Creepy - The Bridge on Melody Lane & The Slim Man

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

The Bridge on Melody Lane***Written by: J.T. Seate and Narrated by: Nate DuFort***The Slim Man***Written by: Anthony Mark Silva and Narrated by: Jimmy Ferrer***Content warning: Violence towards children***Support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***Title music by: Alex Aldea Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Creepy presents.

The Bridge on Melody Lane. Written by J.T. Seat and narrated by Nate DuFort. Donald was beginning to lock up when the phone rang. He looked at the instrument as if it was some alien creature determined to interfere with his life. It was six o'clock and pitch black outside. A frigid evening had wrapped itself around his world. The roads were icing over, and he had 13 miles to drive. He didn't want to answer, but he did.

First National, he said hurriedly, whispering voices and scratchy sounds. The connection broke off with a soft click. The room suddenly seemed as cavernous and foreboding as an empty mortuary. Donald returned the phone to its crick. and turned everything off, save for the lights that burned all night. Outside, ice crystal swirled around him, as he made haste from the bank's rear door to his Honda. The cold turned his breath into milky plumes. Donald climbed into the car, the heat from inside the building quickly seeping away.

At least his vehicle could be counted on to fire up even in the coldest weather. The ignition caught. He let the engine warm before engaging the heat. He backed out of his spot. Sparse lighting cast flat shadows on the wet street and sidewalks, but they were deserted, making the last signal light out of town seem extravagant. A car hadn't passed the bank in the last 15 minutes, so there'd be little to no traffic.

After a few miles, he turned onto Melody Lane. small towns love their legends as much as their preserves they put in glass jars so the stories about melody lane played well he'd heard all the supernatural nonsense about this ten-mile stretch still he and his wife purchased a nice size fixer-upper along the infamous route ghostly legends or not it was a deal too good to pass up sealing his decision to take the banking job and leave the hustle and bustle of city life behind At this moment, his decision was not comforting. His automobile's heat wasn't putting out as it should. Donald grumbled and messed with the dials as he drove. What he didn't need was a trip to the dealer two counties away. He concentrated on the two-way stretch of blacktop with its rises and falls in curves,

mindful of ice. He was a good driver. No accidents. No citations. but the countryside's winding roads could make anyone a novice. Nasty weather was treacherous, but at a steady 35 miles per hour, he'd be home in close to 20 minutes.

With his eyes focused on the road's midline, he thought about hearth and home, the warm kitchen with Maryland preparing a hot meal, the girls either arguing or playing contentedly, depending on how their day had gone. Had he made a mistake, dragging them to a rural local, and a house with some renovations yet to be tackled.

Maryland had been a good sport, even with unreliable gas and water pipes. Donald's mind wandered to the universal legend of the unwanted passenger, symbolic of all the formless imaginings of danger and terror. Here's how it went. A woman stops to get gas. After paying inside, another motorist yells something as she returns to her car. She quickly climbs in and drives away. Immediately, the man starts his engine and pursues her.

He blinks his lights and honks repeatedly. On the radio, the woman hears about a maniac loose in the area. Her breath catches in her chest. Scared to death, her pursuer is the Ballyhooed maniac in a stolen vehicle. Could she be in the wrong place at the right time for some nut job? The trailing car closes the distance between them. The pursuer tailgates her. She tries to outrun him, but can't.

He's going to run me off the road, then kill me, the woman thinks. The road is slick and winding. Her car fish tails, but she can't slow down. The tires slide sideways. Panicking, she hits the brakes, sending her into a spin. The rear of her car skids ahead of the front, and off the side of the road into a ditch. Shaken but uninjured,

she sees the other car stopped on the road above. She jumps out and runs. Primal fear penetrates every pore of her being. Her heart pounds beneath her breastbone as she flees. A house looms nearby. She rushes up the steps and frantically pounds on the door until the homeowner opens up.

A man's after me. He's trying to kill me, she cries. Her body cold and her movements frenzied with impending terror. The motorist from the trailing car approaches the house as she cringes behind the homeowner. Thank God you got out of your car, lady, her pursuer says. When you went inside the station, a man climbed into your back seat. I did everything I could to warn you. End of story.

A slight grin split Donald's face. interesting how a lonely road could capture one's imagination. He hadn't thought about the bridge on Melody Lane until then. Local whoppers, including a ghost boy who'd been picked up by a monster on wheels and never found. Only his occasionally revenant mournfully waiting for a safer ride remained. This unresolved mystery had been a linchpin for supernatural tales surrounding the bridge along with the length of Melody Lane, including stories of Satan worshippers behind trees and other sundry myths. Amazing what one real incident could spawn in the minds of residents looking for the unreal.

He found these fanciful tales preferable to the prospect of a real event such as the backseat story, but either way, the dark highway could tap into one's innermost fears. Pay attention to your driving, Cityboy, he murmured. In spite of his care, one of his tires found a pothole, causing the Honda to veer into the oncoming lane. No traffic, thank God. Donald drove on, pondering the damage an icy slide could cause. Running off the road's soft shoulder and into a tree, it wasn't the way to end a long tedious day. He pushed a button to turn on the radio.

Nothing but static. He began to worry about the vehicle. entire electrical system, as he gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, his hands at 10 and 2 o'clock, and strained to watch the road more carefully. The world on either side of the road seemed surreal, a deserted, desolate place, an icicle world from a fairy tale. The only reality was his vehicle and the part of the road caught in the headlight beams. The strange phone call. What was the reason for his growing uneasily? craziness.

Not far to go. Headlights appeared in the distance. He wasn't alone with Melody Lane's potholes after all. As the vehicle approached, Donald could tell it was going much too fast for the conditions. Its bright lights made his eyes squint. He slowed to 25 miles per hour and pulled as close to the outer edge of the shoulder as he dared in anticipation of a calamity. Goosebumps pebbled his flesh as the vehicle blew by him at a tremendous speed,

a big black monstrosity. The Honda shook from its force. A miscalculation could have quickly turned Donald and his car into an unattractive burgundy waffle. Damned idiot, Donald groused. He returned to a steady pace of only 30 miles per hour, better safe than sorry, but the encounter had shaken him. The heater was still blowing cold, a touch of tingling disquiet climbed his spine,

but he held steady. Only about five miles, he said aloud, but his sense of urgency was growing. He tried to focus on his family in the warm kitchen where they would eat and talk and then drift off to their respective televisions and cell phones. He was over halfway home when another pair of headlights appeared in his rear view. This vehicle approached just as rapidly.

Once with these local yokels, he pondered. Granted, they might understand the road conditions better than he, but whoever heard of the people around here being in a hurry. They sure weren't in a hurry when it came to paying their mortgages. Donald and Maryland reasoned their move would provide a more idealic lifestyle, where his two daughters could breathe fresh air and his family could feel a little safer than in the city. That cut little ice at the moment, however,

as he considered the approaching headlights. He found the edge of the pavement again to give this crazy person as much room to pass as possible. The vehicle roared up to within a car length and held at speed and trailed him. Donald slowed down even more. If it hadn't been so cold, he would have lowered his window and waved for the vehicle to pass,

but eventually it sped from behind and quickly swept up alongside the Honda. Glancing over, Donald saw a large tank of a car and sensed the heft of the thing beside him, too big for the icy curves. Illumination from the dash played on the driver whose head turned in Donald's direction as if on a swivel. It was a chilling sight. There was an antique look about him, like a figure out of a wax museum,

no one he knew from town or from bank business. As Donald stared, the vehicle soon gathered speed and streaked past inserting itself on the road in front of the Honda. Donald's headlights revealed strange things about the black sedan. It had no plates or distinguishing marks. It resembled the vehicle that had passed him, earlier. It looked a lot like a... He hesitated to even think about it. A hearse. Not the kind of vehicle you expected to run across in the dark, in the night, on a slippery road. The Honda's

windshield took a barrage of ice slivers from the lead car's rear tires. Donald's wipers fought the sludge for a few seconds before the car zoomed ahead, its taillights glowing like two red eyes. It rapidly disappeared into the darkness as if the driver thought he was immortal, safe at any speed. Conditions were deteriorating. Donald slowed down even more, just another four miles to go. He tried to imagine the smells coming from their kitchen and the way Marilyn would smile at him when he trudged in from the garage. But then, something happened to challenge his senses. No sooner the taillights ahead winked out, then the same car appeared once again to his left, like a black hulking ghost. Donald had never believed in coincidence, had never trusted fate.

His heart leapt into his throat. It can't be. The vehicle recklessly swung into the lane in front of him, missing the Honda by only a few inches, and causing the same mess on the windshield. The Honda's outside wheels hit the shoulder. Donald strained to hold the vehicle on course. He's trying to kill me. Donald had never experienced terror, but quickly found that it could shove aside logic in a heartbeat. This Joker was either into mindless aggression

or had been made stupid by drink. His sudden fear provoked a needle-sharp stinging in the base of his skull. His heart pounded faster and faster, as he suddenly remembered another legend about a phantom driver, the piece of folklore that provided the biggest laugh at the bank party in his honor when his family came to town. Enough of this, he said loudly, returning to a world in need of a reasonable explanation. The man behind the wheel was clearly nuts,

traveling so fast at night on an icy road, but the paradox persisted. The same long black car with the frightening silhouetted driver. Philosophical questions about being singled out for ruin by a murderous revenant would have to wait. He just wanted to get home and off the road. He slowly pulled onto Melody Lane's shoulder and stopped the car as the taillights ahead disappeared once more. The way his night was going, he couldn't keep from twisting around and looking into the well behind the front seat. A nutcase lying in wait would have been more acceptable than some mysterious road warrior.

with a death wish. Donald fished his cell phone from his jacket's breast pocket. After the series of beeps, the phone started to ring. He heard the click, registering a connection. There was no, hello, just a little static at first, then voices whispering, sounding unearthly, the same sounds from the phone at work. Natalie, Jenny, if it's either one of you,

please put your mother on. A giggle preceded the disconnect. The small screen went dark, and the acute silence lasted for several heartbeats. He hadn't realized how truly frightened he was until he heard the sounds coming from his own house. The girls weren't ones to screw around with the phone, and why hadn't Marilyn answered? Fighting off the raw edge of panic, Donald put the Honda back in drive and pulled off the shoulder, feeling a desperate need to get home ASAP, just a few miles to go. He was no longer concerned about the ice build-up or the other vehicle.

He was only interested in the safety of his family. The car churned out a little heat, but Donald remained as cold as the night air, the chill which ran into the recesses of his mind as well as his body. Something sinister was happening to a rational man who spent his time managing details with numbers and balance sheets. One last hurdle before reaching the driveway to the front porch, a narrow bridge over a deep ravine,

the very bridge that had given birth to all the other tales. It was known to be especially treacherous on evening such as this. A speed limit sign warned drivers to slow to 25 miles per hour when crossing, even in good weather. He thought about using the cell phone, to ring his house again, but wanted all his attention on navigating the last mile. A hungry darkness lay on either side of the road. Everything had become unfamiliar. Reality had turned into a mysterious shadow land steeped with evil, a strangely lit panorama

out of a disturbing dream. The headlamps lit peripheral fence posts and cast surreal, grotesque, shifting shadows along the route, like brooding gods. from another world prowling the night. Occasional tree phantoms shaped all the monsters of myth like dryads from some old legend. They clawed out at him from both sides of the blacktop.

In spite of the cold, a bead of sweat trickled from his temple down to his jaw. Donald's penchant for numerical analyses pushed the accountant's mind into overdrive. Maybe it wasn't the black vehicle at all. Maybe it was the road itself, Melody Lane. What an innocent moniker for this dangerous ribbon of pavement

that twisted like a frozen river. Maybe an evil force ran under it like an aquifer he'd somehow tapped into. Maybe the horrific legends had purchase in the cold of night. Was he hostage to a nightmare? The vehicle passing him again. Wasn't it like the nightmare about running but getting nowhere? or the one where something is whispered about and is known by everyone but you? He fought to keep his imagination from running amok.

The black car was bad enough without images of unpleasant things leaping out in front of his Honda or sudden thumps on its roof, or the idea that the road itself was evil. Fear was one of the reasons they had left the city. Danger felt out of place on the road with the pleasant melodic name. until now. Yet, here it was, fear clinging to the banker for God's sake. The journey's events had planted the specter of a nervous breakdown. Though the night closed in like a tunnel, the bridge was now in reach of the headlights, its railing on either side, reminding Donald of two rows of teeth. Almost there, just like Sleepy Hollow's Iqabod Crane, make it to the far side of the

bridge and to safety. How slow? On the far side of the bridge sat an ominous pair of headlights. Donald held his breath. An awful, sick feeling sunk into his marrow. He supposed it made sense for the bridge

and the haunted vehicle to merge at this sight. This was to be more than a game of chicken or insane recklessness. It wasn't imagination or paranoia. The car was there, waiting. He thought, I'll close my eyes and all of this will disappear.

He thought, I've fallen asleep in the office and I'm having a nightmare. He thought, no, I'm still here on this accursed night. He thought, and for whatever reason, the person driving the phantom seeks to destroy me. Another emotion grabbed hold. loneliness Would he ever see his family again?

What would they do without him? What would he do without them? The countryside was now no more than a blur, the road all that was left of the world. Donald started across the bridge, but by the time he'd driven a third of the way, the black vehicle started across at the other end and bore down on him at high speed.

there was no turning back, no chance to back up or let the demon car pass. In an unwanted moment of madness, he pictured him and his Honda smashed like a pancake from the head on rose again. If he swerved to the right or left, he'd be through the guardrail and into the ravine. Onward, the maniac came, right down the middle of the road, racing straight at the Honda. Donald said a prayer, not for him, but for the forgiveness of his family, for whatever transgressions he might have been guilty of over the years. The black car was doing 60 to Donald's 20. The momentum would carry the cars into a collision no matter what. Still, Donald had to do something. He was filled with conflicting emotions. His life was reduced to the question of,

should he drive off the bridge or keep going straight. From some remote pocket in Donald's mind, he remembered his saying he'd once heard. If the devil comes a knockin, don't turn your back on him. Go toe to toe. No time for hesitation. Donald put his foot to the accelerator.

Adrenaline rushed through him like a blue flame as the two sets of headlights approached each other. A second before impact, Donald braced his arms, drew his final breath, and closed his eyes. In that split second, he wondered if his life would flash before his eyes. Then he started to scream. A horrific swooshing sound went past him, threw him like a jolt of electricity. He opened his eyes and hit the brakes. The Honda skidded and slid to a slippery halt.

He relaxed his grip on the wheel He was safely on the far side of the bridge The hearse-like demon car Had been no more than a phantom after all Melancholy came over him Fatigue replaced tension And Donald was no longer cold But why all of this otherworldly theatrics

He felt on the edge of an alternate dimension as if eyes on the other side were watching him. Exhaling a long, relief sigh, he continued the final distance to his house. He could begin to feel the warmth of it even now. The sky had cleared. Donald could see the stars wheeling in the outer darkness. As he turned the final bend on Melody Lane,

past a copse of dark, bare trunks and limbs, another surprise awaited. Donald stared past a thicket of underbrush across a barren field. The glow in the distance was not the lingering rays from a departed sun or the teasing pallet of pastels, signaling a reluctant dawn. It was something else. Yellow-orange tongues of flame. Within 20 yards of the turnoff to his driveway,

he slammed his foot against the brake pedal once again. He pushed himself against the driver's door, but couldn't get it open. A fire truck, moving much too slowly, was rolling down the road from the opposite direction. It pulled into Donald's drive, blue and red lights flashing against the night. Smoke and crackling bursts of flames

belch from every window and door of his house, reaching into the sky. Its beauty and horror, inescapably twined together. A quiet serenity overtook him. Why didn't he feel, crazy with dread about the welfare of Maryland and the girls, losing loved ones in such a horrific way from a leaky gas pipe more than likely.

Human beings aren't built to withstand this kind of hurt. Why wasn't he out of his mind with grief, overcome by the suffocating weight of despair at the possibility of his family trapped inside an inferno and burning to death, their home becoming a funeral pyre? Phantom echoes of dying screams. should have assaulted him. The answer was coming in his direction.

The long vehicle trailed behind the fire truck and a patrol car rolling up to the drive to Donald's burning house. Instead of turning with the other two vehicles, the transport rolled down the 20 yards of icy road toward the Honda. It passed Donald, but this time it traveled slowly. He could see inside the black, sedan now. In the front passenger seat sat his wife, Marilyn, beside the lanky, pasty-faced driver. In the backseat sat Natalie and Jenny, his daughters. For Donald, it hadn't been necessary

to stare into the abyss and travel the stages of shock and denial. When the vehicle passed by, he understood everything. Creator Destroyer He gives He takes away He knew where the vehicle was going this time He was traveling to the icy bridge on Melody Lane

To pick up another passenger The moonlight pointed a pale finger Back to a spot near the bridge And he could now see his Burgundy Honda As it truly was It had careened off into the gully It rested in a heap Its front end

Totally demolished Parts of a person Were in the front seat Behind the engine block Which had been shoved through the firewall And now rested in front of the figure As if being cradled But the smashed figure

Wasn't him It wasn't Donald Hoskins Because Donald was waiting by the road To be picked up by the Phantom Fairymen If his family was leaving, his remaining behind would have been like some cosmic clerical error. He would have been left with the condolences of well-meaning people in a new kind of isolation with only his family's memory etched on his soul. He wouldn't have wanted that.

The loneliness had lifted. There was just enough room for one more traveler next to his two daughters in the back seat. They wouldn't be on the treacherous melody lane much longer And Donald didn't have to worry about macabre voices on the phone Or demons any longer Or the bank or the wisdom of their move Or about legends real or imaginary Sooner or later

The universe was about balance like his spreadsheets Planets would align Everything was settled now As he'd been given the odds opportunity to join his family to whatever destination they were headed. Or would his ghost remain by the bridge to haunt passerby, like the missing boy from Ions ago, leaving one more story to Grace Melody Lane's folklore. Creepy Presents The Slim Man, written by Anthony Mark Silva and narrated by Jimmy Ferrer.

He was with us, always with us, always one of us. He was always one of us, and was always with us whenever we went outside, whenever we went in crowds, whenever we went away. He has things for us, many things. He always had, and he never went away. please him. We must please him. Always please him. Or he might take us away. How do we please him? With offerings. With children. With offerings of children. With the blood of children. He is the slim man. And though he is with us and one of us, he is not like us. He is not a fragile, childish thing. made of base matter, but tall and slim and faceless. He is a faceless man, made of ectoplasm,

made of lost hopes and dreams, and fears, the stuff of dreams, the stuff of nightmares. The slim man. I worship the slim man. Slim man demands our worship. Slim man blesses us for our worship. Worship him. And you will be blessed.

Worship him. And he will bless you. He has always been among us. Always. They say he sprung up from dream thoughts, from the stuff of dreams. They say this. Ward says this. Charles Dexter Ward, the magician.

And he is made up of dream stuff. True, but we did not dream him up. He invaded all. dark dreams invaded our thoughts made a stream of him think of him me especially especially me special me i am special because he chose me he chose me he chose me because i am special to him I want to please him. I want him to think highly of me. Know my true worth.

I think he does. But it might be that he just suspects, and it might be that I need to prove it to him. My worth, I mean, to him. I need to prove my worth to him. And the only way I know how. with an offering of blood. He is with us, always with us, with us children.

He is always there when you look away. He plays with us, only with us, with children like us. He loves children so much. He surrounds himself with children. He is always around us, always with us, always giving gifts, and planning schemes, always offering to take us away with him, far away with him. Look away for one moment, and we might be gone. You do not want to go with him.

You do not want to leave this realm. You do not want to go to his realm. His realm is a realm of shadows and secrets, not of forests and fields. It's not a pleasant place, Divi. It's a gingerbread house. The slim man promises children candy, but he eats us alive instead. His realm is a realm of shadows, like I said before. A realm of flickering candlelight.

A realm of doors that go nowhere. Of bottomless ponds too shallow to drown in. Of stones that must remain unturned. It's his wrong. and not our realm. We're only visitors. And it's not made like us, but like him, the slim man. It's made up of nightmare stuff. The stuff of nightmares. What are nightmares made of? What are nightmares made of? Word says nightmares are waves, not particles. He says all thoughts are like gravity in a way. And there's no tachyons, just like there are no gravets. Hans, only energy waves. One kind of wave pulls, and the other kind pushes, and whenever we think we push things out into the world. And some of these waves awaken to life, and begin making their own waves. Some of these waves are called gods, and some are called demons, and some are called

memes, no matter what they are called, they are the same kind of thing. Made it. Made a lot of of the same kind of stuff. And they do the same kind of things. They are minds that have no hits. There are thoughts that have gotten away from us, thoughts that can possess us and often do, and afterward do our thinking for us. If he is right, then, the slim man is one of those things,

have gotten away from us, and is now the one creating new waves. And if he is wrong, then that means the slim man always was. It would mean that the slim man has been abducting children for a very, very long time. He can be photographed, the slim man can, and can be seen in mirrors. Vampires can't. They have no reflections because they are pure matter, and they generate no tachyon wave. A vampires have a purely physical existence

A slim man only exists in the mind He has no physical form He's nothing but a wave of tachions and that have coalesced with each other His presence can only be captured by cameras and mirrors and bodies of water And devices that capture souls A vampire is a bunny without a soul And the slim man is a soul without a body. The slim man is an idea. There are photographs of the slim man, and I have seen some of them.

He appears in them, as he appears to me in person. He is tall, impossibly tall, and cataviously thin, with pole-vaulty arms and legs of a certain carnival freak. He was, well, Where's a top hat? And is fond of top hats, but not just like he is fond of children. And his suit is old-timey. He is black and billowy as his skin is white and drawn. He has no face. He has no eyes and no mouth and no ears. He has no nose.

He has no human features of any kind. What he has are impressions. Impressions as if he had been sculpted from granite by an artist who died before he could complete his work, who had only had a chance to make a few quick marks with his chisel in places where features were supposed to go. The slim man has a lot in common with fairies, but he is not a fairy. Ferrys kidnap children, too. The real fairies do. The ones from the real stories.

The ones warning children of real dangers, not the sanitized Disney shit. That's for parents, not for children. Children need to be scared. Small children, especially. That's the only way they'll learn enough to stay alive. The real world is a scary place. It is dark and sinister, filled with. with death and pain and lies.

There are no dancing gargoyles. There's pain. There's sorrow. And the slim man offers to take it all away from us. All of it. All of the pain. Far away. Far, far away.

But if you believe him, if you go with him, if you take his hand and accept his balloon and follow the pathless track towards nowhere, evermore, you'll find out what pain and sorrow truly are. Why do I worship him, the nightmare man? Because he chose me. He chose me to worship him and to love him and to serve him. Me and only me.

He could have chose anyone, but he chose me, just me. And I am grateful. I am grateful to him. It means that I am destined for great things. He could have taken me with him. He could have told me sweet nothings and pleasant lies, with the honeycomb tongue that's hidden behind the featureless scarecrow mask. And I would have believed him.

Wanted to believe him. Gone with him. Like so many others have gone with him and never come back. Like no one else has ever come back. back. And I would have taken his hand in one of my own. I would have taken his balloon or his fan and his flower and my other. And I would have gone off with him. Off to never land. Off to never, never land. To a place where no one ever grows up, because no one ever lives long enough to be able to. for reasons I did not understand at the time.

The slim man chose to be honest with me. The first time I saw him, he sat down beside me, sitting on air, his knees higher than I am tall, looking at me with his eyeless gaze. His voice resonating from the deep, within the paper whiteness in between his pinstripped suit, and the top had like a voice of a cloud. He told me many things that day, the sun man did. He told me about the ways of the world and about secret hidden things. He told me about things living half-lived lives behind the surfaces of mirrors,

about nightgones and shogoths and the creatures lurking beneath pathless, sands and how they do not sleep they just wait for years and decades and centuries awake and undreaming waiting just waiting for unlikely victim to pass by and then he told me what they do when one does pass by He told me that the zombies of Haiti are not dead but living men, men whose bodies are awake, but whose minds are dreaming. It cannot be given sharp tastes like sweet or salt if they are to remain asleep and in their master's thrall. He told me how to draw down the stars, and how beings living on planet circling the stars cannot come here without this drawing. or how doors once made and opened cannot always be closed. And how a day will come where one such door will be made big enough and opened wide enough,

and those things will pour through in great numbers and will make this world their own. And how when this happens all of us humans will be held in their thrall. Even those who now hold the others in their thrall, like the priests of Adun, And he told me also about the things that lurk just outside the threshold, and why the circle of salt and stone must never be breached. And the things that will happen to me, if I call forth a nightmare form from the outer dark and let it slip past my defenses. And here, he lingered on the details, savoring each and every one.

And I sensed a great pleasure. he felt in making me feel so small and so scared. And I sensed also how much more he would enjoy it, if I were to ever be so foolish as to disregard his warning and suffer such a fate. And warn me he did. He takes a special interest in my safety, the slim man does, in his own peculiar way. I'm not very far from him often now. He does not let me stray.

Many of the shadow figures I conversed with before have faded into whatever night and day are made of, and they speak to me no more. This is because the slim man has claimed me for his own, and he is a jealous God, jealous and vengeful, and he will not let others of his kind have me, not let any other idea into my head, but the idea of him. Does he talk to me often, the slim man? Um, as often as he is able to. He is a very busy idea.

And though he is everywhere all at once, his attention cannot be. And it's his attention that he gives me that I hunger for, that I crave. His attention and his approval. Can I be more obvious? more transparent, more cliched. It is because he gives those things so freely, then lonely children go away with him. Go away with him to his realm,

to disappear forever and always, and not because he offers them balloons or fans, or flowers or candy. He did not ask for me to go with him. He asked me to wait for him. And wait for him, I did. He came to see me. Not every night, but often, very often.

And he would tell me things, things about magic and aliens and shagas. And then after a while, he would come to see me a little bit less. And while he would also still teach me about the strange special nightmare things lying just beneath the surface of polite appearances. And tell me what? a special person I am and how special I am to him how special are the things he wants for me and wants me to be he would also be a little distant to me in a way he was not distant before and he would also hint hint about the things he needs for me the things he needs me to do the things

that he needs me to do, that would please him. Things that in doing so would bring me closer to him. There's really only one thing that the gods need from the likes of you and me. I began looking for it. The perfect thing for the perfect sacrifice. Perfect sacrifice to breach the gap between me and him. Him and me. The perfect sacrifice to make us close again.

Some man told me what to do, but not how to go about it, or who to do it to. He entrusted me with that decision, and I could not let him down. I wanted not to let him down so badly that it hurt, really hurt. So I looked. I really looked carefully, long and hard, and carefully I looked. And then I found it. I found her. A perfect sacrifice.

It was right in front of me the whole time. She was always there. Had always been there. Just like the Slim Man had always been there. And also, like the Slim Man, I hadn't really noticed she was there until I really looked. She had always been in my class. Had always been around. Had always been at the playground and on the bus and at the school, at all the places that I was, that I didn't want to be.

Had always been there waiting for me, for me to notice her, for me to need her, until I needed her. I needed her now. How to play this. The slim man gave me no clues. I had to get close to her. get her close to me and never once give her any hint of what I planned to do once we were close close and alone i brought myself closer to it to her to my sacrifice i must have played my cards well because it was only a matter of weeks before we were alone after dark alone in the woods after dark

It was a full moon that night, a night of my sacrifice. It was the only light in the sky. The full moon is sacred to the slim man. Not in the sense you're thinking of, of the sense that such and such a thing belongs to such and such a being. In the sense that the orbit of the moon has an effect on the atmosphere of Earth, which has an effect on all the things that live here, and the effect that it has when it is full is pleasing to him. Evocations and sacrifices in the days of old were timed in accordance with the orbits of the sun and the moon and other things,

the likes of which we can hardly ever even see now. People were foolish then. And there are some foolish people even now. The kind of foolish people who believed in the appearance of the North Star made the Nile flood and believed now that things were blocked out with smog make our decisions for us and decide how long we're going to live and whether or not we're going to die. All of that. But they can't even make themselves be seen.

Try and make sense of that. I brought a knife with me. Not a big knife. I couldn't hide a big knife. And I don't want to have to explain why I'm bringing a big knife. Though I am sure she would believe whatever lie I made up, she believes everything. She believes everything I say. I say to her that we should go to the woods and play hide and seek.

You hide and I'll find you. It is daylight then, and daylight is not right for what I am about to do. But it's almost evening. And after evening will come the dark. The nighttime and the dark. And the nighttime and the dark are the right time for what I am about to do. I drag things out until the darkness falls. That's when I must move quickly.

Slowly first, then quickly. We will be expected home soon. She will want to go. And she will not. want to be late coming home. She'll not want to be in trouble with her parents. And I might miss my chance. My chance to kill her.

Maybe my only chance for a long while. One last round, I say. And then we'll go. We'll go after I find her one more time. That's another lie I tell her. Another lie I tell her that she believes. I try to sneak up on her when I find her, but she knows I'm coming. That doesn't matter.

She suspects nothing else. She suspects me of nothing else. I am hiding the knife low as I approach her. And when I get close, I grab her by her hair with my other hand, and then I stab her. And I stab her, and I stab her, and I stab her. She tries to struggle. She tries to wriggle away. She's already stabbed.

She's already hurt. I caught her by surprise. I stuck the knife in her several times already. Her strength is bleeding out with her life. She doesn't have enough life left to fight me or even escape me. Then I stab her a few more times while she's on the ground, just to make sure. I stab her until I'm sure she is going to die. Then I straighten out, and I stand her.

I stand over her and I paused to catch my breath. The human skeleton. That's the carnival freak I was thinking of. The slim man looks like a human skeleton in a sideshow. But one with no face, so another kind of freak entirely. I don't know why I am so suddenly distracted. She's still alive. She's still breathing.

Only for now, though. She's still breathing only for now. It does not matter. She will die. I have stabbed her so many times. How can she not die? How can my sacrifice fail to appease my God? I don't tell her this, of course.

There's no need to alarm her. Slim Man does not need her alarm. So I tell her not to worry. Then I'll go get help. That she'll be a little. okay. She believes me, of course. She believes everything, I say. She believes everything. I'm lying to her again, of course. I don't go looking for help. I go looking for the Lord. I exit the woods and I walk up the path towards the moon. I follow the moon because I have nothing else to follow, and I needed to follow something.

I need to head somewhere, and I don't know where. I am headed. I know I am on my way to see the Slim Man, on my way to the place of nightmares, to go live in the Slim Man's mansion, the house of vanished children. But I do not know how to get there. I do not know what direction it is in. I do not know how to find it on my own. I would never find it if I ever had to find it on my own. But I won't have to find it. He'll find me. The slim man, he will come for me.

He will find me, and he will take me with him. And I will go with him, but not as other children go with him. I will go with him as his special one. And I will vanish from this world, but I will not vanish from life, unlike the others who went with him. I will continue to exist because I have pleased him with my sacrifice. 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.

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