Creepy - Sins of the Father

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

Written by: Colleen Anderson and Narrated by: Danielle Hewitt***Content Warning: sexual assault***Bonus Episode: "I Worked in a Labyrinth"***Sound design by: Pacific Obadiah***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.

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Creepy Presents Sins of the Father Written by Colleen Anderson Anderated by Danielle Hewitt He was like Rasputon when they took him down Sixteen bullets rammed into him While he peeled the flesh back from his last victim Loyal to his art until the end

Nine women in all he murdered That last two did not survive. How could I correlate this reality with the loving father I had known? He was more than just loving. He paid attention, read me stories, played chess and frisbee toss with me. We went for walks, discovering flowers, trees, the unique patterns of clouds. Little did I know that he was using those outings to search out more intriguing specimens. He was quiet, attentive, and a good listener. That, too, I learned later,

was how he teased out the pattern of his victims. Like a detective, dusting for fingerprints. My mother was no harpy who drove him to seek revenge on women. They displayed tenderness for each other. That was as delicate as a butterfly's dance through blossoms. They went on weekly dinner dates to moderately tasteful restaurants. leaving me in the care of a babysitter. To many people, including my mother and me,

our life was perfect. Father victimized far more than nine women, of course. Those nine were the ones he tortured, and who did not have to live with the knowledge of what had been done to them. But he also seared the memories of those hapless women's families and friends. The horror was like the gap where a rotting tooth once sat, always being probed.

No one ever thinks of the murderous family, the unnoticed victims. My mother and I bore our scars and wounds, and our shame. The awareness of what he had been resided with us, germinating, giving us nightmares as we eternally replayed the possible reasons. What he had really felt for us. It was another way for him to inflict his dark desires. A legacy. We could not purge. My mother withered away.

Her world chopped down like a forest's last tree by a heartless logger. I grew up and changed my name. At St. Paul's Hospital, at the West End's Edge, I cared for the ill. I changed bedpants, administered medicine, and held the hands of the dying. Through the glossy linoleum corridors, the hushed hum of the rooms, I tried to gain strength and resilience in my psyche, understand the aches of the world, and lessen the painful throb that accompanied my heart every day.

St. Paul's borders the area of disease and destitution. Those who prowl the streets or have found a home amongst refuse, because their minds aren't fit for our institutions. those who swim in the fluids of their downfall. They are always around us, coming into the ER, courting death, meanness and pettiness, greed and fear walked and limped through those doors. But sometimes they had a worse disease. Just as my father did, evil grows.

It was one of those dreary days when Vancouver weeps at the degradation. of those in the downtown east side, whose livers are eaten by the worm alcohol or their minds by the needle-borne demon. I made my usual rounds to each patient's room, doling out their medications. I saw a hunched figure, definitely not her daughter.

Enter Mrs. Wiley's room. I went to check, and there, a man, grizzled and rank as the alleys, was pulling a ring off her finger. She flailed weakly, her withered hand grasping at him. He smacked her and pushed her hand away. As she cried out, I yelled, Hey, what do you think you're doing?

The man turned, his hair like greasy snakes, and smiled. Then he thrust me aside and ran into the hall. For a moment. I forgot about my duty to the same. the patient. Anger did not burn me, but something more fearsome. Hate. A numbing cold raced through me, like the dark fungus that reaches out in dank and moldering apartments. It took hold, and blackness haloed my vision. I smashed the door open into the stairwell,

leaping down two steps at a time. I gained on him. Shadows curled as I grabbed his collar. It barely registered that my fingers were charcoal-tinged. Twisting my hand into the fabric, I slammed the scumbag into the wall. The tamped down hate and fear rushed through me and out my fingertips as they brushed his neck. For a moment, all went black, as a heavy blankness and confusion. filled me. Then, with absolute clarity, I saw every crime and dirty thought this creature

had ever committed. Collidescope images flashed, taunts, beating dogs, sexual abuse, injecting viscous fluids, punching out a store clerk, losing jobs, more fights, jail, alcohol, fiery drugs, A panoply of pain and fear flooded me. My distilled fears flowed back to him. Locked, we were like a conduit neither could break. We danced and jittered in the flickering neon stairwell. Puppets together. After a minute, an eternity, it ended.

The destructive mold that had surfaced in me had now transferred to him. He crumpled to the floor. tears searing Runnels through his dirt-smeared face. Snot, a slug's trail over his chin. He cringed and cowered still shaking, rooted. I stared at a black fungus that had dried and powdered from my fingertips. I wasn't marked, but he was. Spots tinged his neck and hands, and he whimpered as he scrubbed at them.

moments passed before I could snatch the ring and retreat upstairs, leaving him to an unknown fate. I fled the hospital, complaining of a sudden illness, and locked myself in my apartment. I looked out my window onto English Bay, staring at the innocent white sails of boats, the joggers running along the waterfront. While I looked on the placid beauty, I tried to tease out the tangled web of my thoughts. I'm not a religious person. What is God to do with any of it? Why pray to a deity that gave his creature's free will and vowed not to intervene?

And if he could intervene, then he was a sick bastard who let monsters like my father etch nightmares into people. It was what my father called himself, when they found his meticulously written diaries. The etcher. For he wanted to carve each, canvas of human skin, with his words, his teachings. But he never did explain why he did it. What drove him. It was all about technique and recording lessons. Is madness the same as evil? He was both. But what sort of monster was I becoming? My father's blight had long since infected

my soul, and it had welled up at last. Leaving me neither mighty nor euphoric, I had been choked with nausea, but had been relieved when the hate had erupted from me, transforming into wicked fungus, like that which poisons dwellings in the soggy environs of the coastal rainforest. In nature, mold is green, filled with chlorophyll, or brown, and part of the, and part of the forest. And of the rotting and renewal of vegetation, a natural cycle devoid of desire and deviation. But black mold feeds on the urban falsity of lies and plaster, the sins of betrayal and duplicity.

It grows in the moist corners of the jiprock, unseen behind couches and TVs. It permeates lungs and airways, too, slowly eating at the dwellers, until their mysterious illness is identified. I was a product of my heritage in the land. Vancouver had claimed me, and somehow I had been chosen to exact revenge

for the deeds of my father and perhaps others. I wondered if my father was responsible for more victims who had gone missing and were never found. There were so many more than nine dead souls claimed by the man I knew. I am my father's child. What happens to us in childhood shapes us for the future,

the genetics, the environment, the love or abuses that touch us. I was made of love and horror. My father had betrayed us, a monster, a wolf in sheep's clothing, and I would never be able to reconcile the split that had made up his hole. It's why, once I uncovered my power?

I did what I did. I took to prowling Vancouver's destitute areas, on side streets where the prostitutes decorate the sidewalks like forlorn flowers, around Maine and Hastings, where decay and wasted lives spill out like industrial sewage. In alleys, moist with human refuse, where the crystal meth addicts try to consume others before they are consumed. I took shifts as one of the street nurses who aid those in the downtown east side.

An itch grew in me. A feeling beneath my skin that I could alleviate only through movement. I did not consciously seek out evil. But there's always evil in such places. Perhaps we are drawn to it, unconsciously. as a plant seeks the sun. Something drew me. As the weeks passed, it became more persistent.

I had to peer behind the dumpster, look in the stairwell. Sometimes I found a person in need. Sometimes. I found more. One night, while my co-worker tended to a passed-out man in Chinatown, I felt compelled to explore the alley behind the wrong. red and gold-lettered chops. I almost stumbled over the man raping a scrawny unconscious woman. His hand clamped over her mouth. He didn't even stop when he saw me. The cold swept down on me,

black and frigid. It singed my veins and cleared my sight. Without thinking, I hauled him off the woman, throwing him into the brick wall across the lane. He slid down as I stood over him. I wanted to squeeze the horror from him, but stopped with my hand on his throat. I would not be my father. Instead, I pressed my fingers into his cheeks, increasing the pressure as his eyes came into focus.

He scowled and reached up to my hands. But by then, the black line was creeping up his face. This time, time slowed, and I watched the progression. He clawed at my hands, but I held on. We locked together as the change took place. His face fared like some wolfmans, and his sins played out they're real to me. Each bloody interaction, preying on drug addicts, weakened people. a parade of raped women.

He had not cared if they had lived or died. I did not care if he did. He went slack. His hands falling, drool slipping down his chin, eyes wide staring. I screamed at the barrage of images, oblivious of the presence of any observers. This time. Only he danced as I exerted more pressure. The black fungus crawling down his neck, under his shirt, a call then halted me.

My co-worker. Breathing deeply, trying to bring light into my mind, I released my grip and turned away. The victim hadn't moved. I knelt, feeling for her pulse, pulling back her eyelids. Dead. After the police dealt with the situation, I returned home. Sitting on my bed, fingers wrapping over my eyes and anchored in my hair, I rocked back and forth. What was I? What was I doing? I felt as if someone had threaded sutures under my epidermis and gently tugged on them. While not painful, the need to move constantly crept through me. I could not sit still. I could not sit

still. The blackness in my fingertips faded away, unless I hated. So I used it, filtered it, and turned my hate into a lesson for others. I became a reluctant vault for all the terrible deeds of those I touched. No longer just my father's exploits. Now I festered with a cinema of misdeeds. Night sweat soaked me. My stomach roiled. The more I tracked down the abhorrent and infected them with the mold, the more I had to do it. To unleash the images that infested me. I began to patrol the tracks by the sugar refinery, away from downtown. The large gray concrete cylinders looked more like Cold War silos than a place to harness sweetness.

Metal walkways, high fences, hidden cameras, and the hulking shillings. shape of railway cars, added a disturbing, destitute mood. On the other side, away from the walkways. The inlet's oily waves lapped parasitically at the concrete, as if it were a salt lick. The water sloshed and made throaty sounds. I could not say why I was drawn to such an area. Forlorn at the best of times, except for that strange intuition now hauling me here and there. The area whispered of neglect and sinister secrets. Mesh fences, razor wire, barred doors. And the sharp thorns of Blackberry tried to hedge out the graffiti.

The burned out tins and piles of refuse that indicated a garden for the abandoned. Shadows were thick here, even in the day, at night. They were impenetrable. I carried a flashlight but left it off. Walking slowly, listening, feeling. A train tunnel led from the south to the bridge over the water. As I drew near, noting a security camera's shiny black eye, I smelled the salty perfume of the ocean.

The throaty sound now seemed more like a slurping. And my footsteps slowed, dread quivered my belly. For the water was hundreds of yards away, and the sound was in front of me, echoing against the night-painted sides of the train tunnel. Shadows bulged, bloating and rippling. I wanted so badly to shine my light. And just as much not to know what was there. No longer able to wait or listen to the sad whimper of infinite pain.

I flicked on the flashlight. It's white beam wavering. legs a shadow warty lumps a green slimyness black no no red puddles a slideshow of images revealed in the unsteady light did new newton say to every action there is an equal in opposite reaction my father's heinous actions led to my reaction the ability to inflict the memory of one's deeds back upon them. But just as I had this power, could my deeds too create an equal in opposite force? Somehow, I felt certain that this reaction hunched in front of me, salty seaweed wafting from it,

making me swallow and breathe through my nose. The thing hissed and gurgled, turning. It was half-woman, naked, beautiful, terrifying, dripping dank water from silvery hair. But the light highlighted a face that shifted, eyes that shone like a madden horses, a nostril flaring, nightmarish teeth, and a thick tongue, lolling and dripping bloody gore. What lay beneath the creature twitched His face half eaten away An eye

Lying bare Like an oyster in the shell of a bone I reched Bile hanging stringy from my lips Half crouching I advanced on the monster Forcing the black mold to my fingertips But I hesitated Did I really want to see the horrors

In this thing's mind? I had a mission my father had branded me with a mark of shame, and I could not shy away because of squeamishness. The thing trudged toward me, its victim dragged behind like a broken poltoe. The man wasn't conscious, but his hand adhered fast to its scaly green leg. I grabbed for the creature's throat, and a jarring cold jolted my veins. Its scaly skin was moist and tacky.

But the fungus tried to run away. Back up my hands. It was hard to see. My fingers slid off the slime. The rotting seaweed stench permeated me as I tried to grip the monstrosity's neck again. And before I knew it, I was heaving up everything in my stomach, over and over. The creature ignored me, flowing over the ground toward the water under the bridge, its meal and toe. It took me hours to return home, stopping to gag up bitter residue.

Shakily, I turned the key and staggered inside, sliding down the door. I managed to get to bed after rinsing my mouth. The next two days, I was as pale as a water-blooded corpse, and I couldn't keep anything down. I had met my nemesis, a monster so terrible that it turned me to quivering jelly. I had not helped that poor wretch and considered his state. It had probably been better he died. I shuddered and slipped into an uneasy sleep. Eventually the shakes and queasiness subsided,

and my thoughts bobbed to the surface. Was I really responsible for bringing another monster into the world? I would have stopped then and there, but the irresistible prick within me. I would have stopped then and there. But the irresistible prickle within tugged me to restlessness. The fresh air, the rain, made me feel better. And I took to walking often, under the perpetually leaking sky that can hit Vancouver for weeks.

I identified with my city in a way I hadn't before, learning the layouts of the streets, fascinated by the architecture and age of neighborhoods. Shaughnessy's rich and sometimes empty old dames. Chinatown's quaint yet slightly dilapidated buildings, mixed with the new East Vancouver's Bohemian chic, the nondescript blandness of Champlain Heights. I learned crimes happen anywhere. Not every alley or derelict building holds wickedness.

The city, like any forest, houses those that prey and are preyed upon. There were always lawbreakers, but a jaywalker or a speeder did not deserve my fungal touch. In fact, there had to be a true touch of evil for the mold to take hold and dance the greater sins through their minds and mine. Fungus needs darkness in which to take root. So then why had that creature by the tracks managed to resist my touch? I came across those whose vices were made evil by the drugs that took them over. Crystal meth morphed people into savages,

and the drug nicknamed Bath salts, though as of yet infrequent, was worse. I hoped that the parade of past exploitations would move them away from a destructive road. Addicts were rarely evil, just desperate. But when I came across true malevolence, It felt like rusty spikes being driven through my viscera. Months passed and many monsters were jailed with my help, usually scratching and gibbering as the black fungus took root.

The lesser evils. I left where I found them. I did not really judge them. The mold did that. And I was not free of the axe perpetuated. I knew exactly what they had done. And that nest of vipers? Wade me.

My mistake was never wondering what happened to the lanugo that spotted their flesh. One afternoon, as the rain fell steady and cold, I walked the seawall around Stanley Park. The pewter plate of the ocean flat, obscuring its denizens. The sky melted into it, the drizzle creating a marriage of grays. October was fully entrenched, and the season had descended like the apocalypse. Leaves molded to treacherous sludge on the roads and walks. Worms writhed, drowning in their besodden homes. Mildoos acted like it was a night at the ball.

Only the hardy, like the jogger who passed me, braved the dreary climate. He nodded to me from beneath his jacket's hood and ran on, a companion against the weather. It was the fact that it was still day, though dreary, that lulled me. Deep in thought, I nearly stumbled over the creature pulling itself over the railing by the lighthouse. It's gray and green scaly hide, sluicing water. I backed away, watching it. Silver strands of hair, hung like revealets of cascading water.

It turned flat brown fish eyes upon. upon me, the horse-like continents bearing massive sharp teeth, large nostrils flaring. Then it shifted, like wind skimming the surface of the ocean, so subtly that I almost doubted my eyes. The snouted. The eyes grew bright. The figure straightened. A lithe woman, with skin the color of Chrysopae, hair silver, and tangled, ambled toward me, no matter what the illusion. The fetamiasma of seaweed, rotting fish, and dank cellars hit me with the truth. My mouth watered, bile surging and I swallowed, breathing through my mouth.

I'd seen the same creature the night by the tracks. Had it been coming up to snare an unwary jogger? Or was it hunting me? I backed up farther. The crawling surge of mold moved through me, tingling my fingertips. I wasn't sure I'd have any effect. I was about to turn and run when another jogger came up behind me and passed with a head bent down. I yelled, but she didn't see the monster.

Lightning fast, it snapped out an arm and the jogger went down. She lay stunned upon the path, rain pelting her face. The creature bent toward her. My stomach pitched, but I had no choice. I clasped its shoulders, forcing the mold upon its body. Again, the fungus wouldn't stick and my hand slipped off. But it hissed and turned towards me, swatting out at the annoyance, disturbing its meal. I ducked and came around from the other side, panting as I tried to keep from vomiting.

It knelt by the woman, and her eyes finally focused, going wide. She pushed at its chest and her hands adhered to where mine had slid off. Its wicked teeth approached her face, and she screamed. I kicked its head and tried to choke it from behind. It elbowed me and I fell, vomiting, onto the concrete. I crawled back and laid my hands on its back, hating, loathing, calling up all the anger within, the horrendous deeds of past fiends, and channeled all the blackness through my fingers.

They grew warm as I pressed my palm on its back. No images came to me. Something sizzled, and the thing screeched, arcing back. It whipped around and a large webbed hand pushed me. I flew back, my head smacking soundly into the railing. Struggling. I could not swim through the darkness that pulled me down as the jogger shrieked. When I came to, pain and horror surged out of me.

I rolled to my knees and dry heaved into the pouring rain. I looked around, but only a thin scarlet streak trilled over the walkway, past the railing, and to the rocks below. The rain was washing all evidence away, and the seething had returned to its lair. There was no point calling 911, when I had neither victim nor perpetrator. Sick, shivering.

I made it home and suffered the same symptoms as before. My father had a good life, his naive, loving family, and freedom to pursue his morbid delights. I tried to lead a good life, to do what was right, a tone for his sins, but I'd lost all my friends, and I'd isolated myself with my feverish searches. Feverish was what I felt. I itched and sweated, always trying to dig up the wickedness that skims just beneath the city's

veneer, is a person who generates mold, slowly consumed until the fungus can be spread? And I had done precious little to stop that thing from the water. As inevitable as the sun setting, we would meet again, and we did. This time, it came hunting me. Not some hapless pedestrian. I walked home along Bird Street and under the bridge along the waterfront, past the aquatic center and the high-rises. Vistas of the ocean and the breezes seemed to cleanse me.

Clear my sinuses that clogged now if I stayed indoors too long. The green grass cushioned me as I strolled, and for a while I could forget the ebb and flow of sinister influences. I just was a part of the natural. world. An organism moving through. Early morning in the sun dried the tears of dew upon the grass. A rare nice day for the time of year. A chill added clarity to the air, in a few hardy sailboats, and the freighters farther out, waited to move on with their journeys. I felt the monster before it touched me. For my stomach twisted and tossed as if the calm seas had sent their

storms internally. I whipped around, striking with an outstretched arm and a closed fist. The beast lost its balance as my fist struck its head. I wasn't foolish enough to think I had bested it. It tumbled to the ground, catching itself on a long-clod hand and kicked out. I jumped back and spit out some bile that surged up my throat. Breathing through my nose, I called on my ability to manifest hate into the fungal pitch that bloomed at my fingertips. It wasn't enough. I poured revulsion and fear and anger into my hands, tugging on that invisible thread that wound through me. It was like having stitches removed, an unpleasant beneath the surface movement of alien material. Gritting my teeth, I concentrated as the fish thing advanced on me. Its dead, milky eyes stared straight

ahead. And a long, ill-like tongue moved over fleshy horse lips and sharp-edged teeth. My fingers darkened, and Lenugo moved up past my wrists. I had heard it once before. I ran at it pushing my hands into its chest, knocking it down as I straddled its rotting hide, screaming I poured my horror into it. It shrieked like a thousand bats being torn apart. And black whips wafed from its chest. The odor of kelp and seaweed and dead shellfish filled me. And as my gorge rose, it batted me off. I fell and twisted to my side to vomit. Then the monster latched its teeth through my coat and into my arm. I howled as scarlet oozed out onto the blue fabric. Using my boots to try and kick it loose, I clawed at it.

Wounded, its strength was lessened, and I managed to back away, crawling across the ground. Something slammed through my brain and laced my nerves with acid. I couldn't even scream as I convulsed. I wouldn't have known if I had been devoured in that moment. The fish-horse thing was shaking its head, stringy hair spraying water everywhere. I tried to focus. gasping for breath. Something had happened.

Gathering my wits, I staggered to my feet, wondering where all the early morning joggers were. Alone with this watery demon, I tried to summon the mold into my hands. But nothing happened. My arm dripped thick blood, and the monster righted itself, growling now in pain, or anger.

It didn't matter. Its goal hadn't changed. Backing away, disgust and fear filled me, but the summoning would not come. Something bumped into me and I cringed. I sidestepped so that I didn't put my back to the greater threat, and a shape, possibly a man, stumbled forward, sprouting from his head was a two-foot-long stem, brown and black. wrinkled, fuzzy. Gloomy fluids leaked down his head, seeping into his grimy collar. Laps of his scalp hung down, where the growth had sprouted through. He moved between me and the monster and reached for it, his hands adhering.

The creature snarled and slashed at him. And then there was another shambling man. I recognize this one. also with a protruding stem from his head. He was the first one, who had tried to steal the woman's ring. Lanky, taller than the first. He too shuffled forward, gasping.

I saw the stems were mushrooms, fungal growths. They were my fruiting bodies. The second man grabbed the fish thing and adhered to it as well. It bit his arms, and fluids, yellow and clear oozed out. A third juttered in. Not one looked at me or each other. Mindlessly, they grabbed the monster, their eyes dull. It could not remove them. They pulled it down

on the grass, all rolling around. A fourth joined them, and I realized they had all been criminals I'd stopped, the ones who had not been taken by the police. I could only wonder if the one sitting in a cell now, banged into bars, blindly seeking escape guided by the growth sprouting from their brains. Numbed, I watched as the thing hissed and snapped, skin tore loose, grayish and pink, but they didn't stop. They managed to pin its limbs, and while three held it, the fourth opened his mouth and stuck his tongue between the pride-open horse-jaws. He coughed into the fish-thing's mouth, and it squealed.

The revolting menagerie dragged the convulsing monster over the grass and onto the sand. They didn't stop, but moved into the silvery water's mire until nothing remained, shuddering. I went home and did not leave my apartment for four days. The tugging left me, as did the power to bring on mold. Spring came and flowers bloomed. Was my ability seasonal? And would it return with the fall rains? Was I no better than my father?

I thought I would stop those criminals, and I had. But turning them into zombies had not been my intention. I do not know if I'll be able to use the, mold again, but I'm afraid to. My father decided he could take lives. I did the same. I fear to use this power if it returns. Perhaps then I will be the sacrifice to assuage the sins of my father, and the black mold will consume me from within. Hello? Hello? Someone else here? Come I can't be alone You all have been here with me all month

Whether I understood why or not Where'd you all go? You know what? Fuck this I don't have enough to deal with For your bonus episode Creepy Presents I worked in a labyrinth

Now the people are putting up their Christmas decorations Or you crazies Who put them up by November 1st And I've been forced to listen to me Mariah Carey wherever I go for the last months. I finally feel like I can come to terms with what happened to me and talk about it. I was born with Halloween in my blood. My parents are horror freaks who brought me along to horror movies by the time I was

10. I'd already seen Jaws, Lost Boys, The Exorcist, and a dozen other horror movies that were well beyond my age by the time I was eight anyway. We were the house on the block with the fog machine, spooky music, and some sort of trap set up for trick-or-treaters. I never really went out trick-or-treating myself, because I was having too much fun scaring other kids, usually one's older than me.

First, I was the supposedly stuffed dummy sitting next to the door. Then I was a zombie in a wooden coffin that my dad made himself. We'd start planning October by Memorial Day weekend, and scary movies were on a regular rotation in our house. and there was no discouraging taste. You didn't have to like child's play, but you couldn't veto it if someone else picked it as their choice for movie night. I always appreciated that my parents never did that gatekeeper shit with what they loved.

If I'm honest, it's probably that more than anything else that helped me grow up to love horror instead of resenting it when I grew up. I wasn't a goth kid or anything like that. I was self-conscious enough to keep that part of me under wraps until the appropriate time of year. But once I was old enough to start getting seasonal work at haunted houses and hayrides, I was all in. I've been working haunts for almost 20 years now. I've seen it all, both funny and scary. When you work in that kind of community, you see plenty from both tourgoers and haunt workers.

You get the alpha male wannabes who act like they're going to punt. You'd jump out, like the assholes didn't realize they're in the middle of a haunted house and are too scared to admit that they got scared. And you get the people who want to work at a haunt just to act like creepy assholes, standing there silently or following around a group of girls under the pretense of work. I genuinely thought I got into the point that nothing would surprise me. When you're in the community, you get to know the people. You hear the rumors about what new haunt is opening, which is closing, which is facing lawsuits

because the owners were drunks, assholes, lazy, creepers, or all of the above. So when it's just before the time of year when you start to reach out to potential haunts, and you hear about something brand new, it's a weird feeling. The posting popped up on the usual sites for a new haunt, not that far outside of my usual work zone, called Dante's Infernal. I wasn't sold on the name, but I was curious. I can't remember exactly what the ad said at the time, and it's obviously not posted anymore. But it went something like, do you want to be a part to the most intense scare experience?

One that will make you feel like you're trying to claw your way out of hell itself? Pretty sure my first reaction was, well, yeah, of course. I checked with some friends and they all saw the same ad. No one really had any idea who was running it though. Which was suss, as my younger co-workers would say. The pay was good though. A bit more than any of us were used to making it a haunt. There was an open hiring call that weekend at noon.

So a bunch of us decided to meet up and check it out. If for no other reason, I'd get some inside information. And maybe get a good paying gig if it seemed like it was on the up and up. I'll do my best to spare you the fluff and just share what seems important. Turns out that the haunt had been started by a husband and wife team. They were both in their 60s and were retired engineers who claim to have a pretty deep love of horror. None of the usual surface-level platitudes about the meta-nature of the Scream series or moaning about Jackie Earl Haley being wasted in the Nightmare and Elm Street remake.

They said their motivations and inspirations came from, movies like The Infernal Caldron and The Beyond. I assume the former was their inspiration for the haunt name, but it was the mention of Fulci that piqued my interest. They weren't casuals at all. I appreciated that. I was surprised to see how many people had shown up for the open call. Probably about 200 in total.

Most people hadn't bothered to dress up, but a few people did. Probably trying to sell it. If it made a difference in their decision, It didn't show. The husband, Mel, took all the men. Actually, he said male identifying, which also surprised me. And the wife, Alice, took the female identifying applicants as they walked around the property. As they did, showing off the usual attractions, blind corners, and all that.

They'd ask random questions, sometimes rhetorical. And then based on whatever sort of answer or reaction they were looking for, they'd ask certain people. to leave, thanking them for their time and encouraging them to try again next year. Now, I've worked with some real pieces of work in the past. As much as I'd like to say that the community was all about supporting and embracing their love of horror, that had be a lie. That said, Mel and Alice seem like just about the nicest people I'd ever met in my life. Not just in haunts, but anywhere. They seem patient, articulate, educated, and deep.

deeply in love with the idea scaring the hell out of people. After about an hour walking around what turned out to be a massive property, over half of us were gone. Then Mel stopped and started walking around the remaining group of us, pointing at people and saying things like, ticket taker, vendor, haunted forest, and things like that, assigning jobs. And when he did, he asked him to go to the front to fill out their paperwork.

20 of us remained in Mel's group, trying not to look around at each other and wonder out loud what the house's going on. There was just something infectious about it all. And, well, I can't speak for anyone else. I think we were all a little scared that he was going to send us home. But instead he brought us over to the stack of hay bales and sat us down. He started talking, telling us what seemed to be his life's story. He talked about growing up to a deep,

deeply religious family who didn't celebrate Halloween, and that he'd always felt like he missed out on it. That he and Alice had been planning on this for years, and this was the culmination of their time, money, and passion, almost five years of their life getting ready. More importantly, he said that those of us still remaining would be a part of their peace de resistance, the labyrinth. Now we all looked around at the hay bales, which had been laid out in a sort of maze, Like the sort of thing you might see at a kid's area in an apple orchard. You could almost feel the collective excitement to the group deflate like a leaking balloon.

Mamel, he just starts laughing. Between gasps, he clarified that we weren't sitting in the middle of the labyrinth. We were actually sitting above the labyrinth. He didn't force us to sit around wondering too long what he meant by that and we were for us to follow him to a door in the ground that looked like a tornado shelter from the Wizard of Oz. He unlocked a large padlock from the front and swung the doors open, immediately walking down and waving for us to follow him. We all hesitated for a moment, but curiosity went out and we all followed him downstairs.

There's no way I can describe what we found down there. Walking down those stairs felt like we were going to end up in a cellar. Not even close. When I say a labyrinth, you might start thinking about either the movie with David Bowie or the ancient Greek myth about the Minotaur. Regardless of which of those images you think of, you're right. It was massive.

I know he said they'd spent five years, but honestly, if there hadn't already been some kind of existing cave system, I don't know how anyone could have made what we were standing at the start of. We were standing in the middle of a cavern that went on beyond what we could see. even with lights strung up along the walls.

The ceilings were at least 30 feet high, and in front of us were gates that almost looked like stonehenge or something. It was the wall leading into the labyrinth, 10 feet high and solid stone. I mean, this thing looked like it had a strong case as a marvel of the modern world. As Mel told us, the labyrinth covered over 10 acres, and it was our job to situate ourselves at key locations to make sure people didn't get too lost to panic. That said, we're also free to scare the hell out of people as we saw fit.

It's hard to describe the strange mix of apprehension and excitement that I felt in that moment. I'd never seen anything like it. None of us had. Maybe no one ever had. And we were there on the ground floor of something that I knew without a doubt was going to to change the game forever. I could only imagine how many viral videos were going to pop up from our haunt. It was exciting and daunting.

We spent the next week walking through the labyrinth and groups, making little marks on the wall to indicate which direction we needed to go in or where people would be stationed. We'd spend about two hours down there at a time, but there was something weird about being down there. It felt like we were only walking around for maybe 20 minutes. Then the moment we walked up to the surface, hours had passed. It was a surreal feeling. And the first couple of days, a lot of us would get dizzy, if not outright, nauseous, the moment we transitioned out.

Almost like it felt better to stay down there. Like we belonged down there. Eventually, the feeling passed, and just in time for the hunt to open. I was pumped. We all were. I mean, we were nervous, too. Maybe no one would show up. Maybe the bottom would fall out, and the fire department would say it was too dangerous.

Maybe some Karen would throw a shit fit in there and a kid would get lost and we'd shut down. None of that happened. I decided to dress up like a disheveled prisoner. Like someone you'd seen an old movie set in some Middle Eastern prison, big beard, dirty face, torn clothes. wild eyes like I've been trapped down there for years. I went for the more panicked sort of haunt, ready to beg for help or turn people the wrong way. From the moment those doors open,

I realize how different it really was. I mean, I had seen people scared. You get numb to it. Almost judge them sometimes by the end of a long season. Like, come on, man. You know, this is just a gag, right? But inside the labyrinth, I saw real fear and concern. This sort of look all the workers probably had on our first day.

And honestly, I had to resist sympathizing. But I also didn't really sell it as hard as I could have. I figured I'd pace myself. No sense in going all out the first day. My worries about no one showing up were put to rest immediately. That first hour, it felt like a steady stream of people going past. my little hiding spot, almost like an ant farm of constant motion. Some people were genuinely afraid, and more than once I heard someone way younger than I would

have expected to be there cry out. Once I was almost positive they were calling out my name, but it must have been a friend or something they were calling to. As time ticked on, I found my mind started to wander. Something about the darkness with a few scant lights placed around made me imagine I was someone else. I started to think that maybe I belonged there in the darkness. And after a while, I realized that I hadn't seen anyone in a while. I figured it was that weird time feeling and maybe the night was already over. But when I looked at my watch, phones were useless down there, it was still at least two hours

until closing. Had that been it? Just a big initial wave than nothing? I decided to for the first time to take a little wander. Go find another haunter and see what they were up to and what they thought of it all. I followed the marks on the wall with my small flashlight but quickly realized that no one was where I thought they were going to be. I kept looking around for a few minutes before panic started to creep in and I started to casually call out names. But I never got an answer.

I decided that was enough for the night. I'd bounce out. if I saw Mel or Alice tell him I just needed a break or something to get my head clear so I didn't keep spiraling down in the darkness all alone. But I couldn't find the exit. Like, I knew where it was. I knew where it was supposed to be, but I couldn't find it. I'm not going to lie, I freaked out.

I started almost running through the place, trying to find the door, trying to find the way out. and then I started hearing it. The sounds. Voices, but not. Like someone trying to talk underwater or too far away to understand. They sounded familiar like people I knew or should know. And I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I knew what they were saying. They were saying that I needed to go home.

That they missed me. But I couldn't find them. And then they started telling me stories. Stories about me. Stories about people I'd never known. There were noises. Clicking sounds like someone tapping on the stone walls of the labyrinth. They echoed all around me.

I wanted to get out. I wanted to get out so badly. But I didn't know how. Time lost all meaning. That had been down there for an hour. A day, a week. That wasn't possible. I couldn't survive down there for a week, let alone two months.

Two months. Why would I think I'd been down there two months? I just got there. It was a job. It was supposed to be fun, but now I was trapped. And I could hear them. I could hear the voices of people I knew calling out to. me trying to get me to find them.

They were at the exit. I knew that, but I couldn't find it. I just kept running and running and running. Boys. A voice that said, a voice that said, it said I had a story. And it wanted to keep it in another voice. One I wasn't afraid of saying I needed a day off. Why would it say that?

I just started. I can't take a day off now. I have so many stories to tell first. Wait. What? What am I talking about? What stories? Wait.

Wait. Where the fuck am I? Hello? Hey, what the fuck is going on? John? John, can you hear me? Pacific? Quiet down.

He can hear us. I think it's working. What's working? Where am I? John, listen, we might not have much time. I can't explain it all because we really don't understand it either. But you never left Koshermore Manor. You never left the house after the 31 days of horror. What are you talking about?

That's not possible? I just saw you. Where did you see me, John? in the in the offices there are no offices there never were it was the house confusing you

it's trying to keep you bullshit this isn't funny where are you John I'm in my home we've been talking with you over the intercoms we never know when you'll start talking to us so we take shifts

It could be hours or days, but we just try and play along with whatever you say to us. Do this for me, John. Think about it. What do you remember besides what you've done for the show? When was the last time you were home? I don't remember. This doesn't make sense. You're telling me I've been living in this place for the last month and imagining being in the office?

No, the house is confusing reality for you. It's trying to create something you'll believe so you won't want to leave. We've been waiting to see if you were able to snap out of it yourself, but we know part of you wants to get out. You keep doing the knock code for us. If that's true, then why didn't you just tell me what was happening? We tried more than a few times.

But you never remember any of it, and it only seems like it pushes the illusion even deeper. Frederick and Owen have been out there all months trying to find you, but either the house is hiding you, or you're hiding from them. No, this is insane. You're making me sound like I'm crazy. No, John, you're just confused. But you can do this. You can get out. We can help you get out, but you need to trust us.

John, don't listen to them. They're trying to trick you. They want you out there for what you can do for them. They don't care about you. If not you, then they'd find someone else. You're safer here. Who said that? John, John, are you hearing voices right now?

Don't listen to them. They just want to keep you there in the dark. But... But it sounds like me. What if they're right? What if I'm better off here alone? You aren't, John. There are people out here who need you.

Your friends. Your family. Me! They don't need you. They're better off without you. You only drag them down with you. Stay here where you're safe. We can tell each other's stories.

John? John, are you still there? I don't know if this is going to work, guys. John, John, can you hear me? I think I left my car keys in one of the bathrooms. That's not helpful. Let me try. You? You almost screwed all this up with that elevator stunt. You know what, Danielle, I don't think I appreciate your attitude.

And Nate, you did screw this whole thing up. Elevator Stone was ridiculous. Daniel, I don't think I like your attitude. This is completely on you all, right? I didn't. Nothing to here between. Oh, it's my fault. I was an invited to the man.

Oh, it's my fault. Now, I'm a little to track on my own time. This work environment is bullshit. See how mad they are, John. You did this. It's your fault. Stay here. They'll move on without you.

Yeah. Yeah. It is my fault. They're mad because they're scared. They're scared for me. I need to go. John, don't go. Stay here. No. No, I need to go. I think I need to try being in the sun. If I don't leave now, I might, never get another chance. It is,

but I have to try. Maybe. Also, fuck you. I'm going home. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration,

please visit creepypod.com. You can also follow us at creepypod on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are done so through Creative Commons Sherrillite licensing or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the creepy podcast production team and the stories author.