Creepy - The House Past Mile Marker One One Seven & Pine Street Market

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

The House Past Mile Marker One One Seven***Narrated by Heather Thomas***Licensed under CC-by-NC***Pine Street Market***Written by: Liz Adair and Narrated by: Alicia Atkins***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.

No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastures 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 House Past Mile Marker 117.

Narrated by Heather Thomas. There was no town past Mile Marker 117. The maps didn't show anything. No neighborhoods, no gas stations, not even a fast food franchise. Just the thick, uninterrupted sprawl of pine trees and weather-beaten hills. And yet, the road, an old cracked state route that had once connected farm towns decades ago,

kept going. A narrow strip of broken pavement vanished into the forest, overlooked by GPS, and mostly forgotten by locals. But if you kept driving, ignoring the detour signs and the barrier marked, closed, no maintenance, you'd eventually find it. The house. There were stories, passed quietly between students in locker rooms and told in drunken whispers at parties. The cousin's friend went there and never came back.

A deputy once followed tire tracks that vanished into the trees. No car, no driver, no evidence. Just a heavy silence in the air and a scent of damp rot. Most locals said it was just a myth. Something old folks made up to keep kids out of the woods. But everyone in town knew someone who knew someone, and everyone knew one rule. Don't go past Mile Marker, 117. Jamie Morris wasn't superstitious.

At 29, he'd seen enough of the world to know most urban legends were the result of boredom and exaggeration. He was a park ranger for Alder Grove County, and for the better part of six years, he'd driven the back roads, hiked the trails, and dealt with more missing person reports than he cared to remember. Some of them turned up just fine. Some didn't. More than Jamie would care to think about. He figured that he'd covered as much, if not more, area than any other ranger on patrol. And still, there was a lot he hadn't seen.

When the dispatcher mentioned an abandoned SUV found past Mile Marker 117, he sighed. another stupid dare, probably teenagers with a flat tire who bailed when they got scared. Still, he logged the call and drove out. The SUV was there, just as reported. Jamie put his hand on the hood. The engine was cold. Driver's door open, no keys.

There were tracks in the mud, but the gate looked strange, uneven, unconfident. the steps of a baby learning to walk or a drunkard trying to remember how. The forest pressed close around the clearing, and something about the silence felt wrong. No birdsong. No wind. Jamie followed the tracks without much undue concern. Rifle slung over his shoulder, boots sinking into damp earth.

He found the house 12 minutes later. It didn't make sense. Jamie stood there looking at the same. the house, but it didn't make sense. He was sure he'd patrolled the area before, and there wasn't ever a house there before. Then he started to think about the rumors and gossip. The house was larger than the stories he'd heard, not in an old crumbling, haunted way, just misplaced. Two stories, dark wood siding, front porch sagging slightly. Curtains in the windows, no driveway, no mailbox. No sign it belonged here.

He tried to remember the last time he was in this particular area. Could it have been long enough to build a house out here? And who would do something like that anyway? Before he could call in his find, his radio crackled, then died. Without many other options, he stepped on to the porch and knocked. No answer. No sound. The door opened smoothly with hardly any effort.

Hinge is quiet, not rusty. Inside, the air was cold and dry. He called out, announced himself. Still, no response. The floorboards didn't creak as he moved inside. Dust hung in the air, but didn't settle. Perpetual snow globe. The furniture looked, lived in,

a sofa with a couple of worn-in cushion, a dinner table with the chair pulled back, a book open on the table. There was something else, something he didn't notice immediately until it hit him. There were no photographs anywhere. It made the room feel staged, like walking through a poorly maintained IKEA. There were no signs of life, no sound, not even the hum of electricity. He moved room by room sweeping with the flashlight. The kitchen was clean, cleaner than he would have thought.

The cabinets were filled with canned food. The sink was dry and spotless. There wasn't even any dust in stark contrast to the living room. The one sign of life sat on the counter, a single glass with a red lipstick mark on the rim. He didn't like how familiar the kitchen felt. Upstairs, the hallway stretched deep, like it was a shotgun-style house instead of the two-story he knew he was in.

Jamie walked slowly, breathing through his nose. The doors were closed, six of them, all just on one side of the hall. The opposite wall was blank. It was more than the outside of the house should have allowed. Behind the third door, he found a bedroom. His bedroom. Not one similar to his bedroom, no, it was his bedroom. The same comforter lay balled up at the end of the bed. There was the same scuffed nightstand, the same framed poster from a concert he barely remembered. Even the clutter was right. Old receipts, a cracked lamp from stumbling to bed drunk one night. An unopened envelope from his landlord. Within ten seconds, Jamie stepped back and closed the door. The next room wasn't a bedroom.

It was a hospital room. He swept his eyes across the room. Dim, sterile, quiet. A bed with railings. An IV stand. On the pillow lay a worn, stuffed rabbit, missing one eye. He hadn't seen it in over 20 years. His mother had thrown it out,

after the accident. He didn't open the rest of the doors. Jamie went back to the stairs, his mind on leaving, going back to his SUV and never returning. Only, the stairs didn't lead to the living room anymore. They curved left into a hallway he didn't remember seeing when he first walked in the house. The wallpaper was different, darker. The air smelled, wrong. He turned, but the stairs behind him were gone. Just a blank wall. No windows. The flashlight flickered for a moment, and he felt his heart rate speed up. He was upstairs again somehow, looking at the row of doors. Without any other options, he started to check each door, hoping to see some way out. Room after room followed, each one built from fragments of memory. The locker room from high school, lit too brightly,

his childhood bedroom, but the mirror reflected nothing. A hallway from the nursing home where his grandmother died, every door slightly ajar, shadows behind each one, shifting without light. In the fifth room, he saw himself, not his reflection in a mirror. He was looking at an exact copy of himself, just standing there. His back was turned, but the stance was unmistakable. Same jacket, same boots, same scuffed radio clipped to the shoulder. He reached out instinctively, but the figure turned, and Jamie stepped back. The face was wrong.

It had his eyes, but they were blank, colorless. The smile was too wide. Lips parted just enough to show teeth, rotten, broken, vicious. Blood poured from its mouth. The thing didn't move, didn't blink. Jamie turned and ran. There were no exits. The house folded in on itself.

Every turn brought him back to the same hallway or something like it. The layout kept shifting, walls stretching, ceilings lowering. Lights appeared where there were none. Doors opened on their own. He broke a window in a fit of desperation. But the moment the glass broke, it was replaced by brick. He tried smashing through the dry wall with the butt of his flashlight. He dug his fingers into a crack and watched as it peeled back like dead skin,

revealing a cold black surface underneath that didn't budge. The air grew heavy. He felt it, watching. Not from one direction, but everywhere. From the corners of the room, from behind doors that never opened, from mirrors that showed hallways he hadn't yet walked down. Something wanted to keep him. and it held on tightly.

He stopped using his name after the third day. Time had lost meaning, but he still marked it by hunger, sleep, the ache in his legs. The faucets never let out more than a drop at a time. He would hold his head under the kitchen's sink for hours just to get a mouthful of water. The house never fed him,

but it let him rest. Sometimes. When he woke, he'd be somewhere new, and for just that moment when he would wake up, he'd think he was free, that it had all been a nightmare. He'd find himself in a familiar parking lot, the lobby of the ranger station,

a bedroom from an old apartment. But all were twisted slightly, stretched just enough to feel wrong, and there was always a door there, freestanding, both calling him back to the house and laughing at his excitement. At the same time, he started to see himself again, dozens of times, always still, always silent. Sometimes in a chair, sometimes standing at the end of a hallway.

They never moved, until he looked away. He caught one in mid-step once In the reflection of a microwave door Its eyes were black that time On the sixth day he found the front door again It was waiting at the end of a long, narrow hallway Light poured through the window beside it Warm, real daylight

He ran as fast as his dying muscles would allow Voot slamming against wood No traps, no shifting walls He threw it open and stepped outside. The forest greeted him. Sunlight through the pines. Birds, wind. He ran until he saw his SUV parked in the same spot.

He didn't question it. Just climbed in and drove. Back in town, no one believed him. He tried explaining it to dispatch. Then to the sheriff, he walked them through every, But when they returned to the site, there was nothing. No house. No broken branches.

No footprints. Just trees. They said he had a breakdown. Stress. Isolation. Guilt over missing persons not found. Maybe it was something chemical. Carbon monoxide from the old SUV.

He was given leave, sent to a therapist, told to rest. But he never did. He couldn't sleep with the lights off. He avoided mirrors. He covered every reflective surface in his house. His eyes never stopped moving in his head, always looking around for something off, something telling him that he was actually still trapped inside the house.

That it was all accomplished. cosmic joke on him. He quit his job, moved away, changed his name, because something came back with him. It watches through glass. Not often, just sometimes. He stares at his reflection, waiting to see something happen. Maybe his reflection is lingering a half a second too long, or smiling when he isn't, or blinking at the wrong time. None of those have happened, but still. He waits.

He stopped using his phone too. He started to hear an echo when he'd talk, like another voice was coming up out of his throat at the same time. Not his voice, but close. The first time it mimicked his voice, It said something he never told anyone. He started carrying a knife after that. He always did when he was on the clock.

But now, it's all the time. Regardless of what others tell him, he knows the house is still there. Somewhere past Mile Marker 117. Hidden just out of sight. In a place the world has forgotten. It doesn't call often. just waits for the right person. Someone curious and not scared to come inside.

Someone broken that it can shatter completely. And if you ever find yourself on that road, engine stalling, trees thickening, radio turning to static, just remember, the house already knows you. All it's waiting for, is the moment you recognize it too.

Creepy Presents Pine Street Market, written by Liz Adair and narrated by Alicia Atkins. Tucked in a shadowy alcove off a dead-end back road and sheltered beneath a canopy of dark twisted trees. Pine Street Market was not Teresa's grocery store of choice. It was not her second or even third choice. But she shopped there more often than she liked,

because it was convenient. Only a five-minute drive from her house and nearly always empty, the market was perfect for quick stops. Pine Street Market was unusually small for a grocery store, and from the street it looked abandoned. The white exterior paint was peeling, and the left side of the building was choked in yellow-green moss that grew in thick, furry sheets.

Crooked and foreboding, the old trees behind the store were also bent under the weight of the moss, called green gum by the locals. Emerald in some places and nearly Chartuse and others. Green gum glowed with life and looked luminescent in the weak evening light. It was protected by the state and grew all over Green Gum Canyon, the old growth forest that abutted the market and gave the moss its name. Teresa parked her car near the front door, gulped the lass of her tepid coffee,

and grabbed her purse. The parking lot was empty, save for her. a maroon beater, a Dodge truck, and a two-tone Camry that was missing its back windshield. Someone had covered the open gap with strips of black tape, but green gum was overtaking it, slowly peeling the tape away to reveal blankets of green, glowing faintly inside the car's interior. A yellow tow truck was parked next to the Camry, and a big man with an unhappy face was trying to line the car's wheels up for the toe. Teresa sidestepped the man and averted her eyes. she didn't feel like talking. Head down, she took note at the black ring stains that covered the cement step beneath the market's front door. Green gum was particularly difficult to remove, and it often left black marks when ripped up against its will. When she pulled the door open, an off-tone anemic bell dinged an electronic welcome, and a cashier intoned an equally anemic greeting from behind the register. Teresa ignored both and kept walking. A familiar pot. A familiar pot of her. Aeague of her. Anecure

pop song droned over the store's loud speakers, but the market was otherwise quiet and empty. She used to like shopping at Pine Street Market. When she was a girl, Teresa came to the store with her mom at least once a week. But back then the market had been new, pristine, not yet reclaimed by the woods and the moss. Once, the staff wore crisp green aprons, and her mom knew all the cashiers and stalkers by name. All their neighbors had shopped at the market. too, and it was always packed. Friendly old people bought their groceries there, and all of Teresa's school friends shopped there with their parents. But that was before. When she looked at the store now, stained and damp, covered in moss and empty, Teresa felt loneliness and regret.

Usually, Teresa wasn't such a dark cloud, but she was having a bad day, a rough week, in what was probably the worst year of her life. Once before, she'd moved in with her mom, who was divorced and very sick, deathly sick, according to every doctorate they'd seen. Teresa had driven her mom to Birmingham and Atlanta, and even as far as Houston looking for specialists that could give them something, some faint hope of improvement. But there was none to be found.

She felt it was her duty to care for her mother, but Teresa also believed in karma, so she'd hoped caring for her mom would bring some good into her own life. Instead, Teresa's cat was diagnosed with kidney disease, and her long-term boyfriend broke up with her. Thinking about it brought tears to her eyes. Something about Pine Street Market brought the feelings to the surface, reminding her of better times, things she could never get back. It's not fair. I'm trying so hard.

A tear slipped from her left eye. Teresa wiped it away, embarrassed. Luckily, there weren't many other patrons around to see her distress, and the ones who were around seemed not to notice the crying woman. There were many odd things about the store, and the shoppers were oddest of all. Ordinary people, soccer moms wearing leggings and pink tennis shoes, kindly grandmothers with short gray hair, working men looking to buy some beer after work. People like that did not shop at Pine Street Market anymore.

Usually, Teresa liked to observe the other customers while she shopped, but tonight was different. She wanted to get home and take a shower, needed to wash away the stench and misery of bad news. She wished she didn't need to shop at all, but these items couldn't be put off. She needed cans of wet cat food for her sick cat and tiny cat-sized diapers, too, because the poor thing was pissing everywhere. Her mother could barely eat and had to have two bananas every morning to keep her prepared. potassium up, so Teresa needed bananas too, and she hoped to find a cheap bottle of wine for herself, to drown her sorrows. Something inexpensive that would last for the week. Maybe one of those big cardboard cartons filled with something that was supposed to be wine,

but tasted like musty basement water. Teresa knew the store well, and she was passing through the small dairy section when she noticed the man. Like the cashier at the front, his eyes were dead. He was muttering something under his breath, staring with intent at the packages of sliced cheddar. The man was her age, but under the store's heavy fluorescent lights, his skin looked blue. He had a single gold stud in one ear, but the hole was weeping blood and pus. The ooze was dripping all over his clothes, and it left a smear across his shiny black biker's jacket. When the man turned to look at Teresa, his eyes were big and pale in his face. blue-tinged face. His purple lips moved wordlessly. Beneath the jacket, he wore a faded gray uniform,

the woolen ones used for Civil War battle reenactments, but his was thread-beared and streaked in yellow and red. Teresa was used to Pine Street market's oddities, though, so she ignored the men and kept walking. Bananas first, she decided, then the cat things, wine last. When she got to the banana, the cashier was there, stalking the fruit section. The woman was standing directly in front of the bunches, so Teresa hovered behind her, impatient and irritated. Slowly, as if she were dead or dumb, the woman began to place new bunches in the bin.

Teresa opened her mouth to excuse herself and reach around the cashier, but then she caught sight of the things the woman was shelving. In the cashier's hand was one bunch of strangely small bananas, still unripe and green, and in her other she held a heavy bunch, black and purple, swollen with rot. Teresa recoiled and disgust. Those are rotten, she said to the cashier.

She expected the cashier to take her meaning and throw them away. But instead the woman placed the bunch in the bin and said, Yes, they all are. Horrified, Teresa peered over the cashier's shoulder to investigate the ben. It was overflowing with black-peeled fruits. In one or two, Teresa could see white worms wriggling, covered in the bad bananas too soft brown pulp. Green gum moss had sprouted at the corners of the cardboard,

and tiny arms of it reached out from the corners into the center of the bend, towards the black rot. Why are you shelving them? Teresa demanded. The smell hit her suddenly, sweet with decay and putrid. She had to cover her nose with her hand. The cashier shrugged and offered no explanation. Teresa should have left the market then, but she didn't want to drive to another store.

Carefully, cringing away from the rotten pile of fruit, Teresa leaned in and snatched the still green bananas from the cashier's other hand. These'll do. Unripe is better than too ripe. She walked away from the cashier, wondering if she should say something. Teresa considered calling the manager in the morning, but she didn't want to cause trouble for anyone, especially not a young cashier who probably didn't even make enough money to buy her own groceries without food stamps.

The thought of money made Teresa's stomach turn. For years, she'd worked her way up an impossible ladder, rung by rung. She'd given up so much, friends, dating, hobbies, but she'd won herself a steady government job. She'd earned multiple races. and was always prompt. She never missed a day, unless she was sick or had to take her mom to the doctor. But they fired her.

Her boss had said, We're sorry to have to let you go. But the official letter read, Employment terminated, effective immediately. Another work friend who had gotten the same letter called it what it really was. Layoffs. Cutbacks. They were trimming the fat, and Teresa was a juicy morsel.

Slightly slimy and filled with flavor. Last hired and first to be cut off the bone. What will I do now? She fretted all day. She was paying outrageous amounts of money for her cat's medication. Her mom had the house and disability checks, but it wouldn't be enough to pay Teresa's bills or to put food on their table. Thinking about the cashier and the rotten bananas, Teresa wondered if Pine Street Market needed more help. She could sell her car. It was a nice one, a white Lexus she'd bought with her bonus money and paid off a few years before. If she sold it, the money would last for a while. Then she could get a job at the market and walk to work. But then who would drive Mom to her doctor's appointments? Teresa was considering the merits of a city bus system and lamenting her small town's lack of one when she noticed the cashier following her.

The woman wasn't close enough to make it obvious, but she managed to her. Teresa's step for step, always hovering a few paces behind. At first, Teresa thought the cashier was trying to get her attention, but when she turned to ask, the woman stopped walking and looked away. That was when Teresa saw that the man in the Civil War uniform was following two. He was slow moving, but he always managed to stay in Teresa's periphery, several steps behind the cashier. Teresa was unsettled, so she picked up her pace. A coincidence, she told herself. That's all. She came to the store's pet section next.

It took up less than a quarter on one side of a narrow aisle, but it was usually cluttered with merchandise. The shelves were bare today, and the items had been strewn across the floor. Teresa had to sidestep a dog's chew toy in an open can of cat food that had been dumped on the white linoleum floor and left there. A clump of flies clung to the spoiled meat, and Teresa's stomach heaved at the smell. The cat food must have spilled days ago.

The smell of fish wasn't fresh, and the flies were fat and sated, some of the biggest she'd ever seen, stout and sluggish from their meal. They didn't fly or flinch when she moved closer, and she would have thought them dead if it not for the den of their buzzing. She couldn't believe the food had been left on the floor so long. Angry and disgusted,

Teresa thought about walking out of the store. The damn cat would just have to eat dry food. What was she thinking spending so much money on her cat anyway? She wouldn't be able to afford wet food for long. The diapers, though, those she wanted. The smell of cat piss was horrid, and her mom couldn't stand the damage to the wood floor. Careful to step around the fly-covered food,

Teresa searched the shelves for cat-sized diapers. As she searched, she noticed things that surprised her. Not only were the shelves bare, They were covered in black rings and green gum, which had grown up through the thin metal. One of the lights above her head flickered, and the moss glimmered in the harsh strobing light, green and otherworldly. She wanted to touch it. She could almost smell the moss, fresh and vibrant like cedar after a rainstorm.

The smells of mold and rotten food faded away, replaced by honeysuckle and warm pine. Teresa was reminded of a forested hill beside a quick-moving creek. Oh, how she longed to be there. Teresa was sure the green gum would feel sweet and soft beneath her fingertips, but she stopped herself at the last moment, fingers dangling over a glowing smear of green. What am I thinking? As she gazed at the store, she noticed how dilapidated it was. Has the store always been like this?

She didn't think so. Pine Street Market had always been strange, but surely Teresa would have noticed rotting food and moss-covered shells before. She shook herself and turned away to snatch a small pack of diapers. They weren't the right size, but they were the last pack, so Teresa decided to make it work. They were off-brand, too, which meant they were cheaper, and that was a deal she couldn't afford to ignore.

With the pack under her arm and the unripe bananas in her hand, she quickly exited the aisle, thinking of the wine and the short drive home. Teresa couldn't wait to fall into her bed, but she knew it would be hours before she could rest. First, she'd need to make dinner and clean up the cat's messes. Then she'd have to help her mom bathe, and then there would be more cleanup and the laundry she'd left in the washing machine. All before she could so much as think of sleeping. She was so busy thinking of the long, hard night ahead that Teresa nearly walked right into another shopper. The woman was thin and frail, and wore a blue bathrobe.

Her skin looked sickly yellow, lit up from below by a swath of glowing green gum that stretched across the floor and up the wall and tendrils. The moss had covered the ceiling lights and thin sheets, and the fluorescent bulbs flickered weakly behind the green veil. As the sunlight fell away, the market glowed greener and brighter. The frail woman didn't speak to Teresa. She was soaking wet. Her hair, thin and bedraggled, dripping water onto the floor. Under the robe, her clothes were damp and stuck to her body like a second skin. She looked familiar, but Teresa couldn't place her or recall a name.

The woman's eyes were wide and unblinking, smooth and pale, and Teresa noticed the woman's irises were white and clouded, like she had cataracts. The woman was smiling widely, all teeth and gums. But she stared straight ahead and seemed not to have noticed Teresa at all. Are you all right? Teresa asked. She didn't want to talk to the woman, but it seems strange not to say something. Do you need help?

The shopper turned her pale eyes on Teresa, and with a harsh click, all the lights in the store flickered out. For one horrible moment, Teresa saw more bodies behind the woman, yellow and pale, creeping in the verdant dark. Then the lights glimmered back to life, and it was only the smiling woman and Teresa again. The cashier and the man from the dairy section hovered in the background, also smiling. Frightened, Teresa stepped back. The frail woman was still.

Only her pale eyes moved, tracking Teresa's movements as she backed away and fled down another aisle. Just get the wine, Teresa told herself. get the wine, and go home. Yet, as she walked, Teresa realized with growing panic and discomfort that she desperately needed to go to the bathroom. She cursed herself for drinking so much coffee after work. She did not want to stay a moment longer at Pine Street Market. Something unnatural had taken hold of the store,

and while Teresa's brain struggled to believe all she was seeing, her body knew to be afraid. Her limbs trembled. She felt cold, though the store was humid and hot as a sauna. The one was kept in the back of the store in the corner farthest from the register and the door. Teresa shivered her way over to it, feeling sick. Static, sudden and loud, sounded over the speaker system, drowning out the jaunty pop music that usually played.

When the music jolted back on, it sounded strange and stilted, like the song had been slowed down and set to a minor key. Teresa shook her head, trying not to think about the music or anything else. I do not have time for this, she thought, annoyed. She just needed to check out and go home. She scanned the wall of wines until she saw the big boxes on the bottom shelf. She bent to pick up a box of red, but when she tried to lift it up, the top of the carton crumbled in her hand, wet and pulpy like damp mulch.

On instinct, Teresa tried to catch the box. But it was too late. The wine crashed to the floor, bursting on impact. Syripy red liquid splattered and pulled at Teresa's feet. Bits of blackened cardboard dusted the ground, dotted in tiny white mushroom heads. The heads were the size of buttons, but they covered the cardboard pieces like pustules, clinging to the damp board. Teresa didn't bother to clean it up.

She turned and ran, bananas and pet diaper still in hand. looking for a bathroom or an exit, whichever she found first. She didn't need the wine as much she needed to get home. She would leave, maybe, without paying. The cashier probably wouldn't even notice. Teresa found the bathroom first. The cricket sign hung from the ceiling, indicating a unisex bathroom in an emergency exit.

She swung through the white door beneath the sign, relieved. But after she entered, Teresa realized there were no other doors. There was a single item pushed back against one of the walls, a grandfather clock made of chestnut wood and bronze. The gold pendulum swung behind glass. The clock's face was numberless and blue as the night sky. Silver moons and stars twinkled in the deep blue, and the clock's golden hands moved around the celestial bodies, ticking. The hall was long, impossibly so, and she didn't see a bathroom or an exit anyway. where. Teresa walked faster, heart pounding in her chest, and then she broke into a run. The music was louder here and more distorted. The farther she ran, the more green gum she saw. It covered the

walls and ceiling. Teresa ran so far and so fast that she ran out of breath, and still the hall went on. Eventually, the white floor and ceiling gave way to gray rock. Crooked, jagged stalactites hung from the ceiling. Water dripped on her face and head. The rocky path was dark and would have been pitch black, were it not for the glowing moss. The path became one of twists and turns, sloping downhill, and Teresa had to slow down to keep from falling in the darkness. Groceries, food packages and cans, paper towel rolls, and empty plastic bags littered the ground, forgotten and spoiling. Teresa dropped her items next to the others. The groceries were unimportant.

The bananas could rot. All the others were rotten already, like the cashier had said. Teresa kept walking, trailing deeper into the belly of a cave. The cave wasn't empty. There were people inside. Some she recognized, and many she did not. They danced, some quickly, as if in a panic, and others moved slowly, with their arms twisting in the

air like they were slow dancing at a school dance. None of the people seemed to see her. Some were spotted in tiny white mushrooms. The spongy buttons trailed up the dancer's limbs and across their faces. Some dancers had white, sightless eyes. Most had patches of green gum stuck to their skin. All were smiling. There were animals, too. Foxes and stray cats, mangy dogs and long-eared rabbits. Moss covered them, and the animals shook and trembled in time with the music. At the center of the cavern, Teresa Saw would look like a platform, elevated above the mass of undulating people. The platform was made of the same chestnut wood as the clock, but it was dark and gnarled, withered, twisted, and split. A tree stump. Grasping, ravaged

branches reached desperately towards the cave's open mouth, searching for some sort of the cave's open mouth, searching for sunlight. Some of the branches had sprouted leaves, small things that were sharp and serrated like teeth. The tree's base was huge, perhaps as wide and as long as the market above. Older and bigger, like any stump she'd ever before seen, and it was living.

She could feel its terrible beat, the pulse of life that ran in time with the cavern's ominous music and with the pace of her own heart, slow and eternal. At the center of the primordial tree's stump, where the smallest rings met to mark the beginning of its longevity, there was a soft spot, wet and dark with rot. Green gum moss grew there,

and in other small patches across the stump's wooden face. The moss covered the cave walls, and its strange green light pulsed in time with the beat of the ancient tree's heart. In the distance, Teresa could hear, the grandfather clock tick and chime, offbeat and asynchronous, a tolling, some sad reminder, something forgotten. Teresa's heart constricted in her chest. She wanted. She longed, though she did not know what she longed for. All she knew was the pressure and squeeze of her own

wanting. Her heart squeezed and shuddered, a tingle of desire etched inside her limbs and in her body, and it made her want to move, to live. Teresa swayed in time to the music and closed her eyes. Teresa felt warmth, for the first time in hours. No, for the first time in years, she felt warm, truly warm, like she was wrapped in a swaddling blanket in front of a fire, tucked in her mother's arms. Someone was singing to her, a soft familiar lullaby. and behind the melody was the comfortable slow drum of a loving heart.

The scent of damp and rot fell away, and she smelled something else, heady and thick like smoke or perfume. It reminded her of iced Coca-Cola's and tall blue glasses by a shimmering pool, strawberries and watermelon. A young boy's warm hand, her father's belly laugh, a quiet pine-tooth hill beside a familiar creek. She smelled honeysuckle and burning firewood, cedar and cinnamon.

I am home, home, warm, and free. Teresa danced, arms sliding and moving above her head, hips rocking. Others dance beside her. In her happiness, she forgot to be afraid. She forgot darkness. She forgot loss and death. Money meant nothing to her now, and neither did anything else. else. She did not think of her mom, or her sick cat, or the dishes she had left in the sink,

or the wet laundry molding in the machine. The world, and all the people in it, ceased to exist. And she ceased to exist, too, in a way. A thousand stars and memories blinked out in an ecstasy that would never end. A few weeks later, the yellow toe was back. The big man was working on Teresa's Lexus, which was stuck to the asphalt and strapped in sticky strands of green gum. The moss had grown up around the tires. The man spat a wad of black tobacco on the ground and hacked at the green gum with an axe, while a skinny boy prepared a hook and winch to lift the Lexus and take it away. 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 Shera-like licensing or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the creepy podcast production. team and the story's author.