Creepy - The Voice

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

The Voice***Written by: Matt Dennison***Stick to the Plan***Written by: Matt Scott and Narrated by: Jimmy Ferrer***Perhaps the Last***Written by: Riley Norris and Narrated by: Cole Burkhardt***Support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***Get your Creepy merch at creepypod.printify.me***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.

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Okay, enough out of me. No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastures and urban legends in the world. 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. For our first story this evening, a reclusive man succumbs to an eerie voice growing within him. As reality fractures, he becomes a conduit for ancient evils. Helpless to resist a voice that commands him. Creepy presents The Voice, written by Matt Denison.

Blood is everywhere on my hands and in my eyes, especially my eyes. It's beginning to thicken now. Just enough not to want to release my fingers when I touch them to. together, it makes a good glue, this dead blood. When it dries, when the life of it dissipates, all the remains is the connective desire which will not be entirely defeated by death, is only made it change its methods by death. My hair is slowly starting to cover the opening through which, moments before, my demon had passed.

This is the most interesting part to me. This rapid renewal of the tissues of my head which were burst asunder by the force of its passing. This fact which springs forth on the most sickening schedule causing me to writhe on the floor like a woman in labor. And until this happens, until the fissure in my head is made whole once more, all I can do is kneel with my hands on my knees and blood everywhere, not looking at what lies. in front of me. I know it's there, but I also know that I must not move too soon. I must allow ample time for the healing process, which, short though it may be, is always a time of internal trembling. How can I be sure that this time my skull will grow back completely, that it will once more

contain the shape of my brain? Tentatively, I raise my hand as the pounding and self-contained Roaring at the edges of my skull parts lower to a barely audible pulsation of regrowth that's so rapid I'm able to hear the bone lovingly grind itself back into one smooth, seamless thought of protection. It is at this point that I'm able to touch myself, reassure myself as to the healing, which now has only the finer points with which to concern itself. And so, feeling safe in the knowledge that. that I've healed enough to get on with a ritual, as I've come to call it.

I tilt my head back as far as it can go and open my eyes. After a few moments of acknowledgement to whatever it is, that has once again allowed me to live through this ordeal, I start to align myself with the objects in my room, using this process of inventory to bring about my looking at what lies in front of me. The ceiling. The line where it meets the wall. The top of the window.

The curtain, old and musty. The table. The legs of the table. The floor. The first time I had one of these attacks, I was in front of the wash basin, supporting myself at both hands, not knowing if I were to live or die. But instead of running to the door to call for help, I had decided to look into my eyes in the mirror above the sink, as the life in me slowly walked away without a backwards

glance, the ultimate image of myself walking down a dark street in some small town, some small thought. No such image came to me. But what I did see was more of a surprise than death could ever be. When I saw it lying in its pool of blood and tissue, I passed out. When I awoke, I looked up from where I was lying and saw a little foot just visible above the white line of the basin. a little bloody foot with black leathery skin and claws.

I don't know with what force or energy I was able to pick it up and toss it away, but I did. I did slide my hands beneath its twisted and repugnant body and lift until the valve gave up its prisoner with a slurping, sucking sound, spilling the contents of that misshapen had to mix with the mess already present. And when I had its full weight resting fully in my hands, and was moving to the trash bin as quickly as possible. It did suddenly snap its empty skull around so that its eyes were piercing mine,

opened its mouth with a horrible dark kiss, tried to bite me with teeth that I hadn't noticed. I dropped it into the bin, thinking my ordeal to be over. But I was soon to discover that the events preceding this hideous act had a far greater price to extract, as that time is not so long past. Let me return to it once more. Perhaps this time, I will understand.

I had always been a loner. I always preferred the quiet of an empty room to the noise of a public place, or even that of a room with two people in it. But the feeling that my life was slipping away, that I was being buried under successive layers of paralyzing gray, had come into my days and seemed most unwilling to leave. In time, I could. came to accept it, prepared another plate at the table of my mind, so to speak.

At least I have a visitor, I would tell myself, even if it is a sense of slow dread bringing a gift of flowing sand to place under my feet as I walked the floor at night. Yes, this sense of loss and despair seemed to know the ins and outs of my life quite well, and that I was bound to accept it as one must with what is truly theirs. In the days that followed, I naturally thought of what was happening and what it could mean. I told no one. I kept it to myself. I kept it warm and hidden.

Often I would dream about it. Strange, disturbing dreams that would wake me in the middle of the night to an increasingly gray world. I quit the job that I'd held for the past ten years, that of a typesetter for the local newspaper. I spent my days walking the streets before returning to my room. which was more and more like entering a tomb of eternal stillness. All color and contrast were slowly disappearing from my world. I felt as if I'd been sinking through an ocean of ever-increasing silence toward the darkness, and had finally, softly, touched bottom.

I would sit on the edge of my bed for hours, looking at my hands until they too were lost in the gray. Then, against the restraining, seemingly sad pull of my peckoning despair, I'd force myself out of the room, feeling that if I stopped for even one second, I would drown in the utter nothingness of my own life, and fighting the urge to do just that. Some nights out of desperation, I would walk the streets until daylight. Then, dazed and numb, I would drag myself up the stairs to my room and fall into a fitful sleep. Gradually as I weakened, I fought it less and less, until one night I realized I could go on

no longer, that I was bound to succumb, and then I might as well do it before all of my strength was gone. And so, when the darkness came flowing through the window, seeping through the walls, I did not resist. I lay back on my bed as it wrapped me tightly in its cloth before passing through. Flushing out remained of my immunity and filling me with the thick, scaly deposits of surrender that, once embedded, are impossible to dislodge. The next morning I woke with a start. Something was different, I felt.

Something had passed through the night, altered its very core. I tried to remember if there had been a storm. Wondered if there'd be debris strewn up and down the street. Then I remembered. Surprisingly, I felt more alive than I had in years, as if I'd gone to sleep and then awakened while still at the submerged, energized level. I felt that there was no longer anything to run from, that the worst had happened and I'd survived, even improved.

I found myself looking forward to nightfall, knowing that I'd be visited again by my invisible comforter. For several more days I stayed inside, eating what remained of my food and growing stronger until I realized I'd have to go back to work before I ran out of money. Something I'd not been able to foresee due to my confused state when I'd quit. They weren't willing to take me back at full capacity, do no doubt, to thinking I was becoming a bit undone. But they did agree to take me back as assistant to the man who'd filled my vacancy.

I agreed, didn't care, really, just wanted somewhere to go during the day to allow some time away from my now permanent visitor who saw me off in the morning and welcomed me home at night when I returned, tired, and hungry. Life had been going on in this matter for some months when I noticed the strangest sensation at the base of my neck. this feeling of not being alone that made me tighten my eyes as if trying to see far into the distance and turned my ear to the wind as if there was something very faint and far away to be heard I could never see nor hear but still I cannot lose the sensation of something being in my neck something coming to life several times a day at work I'd stand very still and strained to hear what now seemed to be a muffled, smothered voice sounding its message across the vast distance.

This behavior had started people looking at me with more than a trace of suspicion, the very people I'd worked with for so many years. I noticed the conversations would stop when I entered the lunchroom, and those that were attempted in my presence were of the most forced nature. None wanted to see, or all saw, and I'll never know. Now, the threads of despair being pulled through my face, sewing that black tail to my name. But I didn't care.

I had my sense of loss and this newer one. This force that had of late begun to rise ever so slowly up the length of my neck and was now firmly entrenched at the base of my skull. Although I was unable to hear what it seemed to be saying, the close attention I paid it did caused me to become acutely aware of everything that came into my line of vision, which I liked, except when I saw something that I felt should not have been there. Then I become strangely excited and angry, exquisitely angry, and stomp away, muttering under my breath, undoubtedly causing even more talk behind my back.

Once more, I didn't care. I was only concerned with deciphering the voice. When you've decided, or it's been decided for you, to let go of your hold on the outer world and sink into your own, you noticed things that before were of no importance, such as the arrangement of objects, how they lie against each other, their colors, textures, their very essences.

Objects live in a soundless world, and I, in my efforts to hear the voice, soon reached the point where I was able to reduce the sounds around me until my oral world was refined as a cloud chamber, sensitive only to the phantom presence of the voice whose every passing marked me indelibly. I started calling to it at night, calling and then becoming as still as possible, so that if it ever did speak, I would be there, able, eager to hear. I liked this also, this quieting of myself. It made everything so noticeable.

And even though I didn't always like everything that I saw or heard, it was better than how it was before, when I couldn't even feel the floor beneath my feet. I had a purpose, you see, a goal that carried the pleasurable weight of responsibility. Something needed to be heard. needed me. Along with my strange dreams, I started having day visions in which I played an active role.

I'd be at my job when the scene in front of me would suddenly begin to shrink. The edges of my vision obscured by a pulsating plasma out of which the new scene would appear. After the first time this happened, I opened my eyes to find myself back at work. My hands stretched towards a rotary press, dangerously close to being more. mangled in the gears. I clutched my hand back to my chest and spun around to find myself being watched by four or five others who turned away at the sight of my contorted features. And so it went, a journey of increasingly bizarre episodes and visions too numerous to report. I wasn't sure if the voice was becoming louder or that I was becoming quieter, but its incessant

whispering filled more and more of my time to the point where I was barely able to complete even the simplest tasks. Was it a single voice I was waiting for? At times it seemed to fill my head with the gentle roaring of a mass of voices, each spilling onto the others in an avalanche of sound, a whirlpool of call-and-response confusion with each voice battling the others for supremacy. Or was it that each was unaware of the others, simply saying what it must with there being no interaction between them? I didn't know. It only seemed to be that way at times. Then it was back to the feeling of there being only one voice.

One message. Something very important. And for me alone. One morning I found that I was barely able to turn my head from side to side. Not through pain, but a fullness. As if something had made its way into the muscles of my neck during the night and was not able to be moved. But it was good, I thought.

this inability to move for one's neck. It kept me quiet and were able to hear that which was suddenly clear in its soundings. I wondered if there were a connection between the two events. I liked them both, I must admit. So I assumed there was, though I couldn't be sure.

It might have been simple coincidence that as the voice became louder when I tightened more and more. At work, that day, day someone called my name as I passed. I cannot remember who he was, so I lowered my head and just stood there, knowing that sooner or later he would go away. At that point, I had no room for anyone except my comforter and listening for the voice.

I simply wanted not to exist anymore for the outside world, not to be bothered, distracted from what was truly and finally mine. That night, I was greeted. by my sense of loss and emptiness, ushered into my room and made to lie down and rest for I was very tired. As I lay there, watching the shapes of the lights from outside passing over my walls, I wondered if they really were from outside and not born in my room. Maybe they were my lights, and the sounds outside had nothing to do with them. With this in mind, I went to sleep. When I awoke, I could not move my head at all.

As the muttering of the voice had become louder, my thoughts had slowed to the point where I was barely able to decide if this were a good change or not. I did not know what good it would do, how things could be any easier this way, but my sense of loss and longing flowed over me, making me feel that if I relaxed,

everything would be fine. It was so... How can I put this? Wonderful. I'm now ashamed to say, to know that I could give up, relinquished control of my life to my comfort or as if I were child. For instead of questioning the changes in me, I became more accepting. Instead of fighting, I gave in.

Although it's easy to say now that if I had known where it all would lead, I would have fought like a wild man to maintain control. By that time, my comforter had seeped into my veins like a narcotic flower come full bloom in my brain. Through the fog of my mind, I was able to realize that I should not go to work. I finally decided to send a message and let them know what had happened. But when I thought of the questions they would ask, I changed my mind. And when the voice started coming through nice and clear, telling me to stay home, I knew I'd done the right thing.

It was as if my wrath-like sense of emptiness had finally solidified to the point of being able to speak directly to me in a voice I would have not expected. Deep and strong, with a bit of demand, a touch of insistence that, lucky for it, I reasoned, was mixed with the calming presence of my comforter, or I might have gone to work as a matter of spite. But deep inside, I knew I was only. bluffing. Did I do whatever the voice told me to do?

And can you blame me? To have a voice buzzing in your ears for months, maddeningly indecipherable. And then, when it finally does speak to you in such mollifluous tones as mine, not listen, not obey? I think not. Especially when each word carried with it my reward. paid and drawn out symphonies of visionary pleasure for the lonely vigil I had stood in anticipation

of its full coming. No, I would listen, I would obey. It flowed through me then, wave after wave of the deepest pleasure I had ever known, as if I were immersed in the timeless waters of perfection and importance. And so went the day, spent lying in bed and getting ready, I felt for something, though I had no idea what. But I liked its being important. I liked surrendering to the opaque waters in perfect sleep.

I woke again, still unable to move my head, barely able to swallow. But the voice, in a story of sorts, told me that I was approaching a state of perfection through which something great and good would flow. And it worked. I actually believed that what was happening was to be desired. What the voice failed to mention, however, was the pressure inside my head. So even though I was pleased with being special,

I also felt angry, betrayed. Then I heard someone walking past my door and my anger turned to rage. I felt my back arch with unleashed animal tension as I screamed at them to go away. But the voice quickly pressed out, creaking the springs of my bed, forcing the air from my lungs in a surprised gasp. Then the pressure turned to pain, but I just lay there, gritting my teeth, not making a sound. What I did was rubbed my head in an effort to make the sense.

pain go away. But when I placed my hand down my head, I was shocked to find it to change shape. After a few minutes, I ran my hand through my hair again and felt something move under my fingers. Funny as it seems now, and indicative of the regression, the confusion I was undergoing. I thought it was some kind of small animal, such as the rats had seen a work. I tore at my head in frustration with slow hands, but it was no use. I couldn't get at where it was coming from. So I stopped and listened as the room filled with tension. Then, with what logic I had left,

I realized how silly it was to think that there could be a rat on top of my head. My reason being simply that I would have known about it long before. Still, I didn't allow myself to see how terribly wrong it was all becoming, how I should have been doing something, anything, to get out of that room to add to the already oppressive atmosphere. This terrible sense of urgency had served to fill my every breath. I felt that something was going to happen. I wanted something to happen. but the voice said it was not time but to wait that it would not be long on hearing this i smiled an evil smile a leering slash i needed it to happen whatever it was i needed it to be over and then when it was dark the big pain came and knocked me back in my bed it hit again

and I moaned aloud, biting my wrist. I could feel something turn over as it expanded within the confines of my skull. A warm, slippery movement that quite nauseated me with its unnaturalness. I sensed a smile of evil satisfaction twisting the air, compressing my lungs, giving birth to a slow and sullen wind that lingered in the corners of my room. Even this I chose not to see for its demonic insanity. Instead, I was angry, even insulted by the fact of the invisible gloating smile of pain. How could there be a smile in my room when I was being hurt so badly?

Finally, overcome by the pain, I screamed and sat up, even though the voice it told me not to. But I really couldn't hear the voice too well anymore. yet having passed through a maze of pulsating breath and solid air to reach me, then I heard something I'd never heard before. The sound of something ripping just a little bit. Something that should never rip at all. When the next pain came, I slid to the floor. Even though I didn't know where I could go, I started crawling as the voice screamed at me to stop

because it was about to happen. I slowly moved around. the corner and into the hall that led to the laboratory. With my face almost against the floor, all I could see were the cracks between the boards. So I thought about them and not the voice, or the breathing, or the sounds of gentle ripping that worried me most of all. All I knew is that I had to make it to the laboratory, and not before too much more time it passed because the voice

I had never heard anything sound so murderous and betrayed. The drops of sweat that had been watching soak into the floor began to glisten in the light just as my right arm broke through up my shoulder. As though I knew my hand could not have passed through the floor, that at last

something so outrageous had happened that even in my most eluded state I found it impossible to accept. I knew also that it had. But what I touched, I understood the purpose of floors. Why they're laid so tightly, their boards laced together so securely. They are the plane of separation between us and all that is evil.

How without them we would sink forever in the fiber is dark of our being. I knew the voice had done this. But still, it was done. There was nothing to do but pull my hand out and try again. But this time both hands disappeared and I knew that I was going to plunge head first into whatever was down there. But I couldn't stop myself. I went on down into the floor where all was black and all I could do was fall until I thought I'd never stop. But I did stop.

Back on top of the floor where now everything was screaming, even the breathing. And I started moving again. After a few feet I looked up to see the door. only it wasn't the door. It was another big black hole. And something rushed out of the blackness, picked me up and threw me back into the hall where I stood up, actually stood up and walked back in there.

Where the solid icy blackness tried to throw me out again. This time only managing to set me back a few feet. So I was still in there when it all turned white. Then white, black. Then the breathing that had turned to screaming now turned to gagging and I turned into someone who was standing in front of the mirror but it was not me. Could not have been me? And the gagging turned to back arching as every muscle in my body thristled and threw back

to its tightest, most quivering potential. The air turning sick and red as the sounds swirled faster and darker and thicker my fingers growing long and white, evilly white, splitting their skins as they dug into the sink and my forehead burst open and I saw nothing but red as the basin filled.

It was over. The voice was gone. The breathing was gone. The screaming was gone. It was all gone. Later, I was to think this was because all of that and what had come out of me, could not have existed at the same time, or the world would have died.

A few hours after I had disposed of the aborted demon, I was walking around in a state of numb hysteria when the voice told me to lock up my room and leave. Taking the least-traveled street to the edge of town where I turned into an old country road, I followed it until daybreak, then hid in the woods a little. along the way and waited until nightfall, at which time I started moving again. The journey lasted several days and nights, days of hunger and thirst under the sun, nights of stumbling along the road, driven by a terrible fear of myself, and what was to come? On what I believe was my second night out, a horse and buggy passed and slowed and pulled

off onto the side of the road. This lantern glowed through the dust it had raised. I heard a bleary voice call out. Hop in, friend, if there's no harm in you. As I staggered up to the side and looked at the old man sitting in the driver's seat, his look of friendly openness slowly turned to confusion, and then more quickly to terror as I continued staring at him, swaying as I held on to the fringed hop.

He pulled himself up with a great shout and fumbling, and cleared off into the night, practically going into first one ditch and then the other as I fell back, trying to regain my balance. Finally, after a seemingly endless night, near delirious from my earlier loss of blood and the lack of food and water,

I stumbled out of the woods and into a clearing. About 100 yards in front of me stood an old two-story house, its long sloping roof reflecting the moonlight that gave everything a disturbed, wavering. glow. I made my way toward it, weaving uncontrollably, as the image of the house blurred and danced in the ghostly light. The last memory I have of that night, though somehow I managed to break down the door and take a few steps before passing out. I must have slept for several days without moving, for when I started to regain consciousness, it was because of the incessant tugging I felt on my

outstretched hand. I twitched my wrist and when the tugging stopped, I went back to sleep. When I felt the tugging again, I opened my eyes, breaking their crusty seal and blinking at the diffused light that filtered through a dirty window. Gradually, the dark shape that hovered over my hand came into focus. I watched it for a few seconds. Then the excruciating pain and disgust of what was happening hit me full force. I sat up, flinging the large black rat by its teeth end over end above my head, a thin parabola of blood trailing from its open mouth. It hit the wall behind me with a thud,

its feet working so fast against the spongy wallpaper that I could hear it running down the wall as I bolted through the open door, howling in pain. Slowly I was able to calm myself, stopped the parade of images and forced myself to look at my hand. There was an area About an inch wide And a half an inch deep

Chewed out to the meaty side of my palm I lay on my side Tore a strip from my shirt Wrapped it around the wound And pulled it tight with one end between my teeth When I had it secured I limped back inside The house was completely empty

With most of the windows boarded up Or covered with dirty sheets I walked up to narrow stairs to the top three rooms. Everything was the same as below. The door, the fading wallpaper that hung down in long strips, boarded up windows and piles of rat droppings all over the floor. An old iron bed frame stood in the middle of the largest room

as if someone had tried to move it and then given up. As I wondered what to do next, I was startled by the wild scaring of rats above my head as they raced across the attic floor. I went back downstairs and found a broom in a small closet. Surprised at how easily it came away from the floor. It seemed that the years of contact would have somehow molded the two objects together. I cradled the broom under my injured hand and did the best I could in sweeping out what seemed to be several generations of rats' nests from beneath the kitchen sink.

Then I blocked off the doorway with a piece of flooring and laid down to wait for nightfall. For the next few weeks, my days consisted of sleeping all day and then going out at night to the stream where I found. filled an old can with water and then searched for wild onions and other edible plants. When I was strong enough, I started my garden. I was at night, terrified by the sounds of the forest as I scratched and tore it the earth with a rusty head of an old shovel, more like a wild animal than a man. I tried to finish each night's task as quickly as possible so I could return to the relative safety of the house.

On moonlit nights I would wait in darkness. under the last group of trees until a stray cloud crossed the moon and then run to the back door. Always everything was performed in darkness. It was as if the voice had been here before had planned all of this in advance, so that while everything was totally foreign, at the same time it was strangely familiar, I was told how to construct traps for the occasional rabbit or squirrel, allowed to build a makeshift stove out of some pieces of congregated tin. and told how to arrange them so no light could escape from the fire.

I was also given the courage to place the red-hot length of metal against the inflamed gap in my hand that had rotted to the bone, to work it back and forth and not listen to the hiss of my flesh being seared, things I would never have been able to do on my own, and without which I surely would have died, though I soon realized why I was being kept alive. for the swelling had started again. It has happened many times, though, more than I can count. But when I ask how many more there will be, I get no real answer.

The voice does not tell me these things, but I know there will be more. I can feel it. At times I've had to wait most of the night before life blazed full force into those yellow eyes. With others, I'm not even married. whole again before I'm urged to act. Most are taken into the basement and left for what must be some future purpose. Others have me carry them outside and leave them in the strangest places. These are the ones that worry me most.

One night I was made to hold one to my chest, carry it into the forest, and place it at the base for a particular tree. I'd been told to leave immediately and not look back. But I could not resist that. the desire to see. I hid behind another tree and watched by the moonlight as a creature left its wrappings and slowly crawled up the tree to the height of about three feet. And then, by changing its shape and color, actually growing bark, it became indistinguishable

from the other lumps that studded the tree. Drawn by an uncontrollable curiosity, I walked up to the tree, placed a trembling hand on the bark and felt a warmth that gradually faded. It had become the tree. And yes, I have tried to kill myself, being aware that the sole purpose of my existence is to release evil into the world, especially after the time I walked all night through the woods to place my burden in the bedroom of a little girl. I've tried not eating or drinking, only to find myself staggering through the woods, forcing whatever's alive or wet into my mouth. I've even tried slitting my throat.

After carrying yet another beast to the earth embassment, I noticed a glint of light in the mud. As I leaned down to tie my shoe, I studied the light out of the corner of my eye until I realized it was the tip end of a broken piece of mirror buried in the mud. I pulled out the small triangle of mirror in the same motion as my standing, wiped it against my pants and palmed it as I headed for the steps. But instead of rushing upstairs and locking the door behind me, as I normally did. I stopped at the small ground-level window through which the setting sun weakly glowed, quickly rubbed away the ancient dust from the glass

and angled the mirror to the light. Upon seeing my face, I just as quickly raised the glass to my throat. But a stronger hand within my own flung the glass away, leaving me to sink to the steps, surrounded by the eternally pulsating breaths. of hundreds of hells to be. For our second story this evening, as their city burns,

Marty and Brina race separately toward a rendezvous they planned long ago. But survival demands sacrifice, and not all reunions, are happy ones. Creepy Presents, Stick to the Plan, written by Matt Scott and narrated by Jimmy Ferrer. Marty jiggled the faucet. He turned it off, then on, then off and on again. Nothing. No water.

It just died. Shut off right in the middle of doing dishes. Great. He walked out of the kitchen, past the laundry room where the stairs to the basement let down. And went to the bathroom closest to him. Turned that water on. Nothing. He went to the master bath in their bedroom.

Turn the faucet on. Not even a drip. Odd. Just his luck. His one chore to do on his day off before Brina got home. And the water shut off. He figured it was what he deserved for waiting until the last minute to do them. Message received, Universe.

loud and clear. He went back to the kitchen. There was a low, distant rumble from somewhere far off. The dishes and the cabinets vibrated softly. Marty turned his head toward the front door and listened. There was another low rumble. Then a closer one. And then a crash just outside.

It rattled the windows and made plaster dust rain. down from the ceiling. The cats high-tailed it to the basement. Sadie ran to her crate, whimpering. Marty ran into the living room. Through open the front door, car alarms drowned out the sounds of the raging fires. Smoke filled the air. The sky was black and orange. Siren sounded across the city. His neighbor's house was fully engulfed in flames. Rick was a quiet and helpful older man. He hoped he made it out. For now, he just had to get the dog and get downstairs.

He just hoped Brina would get to the meeting place. The bench under the tree on the trail, halfway to the reservoir. That was their plan, if anything like this ever happened. They were to head there. He couldn't wait. He had to get out of the city. It was on fire. He heard the upstairs windows shatter.

Smoke filled his house. Sadie ran to the entrance of the tunnel. They had practiced this, planned for it. She knew what to do. Sadie sat by the heavy wooden door. Marty put her harness on her and attached it to two water bottles. The small pack of food, he donned his pack as well. Standard issue.

Survival gear, a knife or two, a compass, first aid, more water, and a flashlight. He tried his phone. No signal. Stick to the plan. Marty swung open the door. It was hard to get started, but soon it swung freely on its own momentum. The tunnel was dark, cool, and damp. An old bootleggers tunnel.

They ran all under Bessemer. They were a labyrinth-themed collection of narrow earthen passageways And low tunnels you had to crawl on your hands and knees to squeeze through Some places dropped straight down ten feet Other snaked and rose dozens of feet up Leading out at various intervals The ground slick and slimy He was headed to Ruby's

Ruby's general store was a two-story brick box on the corner of Evans and Summit, three blocks from his house up the hill. That's where he was going to come out, at the basement of old rubies. He shined the flashlight down the passage. The air smelled of earthworms and mold. The way was clear. It hadn't been too long since they were all down here. Maybe one day last month, maybe the month before that. They thought everything was getting better, that everything was being worked out. Apparently it all went to shit overnight. But they had planned for this exact eventuality, Brina and him. He knew just what to do and where to go. And so did she. He just had to trust that she would get there. The not knowing,

was killing him. He walked slowly, his head down, flashlight illuminating the ground before him. In front of him, a few feet. Sadie trotted. Her ears pointed upward, alert to any movement. She could see in the dark. Lucky girl. Sadie stopped, whined, and then growled a low, long growl. The hair on her back stood up. There was someone in front of them up ahead, where the tunnel turned slightly west, following the road. Marty heard footsteps, running and coming at him fast. He tilted the light up just in time to dodge a blow to his face.

The man flew by him, his momentum spilling him onto the ground. Sadie was on him in an instant. Her massive jaws sank deep into the attacker's throat. She thrashed, whipping her head back and forth until blood sprayed from his neck. Marty hugged the wall, letting the dog work. This is what she was trained to do. She pranced back over to Marty, proud of herself, and licking the blood and flesh from her nose. He bent down and patted her on top of the head, his hands trembling.

He whispered to her that she was a good girl. and they continued up the tunnel. Ten minutes later, they were at the three-rung ladder leading up to the hatch below Ruby's basement. He stepped on to the bottom rung, reached up and hefted open the heavy iron grates. They fell to the floor with the loud metal clang that reverberated throughout the place and deep down into the tunnels. If no one else knew he was there, they did now. Marty bent down and picked Sadie up.

like a sack of potatoes, and heaved her up into the basement proper. Then he ascended, hoisting himself up onto his feet. He quickly closed down the hatch. Better safe than sorry. No need for a formal imitation, right? Now for the heart part. Five miles. Half of that through town.

The other half completely in the open. Doable. Brina would be there. He knew that. She'd get there, probably before him, and be waiting on him with the go-bag and the balls to use it. She didn't mess around. God, he loved that woman. Brena ran across the Fourth Street bridge as it gave way under its own weight, twisting and wobbly, threatening to plunge it and everyone on it in the icy waters of Arkansas. 100 feet, run. Chucks of concrete the size of school buses fell from underneath the bridge as cable snapped and cars skittered off the edge. The noise was deafening.

It rattled her teeth and made her ears hurt. 50 feet. Women and children screamed. Horns honked in vain. Ten feet. Her lungs burned. Her legs quivered as she jumped the last. three feet to the asphalt road as the bridge collapsed into the river.

Marty peaked out of one of the boarded-up windows on Ruby's first floor. The place was dust covered and stagnant. Nothing moved but the flames outside and the smoke. And he glanced over at Sadie, as if to ask her what was moving outside. Figures whirled past the window, dark and low to the tree. ground. Marty couldn't discern size or shape, but they were fast, and there were a few of them. Best to avoid that way altogether. They'd go up Washington, cut over and cross northern, follow the ditch all the way out of town. It was the fastest way. They needed to get out.

And now, beyond rubies, the city burned. Armed troops marched down the interstate, column after armored column. There was chaos in the street. Gunfire, bloodshed, and looting. And worse. Much, much, much worse. He had to get to the tree. He had to get to Brena.

They crept out of rubies one foot at a time. Marty kept low. Sadie by his side. ears perked eyes sharp marty adjusted his pack the straps were already digging into his shoulders and he still had a long way to go they slink behind buildings and took the alleyways adjacent to northern the militia wasn't on the south side yet but the bombs had paved away for them buildings were flattened whole blocks on fire cars over turned, holes the size of a Volkswagen in the middle of the road, deep enough to stand in. Fire alarms rang out from the buildings left standing. They were crumbling as he walked.

He kept to the shadows away from the people. Crowds gathered outside churches. People huddled beneath awnings and cowered under picnic tables. He didn't have the luxury of faith nor the patience to huddle and wait. He could hear the people screaming, crying out and disbelief, cursing God and whoever else they could think of. Gunfire rang out, and a bullet whizzed by, hitting the fence beside him. He called Sadie to his side with a swift command, and they began to run down the alley, west, toward the edge of town. Now it wasn't safe to be alone in the shadows. He had to lose this clown in the crowd. He cut up Santa Fe and stepped up onto northern.

Midtown was gone. The BMW, the McDonald's, Grays, the mall, the arena, the bus station. All those poor people. It was just a hole in the ground now. Brena looked down on the crater from the other side of Fourth Street Bridge. Below her, in the frozen, ice choked Arkansas. Survivors clung to the sheets of ice to stay afloat, while others clambered to get ashore, plodding and splashing in the paralyzing water, swimming over bodies and vehicles bobbing like buoys in the river.

She turned and looked up the road. Fourth Street became Lincoln a few blocks up, then just over Thatcher and straight-out. out of town, maybe two miles. Black smoke filled the air, already laden with screams and howls of every kind. The world had gone feral in less than a day. She ran to get off the street as three armed uniform men emerged from the insurance agency by Rocco's Deli. Both buildings still stood intact. She guessed the militia wouldn't want to bomb their own. So they took out the bridge to be safe. Smart.

Effective. The three men walked out into the Arctic afternoon air. They seemed used to it. Locals. Traders. She wished she had Sadie with her. A pang ran through her then. And she thought of Marty and Sadie.

And whether or not they made it out of Bessemer before the fire swept through. She's out of the tunnel and the training they had both gone through. This day was inevitable, and she'd stuck to the plan, but to get to them, she'd have to walk through the flames. Marty and Sadie melded with the throngs of people running the streets, looking for safety, supplies, and victim. They moved their way in and out of the myriad of people until they were sure that they had lost the shooter from the alley. It all could have been random, but it didn't feel that way. He was stupid for sticking to the alleys. It was too cold and too dangerous to be hemmed in like that.

Damn things were just killboxes. Crowds were no better, though they did offer camouflage. They were too unpredictable to stay in for long. Brina and he both knew that, had talked about it at length even, though it had been months ago when the fighting was still escalating. It had been quiet lately. Off the front pages. The quiet before the storm.

A single gunshot rang out. And the woman beside Marty, the one with the flannel scarf and ripped open green coat, the fluff was sticking out of one sleeve, dropped like a lead-weight as the bullet tore into her brain. Another shot shattered the crisp afternoon air as it seared into her ass as she lay dead at his feet. Bullet slamming into her back, barely missing Sadie, who sniffed around her corpse. Marty grabbed Sadie's lead and ran as fast as he could through the frightened crowd of housewives and heathens, the faithful and the lost. When he got to the boulevard, he ducked behind the applebees and crouched down by,

behind the dumpster. He took a long drink of water and gave Sadie some. He scarfed down an energy bar and carefully took a look back at the way he had come. People were choking the streets. People abandoned their cars, running instead hysterically in all directions. No one had a plan. Beyond him, the city fanned out, thinned out a bit. It let the prairies and eros take back over. There were more dirt lots than asphalt ones, more scrub brush than big buildings, past the Walmart. The Bessemer ditch ran straight to the reservoir. He could take it all the way to the trailhead. And after that, the tree and Brina.

He was sure she'd be waiting, pretending to be furious. But all the while just relieved he made it in one piece. He and Sadie. Then they could get the hell out of there and head for the mountains. After a few minutes, they emerged from their respite, refreshed and hydrated. They hit the ditch, scaling down its concrete embankment until they reached its bottom, some 20 feet down. The ditch was empty, save for trash and leaves crusted with snow. Hitting the bottom, they high-tailed it out of town.

Redneck assholes. How come every man, no matter what the fucking situation, only thinks about his dick? She stepped over the three of them. But the pistol she had taken off the little guy in her pants behind her back. She'd always wanted to do that. Training, motherfuckers. You should have had some. Brina ducked down as more militia exited the building.

Some sort of meeting hall, command center perhaps. blow the bridge and take over the neighborhood. Strategic. She had to get moving. Marty and Sadie should be at the tree by now, waiting for her, worrying themselves sick, no doubt. She ran behind the buildings and across lots with burning vehicles, bullets and bodies. If they caught her, they'd have to kill her.

The trailhead was just around the bend. Maybe half a mile. Marty slowed, turned back. Nothing in no one except for ice and snow were everywhere he looked. He bent over, resting his hands on his knees. Sadie, panting beside him. Unsure what to do. Her tail wagged, but she was still on alert, ever vigilant.

They didn't have far to go, just a little more. and then they'd be with her again. Reassured. Marty straightened and started forward. Sandy bounded ahead, energized by his movement. They pushed on together through some snow, following the trail toward home. They continued at a trot until they came to a bend, and the fence appeared on the top of the embankment that delineated the park from the city proper.

They climbed. The hill was steep and slick. And Marty slipped a few times when he was almost at the top, sliding back down. Sadie stayed about halfway up on it, her claws coming in handy where Marty's heavy boots did not. On his third attempt off the steep slope, he looked to his right, down the way they had come, and saw a man trotting down the ditch towards them. He had a rifle. and a murderous look in his dark eyes.

Sadie saw the man and started growling, then barking. Marty didn't seem to care. There was no use hiding. The man had obviously found them. And now he studied his rifle on his shoulder and fired as Marty began to climb. The bullet hit near Sadie's paws, kicking up snow and concrete, spitting it at her as she frantically looked for her way off the hold. She looked down at Marty, who gripped and clawed with all his might to reach her, to get them both up and off the embankment where they were sitting ducks.

A second shot. This one bused by Sadie's ear and crashed under the ice behind her. Marty stopped, almost to her. The man wasn't shooting at him. He was shooting at her. At his dog. Marty reached up. He could almost grab her slip lead. She looked down at him anxiously, hopefully. Marty grabbed the slip lead. Another shot rang out.

Brena heard the gunshot. Sounded like a rifle firing. Far away. To the west. She could be at the tree in an hour tops. She had to hurry. The sun was setting and with him. the cold would settle in, making travel difficult.

She had to get to them while the sun was still up, so they could get as far away from the city as possible. The troops wouldn't care about the cold, wouldn't care about anything other than their mission, to round them all up, burn their cities, to make room. She headed west across the boulevard and ran behind the apple bees and hid behind the dumpster catching her brunt. She headed towards the ditch in the trailhead, toward Marty and the tree.

Marty rolled over the top of the embankment onto the walking trail. Sadie whinnied beside him. She put her head down on the crook of his arm and nuzzled him. Just needed a minute. He couldn't catch his breath. Sadie licked his cheek. Her face white. Her white face covered in blood.

Mertie examined Sadie's face, knowing the outcome was not going to be good. He was thirsty and cold. Sadie crawled halfway on to his chest, as if protecting herself from the cold. She began to growl. The man with the rifle crested the hill. Sadie didn't move. Just raise her hackles and barked at the man. The man stood over them, rifle in hand.

His face twisted with rage. Spittle flew as he shouted. His words sharp and cruel. Marty lay broken in the snow, coughing up blood, unable to move. The cold tightening its grip. Marty begged the man not to shoot Sadie, coughing up blood as he pleaded. The man aimed his rifle at Sadie.

She put her head down on Marty's chest and lick his face. A tear was running down her cheek. Marty sobbed, blood bubbling from his mouth. His hand barely lifting to touch her. Around them, the silence deepened, heavy and final. Marty closed his eyes. and held Sadie tight. A gunshot.

Marty opened his eyes. The man fell forward almost on top of them. Sadie ran to Brina. She stood at the top of the embankment 25 feet back. The gun she had taken off the militia soldiers raised in her hand, pointing at where the would-be assassin stood. She knelt down, petted Sadie, and kissed her. Then ran over to Marty.

He reached up weakly, brushing her hair aside with trembling fingers. A strained smile touched his lips. She tried to mirror it, her expression breaking under the weight of tears. Sadie returned, curling protectively against Marty's chest. Her soft winds rising into the cold air. Brina held him tightly, cradling him in her arms, the blood spread through his clothes, soaking into her as well. His breath came in short, shallow bursts.

His strength slipping away. He looked into her eyes one last time, hand falling gently from her face. Then nothing. Just stillness. He held him. Silent, snow falling around them. Sadie nestled close as if her. refusing to let go. After a long moment, Brina whispered to the wind and gathered herself.

She stood, gathered Sadie to her side, and turned toward the mountains, where the plan would continue. For our final story this evening, after a global catastrophe, a lone survivor wanders a ruined world, but as figures emerge and march endlessly towards an unknown fate, the line between solitude, identity, and surrender begins to dissolve. Creepy presents, perhaps the last, written by Riley Norris, and narrated by Cole Burkart. I didn't think there could be anyone left at this point. The series of coincidences that made me the last were improbable at best and not replicable by mortal needs. One would need divine intervention to save their life in the way mine was saved.

Perhaps it was divine intervention, and I am the last for a reason. There are stories about the divine destroying the world and leaving the ones they deem fit to make anew. The Hellenic and the Abrahamic traditions flooded the world and let their chosen few repopulate. I did the feeling that, unlike them, I will not be one of a few. I may not even be as lucky as Ducalion. I may truly be alone. My world is not one of old or of myth. My world is a globe full of life that has expanded out to every inch it could reach.

My world cannot flood in 40 days no matter the world. the rain because we built levees and dug ditches. My world fights floods with dams and not archs. I did not get a warning or a sense of purpose. I was not chosen by God. No God I know of would leave me alone without so much as a warning. I can't believe that God would let me be alone. The wasteland around me doesn't look dissimilar to a natural disaster or a war zone. The destruction is not absolute. Rubble, still lightly burning, clearly indicates the existence of human life. There is still a message of our existence in these ruins, just as there is in Tenochtitlan and Pompeii.

Perhaps I am not the last. There is greater devastation, far off. from me. Doubt creeps back in where hope had momentarily taken hold. A large crater has taken the place of the pinnacle of humanity. Every ounce of labor and care that made great monuments to human life is now dust. Perhaps I should march myself over there and succumb to the dangers that remain. Perhaps I should join humanity in our last hurrah. Stories always implied we would make it further than this. Dreams of reaching other worlds, of utopia, of a world made for us, are now ash.

Every step towards those dreams is now rubble. We knew there were problems. We knew there was a danger. It paled in comparison to our wants. Desire blinded us to the reality of tomorrow. I've wandered. I didn't know what else to do. The world ended, and I started to wander.

At first, I stumbled and called and pleaded for help. The panic rose steadily as no one answered. It calmed not long ago. The destruction took it all out of me, as if the wind had been not from my lungs. That was when I sat for a long time. I didn't know what else to do. That wasn't very productive, though, so I went back to wandering. I didn't know what else to do.

I am far from where I started. There is nothing here anymore, so I'm not. Really anywhere? I'm not going anywhere, and I'm not coming from anywhere. Nothing is left. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I suppose I'm proud that I've avoided panicking again for so long, but it creeps in, like bile into my throat.

I don't know what to do. The crackle of fire has become white noise to me now. and my feet sort of drag across the ground. The panic creeps in faster, and the white noise turns into a screeching whine. I stumble. I don't know what to do. The ringing in my ears overpowers the fire and almost covers the sound I've been waiting for.

I stop. The sound again. I need my ears to stop ringing so I can know what is going on. My stumbling path veers right. There's no sound for a time, but I keep right. When it does sound again, it is closer. Close enough that I can hear it over the piercing ringing. It almost sounded like me.

There was nothing left, but something sounds like me. It yells and panics like me. I did. It screams and falls and climbs with reckless abandon over the jagged edges of yesterday. It cannot see me, but I have stopped moving. I don't know what to do. Anybody? Please. I need help. I don't know what to do. It yells some more. Some more. It yells until it goes hoarse. It panics. Then it walks.

It walks away from me. With its back towards me, it looks like me. It stands like me and watches like I walked. I don't know what to do. There isn't anything like me left. Perhaps I am. not the last. I stumbled behind it for a long time. I did not call out. My sandpaper throat constricted around a yell that would never come. I followed with bumbling, tripping feet and

no care for what sound I made. It never heard, or it never cared for it never looked back. We walked until I was almost crawling, and its feet began to stutter as mine had. There is a sound just loud enough to hear over the flames, and the now permanent assault upon my eardrums. It stops, so I stop too. It veers right, so I veer right, too. We continue as we always have, but now, going right. right. We stop again. The sound again. A familiar cadence, a phrase, I know. Yelling and stumbling and panic all play out in a sickening familiarity. It watches the new creature get up and begin to walk

away from us. It follows just as I had. No cry is made. made to alert the new being. No amount of clumsy movement gets it to turn its head back to the first creature. No amount of movement from me draws attention from either. I have to wonder if these things are the same as me at all. What sort of creature never turns around despite all that noise? What kind of creature marches one after another with no end in sight? I follow both of the unknown beings for a while. I have to wonder if the first is as confused as I was when I followed it. I have to wonder if they know what needs to be done, or if they are lost like me. Perhaps we are the last together. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm glad to have something. The task of following

wards the panic away to some degree. Following seems to be the only plan I have until the creature at the front stops. It stopped as the one before it did, and I have to imagine it heard something I am too far back to have caught. It veers right, and the first following. The first following, trails right behind. For a moment, I turn my body to follow again after the pause. For a moment, my feet are like cement and no step can be made. I try to push myself forward. Following is all I have to do, so I must. I still don't move. I hear a noise now, a new noise. This is not a the same whisp of a yell carried on the wind that brought me to a stop before. This isn't even a voice. It's as though I were able to get moving again without ever having done so. The rasp and shuffle

that have accompanied my gait grow louder, but I have still yet to move. I'm still stuck solid, rooted to my spot, as another one of them passes me by. Unlike the first two creatures, this one is actually within about 200 feet of me and getting closer. It walks as I did, and the shuffle. I hear it gain volume as it approaches. I have to imagine it looks like how I do right now. It has short hair like I do, but there is a thick coat of ash and dust. all over it. It's as tall as I am, at least. It comes closer to matching my eye level as it creeps closer. It never looks at me, even as it passes next to me. And arms reach away, and I may as well

not exist to this creature. The world descends into quiet, white noise again as it continues forward and to the right. There is still silence when I do not give chase. There's only sound again when the crunch of rubble under feet begins its approach. Another creature, just like the last, just like me, marches forward and right until I am passed without acknowledgement once again. I stay still after it has left me, and I look back. Another one is walking toward me. Its shuffle matches the last.

It ignores me like the last. Another follows it like the last. They follow like I did. I don't know what to do. A piece of me feels drawn to the line of hazy-eyed creatures marching eternally on. The rest of me, into my place of observation as though I were hardening concrete meant to never leave. More creatures pass.

They all look the same, and they all look something like me. Everything else is me, too, and they seem to know what to do. Perhaps I am the last. 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.