Creepy - The Hitchhiker's Race

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

What's it worth to you?***Written by: Kyle Harrison***Bonus Episode: "I'm A Retired Major Crimes Detective And I've Seen True Evil Three Times In My Career" Written By: 10MinuteHorror and Narrated By: Alicia Atkins***Content Warning: Mass Murder, Children Death, Infant Death, Hate Crime, Abuse Of Pregnant Women, Elderly Death, Reproductive Assault, Mention Of Abduction, Mention Of Rape, Overdose, Ritual Sacrifice***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***Sound Design by Pacific Obadiah***Title music by Alex Aldea***Intro/Outro Narration by Joe Stofko 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.

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Please check out our donation tiers at page. Patreon.com slash creepy pot. Here we go. Back at it. A quick thank you to everyone who showed up in Chicago. Thank you so much for being there and for those who took the time to chat with us after the show. If it weren't for you all, we, well, we just would have been talking to ourselves. And we can and do that at home.

No idea when or if we'll do another live show. So in the meantime, 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. Presents the Hitchhiker's Race.

Written by Kyle Harrison. I was crossing the Mojave Desert going about 65 miles an hour when I saw something made me slam my brakes in shock. Walking right along the edge of the highway, there was a young woman, probably half my age. She was wearing ragged clothes and sandals. The tears on him indicating she'd been out in the desert for quite some time. yet I didn't notice a single tail line on her pale skin nor sweat running down her brow, and she didn't look horribly dehydrated.

Her eyes were focused on the road, filled with determination and purpose. It unsettled me a bit as I realized a scorching heat around us did not seem to bother her at all. I asked her if she needed a ride, even though she was going the opposite direction. I couldn't bring myself to ignore. It'd only get worse if she stayed out here for too long. And if the desert didn't kill her, I'd distract a drive of her would. She asked me my name, and after I told her she climbed into the cab of my truck, thanking me for my kindness. I offered her a drink or just a smoke, but she'd to climb both, claiming she'd not be my passenger for very long.

That statement alone further confounded me. How was it that she intended to make it to any town on foot? We were in the middle of nowhere, with miles and miles and nothing stretching in both directions. Even going 60 miles an hour, I knew it'd take at least 45 minutes to reach civilization. On foot, she'd be dead, I thought. Instead of trying to figure out why she was wandering, I decided to make small talks. We drove toward Vegas, but she didn't engage with me very much. well

now until after I had an unexpected phone call for my second wife we just finished filing for divorce and the whole fallout had left me feel bitter and resentful for ten years of my life that felt wasted this call was like all the others before it she was barking orders and demanded money after I got off the phone I apologized to my passenger sometimes you just wish you could change

things. If you knew then what you know now, you know what I mean. I said with a friendly but nervous chuckle. She'd been paying attention to my phone call more than I expected. Perhaps I only judging me for the problems in my life. There's a way that you can do that, she told me, but it will come at a great cost to you. I entertained her strange conversation and asked what I had to do. She said it was the reason she traveled now across barren highways as a drifter, searching for her own miracle. I know you won't believe me when I tell you this,

but this isn't like other rituals you've heard about. I've seen with my own eyes what this can do to people, she told me. She said it was called the hitchhiker's race, and she'd been chasing after her dream for almost a week now. A week in the desert It sounded impossible How could she survive with no food or water? Before she could answer my eyes focused on a hazy figure in the distance

Another drifter like her I was just about to slow down when she reached over And placed her hand gently but firmly on the steering wheel Keep driving she said No passengers can never cross paths with it or will disturbed the rules of the race. That's crazy, Doc. I've got room in my cabin.

We can't leave them out here to die, I told her. She got angry as we got close to the wanderer and jerked the wheel towards him before I could react. I watched as her body fumbled over the cab of my diesel and over top, breaking their bones and tearing their body apart. Keep driving, she demanded, but I slammed on my brakes, cussing her out as I pushed her off the steering wheel. It looked like she was about to panic as I climbed out of the cab, slowly walking towards

a wanderer that had struck. It would take a miracle from to live through that. To my surprise, I got close. They began to stand up, and I shouted for their attention. When they turned toward me and I got a good look at their face, I instantly had my heart skip a few beats and alarm. Their eyes and mouth were completely sewn shut with cactus needles. and the place where their nose was was revealed a single circular hole that had sharp rows of broken glass poking out.

It began to move towards me as I heard the woman shout for me to get back in the diesel. I ran. The shrieks of the inhuman corpse ringing in my head as I climbed up. The creature grabbed a hold of my leg, his long, gnarly nails ripping into my flesh as it tried to tug me down. Somehow the woman had found my shotgun in my cabin and told me to this. to tilt my head. As soon as I obeyed, she blasted the monster directly in its mouth, sending it flailing down to the desert below. She pulled me in and I slammed the door, gripping my steering wheel and trying to catch my breath. I told you not to stop, she whispered. Before the corpse could

rise and attack again, I shifted gears and drove down the road trying to come to terms with everything that it just happened. The woman stayed silent for a long time until I finally broke the eye. demanding an explanation. She seemed hesitant at first, but I told her I'd stop again if I didn't get answers. When I finish, you have to let me out, no matter where we are, no matter how far we've traveled. You can't stop again, though, until I've told you everything. Are we clear on this? I told her I agreed to those rules since I long haul ahead of me.

And after the experience we just had together, I was eager to hear what she had to say. I will recite it from memory. My name is Faith Drawn. I used to call home a little town right outside of Little Rock, Arkansas, and I found out about to raise her in a support meeting for grieving parents. My daughter Joanna took her life back in February. I tried so hard to get her help, but nothing had worked. I thought maybe time would help heal whatever she was going through,

but in the end it just drove her further away from me. I kept telling myself if I could just have one more chance to make things right To tell her she mattered If I had even a single hour to make up for all those times I hadn't been there Therapy told me I needed to move on But how could I when I didn't give Joanne my all One of the others in the group His name was Marcus

Took me aside and asked if I really meant what I said At first I didn't understand And he elaborated that he gathered a small group of people that were willing to do whatever it took to fix the mistakes of their past, even if it meant dabbling into supernatural sources. Dark magic, forbidden rituals, that sort of thing. I didn't believe it at first. When he talked about how he'd stumbled upon a passenger along the road that claimed they were hitchhiking for a miracle.

But the more Marcus talked, the more convinced I was that this urban legend was real. A chance to be able to make things right with Joanna. That was worth selling my soul to the devil, I told him. He got my number and told me a call when the others were ready. We met in the park at midnight. Marcus told us to only bring bare minimum supplies. We wouldn't need anything else for the road ahead he claimed. From here on out, we're going to be competing against one another.

The race begins when one of us leaves as a hitchhiker, and there were certain rules that must be followed along the route. He explained that we would need to continuously move. move between one vehicle to the next, never staying with a single driver for very long. The rules of the race said that it would be a little longer the further you traveled to test your endurance. Each leg of the race had a special rule. The first time your passenger, he said, you must remain silent. The second time, you had to make sure you had something to eat. I will admit that it sounded outlandish, but we were already all here so we agreed that we would

participate. Then he gave a warning. We must always travel alone as hitchhikers, no matter how dangerous the situation. If we ever were to team up with another person along the journey, the magic would be broken. All of our journey would be for nothing, and then the spirits that guided us that far would turn on us. And we were never to stop traveling, even when on foot. We had to remain wanderers, no matter the danger. And he reassured us, there'd be plenty of danger. Many times her lives would be at risk. We wanted to know what the danger was, but he couldn't be specific.

The race changed every time anyway, he said. It wouldn't be until we'd fulfilled the first few rounds that we would notice a visible change in the places where we were wandering. Things would not appear to be what they should be. The sun would rise in the west, or perhaps the storm rains will go towards the sky instead of the ground. Time will work differently as well once you're a passenger. The days to pass will seem to take longer, and yet you won't be tired or hungry.

You become a ghost of the road, wandering eternally until you reach what you're searching for. Marcus told us that there were four legs of the race. I'm on the last. I'm almost at Joanna, and I can't have you mucking it up. She paused in her story as I noticed that the roads seemed to grow darker, despite the fact that it was only a quarter past three. I suspect she knew that something paranormal was occurring, but she went on by remarking, My journey is almost at an end.

I can see it now. You have to let me out. I looked toward the dark and blank wasteland around us. There was nothing nearby. Then I saw something off in the distance, a figure waiting, right at the edge where the light met the dark. She insists that I needed a letter out there, and I obliged. her. Everything she claimed had a ring of truth to it, although I didn't fully understand it at all. I wanted her to have success. She bid me goodbye and commented on the sparkling my eye.

You will go on your own journey very soon, I think, she said. Then I watched as she wandered off the road toward the figure. The air felt cold as they joined fingers and disappeared into the fading light of the desert, and I was alone again to ponder her words. She hadn't told me what she lost to make it this far, but her face as she left my truck told me that she'd been happy. Surely it was worth it. That thought plagued me for the next month as I finished saying my goodbyes to the life I led with my second wife. There was so much I wanted to fix between us, but it all felt pointless at this stage. If I could go back to the beginning, then I might have a chance.

This was what led me to find another online form for the Havisorne. hitchhiker's race. I found others like me. They didn't offer their names, but shared their own misery and woes and offered that payment for starting our journey. Then we agreed to meet at a flying jay just outside where I dropped off faith. There were two men who I called king and rook, and two women who I called queen and knight. I considered myself the pawn and the equation, and I asked if they brought everything they

wanted for the journey. Remember, once we part ways here, we ask. to be enemies, I said, reciting what faith had told me. I had no idea what to expect next, except what the form had told me. The rules were similar to what she'd explained. The first leg of the race, I had to be silent. On the second, I had asked for a drink. On the third leg of the race, I needed to fall asleep. And on the fourth, I had to pay for my freedom. I wasn't entirely sure what that meant, so I brought with me about $5,000 in cash. Felt excessive, but if a miracle was worth something,

I figured it was a small price to pay to get my life back on track. We all shook hands, and then we drew straws to decide who'd be the first hitchhiker. Knight was first, although, to be honest, I figured that would be the case, and she was the most attractive. So many truck drivers can't turn down a pretty face. I thought with a smile as I started to climb into a cab, and she was gone. I hope she'd do well on her journey and told Rook you should go next. The sun was beginning to set after he left and we were grown a little anxious.

The rules said you had to start your journey before dawn at the new day. King thought that meant midnight since that's when the hours changed, but I wasn't sure. If the sun dipped down, darkness fell. Could it be that the magic would be broken? I went inside to take piss, wondering if I should just leave him behind and find my own ride. If we were supposed to be enemies, what was the point of this decency now, I wondered. As I finished my business in the bathroom, I felt guilt for even considering it. These people wanted this just as badly as I did, and I shouldn't put these ideas out there that they'll hurt me, or so I thought.

Then when I got back to the spot where we gathered, I realized that the others had already left and I was alone, and the sun was nearly about to set. Infuriated, even thinking they'd followed the plan, I grabbed my things, and I realized. and picked a truck at random. I wasn't interested in anything anymore except getting to where I needed to go. The truck was unlocked. Something that a lot of truckers do in this area because it's safe, so I was able

to climb in and hide at the back of the cab and wait. Yes. I chose to be a stowaway mostly because of lack of time. The ritual needed to begin, and I was tired of waiting for the right person to offer me to ride. The woman that owned the truck came back only a few moments later and we were on the road without her even noticing. me. According to the rules, I had to remain her passenger without talking for exactly two hours,

and I had to make sure she didn't talk to me. I had a service pistol that my dad kept, tucked in my back pocket in case things became dicey. But for the most part, I kept quiet and hoped she wouldn't notice my hiding spot. Unfortunately for me, the hope of staying there unseen ended only half an hour later when I realized we were slowing down, and I panicked. Myes followed her line of vision down the road and I saw it in my astonishment, one of the other hitchhikers on the side of the road trying to flake a ride. That shouldn't have happened so quickly, and I couldn't afford my own journey to end here so rapidly. So I made myself known to the woman, startling her as I pulled the weapon

from my pants and pointing it at her. She immediately started to slam on the brakes, but instead I gestured for her to keep driving. I saw the other Wander's eyes flashed hatred towards me as we sped by and relaxed only slightly as I climbed into the passenger seat, keeping the weapon aimed at my driver. Now my problems had multiplied within a few minutes thanks the stupidity of another participant, and I wasn't sure how to handle it. The driver was freaking out, yelling at me and threatening to run off the road. I couldn't afford any of that to happen. However, I knew the ritual did specify there were contingencies if the journey was interrupted. My brain was flaring on all cylinders, to recall the rules.

Do whatever you can to continue your journey, it said. Then the driver tried to lunge at me, and I shot her. The next few moments were utter chaos. She fell towards the steering wheel and lost control over Big Rick, the massive truck pushing towards the side of the road as blood spilled out of her neck. She was screaming and crying, begging me to help her. And all I could think about was trying to get out of there.

I reached for the passenger door. The air hit in the back of my neck going 70 miles as I dropped the weapon in her cabin jump. I hit the ground hard, watching as a truck roll to a dead stop a few hundred feet in front of me. Coughing up a bit of sand, I slowly rose to my feet and realized that I had another choice to make. Either help this woman or continue on the race. I heard her screaming for my help as I walked away. Over the next hour I was alone on the road, walking the opposite direction. The form had never specified what exactly started the ritual, but I think I understood how.

A sacrifice of blood had to be spilled. The rule said you had to give up everything, and when I hurt that stranger, I knew I'd sold my soul by leaving her behind. I told myself it'd be worth it. And as the hour passed on, another truck came slowly rolling by. The man offered me a ride, and I accepted it. Do you have any water? I asked. My throat was actually not parched, but I suspected that this had to be the second leg. The man gave me a cold soda and whistled, a maze that had survived so long in the desert.

He kept asking me where I was headed or why I was out there. And much like Faith, I didn't really want to involve him. then the race decided it for me the landscape started to change about 15 minutes down the road and he was slowing down admitting that he wasn't sure to recognize this part of the highway he was going in directions that seemed impossible and I urged him to keep driving explaining the strange journey I was on

I have to win I told him as I stressed about my marriage and told him what it meant to me The road became rocky and chaotic for a time as we drove, darker than night and then brighter than the mid-based sun. And he believed me and told me he'd take me wherever I needed to go. What you're offering sounds like it's a miracle. I could use one of those, the man said as I told him to let me off on the side of the road. The strange road we traveled was more than enough a sign that he was convinced he wanted to take

own journey soon enough he wanted to thank me and asked my name i didn't feel like offering it then he told me his and it gave me pause marcus as he drove away my mind replayed the story that faith had told me but that happened years ago and the man that had helped her had long gone on his own journey already. Had any? Time works differently here, she'd said, and I kept walking, unnerved by the encounter. I had no idea what to make of it. Why was the race having me go along the same path that she'd walked? What was the ritual trying to show me?

About an hour later, when my feet felt like they were going to fall off, I came to a dead end. It shouldn't have been possible. And yet there in the middle of the desert, the highway simply abruptly ended. I wasn't sure to what the make of it. It was about to turn around when I saw a shakeier in the desert walking towards me. It was rook. I held my breath, recalling the rule that passengers weren't supposed to meet one another and considered walking away before he got too close.

As he got closer, I realized that the man I had met only days ago at aged years. wander in the desert lost. His eyes were gone, covered in sores, and he was screaming for someone, anyone to kill him. I stood there in shock, trying to understand how this could have happened as he grabbed a hold of me and babbled on about the race. It's a lie, he proclaimed. It's all a goddamn lie. They're feeding off our sorrow, making our nightmares a reality. We're creating our own suffering, he shouted. I pushed him away.

stunned by his ramblings and told him to leave me alone. I was almost on the third leg. He recognized my voice and started to softly wail. Then he attacked me and we followed the concrete. We tumbled around for a moment and he was continuously blaming me for what had happened and how this has all gotten started. Grabbing and slashing in my throat. I had little choice but to attack and slammed his head against the highway.

As I heard his skull crack, I felt another part of my soul die inside and listened as his whales grew fainter and fainter. He bled out on the dead end and I left him there, wandering back the way I'd come. I was determined not to listen to what he was saying about the race. Night began to fall as I walked. Two small glowing warbs of light revealed a new ride and they were kind enough to pick me up. I told him that I appreciate it and asked if it be alright if I slept. It wasn't easy, given all the stress that had happened so far along this strange path.

But I had to sleep or risk losing it all. The driver said that I'd be fine and I closed my eyes, trying to forget all about the things that had happened so far. I don't really know how long I slept, but when I woke up there was a knife to my throat. The driver was there, holding the weapon close enough to make a nick against my skin, and warning me that he could kill me if you wanted to. He claimed he knew exactly what I was doing there

and said that he'd arrived at the place where I needed to go. That was when I looked out towards the desert. The endless sand was as red as blood, and there was no moon on the horizon. The black night seemed to reflect instead, wandering souls. The driver told me that all the souls that were lost out here were my fault. The hitchhiker's race had been built on a lie. Then he showed me a picture of the woman, the woman I'd shot by accident.

It felt like ages ago. He told me her name was Joanna, and I immediately realized the connection to faith. When they found her body, there was no explanation for how she shot herself. Some said it was a ghost that had come across her in the desert. Others told stories of faceless beings in the desert attacking drivers or sending them off in the desert to never be seen again. The lies that were created were all because of what was born here in this dark prison. It's feeding on those lies to be alive, the driver told me. Then he demanded that I get out, and I felt my heart drop as I begged him to tell me who he was.

From where I am now, the driver said he came from a future that was written in sorrow. But there is one last chance to end this, to fix what had happened and make things right. Then he tossed the knife into the sand and drove away. I picked it up and looked towards the angry souls that were there in the blood that was apparently on my hands. I begged them to understand. All I wanted was the second chance at life. Then I recognized some of those faces there. Faith, her daughter, Marcus.

The four strangers that I'd roped together to join me. All of them were trapped. there, tied down to the desert by chains that prevented them from ascending to heaven. Beyond the sea of lingering souls, there was a pit. It reminded me of the dead end, a long, dark hole that seemed to stretch into the earth. A shadowy figure stood there, his face and mirror my own. He congratulated me for I've made it this far and explained that he wore my face as a trophy. You gave me strength. the power to influence others to draw them here so I could feed on them.

I asked him, was this the end of the race? He claimed that there was never meant to be an end. The only reason those miracles were told was because the idea of it would infect the pure and make them give anything to come into his parlor. His features reminded me now of a spider with tendrils branching out of his body. I will feast on their souls from a letting. and your turmoil will help me grow. I looked down at the knife that the final driver had given me.

He spoke about another choice. Another path I could go on. And I decided right then and there, even though I wasn't sure where that path might lead, it would be better than feeding this hell. I stuck the knife right into my chest, killing the desire of the endless beast. If I'm gone from this race, others can be spared.

My torment will not feed your insatiable hunger anymore, I told him in defiance as I plunge my body into the hole. There was darkness for a long time after that. I think I knew that I died. When I came back, I saw the face of my second wife. I was in a hospital. They said I've been found on the side of the road very close to a flying jay. What had you been doing all the way out there? She asked me.

I couldn't describe the pain and nightmareed experience, but I told her that I wanted to fix things between us. We'll see, she said. Time heals all things. I thought about that driver that had helped me and wondered if that was a future where I had made a new family. Had he been my son trying to bring me back from the brink? A future I could run.

Right now, there wouldn't require a miracle. I left my experience with the race for others to hear, to warn them to steer clear. But sometimes I see the shimmering figures across the highway, and I know others hear the sirens call. A promise of something too good to be true. I am so glad I didn't finish the race. For your bonus episode. Creepy Presents. I'm a retired major crimes detective, and I've seen true evil three times in my career.

Written by ten-minute horror and narrated by Alicia Atkins. All three were in the last decade of my career. I spent 12 years walking the beat before I had the opportunity to step in and assist a detective in a CSI on a double homicide. Through my numerous connections from years on the streets, we managed to get several leaves that led to the arrests of the guilty. I moved out of patrol and spent a decade investigating sex crimes, arsons, and armed robberies. I took advanced training seminars and workshops, studying past cases and offender modalities.

I worked with the drug squads on serious assaults, and the occasional murder before finding myself stepping in for a retiring detective. I was familiar with his partner, Connolly, and then we became a good team. I bring this all up to emphasize that I've seen some horrific shit in my 33 years on the force. Images I'll never shake. People who still haunt my dreams. I can honestly say that most of the criminals I've put away haven't been evil. They've all been motivated by something, however benign.

to commit their acts. Then there are some that are on the fence, the ones that take violent crimes further than would typically be the case. And then there are those that dream up horrific atrocities to be inflicted on the world around them, because... why not? Patty Wilson fills somewhere beyond the shades of your typical serial killer. She was the first person I encountered on the job

who I could reliably say had true evil in her. Patty was an RN that had moved into an OBGYN and birthing clinic in one of the city's lower-class neighborhoods. This particular clinic had a terrible miscarriage and still birth rate, but the numbers were fudged and kept hidden. Eventually, people in a neighborhood started talking, and word got out of how many deaths there were. Our station was contacted, and normally that type of thing would land on another desk. but we were short-staffed, so Connolly and I were brought in. Our investigation led us to Patty, and we found that in her 23 years at the clinic,

there had been over 2,000 miscarriages. She'd been giving a chemical cocktail to the expectant mothers, claiming it would help them sleep. Instead, it gradually killed the fetus as it grew. We'd also discovered that after several dozen healthy births, Patty would take the baby away to be cleaned up, but would return with the horrible news that the baby had died shortly after being delivered. Our investigations into that didn't lead anywhere concrete, but one of the threads we were pulling on led us to believe that Patty had been lying to the mothers, telling them that their baby had died, when in fact the baby was healthy, but was shipped off to the highest bidder.

A live baby on the black market could fetch a tidy sum, whether for organ harvesting, stem cells, or something more deviant and horrific. We believed it was racially motivated, as almost all the miscarriages and stillbirths occurred exclusively with black parents. But Patty denied it all. I remember watching Patty in our first interview with her. Her face was normal and moved expressively as she spoke and answered our questions. But her eyes didn't. They were empty, black holes, and the longer you stared into them, the more uncomfortable you became.

Even after the trial, which had her served with multiple life sentences, Patty denied any wrongdoing. The next case where I witnessed true evil, it fractured into an investigation involving multiple events. Connolly and I were called in to investigate an attack on a beach volleyball tournament. On the city's largest beach, there was a national tournament with over 300 teams playing on 50 courts over the course of the weekend. The ages were from 12 to 65, and were both men and women. During morning warm-ups before the first game on the first day, one scream turned into two screams, turned into a hundred screams. Over one-third of the players needed immediate medical attention. Their feet, ankles, knees, thighs, hips, stomachs,

and in some cases up to their shoulders and faces were covered in deep gushing cuts. Someone had gone to the beach the night before the tournament and brought hundreds of small flat pieces of wood with razor blades sticking up from the centers in an upside-down capital T shape. The woods were dug into the sand, with the blade sharpened pointed upward.

and hidden just under the surface so no one could see them. It must have taken hours to set up. There were no deaths, but the damage that was caused resulted in hundreds of injuries, and several dozen athletic young adults would slice Achilles' tendons and a dwindling future in sports. As with every investigation, we started off at the crime scene

and worked our way outwards in tight, concentric circles. While the CSIs were combing the beach, Connolly and I were interviewing the people who ran the tournament, looking for any enemies or people who might want to target them in this tournament in particular, but those led nowhere. Sadly, the CSIs fared no better. The entire crime scene was awash. There were so many footprints and shoe and sandal prints in the sand it was impossible to search for tracks. and the actual razor blades and pieces of wood had been doused in bleach before being placed in their small dugouts.

There were no security cameras on the beach, and the lone one that was in the parking lot didn't capture any cars between the hours of midnight and 7 a.m. Our phones were ringing off the hook with tips, but there were no real leads. After a month, we were nowhere in the investigation. Then a new investigation came in, and our hamstrung. strong department got even tighter. Connolly and I took it on as well. At a senior's home along the city's waterfront, a fire had started in the basement. Because of the accelerants used, it quickly overtook the first two floors. From there, the rest of the eight-story building went up. 22 residents and nine staff died in the fire, all from smoke inhalation. We scoured the undamaged

security footage, but again, found no suspects around the parking lots or front entrances. The footage from the rear of the building was destroyed, so we couldn't check it. Then, a third investigation dropped onto our desk. This time, there was a mass poisoning in a junior high school cafeteria. There were 23 deaths, 15 of which were students, and over 100 severe injuries. Our investigation showed that someone had stealthily broken into the school overnight and poisoned every piece of food in the cafeteria stockroom, fridge, and freezer with arsenic. It was a miracle more people didn't die.

All the school's exterior cameras were working, and after scouring them for clues, we finally found one at the back doors. The footage captured someone dressed in all black, with a hood and ski mask over his face. He'd used a small set of lock-picking tools to enter the back door, which led to the kitchen. He used the same door to exit, and ran off across the soccer field towards the water. And everything made sense. The beach volleyball courts, the senior home, and now this junior high, they all backed out onto the water. The school itself had taken advantage of that fact by introducing

the students to rowing, kayaking, sailing, swimming, and other sports and activities on the open sea. And the senior's home was practically marketed based on its incredible view of the water. We hypothesized the three mass crimes were committed by the same individual. We marked all three locations on a map and scanned down the coast for all the marinas and harbors. Then we went back through all the routes and picked out various waterfront hotspots we knew would have footage of their exteriors. Using the dates of the three incidents, we cross-checked the footage to try and find any repeat boats on the nights in question. We watched a lot of footage. There was only one boat that stood out, a large, older black speed boat being driven by a lone individual we couldn't make out details of.

A red light glowed from inside the cabin. Connolly and I got pictures of the boat printed and went back to check the marinas and harrow. harbors. None of the docks we went to had seen that particular boat, or had any records of it, which made us think it was docking at a private residence. I spoke to one of my friends in narcotics named Waco, and he brought up the drugboats that had been populating the cove near the last dock we visited. It turned out that many drug users in our city had been moving away from alleyways, and SROs and onto small dingies and drugboats, turning them into floating pill houses.

The boats were harder for cops to break up or investigate, and you could float in the cove or out in the nearby channel for up to six months before having to vacate. Of course, the six-month rule was never enforced, so the cove kept getting busier with more and more drugboats. Waco offered to help. He went in one night and made his way around the 30 or so boats, which were loosely tied together. Waco found our black boat. He learned the

owner was a guy people called Red. He was a dealer, and let people use and pass out on board his boat afterwards. The next night, Waco went back, and we followed from a distance with the Coast Guard. We had Waco wired so we could hear everything on board. His plan was to get on with a few others to buy, and use some heroin, then pass out. He would fake the shooting-up part and pretend to fall asleep. Connolly and I listened in, hearing the details of the casual conversations going on from the other users as they bought and started prep.

Soon enough, all the voices went quiet, including Waco's. A rough, agitated voice called out, asking if anyone was awake. There was no response. The voice, belonging to Red, laughed and said, Good. We heard some shuffling, then the engine on the boat revved into gear. The boat peeled out, leaving the cove behind.

Waco had a GPS tracker in a shoe, so Connolly and I watched the boat on a monitor as it headed out to sea. We followed from a distance. The Coast Guard's lights all turned off and went completely stealth. Connolly and I continued listening in. After several minutes, the engine died down. There were sounds of chains rustling, then clanking together. Waco's voice came over the mic in a hushed and frantic whisper.

He's chaining us together. There's an anvil on one end. Our captain flipped the lights and sirens on, and the boat gunned it towards the blip on our radar. Over the mic, we heard Red notice the sirens. He started to panic, and from what Waco told us, was about to toss the anvil over the side, but Waco was up and ready to fight. He surprised Red from behind and got him in a chokehold.

When we arrived, Red was unconscious on the floor of the boat, and Waco was sitting on his back. There were five users laying on the floor. They were all dead. Red had given them all spiked batches, and they died minutes before. When we got back to land, interrogating Red was useless and terrifying. Useless because he said nothing. And terrifying because of how, he said nothing. He'd bitten off his tongue moments before we got him in the room.

He was in a hospital for the next day and a half before we set him down with a pencil and paper. We didn't really need Red to talk, though. There was more than enough evidence to put him away for the deaths of the five users on the boat. and then drivers found more bodies along the same stretch Red boated on. Altogether, it appeared Red was responsible for the deaths of over 50 people, and that didn't include the beach volleyball tournament, the senior's home, or the junior high school. The thing I remembered most about my brief time sitting across from Red during the interviews were his eyes. Just like Patty.

I watched his face move and twitch and wrinkle, but his eyes were always the same empty black, holding my gaze. We never got a reason or a motive for any of it. We found out he'd been in and out of foster homes up until a 16th birthday. Coincidentally enough, there was a house fire which killed both his foster parents and two other kids living there.

After that, Reddard. disappeared for a few years, then got NAD for an assault in a movie theater, and spent his 20s in and out of prison. Who knew how much destruction Redd had caused over the course of his life? My third experience with true evil was just as Connolly was nearing his retirement. Poetically enough, it was our last case together. We had been investigating the individual abductions of six Caucasian women between 18 and 22. It was a little old for grooming gangs, and we rolled out human trafficking.

We'd done a ton of legwork and repeat interviews with friends and family. No one went back on previous statements. Everyone was solid. We didn't have a single person of interest. We did have one connection between the girls. They all traveled in similar underground heavy metal and punk rock surrogens.

They also appeared to have a similar fascination with Satanism. Conley and I went back over the details of each disappearance, and found they all coincided with a certain opening band that occasionally played at a weekly death metal show. They were called Helvetta, and were a Norwegian black metal band. They were known for covering themselves in what looked like blood and performing in mask. Each mask was different, but for the first of them. followed the typical design of a face with eyes, nose, and mouth. But the texture looked like dried skin. Dark wicker twig stuck out at the back of the head, resembling a porcupine.

The more we read of them, the more they became our suspects. Connolly and I got an address and decided to go introduce ourselves. The place was on the outskirts of town, surrounded by a large plot of land and forests. We parked up the driveway, and I'll admit, to walk up to the house, I was feeling nervous. It was dusk, and the sky was a darkening gradient of orange to dark blue. The residence itself was a large old farmhouse. Death metal blared from somewhere inside, thudding out through the shuttered windows. There was a large black van parked out back,

and two sedans in the front. A scream erupted from the house, louder than the death metal rock. I pulled my 9mm, and Connolly pulled his 38. We called for backup and went in through the front door, which was unlocked. The interior had a staircase to the right that led upstairs,

in a hallway to the left that led to a living room, dining room, and kitchen. More screams erupted along with the pounding music. We could tell the same. screams were coming from below us, and we found a door leading to a staircase of the basement. The screams and music got louder, and were joined by chanting. Connolly led, trigger-fingered, creeping his way down the stairs. As he got to the bottom, Connolly swung out to clear the room, but someone was there. A tall mountain of a man in a dark mechanic's suit, wearing one of the group's

eerie mask, swung down at Connolly. Connolly saw it coming, firing his 38 into the guy. My right ear blew out, and my left was filled with ringing, chanting, and screaming. As I got my head back on, I saw that the man had swung down to Connolly with a hatchet, and it lodged in Connolly's neck. He fell back, but continued firing into the far end of the basement. I let my nine-millimeter lead me around the corner. There were old bed sheets hanging from the ceiling, obscuring my vision of the basement. The heavy metal kept pumping, and the chanting grew, but the screaming had stopped. I wanted to check Connolly, but I needed to clear the room. I stepped over the body Connolly had shot and followed the chanting. It led me through the sheets and

into a large opening. Dozens of red candles were lit. There was a circle drawn on the floor, and inside it was an invented pentagram, painted in what looked like blood. In the far corner, the ground was dirt, and I could see several graves protruding from the earth. At the center of the pinagram,

a young woman wearing barely rags was chained to pegs in the ground, and had just given birth. On each point of the pentagram around her Were what appeared to be the remains of five Recently delivered and now dead babies Nealing in front of the exhausted and crying woman Was another band member Dressed similar to the previous Hulk

But smaller and with a slightly different mask He held the newest Just delivered baby in his hands as it cried There were two other figures in the room one over each of the kneeling guy's shoulders. The one to the right was holding a large, traditional, two-handed sledgehammer. The handle was thick wood, and the mallet was solid iron, lined with carvings and covered in blood and innards. The guy on the left was holding an open book, and had been guiding the others in the chanting.

We all stared at each other in some strange, horrific standoff. The guy with the sledgehammer, pulled first, lifting it to swing at me. I leveled up on him and walked two rounds in his chest before turning to the other two. The guy with the book threw it at me and lunged. I managed to get two more rounds off into him, but his momentum carried him through me, and we hit the floor heavily. My head cracked the ground hard, and I saw the familiar stars rushing the edges of my vision. Everything sounded like it was underwater, but was moving really fast. I managed to turn my head and saw the one remaining band member, the one holding the baby.

He placed it on the ground at the center of the pentagram. He grabbed the sledgehammer from his dead friend and lifted to slam down on the remaining baby. I didn't even realize it, but I still had my 9mm in my hand. Reflexively, I pulled the trigger repeatedly until it clicked empty. The final shot connected with the guy's. head as he was about to swing down. He toppled back, and the sledgehammer fell safely to the side. I don't remember much else after that. I woke up in the hospital and was informed calmly had died, as had all the band members. The baby and the young woman had survived, though. So,

there was that. The investigation was taken over by two other detectives and revealed that the band had been taking women from shows, bringing them back to the farmhouse, and trying to impregnate them. Once they had gotten six pregnant, they planned a mass ritual sacrifice to be conducted after the final birth, as an offering to the devil in some Faustian bargain. The other woman had been killed after their deliveries, and were buried in the far end of the basement. I never saw any of the band members' eyes when they were alive because of the mask. though I'm sure if I did, they'd carry the same darkness as patties and reds. I said I'd seen true evil three times in my career, and that's true.

But that last time, there was more to what happened than what I put in my reports. It's the reason I retired immediately after the case. It's the thing that made me realize there was an evil I couldn't even begin to comprehend. I had seen it right when I got into the brief. basement and leveled off my nine millimeter at the three men. There was something else down there with us. It was floating in the middle of the circle, kind of like black smoke, but it stayed in place, wafting together before separating and reconnecting. Bolts of red electricity shot through it. The smoke got larger as the chanting grew. It pulsed and expanded. It pulsed and expanded.

and reached out, forming into the shape of a body. What gives me nightmares now is thinking about if that last baby had been killed and the smoke finished solidifying. I'm terrified that whatever it would have manifested into would have shown me another realm of evil. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration,

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