Dr. Creepen's Dungeon - S1 Ep39: Episode 39: Arizona Horror Stories

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

Tonight's show is proudly sponsored by Manscaped: get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code CREEP at https://www.manscaped.com/ We open today’s anthology with 'Arizona' by Panini’s Cupcake, shared with me via the Creepypasta Wiki and read here with the express permission of the author under the conditions of the CC-BY-SA license: https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/User:Paninis_Cupcake Next up we have 'Angels of Darkness, Serpents of Light', a brilliant story by CreepyDrBob, shared directly with me via my sub-reddit and read here with the express permission of the author: https://www.reddit.com/user/CreepyDrBob/ Next up we have 'I've seen some unsettling things as a Truck Driver', another fantastic story, this one by HammerLane95, shared directly with me via my sub-reddit and read here with the express permission of the author: https://www.reddit.com/user/HammerLane95/ Our penultimate story is 'Ash Fork in Arizona', another brilliant tale, this one by Ryan Kinkor, shared directly with me via my sub-reddit and read here with the express permission of the author: https://www.reddit.com/user/RTKGuy/ We round off our little Arizona excursion with 'My former best friend Lucifer', an original story by patexie, also shared directly with me via my sub-reddit and read here with the express permission of the author: https://www.reddit.com/user/patexie/

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Welcome to Dr. Creepen's Dungeon. Well, it is said that the Arizona Desert takes hold of a man's mind and shakes it, as we may well just see in tonight's five stories. Later on, we have Angels of Darkness, Serpens of Light, by Creepy Dr. Bob. Then we have. I've seen some unsettling things as a truck driver by Hammer Lane 95. Next up is Ash Fork in Arizona.

by Ryan Kinkle, and we round off this evening's entertainment with my former best friend Lucifer by Patixie. But before that, we open up with Arizona by Panini's Cupcake. Now before we begin, as ever, a word of caution. As night stories may contain strong language, as well as descriptions of violence and horrific imagery. If that sounds like your kind of thing, then let's begin. Arizona. For her birthday I took my girl Katie to Arizona so we could stay with some friends of hers and spend a few weeks partying and getting crazy and stuff before heading back to school for the year. We drove up in my dad's car. It's a really old Ford make and it's pretty beat up. The road there was bumpy and long. Our relationship seemed at its strongest on the road. We were really in love and that was the first time I realized that. I'd never truly been in love before. We were about halfway there when we realised we were going to run out of gas long before the nearest petrol pump.

Katie's head was out of the window, sunglasses on, and the blistering heat outside. Nothing but the wild desert landscape to be seen in all directions. We became frantic. We hadn't seen another car on the road in almost an hour. What if we broke down here in the middle of the desert with no food or water, with no one out there to find us? I sped up slightly, driven by these fears. It was then that we came across a gas station, smack bang in the middle of nowhere, and dry, empty nowhere. It was an old worn-down servo, long yellow grass blew in the breeze beneath it. Outside were two rusted gas pumps.

At first we didn't know if it was occupied. It seemed so lifeless. But as we pulled up and saw the petrol stains in the dirt, we were convinced otherwise. Katie started refilling the car, and I went inside to pay. grabbed something to eat on the road. When I first went to open the door, it jammed. This perturbed me, so I looked up at the sign to check, and was reassured that the store was open,

according to the torn sign that hung in between the dull yellow curtains at the door window. I pushed harder and harder with effort, and got into the shop. Inside it was totally abandoned, left a ruin. Complete aisles lay on the ground, the fridges were smashed and glass-coated on the floor, Despite the brightness outside, the interior of the gas station was dark and bitterly cold. Then there came, from behind me, this quiet weeping, like a child's. I felt my heart race. It was coming from the back room.

I stepped over the smashed glass and twisted metal remnants on the floor, over to where the patches of grass had grown through. I ran my handle on the wall, and I felt the criss-cross of ivy beneath my fingers. It was overgrown. There came that crying again, and now I was facing the backroom door. It was directly in front of me. I pushed the door open, and it creaked with rust in its joints. Inside there lay several wooden steps into the basement.

It was pitch black, and the smell was horrific. The drip, drop of water alerted me to the fact the basement was flooded. The water was up to my knees. Again there came the crying and a small splash in the far corner of the basement. Hello? I called out. Is anyone there? I started approaching the corner. The smell was horrible and cold water eventually got to me. The sobbing was getting louder.

In the corner I swore I saw something move against the shadows. Hello? I called again. What's wrong? I finally reached the corner. Still dark I had to bend down to avoid the pipes which leaped down on my back and trickled down my spine. The figure in front of me was very small and black, hunched over, sobbing quietly, haired in its hands. Why are you down here? I whispered. And then it stopped moving completely. It was totally still. All noise seemed to cease, but for the quiet dripping of a broken pipe somewhere behind me.

I outstretched my arm to touch its tiny shoulder, but it then began to slowly turn in my direction, to look me eye to eye. As its face swiveled around to look into mine, I remember screaming and swinging my head up in recoil, cracking it onto the pipes above. The face was white as a sheet, pale like a hideous moving mask. The eyes and mouth were completely black holes, huge, and widening even as I looked at them. It was so huge they almost consumed its entire face. As I desperately tried to escape, it splashed towards me at rapid speed and curling its long, thin fingers. It was wailing now, staring into me with its huge black eyes, and as I scrambled up the stairs with great difficulty, I felt my legs beginning to give way beneath me. It sprinted out of the water and up the stairs towards me.

I slammed the door, flipped the lock, and tore out of the store into the old Ford. Katie began to laugh when she saw me, jeans wet, trembling with sweat soaking my chest. But I grabbed her and screamed at her to drive. For about half an hour I could barely tell her what had happened in the store. She listened and gave me a look of sheer horror when I finally gave in and told her everything. She pulled the car to the side of the road and began to cry herself. asked of what was wrong. She said,

I saw something while you were gone. When you were in the store, I was just putting the pump back when I saw this little girl and a man, her father, I guess. The father stared at me with blank eyes and a hanging jaw. But the girl,

God, the girl, she was staring right at me, grinning with this huge smile that just stretched so far across her face. I couldn't see any hair on her and her skin was so dark, not dark like a colour girl, but dark like a shadow. And a smile just shone through the window. I convinced myself it was a trick of the eye and looked away.

And when I looked back, they were gone. And then a little while later, you came back out. It was dust by now. We had nowhere to stay. We hadn't travelled nearly as much as we'd hoped to that day, and the nearest motel meant going back past the gas station. So we just drove up from the roadside where we were, into a clearing a little way up, where people camped sometimes. We'd obviously come the night after a big party, and there was broken glass everywhere.

When we arrived, however, it was empty. After a while, I tried to reassure her that we were okay. I calmed down, put my arms around her, and we started to kiss. I moved to get closer to her, when she suddenly screamed like hell itself. It's her, it's her, she screeched, fumbling to start up the engine. I turned in time to witness a small black face, grinning literally from ear to ear with only darkness inside. He was crawling into the car through my open window, with his limbs spayed out like an insect.

It had too many limbs, way too many long arms. The fingers feeling my face like antennae. We sped off, back down onto the road. Back on the road, nothing seemed right. And there were no stars. That's what I noticed first. I was too shaken to think much of it, but there were no clouds that could be blotting them out. There was just the vast night sky devoid of all light. Then a few minutes after we'd been driving forward, still sweating and breathing heavy, we passed the gas station. My heart skipped a beat.

The gas station was at least half an hour away, in the opposite direction. All the lights were on, and I saw the door sliding open. As we shot past it, Katie was in such hysterics. She found it hard to keep driving. We stopped the car in the middle of the desolate road. I decided we should switch seats,

that I could drive. She shuffled across from her seat to mine, and I opened the door to get out. As soon as I was outside, the foul stench of the basement overwhelmed me. I gagged, then vomited down the side of the car. It was then I noticed the runner. A pale white thing sprinting towards us through the fog, its limbs practically a blur. I could make out no face. How long had you been following us, running after us in the night?

We got back into the driver's seat as quickly as possible. We drove up again, not talking. Katie whimpered while I silently prayed. And then we passed the gas station again. The door was open now. There were two figures standing at the door, waiting. As we forced ourselves on, we both became aware of us soft, barely audible weeping in the back seats. neither of us dared to turn around ignore it i whispered my trembling hands gripping the steering wheel

katie was curled in the fetal position holding her head in her hands the wailing increased becoming extremely loud ear-pissing and horrific finally i ordered myself to end it and look behind me for a split second i thought it was a girl in a white dress looking back up at me but she was gone as soon as she'd appeared I checked the seats carefully there was nothing in my tiredness and fear I completely lost track of the road

I drove on all through the night Katie whimpered I tried to touch her once but she screamed I never tried again after that and the noises from the backseat started up again we passed the gas station

twice more the people at the the door were closer and clearer each time. And the finest slither of red light had begun to settle on the horizon. It was dark as hell still, but at least I was able to see the road ahead of me now. Katie had been silent, face concealed under her hands for some time. I decided to check the time, so I turned on the radio. At first there was only static.

Instead of time or anything at all, the digital clock simply appeared black. I fiddled with the dial, trying to change the station. In between the static, I found only one audible channel. It had a high-pitched buzz in the background. The man was muttering names and numbers under his breath. 29. Lucy. 30.

Adam. 31. Katie. I switched back to static. I knew which name was next. When we got to Katie's friend's house, it was morning. It was overcast and everywhere had the smell of rain to it. Her friends weren't home.

Katie's friends lived out in the country with no one else around for miles. The grass was climbing the walls outside. God, how long had they been out? As soon as we were inside, Katie started whimpering again. I realized that while she'd been silent, she'd been biting on a lip and blood was trickling down her chin and the skin around her mouth was torn and chewed through. She grabbed the newspaper

and some masking tape off the table and began blocking out the windows. After the previous night's events, I didn't know whether I'd be insane to join her or stop her. So I simply watched. She covered the windows, jammed the door and turned the lights off.

For some time, could have been minutes or hours. We sat silently in the dark. I offered to turn the television on. Katie said nothing, sitting blank and comatose. I turned the TV on anyway. The grainy black and white image flickered to life before us. A face white with empty eyes and an impossibly huge smile flashed up.

The smile growing wider and wider the longer we stared into it. There came the sound of weeping. From the television hall. Was it in the house? I couldn't tell. We turned off the TV. It's been three whole days now. I haven't seen Katie at all today. She spends her time in the closet crying. I once tore the door open and screamed at her. She screamed back, her face contorting into something grotesque and inhuman. I slammed it in her face. The phone rings often. A voice. My mother's I believe whispering under its breath. I can only catch snippets of what it says. Come back. You're always

welcome to come back. Sometimes in the background I hear quiet chuckling. I hang up without saying a thing, usually. The bathroom is shining white. I can hear the shower running and I walk in to find nothing, nothing at all. And then when I'm in the bathroom, I'll hear the television flick back on. It always goes to the face. In the background, there are muttering voices now. I've called the police twice. All I get is the whispering woman's voice. I call Katie's friends too, just as fruitlessly. There are knocks at the door a lot now. Through the newspaper on the other side of the window, I see their hands slam against the glass and slide down. They do this for hours on end sometimes. They press their eyes up to the glass, through the holes in the newspaper.

At night we hear screaming from the guest room. I've boarded it up, sometimes I find tiny pieces of glass on the ground. A leak sprang up about a day ago in my room downstairs. Black spots of mold have appeared on the walls. There's a smell. throughout the house seeping in from my room the odour of decay i pray i pray hopelessly and i swear to god i wish that i'd never gotten out of that car hey guys how's your beach body treating you manscapes here to ensure your post-quarantine body is ready for the wild don't be that guy at the beach with a bear rug on your chest. Look, the least you can do is make sure you're hairless.

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I was driving back from the Easter Sunday gold mine. That's somewhere between Bisbee and Douglas, a few miles north of the Mexican border. I'm retired, but I still consult as a geological and mining engineer on the side. With the price of gold so high, a group of investors was considering buying the claim and reopening the mine. They wanted me to see what shape it was in. It had taken longer than I'd expected at the mine. Even Juan's muscles were tired after hauling the heavy gear up the hill to the mine entrance. The shaft was clear.

Unfortunately, much of the adit was caved in. Rachel had to squeeze between the rocks to get the samples, but that's why I'd hired these kids. They were both mining engineering students from Arizona State University, and I always tried to give the next generation of engineers practical experience. When we were done, I should have just followed Juan and my own. Rachel up Arizona Route 80 to I-10 back to Phoenix. The sunset was beautiful as I drove along AZ-80, so I stupidly turned west onto a dirt road somewhere near Tombstone. I was looking for a pretty

place to stop and take a picture. Maybe five miles from the AZ80, I saw a small plain land on the connecting north-south roads. I saw them turn the plane around, and when it took off a big, white, king-cab pickup truck with dark windows started heading in my direction. Well, everyone here knows what comes off those airplanes that land in the middle of nowhere. Black tar heroin, cocaine speed or even just marijuana, but they all spell trouble. I turned the truck around and started back to the highway, but that road was one long washboard. That fancy king cab was kissing my bumper, and the driver was furiously pounding on the horn. I looked at the rearview mirror, and two angry men looked back.

The passenger pointed to me And ran his finger across his throat About halfway back to the main road A herd of javelina crossed right in front of me Those piggies are built like bricks You don't just damage your front end You roll your truck when you hit one Instinct took over

And I hit the brakes As I skidded to a stop I felt their truck smash into my bumper My airbag slammed into my face I was stunned everything smelled like gunshots and the truck cab was filled with talcum powder before i could even get my insurance information from the visor my door was flung open they ripped me out of my truck and threw me into the dirt the too macho man loomed over me and one shouted you stopped too damn fast i'm sorry i said meekly i have insurance and towing you're going to pay little man everything will be paid, no deductible, I promise. Oh, you will pay.

He ripped my cell phone from its holster, crushed it and flung it into the brush. You'll pay with your life. While the second one watched, the first one went back to their truck and pulled out two samurai swords. He kept one and tossed a second to his partner. Run, old man.

Run to the hills. When we catch you, we cut you into peace. I ran for my life as they herded me further and further away from everything that I thought might be able to save me. They drove me away from the road and up the hill, whooping and laughing behind me. I had one chance, and it required me to run them to death. Those brawny mustachio saw me as just a skinny old man they could slice up for fun, but I'm a vegan, and I run five miles every day. as I ran

I silently prayed for help I prayed to the Virgin asking her to intercede with the father because I needed my prayers answered mighty fast The course got harder as I ran up the hill But a voice spoke inside me It said that gravity and exhaustion

Worked even more on their nacho and beer guts than skinny old me It also reminded me of another secret advantage Hiking shoes instead of their slick Sold cowboy boots The further they slipped behind me The more confident I felt But then I got careless

I heard the hiss of a scared rattlesnake When I looked down I saw my foot Going down on the back of a Mahavie green rattler The poor snake replied the way snakes do With the speed of lightning He clamped his fangs deep into my leg His mouth felt like a bear trap Then he let go and slithered away

Well, the snake didn't wake up and decide to bite me. I was Godzilla destroying his Tokyo. Because he'd used up all his venom on my leg. He was probably going hungry tonight. Still, I was terrified. Everyone knows Mojave Green's are the most venomous snakes in North America. I had nobody but myself to blame for letting my grandkids taught me into those fancy Gortex hiking shoes instead of my old cowhite boots.

But that didn't take the pain away or make the venomous. him any less deadly. I begged to St. Barbara, the patron saint of minus, to intercede for me now. My family had trusted St. Barbara for generations. Every mind they began always had a statue of St. Barbara placed near the future tunnel portal during the groundbreaking. I did the same and had a sterling silver St. Barbara medallion that had been blessed by Pope John around my neck. My daddy had taught me a prayer he'd learned as a boy from his daddy back in Czechoslovakia. And with all the might I had, I prayed it now, oh, St. Barbara, you who opened your mind to the light of faith through the work of reason. Pray that my mind and heart might be ever open to truth, and I may embrace it

with all the strength of my soul. Embracing this truth as you did, obtain for me the grace to persevere in all trials. Beceach your divine savior and minds protect me from the day. that press upon me. Faithful Jesus, you who define yourself as truth. Shield me with your protection as you covered your beloved servant, Barbara. Amen. Well, I knew that running was about the worst thing I could do on a snake bite because I was pushing that toxin all around my body.

My calf was scolded, and I could feel my foot swelling in my shoe. Giving up would be so easy. But that voice inside me said I had a wife, children and grandchildren, children and grandchildren. Pain or not, I had to keep running. I could hear their curses behind me. Every breath was a fight.

Finally, I stumbled, fell and couldn't get up. There, I would die. Instead, something incredible happened. I looked up and saw two angels lifting me up. All my life, I'd thought angels had wings. Everyone said they had wings, even in It's a wonderful life. Oh, they did not.

One was tiny, so short she looked no older than a child. Her skin was dark, and her nose was amazingly big. I am St. Barbara, she said with the power that electrified me. Your prayers have been hurt by the father, and he has sent us here to answer them. The second angel was dark as ebony. His nose was broad and his lips were full. I'm Saint Augustine of Hippo You've lived a good life

And not returned evil for evil But pacifism in the face of a grave wrong You can stop by violence is a sin It's God's well for you to defend your life And stop their sin How? I asked I can't even walk Those if I with you are more than those that seek your life

You'll be strengthened to make it possible Look at your adversaries and behold I glanced behind me and saw two other angels. One had a great sword of fire and the other wielded a spear of lightning with both hands. God sent them to hold back Satan's legions. I looked beyond them to the drugmules and saw two forms. They were dressed just like the four angels. One was a tall man that had a perfect blonde, Aryan face and cold, heartless eyes

that thousands of SS deaths had troops only could dream of. The other was a petite Oriental woman with a demure face and that beautifully thick and black Japanese hair. I looked at them in astonishment. Those are demons. Aren't demons all... Only in art, said St. Augustine. Satan transforms itself into an angel of lights.

So to his disciples. They make good look evil and evil look good. Soon I could see my truck. The door was still open, and the angels threw me in. We'll have to leave soon, St. Barbara said. God loves you and loves your dear wife Maria. Her prayers bring delight in heaven.

I put the key in the ignition, turned it, and absolutely nothing happened. The truck wouldn't turn over. I knew the full pump shut off because of the accident, but I didn't have time to start poking around for the reset switch. So out of time, I grabbed the truck gun, I kept under my seat. It was an old pistol one of my sons gave me. Genuine made in Bulgaria,

and Bubba had spray-painted it, baby pooped green, but he'd bought it dirt cheap and it always went back. Now, I didn't want to kill. I was a sissy vegan that never shot anything but paper and pot bottles in my life. But the voice of St. Augustine thundered through my whole body. Their wrongdoings compel you to wage war against them. You must defend the life of all.

their victims, even though it be through violence. If you do not, the sin will be upon you for defying God's will to prevent far great wrongs. The sin will be upon you for defying God's will to prevent far greater wrong. The first Narko bandit to the truck was the one that had tossed me out earlier. He opened up that door again. Was he ever surprised when I swung that gun up and cancelled his ticket? An even more horrible surprise happened next. That sweet little Japanese girl smiled, showing long teeth that she pulled the soul right out of him. His soul glowed a dull yellow, and his face filled with sheer terror. The universe behind him whirled, opening a spiral vortex in the ground.

I could see the flames of hell. Thousands of tortured souls screamed and scrambled desperately to escape. She pushed them back as tentacles snaked out and dragged that drug runner down to the pits of eternal torment. Then she dived in and sealed the door behind her. Nothing I'd ever seen or heard could have prepared me for that. Stay focused, St. Augustine said. Keep in the now. Focus on what you need to do next.

The second drug runner had shock in his eyes. I leveled the heavy gun at him. The Nazi silently waited. If I killed that cameo, I'd be contemming him to a hell that was more awful than my wood. worst imagining. And so I said, Drop it. The demon's ice, cold blue eyes met mine, a smile on his face. Kill him, he roared. The Narka raised the sword, yelled and tried to hack me in two.

Fire, St. Augustine thundered. And I did. I emptied the gun into him, and he landed near my feet, gurgled and shook a couple of times, and then bled out. I put my hands over my ears and closed my eyes as I turned away, knowing what was next. Nothing could block out the shrieks of those damned souls. Their pain and suffering bored right through my skull like a thousand dentist drills. I collapsed to the ground, crying. I'd just kill two people. Worse, I'd damn them for eternity to a hell more awful than I could ever have believed.

You only did what God wanted to be done, said St. Augustine, standing before. for me. You need help, St. Barbara said. Call an ambulance. How? They smashed my phone and threw it away. But now I was sobbing, broken inside. She pointed at the phone hanging from the bullet-ridden corpse in front of me. Use that one. Half a dozen plus p hollow points in the chest messed him up bad, and it never was good around blood and gore. I didn't want to touch his body, but St. Augustine took me by the hand. It's no good. It's locked. He used his thumbprint. He left it behind. Somehow I managed to hold his hand up. Unlock the phone and call 911. Suddenly, I was alone. My pain was indescribable and I was struggling to breathe. I passed out. I came to in Copper Queen

Community Hospital in Bisby, my sweet wife by my side. The doctor, told me I was lucky. There were two types of Mahavai greens, the common deadly one and the rare but milder bee type. That was another miracle for a fool like me. Well, thanks to that blessing, I even got to keep my leg. When I tried to explain about the angels and the two demons, the doctors told me that the snake bite had made me hallucinate. The hospital Padre listened to my story politely, a look of skepticism on his face. "'Keeper your vision sacred and private,' he said. In other words, don't tell anyone or they'll think I'm local. Eventually, two cops came to the hospital and took my statement.

They found almost 50 kilograms of fentanyl in the drug-runner's truck, enough to kill everyone in the whole state of Arizona five times over. I told them everything that had happened, including the angels. But they too shrugged my experience off. Both the doctors and the police were unscientific in their pronouncement. As soon as I was able, I researched. snake bites causing hallucinations and found descriptions of people who were addicted to being bitten by cobras in India and one case of someone describing euphoria and shimmering colors from a cobra bite.

But not one word about hallucinations from rattlesnakes. I jumped to a conclusion without evidence and against volumes of scientific literature. But what's more logical that a 70-year-old, 140-pound vegan who been bitten by the most deadly snake in North America could, defeat two burly drug addicts in moral combat or the angels had come down from heaven i've seen some unsettling things as a truck driver thinking back on it to this day given that someone else experienced it with me i'm certain that i'm not crazy i was traveling through arizona late one night because i had an early morning delivery and chose to drive overnight because usually there's less traffic and as long as you don't stop too frequently, you can usually get farther driving through the night

than during the day. I'd recently got a dog which I'd named Banjo. Yes, it's my favourite instrument. I'd picked him up from the animal shelter where I live, and he's a great dog for the road, and an excellent navigator. Docs also seem to have an innate sense for when things just aren't right, which plays into this story a bit later. Well, I've been driving for about nine of my 11 hours, was set to arrive at the customer in a little over half an hour, leaving me plenty of time to drop and hook, then find a place to get some shut-eye. Well, I did not arrive to that customer at the appointed time.

I like to think of myself as a good-hearted person, which is why when I saw a car on its side off to the side of the road, frame and metal twisted, I pulled over to check and make sure everything was okay. Pulled over, set the brakes, hopped out, and put on my emergency reflective triangles, then immediately rushed over to the car. Banjo began to growl very suddenly.

The driver's door was blocked against the ground. The windshield was smashed but not completely shattered, no doubt thanks to the laminated glass used for front windshields. There was blood all around the driver area, and possession strewn all around the car. I walked round to the other side of the mangle vehicle and saw blood dripping from the passenger door and onto the ground. Nobody was in sight, and I couldn't see any footprints or blood trails with my flashlight.

Immediately called 911 afterwards, gave them the location, a description of the scene, and told them I couldn't find the driver, but there was blood leading off the vehicle. And I kept searching around until finally I saw the emergency lights. I walked over to the office's patrol vehicle, informed him in more detail as to what I'd seen, and, being that the ambulance they called was still some time away, we decided to search for the driver of the vehicle. Although Arizona is an arid climate, it still gets very cold at night,

and there are many things out in the desert that remind you that out here, you're not on top of the food chain, so it was vital that we found the driver. We began branching off in a V-shaped search pattern. He went left, I went right. We stayed just close enough that we could use the faint space, of a flashlight to signal if one of us found the driver. About five minutes went by.

I hadn't found the driver yet, and the officer hadn't signalled with his light either. Then I heard a very faint noise. Couldn't tell what it was at first, but it subtly grew in intensity. It was the most ominous sound I'd ever heard, so much so that I can't even begin to describe what it sounded like here. After about ten seconds of listening to this sound

and feeling the adrenaline kick in, I could hear my dog barking like mad back at my truck, and then a woman scream. The officer must have heard that too, as we both pointed at our flashlights at each other, and ran to meet in the middle. When we linked back up, he asked me if I'd heard the scream,

when I informed him I had. I looked down and... There, there was a bloody footprint on the ground, leading further into the desert. It was definitely a... recent, the blood hadn't even begun to coagulate yet. We began hastily following the footprints. The more we followed, the more blood we saw. At this point, we're easily a thousand feet away from the scene of the accident. And then the footprints just stopped. It was like they were

never there. We searched in a circle around them, but couldn't find more. So we walked back a bit towards the accident and the only prince were mine and the officers we were dumbfounded and then we heard the voice it was a woman's voice it said did you come all this way looking for me oh i'm sorry i've had an accident and soon you will too that kicked the adrenaline into overdrive and i instinctively began backing away the officer shone his light all around and said, ma'am, if you're injured, you need to come out so we can get your medical attention. I was still slightly backing away, and I saw the officer's leg get torn into by nothing. There was nothing there. Oh, he cried in pain. It was deep, but not debilitating. He had the same reaction I did, and we started into a full-on sprint to get back to our vehicles,

and my muscles were firing on all cylinders. The officers and I were side by side. My lungs and legs were on fire. I heard something closing in behind us, and Banjo was going berserk. I thought for sure I wasn't going to make it. The damn thing sounded like it was right behind us, like it was toying with us,

losing ground and then gaining it back. We made it back to the accident, and I heard that ominous sound once more. Trying to regain our breath, we both realized that the car was gone. There was no vehicle on its side there. No blood, no broken pieces, no glass, just my truck and his patrol car.

I heard the thing that was chasing us slowly recede back into the desert. Both of us were so full of adrenaline, we were shaking, and the blood was beginning to soak into his uniform. He grabbed the first egg kit out of his cruiser, and I helped him patch up the wound. The ambulance arrived ten minutes later, to the scene of an accident that wasn't there. Knowing that no one would believe us, we made up the story that I'd had to stop because my engine was overheating, and on the way back to my truck to make sure I was all right, the officer had slipped and fallen,

catching his leg on a rock. They ended up taking the officer to the hospital. I found out later that when he got there, it was like he had an infection. They had to remove the infected tissue. And he ended up needing 22 stitches afterwards. Call me superstitious. But I believe that talking about evil things give that evil a pass back into your world.

Which is why this is the only time I've ever told this particular story. And why I never will again. Ash Fork in Arizona. Intelligence Report 541.1. Attached to evidentiary review of incident 5421 in the state of Arizona. Lieutenant Brooks submitting supplemental information for case file. The following is a transcript of an audio file recovered from the Coldwell residence after a thorough search of the premises basement. 95% of the basement walls were lined with American copper pennies of various styles, fastened with superglue and spaced out in half-inch intervals.

Furnishings included one folding table and one folding chair. One corpse, a male in his mid-30s, was extracted and taken to our mobile lab for analysis. preliminary reports suggest a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. A cold 45 pistol was recovered along with one bullet casing. One audio tape recorder was recovered from the basement. The information on the tape inside the player was used to create this file, which was re-recorded and cleaned by technicians, but quality remains problematic.

Significant gaps or issues are noted in the transcript. The initial minutes of the recording appeared to be rattling sounds and screeches, conducive to microphone disruption. A few random words can be heard through the interference, but nothing clear enough for translation. The evidence suggests the subject didn't have experience working with the device. After approximately three minutes, the interference clears up. Transcript now begins.

Caldwell. My name is Joseph Caldwell, for the record. I've lived in the town of Ashfork in Arizona for most of my life. Not that I'm bragging about it. Small town next to a major highway. You know how it is. We get a fair share of the tourist trade and business from travelers on their way to bigger cities and state parks,

but... Oh, shit, you don't care about that stuff. Let me... There was a clear editing cut of indeterminate length, and then Coldwell continues. Oh, crap, I hope I didn't just erase all that. Okay, to whoever's listening, you'll have to bear with me.

This piece of junk is so old with the manufacturers have been bankrupt for 40 years already. I didn't have time to grab my video camera and cell phone before I ran down here. I already had this tape device installed in the basement so I could play narrations for the tour. I lost the instructions a while back and I didn't have the money to go get something digital,

so, well, there we are. I get to work with this stupid thing and you get to listen. As you can guess, I'm still alive. The walls are holding them at bay, for now at least. I can hear them outside. He's seen like the world's angry as cats.

It's what passes for language for their time. Not just in the stairway, but in the ground around the basement. You can hear them in the ground. How does that work? I want to believe they'll go away eventually. Chase easier, pray. These things can't be all that patient, considering how quickly they can pounce on you.

Then again, maybe they have all the time in the world. But not me. I don't know how much recording time I have, so I'll try not to ramble on and on. I'd really like to be drunk right now while I do this. I might take the edge off. But the beer's next to my camera, upstairs. Well, okay, here we go. You know my name and location, so I won't repeat myself.

I might be telling you events you already know, or maybe this recording will get unearthed centuries from now. So, well, play it safe and assume you're in the dark about how things got to this point. A few years ago we achieved a short-lived moment of pleasantness in our country's mood. The economy was doing okay. Healthcare had improved and deficits weren't as sky-high as they used to be. The world wasn't blowing itself up and the usual squabbles over abortion and immigration were down to dull roars. No one claimed life was rosy, but life was improving.

So naturally, someone had to go and create a new dilemma for the players in the 24-hour's new cycle to get their tongues twisted over. Yep That penny The same ones you see cover in the room Honest Abe's immortal face Stamped on copper plating and zinc I might have close to ten thousand of them

Cover in the walls It took me days to glue them on In the penny room is what I call it Just in case the sign outside the house is gone If you don't mind the smell of oxidizing copper And cleaning fluids It's not a bad place to be Of course I never figured I'd be trapped in here

Anyway, it wasn't the first time somebody was arguing to get rid of the penny, but it actually worked this time around. The arguments were pretty good, that the penny costs more than one cent to make each, that the use of the penny slows down transaction time and hurts businesses, that inflation has risen so much that people treat pennies expandably, and that we were literally throwing money away. Vending machines are long since given up with the use of pennies, so why not everyone else? but there were a few defenders, mostly allies of penny manufacturing, whose main argument was, wait for it, a loss of jobs.

Others said prices would rise to accommodate the removal of pennies, going from 1999 to 20 bucks, for example. Well, there are even a few wingnuts who claim that eliminating the penny would hurt American pride and Lincoln's image. Yeah, like everybody really treated the penny with reverence. Despite what you might think, I was actually for penny removal. This penny room of mine, it's a gimmick. A way to add flare in a competitive tourist trade. Hey, everybody, let's go see the guy who glued 10,000 pennies to his basement. Yeah, it's stupid, but it worked.

People did show up to see my penny room, and in enough numbers to matter. There was a way to earn extra cash since part-time sales work at a dying home appliance store didn't cut it. Besides, what else could you do with all those pennies? Once Arizona followed the Midwestern states and started prohibiting penny use, plenty of people around here were more than happy to donate their pennies to me instead of surrendering them to government reclamation centers. Speaking of the government, the Feds mostly stayed out of the issue, allowing each state government to make up its own mind on the issue of pennies. Considering what I found later, it was definitely one of those times the government should have gotten involved.

Anyway, the anti-penny movement started in the Midwestern. and half of the country and spread quickly enough to encompass almost all the states west of the Mississippi River within a year. Arizona wasn't declared penniless until three months ago, the same time I'd come up with a penny room idea. The government might not have cared about my room, but I did have to get my ex-wife's blessing, since the house was still half hers. She laughed in my face, called my idea, typical Joseph idiocy, and said that I'd need more than pennies to sell my penny room. She still let me do it. saying that this would make us even for her own major error in judgment while we were married.

And no, I'm not telling you what that was. Something should stay private between couples, even if she's probably dead by now. I bring up my ex because she did make a good point. I needed something else for the penny room. A good haunted house isn't just goblins and pumpkins on the doorstep. You need sound and effect. You need a hook to draw people in. so I decided to add some history, some patriotic nostalgia.

That's what this damn recorder was for. With the internet, finding the penny's history wasn't too hard, and well, it's really boring. That's what. It's a coin. There's no controversy, no conflict. The composition of the medals have changed over the years, going from mostly copper with a little zinc to mostly zinc with a little copper,

but that's it. Imagine trying to attract kids these days with trivia. less exciting than a history lesson on cotton gins. Right about that time, I remembered watching a local news report about a brand-new serial killer on the loose. The police had absolutely nothing to go on other than the killer's motor separandi of cutting and stabbing the victim a hundred times over. Seems the killings were completely random, targeting anyone with a pulse. He or she was also quite speedy, with a dozen kills over five states in less than two weeks. The police were starting to think

There was more than one of them Perhaps a copycat or a cults I didn't think much of it Nasty business But none of the killings were in Arizona I was more interested in finding my hook And I had to shift through a mountain of online garbage To find my virtual diamonds

Well the diamond's name was April Connor A lady who lived in my neck of the woods Flagstaff There was a listing for her On a conspiracy website involving government cover-ups. Now, according to the site, she was a descendant of Horatio O'Connor, the true creator behind the 1909 Lincoln Penny.

A curious bit of trivia since all the other US coin website said that it was Victor David Brenner who'd suggested the design. You don't get too many conspiracy threads over the minting of coins, so I look closer at the listing. She was still alive at the age of 69 and held office in Flagstaff for a few years. She'd used her political connections to get an audience with the Arizona State Congress last year for one purpose. She had argued, vehemently and passionately, to have the state keep the penny in circulation. The debate hadn't gone her away, and she ended up getting labelled as a crackpot.

She'd used phrases like, national tragedy and complete ruin for our state if the penny went away. After the state government voted to go penny-free, she secluded herself at her home, flagstaff to avoid media attention. One sympathetic soul who had climbed aboard her crazy train had written her into his website, complete with contact information, made finding her easy enough. This was my hook.

A crazy conspiracy to go with my room of pennies. I admit that it's a pretty low-brow thing to do, but it was more exciting than the alternatives. Besides, I thought I might be doing April a favour. Maybe she'd want to be vindicated and do, acknowledged for her ill-fated public crusades. Well, she didn't want to be vindicated that badly because she wasn't even bothering to answer her phone or respond to messages.

Fellow cooks and hate mailers were probably hammering her daily. Those types liked to eat their own. So I ended up going straight to the, uh, what the hell? In the background, slow and steady hissing can be overheard, rising in volume over the next ten seconds, clanking sounds and microphone disruption also ensue, implying that the tape recorder is being moved. The hissing is best described as snake-like, only more raspy and threatening. Ten more seconds passed before the hissing dies down and Caldwell speaks again. His voice is noticeably elevated. Damn, I think I'm still safe. It's louder, the hissing. It used to be I could

only hear the hissing when I got close to the walls, but right now I'm still. sitting in the middle of the room, and I can hear them. I don't know if they're getting closer or if more of them are arriving. Do numbers matter? Yeah, numbers matter. They always matter. Dumb thing to say. Right. The story. Ape was incommunicado, so if I was going to get my hook, I was going to have to get persistent. After a week of phone calls, so I drove down to her home in Flagstaff and presented myself in person. I think luck was with me that, because she was at home and surprisingly willing to open the door when I knocked. Dressed in a ratty-looking bathrobe and matching slippers at midday,

she had this sunken look to her otherwise pleasant face that suggested either great fatigue or great sickness. Her grey hair was all over the place. Oh, you should have seen me roll out the charm. I didn't think I had that much charm in me. My ex-wife would certainly never have believed it. I apologised in advance for disturbing her and said that I was a book about the history of the penny that I'd like to pick her brain about her grandfather.

I fully expected her to tell me to go jump in the little Colorado River and slam the door, but she didn't. Instead, she offered me tea and let me come in as long as I took off my shoes. She was mindful of the carpet. Her home was, well, normal. No piles of newspapers or walls covered in articles about the penny-free laws. There was one tabby cat, not 20. The tea, a variety and didn't kill me. At first I thought I'd somehow worm my way into her heart, but it was later on that I realized the real emotion behind her hospitableness, resignation. I tried to avoid bringing up her penny crusade, hoping she'd do the job for me. After giving me the tea, she told me that she knew what I was here about. She didn't want to be lied to,

coddled, patronised, or mocked. If my intentions were to ridicule her in a future publication, she'd used what time she had left to make my life miserable in any manner she could. But if I wanted the real story about the penny, then I could stay and listen. As if given me a chance to digest her ultimatum, she turned her head to the television, an old clunker that was tuned to a cable news channel. While the sound was muted, the captions were informing us of the continuing serial killer crisis. I'd missed a bit.

The fatalities had grown to over three dozen across ten states. and one death-matching the lethal emmo was in humour on the edge of Arizona. The killings had finally crept this way. Authorities were treating the killing spree as the work of a terrorist group, though no group had made demands or admitted responsibility. When the police were calling on the public for help in identifying assailants, you knew they had nothing to go on. It'll get worse, April mentioned absently as she watched.

I didn't know what to make of her. attitude, nor did I ask what she meant by that. Keep in mind, I still figured she was a cook at the time, but she had something I wanted, so I agreed to keep her name out of anything I used down the road. Cooke or not, she probably had enough resources to make good on her threat. I doubt she'd care that I'm exposing her in this recording. I doubt she's even alive. The first thing she did was to bring out her grandfather's diary, one of the few relics from Horatio. O'Connor her family had held on to. Turns out that the Conner family didn't want this particular record to get out.

Connor's diary contradicted much of written history concerning the Lincoln penny, as well as suggesting Connor was fifty cards short of a full deck. Yet April took all his words deathly serious. We read the pertinent passages together. Those ones from 1908 to 1910, so that I didn't have just April's word to go on. back in nineteen o eight the current secretary of the treasury franklin mcvay had approached connor in secret with the designs on the new penny brenner had been officially commissioned for the job but connor's

artistic eye and experience in the minting presses was slightly superior if he could make a better lincoln penny than brenner he'd get the acclaim mcvay was hedging his bets on getting the penny perfect though he never explained why to connor he just paid him the same wages as brener and kept the deal silent. Using Abraham Lincoln's visage was a given, but they needed a perfect image, something that left no ambiguity and which people could rally behind.

Most people saw Abraham Lincoln as a hero of the country, and even in the South, enough people respected him that the government believed the new design would meet little resistance nationally. Lincoln's legacy was also reasoned enough in the minds of the people that their belief in him would arouse more passion. that was important for some reason. Connor wrote about how rushed he was to create the diecast,

that McVeigh was surprisingly stressed out about the project and was always looking over his shoulder. McVeigh wasn't telling him the whole story that was evident, and it made Connor suspicious. After finishing his part of the project, Connor went and poked his nose around. Before the government managed to threaten him into lying low, Connor discovered two things.

1. McVeigh had absolutely demanded the use of copper in the coin. It was actually a hidden legal requirement. It didn't matter how much copper was in it, but the outer plating had to be copper. April had checked government records, and the statue remained in effect to this day. And two, the cleaning solution used to wash and polish the pennies as they came off the minting presses had a special additive not mentioned in the chemical's ingredient listing. The special additive was top secret. And Conner's reward for his snooping was to be kicked off the project. He claimed in his diary that Brenner and McVay stole his design and implemented it as the Lincoln Penny,

but he was too cowed by the government to sue or make a fuss. After two government agents visited him one day and threatened him with eternal incarceration, he realized that things were far more serious than just political wrangling over a new coin. He largely disappeared from the limelight after his participation, but his words were definitely conspiracy theory fuel. April's family was happy to shove the diary where the sun don't shine, but not April. Before his death, Grandpa Connor had actually given her the diary, telling her that somebody had to keep an eye on things after he was gone, and April seemed the most open-minded of the bunch. April admitted to me that the diary initially disturbed her, but Grandpa Connor had always seemed like a rational man.

Maybe there was something to it. After the diary, April pulled out a massive briefcase full of papers from her investigations over the years. Here's a funny bit of trivia. Getting elected mayor of Flagstaff had actually been part of her secret crusade to uncover the truth. Better access to the government, you see. While she never found a memo or something blatantly incriminating,

she had found enough material to form her own hypothesis over what the Lincoln Penny's true purpose was, and she was perfectly happy to share her evidence with me. For a 69-year-old cook, she definitely knew her way around a computer. She had an archive of old footage copied from fringe websites, mostly ones talking about spirits and demons and such. She showed me an old black-and-white picture, taken during the 1930s from a photographer at the Douglas Haven mining camp in Nevada. He caught on film what appeared to be a very small patch of faint fog or smoke,

drifting near a group of miners posing for a picture. The weird part was that you could see faces in the smoke, nondescript, vaguely human faces. There were five or six of them that I could identify, and they all wore the same emotion. Rage! Turns out that five months were five months. miners died at the site that year, and not from cave-ins or accidents. Added security didn't seem to help, and while the authorities believed a killer was on the loose, the miners claimed that they had a vengeful spirit in their midst.

The killer was never caught, and the camp closed two months after the last death. I'd have chalked it up to bad photography and weird tales, but then April showed me a viral video from the web. Two weeks ago, a family of four had been walking down a street in San Diego at night. while on vacation. The youngest teenage son had his phone out in camera mode, and the family was doing the usual bullshitting people do in front of camera when the father is suddenly grabbed from out of nowhere, and he yanked down an alley they'd just passed.

The son pursued his screaming father down the alley, and continue to record while his mum and sister scream for help. A few seconds later, he spots what looks like smoke or mist rising from his father's very bloody corpse. Just before the kid shuts off the recording, the mist seems to form a rough-filled face before dissipating completely. Most people dismissed the video as doctrine. I remembered it getting mentioned once or twice on the news, but I poo-poohed it with everyone else. But that mist looked way too similar to the one in the mining camp photograph.

I wasn't fully convinced of the connection until April showed me a dozen other photos, taken by various folks over the course of the last several days. decades, showing the same visibly upset mist. Time and again each picture was taken before or after someone was horribly killed, usually stabbed dozens or even hundreds of times all over their bodies. Then she showed me records of similar incidents dated before 1909. She'd made a few charts to summarize her data. According to April, the number of deaths and disappearances fitting the killer mist description

had begun to escalate from the 1860s onwards. A settler would disappear or be found dead, and then a small homestead would be on the chopping block. The soldier might go AWOL for no reason, and then a patrol would disappear. Most of it was blamed on Native Americans, and the army would then conduct severe reprisals as a result. But by the turn of the century, most Native American tribes were relocated and contained, and yet the killings continued. They were escalating, in fact. But after 1909, the incidents all but vanished. There were still sporadic incidents, but maybe one or two every decade, as opposed to dozens every year.

Guess what came out that year? Yeah, that was a bit of a leap even for me. The penny was stopping a killer mist. Does the quarter keep away zombies too? I was almost back to considering April a cook when she read a statement supplied to her by a Navajo chieftain. She'd interviewed fifteen years ago. The chieftain was the great grandson of Great Black Black. bear a Native American who'd been invited to a clandestine meeting with some federal

officers back in 1905 when the US Army had found itself unable to stem the killings in the West and realized it wasn't Indians they'd finally turn to the Native Americans for help in identifying their enemy in exchange for some concessions that unfortunately didn't last long great black bear told them the unsettling truth April gave me a copy of the statement from great black bear Let me read it to you now. In Navajo, they are called Anaye. In Zuni, they are the Atastya.

The Mosopalaya call them Yeho. It all means the same. Demons. There have always been demons here. They are spirits that wait in the shadows, spirits that hate the living. Why they are here, and where they come from, no one can say. They thrive in the dead. places when nature has faltered and withered. Are they created in those

lipoids or are they merely attracted to those places? No one can say. Just like famine and tornadoes, earthquakes and fire, they exist. No knife can harm them and no arrow can touch them, but they can kill you with impunity. They have to be repelled, you see. Most of the trinkets and songs and prayers of our tribes had the power to keep the demons obey. The faith of our people was in encapsulated within our culture and our totems. The totems kept the power even when our chance was silent, driving the demons away from the living. They were small things, easily broken and forgotten, but they created powerful ripples in the spirit realm that no demon could overpower.

But the tribes are faltering, their numbers dwindle, and the children are not allowed to practice their culture. The white man has its faith, but it's not a faith that demons recognize. The white man prays but their prayers are divided and in conflicting there is no unity no acquiescence to spirits or the land white man creates more dead places and the demons grow numerous white man ignores the demons and they grow stronger if white man continues down this path the demons will eventually take you all no gun will hurt them and no war will impede them they will come and that's the gist of what he said, I guess our government listened, but rather than attempting to tell millions of citizens that they had to change their ways or else they'd be done in by killer spirits, they came up

with an alternative. If the Native Americans had used totems that kept the spirits at bay, why couldn't we? If our religious symbols couldn't hack it, maybe we could invent a symbol everyone could get behind, something everyone could carry around in his or her pockets, something most Americans could believe in that enough people were believing in to make it work. If there was a herb that the Native Americans cultivated, one every single tribe maintained or traded for, if it's in botany books, it's under a different name than what we call it. According to Grey Black Bear, the government co-named it Danake. After the type of coin you give the ferryman on your way to the land of the dead.

If you wanted your totem or trinket to send away the demons, you needed to rub the oil from the herb all over it. April told me that. Through her contact, she had learned that the federal government managed to cultivate the herb while their scientists studied it for an applicable use. That's how they discovered that Danake bonds with copper. You know, if the government had been more honest about the whole Lincoln-Penny affair, maybe we'd be okay right now.

I mean, these things are coming out in waves. They're everywhere now. Everywhere the penny isn't. I guess they've grown a lot after a century of civilization-wrecking havoc on the environment. Once the penny's good vibes started to fade away, there wasn't anything holding them back. I saw videos of cops and soldiers emptying their guns into the things, but the spirits would just fly right up to them, and then there'd be blood spraying all over. Every part of the spirit turns into a jagged blade, and they stab you all over.

All the bodies everywhere, all over the news. blood and bodies. By this point I wasn't sure if up was down or left was right. I definitely didn't know who was nuttier. April, or me, for listening to her. As to how the penny could ward off the spirits considering that no one would believe in them as spirit charms,

she had an answer for that too, though she admitted that it was just her own theory. I mean, how do you even test out an idea like The next segment of the tape has experienced severe degradation. Source of the damage is unclear. The amount of elapsed time is unknown. The subject appears to be in an agitated state when recording resumes. Jesus, okay, I'm still here, still recording.

Jesus, I'll record as long as I can, but that's not going to be much longer. I don't want them getting to me. Please, God, I do not want them getting to me. I just saw one push through the north wall. The thing, it's just like the pictures, all smoke and anger. The hissing gets louder when they try, but they can't get through, not all the way. They're trying, though. God, I can see them pushing and thrashing at the walls, at the ceiling, the floor.

I'm sitting on top of the table now. Can't put my feet down. I don't know how long the table will support me. It's a cheap one, and I'm not that small a guy. Maybe I should have seen this coming. It's what April told me before I left her house. Fancy herbs and national icons are all well and good, but positive energy is what keeps the charms active.

Not belief. April was adamant about that. Belief helps, but it doesn't solve the problem. The sun comes up no matter what we believe. The seasons change no matter what we believe. It's not belief it never was. But good feelings, they. the things that radiate.

Feeling good about an icon is what does it. The Native Americans felt good about their culture, so their charms worked. In the penny, we found our own national charm. Individually, they were small change. But when you have billions upon billions of small change, it adds up pretty quickly. Those spirits could only get through

where the wards were at their weakest, and they were at their strongest. And it worked for decades. You know, if, the government had been more honest about the whole Lincoln-Penney affair. Maybe we would be okay right now. I mean, these things are coming out in waves now. But this is our government.

As you know, more concerned with appealing to their voters. Me first mentality than, suggesting that we might need a course of correction. Besides, who believed that the penny was keeping a spectral invasion force in check? Does anyone in the government even know the truth any longer? the eastern half of the country should be okay. They still have their pennies in circulation. But seeing that the spirits are starting to bust through my defences, maybe it's like what happened to the Native Americans.

When you have fewer people, your charms don't work as well. Now, if it's all the same to you folks listening, I'm not the type that likes to record his final moments. We've got a gun with a full mag, but bullets won't do diddly, at least. not to them. Just tell this story to anyone who can do something with it. Tell my ex-wife, if she's still alive, that I had a good idea for once. And if you can forgive the cheesiness of my final words, just make sure to keep a little change in your pocket. It might do you some good.

Recording hands. My former best friend, Lucifer. I lived in a small mountainside town in Arizona. the type with under 2,000 residents where most people knew each other. While it was awfully beautiful with its lake and wooded mountain, I've dreaded the place ever since the incident. I was a young adult when it happened, around 20 if I remember quickly, so some parts are foggy. Now, 17 years later, it was the first time I felt comfortable enough to talk about it without feeling like grief, anger,

or the need to cry would overtake me. I started going to a therapist a week ago and he recommended that I wrote everything I remember down and maybe share it anonymously so that could help letting go. So that's what I'm doing right now. For the sake of anonymity, I'm going to change everyone's names except for my former best friend's first name. And I won't mention my town's name. I'll start at the very beginning with how I met my best friend. As I mentioned, most people knew most people in our town.

not quite literally but everyone knew the people in their neighbourhoods. That was around 12 years old when Mrs. Davis, who lived two streets from ours, died. We went to the same church, and I helped her a few times with grocery shopping, so we were invited to the church's memorial for her. We didn't know much about Mrs. Davis, but we did know her house was passed down to her son and his family. This piqued my interest, as there weren't any new faces around here. Hadn't been since I was born. when we were in church I immediately noticed the new family

they even had a son who looked around my age this boy was soon to be my best friend he was the type of guy who even as a child unintentionally drew everyone's attention to him the type who you first noticed in a crowd of people even if you weren't looking for him well that's how I thought of him given how I once looked at him I felt unable to look away

after a few minutes of staring he looked back at me which made me turn away, trying to play it cool like I wasn't just staring at him. After a bit, I took another glance at him, only to find he was still looking at me with a raised eyebrow. I turned away a lot less smoother than last time, feeling in my cheeks heat up a bit thanks to the embarrassment of getting caught. I didn't dare look at him again for the rest of the memorial, but as I was a child and children don't have as much shame and social limitation as everyone else, I went up to him when it ended. His parents smiled at me, the kind of smile which was sincere but tired and worn out,

and took a few steps away to leave us alone to socialise. Why were you looking at me? he asked, twiddling his sleeve as he looked into my eyes. I felt a blush creeping up my cheeks again from embarrassment and looked down at my shoes. Yeah, I'm, I just haven't seen you around before. You're the only new kid I've ever met. I laughed a bit. I had a bad habit. I had a bad habit. of giggling or laughing whenever I felt some sort of stress. Did you have a name? He didn't sound mad or uncomfortable, so I regained my courage. Here, it's Emmett.

What's yours? I smiled at him. I won't tell you just yet. People don't like my name. This took me by surprise. He didn't sound arrogant or like he didn't think I was good enough to know. He sounded more sad than anything else. as I opened my mouth to ask, why wouldn't they?

His mother stepped back to us and apologetically smiled at me before ushering her boy away. I later learned that there was a small gathering in their house for close family and friends and that they had to go. A week later my parents and I paid the day of his family a visit, with a home-cooked pie to welcome them to our small town, and because I had mentioned how I wanted to be friends with the new boy. I wasn't overly social. Well, I had a fair share of friends. I was never all that close with any of them.

so of course my parents were thrilled to hear I actually wanted to get to know someone. Plus they thought it was nice that I befriended the new boy. It must have been feeling lost and lonely in a new environment. We went over and after some formalities came the introduction. Looking back, I now understand why my friend hated sharing his name with others. I'm Martha and this is Lucifer. My husband Paul isn't home right now, but I'm sure you'll see him around some other time. The woman smiled at my parents, who seemed to freeze.

You see, my parents, just like the whole town, were really religious. Lucifer, what an interesting choice of name for your child, said my mother with a kind of condescending tone. I'm not sure if Martha picked up on it. It was rather subtle. But the boy, Lucifer, who'd been standing by his mother until them, slightly moved behind her as if to hide. I offered him a small smile which he shyly returned. Oh yes, I get that a lot. We chose this name for its original worth.

Before his fall, Lucifer Archangel was God's favourite and the most beautiful out of all the angels. His sin was that he loved God too much. We picked it in hopes that Al Luce would follow in his steps to love God more than any human. Maria tried to explain with the same tired and apologetic smile I'd seen on her yesterday. I believed her, she seemed sincere enough, but I could tell my parents didn't, even if they were smiling again. I knew when they were sincere and when they weren't.

After that, the atmosphere got tense, and a few minutes later my parents made up some bullshit excuse to leave, but me being a rather stubborn child, I insisted on achieving my goal of becoming friends with Lucifer. So I whined my mother to let me stay and play with him. Well, my parents weren't happy about it, but after some pleading from both me and Martha. Let me stay for a few hours. I'm sure they secretly hoped I wouldn't get on well with Lucifer. But we did. In fact, we became best friends and were inseparable until our 20s. While we couldn't go to the same class as he was two years younger than me, we still went to the same

school, so we played together at recess, ate lunch together and always went to school and then home together. At first I called him loose, like his mother, but with the years, Luce became Lucy. He started out as a joke, but after a bit it grew on me, and I started calling him it unironically. The first time it happened, it earned me a laugh from him, and I went red with realization and embarrassment. But he said he liked Lucy, if it didn't have a teasing tone to it. I'd looked up to Lucy from the first time I'd talked with him. He was so unapologetically himself, and he owned his name. When I was around 15 and he was 13, he explained why.

Well, you see, Emmett, people will judge me before they even get to know me because of my name. They'll still judge me after they get to know me. And thanks to my name, I'll always think badly of me no matter what I do. So it's unnecessary to cater to everyone around me because it won't change a thing. He said something like that, if I recall correctly. I lived by this philosophy and just didn't care what people thought about him. And I admired him for it. He was out of the ordinary which made him more interesting than a lot of the world.

anyone else. But most people didn't see him like that. Like he said, they judged everything he did, and even if the kids slowly warmed up to him at first, they still kept their distance, and the adults didn't give him a chance. The older we got, the meaning of the kids got with him. He was never outright bullied, though. He was just outcasted, and a lot of rumors spread about him. He didn't mind them. He even found entertainment in some rather radical ones, like how he was the antichrist or how he brought a curse on the town when he moved here. I, on the other hand, got frustrated with all these lies, and for the first year I tried defending him to no avail. I stopped after he asked me to. He was perfectly capable of defending himself and standing up

for himself when he needed to, but he knew fighting the rumors would be like tilting at windmills. I remember one that was the most widely accepted, to the point even parents and teachers believed it was true. It was that he was gay well they never addressed this one with me so after some months i asked him if it was true he asked me if i believed it to which i hesitantly shrugged well are you because the rumor started thanks to how much i hang out with you people think we're dating so if i'm gay you must be too i understandedly nodded and apologized now feeling guilty for it and all so stupid for asking stop you are at fob more than i am well i hang out with you as much as you hang out with me? He carelessly laughed and I smiled. I realized that

it didn't matter at all, so it never came up again. I was in 10th grade when I got my first girlfriend. My parents were thrilled and I was sure they'd already started planning our wedding when I first told them the news, especially how they also heard the Lucifer's gay rumor and got quite concerned with how close we were. She was a 15-year-old girl from Lucy's class. Let's call her Grace. Some weeks before we started dating, Lucy told me a girl was interested in me because she'd been asking a lot about me. Later she told me it was because she saw me every day with Lucy and found me cute. We started talking then, eventually dating. She was a nice girl.

I can't say anything bad about her, really. Well, we didn't date for longer than four months, I think. The longer I was with her, the more distant Lucy became, to which, in response, the gloomy it I got. he said it was so that he wouldn't hog me from grace I don't remember if I believed him or not I broke up with Grace saying that it was me not her and while I loved hanging out with her I just didn't feel the spark

she tried to talk me out of it begged me to give us a bit more time and then got angry and said it must be over Lucifer the shit storm that caused I got a lot of scolding from my parents and the upset Grace told everyone she broke up with me because she caught me making out with Lucy, which needless to say wasn't true, but everyone believed it. After this I fell back into my normal routine of hanging out with Lucy. He didn't care

about the rumours and I was just happy that my friend was no longer so distant from me. Even though I told both Grace and myself, Lucifer had nothing to do with why I broke up with her, now if I look back at it, he had everything to do with it. While Grace was nice, she wasn't even close to being as interesting and intriguing as Lucy was. I found myself missing him and wishing to talk with him instead of her two months into dating. In the end, I chose his company over graces. As much as I would have denied it as a teenager, Lucy had the biggest impact on me. I followed him in everything and would have doubted myself for seeing the skies blue if he told me it was pink, which is honestly strange. I was never an impressionable person and no one had to be. I had to be a

this big of an effect on me beside Lucy to this day. He was really interested in everything supernatural. He'd constantly talk about some new cryptid he'd read about, or tell a chilling ghost story, which he never seemed to run out of. He read a ton of books about mythology, urban legends and the like. Whenever I visited family, I always secretly bought him new ones, as our religious little town didn't have more than a few. After a bit, I found myself also interested in the occult. Lucy also wasn't a Christian He once told me how he thought the Bible was bullshit And that he didn't want to believe in a God

That is as cruel as the Christian one Which is kind of ironic with his name At the time I took major offence to this But after listening to his reasoning I couldn't help but agree with him And then on I loathe going to church And no longer prayed Just pretending to do so

I can't determine what religion Lucy was part of He seemed to believe in something new every other month. But if I had to categorise him, I'd say he was some sort of polytheist for pagan, who believed in every God but in no church. I always prayed with him to some new God he liked, or did some ancient ritual he just read about with him. It didn't matter that I didn't necessarily believe in any of them. I did it because it seemed important to him. Now that you know all the basics of my friendship with Lucifer and his personality, I didn't think I can get into the incident that happened.

Even though our town was religious, it still had its fair share of urban legends. The most notable one was the man who took children. Now, in a nutshell, the man who took children was a crazed man living in the surrounding forest, who lived off raw flesh, and who attacked, and then eight children who went too far into the forest alone, especially at night. As teenagers, we knew it was only created to scare off the children from going into the woods, getting lost and dying either from a wild animal or hypothermia. Or well, that's what we all believed. Lussey wasn't as interested in it as I would have expected. He simply said it must be a

wendigo and left it at that. I think he was afraid of it, even if he wouldn't admit it, and we agreed it was a made-up tale. He never went into the woods at night, and he wouldn't let me do so either, not even when I wouldn't have been alone as some friends would call me to go camping with them. I never ridiculed Lucy for believing in it, though, and I always complied. When Lucy turned 18, we went hiking. We did that a lot given how there wasn't much else to do in a mountainside town, but this was new because we went further than we usually did, and we went off the beaten track. After a couple of hours of walking, we got to a nice small clearing, which seemed to be the end of our made-up path. If you stood with your back to the mountain, there was an edge to both

the right side and in front of you, so it was a steep drop on both sides, plus the mountain behind was too icy to climb and too steep to walk up without problems. So we decided to stop for a bit before heading back. The landscape with the pine trees, the lake beside our town, and the small sun-drenched rooftops and roads of our town were all beautiful. But after taking us to the a look around, I noticed something. There was a bush on the edge of the clearing, but something was off about it. I got closer and was taken back by what I saw. The bush was decorated with small skulls. They looked like baby skulls, but not quite. On their surface were a lot of small circular markings which felt like the surface of teeth. I was about to gag when a huge migraine

kicked in. The world went black for a second before I saw images flickering before my eyes. They were fast and I was afraid of getting some sort of seizure caused by the constant light changes. I can't remember exactly what the images I saw were. I just remember them being very unsettling. Dead animals, the dark forest, running people, crawling maggots in a faceless man is all I can call back and even thinking about them now makes my head throb. I must have fallen because when I started regaining my senses again, Lucy was desperately trying to pull me up to my feet while saying we needed to leave immediately. After a few seconds, I managed to get up again, and we started hurrying back. It didn't take long until we heard a scream. It wasn't like

any I've ever heard. It sounded like it had come from two sources at exactly the same time. One was a resonating deep howl, and the other was a high-pitched screech. We looked back and saw a thing sprinting towards us. Ever since the rumours and bad looks had started when we were young, I'd slowly develop this protectiveness over Lucy, so my first thought was about how I could save him. After taking some sharp turns in the woods, long ignoring the path,

I heard him wheeze for air. While he was in shape, he wasn't cut out for running more than two minutes straight. On impulse I stopped, making him bump him to me and pushed him into a fallen, trunk that it looked big enough to cover him. I didn't give him enough time to say anything. Don't move and stay hidden until you can't hear me and that thing anymore. Then start running through the woods and don't stop till you're home, okay? I whispered to him before I started running back to the path, shouting and bringing as much attention to myself as I could, anything to get it

away from Lucy. That was the first time I saw him cry and looked so powerless. I ran, for what seemed like ours with that hellish monster at my heels, when I reached a bigger clearing. As our town was a famous tourist spot for hikers, this clearing had a small building with toilets in it. You know, the kind which had four small toilet stores, which looked like the ones in public schools. I ran in the building and tried hiding in a store behind a closed door. The creature clumsily came after me in the building and tried its hardest to get me out of that damn store. This was the first time that I got a clear look at it. It had long, thin arms, but small legs, which reminded me of a child's legs, just with freakishly long feet.

It had long claws and kept clawing at the stall door. The non-stop screaming started sounding like, ouch, over and over again after a while, which brought back the same throbbing headache from before. It ripped off the door's outer handle, but couldn't make the door none. I crawled up in a ball on the toilet seat as far away from the door as humanly possible when it started reaching in from both above and under. Then it tried poking its head in. Oh God, the face was the most terrible part of it.

It had thin black hair clinging to its scalp in patches. Its eyes looked like sunken in frog eyes that were on the sides of its face, too far from each other and one slightly above the other. His mouth was small and was filled with small blunt teeth, and it looked like it had large cuts across its face, starting from its hairline, and it had a large hole where a human's nose would have been. I still have no idea how its face stayed together. I prayed to all gods and spirits that Lucy had told me about to keep me safe. The monster stayed there with me for a while, so I wasn't worried about Lucy as I was before. I believed he'd had enough time to escape. At the time the thought of him arriving home safe was worth me getting killed by this thing. After that, everything got blurry. I think I blacked out from the stress and pain. I worked up God knows how long later to banging on the door.

I went into flight mode instantly, but relaxed a bit when I recognised the town's police chief's voice. After a small talk with him, I felt like it was safe for me to go out. I got led out of the building and saw a lot of people from the town. Apparently my parents got worried when I didn't come home last night. So they got some people to come and search for me. Is Lucy okay? Was my first actual question after someone wrapped me in a blanket.

I must have looked pitiful in that blanket with how dirty I was from running through the woods and with how afraid and worried I must have looked. But at the time I couldn't care. Lucy! The chief scratched his face, furrowing his brows. Oh yeah, of course. Only I called him Lucy. I meant Lucifer. Lucifer Davis. He was with me yesterday. Is he okay? I asked a bit faster and more panicked than I'd intended.

The chief shook his head, and I felt my stomach drop. They wouldn't let me search with them. They just escorted me back to the town. My parents clung to me. I wouldn't let me go for a long time. They were both crying and thanking God for bringing me back to safety while I was too in shock to react, let alone to say or feel anything. The next day I led the search party to where we'd found the skull bush, which no longer had anything on it. Then I showed them the fallen trunk.

I tried hiding loose him behind. He wasn't there. The third day I told my parents and the police everything. They concluded that it must have been a bear or some sort of wild animal. Trauma was tricking my mind. But I insisted it was the man who took children, but they just prayed for me. I stopped talking after that. At the end of the first week, the search parties were called off,

and after finding nothing, they were said to be unsuccessful. The official police report said Lucifer Davis either died from hypothermia or was ripped apart by a wild animal. I didn't believe it. I knew Lucy was still alive. I just knew it. At the end of the second week, it was the first time I'd seen Martha and Paul Davis since the incident. They looked as numb, empty and worn out as I felt.

I saw them at Lucy's official funeral. They buried an empty casket as his body was still missing. I didn't say more than was absolutely necessary, and I could tell my parents were getting really worried about me. The day after the funeral was the breakthrough. It was Wedden's Day, if I remember Crave. but I can't say for sure. I wasn't willing to go to school or even really get out of bed since coming home, so the days kind of blended together.

This day was different, however. Lucifer's parents came over, and they loudly demanded to see me. After some shouting, I dragged myself downstairs to see what was going on. It's your fault. My baby would never have gotten into trouble if it wasn't for you. You got my Lucifer killed. Martha, the once soft-spoken and calm woman, who I'd seen as a second mother

was completely hysterical and shrieked as soon as she saw me. I'm sure she would have launched at me if her husband wasn't holding her back, who was also glaring daggers at me. Lucifer is dead. It's your hell, Spencefold. He's been bringing bad luck to the town

ever since she moved here. Such a sinful demon shouldn't have stepped a foot into our good God-faring town to begin with. My father screamed back. My mother kept him, back from throwing punches. Lucifer is dead. The screaming and arguing continued.

They no longer cared about me being there, just stand in it, totally emotionless. I stopped listening to what they were saying. Lucifer is dead. My migraine started coming back, which made me wince. Lucifer is dead. I caught some words my father was saying. Hellsbourne.

Finally he's back in hell where he belongs. He deserved it. My son will finally be free. And demon, among other insults. Then I also caught the similar insults aimed at me, but how it should have been me instead of him. My numbness was cracking as I felt the first emotion in two weeks. Anger.

My blood boiled with fury. Lucifer is dead. Slap! The room was filled with silence like time had stopped and all eyes were on me. I didn't even realize I'd moved and slapped my father, especially not as hard as I did. My palm hurt afterwards, but I paid no attention to it. With time I also felt my blood freeze and all my anger go away. For a moment, I felt nothing again before realization hit me like a truck.

My Lucy was dead. I loved him. I didn't think before I spoke, it just slipped out of my mouth. My confession took everyone, including me, by surprise. This broke me. How stupid could I have been, not even realising I was in love with my best friend. And I never told him. I never told him how much he meant to me, and I'll never get the chance to do so.

I felt tears rolled down my cheeks before my legs gave out and I fell to the ground, bawling my eyes out. I screamed and whined and cried, not caring who could hear me. Such a deep sorrow and guilt took over me. I thought I'd die from the pain. I felt like it was my fault he'd died because I couldn't protect him. Martha was right. I should have died that day, not him. And now I'll never see his face again.

I'll never go on adventures with him. or hear his laughter and stories or do anything with him ever again. I was so sure he'd make it out alive. I didn't even say bye. That was the last time I spoke with the Davis family. They said nothing else during my breakdown and probably left soon after it started, but I didn't notice.

They moved away two weeks later, and that was the last time I'd heard from them. I moved away a year later too. Where am I now? I still live in our own. Arizona, where it's always warm and it never snows. I haven't gone hiking once in the last 17 years, and the only times I've gone back to my hometown is on Lucy's birthday to put flowers on his grave, which I do every year, and when my father died due to an accident. I still think about him,

but it no longer hurts. It's just a kind of dull ache I've grown used to by now. I'm still interested in the occult, but I no longer believe in any gods. I've gone to college and work a full-time job now. I even tried dating, which didn't work out for the most part. I keep looking for Lucy in everyone I meet. I guess he put my expectations a bit too high, but I have been going regularly to this one coffee shop for the past few months before work. One of the baristas caught my eyes. She has the same dark brown eyes and the same shade of dirty blonde hair that Lucifer had. Her name tag says Abby, and she recognizes and smiles at me when I arrive every month. She's a little. mornings. I might try my luck with her. If things work out and I start going out with her,

hopefully she wouldn't mind me calling her Lucy. Now, thank you for listening to my story. Oh, before I go, I want to confess something. I lied about why I started seeing a therapist. A week ago, I started waking up in a cold sweat to that unmistakable two-pitched scream. I could swear I can faintly see the monster's face in the corner of my room for just a few seconds after waking up a bit closer each night. After that it's complete silence and the only thing I can hear before the outside world's noise is flood back in is a barely loud enough whisper from me to hear which sounds an awful lot like Lucifer. It says, run. And so once again,

reach the end of tonight's podcast. My thanks as always to the authors of those wonderful stories and to you for taking the time to listen. Now, I'd ask one small favor of you. Wherever you get your podcast from, please write a few nice words and leave a five-star review as it really helps the podcast.

That's it for this week, but I'll be back again, same time, same place, and I do so hope you'll join me once more. Until next time, sweet dreams and bye-bye.