said miss sounded condescending like he was talking to a child. He nodded and smiled, his teeth barely visible from beneath the mustache.

I slid my credit card across the desk, its surface worn shiny by nearly 150 years of human oils and dead skin cells. Wind shifted into a sit at my feet, and the old oak floors creaked. His ears were raised, and he sniffed at the air, but his eyes were trained on something behind us, something I couldn't see. Room 310, the mustache man said. I'll get the key.

The man disappeared behind a wall and then returned with a thick brass, key and keychain bearing the room number. The view is quite excellent, and I think you'll find it's quite comfortable, for all of you. It's just us, I said, a small anxiousness prickling under my skin. Just Wynne and me. I pointed to Wynne, and the mustache face leaned forward for a better look.

"'Ah, good-looking fellow,' he said, rolling one end of his facial hair between his thumb and index finger. "'Kitchens closed, but you can always wet your whistle at the bar. Just ring if you need anything.' He winked, like he knew something I didn't. When and I turned down the grand stairwell at the end of the entry hall. I felt the desk clerk watching me and clenched my teeth with irritation, determined not to look back. The low hum of conversation at the bar abruptly paused as we passed. Only a Patsy Klein song continued with a sweltering 1950s croon. Everyone, including the bartender, turned to watch us as we ascended the staircase, old boards moaning with each step.

Creepy bar people, I thought. They must be taking lessons from the creepy desk clerk and the stupid ravens. I wanted to run the rest of the way up the stairs, like a child fleeing a monster, real or imagined, but forced myself. to keep the same pace, one creaking stare at a time. As we neared the third floor landing, I could feel wind body press into my leg. He stopped next to me on the top stair. It was colder there, more than just drafty. Perhaps the heaters were still trying to catch up after the plunge in temperature that blew in with the ice storm. A low guttural growl revved up.

It took me a moment, my own heart rate ticking up in tandem, to realize that it was Wynn. What's up, boy? I said and shivered. The words crystallized in front of my face. Wyn's head was turned left, pointed at a stocked bookshelf, and adjacent grisly brown leather reading chair with an indent in its seat, worn from decades of rear ends. Pages of an open book fluttered on the chair's armrest, moved by some unseen force. All the hairs on wind's back were raised. Guest bumps crept across my body. I didn't want to,

but I forced myself to walk toward the chair. Oh! I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the open window. That's why it's so cold. The book pages flitted in the frigid gusts of wind from outside. The gold gilding and printblock cover design reminded me of the last collector's edition novel I saw in my grandma's gnarled hands. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne.

I was rereading my own hardback copy of the Undersea Adventure, a gift from Grandma when I moved away. After a small amount of grunting, I was able to close the window within a half inch of the frame's base. The book pages stilled at last. I'll tell someone at the front desk about the window, in the morning, I said to win. I was tired from the long drive and eager to get some sleep before another day of driving to the farm, and then to her funeral. Hot grief welled in my eyes.

The room was sparse, but comfortable. A queen bed topped with a pillowy duvet, a flee d'oe duvet, a fleece dog bed on the floor, a chest of a chest of, of drawers, a nightstand, and lamp, and a closet-sized bathroom. I changed into pajamas and retrieved the book I had been reading, Grandma's book. When curled up on that fleece bed on the floor, one eye trained on me. I read and reread familiar paragraphs by lamplight, distracted, exhausted, and yet a unable to go to sleep. There was a repetitive movement on the floor above us,

a rocking chair, rocking endlessly on the old wood. It suddenly stopped, and then there was pacing, the length of the room, back and forth. For a while, Wyn watched in the direction of the pacing, his head sweeping back and forth, as if he could see through the ceiling.

When the rocking started again, Wynn huffed, put his head between his front paws and closed his eyes. The rocking went on and on and on. I gave up, too, and turned off the lamp, half expecting to stay up

until the sunrise with the noise. I awoke later, startled and cold. thin moonlight seeped into the room at the edges of the curtains. The bed's footboard shuddered, like someone had kicked it, and then the corner of the mattress closest to my feet sank, a compression of linens and mattress. When? I whispered grogly into the quiet.

The rocking and pacing above I, I noted, had ceased. I heard Wynn stand and shake on the floor next to me, the charms on his collar clinking together like chimes. He was still on the floor. Hello? I whispered. No answer. I pulled my legs toward my torso,

while simultaneously pulling the linens over my head, forming a tight ball. The weight didn't move. Go away. I whispered in terror, and then I squeaked. Get out of here. Terror invaded every cell of my body. I had to do something to make sure I was safe, that we were safe.

When? Come. I called, finally regaining the baritone in my voice. The jingles from Wyn's collar drew next to the bed. If there was anyone there, Wyn would see them. Wyn? Up. I said, feeling his hesitation. He was never allowed on the bed, but this was an emergency. There was a jingle.

again. Nails scraping on the wood floor, and then wait, pressing against my torso. His low growl began, and strengthened to a death snarl. Wynn could see something. With all the strength I could muster, I reach for the lamp, nearly disconnecting its cord from the wall socket in the process, and somehow managed to click it on. The room was being. bathed in light. The growl stopped, and there was when, right next to me, panting gleefully, as if this was the most fun game in the world. I looked at the room, issuing a quick scan and then a slower review, covering every inch

of the room, even under the bed. There was no one there. Feeling emboldened by the light, I crept into the bathroom. checked behind the shower curtain, and then unlocked the door and stepped into the hall, keeping one foot in the room. Not a soul was around, and yet the hall, the landing, and my room were freezing. I could see my breath in quick crystallize exhales. After stepping around the corner, the culprit was easy to see. The window was easy to see. The window open again. Book pages fluttering. I shook my head. Fine. You win, window. Back in the room,

I double-checked the door lock, looked under the bed and behind the shower curtain again. I could see the depression on the duvet, the same shape and size as the indent in the chair by the window on the landing. Maybe it was just me. Maybe I had sat on the bed earlier. Or Wynne. I found another quilt in the chest of drawers and pulled it across the bed.

Come on, Wynne. I puffed into the cold air. Wyn curled next to me, and the rocking on the floor above started again. I picked up my book to read. time dragged. How were there so many hours left in the night? How could the rocking and then pacing go on and on?

When I woke up for the second time, the lamp was still on and it was bright outside. The curtains squealed on their rods as I yanked them back, irritated that I had over-slept. The length of the plaza was empty. and even icier than the night before. How was your stay? A red-headed clerk asked Sing-Songy as I returned the key. She had paper white skin, radiant among the dark wood paneling, and patinaed copper ceiling tiles.

The room was comfortable, but, to be honest, I didn't get much sleep. Oh, no. The mattress and linens were updated just this... No, no, it's not that. I decided I wouldn't share about the visitor in the night. The one I probably dreamed up anyhow. The bed was great, but my room was freezing. Someone kept propping open a window on the third floor. But that wasn't the issue either since I was able to find.

to quilt. The problem was the ceiling. Oh, was there a leak? She asked her eyes wide with surprise. No, it just seems like the ceiling is thin. I mean, I heard everything above us. Someone was rocking in a chair and pacing all night long. They've got to be exhausted. I know I am. I coughed a tired laugh. She studied me, wide-eyed and pale, and then turned the key over in her hand, twice. But you were on the top floor. No one was above you.

The ravens chased Winn and me to our car across the street. I cursed them, and they cursed back in chilling crying. while waiting for the windshield defrost her to kick in. A feeling like I'd forgotten something in our hurried packing nagged at me. Through the wavy ice sheet on the windshield, I counted the floors of the Plaza Hotel. The clerk was right. One, two, three. We had indeed been on the top floor.

The sheet of ice in front of me suddenly dislodged, and I jumped when it slid onto the hood. That's when I saw movement in a room on the top floor, what had been our room. I stepped halfway out of the Jeep for a better look. A lanky man in a camel-colored three-piece suit stood framed in the window. Outside, perched on the roof above. him. A raven trilled recklessly, and the sky darkened as a cloud blocked the sun. Dozens of other birds were perched precariously on the building's facade. The man in the window was watching us, holding a book to his chest with his right arm,

fingers wrapped around the spine. It was the book I had been reading. the one my grandmother gave me, with Verne's giant squid and other adventures swimming on the pages. The man's face was drawn back, like he was smiling, too wide. An unkindness of ravens took flight en masse, and headed straight for our car. I ducked back into the driver's seat and pulled the door, closed, narrowly missing a spray of droppings, which splattered the sides and windshield instead.

I cursed, angry about the mess on my car, and furious about the absurdity of it all. That a ghost, a ghost, had stolen my last gift from Grandma. What could I possibly do, report that a ghost and a bunch of wild birds were tormenting and stole my book? It occurred to me then, a realization that was like a gift from Grandma herself. I rolled down the window and shoved a fist into the air. Keep it!

I screamed at the third floor window and shared my own unkindness with a finger gesture. Wynne barked ferociously from the back seat as if in support. The raven screamed and circled back around, heading in for a second bombing, just as the sun reemerged from behind the cloud. The man in the window stepped back and dropped my book before fading into the darkness of the room. I put my car into gear and slammed on the accelerator, the back tires fish-tailing on the frozen road. All the way to the highway, I laughed, eager to retrieve grandma's edition of the book,

The Good Copy, the one waiting for me at the farm. 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 copy. share-a-like 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 story's author.