Creepy - We All Return to the Earth & Ink

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

We All Return to the Earth***Written by: Imogen Toulon and Narrated by: Nichole Goodnight***Ink***Written by: Brady Garner and Narrated by: Owen McCuen***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. Creepy presents. We all return to the earth, written by Imogen Toulon, and narrated by Nicole Goodnight.

Welcome to the country. Richard yelled enthusiastically across the driveway, chuckling to himself as he watched me wrestle with the overturned compost cart. Bits of wilted lettuce spilled across the yard. An unwelcome reminder that I had chosen greasy take-out pizza over salads for another week. Richard meant well, but he didn't know me. He didn't know that for 30 years I'd lived much deeper in the sticks than he'd ever seen in his 70 years. A hungry black bear digging for a snack in my green cart was nothing. Country living knew me well. He stood with his hands on his hips.

It got mine too, he called, flashing a grin. His dentures reflected in the light, and it caught a glimpse of the man he once was, probably handsome in his prime. I humored him with a quick wave before rushing inside to wash my hands. Already late for work. I didn't need the extra chore or the neighborly commentary slowing me down. I slid into the front seat and turned the key. The engine roared to life, drowning my thoughts as I shifted into reverse.

I waved again, flashed a tight-lipped smile, and pulled out of the driveway. A few miles down the road, Richard's voice echoed in my head, and I felt the heat of annoyance creep up. I could have fired back a dozen smart reports. applies, revealing that I, too, was raised in the country. But this wasn't a competition. Guilt pinched me. I really should lighten up. I knew soon I'd need to go over there and have a proper neighborly chat, but the timing never seemed right. At a stop sign, I adjusted the rearview mirror to check my appearance. My hair trimmed over the years by my own dull scissors, sat uneven

and flat. I didn't care. Good enough was my motto for anything I could get away with. I used to be Pretty, I think. People used to tell me that. I never had the self-esteem to match, so I suppose it was a waste. A solid bout of depression added 20 pounds to my thin frame, dulling my skin and slowing my steps. Each day was considered a success if I brushed my teeth and showered without sitting down. Richard grew up on this land. Hell, maybe he was born on it. His father had four children and the land was divided into parcels where they each built homes and raised families. A few decades and deaths later, I'm sharing a driveway with Richard, living alone in his dead brother's three-bedroom bungalow. The real estate agent had assured me his ghost was long gone.

Our houses sat atop a grassy hill. The property is separated only by a gravel driveway and a sparse line of fig trees pretending to provide privacy. As a result, I had an audience whenever I ventured outside. But I didn't mind. I've lived my whole adult life without fear, but Richard's watchfulness somehow. made me feel safer. Since there's always a witness, nothing bad could ever happen to me out here. I'd met Richard in the driveway many times since moving in, always just as the sun dipped behind the trees. We'd chat idly about the grass, how long it was getting, how it was about time to mow.

I listened, nodding along, practicing the small talk skills I'd absorbed from a lifetime of living in a small town with my father. A quick trip into the grocery store could take an hour as we've sauntered through the aisles, stopping to chat with the locals he grew up with, the same locals we'd just run into a few days earlier. But there was always something new to discuss. But Richard never asked anything about me, not once, and I volunteered nothing. Not that there was anything to share. Every conversation with him felt like a ritual, a brief exchange of pleasantries as if we were

contractually bound to do so whenever we were outside. The silence that followed, though, was always the same. comfortable in a way, but hollow, empty. Richard's wife, Lorna, stayed inside almost always. I knew she existed because I'd catch glimpses of her loading into the car every few weeks, probably for groceries or a doctor's appointment. Her gray, wiry hair hung like a veil around her sunken face, strands unkept as if they, too, had surrendered a time.

She shuffled from the front door, gripping the patio railing as if gravity itself had disappeared, threatening to send her into the ether. Her gaze, distant and unfocused often wandered past everything in front of her. I wondered if she still recognized the world she moved through, or if the house had become her anchor, solid and unchanging, like the years that had passed. I'd missed Garbage Day two weeks in a row. The stench had started to seep from the garden shed punishing my senses every time I stepped outside. It was 11 p.m. on the eve of Garbage Day, third week running, when I remembered.

If I left it any longer, it might just grishton. her legs and walk itself to the curb. I pulled on my boots and coat hurrying out the door. The cold fall air slapped my face, whipping my hair across my forehead. Winter was almost here, and with it, the hibernation I'd been craving for months. As I descended the patio steps, a rustling came from the dark corner of the lawn. Normally I'd find a squirrel or a raccoon, but this felt different, heavier, maybe a coyote preying on a rogue chipmunk. Coyotes were common in this area and, usually not a threat to humans, but it was now mating season making them more dangerous. I stopped, listening. The wrestling stopped. Then it started again. Louder this time.

Something wasn't right. I stared into the darkness, straining my eyes to make out a shape crouching motionless inside the first row of pine trees. The moonlight barely touched the ground, but it was enough to reveal the curve of something familiar. The faintest reflection of a human face, its contours blurred by the shadows, but there is no mistaking it. My sharp inhale caused it to freeze, whipping its head in my direction. I froze, too, staring at the black hollow eye sockets that seemed to pierce through the darkness focused entirely on me. Then its mouth opened wide, stretching back the skin, and it released a primal scream,

a sound that scraped like nails against the inside of my skull. the amplified sound of an animal caught in a trap. I gasped, feeling cold, sharp tingling, race up my spine. My blood turned to ice. Without thinking, I bolted for the front door, my feet barely touching the ground. I didn't know if I'd make it before that thing caught up to me, but I couldn't look back to find out. I reached the porch in a blur, leaping all three steps in one go and thrusting the door open with my shoulder.

It banged hard against the wall inside. Using the doorknob as a crutch, I launched myself across the threshold and slammed the door shut behind me, turning the deadbolt with shaking hands. I stared out the window for hours that night, waiting for any signs of movement. But there was nothing. The next morning, I cracked the door and stepped out onto the patio, feeling braver in the daylight. The sun was casting its early light on the pine trees, highlighting the frost on their needles. For a moment, everything felt absurd.

Did I imagine what happened last night? Was it just the shadows playing? tricks on me? The scream. Could it have been a bird or maybe just a bobcat in heat? It was the only explanation. I scanned the shared driveway, my gaze catching on the house across the way. An odd impulse tugged at me, a sudden need to go over. I told myself it wasn't about last night, that I wasn't going over there to see if they'd heard anything, but the lie felt hollow, even to me. I climbed the porch steps glancing awkwardly around for a doorbell, but finding only a set of glass wind-shine. I took a deep breath, knocked on the door, and chewed on my bottom lip, staring down at the chipped

paint of the patio. Lorna opened the door and greeted me warmly. Her smile bright despite the tension hanging in the air. Come on in, she said, stepping aside. I hesitated at the threshold, taking in the familiar layout of the house, the same white-dated 1970s-style kitchen cupboards, the same narrow hallway leading to the living room. It was almost uncanny how much it mirrored my own home. A strange sense of calm washed over me.

I wondered why it had taken me so long to finally come over here. Richard's out at the moment, Lorna said with a wink, so I'm afraid it's just us chickens. I glanced behind me noticing Richard's car in the driveway. Oh, his car's home. I thought I was hoping to catch both of you. My words came out more like a question, but Lorna didn't bite. The silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable.

I brushed it off and followed her into the living room, a small knot forming in my stomach. I was hoping you'd come over for a proper visit. You must be so lonely over there by yourself. Lorna patted the arm of a well-loved lazy boy covered in a knit blanket. The basket of yarn beside the couch suggested it was something Lorna had made herself. We actually have some news, Lorna added, inhaling deeply and dropping her hands into her lap. The words came out quickly. I'm afraid Richard hasn't been well lately. His doctors have diagnosed him with dementia. It's in the early stages, but the doctor's predicting he'll go downhill fast. My mind immediately flashed back to my recent chats with Richard in the driveway, hovering over every word we exchanged, scanning them for

evidence of the disease. He had seemed fine. Our daughter has secured a place for us in an assisted living facility. It will be too difficult for me to maintain a home while caring for him. If everything goes as planned, we'll be moving next to. month. Lorna's voice was flat, like she'd rehearsed this too many times already. I nodded, unsure of what to say. A flood of memories rushed in. My grandmother's face flickering in my mind, hollow eyes, paper-thin skin. Dementia had stolen her, and that was creeping up on Richard, too. I sat in silence. The weight of the news pressed down on me, but Lorna didn't seem to notice. Her gaze never wavered, and I felt the room close in.

the walls filling smaller somehow like they were pressing in around me. Then, in a voice that broke the tension like glass, she asked, So, have you seen any deer outside lately? I blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift. It wasn't the question itself that unsettled me, it was the way she said it. The cadence was wrong. To knowing. There's something beneath her words.

A hidden weight I couldn't quite place. something in the way her eyes lingered on mine. My mind raced back to the face in the tree line. Its hollow, agonizing gaze. The memory of that animalistic shriek sent a shiver down my spine, the echo of it still ringing in my ears. I was so blindsided by Lorna's news that I had forgotten entirely about the face in the woods. Until now.

After everything I just heard, I couldn't burden her with last night's events. I'm sorry, I just remembered I'm late for a Zoom meeting. I promise I'll come back soon. for a longer visit before you leave? I jumped up and hurried to the front door, trying to keep my voice steady as I said my goodbyes. A few days had passed since my conversation with Lorna. The weather had shifted abruptly.

Autumn's final burst of color quickly turned to a dull gray as winter loomed. The world outside felt cold, sharper now, like a knife's edge. I stood on my porch staring out at the sunset. It was one of the last golden ones before daylight savings would steal them away. my thoughts wandered to the future. What would it be like to have new neighbors? Maybe a young family with small children disrupting the peace? Or perhaps another elderly couple, downsizing from somewhere else?

The uncertainty lingered in the back of my mind as I absent-mindedly brushed dry leaves off of the steps with my feet. And then Richard's face popped into my head. The blank way he would study the lawn, searching for words to fill our conversations? Maybe the signs were there. I felt a pang of sadness as I realized how much I cared for him. I've been watching him slip away all the while failing to see it. Just then my thoughts were broken by a scream. It was high-pitched and jagged like a creature in agony,

echoing through the forest trees bordering our properties. The sound twisted and broke in the air, raw and desperate, sending a spike of pain up the base of my skull. For a moment, everything around me seemed to freeze, waiting for what I would do next. I had to know where the sound was coming from. I bolted into the trees my heart hammering in my chest. The thick canopy of pine bows surrounded me, their needles grasping for me as I ran.

I swatted at the tiny black flies that clung to my face, the sweat from my hurried run sticking to my skin. And then I saw it. It was skeletal, unnaturally elongated as though its bones had been pulled by some cruel force. The skin that clung to its frame was sickly gray. tight, and stretched over ribs that threatened to burst through at any moment. Its arms were spindly, its hands unnervingly large, ending in claws that seemed far too sharp for such a thin frame. But what struck me the most was its face, or what remained of it.

The features were disturbingly familiar, like a cruel mockery of someone I once knew. The eyes, hollow, bloodshot pits gleamed with a predatory intelligence. Their pale blue depth was hauntingly reminiscent of Richard. The grin that stretched across its face was jagged, exposing teeth so sharp and broken, they looked like fragments of bone cracked from endless gnashing. And there, amidst the monstrous grin, I saw it, the unmistakable curve of Richard's jawline, though now distorted and corrupted as if his very essence had been twisted into something unrecognizable.

Strips of gray flesh hung from its neck like melted wax. He was rotting before my eyes. There was no warmth in its gaze, just an unrelenting emptiness. It was the same vacancy Richard always seemed to carry with him, but now it was amplified, a boundless void that consumed everything in its path. The air around us grew frigid. Each breath a cloud of icy vapor, the rancid scent of decay clung to the creature, the smell of something lost to the earth.

I stumbled backward in horror, putting all my weight on a weight on a a thick branch, and almost instantly, I felt it give way under my weight with a sharp crack. The creature whipped its head around and lunged towards me. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. I scrambled to my feet my hands tearing at the rough bark of a nearby tree to steady myself. My heart pounded in my chest as I forced my legs to move. I ran desperately trying to remember the way back to the house, praying I wouldn't get turned around and send myself deeper into the woods.

The sound of snapping branches echoed behind. me growing louder, just a heartbeat behind. I stumbled down a rocky slope, the sharp stones biting into my feet. The clearing was in sight, but I could feel it gaining on me. I knew I wouldn't make it to safety at this pace. With my pulse roaring in my ears, I did the only thing I could think of. I whirled around my voice tearing through the air raw and desperate. Richard, it's me!

The scream wavered at first, but adrenaline pushed it out clear and sharp. I could only hope it reached him or whatever was left of him. I didn't wait to see if my scream had any effect. I just ran, pushing myself harder, faster. Then, as if time itself had warped, I burst through the clearing and into the open. I was free. For a moment, I allowed myself a quick glance back.

But what I saw froze me in place. The creature had stopped. Its unnatural form now pressed up against the edge of the light, as if something was holding it back. I stood transfixed as its body began to shift. It fell down onto all fours its face elongating and narrowing. It had transformed into a deer. I couldn't believe my eyes.

The deer stood peacefully at the tree line, bending its head and tugging at the dead grass. Its sleek body contrasted with the horrific shape it had worn moments before. Just then I felt a wave of peace wash over me. A relief I've never felt. I stood paralyzed, watching before it turned and bolted into the woods. I didn't know what I'd seen that day, not really, but I knew something had changed, something had passed through him, and now it had passed on. Several days after my encounter with the creature, I awoke to fresh snow on the ground.

It was early for snow to fall in these parts, but not unheard of. I slipped out the front door to fill my lungs with the sharp air. Glancing around to admire the fresh, untouched landscape, I noticed a single set of hoof tracks snaking along the tree line. I followed them with my eyes, realizing they led to the shared driveway. There, lying beside the compost bin, was a set of deer antlers. I stared at them, steadying my breath. Glancing across the driveway, I could see the hollow of Lorna's eyes peering out the window.

She locked eyes with me without expression. Then she stepped back, disappearing from view. Maybe we all returned to the earth, just not in the way we think. I looked down at the antlers. one last time. Beside them, almost hidden in the snow, was a single, bare, human footprint. It pointed toward my house.

Breepie Presents, Inc. written by Brady Garner, and narrated by Owen McCune. Good evening, everyone. I'm so, so glad you all could tune in. All you listeners, every one of you. I, myself, am cozied up in a small cabin in the woods trying to write a little story.

This cabin is my happy place. A fire, its dry wood and bark crackling, burns beyond the hearth. A pot of stew, made with the freshest vegetables and grass-fed beef, bubbles on the stove, its aroma enchanting the small one-room abode with the promise of a delicious meal to come.

I sit at a small desk near the cabin's only window. As I peer through its single-paned frame into the woods beyond, I swear I see a shadow bolt through the trees. Goose bumps rise on my arms, and a chill runs down my spine. Then, with a grace found only in things of the wild, the creature jumps through the bushes and onto the fall-colored leaves which cover the yard. It was a fawn.

It's brown and white-speckled fur barely discernible in the late evening darkness. I look on, my old wooden chair creaking slightly as I lean to get a better view. What happened next, you may be asking? I'm sure all you horror fans, the ones listening to the episode of creepy which this story may become, are hoping I write that the fawn is mangled and torn apart by a wolfman or some other fantastical beast, that I look on in horror as the young fawn's neck is snapped up in the jaws of that wolfman, that it bends down and devours its prey right in front of my eyes, that the hair on my nape stands tall as the beast stands and turns to meet my watchful gaze.

A single-paned sheet of glass is the only thing separating us. And then it could swipe its massive forearm across its maw to white the blood and viscera from its long wolf-like snout. I could write that it grinned, and I saw the inch-long sabres it had for teeth. Then to tie it off with a bow, the creature could face. laid back into the wood, leaving only silence and the fawn's carcass in its wake. Boom! Throw in some backstory on the wolfman in the area and you're golden. Maybe I could add a knocking at the door in the end or a scratching at the window pane. If it were a horror movie I was writing, I'd add in a jump scare or two.

It'd be easy to have the face of the wolfman pop into the frame of the window when the audience least expect it. But I'm not writing a movie. nor am I writing a monster story with jump scares and fantasy gore. Don't get me wrong, I love those kinds of stories. They're some of my favorites. Alas, I just don't feel like writing a classical horror like that. I want to write something more disturbing. More disturbing than a young fawn being torn apart by a wolfman, you may ask.

Though, probably not. If you're as big of a horror fan as I am, you may be a bit desensitized to things like that. So why would you ask such a question? Regardless, I'll write something I find truly disturbing, and I'll let you use your own creepy barometer to judge if it's up to snuff. The only thing is, I need inspiration, inspiration, and ink. My head falls into my hands as I grow bored of watching the fawn. I stare at a blank page on the desk before me as a small movement catches my eye.

A spider descends slowly from the lamp illuminating my workspace. It is black as a moonless night, and as it turns slowly on the silk protruding from its abdomen, I catch a glimpse of a blood-red hourglass-shaped marking on its underside. A black widow. They're quite common in the area, and quite venomous. Intrigued. I reach out a finger and slowly wave it across the silk.

The spider now hung from my forefinger like a puppet on a string. It was my captive. I could suspend it over the bubbling stew on the stove and slowly lower it in. I could move toward the fire and fling its body into the inferno. Instead, an idea grows in my mind as the arachnid begins to climb the silk toward my finger. What if I wrote with something? something disturbing. Would it cause my own disturbing mind to go on overdrive? I did not know. Thus, I quickly set the spider down on the page before me. It paused for a moment, then,

as it began its eight-legged scuttle toward the edge of the cream-colored note, a loud thud reverberated through the cabin. I had squashed the vile little creature with my fist. With a practiced motion, I plucked my old-fashioned fountain pen from its holder and dabbed the puddle of green bile with its tip. I had my ink, and with that, I began to write. Once there was a man. Um, no, I'm not writing a fantasy, am I? Oh, nope, I'm writing something dark and grimy. Something for people to listen to and get chills. I've got to start it out with a darker tone. Tom Greenwell was a sick man. He did not have any known physical illness. He did not have any known physical illness. He had an illness of the temper. Once in a while, and more often when he was

drinking, he'd get a sudden rush of anger that would make him see and breathe red. He was incapable of controlling it. He would be in a genuinely jolly mood when suddenly his true nature would kick in. It would overpower the tender, nurturing environment in which he'd been raised, and he'd go, well, absolutely apeshit. He'd regress into a-pring. primitive version of himself, leave his humanity behind, and a wake of destruction would follow close like a shadow. Okay, so I've got a start. It's pretty good, I think.

Kind of sets the tone. But what's next? I need a theme, I guess. Good versus evil? No, I want Tom to be an evil man, one who will die and most likely burn in hell. Having a story be from the evil perspective And somehow have good come out as the victor It would be difficult to write

For me anyways Many of the authors on creepy can do it and do it well Not me though I'd struggle with that Some of you keen listeners could probably discern That I was already going for a nature versus nurture theme I mean I literally wrote both words In the introductory paragraph

I'm just not sure that's what I want to write. I had a big idea for a visual of nature versus nurture in Tom's mind. That's what the story was originally going to be based around. That visual. It involved a spider's web and someone weaving a blanket from the silk. I just erased the idea, though. I had it written down. It just seemed too convoluted.

I decided to take a break and eat some of that delicious smelling stew on the stove. Besides, I'd used up all the spider-gut ink. It hadn't spurred my creativity the way I'd wanted it to anyway. I guess I'll have to find something else to write with instead. I meander my way toward the stove with thoughts of Tom still in my mind. Would he be a serial killer? Would he be a normal guy who gets into a particularly harrowing road rage incident and ends up going on a rage-fueled killing spree?

Would he be saved by the ones he loved? Would he look back on the carnage at the end and think of how it could have gone this far? It was to say what would happen to poor Tom Greenwell? I guess I would. I was the master of Tom's imaginary life. I was his God, his creator, and his devil. I guess when it came down to it, that's where my pleasure arose with writing. It allowed the author to be in full control of someone's life.

Their imaginary status mattered not when you could win the minds of the readers. You could have someone truly invested in a character, have the character be beloved or be feared. Then you could simply kill them off in the worst way imaginable. Not a satisfying conclusion for the reader, but boy, was it ever satisfying for the author? A stunt such as that would never gain you much notoriety. It wouldn't sell any stories,

but it could give a sense of power to the powerless. "'Ah, shit!' I shouted into the emptiness of the cabin, as my wandering mind caused me to spill some of the bubbling hot stew on my hand. As it turned out, though, the small berm was worth the reward. For as I had reached toward the towel rack to wipe away the mess, my eye had brushed its view past the garbage receptacle, and an idea had illuminated in my mind. I set my dinner bowl under the small counter with haste and begun rummaging through the trash.

"'Aha!' I shouted again into the loneliness of the abode, as I held before me the scrapped cellophane and styrofoam, which had covered the grass-fed beef chunks I'd used in the stew. A small pool of blood remained in the packaging. "'How perfect!' I thought. I had found more ink for my story. Tom Greenwell was already in a terrible temper, as the four well-worn tires of his old beater truck sped down the highway. Today was Father's Day, a day which Tom hated more than any other.

In the passenger seat sat his son. Though the boy bore his likeness and name, Tom knew in his heart he had not sired the boy. His ex-wife, Marcia, had been nothing short of a whore. Tom couldn't prove it. He had never smelt strange cologne on her skin, had never seen far in tire marks in his gravel drive, nor had he heard any rumors which would have undoubtedly spread like wildfire amongst the neighbors and citizens of the small town which he had once called home. But Tom knew. He knew deep down that whilst he was away at work, earning the income they needed to survive, his young wife had been spreading her legs for any and every man in town. He knew that behind closed doors he was the laughing stock of the town, the butt of every joke.

When his shift ended and the pair shared their nightly phone call, he could hear it in her breath that she had been on her back to another man just before. Very good. I like where this is headed. Maybe Tom will kill his wife in cold blood. I'm going to make Marcia a saint in reality. She'd never strayed, and the boy was undoubtedly Tom's. It was all in his demented mind. Perhaps he'll lose his grip on reality as he has so many times before. see red and shoot her in the head. I gripped the fountain pen and continued to write as the words on the page

become increasingly faint. Damn, I thought. I've run out of ink. The contents of the desk rattled, and my chair squeaked across the wood panel floor as I pushed myself from the desk. I was in quite the huff. I'd been on a roll.

I'd had some context going, some character development in motion. The little architects of the story had blueprints in hand and were just getting started on construction when they'd run out a damn material. I needed more ink and I needed it now. I cool myself by counting to ten. One, two, I scanned the room. Three, four, I lay eyes on the dwindling fire. Five, six, I pace toward it with determination. seven

eight I grabbed the stoker and with it I shove aside the still smoldering logs nine and I grab a fistful of embers and the ash ten I had more ink

it was perfect the skin of my fist began to blister and peel the pain would spur the rage in my mind it would spur Tom Greenwell's rage I paced back to the desk, tears of pain welling in my eyes, and skewed the red-hot charcoal upon its wooden surface. The desk began to smoulder and smoke, but I gave it no mind. This new ink was black and filled with heat and pain.

I could feel Tom's passion. The pain from his wife's cockamamie adultery was reflected in the searing pain of my palm, as I wrote. Tom Greenwell's tires screeched and squealed as he wove through the congested traffic of the highway. He did not want to spend this time with the child. All he wanted was to get home and crack a cold beer. Marsha had been the one to suggest the quality time with the boy. She'd said it would be nice for him to know his father. Tom cared not for this sentiment. He himself had never known his own father and he'd turned out just fine. He was a hard worker. So what if he lost his temper sometimes. It was part of his nature. They couldn't help it. It was the way he was born.

Or the way I wrote you to be. Poor Tommy. You're such a simple putre little being. The ink was working. This story was about to get as black as the charcoal lines which were now being scrawled across the page. The spider guts had ceded the venom in Tom. The blood had made him rotten to the core, and now the charcoal would fuel his rage and turn his story dark. The bed of Tom Greenwell's truck fishtailed as he swerved in front of an all-black SUV on the highway. The jerky movements had caused the little boy in the passenger seat to be flung nearly into Tom's lap. Fuck off! Tom screamed at the boy as he threw him off. The boy began to cry, a sound

which made Tom's nerves stand on end. He looked across the bench seat at the boy. For a moment, Tom's anger subsided, and he reached to buckle the child's seatbelt. The small click of the buckle had just sounded when the truck came to an abrupt halt. This kind of halt was caused not by the truck's well-worn brakes, but rather from impact. The boy had been saved. The seatbelt, which had been secured only moments before, had held him from being thrown through the windshield. Tom, who had not clicked his seatbelt shut, was thrown clear through the windscreen.

His body, colliding with the mangled steel of the car before him in a series of snaps and thuds, lay lifeless on the pavement. Okay, so now what? Way to go. You've just killed off your main character. You haven't even had a chance to really flesh him out yet. You'd only just got into his drive and anger. You haven't written a story.

You've written a scene. You can't submit this? Why would they read it as is? What happened to the plan? So your theme of nature versus nurture? You were never very good at sticking to plans, but this, this was awful. The entire thing needed to be scrapped. Unless, maybe Tom could survive the crash.

Maybe he could go on a killing spree then? Maybe he died, but he was resurrected by the devil to carry out evil deeds. No. Tom had shown he had a heart when he'd buckled the boy's belt. He had, in fact, saved the boy after all. Still, though, the story was garbage. I'd introduced so much that I'd left hanging. Why was his wife important? To fuel his rage, sure, but where's the boat to tie the story together? He just... Dies. I crumble the paper and toss it into the trash. It's not worth submitting. It must have been the ink, I think, pensively. I was out of ideas, and I was out of ink.

I slowly lean back in my chair, gripping my blistered hand. I really got into this one. It's a pity it didn't work out. I stare out the window again. This time, I see a lone stranger coming up the long gravel walk from the road. Strange, I think. I wasn't expecting anyone. I stand from the desk and stroll to the door

in anticipation of the traveler's arrival. On my way to the door, I slide a kitchen knife from the butcher's block on the counter. Perhaps I hadn't run out of ink after all. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit creepypod.com. You can also follow us at CreepyPod on social media and YouTube.

All stories told on this podcast are done so through Creative Commons Sherrillite licensing or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the creepy podcast production team and the stories author.