Creepy - The Gearheads

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

Follow the rules...***Written by: RJ Taylor***Bonus episode: "Has anyone else noticed a new language on their Duolingo app? Did it ruin your life too?" Written by: Jamie Polizzi and Narrated by: Megan McDuffee***Support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***Sound design by: Pacific Obadiah***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.

Please join me in welcoming and thanking new patrons. Logan Dunstan, Joshua Whitecar, Danielle Garraway, Jordan McAvick, Hannah Mathers, Honey Midiat, Father Medza, Sin Sin, Michelle Johnson, Timothy Osir, Frankie Jacobo, and Nova Palmer. All patrons are early commercial free access to all episodes. To see what else you can earn from your donations, including access to over 1,200 exclusive bonus

stories. Check out the donation tiers of patreon.com slash creepypod. No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastas 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 Gearheads

Written by R.J. Taylor. Sometimes I fantasize about setting my boss on fire. Hearing her voice makes my skull inflate. When I tell her my car was stolen, she asks if I'm sure I haven't just misplained. placed it. Over the phone, I can't tell whether she's joking. I say nothing. She says that if I miss work again tomorrow, company policy will force her to fire me. In my mind, I pour gasoline over a tight ponytail. I hear myself pleading with her, but her voice dissolves and the

phone beeps softly. I grab one of the color-coated sticky notes from her computer monitor and take my lighter to it, drop the flame into her lap, walk out of her office, and receive a standing ovation. The plastic cup in my hand finds my face. I take a large swig and my nostrils tingle with foam. The strident chime of the doorbell makes my shoulders jump. I open my front door to find a bright green flyer tucked beneath the corner of the welcome mat. I slide the flyer out from under the mat, step inside, close the door. The words on the fly are bold and jovial as if announcing the opening of a Mexican canteena. Do you like transportation?

Are you washed up at the age of 28? Did you just get off the phone with your boss? Are you drinking rum and beer right now, you white trash piece of shit? I inhale the carbonated fluid in my throat and choke. For a moment, I lean over the sink, coughing, thinking I might vomit. I catch my breath and wipe tears from my eyes. Then I read these four lines over again a dozen times, stifling a cough, drinking deeply as my eyes run over the page.

With a shaky hand, I opened my front door and walk through the empty hallway, down a narrow flight of stairs and onto the street. The summer air is so thick that it's almost liquid. The delivery trucks that's idling in front of the building across the street, and the hum of its engine echoes off the walls of the buildings that don't lie in the bustling street. A couple hundred yards to my right, a group of addicts were clustered around a bus stop bench. I look away just as I see a man standing beyond them. When I look again, he's gone.

but he was never really there. I only thought he was there. A man drenched in motor oil and wearing a burlap sack as a face. I only imagined it. I walked back into the lobby, feeling something like motion sickness. I probed my memory for an image of the person who may have left the flyer. Someone must be messing with me. I returned to my apartment and my kitchen complex.

There are two more lines on the flyer, written with the same tone of an evangelical salesman. Do you want your car back? Meet the gearheads at Swope Park at 2.30 a.m. Do you want to die? Call the police. I spend the next hour looking out of the window. In the windows of the building across the street, I see the reflection of the sunset. I sober up.

I look up the number for the local police station and I come close to calling it. Something in me knows that this threat is real. I'm convincing myself to stay home when I notice the chatter of the homeless people on the street below. They're turning to shadows behind the window of the bus stop. They trade gossip from within their universe and they pet the dog that follows them around. The dog doesn't know it's homeless. and only knows that it's loved. His owners seem almost as unaware.

They feed their dog cheap to keto so I debate the politically correct term, be it homeless or unhoused. They exist in their circle, and I and mine. And the only time what acknowledges the others in those rare occurrences when two bubbles float together and merge. Suddenly it dawns on me. the significance of the car and the way my life will be impact without those 3,000 pounds of Japanese alloy.

It's not only my most valuable possession. It's not just the first car I ever bought, or the car that I used to take out the only girl I ever loved. That car is the only difference between sleeping up here and sleeping down there. It's the only thing separating me from the bus stop dwellers. Without it, the bubbles will merge. When they separate, I'll be sailing in the same wind, but living in a different world. So, I rise and carry myself towards Swip Park. Before I leave, I double-checked that the door is locked.

Walking through the west bottoms after midnight figures to be as terrifying as anything I might encounter at the park. Abandoned buildings stand under the soft glow of tall streetlights. behind the black curtain of every alleyway. A presence seems to loom just out of sight. A deep hum comes from over my left shoulder. I can feel it in the soles of my shoes. A soft light creeps over the sidewalk. I turn to find a rundown sedan creeping along the curb.

It's been spray painted black. The windshield's tinted, and the headlights are covered sloppily by a film that makes them look like black lights. I turn at the next corner, and the black sedan continues straight. As it rolls by on bare hubcaps, I see nothing in its window but the yellow reflection of streetlights. I find myself walking through the heart of a small entertainment district. The pulsating reverberation of a drum set leaks from the window of a dive bar,

clashing with the strobe lights and throbbing beat to the nightclub next door. People stand on the sidewalk outside of each door, laughing and smoking next to bouncers, and I'm comforted by the liveliness. Both in two blocks, the spirit fades, and the street turns quiet once more. I recognize the low murmur of an engine behind me. I don't have to turn to know the black sedanis.

tailing me again. The sound of its exhaust is choppy and low, as if its muffler has been sought off. The driver follows me for the remainder of the walk, occasionally passing me and circling the block, never losing sight of me for long. The empty streets of midtown are a living exhibit of gentrification. Every block display in a different culture and level of wealth,

Gritty projects give way to affluent subdivisions and the atmosphere changes as I walk between bubbles. I cut through the park across from the shopping plaza, jogged down the shoulder of a six-lane highway and arrive at a tool park 15 minutes early. The black car with the purple headlights has disappeared. The parking lot is empty, quiet, dark. It's only lit by weak lamps posted at every corner of the square. I pass through a cloud of darkness at the center of the lot and approach a small shelter that looks like a stone table with eight tall legs. I wait for about ten minutes before hearing a deep, roaring engine.

A large white truck lifted over enormous tires. The blasting beams of its headlights turn the pillars of the shelter into black shadows. The truck comes to rest, but the engine and headlights remain on as both doors swing open and two men step out. One of them is carrying a woodstock hunting rifle, the other in AR-15. The two men scan the parking lot before one of them notices me standing at the entrance of the shelter. He tilts his bald head back on his thick neck and holds up a green flyer. A compact hybrid zips into the parking lot and parks a few spots from where the truck sits with its engine rumbling. A young, dark-haired couple gets out.

The woman is visibly pregnant. The man holds another green flyer. The woman speaking before she stepped out of the car. She says her husband shouldn't have brought her here. Her husband says that this is obviously a prank and that he'll need her to drive one of the cars home. A pale young woman with wide eyes and red hair appears seemingly out of thin air. She also holds a green flyer. The six of us convene at the center of the shelter.

We stand in the middle of an assortment of picnic tables lined in rows of two. At the end of these rows is a towering stone fire pit with a round chimney that stretches through the rafters above. We take turns comparing flyers and interrogating one another. The two men who arrived in the truck are stoic and distrusting. The dark-haired man is still arguing that none of this is real. The red-haired girl examines the force timidly. The pregnant woman is scolding her husband when her eyes move to the center of the shelter. A shadow scurries within the hollow of the fireplace.

Lanky arms reach out of the darkness. The skin shiny with slime. A man climbs out of the hearth and adjusts the grayish blue mask that covers the top half of his face. It's a flimsy, plastic depiction of Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. Long flopped ears frame his face, and there are streaks of grease on his round nose. He's drenched from head to tone a dark sludge that looks like dirty motor oil. Beneath the mask, the man's eyes are washed. and unblinking. The bottom half of his face is exposed, and he wears an uncomfortable smile.

His bare teeth look abnormally white against his painted face. Once he's flashed his smile, each of us in turn, he rifles through the bright green flyers in his hands. He examines our faces as he passes him out, giving a specific one to each us. When he hands, he has been a specific one to each us, When he hands one to me, I find the key to my car taped to it. He approaches a truck driving man and they both point their guns at his face. One of them demands to know where his truck is. Eeyore purses his lips and stifles a giggle. He drops a flyer at their feet and turns away from him.

One of the men grabs him by the arm, he inking him backward. There's a flash up pink behind the man. A deep crack whips through the air as the man's rifle sends a shot directly upward. Piglet is standing behind him, forcing a pair and needle-nosed pliers into his neck. Piglet is a heavyset man who towers over all of us. There wears nothing but pale blue overalls. He's covered in grease and is expressionless beneath this cheerful pig mask. There's a moment of muddled stillness as blood spews from the man's neck and puddles beneath the collar of his shirt.

He falls silently to his knees and his nose slams into the concrete. The pregnant woman screams. My mind swims and my vision begins to blur. The other arm man brings the sights of his gun to his eye. But before he can fire a shot, he shoved to the ground from behind. Winnie the Pooh is on his back. Pooh's a petite young woman whose oil-covered legs are exposed beneath the bright yellow sundress. She holds one end of a rubber belt.

It looks like he was taken off the engine of a car. The other end has been fastened around the man's neck. Eeyore emits a high-pitched barbaric laugh as Pooh strangles the man. The serrated grooves of the belt tan. into the flesh of the neck. My feet are frozen. My fingertips vibrate with each pounding beat of my heart. The beams of light that shine in from the parking lot crawl over the stone pillars.

The lifted truck backs up and roars out of the parking lot. Followed closely by the small car, the pregnant couple. The choking man becomes still, and Winnie the poo lets the corpse drop with a thud. She removes the belt from his neck and looks at me as she wears it like a necklace. Her radiant smiles outlined by thick lips that are glossy with oil. The shadows of the street-like make her eyes look like empty sockets. I feel like I've been dropped into a remarkably vivid nightmare. Beside me, the red-haired girl breathes shakily.

Eeyore snorts and throws his head back and laughing. He helps Poo to her feet and returns to the fire pit, stepping inside and disappearing into the darkness. His laughter echoes up the chimney, dissipating slowly and finally ending with a satisfied sigh. Pooh skips through the parking lot and down the street. Piglet lumbers through the tall grass and into the forest. Those of us who remain exit to shelter slowly and stand as a group to rubek, directly beneath the lamp at the front of the parking lot. The pregnant woman cries in the arms of her husband,

asking him if he still thinks this is just a prank. The red-haired girl shivers in shock. I noticed a flyer in my hand, stained with viscous oil. The flyer reads as follows. Welcome. Your car is parked in the lot on the other side of the pond, half a mile southeast to this spot.

If you reach your car, you will be allowed to leave unharmed. However, you must abide by the following rules. Rule number one, you must participate. You may not leave without attempting to recover your car. Rule number two, you may not aid one another or contact anyone for help or protection in any way. Rule number three, you may not leave in anyone's car other than your own. Rule number four, you must watch out for gearheads.

The red-haired girl and I look up from the flyer at the same time in her eyes meet. She shoots a glance at the couple huddled together, the man's eyes dancing over the flyer as he comforts his wife. Then she looks over my shoulder and darts towards the entrance of the parking lot. I follow closely behind her. The pond is outlined by a dense forest of towering trees. A gravel road runs along the outskirts of this forest. The red hair girl opts to run along this road, her thick hair bouncing wildly over her shoulders.

She's faster than I am, and after a quarter mile she has a lead of about 300 feet. She's not pacing herself well, though. I can hear a panic breathing even over the cutting wind. To my right, the forest stands dark and enigmatic. I keep glancing over at it, tempted to run into the brush and hide beneath the cover of the trees. But the fear of whatever may be lurking behind each bush keeps me on the road. I hear a soft roar behind me and turn to find a dark mass humming down the road.

I recognize the old line of a jeep with no top. There are bodies hanging onto the frame, arms and legs flailing wildly. I dart to the edge of the forest, but the young girl running in front of me stays on the road. The Jeep doesn't have its lights on, and the girl must not be able to hear the engine over her own breath. I open my mouth to warn her, but my voice comes out as a whisper. I run just inside the outer line of trees, barely hidden from the ground. road. In my mind, I scream at the girl to turn around, sense the presence of the Jeep. But she continues bounding down the road, over halfway to the lot at the other end of the pond. The

Jeep hums past me without slowing down. Its headlights leap into life, blasting the road with light. The girl turns her head, and I can see her eyes wide and above her flushed cheeks. The jeep swears wildly to the left shoulder and curls at the other end of the road as a girl darts towards woods. She reaches the protection of the forest, and the driver slams into the massive tree at full speed. A group of passengers are thrown from the car and the tree topples to the crowned. I climb deeper into the forest and watch as girl does the same. Her breath has become a panicked wheeze, and she lets out a moan with every other step. A loud snap comes from her left, followed by hushed voices.

She stands flat against the trunk of a large tree. I crouch behind a thick bush about 70 feet away. A dark figure approaches the tree, and the girl darts into a moonlight clearing. She is quickly surrounded by oil-covered bodies with balloon-shaped heads. Four men and two women stand calmly in a circle around the girl, wearing burlap sacks over their heads, looking like living scarecrows. They watch blankly as the girl sobs and begs for freedom. Finally, she bones to her right and lets out a terrified scream as she's caught in their arms.

She's forced to the ground, and a shiny trickle of blood crawls over her shoulder as fingernails dig into her skin. The girl's screams are stifled by the dirty foam of an air filter. her being forced over her mouth. As she kicks and shakes in desperation, several of the shadows hold her down, while another produces a bright red gas tank. He slowly pours gas over the air filter, drowning her.

Her gurgled screams bring tears to my eyes. One of the scarecrow removes the air filter from the girl's mouth, and she lets out a bloody gag. vomit trickles out of her mouth and over her thin cheek Just as she gasps for air the filters return to her face The remainder the gas is dumped over it There's a person on each of her limbs pinning her to the forest floor Unlike Eeyore in the shelter the scarecrowes are not laughing

They all watch silently Moving as little as possible to achieve this mundane task If anything, they seem bored. One of them points towards road, and another removes a filter from the girl's face. Once more, she ejects gasoline from her stomach and lungs, coughing, gasping for air. She doesn't bother screaming anymore.

They pull her to her feet, and she appears unable to stand on her own, having inhaled the gasoline. A scarecrow takes hold of either of her elbows and they drag her haphazardly through the forest. I follow from a distance, watching the ground with every gentle step I take, being careful not to make a sound. They arrive back at the Jeep. One of them sitting behind the steering wheel revving the engine. The wrecked vehicle is propped up on the half stump of the tree that was cut down in the crash.

Smoke rises from the wrinkled hood and the steel bumper bar is caved inward, but the engine's still running. The front passenger side wheel is floating in the air. When the man in the driver's seat presses the gas, the massive tire spins like a table saw. The girl is dragged to the passenger side of the vehicle and held its hoar faces inches away from the floating tire. She seems barely conscious. Her limp form propped up by several of the monsters. Her freckled skin dripping with gasoline that shines and the harsh beams of the headlights. The scarecrows in the driver's seat presses the gas pedal to the floor.

And the three grounded tires dig wildly, spraying the road with dirt and gravel. The transmission shifts, and the hum of the engine becomes deeper. The floating wheel turns ferociously. One of the canvas masks looks to another, and the girl's face is pressed firmly onto the spinning trad of the tire. She lets out a piercing scream when I jump backward. Blood, hair, cartilage, and bones spray over the edge of the woods. And in just a few seconds, the girl's head is sanded down so that only half of her skull remains.

The driver lets off the gas and the girl's corpse shoots from the hands of the others. For a moment they examine the body that lies between them, looking at the girl as if she's a toy that's too broken to play with. Then the driver gets out of the Jeep and the scarecrow's head into the forest. Walking in my direction. I turn and run deeper into the forest. occasionally the trees part just enough for me to see the glare at the moonlight off the surface at the pond and I head in that direction.

My eyes have adjusted slightly to the darkness but not completely, and I find myself stumbling over ruts and barely missing thick tree trunks. Finally I decided to take the risk using my phone's flashlight. I can feel sludge-covered fingers swiping at my heels with every stride. The forest vanishes in an instant. instant, him staring at the pond. To my left is the parking lot, and I can see the white lifted truck waiting for rescuers who will never come.

On the other side of the truck sits the hybrid as a pregnant couple. Beyond that, less than half a football field away is my car. As I approach the small lot, I recognize the low hum of an engine, but it's multiplied. A black sedan sits in a small nook of the parking lot, curtained by fir trees. I barely remember the car that was following me what feels like months ago. This endless nightmare too terrifying for the comprehension of time, but here the reminder sits. Idling.

Part of a line of four cars that have all been painted to look identical. There are purple headlights laying on the other end of the clearing, where the pregnant couple is just, to merge from the forest. A couple darts towards her car, and the spray-painted sedan squeal their tires as they speed toward them. Behind me, the scarecrow's surface from the wall of trees and sprint to my direction. I make a run for my car.

The black sedan sends tires smoke into the air as they drift to their right, aiming for the pregnant couple. At the back end of the nearest one narrowly misses, the woman but slamming. into her husband, knocking him off his feet. His wife continues running for their car. My left hand finds a key in my pocket and presses the unlock button. My car lets out two welcoming beeps and the turn signals and flashes yellow through the dark air. I reach the door and open it. The group of scarecrow's just reached the edge of the lot. Just as I duck my head to jump in my car,

I hear the wail of the pregnant woman. She's reached her car, which sits next to mine. But her hands are floundering about her pockets looking for the key. She looks back to the center of the lot, where her husband lies on the pavement within a cloud, a tire smoke. The four sedans come to rest, and a man climbs out of each of them, dressed in all black and wearing a rubbery clown mask.

The woman's husband, He twists himself to his feet, but his knees buckle, and he falls. The clowns surround him and pin him to the pavement. He rolls onto his stomach and locks eyes with his wife, who stands frozen at the door of her car. He wails into the night, imploring her to leave. His heartache reverberating off the surface of the pond. One of the clowns drenches him with gasoline.

His wife looks to the sky, praying for help. The scarecrowes have almost reached the white truck. Behind me, Winnie the Pooh emerges from the forest, skipping through the dormant grass. Following her as Eeyore, wearing a bright smile beneath his melancholy mask. And Piglet, who rests a sledgehammer over his broad naked shoulder, orange light projects over the lot as the woman's husband bursts into flames. He sends visceral screams echoing throughout the treetops. The clowns stand around the flaming man hopping up and down and mocking his agonizing shrieks.

As he crawls towards his wife, he removes something from his pocket and flings it in her direction. A key lands between the two of them, about 20 feet from where I stand with one leg inside my car. Winnie the Pooh reaches my car and stops. her blue eyes pop out of her dark, greasy face. She tilts her hair in wonder, and her wiry hair hangs in a blob. I step out of my car and close the door. She smiles. I bolt her on my car and sprint toward the key.

I can feel every eye on me. The screams of the dying man are drowned out by E.O. or shrieking laughter. I pick up the key. And in my periphery, I can see the scarecrow's chasing me. I reached the parked car and toss the pregnant woman or key. We both get in our cars and start the engines. I lock my door just as my car is surrounded by scarecrows and clowns.

They beat their fists against the windows. Eeyore leaps onto my windshield. His eyes squinting with his deranged cackle. His wiry wingspan stretches across the frame of my small coop, and he spreads grease over the white paint. The pregnant woman screams as a thundering blow shakes her car. She looks through a rearview mirror with horror. She presses down on the gas and the engine revs, but the car doesn't move.

She scrambles to put it in drive and the hybrid slingshots through the grass and toward the road. The wooden handle of a piglet sledgehammer sticks out of her shattered back windshield. E.O. knocks on the glass. in my windshield as if soliciting a welcome. He continues laughing as I throw the car into reverse and press the gas. He rolls off the hood and I can feel my rear tire hop over a body. I shift into drive and follow the pregnant woman's hybrid at the edge of the lot. In my rearview mirror, I see all the sludge-covered bodies stop suddenly.

They all stand and watch me escape. The last flames of their latest victim poor. pouring light over their masked faces. I watch my rearview mirror the whole way home, but never see any purple headlights. I have just enough time to shower and lie in bed for a couple hours before I have to get up for work. I'm too afraid to close my eyes. Every couple of minutes, I lean over to my window, peeking through the blinds to check

to my car is still sitting in the parking lot. I think about calling the police. I convinced myself that none of it happened at all, that my car was never even stolen, that I just drank too much and had a transcendent nightmare. But then I see the grass-stained jeans that lie on my floor with a bright green flyer poking out from one of the pockets. Eventually my alarm goes off, and I rise for work. As soon as I get to the plant, my boss calls me into her office. I tell her that the car was recovered by the police. She listens to my explanation with skepticism in her eyes.

But when I offer the police report, number of tone shifts, she complains that there are a lot of crazy people in that town of mine and urges me to move closer to the suburbs. I can see a scarecrow standing behind her high back leather chair. He's holding an air filter in one hand and a can of gas than the other. I can't hide my smile as I leave her office.

I drive home from work with the windows down, pressing gas a little heavier than usual. The hum of the old car's engine seems deeper than before. I picture everywhere I've gone in this car. Every small apartment have lived in, every shitty job I've held, I glance at the passenger seat. The face of every girl who's ever sat there flickers in my mind. One of the faces repeats itself more than the rest. I have never been so grateful for my bubble.

When I get home, I drift through the lobby with exhaustion on my shoulders. Climb the stairs two at a time. Then my heart drops. A bright green flyer lies neatly over the welcome mat. I pick it up with shaky hands. It reads. You have aided someone in retrieving their car. This is a violation of rule number two.

Not sure what to do next. Don't worry. The gearheads will find you for your bonus episode. Creepy Presents. Has anyone else noticed a new language on their Duolingo app? Did it ruin your life too? written by Jamie Pallizzi and narrated by Megan McDuffie

I never would have guessed how quickly my life and everything in it could fall apart it's too late for me now but maybe by sharing this I can still help someone else it feels like so much time has passed but this only began about a week ago when my language learning app had forced out an update I didn't really think much of it at first

not until the next time I opened it, and it kept glitching. I'd been taking the Italian course for months because my girlfriend, Heather, is fluent, and I was hoping to surprise her with one of those big, romantic gestures, that, if it went the way I hoped, maybe she'd become more than just my girlfriend. Our anniversary was coming up,

and we had reservations somewhere nice, somewhere big romantic gesture nice. I was in the middle of a lesson when the screen suddenly flickered and, froze, then seamlessly switched to a different course for a language I had never seen before. The new lesson asked me to trace letters from some crazy alphabet. Just looking at them too long, gave me a stabbing headache. I figured the update had broken something, so I just closed it out and figured I'd try again later. But every time I opened the app after that, it was the only

course I could see. I tried uninstalling it and restarting my phone, but that only made it work. After that, all my other apps started taking me there, too. Even my freaking banking app. After a day, every time I tried using my phone, it popped up and I couldn't get out of it. I showed Heather, while trying to coyly avoid disclosing why I'd been using the app in the first place, and she suggested a factory reset. Even that didn't help. My phone was basically useless.

I got so frustrated that I figured, fine, I'll do the damn lesson if it means I can use my phone again. I started it, which at that point essentially meant just turning my phone on and trying to do literally anything with it. Staring at the alphabet again, still triggered a headache behind my eyes, and some sort of dark condensation began to form on my phone screen, but I eventually managed to make it through the first lesson. Once I started, though, I couldn't stop tracing the stricely. Strange letters along my phone screen was so captivating. It was addicting.

I did more than just the one lesson, and before I knew it, hours had passed, and I'd completed the entire first part of the course. I was right. My phone did start to work normally again, other than a black liquid that began to form behind the screen during lessons, sometimes seeping out of the charging port. But that didn't matter to me anymore. The course was all I could think about. I wanted to spend every free moment I had on it. I got chewed out at work for missing a major

meeting because I was at my desk, glued to my phone, engrossed. One morning I woke up in a panic when I found things throughout the house were in disarray. Drawers were skew, chairs were toppled over, and there were handprints everywhere. I thought someone had broken in overnight. It was only after I checked the locks and windows that I realized the prints were my own. It must have been me. I just couldn't remember doing it. I didn't make the connection at the time. Or maybe I did. Maybe I was already too far gone to care.

I just kept going through my lessons, avoiding everyone and spending all my free time working on the course, which became increasingly more complex. Then the app informed me that the time had come to practice speaking it. Some small part of me knew even then that those words should never have been spoken out loud. On my first try, my mouth moved awkwardly, almost as if it wasn't meant to form the sounds that the app was requiring me to say. I couldn't get as far as I would have hoped because just attempting it left my throat raw.

The pain, or maybe just the cacophony of the words in my ears as I spoke them, left my head spinning. I eventually had to stop once I found myself coughing a red-pink foam onto my phone screen. As I began to wipe it away, something. else dripped down and mingled with it. A dark liquid from a water stain on the ceiling, a stain I hadn't recalled seeing before. The consistency, the smell was familiar. I hadn't even realized that I'd been screaming, not until my neighbor pounded on my door later that evening and angrily informed me that he could hear me through our shared wall. That night, I dreamt of the stain, and in my nightmares, something other than just that brackish liquid began to emerge from

that next morning when I looked up at it, I wasn't entirely confident that it hadn't expanded overnight. Even the lingering pain and a newly found deep-seated, visceral fear that had been creeping in couldn't stop me from trying to get through the course. The moment I got home from work, I fell into the sofa and found myself opening the app. I craved the feeling of those words slicing into my throat like razor blades. I needed it. I began the lesson, made it a few more words in, almost a full sentence before I had to stop, because I felt as if I was choking on my own blood.

The dark, fetid liquid from the stain above my head had begun to drip down into my hair and open mouth. The last thing I remembered was hearing someone pounding on the front door. The next thing I knew, it was mourning. I was fully clothed, sprawled in the bathtub. My eyes were dry, burning, almost as if I hadn't blinked for hours. I was clutching my phone. What seemed to have snapped me out of it was the battery dying. I was late for work without the alarm to wake me up.

As I hurried to my front door, I could have sworn the stain on the ceiling looked darker, wider. I half expected to see an angry note from my neighbor taped to my front door, but there was nothing there. His house was dark. I hoped that maybe he'd just slept through it. As soon as my phone finally came back to life at my desk, I saw tons of missed calls, several from work, some from Heather, whom I was supposed to meet for our anniversary dinner the night before, the one I'd planned the big romantic gesture for. She informed me that she sat at the table for two hours alone before she gave up.

I'm sorry. don't know what happened last night, I whispered over the phone, still hoarse from the night before, unsure if it was from the words or the screaming I'd done after I'd spoken them. Her tone immediately changed once I'd told her I'd been sick and passed out, but after assuring her I was feeling better, we made plans for later that evening. I asked if she could meet me at my place. I figured that way I wouldn't risk standing her up again. I still had hopes that she'd say Yes, at that point. I still had hope for a lot of things back then. I don't know why what the hell compelled me against my better judgment, but I used the app that

night while I was waiting for her. That time, the pain felt it felt right. My mouth moved as if the words had been known to me for centuries, perhaps longer, long before there had ever been written characters to express them. The world began to spin again, but this time I embraced it. I kept going, breathing the blood, tasting it, feeling it pool in my lungs. And then I was staring into something dark, endless. A stringy, dripping form began to emerge. I didn't remember falling to the ground, so it took me a moment before I realized that I was staring up at the ceiling. My lips were moving on their own. I couldn't control them anymore. All I could do was lay there, eyes wide, watching the thing above my head take shape as it slowly writhed its way out. As it did so, the air in my living room changed, became stale and smelled of old things, ancient things that I had no words for, but that still managed to strike a visceral, primal cord of fear. My lips stopped moving.

Reveulets of blood were dripping down either side of my mouth, soaking into the carpet until it was damp beneath my head. My eyes burning, unable to close, taking it all in. I think I was weeping. Maybe tears, maybe something else entirely. I wondered if that was the end. It pulled its grotesque body the rest of the way out, and then I woke up in my bed.

head. Clean, no blood to be found anywhere. I almost managed to laugh it off, dismiss it as another nightmare, until I walked into the living room, and I saw the smears of crimson that had soaked into the fibers of the carpet. The mildewy black stain was gone from the ceiling, but tarry-looking droplets of blood mixed with something else led to the front door, and then back to my bedroom. And then I saw all the missed calls from Heather the night before, and I remembered that I'd fucked up. She texted me that she was outside my door, and I hit eight missed calls from her. Apparently, I'd picked up on the ninth, but we'd only talked for a few seconds, and I couldn't remember what about. I just hoped that whatever it was, I hadn't made things worse between us, if it was even possible at that point.

I was late to work again, so I tried calling her from the car. No answer. I tried to call her several more times from my office, but it always eventually went to voice. I hoped things were salvageable. I just needed to get in touch with her so I could then explain somehow. When I got home, I gave it another shot. That's when I finally managed to reach her. When I heard her ringtone faintly echo through my house, my breath caught. In my throat, I followed the muffled sound down the dark hallway towards my unlit bedroom until it went to her voicemail. I called again, and I located the source of the sound. It was coming from under my bed. I dropped to my knees, and I could make out a formless shape in the darkness below it. I whispered her name, my heart pounding out of my chest. No response. I tentatively put a shaking arm under her. underneath and my fingertips brushed something. Hair, cold flesh.

There was something else, too, something I didn't recognize until I pulled it out from under the bed and into the light. Broken eyeglasses. Heather didn't wear glasses, but my neighbor did. I've been trying to tell myself it wasn't me. I never could have done this, but I'm not so sure anymore. I called the police after I threw a few things in my car and took off.

I couldn't just leave them there. Not like that. I took a screenshot of one of the lessons that popped up. I hope this will be enough to help you avoid it if you see it. I'm not going to share the pronunciations. If you get this same update, do not start it. Uninstall the app. If that doesn't work.

Burn your phone if you have to. I wish I had. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit creepypod.com. You can also follow us at creepypod on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are done so through Creative Commons Sherrillite licensing, or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the creepy podcast production team and the story's author.