Creepy - The Man in the Photo Album Isn’t Related to Us—But He’s in Every Picture & Wherewolf There Wolf

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

The Man in the Photo Album Isn’t Related to Us—But He’s in Every Picture***Written by: Its8bitSam and Narrated by: Nichole Goodnight***Wherewolf There Wolf***Written by: P.D. Thompson and Narrated by Owen McCuen***John From Back Home podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/2nDCkG7Z8jcdmxr9Wt0hCH***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 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. Before we get into today's stories, I wanted to get back to what I said I was going to be doing a couple of weeks ago and share a podcast that I recently found, called John from Back Home.

I know I'm a few years behind on this one, but I crushed through it over the weekend doing stuff around the house and think y'all might enjoy it as much as I do. The entire season exists as a series of voicemails left by a man who never left his hometown to his old friend who moved on to bigger and better things. I'm not going to get too much into it all, but I was absolutely blown away, not just by the voice acting, but also the writing, and how well they were able to capture a particular personality type that might not be the most desirable, but holy crap, was it on point? This one's a slow burn that builds into something so much fun. All the episodes are around 15 minutes, so you don't have a lot of excuses not to check it out wherever you listen to podcasts.

I also added Spotify link in the show notes. That's John from back home. Seriously good time. And you know, finding stuff like this is like a throwback to when I worked in offices and had more time to discover podcasts. So, if you have some suggestions, please hit me up on Instagram or threads or email the show. And if I like it, and I think the listeners would too, I'll be happy to share the details. Okay, and after Sunday's episode, I promised the family I'd be home.

earlier today. It's also freaking freezing outside and I'm a little worried about my car not starting and being stuck here. I'm not sure where in the country or world you might be listening to this, but in Minnesota, we are officially in wind chill season. So let's roll right into this week's stories. First up, from writer It's 8Bit Sam and narrated by Nicole Goodnight. Creepy Presents. The man in the photo album isn't related to us, but he's in every piece. picture. When I was a kid, my mom kept a heavy leather photo album on the coffee table. Thick black pages, plastic sleeves, Polaroids tucked between brittle corners. I used to flip through it when she was cooking or when I was supposed to be doing homework. Back then, I thought of it

as proof that our family was normal. Birthdays, Christmas morning, summer trips to the lake, mundane and ordinary, but comforting. I didn't notice him at first. Why would I? When you're seven years old, you don't scan every photo like a detective. You look for your face, your siblings, the family dog. But years later, when I was visiting home after college, I picked the book up again. Nostalgia, I guess. That's when I saw him. He's in every photo. Not in a way that jumps out immediately. Sometimes he's in the background leaning against a tree. Other times he's at the edge of the frame, blurred by motion. Once, he's sitting two rows back at my fifth birthday party in the McDonald's play-place seating area staring directly into the camera.

The strange thing is, I didn't know him. My parents didn't know him. Nobody in the family knew him. I asked my mom, laughing at first, flipping the album around to show her. Who's the sky? He's everywhere. Look, he's behind Aunt Claire at the Christmas photo, then again at the lake, and here at the carnival. She took the book from me. Her fingers froze on the page.

That's just some stranger, she said finally, snapping the cover shut. You know how people wander into pictures. He's probably just a coincidence. but her tone wasn't casual. She put the album back on the shelf and didn't let me look at it again that night. I couldn't stop thinking about it, though. I lay in my childhood bedroom, staring at the ceiling, trying to reconstruct the photos in my head. He wasn't family, he wasn't a friend, he didn't even seem to age.

His hair was always the same length, the same style. His clothes never really changed. The more I thought about it, the more I realized he wasn't just in the background. He was looking, always at the camera, Always at us. And now I can't shake the thought. If he's in every picture, then he was there. At every moment, every holiday, every trip, every birthday,

standing close enough to be caught on film. Which means he was always near us. Watching. The next morning I brought it up again. Over coffee, I said, Mom, seriously, who was the guy in the photos? You knew everyone else at those parties, the neighbors, family friends? Why didn't anyone ever mention him?

She didn't look at me. She stirred her cup with this slow, deliberate rhythm like she was buying herself time. Finally, she said, you're ever thinking it. It's just someone passing through. People photo bomb all the time. But her voice cracked when she said photo bomb. I knew better than to push. My mom has that way of shutting a conversation down,

pressing her lips together so tight you can hear the finality in it. Still, when she left for work, I went back to the bookshelf and pulled out the album. I sat cross-legged on the floor, turning pages carefully like the paper might disarmes. disintegrated my hands, there he was. Always there. Christmas 94 behind the tree only half his face visible in the branches. Family reunion 97 across the picnic field, sitting alone on a bench. My high school graduation dead center in the bleachers eyes locked on the camera. It wasn't just that he was in the photos, it was that he didn't change. The same dark jacket, the same haircut, the same posture,

straight-backed hands clasped loosely in the front. My uncle had gone from full head of hair a bald. My cousins had grown taller, acne giving way to clear her skin. Even the damn dog had aged. But not him. I tried to be logical. Maybe it was some old family friend, someone I just didn't remember. Maybe mom was embarrassed or there had been a falling out. That would explain the secrecy, the tone in her voice. But it didn't explain the lack of aging. I decided to test it. I pulled one of the Polaroids from its sleeve, my seventh birthday. I took a magnifying glass from the drawer and studied the man in the background. The resolution was grainy, colors faded, but his expression was clear, neutral, almost pleasant. His eyes, though, his eyes seemed too

sharp for the cheap film. I compared it to the photo from my high school graduation. Same eyes, same expression, the only thing that changed was how much closer he was. At the birthday, he was near the back wall of the playplace. At graduation, he was right there in the middle of the crowd. Closer. That word stuck in my head all night. When I called my dad about it hoping he'd laugh and give me some old forgotten story, he got quiet instead. Then he asked me to stop asking questions. His exact words were, don't dig into it. Let it go for your own good. That's when I knew it wasn't a coincidence.

And that's when I decided I had to know. So I scanned the photos, every single one that had him in it. Then I uploaded them to a facial recognition site, one of those free trial tools. I sat there chewing my nails watching the little spinning wheel as the site comes. combed through public databases. When the results came back, it wasn't a name. It wasn't anything at all. Just an error message.

Face not recognized. No match is found. I tried again with another site, same result, and another. Same thing. It was like he didn't exist, but he does. Because when I closed my laptop, my reflection in the dark screen wasn't alone. For half a second, just over my shoulder, I swear I saw him. him standing there. After that incident, I couldn't sleep. Every creek of the house felt amplified,

every shadows stretched too long. I ended up dragging the photo album upstairs to my old bedroom, setting it on the desk like it was some kind of evidence file. I told myself I was going to prove he wasn't what I thought, but there had to be some explanation. But the photos didn't stay the same. The first time I noticed it was subtle, a snapshot from our trip to Niagara Falls, my dad holding me on his shoulders, water spraying in the background. I remembered that photo clearly because dad had a goofy plastic poncho on. But now the man was standing behind us. He wasn't in the original. I know he wasn't. He was closer than he'd ever been before. His face angled just enough that both of his eyes were visible. And this time, he was smiling. Not a friendly smile, more like someone

holding back a secret. I flipped to another photo, my eighth grade science fair. The man had been in the back row before, blurry between parents. Now his head tilted just slightly towards me, his mouth open like he'd just spoken. I felt sick. My palms started sweating, page sticking as I turned faster and faster. Every picture had shifted. Not in obvious ways, nothing dramatic, nothing that would scream altered, just little things. A glance, a lean. The man's body turned ever so slightly toward me, like he was aware I was looking at him. I shut the book and shoved it under my bed. But that didn't help because the images were burned into my brain. I kept thinking about his eyes sharp, too sharp,

the way they seemed to cut through the blur of cheap cameras. That night I dreamed I was flipping through the album again. But instead of birthdays or vacations, every page was a photo of me, right there in my room, taken from just outside the window. And every one the man was closer, closer, closer, until the last photo was nothing but his face. I woke up gasping, heart thudding like it wanted out of my chest.

The album was back on my desk. I know I shoved it under the bed. I remembered the scrape of cardboard against carpet. But there it was. Sitting upright. Open to the graduation photo. And this time, the man wasn't in the crowd. He was standing on stage next to me.

After that, I stopped pretending this was nostalgia. Something was wrong, deeply horribly wrong. I didn't tell my mom. I didn't tell anyone. What could I even say? Hey, remember that stranger and everything? Every childhood memory we have, well, he's moving closer now. Yeah, that'd go over well.

Instead, I tried to ignore it. I shoved the album into the closet and stacked board games on top of it. Out of sight, out of mind. Except it wasn't. The man started showing up outside the photos. It began with the bathroom mirror. I'd just finished brushing my teeth when I saw him standing at the very edge of the reflection where the doorway met the hall.

I spun around so fast I nearly dropped the toothbrush. Nobody was there. The hallway was empty. When I looked back, so was the mirror. The next time it was worse. I was in the kitchen, late at night, drinking water. The window above the sink looked out into the backyard. Dark, empty, nothing but trees, except not empty. A figure was standing at the tree line. Perfectly still. I didn't need the details to know it was him. The posture was the same, straight-backed, hands folded, waiting. I backed away, heart-hammering, telling myself it was just a trick of the dark, some shadow. But when I blinked, his head tilted, slow, deliberate, like he knew I was watching. I yanked the curtains shut and didn't open them again. From then on, reflections betrayed me.

Every dark screen, every pane of glass, I'd see him behind me, just far enough that I couldn't make out all the details, but I felt him. The weight of his gaze pressed down like a hand on my shoulder. I started covering mirrors. I plugged the TV. I left the laptop lid closed. Still, I couldn't escape him. Because he wasn't just showing up in the house anymore, he was interacting with the album. One night I heard rustling from the closet, soft like pages turning. I froze in bed, every muscle locking. The sound went on for a minute, then stopped. When I finally forced myself to look, the closet door was cracked open. The board games I'd stacked on top of the album were scattered across the floor.

And the album itself was lying open, pages fluttering as if from a breeze. I crept closer, every instinct screaming to stop. And I saw what Page it had landed on. Not a childhood memory. Not a holiday. It was a photo I'd never seen before. Me. sitting in my bed.

Now. And in the bottom corner of the frame, half in shadow, the man was standing inside my room. I couldn't take it anymore. The album, the photos changing, the man pressing into my house, none of it made sense. There had to be an explanation, some missing piece. So I confronted my mom.

She was in the living room, folding laundry when I dropped the album on the coffee table. The thud made her flinch. She looked at it like I'd just set down a dead animal. Tell me who he is, I demanded. My voice shook, but I didn't care. The man? He's in every picture, and don't tell me it's a coincidence, because he's in ones that didn't even exist before.

Her hands tightened on a towel until her knuckles went white. She didn't answer. Mom, I pressed. Please just tell me the truth. Finally, she set the towel down and sank onto the couch. For the first time in my life, she looked at her. looked old, tired, like she'd been holding something in for decades and it had finally rotted her from the inside.

I hoped you wouldn't notice, she whispered. We all hoped. My skin went cold. We? She nodded slowly. Your grandmother, your uncle, your father, and me, we... We never talk about him. That's the rule.

You don't say his name. You don't point him out. You don't acknowledge him. Because if you do, he notices you back. Her eyes glistened. She looked at me the way someone looks at a terminal patient, grief already there. Why is he in her pictures? I asked. Mom shook her head.

He's always been in our family. Always. As far back as the albums go. Every generation he's there. Weddings, funerals, baptisms. Sometimes he's just a blur. Sometimes he's... Closer.

She covered her mouth like she regretted saying that much. I leaned forward. What does he want? Her hand dropped into her lap. She didn't answer. Mom? My voice cracked. What does he want?

She whispered it so faintly I almost didn't hear. He chooses. I felt sick. Chooses what? Her eyes darted to the album. Who stays? Who doesn't? My stomach turned.

Suddenly, pieces clicked together that I'd never questioned before. My cousin Danny, who disappeared when I was ten, the way relatives never talked about him. The empty chair at holidays nobody mentioned. I remembered once when I was little asking about him. My grandma had snapped, We don't talk about Danny. I thought it was grief. But now? Now I wondered if it was fear, because when I flipped to the family reunion photo, the one where

we'd all gathered at the park, I noticed something I hadn't before. Danny was in that photo, smiling, holding a frisbee. But in the copy I held now, he wasn't. The man was standing in his place. I couldn't breathe. Danny wasn't in the photo anymore, just gone, erased like he'd never existed. And the man, standing where he'd been, looked sharper than ever, clearer than anyone else in the picture.

I slammed the album shut and backed away. Mom, we can't just ignore this. He's here. He's here. She wouldn't look at me. The more you fight, the faster it happens. You've already seen too much. What happens? Her eyes filled with tears. She shook her head.

I'm so sorry, sweetheart. That's when I heard it. A click. The unmistakable sound of a camera shutter. Faint, coming from somewhere inside the house. I froze. Did you hear that? Mom's face crumpled.

He's already chosen. I spun toward the sound. The hallway was empty, shadows stretching long. My pulse roared in my ears as I crept towards my bedroom. The album was waiting for me on the desk, open, pages fluttering though there was no breeze. Another click. I looked down. There on the fresh page was a new Polaroid.

Still developing. The chemical haze fading into an image? Me. Standing in the hallway. Right now. Behind me in the photo the man. was closer than ever. Not blurred, not distant. His hand was outstretched, almost touching my shoulder. Click. Another Polarite slid onto the page by itself. This one showed me staring at the photo I was

holding. My own face pale, horrified. And behind me, no longer reaching, he was gripping my shoulder. I dropped the book and stumbled back, heart slamming against my ribs. The lights flickered. And then the mirror across the room began to ripple. Not like, but I was just a little. Not like, glass breaking, like water, like something was pressing through. A hand emerged first, pale, thin, fingers too long. They pressed against the glass, then curled around the frame. I couldn't move. My legs locked as his face pushed forward, stretching the surface until it tore open with a sound like wet fabric ripping. He stepped through. He was exactly as he appeared in every photo, dark jacket, neat hair, expression, calm. Only now,

he was inches away. Why? I choked out. My voice sounded tiny, useless. He tilted his head, studying me with those sharp and blinking eyes. And then slowly, deliberately, he raised the old camera hanging from his neck. Click. The flash blinded me.

For a second, I saw nothing just white. When my vision cleared, I wasn't in my room anymore. I was in the photo album. I could see my mom standing over the book, crying. I could see my own face frozen mid-scream trapped behind the glossy surface. And behind me, already stepping into the frame, was the man closer. Always getting closer. And next, from writer P.D. Thompson and narrated by Owen McCune.

Creepy Presents. Where wolf? Their wolf. Mark was an avid jogger. There was nothing he enjoyed more than going through his ritualistic stretching exercises and in his running suit, which clung to his athletic body like a glove. With the potency of a sportsman, he would take his run. It was ineffably exhilarating for him, invigorating, to put his feet on the trail and go for it. He primarily ran the same trail every day. This ensured him a great run, avoiding the pitfalls of lesser trails that he purposely avoid.

He had heard rumors about some of the other pathways, which were simply far too dangerous to run due to steep precipices, sharp cliff faces with unstable rock, uneven terrain with unmanaged potholes, and even dangerous animals on the track, such as bears, wolves, and moose. The place where he chose to run did not have any of these dangers, and he never felt as though he was running on the cusp of indeterminate declivity or teetering on the edge of bottomless ravines. He had no interest in exploring the chasms of the unknown, nor putting himself in perilous situations unnecessarily. He had known a couple of runners who met with tragedy due to the elements. He was not about to fall victim to some sort of testosterone-fueled challenge.

He ran for enjoyment, not necessarily for his health. He knew the benefits of raising the heart rate during exercise, but Mark honestly did not correlate what he did with being physically fit. He regarded it as a meditative event that kept his mind purposed, a type of therapy with the intent on wellness of thought and mental sustainability. Regardless of the weather,

Mark was never complacent and, with due diligence, committed to his run. Well hydrated and geared up, Mark set out on his one-hour run. He enjoyed running in the evenings as the day was cooling. and by the time he had made his traverse, he was facing the sunset, which he truly loved to see. This day began unremarkably,

and nothing even now appeared out of the ordinary. He had already covered two-thirds of the track and was coming out of the verdant canopy of trees when something outlandish and extraordinary presented itself. Mark was stopped cold in his tracks, his resplendent evening getting a rude awakening. He simply did not continue, and he looked for a quiet, unostentatious way of avoiding what he saw before him blocking the trail. As he stared at the alpha male wolf, who was clearly unwell, he shuddered with a sense of dread that one experiences only a couple times in life.

This comparison of healthy and sickly was made in Mark's mind by recalling nature programs he had seen in the past on wolves and their behavior. Wolves ran in packs, but this was a lone wolf. Wolves are supposed to fear man, but this one's posture was that of dominance. This was an imposing situation that Mark had never found himself in, well, never. The wolf was a magnificent beast. It was a dark color with keen eyes that stared directly into Mark's fearful gaze. It was reputed that wolves feared humans, but this forbidding beast showed no signs of drawing back. It had never occurred to Mark that any dangerous animals would ever be on this favorite trail of his,

so he had made no preparations for such an occurrence, nor was he very good at improvising. He had no weapon, no bear spray, not even a pocket knife. Before Mark could gather his thoughts and collect his courage from the nethermost area of his mind, The wild beast charged Mark in such an unimaginable way, and with such ferocity and quickness, Mark had no time to think, to turn to run, or to have a chance to defend himself. The fight was all wolf, at least until the point at which Mark swore that it was unnaturally raised upon its hind legs like a man.

In this unusual lichenthrope stance, the jaws of the mighty savage chomped down into Mark's arm and its canine teeth. Like daggers, pierced his skin to the bone. The weight of the wolf and its momentum had driven Mark to the ground, and there ensued a brief wrestling match, with Mark attempting to protect his face and guard against further injury. The wolf did not continue the attack and fled, leaving Mark wounded and bleeding.

With a beating heart that seemed to want either to leap from his throat or tear free from his pounding chest, Mark staggered along, trying to reconcile what had just happened to him. He knew he was in shock and desperately wanted to make it home before the shock wore off because he feared the real pain had not come upon him yet. In his presence of mind, he removed his shirt, wrapped it around his bloody arm, and, without delay, worked his way home. By the time he had made it to his door, he was dizzy and somewhat lightheaded.

He went straight to the kitchen sink and ran water, over the penetrating bite marks. Although it stung with considerable sharpness, he was most thankful that the thing had not ripped his arm off. Why he did not go straight to the hospital, even he didn't know, but he opted to treat the wound himself with peroxide and antiseptic cream. He made the conscious decision to stay home from work to allow his arm to heal. On the third day of self-treatment for the bite,

he felt a tingling, like a prickling sensation around the bite area, and ititched something terrible. He'd become restless and felt like climbing out of his own body. He knew he had the flu. He just knew it. But then again, as he relived the attack in his mind, his thoughts stirred with a real worry. This wolf stood upright to attack him.

This was a strange, unordinary way for any wolf to go after prey. And then the unimagined crossed his mind. maybe this was no ordinary wolf at all. As inconceivable as it sounded when he repeated it, he, in fact, did repeat the word, werewolf from his lips several times. He considered the indescribable event, and he could not imagine what else it could be.

It was unfathomable, he reminded himself. Yet he believed he could sense a change in his body. He had a headache that was persistent but not throbbing, a fever, but he was not burning up. Nauseous, but he had not thrown up, and seemingly he was more agitated than usual. He no longer had a vague suspicion. He convinced himself that this was no flu. He had been attacked by a werewolf, and now he was changing into such a beast. Mark was running over the brim with anxiety and worry.

He did not know how being a werewolf would affect his life, his work, or even hanging out with the few friends that he did have. How would they feel if they knew the truth of the manner? He had to keep this a secret from the whole world, to be inflexible and obdurate and trust no one. He knew there was no reversal of such a chemical alteration and transformation to his DNA, so he secured his reluctance and was inclined to accept what was happening to him. He was in uncharted waters now.

in sepulchral depths over his head. The unknown was before him, and he wanted to face it unperturbed, if at all possible. After a few days, he wrestled with insomnia and refused to sleep because he wanted to be aware of the change when it came. He checked his teeth daily to see if there were any noticeable signs that his canine teeth were becoming longer.

He did not see anything out of the ordinary, but again, this was new to him. an indiscernible mystery. He stuck out his tongue in order to see if it had grown in length. It had not. He examined his body, supposing that he would begin to grow hair in unusual places in the antigen phase, but did not see any signs of new follicles.

Possibly it was a progressive disease. He was now calling it a disease. He thought transmutation would only take hours, but now he was going into days, and the metamorphosis seemed to be a much slower growth than what he had anticipated. Mark finally left his house to pick up some things from the store. He did not like the thought of canine sustenance,

but he figured if he were going to be a werewolf, he possibly needed dog food for sustainability. He did not want to kill humans. He struggled with the thought. But what if he was not a proper werewolf? and was more like a mutt, a mongrel, or a cur dog. He'd not been bitten by a relative, so he had no real pedigree. He feared he might not be a complete werewolf,

and he might become a hound, a mixed breed without pure red ancestry. Would this mean he would not be accepted by other werewolves? Essentially, if this were the case, he might be doomed, having to hide and shelter among others damned by the same malady. He also fantasized that, it could be considered that he was the lone wolf without a pack who would search for a mate, and together they would be the key to the genetic survival of the species. A lone wolf is the strongest wolf because it hunts for itself and is hardened by the time in solitude.

Once home, he had the sensation that he needed to chew on something. He was positive that if he accelerated the process along, hurry it, so to speak. he would change much quicker. If he acted like an animal while the fluids in his body transitioned into the DNA of a wolf, in all certainty, he was confident it would progress things along at a more expedited rate. Thankfully, when he purchased the bag of dry dog food, he bought a rubber bone just in case this sort of thing happened. Mark gnawed on this dog toy while salivating profusely.

He practiced growling, and it was during this lunacy that he had an idea. Maybe the conversion into a full-blown werewolf needed to happen under the light of a full moon. Ignoring sensibilities and all practicalities, he resorted to checking his calendar in the kitchen and easily noted that the next full moon would be tomorrow night. He was thrilled that it could be that soon. At the moment, he'd not slept at all and was feeling decrepit. His muscles ached, but he assumed that as his human form was changing, he would find it a painful, maybe an agonizing, miserable process.

Mark prepared a bowl of dog food to eat and sat at the kitchen table. He convinced himself he needed to start living like a werewolf because the more he practiced the mannerisms, the more practical the character of the wolf inside would reveal itself. In order for the indecipherable change to occur, he understood that his central nervous system would be readily affected and he might even begin to think as a wolf thinks. These were his thoughts as he popped individual bits of dog food into his mouth and forced hard swallows.

He did not know if it was the dryness of the food itself, the thought of actually eating dog food, or if his throat was swollen. But he was having difficulty swallowing. Against his better judgment, he retrieved a bottled whiskey from the cabinet along with a glass of water. Mark drank the glass of water and then, in an attempt to knock himself out so he could rest for tomorrow's Big Mac's Big Mac's, manifestation when he would become a full-fledged werewolf. He nursed the bottle for the next couple of hours, knocking it back until he was inexturably as drunk as a skunk. If the symptoms of changing into a nocturnal creature of the night were not already challenging,

Mark was not a good person while intoxicated, nor was he an exemplary human being. For reasons unknown, even to Mark, instead of trying to sleep, he decided he needed to go hunting. He walked outside into the evening air, and his inebriated self sniffed the air, hoping his canine sense of smell had developed. But he was unable to pick up those smells that he knew a dog must have. They were indistinct. Staggering along, lost in fascination, uncertain of his destiny,

he walked the stony path insatiably smitten with the idea of biting someone. As outrageous as it sounded, he persuaded himself that practice made purpose. His unassailable conclusion was that he believed he was turning into a werewolf, but that he would retain his human qualities. These were ontologically distinct from one another, meaning he might be in conflict with himself according to which aspect was more dominant. He spotted a woman walking alone. He said to himself, easy target.

He used no prestidigitation, no sleight of hand or tricks, nor did he use camouflage or concealment. committing a purely rookie mistake, he mindlessly charged the woman, mouth opened, growling pathetically, and lunged at her. She was carrying an umbrella, which she had failed to determine before the unwitting assault. She whacked him several times across the top of the head, using both hands masterfully to repel the would-be debutante werewolf, and fending off the assault, pummeling mark, without hesitation, causing him to scamper away with his tail between his legs, so to speak. His own charnel actions and behavior repulsed him. Sitting in a furtive area of the woods,

he knew he had done the most foolish thing he could have done. The woman would have seen his face, would be able to describe him in every detail. He needed to make his way back home. He decided to pass through the forest for cover, running along the backs of the houses that faced the main highway. The vegetation was dense, but he was well hidden from sight.

Distinctly he heard the sound of chickens. Insatiably, he felt a vestigial flicker, and his appetite whetted again. The urge to feed was upon him, smothering his intellect, which aroused the instinctual qualities of the beast he saw within. He followed the clucking until he spotted the henhouse. Stealthily, he moved with the twilight of the evening closer and closer until he reached the fenced-in area. He probed his teeth of his finger, but he had not grown longer canine teeth yet.

Disappointed, he lamented impotently, but he was not dissuaded. He opened the unlocked gate to the chickens and sneaked inside. His plan was to snatch a hen, wring her neck or smother the fowl, then chow down. When he entered the coop, the chickens were nesting idly. Completely out of character, and positively unethically, he grabbed hold of the first hen with both hands. There was an infusion of mayhem, an incomprehensible chaos ensued, which seemed like an interminable duration of time,

but in all reality was only a few short seconds. Every chicken in the coop, sensing a predator and that danger was in their midst, took to flight, flapping their wings, cackling loudly, and pecking away at Mark, who let loose the hen he had momentarily seized. The only thing now for him to do was to retreat and free himself from the confined space, which he did expediently. With chicken feathers matted to his hair, he had no choice but to take to the woods again. He had to be clandestine because by now, surely the woman had reported the attack,

and the chicken farmer may have seen him sprinting for cover. Without detouring, he made it home in one piece. He was traumatized by the foul attack, because he never knew chickens would and could fight back. He dismissed this as an amateur move on his part and told himself that he would learn to be a fantastic werewolf over time. Besides, tomorrow was the full moon, and it would be then he would reveal his ultimate potential. Still, with fever and a sickening headache, he somehow managed to sleep, and in his dreams, he was seen reveling an unholy celebration with others likened to himself. In grand extravagance, he was the master's.

He was done off ceremonies at this appointed time, and he found effectual comfort in knowing that he had been readily accepted as one of them. When he finally awoke, he was, as they say, sicker than a dog. He was now burning hot to the touch with fever, and his muscles were seizing up. The uninterrupted dream had given him hope, but he was disturbed by the enhanced symptoms. weekly he forced down a handful of dog food, which he ate from a bowl on all fours while on the kitchen floor. He lapped water from a second bowl, but had an impossible time swallowing. He was convinced that these severe flu-like symptoms were all part of his changeover into a wild, untamed beast.

He told himself it was imperative to make it to the trail this evening, and there he could relinquish his identification as human, as a mere man, and embraced this moment of imputation he now longed for. His soul would experience the consummation with the animal mutating within, and without portent, he would humbly allow himself to become that which all men fear. He repeated these things in his head and hoped for an acceleration of the process. His human side was dying, for sure, and he needed the wolf to be fully, maturely born. He wanted desperately to be.

to see through the eyes of the wolf, to hear the sounds amplified and defined. He wanted to unmute the sense of smell and to inhale and breathe through powerful lungs, to discern the sense and identify recognized odors of the world in a supernatural way. He wondered if he would remember himself as a human after the complete transition had occurred. He was compelled by a feeling of sorrow that he may not remember the past. However, it would be a new life, a new way of adventure that he had never known before. As the sun was setting and the day was expiring, Mark tenuously proceeded to the running track, which would take him far into the forest.

By this time he was gaunt, feeble, emaciated, and his face shriveled and ghostly pallid with a frozen sallow expression. He smelled of putrescent dissolved, like something which had crawled from, an immemorial burial site and needed immediate fumigation and cleansing. But that had to wait. He wondered if the final change would hurt. He imagined that it would. He self-proclaimed himself as a visionary and saw himself grotesquely contorted,

broken, bones protruding while shape-shifting, thrashing about and uncontrolled convulsions, raising the wolf from dormancy while his bones exploded into stronger, more durable ones. His joints surely would unimaginably ache as they swelled to fit the new and improved body. His skin, the largest organ of his body, would rip and tear, then peel away, and he would emerge a terror for all to see. This new life would be the validity he foresaw in his dreams. He no longer would have to scrutinize his existence, for he would know exactly what he was. He was willing to to be dissolved or absorbed so that he would gain the sight that the wolf had, that fiery dilation of eyes that he saw days ago.

He longed for the instinctual fortitude and the erudition of the beast undisturbed. When he made it to the spot where he had been bitten, which was on a very high plateau, he saw the moon was full and nearly at its lunar zenith. His thoughts were scrambled, and he ponderously swore, while in a haze of confusion, that he he saw the same wolf that had bitten him. But in peevish discontent, his eyes were blurred, and he staggered and swayed carelessly, invoking the unnamed spirit of the wolf. Come forth from me, appear! Mark reached out his hands toward the moon. I am the species, the canis of a new morning! He felt the abruptness of the wind,

and believed it was answering him. Mark howled vigorously. and it unfolded poorly like a desperate plea to be put down. He howled again, pathetically, then gasped for breath. He went down on his knees and held his head in his hands. He prayed that his cranium would swell, expand to receive the wolf inside. Despeptically, he fell to one side, moaning and groaning and agonizing pain. Gutteral calls to his kin rumbled from what life was left in him. He gave a derisory whimper,

then began to whine like a nervous dog whose owner left and had never returned. Now he prayed for the silver bullet to the heart to ease his suffering and make it all go away. Lechanthropy never occurred. Mark did not become a bait of wolf, for he never had been bitten by a werewolf. He was bitten,

bitten, bitten by a rabid wolf with full-blown rape. 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 Share-A-Like licensing or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast, may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the creepy podcast production team and the stories author.