Creepy - Tartarus & The Cat Tree

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

Tartarus (starts at 2:27)***Written by: EM Otero and Narrated by: Owen McCuen***Content warning: Bullying, Animal Death***The Cat Tree (starts at 31:29)***Written by: Mary Ann O’Rourke and Narrated by: Megan McDuffee***Read along with the story at: https://www.justplainmaryann.com/mary-anns-meanderings/the-cat-tree-warning-body-horror-genre***See how you can support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***Title music by: Alex Aldea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. The driver's seed and another dark and stormy night.

Okay, it's not stormy. But it's not really as dark as it should be this time of night. There's this weird sort of light off in the horizon like I'm looking at city lights or something. City lights I shouldn't be able to see from here. Hmm. Maybe people are still setting off fireworks. I don't know.

And again, I don't know, half of the stuff that's going on around here. I don't know why the broadcast interruptions keep showing up. I don't know why every time I buzz my keycard in the front door, I get a red light, but then the door still opens a few seconds later. I don't know why someone keeps whispering through the intercom at random intervals. I haven't seen Carol for like weeks. I thought she basically lived here. Yeah.

Best not to ask these questions and just be happy to still be employed and have a anyone listen. Are you listening? Are you there? It's funny. When people meet me, I tend to get the same comment of, you don't look how I expected you to look, which makes sense because I'm a disembodied voice. But I wonder, do you look how I imagine? Or am I just imagining all of this? Or should I stop eating things that don't have labels that I find in the building fridge? Nah. Or was it fun in that? Okay, let's roll into the stories before my digestion kicks in and the walls start melting again. First up, from writer Ian Otero and narrated by Owen McCune.

Creepleet Presents, Tartarus. He stared into me, his soft velvety fur warm in my hand. I knew it would be over if I just squeezed. So fragile, like an egg. I can imagine the feeling of his bones, snapping in my hands, the feeling of his organs seeping out of his orifices and down my hands plopping onto the floor. Or should I stomp on him? Maybe drown him. That way would be less messy. Those eyes, black as the depth of space glare, and I know it's what he wants.

I received the hamster when I turned seven as my first foray into responsibly taking care of another life form. It was lower maintenance than a dog, cheaper, and something I could keep right in my room. The hamster was of the Syrian black bear variety and had a glossy black coat with the typical black eyes. His size and color made me think of the wandering soot-susuwateri from spirited away, my obsession at the time, and my parents vetoed all the other suggestions from the movie. So this little ball of black fur became affectionately known as soot. I had the whole setup, the wheel, the wheel, the shavings, the colorful tubes like a maze for him to run through,

I was absolutely thrilled. So it would run on that wheel, skittering around the tubes like he was running a marathon. It was years later I realized my parents got him partially as a distraction from their crumbling marriage. They were always fighting, but not screaming at each other. They opted for backhanded compliments and jabs. I could sense the tension,

even though I didn't have a word for it, or an understanding of what it meant. It didn't matter, though. Soot made me feel loved. I could carry him in my hands, and the warmth from his gossamer first spread through me more than it should have. His eyes were not black like a doll's eyes, but were dark like the night sky.

At first glance, it looked like a void. But as you stared into them, the dots of stars and worlds of galaxies became apparent. His eyes held the history of the universe, and I could get lost in them for hours. I even saw them in my dreams. The following year, I had bought more tubing than a little ball for him to travel in. He would skitter around my room bumping into the walls and table legs as he navigated the house with me hot on his tail. It was around that time I asked for more hamsters, wanting him to have little friends.

The answer was always no, until I walked into the living room one evening. to my parents not watching a movie together. They had a note pad they passed back and forth, taking turns writing in it. My mother's face was red, and my father's jaw was clenched tight. I think soot really needs a friend, I said, holding him in his ball.

My mother sighed, and before she could say anything, my father agreed and stood up and told me to get my shoes on. I don't remember the drive. I'm sure my father tried to tell me about how he and my mother were not doing so great and that they both still loved me. It made sense, and it's what I would have done too. Instead, all I remember was staring into Soot's endless eyes.

When we walked into that store, the bell chimed as the door open, and the owner looked at me and the hamster in his ball. He pulled my dad aside, and I half heard their conversation as he softly yelled at my father, saying he would not take that hamster back. But my father said he wanted some more hamsters, the store owner shouted that there would be no exchanges. They argued for a while, and the confusion on my father's face was apparent.

I wasn't paying close enough attention, though. I was scouting out, so it's new family. The store's shelves had supplies and colorful boxes stacked all the way to the water-stained ceiling tiles. But instead of a minotaur in this maze, I searched for hamsters. A parrot screeched as we walked by, and I nearly dropped the ball. The other birds all flew in a panic, slamming against their cages as if there were a predator in there with them.

I figured the parrot startled them. The hamsters were all piled in the furthest corner of the cage, and when I raised soot to see the other hamsters, they all squeaked loudly. They're excited to see you soot, I said, pressing the ball against the cage. After my father promised the man we were taking the hamster with us, the argument stopped. The store owner came over and asked me which I would like. I pointed at an all-white one and one that had brown and white colorings. They hissed and nipped at the owner when he grabbed them,

and he said that they were scared, but it was okay, they'll acclimate soon. He gently placed them in a little cardboard box. He kneeled down as my father put his finger in the squawking parrot cage, making pht-p-p-s noises. He told me that the two in the box were run-of-the-mill hamsters, but soot was special. He said he would live as long as me. I just had to make sure he didn't get hurt too badly. Then, with an intensity that made me uncomfortable, he told me to never let soot die.

My father, nursing his now bleeding finger, noticed the strange interaction in front of him, shepherded me toward the counter and paid for the two new hamsters. The entire ride home, the two new hamsters squeaked, and I was hoping they wouldn't do it all night. I released them all into the cage, and the two took off. I decided to name one marshmallow and the other Toasty, because of the pure white fur of one, and the other looked like a toasted marshmallow. Toasty and marshmallow darted into the tubes, and soot didn't follow. Instead, he ran on his wheel.

I watched as the two explored everything. every inch of the tubes, but they didn't seem to want to go into the main part of the cage. Dinner came and went before I returned to my room, and they were quiet so I didn't pay them any attention as I went to bed. The only sound was the hamster wheel, and when I cracked open my eyes to look over at them, soot was still running. The next morning, Toasty and Marshmallow were still. They didn't react to me tapping on the plastic, and when I opened it up to grab them, the two of them were cold and stiff. But I told my parents about this,

they both agreed that something had to be wrong with them. My father went back with the two dead hamsters and returned with two more. The same thing happened. And this time my father returned empty-handed and told me that the owner said that Soot's type of hamster was a loner and that he could have attacked the other hamsters because of it. He suggested we leave Soot on his own.

After four dead hamsters, I agreed. I heard soot's wheel in my sleep every night, and it found its way into my dreams, even if they were completely unrelated to soot's existence. I could feel him watching, like two beads of focused sunlight directly on me. It was comforting at first like soot was protecting me. But as time went on, it lost its comfort. I wanted if soot was affecting my dreams. I dreamt I found my parents dead and mutilated most nights, or that we were to be

You were running from something huge, but I could never see what it was. There was this one where I woke up to find soot's cage empty, and I searched for him, first in my room, then the hallway, and as I worked my way into the living room, I smelled copper. When I looked up, my father was lying on the ground, the carpet soaked with blood. My feet squished as I got closer, and a soft noise like something chewing came from his body. Then his neck bulged and the skin split as soot emerged, bloodied from his flesh. In every variation it would always end with soot speaking in a deep resonant voice, like two tectonic plates grinding together.

He always said the same thing. Release me. After a year's time, numerous holes punched in walls and shouting matches, my parents split. My father came to me sitting on my bed. to explain how we would not be living together anymore, how that didn't mean he didn't love me any less, and how any time I wanted to see him, just call. I held Soot and watched his truck pull away from the driveway

and disappear into the night. My mother was distraught, and I could hear her crying from my bedroom. So I did what always made me feel better, and I brought her the hamster. Soot curled up in her hands as she held him, and the tears dried up. She said I had been doing a good job taking care of him. Hamsters didn't usually live over two years. She stared into Soot's eyes like I had a habit of doing.

She handed him back, her tears gone. My mother's praise nearly had me floating the entire way back to my room. Soot, even though he didn't like other hamsters, was a good boy. I stared into his eyes and watched the universe within churn. As time went on, my room became a reverend. place where respect was demanded, which was peculiar since soot never seemed to mind loud noises before. Yet, I walked on eggshells around him while he watched me like a warden watches his prisoners. The strangest part of his time went on was the dreams that overlapped with reality.

I would walk towards my room, and soot would wheel out in his ball, looking at me with a little human face, asking to be released. Darkness would creep in, shadows extend, and, and soot would extending further into the light than they should, and I would ask him what he meant. He just kept saying, you need to release me, over and over, until he was shouting with a voice that shook the walls. My 11th birthday passed, and soot, against all odds, continued to live on. I remember the pet store owner saying he would live as long as he wasn't harmed. It was odd. Soot didn't become a decrepit blob that looked like bubble gum that had rolled around a barber's floor like most elderly hamsters.

Instead, he was as youthful, healthy, and vibrant as ever. I thought for sure that my mother had found soot dead and replaced him before I came home from school someday. That's the sort of kindness, but also avoidant behavior she tended towards. A hard conversation put off possibly indefinitely as long as she kept replacing him, kind of like her marriage to my father, and look how that turned out. Yet I couldn't be sure that's what happened. His eyes were the same deep voids filled with foreign stars.

It couldn't be all of his breed had these types of eyes, could they? It was impossible that he could have lived this long, even if he was some special breed. Hamsters only lived around two years, not four. I didn't want to complain too much, so it had been a constant comfort, and I wasn't sure if I could sleep without the sound of his spinning wheel and his presence in my dreams. My mother, being the sole income in our home now, worked a lot of late shifts, and I had several hours, if not my entire evening, to myself.

I let Soot wander around in his ball, and I ate more junk food than I should have, which is my worst offense. Every so often I would have a friend to come over to play some video games. Adam, a new kid in the neighborhood, came over one evening when I wasn't expecting my mother till after eight. He was larger and struggled to make friends, and I thought it might be because his old school had held him back a year. I didn't care, and I thought I would try to make him my friend. That was a mistake. The first thing Adam did was to start going through my mother's room,

looking for what I didn't know. I stood there, unsure if this was actually happening. You can't do that, I shouted, and he sneered at me, mimicking my voice in a higher whiny pitch. Then he said he could kick my. my ass that there was no one here to stop him. There was a rumor that he moved because he'd been kicked out of his other school. I didn't believe them since most rumors weren't true.

I had the sinking feeling this one was. I looked at a frying pan, thinking that I could hit him on the head and call the police. Then soot rolled into the room and a cruel fire ignited in Adam's eyes. Adam grabbed the ball and shook it like a snow globe. My heart sank through my feet, and when he pulled the lifeless body of soot from the ball, my hands bawled into fists. He called me a little bitch for crying and said more, but I couldn't hear through the pounding in my ears. Then in what I thought was his last bit of life, Soot bit of the hand.

Blood streamed down his arm, and he flung the little animal across the room. Soot hit the wall with an audible crunch, and that's when I snapped. Everything was a blur. One moment I was watching Adam hold his bleeding hand. The next, I was on top of him, my fist raining down on his face. Tears blurred my vision and his bleeding nose leaked onto the floor. He managed to get some leverage and shove me off, and in that moment of reprieve, he sprinted out my front door.

The sky outside was darker than it should have been on an early autumn day. It almost looked as if he had run out into the dead of night. The ground trembled as I lay on the linoleum, sobbing. My world was shaking apart the one thing I had from my father. The one kindness he left me with was dead. Adam's screams outside were distant and far too dramatic for what minor injuries he had. A thought occurred to me that Adam was going to spin this on me, say that I beat him up and get me in a huge trouble when I heard a familiar squeak.

My racing thoughts stopped. I rubbed my tear-filled eyes on my arm before crawling across the floor to the little hamster's body. So its legs were broken, his body flatter than it should be, and blood stained his little face. The tears fought to burst forth again, but then his eyes shifted. The boundless galaxies within swirled like the night sky over a millennium, and the darkness outside flowed in as the blood on his jaw soaked into him like a sponge. One of his legs straightened with an audible snap And soot squeaked as his other limbs straightened

My heart beat like a drum And Adam's screams faded as I watched a miracle Soot's body inflated his smashed ribs reforming The light from his eyes dimmed And he got up and waddled over to me Snuggling up in my hands I didn't think too hard about what happened My hamster was alive and I was thrilled.

I cleaned the blood from the floor and washed the wounds on my knuckles. Soot rolled around in his little ball, and even when the sirens flew down the street past my house, I didn't wander. When I slept that night, I dreamt of Adam running down our street, fleeing a giant soot that smashed cars as he ran. The giant rodent roared like a lion, shattering windows while Adam screamed in terror.

As soot's gargantuan pawed, slammed down, crushing his ribcage, I opened my eyes, and the hamster was staring at me with his eyes like the night sky. During school that day, and learned Adam had been found dead in my neighbor's yard. Of course, the kids had all kinds of crazy stories about it, like the gang he came here to escape and murdered him, or that he was trying to rob someone. Sweat beat it on my temples, and my mouth went dry. I couldn't help but wonder if I had beaten him so bad. I was not. I couldn't help but wonder if I had beaten him so badly that he had died. I'd always heard that you could break someone's nose and push it into their brain.

The memory of his bloodied face was burned into my mind. I thought for sure the cops would knock at my door any day to take me away. They never came, and I wondered if any of it was real. When I held soot later that night, I remembered his miracle and how the blood around his mouth soaked into him. I put soot back into his cage, and he didn't run on the wheel that night. Instead, he watched me with eyes far too intelligent for a simple rodent. Soot continued to live on preternaturally unchanged.

He was the only pet that lasted. Any stray cat that found its way into our home either passed away or vanished within a week. Dogs ran away, even if they seemed like they were going to be the most loyal animals in the world. One night in our home, and they were gone. I appreciated Soot, and there was something extant about the little ball of fur. Looking at his eyes gave me the impression that he would be even more eternal than the earth itself. Sometimes I would wake up, kneeling before his cage, having no memory of getting on the ground. Inside, soot would look down at me with a strange, humanoid face on his little body.

The unnatural countenance made me squeamish, and despite it being a human face, face, his eyes were the same. He would speak in that horrible voice and say, release me. Then I would blink, and so it was back to normal, as if it had never happened. One day, as I lay staring at the ceiling trying to sleep, I heard a whisper as soft as fabric rustling in a breeze. I thought it might be my mom in the other room or the wind, but it didn't stop. I looked over towards the small cage. Soot wasn't running on his wheel like he usually did it this time. He was staring at me. His little pause that looked far too human, like in the dim light, grasping the bars. Release me, the whisper said. I pushed the covers away, stepping closer.

Release me now. The voice rumbled low, and between the bars, Soot's face was different, not his usual. blank rodent countenance or the eerie humanoid one. It was something different. How? I asked. Just let you outside? The darkness solidified around me, and the lights in soot's eyes glowed with the light of the cosmos. His little mouth opened,

instead of the pink flesh inside I usually saw. It was a pit of black, writhing tendrils that reached out thrashing at the cage. I fell backward, thudding loudly on the floor. Footsteps rushed up the hallway, and my mother flung the door open checking on me. She assumed I fell out of bed half asleep and helped me lie back down. She sat with me for a while, and I pretended to sleep. I couldn't keep my eyes closed, though. The darkness behind my lids reminded me too much of the abyss in soot's jaws.

The hamster ran on its wheel until my mother left, and as her footsteps faded down to the other end of the house, soot stopped returning to the cage. The tendrils continued to taste the air thrashing around, and in the center of that flower of tentacles, an eye opened, and below it a small, sharp-tooth mouth. Then in a voice that mimicked my own, it said, It's time to wake up before you can't.

I sat up to the sun rising on the horizon and the sound of the hamster wheel turning. I put him outside that morning, only to find him back in his cage when I returned from school. The dreams continued and interrupted my daily life far more often. I would sit in class and hear such a ball rolling down the hallway, the sound of plastic on tile too particular to be anything else. His eyes stared at me from the shadows,

and I would hear his voice in the silence of our reading time saying, Release me. During a test where the only sound was number two pencils on paper, I heard his wheel and the soft squeaks he would make sometimes. I looked around for its source trying not to seem like I was cheating and looking at other people's papers. When I glanced up at Mr. Griffin, my teacher, to see if he noticed my wandering gaze, I froze.

Mr. Griffin's eyes were completely black, except for the specks of light, just like soot's eyes. Then Mr. Griffin said, release me. And his mouth opened until soot fell out and onto his desk. Then another black hamster and another. The trickle turned into a torrent like a fire hydrant and bursts of black fur poured forth. Their squeaks and beckoning calls filled the room as they covered the floor. They said, release me, release me, release me, over and over in a cacophony of noise. I pulled my feet up on the chair and when I looked at my classmates,

They had the same blacked-out eyes, and hamsters poured from their mouths. The squeaks and voices became so loud I thought the windows were going to shatter. I screamed, leave me alone! And sat up in my chair. The girl next to me, whose eyes were no longer blacked out, fell out of her chair, startled by my outburst. Mr. Griffin's hand was on his chest, and every student was staring at me. The hamster ball rolled past the room, unnoticed. That earned me some time in the principal's office before getting picked up by my mother.

I could still hear the squeaks, the voices, and the sounds of thousands of their feet scurrying about the floor. My mother asked if I was okay, with concern etched into her face. When I didn't answer, she said I had been off for a while and knew things were hard right now, but she believed we were making due. I told her I hadn't been getting a lot of sleep, and she nodded. agreeing. She said she hadn't either. I half expected soot to be gone when I returned, but he was there in his cage waiting for me with those abyssal eyes. What do you want? I asked the hamster, and he cocked his head, an almost dog-like gesture. How do I release you? I tried putting you outside in the wild, and you returned. So what do you want?

I picked him up from his cage, clenching him in my fist. I waited for the voice to come, but it didn't. So it didn't try to scramble out of my hands or bite me. He met my gaze. I thought about crushing him, ending this whole thing. Then it occurred to me, that could be exactly what he wants. Who knew how long it had been alive before it became my pet? The store owner said he would be alive pretty much indefinitely.

How did he know that? Was this hamster in his store for years? It had been a few years now, and he was as young as spry as ever. Maybe he wanted death. It might be peaceful for a small animal that had two-year lifespan to finally die after more than double its lifetime. I remembered Adam and the strangeness around his death. I wondered what soot had done if his bite was deadlier than it should be.

His fur was so warm and so. soft in my hand, and I knew how fragile he should be. People always accidentally killed their hamsters, one good drop, too hard of a squeeze, and it was over. So it healed the last time he was seriously hurt, and I wonder if I completely destroyed the hamster's body if he would still come back. Would the dreams stop if he were dead? Was I really considering killing this little ball of fluff? His eyes met mine, and in the whirls and sparkle of the universe in his eyes, something lurked, something that wanted out. I couldn't release soot into the world. I couldn't let that darkness out. I remembered reading something in class about Pandora's box and how it

released all the terrible things into the universe, but it also released hope. I couldn't be sure that there was hope in that riving darkness. I didn't want to take that chance. I squeezed, and to my surprise, so it didn't fight me. They didn't even squeak. Bones ground against each other, and still he didn't react. His eyes bored into me, the darkness of palpable weight on my shoulders, and I knew this is what he wanted. I walked out into the small area of woods behind my property with a shovel, and when my mother asked what happened, I just solemnly told her soot had died. She placed the hand on my shoulder, then returned inside. There was something in her face when I told her the news that almost appeared to be relief. My hands ached from the effort,

and it took what seemed like hours to get anywhere. After a while, I looked down at my work. The hole wasn't deep, but it was enough to cover the ball completely. I dropped the ball inside, and so it looked up at me. His face turned human, and his little pink hands pressed against the plastic. It growled, shouting, release me, release me now. But I dropped the dirt on top until there was nothing but packed earth. I put a large stone on top of the massacred body and packed the dirt tight over top before placing another stone over top of the grave.

In magic marker, I wrote, Soot, age unknown. I had my first dreamless night's sleep in years, and I knew I'd done the right thing. Soot was sequestered away, and they couldn't harm us now. Days went by, and I packed up all the hamster stuff and put it in storage. I didn't plan on owning another hamster ever. A few weeks later, when it seemed like my sleep and reality were mine again, soot returned to my dreams.

The hamster was in my hand as I crushed the little body. Blood seeped from its orifices, bones crunched like I was smashing a bag of chips. He croaked, saying thank you. I woke up when the house shook. At first I thought it was a continuation of the dream until the ground rumbled again. I got out of bed and walked to the back door, looking out into the yard to investigate. It was still in the darkest part of the night. night. The moon wasn't present and the only source of light was the myriad stars.

Something large and dark moved. It's strange body silhouetted by starlight and it released an eerie howl that shook the windows. The clock on the stove and the streetlights outside went dark as it melded with the dark. The sun would rise in a few hours and even though I needed sleep, I had to know what that was. I grabbed my flashlight, my sneakers, and I walked out into the woods. I went to where the massive thing rose and my gut twisted in knots. I was walking a familiar path and knew what I would see before I got there. The area where I had buried soot was not as I left it.

Instead of his little makeshift grave, there was a crater large enough to fit a house. The surrounding trees were flattened, and I looked up, wondering if I would see them up there somewhere. The sky above was familiar, not because they were the usual constellations, but because it was the same sky I saw when I looked into the darkness of Soot's eyes. And next, from writer Mary Ann O'Rourke and narrated by Megha McDuffy. Creepy Presents, The Cat Tree. Mara hadn't meant to leave the trail. Hiking was her way of reconnecting with herself, with the land, remembering what it was to be silent, one with nature. She had her topal map with her, of course, and her compass, but she wasn't afraid.

She felt at home in the forest. She had come for the ordinary beauties. She loved the October sun, scraping the granite ledges, the high, thready wind above the lodgepole pines, the glitter of mica in the dust, fools cold. The morning broke clear over the front range. Elk had been in the meadow at dawn, dark bodies steaming as they moved through oat-colored grass. She loved to watch them but kept a safe distance, scoffing at the foolish selfie-takers who ended up gourd or trampled.

Mara was here for the quiet that lives underneath noise. The quiet of forest keeps, even when people pass through it. She craved the solitude and peace that would allow her to stay absorbed in whatever adventure she came across. For the first hour of her hike, she kept her feet in the boot-beaten groove like everyone else. Leaving the trail led to unnecessary erosion. She didn't want to be that person.

Then a stand of Aspen drew her, light pouring through coin-colored leaves, trunks pale and smooth as wrists. She didn't plan the step that carried her sideways into the trees, drawn by an oddly sweet scent she'd never noticed in the forest before. She only noticed afterward that the trail behind her had vanished. She was not far from the trail. She couldn't be far.

She paused, checked her compass. The needle settled where it ought to. East was still east. She told herself not to be a baby. She was a competent hiker in a crowded national park on a blue sky day. The worst that would happen was a damp sock. She turned around and started to retrace her path back to the trail. The Aspen's thin and lodge poles took over.

straighter, darker, their bark like old piano keys. The ground was a layered thing, duff, granite, fallen twigs, elastic underfoot, and the air smelled of sap and pine needles heated by the high altitude sun. Somewhere above, ravens cawed loudly, working together to chase an errant hawk from their territory. After a while, the trail that wasn't a trail failed her. She paused again, not out of alarm, but out of practical respect. and pulled the compass. She'd made a dumb mistake somewhere, but she could fix it. The needle twitched, rolled, wobbled, and then simply lay down. She frowned, lifted it to ensure the case wasn't tilted. The needle bounced around from point to point. Like the freaking Bermuda triangle, she muttered.

She had not seen a magnet today, had not been anywhere near a power line. She shook the compass once, gently, and the needle vibrated as if annoyed but refused to cooperate. She turned slowly, looking for the most likely way back to the trailhead. Downhill, she knew, would find water. Water would find a trail or a road. It was while she stood there looking for the path that should be there but wasn't, that she heard it, thin, uncertain, pleading. A cat. A high cry, two notes, the second more ragged than the first. Meow, meow!

Mara stood very still. What the heck was a cat doing way out here? It must be lost, or some jerk had dumped it rather than bringing it to a shelter. People could be so cruel. The sound came again, breathy but insistent. The cry wasn't near the ground. It seemed to fall from a point above, filtered through sunlight, and sifted through needles. She turned her head, triangulating like she would if she needed to find a singing,

warbler and saw nothing. But clearly it was here. She couldn't leave it here. She volunteered with an animal shelter and always had a soft heart for helpless creatures. She tried again to pinpoint which tree the cat was in. Pse-ps, she called. Kitty, kitty, kitty. The cry answered, nearer now.

Mara walked toward it, placing her peat carefully, eyes up, trying to peer through thick tree branches. The tree that stood in front of her wasn't one. she knew. Its bark was the wrong color, warm as breadcrust, where lodgepole bark went gray, and it held its branches oddly in a rotation that made her think of a hand twisting to show its palm, but that looked very easy to climb, almost like it was inviting her. Meow! Meow! This was clearly the right tree. It sounded like a young kitten. She had to help it. She stopped in arm's length away. The trunk was wider than it had first. appeared. The cry sounded again, and this time she could place it. It was above her, high up in the

branches where she couldn't see it. Mara laughed once, lightly. Okay, she said again, and because she was kind in the ordinary way of a person who carried dog biscuits in her car and moved worms off sidewalks after storms, she set down her pack. She would rescue this kitten, and then, taking it with her, begin the trek downhill to find her car. The lowest branches were just at head height. She tested one with her weight and felt it give, not brittle. The bark wasn't flaky like a pine and not armored like a spruce. As she climbed, the smell she had noticed earlier rose up, warm and brown sugar sweet, like a cinnamon donut, her personal favorite. She climbed easily at first. She had spent childhood summers in cottonwoods along irrigation ditches, fearless and sure of

herself. Her body remembered the angles. Five branches up, she could see much farther into the forest, a shallow bowl of land, a thin ribbon of water glinting where the sun got in, the gray stairs of the range beyond. She looked for other people and saw no one. The wind had gone thin, the ravens had gone. The forest was making a different kind of quiet. the kind that is actively listening, or perhaps anticipating. But she was almost sure she could see the trail she had lost. Climbing high had been a good idea. She'd find her way back to the car easily now.

The meow came again, just off to the side of the trunk. Pulling herself up just a bit further, she reached around to grab a new branch, and saw, like a trick of light resolving into a thing, a strip of flesh, the size of her arm, pale and moist as the underside of a mushroom protruding from the tree. It quivered and writhed. It was not a cat's ear or paw or tail or anything cat-like at all.

Yet the meow came from it. The membrane fluttering as the notes shook through like a reed in an instrument. It was absurd to think of a tree with a tongue, but that was what it looked like. It was more absurd to hear it meow. She lifted her hand without thinking. and laid one fingertip against the tongue-like thing. Curious, was it a new kind of tree fungus? It moved.

Not a convulsion. Not a sudden clench. It turned toward her the way a plant turns toward light. The surface gently cupped her fingertip, then her finger, then her hand. It was not cold. It was her temperature, maybe warmer. The membrane made a small sound. The cat cry again.

She tried to jerk her hand back, feeling suddenly repulsed by the touch. It resisted, gently, but firmly. I would not release her hand. She told herself to stop and take a breath, the beginning of emergency backwards procedures. Okay, she said, and the word came back to her from the trunk, tenderly. Okay. Fuck the next step, observing. She panicked.

She shook her hands. hand violently, trying to break free from the thing that unfolded it. She felt nothing but pins and needles in her hand. It was as if it was asleep and had gone numb, a slightly fat feeling, like it had been injected with Novakane. She braced herself against the tree to balance herself and reached with her other hand to try to peel back the membrane from her numb hand. Now both hands were trapped. The membrane oozed a kind of sap that kept flowing forwards, slowly crawling its way, her arms. She did not like the smell anymore. It was wrong now, robbery, like nitrous oxide when you're getting a filling at the dentist. Her skin prickled. She fought with all she had,

but the tree engulfed her slowly and inexorably, and eventually she stopped struggling, leaning against the trunk in exhaustion as the membrane oozed its warm and moist way around her shoulders and down her back. Almost. It was pleasant. like a soothing back rub, until the pins and needles set in, and she was numbed. Help me. Someone help me. I'm stuck in the tree. She called helplessly. The cat's cry came again, sounding closer to a voice now. Her voice, Help me, it said, imitating her, and then a breath later. Someone help me. I'm stuck in the tree. Mara looked up into the green, a leaf quivered and beyond it.

Sky. She thought, absurdly, of the line of cars driving up into the mountains this morning. A boy she'd seen in a National Park t-shirt licking an ice cream. The unremarkable day that had been waiting for her. How'd she wandered so far from that path? Her arms tingled and then hummed, as they do when you've been carrying a heavy bag too long. Surely she could pull free if she wanted to. She told herself that and tried to want it enough. Behind her eyes instead, a softness spread. She'd eaten before she left the car. She was not faint. She was not tired. And yet, a fine cotton mist drifted through her thoughts. The trunk's warmth met her skin in a way that suggested shelter and safety. The sweet smell came and went with her breath. The tree hummed

to her gently, like a lullaby. in a language she didn't know, but could understand. It pulled her thoughts toward it, and she was comforted, no longer afraid. She turned her head and set her cheek against the bark of the tree, the way you might lay your face against a pillow. Just for a moment, just to rest. The wood was not smooth. It pressed its little truths into her. Seams, resin beads, a burr that should have scratched but did not.

none of it mattered. Something soft nudged her lips, and she opened them obligingly, or flexibly, her tongue going numb, and her throat. She almost gagged, but the urge passed. A sharp cramp in her stomach subsided quickly. She felt a tickle in her nostrils, and her body rallied, sneezed it out, but it returned, and warmth slowly filled her sinuses, and began to warm her face and forehead. Something tickled her ear. A cry traveled up through the tree's trunk and it sounded as if she had put a shell to her ear to hear the sea. In the show, a voice was practicing. Help me, it said, and then with the next breath, Someone help me. I'm stuck in the tree. Her eyes burned with tears for a moment. She felt that she was dying and was sad for a while. She closed her eyes and then could no longer open them. It wasn't surrender.

or maybe it was the tree took on the work of holding her up the day moved forward mara simply let go she was amused at times puzzled at others when the tree hurt her it numbed her quickly so that was okay she was vaguely surprised to find she didn't mind she just wanted to dream and listen to the tree's lullaby absorbed as she was in the moment of being fully absorbed in becoming days later through or five or some number that doesn't change the shape of a story, a man came into the glade, strong, unafraid, familiar with the forest. He was not reckless, only curious in the ordinary way of people who step off paths when the paths don't seem to go where they thought that they wanted to go. He was looking for a better view of a mountain peak, or maybe simply for a place to sit and rest. He had a small first aid kit in his pack because he was the kind of man who liked to be helpful at need. He noticed the quiet first. It was the right quiet for a forest, and yet it felt placed, as if a hand had smoothed the air, had smoothed the light and the sound

and the birds, had smoothed time, and perhaps had smoothed thought. Then he noticed the smell. It was salty and warm, odd here among pine needles and stone. He could not name it, though he puzzled over it a while. It was indeed. picing. If he had been a baker, he might have said it was a cinnamon donut. If he had been a child, he might have said cotton candy. Young man that he was, had he not been slightly befuddled, he might have thought it smelled something like the scent between a woman's legs on a hot summer day when she desired you. He noticed the tree then. It stood a little apart, the way a shy person at a party stands a little apart without meaning to. Help, someone called, and he looked up.

startled. Help me, the voice said. A young woman's voice higher this time, sounding panicked, I'm stuck in the tree. Okay, he yelled, jumping to his feet. I'll help you. Where are you? Help, the voice said, and that was something just for him. A woman who needed his help, perhaps his first aid kit, a bandage. He stepped closer to the tree and saw that there was a small day pack lying at the bottom. This must be the tree. No problem with climbing it. It looked easy enough. As he reached up and grabbed the lowest branch, testing its strength, he noticed that his poem sank a little into the park, as if the wood was padded. It was pleasant, unexpectedly pleasant, like shaking hands with someone whose grip fits yours exactly.

The warm, slightly erotic scent rose up, stronger. Hold on, he yelled. I'm coming up. I'll help you. Are you hurt? He set his hand to the trunk again to balance himself, then looked up into the green, anxious to help, but still unable to see the woman calling and began to climb. Help me. I'm stuck in the tree. He heard again, and then oddly a faint meow, as if from a young kitten. Perhaps the woman had gotten stuck in the tree trying to help the cat. I'm coming, he called. Hang on. I'll be right there. 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 a otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the creepy podcast production team and the stories author.