Creepy - Ten Pines & Special Agent

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

Ten Pines***Written by: Connor Drescher and Narrated by: Jimmy Ferrer***Special Agent***Written by: Catlyn Ladd and Narrated by:  Michelle Kane***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***Title music by Alex Aldea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the bloody disgusting network. No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing 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 biocations of biocations. and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised.

Creepy presents. Ten Pines. Written by Connor Dresher, and narrated by Jimmy Ferrer. Joe slowed the car and switched off the radio as he rolled beneath the underpass. Route 101 ran the length of Oregon's Pacific coast, from California up to the Washington state line. It was a mountainous and scenic drive where you might not see a town or even another car for long stretches,

especially in the middle of the night. Every so often, though, there was a town or a small city to pass through, but the main coastal highway in the area, Joe accepted such interruptions to his solitude as unavoidable. despite his choosing this route for its supposed tranquility. So he wasn't surprised that around midnight, he found himself in section of 101. They ran through the center of Ten Pines, Oregon. He saw the sign above the underpass and felt his stomach drop. Like that awful feeling of weightlessness you get at the apex of a fall in a roller coaster.

a six sense of a familiar fear accompanied the feeling. But he pushed it to the back of his mind and looked out ahead of him. It was an unremarkable little town, much the same as the others he'd passed through since leaving the North Carolina home he had. And until recently, he had shared with his wife, essentially just one main street, with a few shuttered shop fronts and neon-lit liquor stores with dirty windows. Ten Pines was not what you might call inviting.

At either end of the main thoroughfare, the road disappeared into thick forest, leaving the town isolated like the last outpost of a civilization in the vast enemy territory of nature's expanse. Joe had been convinced by his friends that taking this trip would help him clear his head, or he'd convinced himself. Either way, it added up to the world. the same outcome. He had to get away. Elaine had been gone almost a full year before he finally packed up the car and hit the road. He was planning to stop once he got to Washington. He'd always

wanted to see the space needle, and it seemed as good a place as any to stop for a while and recalibrate. The drive was only 12 hours, but he had decided to break it up over three nights, in part to avoid the traffic, but also because he had always felt more comfortable driving at night. Elaine used to say it was crazy. That night time was when all the weirdos and creeps drove around, but Joe didn't mind. The underpass was lit by glaring orange lamps, illuminated by a litany of colorful graffiti. For a good time, call 133-684. One artist invited. it. Most of them were the same, the usual childish tags and scribbles, but one that caught his eye promised he's coming in large, aggressive black letters. Joe wondered who was coming. He wondered what

they were coming for. And as he reached the other end of the underpass, he saw a man, presumably asleep, huddled tight in an orange sleeping bag on the sidewalk. The graffiti above his head was written in the same, angry script. This one, however, read, Don't say I didn't warn you. As his car emerged from the underpass, and concrete was replaced by distant stars overhead, the man in the sleeping bag began to stir behind him.

But Joe didn't notice. The check engine light came on then, and he thumped the dash of frustration. Not now. Come on, don't do this to me. I know you're fine. He pleaded with the old Tahoe, trying to convince it to forget its years of abuse and calm down. The car wouldn't listen. After an unpleasant crunch sound from the engine block.

Small plume. of white smoke began issuing forth from either side of the hood. And the car rolled to a stop just beyond the underpass. Buck! You're really doing this to me now, huh? Okay, I see how it is. I overheated again. Joe pulled the lever under the dashboard that popped the hood open

and was about to step out of the car when he caught a glimpse of something in the rear view. Or rather, the absence of something. The homeless man was gone. His faded orange sleeping bag was still there, discarded carelessly on a pile of cardboard boxes that were arranged in the rough outline of a shelter. The image in the mirror looked older somehow. The man, however, was nowhere to be seen.

Joe told himself not to read into it. It was just the remoteness of the town. the lateness of the hour playing tricks on him. The guy probably just went to take a leak or something. He opened his door and stepped out into the dark road, smoke still rising fitfully from his overheated engine. He lifted the hood and coughed as a cloud of trapped fumes escaped into his face. He latched the hood open, fumbled in his pocket for a crumbled pack of American spirit,

and lit a cigarette. He leaned against the car and waited for the engine. into cool, hoping the Tahoe would give up on its tantrum, and took in his surroundings. Ten pines wasn't much to look at. There weren't even any pine trees that Joe could see. The forest on either end of the town was comprised of mostly firs, but he kept finding his eyes drawn to that graffiti on the wall of the underpass. Where had the rough sleeping man gone? Why was it so damn quiet? He didn't know if he was scared exactly, or just still unused to being alone, but he knew he didn't like the vibe of this place.

Joe had concluded on his short trip along the coast that towns near the water came in one of two flavors. Tourist traps or isolated creepy murderville. Ten Pines was looking like it belonged firmly to the latter category. He imagined Elaine telling him he should have listened when she told him all those weirdos came out at night. Nothing good ever happens after midnight, Joey. If you're on the road that late, you just keep on driving and don't stop for anyone. Then she would have scolded him for being such a wuss.

It seems strange. him, how he could still hear her voice in his head. It was almost as if she was still there, almost. He looked back over at the underpass, and the homeless man beneath his sleeping bag pulled tight against the cold night air. He thought the pang of sorrow for the poor guy, having to be out there all alone, and wait. He was back.

He had not been there a few seconds ago. Joe sure of it. His heart rate quickened as a spike of adrenaline sent sweat shivers down his spine. The underpass was at least 100 feet from end to end. And the pile of boxes where the rough sleeper had made his makeshift bed were at this end. Joe's end. It would have been impossible for someone to walk back into that. tunnel from this direction without Joe seeing them or them seeing him impossible he was barely 15 feet away

and he'd been staring at it the whole time he was beginning to think he was going crazy and he tried to tell himself to relax so what he thought didn't really matter if some guy was maybe not there for a minute. And now, he was back. It wasn't bothering anyone. Least of all Joe, least of all, Joe. So he told himself to forget it. He must have been daydreaming about Elaine or something, and simply didn't notice the guy walking back and from his midnight constitutional. It was surprisingly easy to rationalize strange events when you couldn't trust your own mind, Joe found. since Elaine died. He had experienced some issues.

Not hallucinations or hearing voices or anything too serious. He wasn't nuts, he kept telling himself. But his grip on the rational world, namely his ability to process anxiety and fear, had been slipping. He kept getting deja vu. Like all this has happened before. but was buried underneath a mountain of discarded memories. It had made him jumpy. Before his trip, he had stocked up on Xanax at the behest of Elaine's brother, Randy,

who was not a doctor, but still issued prescriptions to those in need. He hadn't felt in need enough to take any so far, but he was beginning to seriously consider it. He turned back to his car and inspected the engine. The smoke had stopped now, but it was still radiating a lot of heat. Figured another 15 minutes or so and he could try to start it. Joe lit another cigarette and walked around at the back of the Tahoe, doing his best to keep one eye on the man in the underpass.

He opened the back door and pulled a bottle of water from his rucksack. As he lifted the bottle to his lips, he looked over the car and saw an old boarded-up shopfront that had also been vandalized, the same, sharp, rigid lettering in the same black paint. This one read. He's getting closer. Joe wheeled around, panic-stricken. Nobody was there. Nothing in the tree.

line. No hatchet-wielding maniacs or blood-soaked murderers. He cursed himself for being so stupid and resolved to stop getting worked up over random graffiti. You're jumping at shadows, Joey. Elaine's voice chided him in his head. Somewhere between a memory and a fantasy, he glanced over at the underpassed and had to do a double-take. He was certain his eyes were lying to him. The homeless man was gone again. Okay, now it's getting weird. I know he was there. I know.

Other under circumstances, he would have simply gotten back in his car and driven away. But his car was still throwing a deaf con one hissy fit, as Elaine used to say. And so instead, he did the only thing he could think of. He crossed the street and began to look around for the homeless man. He had to know for sure. If he was crazy, then so be it. He had already lost the one thing worse than losing your mind. Elaine.

Losing anything else, even his sanity, didn't seem all that big a deal to him now. It was freeing in a morbid kind way. If he could find the guy, if he really existed. Then at least he could relax a little. He walked purposefully over to the other end of the street, where the sidewalk meets the tree line and scanned the area. Nothing but a couple of crushed beer cans in the grass. Ristling wind in the branches of ancient trees.

What might have been an owl, hollering in the distance, He turned towards the underpass and began heading for the orange sleeping bag on the pile of boxes. The threatening graffiti stood out like an omen under the harsh glare of the lights, and Joe had to keep his eyes fixed forward to keep from staring at it. He approached the piled boxes carefully, unsure. When he got close enough, he could see that the sleeping bag was moldy, rapid and old. A thick layer of dust covered the faded fabric,

and the boxes it was loosely draped across. A single empty can of tuna had become home to a threateningly bright red fungus. This camp, if you could really call it that, was abandoned long ago. Joe's mind reeled in confusion, trying to pull apart the images in front of him. him and forced them back together in a way that made sense.

But he couldn't. Nobody had been there recently. Certainly, not in the last hour. How he had seen the man, sleeping right there, not five minutes ago. He recoiled from the remnants of the makeshift shelter, the sight of it making him feel unwell. He turned around, heading out of the underpass and back to the tree line. He scanned his surroundings again, hoping for something, anything that might give him a sign that he wasn't crazy. He saw nothing that he hadn't seen already, save for a bundle of dead flowers, tied to the bottom of a lamp post halfway down the street.

A memorial to a crash victim, no doubt. He walked towards it, entreat. The flowers were dry, crumbling, and wrapped in damp brown paper. No message was attached to them. They felt oddly familiar, but not in any way that made sense. It seemed like these, two, were old and left behind. Was nothing in this town alive? None of the liquor stores were open, despite their buzzing neon signs.

The shops were either shuttered completely or had closed signs dangling in the windows, with no lights on inside. He hadn't seen another car since he stopped. The only other person around was the disappearing homeless man. At this point, Joe wasn't convinced really existed. He gave up his search and walked back in the direction of his car. The Tahoe must be cool enough to start by now, surely. But just then, an unsettling question formed in his mind.

Was he being watched? The ominous graffiti, the disappearing man, the dead flowers. It all added up to some sick, creeping feeling in his stomach. He felt choked, trapped, like the air itself was poisonous and full of malintent. Eyes on him from behind rotting curtains, hidden in the branches of the fir trees. Eyes in the dark. He heard a faint rustling sound behind him and spun on his heel, but again, nothing. Nobody was there.

He rushed the rest of the way back to his car, no longer even trying to appear casual. He wrenched open the door and jumped in and slammed it behind him. Fuck! What is going on? He tried to calm himself, tried to focus on his breathing. But a swell of sickly panic was rising through his blood like a cursed wave, determined to wash him away into its unknowable depths. His hands began shaking. and his chest grew tighter.

He clutched at the dash with one hand, another gripping the fabric of his shirt, trying to fan himself. He was hot, too hot. Everything began to feel fuzzy and disconnected, as the wave made its way up from the pit of his stomach to his heart, lashing itself around his organs and squeezing them with terror. His eyes darted around, searching out the danger. His breath quickened until he was gasping for air, each sharp pull giving no relief. His thoughts converged with the wave as it broke through the beachhead of his mind and convinced him he was going to die right now.

This second, it was coming. This was it. He desperately searched for the thing that was killing him. Certainly he would see the homeless man in his review mirror. working some deadly magic from the back seat. When he saw there was nothing there, the pressure in his chest lifted. Slightly. He heaved in a deep lung full of air, slowly regained some composure.

It was passing. He was going to be okay. He fumbled around in his glove compartment, still breathing heavily. sweat-stinging his eyes, and retrieved the small bottle of pills he got from Randy. Xanax was printed across the label in a script eerily similar to the graffiti in the underpass. He popped off the lid and swallowed two pills, forcing them down his dry throat with a wince. Joe had no idea if it would help, but he was willing to try. He was beginning to feel better now that the worst had been.

passed, and he wondered what the hell it just happened to him. Was this a panic attack? He'd never had one before, and so he had nothing to compare it to. Oh, well, as long as it's over, it doesn't matter what it was. He told himself aloud. He was uncertain whether he believed himself or not, but it seemed to help to say it. He was about to try and start the car when something flashed across his periphery. He turned his head to see the homeless man, standing dead still on the opposite side of the road.

He was directly in line with the Tahoe, but he wasn't looking at Joe. He appeared to be looking at something on the other side of the car. Joe tried to follow the man's eyes, but there wasn't anything. there, except an empty sidewalk, and a closed-down souvenir store. He took a deep breath, steeled himself, and got out of the car. He half expected the mysterious man to run away at the first sight of movement, but he just stayed perfectly still. Eyes fixed intently on whatever it was. Joe couldn't see on the near side of the street. Now that he was finally able to get a proper look at the homeless man,

Joe saw nothing that surprised him, save for the confirmation that the man was real. He had a weathered face, half covered in rough and curly brown beard. His eyes were sunken and grayish in the half-light of the street lamps. He wore dirty brown boots and black jeans beneath a faded black jacket that was full of holes. He looked every bit as stereotypically down on his luck as Joe had expected. He approached slowly, not wanting to startle the man or scare him off.

He called out from the middle of the road. Hey, what's going on, man? You okay? No response. Are you all right? I... What are you doing? The homeless man still said nothing. Just as Joe reached the sidewalk where he stood, the man turned his head and looked right into Joe's eyes.

It was only for a second, but it was enough. Joe saw the sheen of fear in the man's gaze. He saw the split-second decision flashed through as the man made up his mind. Turned on his boot heels and sprinted off into the tree line with surprising agility. Before he could think about it, Joe was after him, running as fast as he could into the furs ahead. The light from the street lamps penetrated scarcely more than a few feet into the thickness of the forest, and within seconds he was surrounded by darkness on all sides, running on pure instinct and following the sounds of cracking branches and hurried breaths.

He's coming! He is coming! yelled a voice from far ahead of him in the blackness, followed by a shrill laugh that sounded strained and breathy. Joe continued running, sure that he was right behind his quarry. He was going to catch up to him and demand an explanation. He needed to know why this guy was screwing with him. He'd had enough. No more.

Ah, God damn it! Pain exploded from his right cheek as a sharp branch sliced into his skin, sending forth a trickle of hot blood and setting his senses alight. It was almost pitch black now. The canopy of trees obscuring what little starlight might reach the forest floor. He slowed, but only a little. Determined to keep running. He could still hear the man ahead of him, sprinting on through the dark like a madman,

unconcerned with the noise he was making or his ability to see the path ahead. He followed the sounds until his eyes adjusted, and he could make out the silhouette of the man running up a slope through a small clearing. Joe ran faster, gaining on him. They reached the end of the forest. where it gave way to a grassy bank leading up back to the road. The street lamps fell harsh. The street lamps felt harsh and overpowering after the total darkness of the woods. And it took Joe a moment to realize the homeless man had simply led them in a large semicircle, back to almost

the same spot they had started. A little further down the road, sure, but basically the same. same spot. The man paused for a moment halfway up the bank, looked behind him, and then resumed running. By the time Joe reached the top of the bank and stopped, the man was on the other side of the street in front of the neon lit liquor store, just a couple of buildings further down in his car. He was standing still again, staring at Joe. He looked as though he was about to speak. But instead, he took a step to his left, made an elaborate gesture with both arms at something on the wall of the store. Joe tried to focus.

It was more graffiti. This one read, Look out. He's here. Joe looked from the wall to the man back and forth. Then the man laughed again. That shrill sound and took off running. Joe launched forward a grim smile on his face. He was close now, and he knew he would catch him.

He was so thrilled at this knowledge that he didn't even hear the big engine of his truck speeding towards him. He didn't notice the headlights spreading across the road as he leaped off the curb to give chase. He was so certain that his prey was cornered, that his brain disregarded all other input from his senses as he took another stride, then another, then no more. The truck's engine roared, metal crash, twisted, and burned. The street filled with sounds of terror. Then Silence It's almost midnight here on the West Coast

And we've got plenty more classics on the way for you News is coming up on the hour followed by Davy with our traffic report In the meantime here's Pink Floyd Joe turned off the radio and slowed the car As he rolled beneath the underpass The orange lamps overhead reminding him of something Though he couldn't place it Couldn't place what it was.

Dejaub, he guessed. He didn't like it. A big green sign overhead read, Welcome to Ten Pines. Creepy Presents Special Agent, written by Catlin Ladd and narrated by Michelle Kane.

Fast, so fast, under the strange orange volcanic sky, she ran. Accelerating the way her legs pumped and she glorified in speed. Her imagination took over, unable to resist the mood of the flaming storm sky. Breath quick and sure, she ran from monsters conjured by her vivid wit, horrible mangled things, with foul breath and slimy hides and yellow demon eyes. a compilation of every horror story she had ever heard. Terror took over and she dodged into alleys around dumpsters

over the legs of a homeless lump, inexplicably ornamented with plastic bubbles of unicorns and butterflies. She was losing them. Her sneakers whizzed over the polluted wet streets and she congratulated herself on her abilities. Street smart and wise beyond her years, She was Agent, no, Special Agent Laura Knox, running to the safety of her inner city base, where her backup would be waiting to swarm down and annihilate the menace, the enemy.

She actually heard the clicking of Monster Clause pacing her from behind, heard slobbering breath over her own gasps. Taken away by her dreams of Special Agent Knox, she reached for her gun. She would take the enemy out herself. There would be a ceremony in honor of her bravery. She would be the youngest agent to ever be so honored. She rounded a corner, still breakneck, and stopped so suddenly that her sneakers lost traction on the pebbly surface. And she slipped, losing traction in the alley muck, her head smacking against the wall.

Green flowers blossomed in her vision. Nauseated. she slumped, letting the pain pass through her, shaking it off only as a child can. Looking up, she saw that a brick wall blocked her path. The jarring pain of the fall pulled her back to reality. Though she still got up and spun around, certain that the monsters must be right there. The street stretched away, empty. Now that her running steps and gasping breaths were quiet,

11-year-old Laura became aware of the silence and the darkness. Mere minutes before, she had been on a crowded street blocks from her home, returning from Sissy's house, as a matter of fact, homework defeated and placed in the pack slung over her shoulders. Sissy's sister, impossibly mature at 15, had been watching the X-Files on Netflix, and the two younger girls had decided on the spot that a career in the FBI was absolutely the only choice for their futures.

Scully was the bomb. In the dark and empty street, Laura wished to be that special agent now instead of a small girl armed only with the backpack. Where on earth was she? Her surroundings were completely unfamiliar, though she had only been running for what seemed like a short time. Having grown up in the city, living in the same house her entire life, Laura thought she knew her environment. She had been venturing out on her own since she was seven, walking to school, going over to Friends's house, even riding the subway downtown to the shops or over to the small textile store where her father worked.

In the quiet dimness, the world seemed much bigger. Her head throbbed dully, straining her ears so she could hear the city, a low rumble occasionally marred by the blare of a horn. These sounds should have been much louder. The lights reflected off the clouds cast that volcanic glow. Otherwise, she would have been in complete darkness. There was no streetlight in sight. Laura realized that she had never been in a place with no streetlights. Maybe she really was lost. Telling her imagination sternly not to run away with itself, Laura spun around to examine her surroundings. She had run into a short dead end behind a building with no windows. She stood at the intersection between the dead end and the alley. Everything within her sight was either a concrete or dirty gray brick.

Still not believing she could be lost. The only time she had ever been lost was when she was four and in a department store with her mother. Laura trotted back to the main street. Both ways looked identical at first glance. The head of the alley appeared to be halfway down the block, and she saw T intersections in both directions. On all sides loomed dark buildings. Some windows had been boarded over.

All others had been broken long ago and beyond the sills swarmed with shadows. Laura remembered the photo she had seen of post-World War II Germany and Poland, where entire towns stood vacant. Only the wind whistling through empty shops and homes, where families had once cried and played together. Here, not even the wind.

their tread. Almost certain she had turned right into the alley, Laura headed left to the intersection. She walked in the middle of the street to avoid passing too close to the gaping windows and dark doorways. As she neared the corner, she became aware of a change in light. Something appeared to be flickering, and she wondered if a homeless person had set a trash can on fire. The way they often did as fall crept towards winter. But the light was too cold for fire, and Laura slunk closer to the building, staying well away from the openings in the dull facade.

She peeked around the corner and felt silly as she saw the source of a light. A street lamp with a broken globe sent staccato beams flashing down the street. Relieved to see a lamp, Laura turned in this new avenue and, once again, stopped to look both directions, scanning her memory to see if any landmark ring a bell. There were few landmarks to be seen. This new street looked disturbingly like the old, terminating at either end of the street in a T intersection. She paused, reaching out with her

other senses the way she and Sissy did when they were crossing the park at night, and activity expressly forbidden by parents. The air reeked of old oil, burnt plastic, sewage, and rot. Laura turned her attention away from her nose. She still heard the distant city but could not pinpoint the direction. That made sense, actually, since she must have simply wandered into an abandoned section zoned for refurbishing. The city would be all around, or something. Laura couldn't really decide how she had ended.

up where she was, considering that she knew her neighborhood like the nose on her face. The idea of remaining in the middle of the street was absurd, so Laura started walking again. She knew that one was supposed to remain still if lost, but no one would even know where to start looking for her, so she had to save herself. She turned left again, passing under the stuttering street lamp, and left again at the next corner. It made sense that it was a little bit of a little bit if she continued making lefts, she would return to her point of origin. If no landmark had presented itself by the time she was back at the alley, she would repeat the same pattern, taking rights. That way, she reasoned, she could cover a large area without getting more lost than she already

was. There was no reason this should not work. Every block was disturbingly like the last, with no streets continuing further than a block. All ended in a T-E-Strees. intersection and every block was intersected by an alley. Every street except the one that should have been her point of origin. Laura stood in the street in the middle of what should have been the block where she started and turned in a circle. The alley was nowhere in sight, only the dirty buildings lit by the eerie squall light. Well, the stuttering streetlight should be at the end of this block. Laura's step quickened as she ran to see. There it was.

So where was the alley? Or was this a different streetlight with the same dysfunction as the last? Or had the alley disappeared? Laura contemplated. This was not easy, considering that her stomach was beginning to behave in a most peculiar manner. Her head still pulsed pain in rhythm with her heartbeat. The street seemed darker, and the imaginary monsters from which she had fled bounded back.

She spun around quickly, almost falling again, certain she had heard a stealthy sound. Only the shadows. She began walking again, more quickly now. She turned right, away from the stuttering lamp, and then left at the next intersection. This path, as the pattern was repeated, should take. her as far away from her point of origin as possible. Then she did hear a sound, a scraping shuffle in one of the buildings behind her, followed by a vocal hissing. There was something alive on the street with her. Laura was running before she realized she had decided to flee. She ran until she was out

of breath, until her side hurt, until tiny black spots swirled. in front of her vision. In her fear, she forgot her planned pattern, but when she finally stopped, she was horrified to see the stuttering street lamp. Had she run in a circle? Or was this yet another? Or was she back to where she had really started? In desperation, she turned running up the street to see if the alley was there. It was. But had that dumpster, been there? Despite all of the street training, regardless of her education from wandering the city, in spite of her dreams of being an agent on the X-Files, Laura felt like an 11-year-old child, lost. She sank down next to the garbage and gave way to tears. How long had she been lost?

long enough for someone to miss her? She didn't know, and that made her cry all the harder, muffling her sobs against her knee. She had not seen a single person, no one, to help her. Finally, her fortitude returning, she lifted her head. If she was going to escape from the situation, she had to think clearly. She fisted the tears from her face like a little girl and stood up.

She turned her attention to the buildings lining the reticent streets. They looked like typical brownstones, some with abandoned shops escaping shadow. Four or five stories tall? They were framed against the orange sky, spouting twisted antennas and crumbling fire escapes. To Laura's imagination, they looked alive with potential menace. It occurred to her that from the top of one of them, it might be possible to see her fugitive home. Without a flashlight, she knew it would be absolutely impossible to set foot over the threshold, not into the gaping dark, no way. She turned her attention to the

fire escapes, walking down the street, scanning the facades on either side. On the next block, she found what she was looking for. One of the fire escapes dangled a ladder almost to the street. a crate from one of the vacant windows, Laura was able to reach it with ease. Pulling herself up, she climbed to the first landing. The escape was not in the most excellent condition. Flakes of rust embedded on her palms and the old metal creaked alarmingly. Laura edged closer to the building. The window on this level had an old box spring pushed against it and thankfully was covered. The windows above, however, yawned darkness. occasionally framed by teeth of jagged glass.

She would have to pass within inches of them. Stealing herself, Laura moved up. The going was slow. She had to test every step before trusting her footing. The window at the second landing was intact, reflecting only the orange light and Laura's pale face. She stopped for a moment to look into her eyes, dark and wide in her pale face.

With dirt smudged across her nose and her jeans torn, she did not look at all like a special agent. Something moved behind the glass. Laura drew back. She glanced over her shoulder thinking something might be behind her, reflecting the glass behind her own face. Nothing. It seemed to take hours to turn back to the window.

All was still. Trembling, she advanced up the next flight of sea. stairs, focused on the gaping window above. Her panic was back, and she focused on putting one foot in front of the other. The window below shattered with enough noise to drown her scream. The glass was in her head, clattering against her skull, deafening her. She felt it tear through the brain matter of her sanity. Once again, she was running before her conscious grasped the circumstances, flying up the steps, she seemed embedded in sledge. Every limb weighted with invisible muck. She didn't look back until the rigging below gave way with a screech. The steps under her

shrieked and lurched. Laura screamed, clutching the railing, crumbling under her fingers. The bolts holding the framework to the wall tore loose with puffs of brick dust and small bits of concrete that fell toward the street miles below. The section to which Laura Klung held for the moment, but looking down, Laura saw that the entire lower section dangled free, held only by tenuous segments of steps, and something clung to the rigging below. In the gloom she couldn't see it clearly, only a dark shape with lantern eyes, and teeth, lots of teeth, they caught under the light. The hissing vocalization came again, and then it howled, raging up at her as she hung. She clambered up one more solid footing and the metal screeched in pain, more of it tearing loose. The roof was only two landings up and that edge became Laura's focus.

The fear in her brain dulled her awareness of the horror below and her entire attention fixated on the roofline. She climbed a lifetime, each heartbeat punctuated by the tremoring of the fire escape, until she grasped the edge and pulled herself over. Her hands were raw, seeping blood. She crumbled onto the roof, gasping in a ball. So tired, her eyelids seemed weighted. She lay lethargic, unable to summon fear or even curiosity. Terror did strange things.

to a mind. Finally, she summoned the energy to pull herself into a sitting position and peered over the short lip of the roof. The bottom section of the rigging had fallen and the top portion twisted out of shape, barely clinging to the bricks like some alien spider. The monster thing was nowhere in sight. Laura pulled herself to her feet and peered around. In hope of seeing city lights in the distance, she turned in a circle. Only darkness in every direction. She turned again, unbelieving. Something dawned on her, something that had been plaguing the back of her mind.

Considering that each block should have been approximately the same length, it was impossible for each street to end in a T intersection. At least some of them would have had to end in a four-way, or at least a dead end. She walked along the edge of the roof. Lightning flickered. She could hear thunder in the distance, getting closer. The light, underlating though it was, provided the needed illumination to see the outlying blocks with enough clarity to make Laura gasp and clutch at the low side wall edging the roof. From her high vantage point, it was possible to see the layout of the streets near her. About four blocks in front

and slightly to the left of her, the cityscape ended in a black. No, ended wasn't right. It was as though the focal point was too far away to see. She was standing at a point that appeared to be near the center of a giant vortex, a three-dimensional cone of intersecting streets and buildings. Looking behind her, she can actually see how the ground appeared to curve up, each block slightly higher than the last. It was impossible, and it made her eyes ache. What if during her run she had fallen through, down into a hole? A howl sounded from behind her and she tore her eyes from the horizon. The monster thing clamored up the bricks. She could see claws moving over the edge of the wall and she looked into the face of hell, cognizant, incandescent eyes, more teeth than she had ever seen, a phase so different so wrong that she could not focus clearly. Breath like ice washed over her cheeks, and she responded without thinking.

She turned and ran, pumping her short legs, breathing in great gasps. At the edge of the roof, she jumped without heed, and the street below passed in a blur. She landed on the next roof still in full sprint. At the next edge, she sprang again. She didn't realize that her path was taking her down into the dark. She was only aware of speed, aching muscles, pounding heart, gasps of air, feet tingling from impact. It was only at the last moment when the darkness hung like a pool in front of her,

as she realized. Her steps faltered. Too late, she felt her sneakers slip on the edge of the roof. She fell. The impact snapped her right wrist with an unimportant pop. Her face hit next and blood washed across her darkening vision. As the dark came, she was aware of a woman screaming and tires on wet pavement. The grill of a car loomed over her, broken tines running with fresh blood.

A man bent over her and the woman sobbed. I didn't see her. I couldn't stop. The voice was hit. hitched and gasped. The man touched her with gentle hands, and she felt a blanket being wrapped around her shoulders. You're going to be okay, he said. Somewhere, she heard the monster scream in rage and disappointment. 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 common 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 stories author.