Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I Found A STRANGE HOLE In My Uncle's Backyard | Scary Stories

Episode Date: April 6, 2024

Don't go down there.   Story from JGrupe Make sure to check out more of their work at u/Jgrupe  Cover Art from Ninerio          Original Post: I fell down a bottomless pit, but that wasn't the worst part : r/nosleep  Original YouTube link: I Found A STRANGE HOLE In My Uncle's Backyard           For more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube  Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | Patreon Merch: lighthousehorror.com  Sound Effects: Freesound Zapsplat Music: Lucas King - YouTube Myuu - YouTube  Incompetech  Darren Curtis Music - YouTube Thank you for listening to this scary story! If you enjoyed this new creepypasta story, please check out some of my other horror stories. We'll be uploading new episodes every week, featuring ghost stories, haunted encounters, mysteries, true stories, creepypasta, and anything supernatural and paranormal. Don't miss out on the thrill and suspense that await you in each episode!

There's a big chasm out back behind the barn. My cousin Todd told me the first day of my visit, sitting on the back deck in a pair of finely aged Adirondack chairs. We can go check it out after breakfast if you want. Yeah, sure. Sounds good, I said. Catching myself pulling flakes of peeling white paint from the armrest and stopping just after he'd noticed.

Of course I knew about the chasm. It was all my mom had talked about when she'd been attempting to take. convinced me to go out west to visit my aunt and cousins. She'd been out to see them by herself the year before. At first, she'd hyped the cave as an attraction, and then once I'd been enticed and agreed to go, it had all been about safety, safety, safety. We wouldn't be allowed to go into the cave, of course, since it was a straight vertical drop down into untold depths. Even-trained cave explorers were banned from spolunking into the chasm, since the unfortunate deaths of the of four cavers who had gone in and never returned back in the early 90s.

The rock was loose and crumbling, the experts had said, causing the climbers' equipment failures and their subsequent deaths. I knew we wouldn't be able to do much other than look, but I was still intrigued. The pictures I'd seen of the chasm, known locally as the pit, were truly amazing. It looked like a portal straight to hell. a yawning abyss that gaped like a mouth in the middle of a rocky outcrop and dropped off vertically like a giant well. If the cousins didn't live in the middle of nowhere, they could have opened a roadside attraction stand and made a killing. That's how bizarre this thing looked. The

hole went down further than anyone had been able to record. Even before the deaths 30 years before, there was no record of anyone surviving who had gone down into the cave. Since the its unreliable walls were known to crumble and give way without warning. As we sat at the table eating bacon and eggs cooked by my Uncle Glenn, Todd told his father our plans for the day. So I guess you don't want to go out on the boat and pull up prawn traps and try to catch a few con today then? He looked at me expectantly.

I looked over at Todd and he kicked me under the table. Um, could we go with you next time instead? It sounds like fun, but I really wanted to do. to check out that pit thing?" I sent, knowing that my uncle went out fishing almost every day without exception. Yeah, I guess it wouldn't hurt to leave you guys here while I pull up the traps. Mary? Steve?

You want to come out there with me? I could actually use a hand, since I won't have this greenhorn out there to boss around. He said, shaking my head amiably with his hand, ruffling my hair as an uncle can only do when you're still not old enough to drive a car yet. I smoothed it back down and gave my cousin a mental high-five. We would have the place to ourselves for the day if my uncle could convince my brother and cousin Mary to go out and help with the traps. Oh man, I'm sorry Uncle Glenn, but I'm really not feeling great. I don't know if I can handle going out on that boat right now. My brother Steve said, I hadn't noticed him looking unwell at all, I thought to myself,

a little annoyed at the thought of their pseudo-supervision. They were four years older than us, and so they thought they were so much more mature than us. My uncle sighed and made a few dejected-sounding remarks, but ultimately left the house in good spirits. We went down to the dock with him, and I watched as my cousin untied the knots, which held the boat in place with the practiced motions of an expert. I looked on with admiration as he pushed the boat off into the water. My uncle waved goodbye, and we headed back to the house. After we'd raided the kitchen cupboards, eating the last two apple-oed granola bars and a couple of overright bananas, Todd brought me over to the pit on the other end of the property and showed me its grandeur.

It was even more amazing in real life, and Todd seemed to have a great deal of respect for it. Keep away from the edge. The rocks have a tendency of falling away without warning. He sat, keeping back farther than I thought necessary. I walked a bit closer, and I saw him tense up. What a wuss, I thought, and walked up to the flimsy rope which encircled the chasm. A placard was mounted, and I walked over to it, thinking it would give some information about the giant hole that we stood in front of, but instead it was a memorial to the deceased cavers who had never returned from their Spelunking expedition into the pit.

nearly 30 years before. In loving memory, let us never forget, Reynolds Brinhold, March 1958 to August 1990. Stephen Fox, September 1959 to August 1990. Jeremy Fox, October 1961 to August 1990. And Kelly Richardson, September, 1963. to August 1990. Beside the placard was a laminated black and white picture of the pit from the 1990s. The chasm was about half the size of what it looked to be today. It had somehow grown considerably. Wow.

So I guess that was 30 years ago this month that those people all died, I said, looking back at my cousin. He had taken another step back and now seemed almost comically far away from the whole For some reason, I felt like I was suddenly too close now. The ground seemed to shake almost imperceptively beneath my feet, and my eyes widened as he looked past me. The ground just in front of me suddenly fell away, and a chunk the size of a manhole cover broke off and vanished into the pit.

I looked down and saw my feet were suddenly less than two feet from the edge. The safety rope suddenly seeming much less safe. The subtle shaking stopped as quickly as it started, and I backed away from the edge towards my cousin. Something seemed wrong. Very wrong. My cousin was trembling, clearly disturbed as well. I kept waiting for the sound of the giant rock that had fallen into the pit, waiting for

the loud crash that would show with mathematical precision the depth of the deep. cave. I waited for the crash to echo up from the depths of the pit, but it never came. I looked down and a crack had grown beneath my feet, stretching out from the edge of the pit towards my cousin's house. I stepped away from it instinctively, subconsciously. Step on a crack, break your mother's back, I thought. My cousin grabbed my hand with his, wet and clammy, and clammy. And and pulled me, rougher than I thought necessary, away from the hole. We ran back to the house and went inside, where he insisted on playing video games for the remainder of the day. By around 7 p.m., we were starting to wonder about Uncle Glenn. He'd been gone for almost 10 hours.

By now, Todd said, he was usually back for supper, unless he'd stopped by a friend's place, which was always a possibility. Todd called him up on the radio. Hey, Dad, you coming home soon? I'm hungry. Hey, bud, sorry. I went over to Johnny's place and I kind of lost track of time. Now there's a storm rolling in and the water's looking pretty choppy. I might have to stay the night here if it doesn't clear up, so... The radio cut out abruptly. Dad, you there?

Yeah, yeah, I'm here. Do you think... Yourselves for dinner tonight? Yeah, Dad. We'll figure it. figure something out. The static was louder now. He hung up the handset. We sat for a while and tried to figure out something to eat. Steve and Mary were nowhere to be seen, leaving us slightly concerned, but we knew they could

take care of themselves. I looked outside and saw dark black-grey clouds blowing in from the distance. I'd never seen clouds that looked like those back home. They looked nasty and full of destruction. and lightning boomed, and suddenly it was pouring rain outside. The back deck was almost instantly flooded, and water dripped from a hole in the ceiling into a pot, which had already been left beneath it for the purpose of catching its drops. Stephen Mary came back later that night. After we'd settled on a dinner of KD and soft saltines we found in the cupboard, my cousin

assured me we were going grocery shopping in town the next day. I fell asleep fitfully, unable to get comfortable with a heavy sound of rain outside and the occasional clap of thunder. The ground seemed to shake with each crash, but I eventually drifted off into a deep sleep. In my dream, I was in a cave. The air was moist and it was difficult to see, almost pitch black, except for a light far in the distance. Although I couldn't really see, I could feel my feet sticking to the ground, and I realized with alarm that I was stuck in midnight black mud. I tried to move my feet and found that they came up with an effort. I pulled my feet up one after another and moved toward the light in the distance.

A giant boulder broke off from above me, and I dove out of the way, finding myself lying face down in the mud. I was stuck. I couldn't move. I felt a rock under my left hand and I closed a fist around it. With great effort, I managed to claw a few inches out of the mud and pulled my other arm out, grabbing the rock and climbing out of the mud, feeling it pulling at my legs as I stood up. I walked forward and eventually felt the ground harden a bit beneath my feet.

The light was closer now. I moved forward with a purpose, covered in black caked-on mud, and struggled. to breathe as it covered my mouth, nose, and eyes. I tried to wipe it away, but only ended up with more mud in my eyes. As I got closer to the light, I heard the sound of waves crashing, and my feet were soon stumbling out onto a white sandy beach. It was a small cove, encircled by towering white cliffs, with jungle all around the entrance to the cave. It was beautiful. The water was crystal clear and blue. The pool of water in the inlet was small, shaped like a rough circle about thirty feet across. I stood at the edge, covered in mud, thinking how good it will feel

to be clean, and I stepped into the water. As soon as my foot broke the surface of the water, I knew something was wrong, but by then it was too late. I fell head first, waking up as I did so, and I saw the ledge coming at me fast. I woke up falling straight down into the pit. I'd been sleepwalking, of course, for the first time in my life, and I'd walked headfirst into a bottomless pit. The wall of the pit sloped in a few feet down, just enough to break my fall so that I didn't die as I tumbled and crashed down about 50 feet to a ledge, barely awake, and felt my jaw hit the ground. My arm reached out to brace for the fall, and my wrist flared in sharp pain as it took

the brunt of the impact. I woke up to my world spinning. My mouth tasted coppery, and I realized my nose was bleeding, or maybe my mouth or both. My arm was on fire, and I couldn't move it. My wrist felt like it was sprained, but maybe not broken. It took me a few minutes to regain my senses and I found that I could hear a voice. It was whispering urgently from what sounded like a great distance down below me. It took me another minute to remember where I was and why the voice sounded so far away

and echoing. Hey, hey you up there. Can you hear me? Hey. Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. I can hear you, I said, gradually regaining some of my senses.

Good. The voice whispered back, sounding relieved. Glad to hear you're all in one piece. I was. I must have been sleepwalking, I said. Remembering how I'd awoken just as my foot plunged into the cold ocean water in the cove of my dream, waking to find myself tumbling head over. over heels down into the cave, the chasm, the pit.

My stomach lurched as I recalled the view of the rock shelf I landed on racing towards me as I fell. A moment later, I found myself vomiting without warning. Clear bile dripped from my lips as I coughed and finished retching. I noticed suddenly the smell down in the pit was horrendous. It smelled like a sewer on a hot day. Like a dead mouse and a hot cabin left to decay for the summer. Like rotted black potatoes, spoiled eggs and rancid butter left out to rot under the radiator.

That smell. I said suddenly, unable to hold back, forgetting our tones had been whispers until this point. The walls above me shook suddenly and small stones fell down, hitting me hard on top of my head. A big rock fell and struck my right shoulder, causing a stab of sharp pain there. I bit my lip and sucked in air through my teeth, trying not to scream. Quiet, the voice insisted. This whole place could cave in. I tried not to hyperventilate, thinking about tons of rock falling on me from above,

pinning me down, trapping me in this place with this smell. forever. My cousin, I said, he'll come looking for me. He'll get us out of here. I said, more to myself than to the man below me. Oh, good. The voice below answered back. I've been down here for, I don't know how long time it feels like.

I can't tell how long anymore. I've lost track of time. My head was feeling foggy. I could feel a gash above my eye. I tried to wipe the blood away, but found it only made things worse. I pulled off my t-shirt and ripped the sleeve off, fitting it over my head like a makeshift bandage. I used the rest of my shirt that seemed relatively clean to wipe the blood from my eye and

face, blinking as my vision began to return. Jordan! I felt relief wash over me. I heard the calls of my cousin up above me. I was about to call back when I remembered the voice below and its warning. I'm down here. I whisper yelled back up to the hole above. I could see the shape of his head above me before he retreated back out of sight. How the... His voice sounded bewildered.

How did you get down there? You okay, man? Yeah, I think I'm okay. My head feels like it just... It just got bashed in with a rock, which I guess it kind of was. But other than that, I'm okay. I'm not sure about the other guy down here, though. By the way, don't talk too loud. The cave is, well, it's caving in, I think. Shit, he said to himself.

All right, I'm going for help. Just stay where you are. His voice calmed me a little bit. He would go for a rope and grab help. Is he gone? The voice asked from below. I mean, is he going to get help? Yeah, we should be out of here soon.

I said back. Hey, listen, I need your help. My leg is pinned under a rock. I can wiggle it, but I can't move it. I think the two of us could, though. We could move it together. For the first time, I realized that the voice sounded strange. There's a ladder, he said.

I don't know how I got down here, but I can see the outline of it leading up to you, and I can feel it down here. I think it goes all the way up to where you are. I reached down off the side of the narrow ledge, and I felt around for the ladder, thinking it was possible if climbers had used this cave before. They could have left it as an escape route should their clasps and ropes fail on the crumbling rocks above. I was about to give up when my finger bumped up against something cold and wooden. I reached down further, and I felt the rough and splintering frame of a ladder. I got it, I said down to him. All right, I'm coming down. I was wiggling my rear end to the side of the ledge when I remembered my cousin would be back any second. You know, I think I should wait

for Todd. He might not be able to hear me from all the way down there. I said, not admitting to myself that I really was afraid, to dangle off the ledge and blindly feel for an old rickety ladder, to climb down to the bottom of a pitch-black chasm where a voice was calling from, telling me it's all right. Don't be afraid. Please, please, help me. It hurts. It hurts. The voice sounded more desperate than it had before. I didn't say anything back, trying to gauge the situation. My head felt foggy, and I was having trouble thinking clearly. I didn't like the change in tone, but resolved I would attempt to help him as soon as my

cousin came back. It felt important that I tell him. The voice below made occasional pained noises, but stayed otherwise silent for a while. Finally, Todd's voice called down softly from above. Jordan, I'm back. I got a few people from across the way. We're going to pull you out. We're trying to tie the rope off here.

Then we'll send it down for you. Okay. I called back up to him. I got to help this other guy down here, though. His leg is pinned under a rock. I got a ladder down here, though, that someone left. I'm going to climb down and try to help him. There was no response for a few long moments, except for the small rocks skipping and sliding

down the sides of the cave. Look, Jordan, you need to listen to me. There's no one else down there with you. Think about it for a minute. No one could survive that drop. I can't believe you're even alive, but you are and we need to get you out of there. I think that maybe you hit your head and maybe you're a bit. confused. Just stay there and let us pull you out of there, okay? Don't try to go down further.

There's nobody down there. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Maybe I did hit my head, but I knew what I was doing. I wasn't confused or hallucinating. I heard talk from above and words like head trauma and concussion. I'm not crazy, I said. There's someone down there. and he's gonna die if we don't help him i turned my head back below me and called down to the voice below hey just tell him your name or something so he'll believe me if you're from around here he probably knows who you are right he doesn't know me i would have been before his time i'm older so what just call up there tell him your name so he's name so he's knows I'm not crazy, or I'll do it if you're too scared of a cave-in. What's your name?"

I... I don't remember." The voice sounded defeated. My cousin must have heard us talking, and I thought for a minute he decided there was a second person down below. His voice suddenly seemed regretful and apologetic. Okay, sorry I was wrong, but let's get you out of there first, Then we'll come back for the other guy, okay? One thing at a time, all right? He's lying. The voice hissed at me from below. He'll leave me here as they always do.

You must help me. I'm bleeding. I'm trapped. I don't know how much longer I can survive like this. Minutes could mean my death. Don't you understand? I was tired of this. It didn't sound like the voice was that far down. I would help him myself. Now, not later. I'd only been down here for a couple of hours, but that was long enough to know that this was hell.

The smell. The rocks falling down constantly onto you. The wet slime of mud that permeated everything and made it hard to breathe. I'm going down for him, I said, more to myself than anyone else. My cousin must have heard because he really lost it. If not for the threat of a cave-in, I think he would have screamed at me. He settled for a halfway whisper shout, which resulted in a barrage of rocks falling on me from above. Are you out of your mind? There's no one down there. Just stay where you are, man.

You're going to get yourself killed!" His words stung even more than the avalanche of rocks, but I steeled my resolve and swung my lower half off the ledge. A moment of panic set in, as my foot searched blindly in the dark for the top rung of the ladder. Finally, my foot settled on it, and I found the next rung with my other foot, slowly and carefully, making my way down into the complete blackness below. I could hear people talking above me. Clearly they decided I was completely nuts and were coming up with contingency plans, since I wasn't exactly cooperating.

I just need five minutes. That's it, I said. I continued down the strange ladder, feeling the odd curvatures of it, and wondering why and how anyone would construct a ladder in such a fashion. The rungs of the ladder felt ornately carved into shapes that each felt the unique. My fingers felt them with increasing curiosity as I made my way down. The vertical bars of the ladder felt strange too, and I ran my hand over the face of it. It felt like letters, only not from any alphabet I'd ever seen. I tried to decipher them, but the light was too dim. I looked up and saw the hole that I'd fallen down looked tiny, the size of a quarter now. How long had I been climbing? I began to notice that the latter

rungs felt much more intricately sculpted as the ladder descended. In the increasingly dim light, I noticed they began to have form and features. I realized at some point that each rung was an oblong wood carving of a different animal. This one felt like the wings of a bird, and the left side narrowed to the point of a beak, the other end fanning out into tail feathers. The next had large flat teeth at one end, and the unmistakable pancake tail of a beaver at the other. An orca whale would be followed by a bear, a squirrel by a hawk, with no consistency or reasoning I could decipher. So close, the voice said. Very near now. Maybe only ten.

feet below me. I was suddenly afraid. My hands were shaking as I prepared to take the next rung of the ladder. Yes, yes, almost. I stopped. The voice didn't sound hurt or scared anymore. It sounded hungry. I had a moment of clarity where I realized what I was doing. This wasn't right. None of this felt right. I looked down and saw that my eyes had adjusted just enough to see the vague shape and face of the being below. It was not a man or a woman, although its features were distinctly feminine. Its skeletal form was long and slender, covered in ancient tattered rags that hung loosely from it. It was standing up to its calves in thick black mud that bubbled and looked alive.

The creature smiled up at me. Its ability to change its voice seemed to be a talent the creature possessed, along with its persuasiveness I realized later. As I saw its true form, I realized that I'd been tricked, that the mental fog I'd been feeling was the result of this thing's grasp on me. I looked ahead at the ladder and saw the rungs were much wider now, and very ornate. They were no longer in the forms of animals I recognized either, but strange humanoid monsters. My throat caught, and I struggled to swallow for a moment, when I realized the rungs currently holding me up, appeared to be rotting, their delicate carvings

falling away in pieces after years of exposure to the thick black mud covering the bottom of the pit. I resolved to get out of there as quickly as possible, but I felt for a moment as if my legs wouldn't move. There was a crack. The ladder rung beneath my feet suddenly buckled, then snapped in half in an instant. And I fell, breaking through several ladder rungs on my way down and smashing my face against a boulder as I hit the ground. I felt like I would pass out for a moment, but I struggled to my feet. And the thing was on me in an instant, its rotten black fingers clawing at me and snapping its razor-sharp teeth inches from my face. I managed to push it away. I've never been a fighter, but I fought that day, though. I fought for my life, and I managed to push it back. I tried to jump

up and I slipped on the mud instead, then had to scramble to get to my feet again. I noticed I was bleeding badly from a bite to my arm. The pain from the bite was spreading quickly, with a dull ache that began to throb with my heartbeat. I saw ribbons of flesh hanging down, and I realized the thing had pulled my arm apart like a paper bag lunch filled with hamburger meat. Strips of loose flesh flapped around as I moved my arm. and I felt bright, fresh waves of pain, worse than anything I'd ever felt in my life, as the adrenaline rush was no match for this degree of wound. I realized with dismay that I could no longer feel my fingers, and the creature started towards me again, its black eyes shining in the

dull light. I braced myself for its second attack, ready to fight for my life, trying not to lose hope. As the creature got close, I lost my balance in the mud and slipped. It seemed to have a life of its own. The mud wanted to help the creature. I could feel it pulling me down like greedy hands and holding my wrist back behind me. I closed my eyes and screamed as the creature bore down on me. And the last image I remember was it coming at me with sharp fangs. I waited for the impact.

But it didn't come. I opened my eyes and saw an image that didn't make sense. It looked like my Uncle Glenn was hanging from a rope and punching the demon creature in the face. The mud momentarily loosened its grip, as if in surprise, and I pulled away from it, freeing my hands. Uncle Glenn? Hey kid, I'm going to get you out of here. He said, pushing the thing off into the wall, on the other side of the cave. The years of pulling up prawn traps and wrestling Ling Kod had given him a strength I'd never appreciated before this moment.

What the hell is this thing? He said. He pulled me up out of the mud and took the harness off his waist and put it around me quickly. He pulled twice on the rope as a signal, and I felt myself being pulled up out of the pit. The mud hands pulled at my ankles and feet. And then with a final forceful pull on the rope, I was lifted out of the mud, up and away from the bottom of the pit. I looked down and saw the thing was on my uncle, clawing at him. I could hear his cries of anguish and pain. The creature tore away at his face with his claws, exposing tendons and muscles beneath.

It snapped its teeth and finally landed a bite on my uncle's hand as he heard. held it out to defend himself. I watched as the thing bit and tore at his flesh and then had him on the ground, where the mud hands pulled him down as he screamed. He'd come down here to save me, because I hadn't listened, and now he was going to die down here. Grab onto my legs, Uncle Glenn. It's your only chance, I said. He looked up at me and shook his head. I was too far up already, out of his reach. I screamed at the people above me to stop, but they continued to pull me up, thinking I was simply being difficult. I watched as he tried with everything he had to fight the thing off, but the mud was all over him now, covering him

except for his belly, where the creature began to feed. Gradually, they faded away into blackness, as I I rose up into the light above. Rocks were falling all around me now. When I woke up, I was in the hospital. My arm had been amputated above the elbow and I was delirious for a few days, but started to come out of it after my mom flew in from back home, and I woke up with her frowning at me. Everything came back in an instant, like a movie where the character has amnesia. It really was like that. I didn't sleep for three days after. after remembering what had happened. I screamed as they'd sedated me with countless needles, and I had visits from psychiatrists and their young, bright-eyed residents. They asked

me countless questions which I refused to answer, until eventually they became annoyed and stopped coming around as much. I was discharged after weeks of care in the hospital. Of course, it didn't take me long to realize that everyone was furious with me, even though they understood I had a head injury before crawling down into the depths of the pit, no one seemed to care. I'd pretty much cause the death of my uncle, who had given up his life to save me. News outlets in the area reporting on the story couldn't name me personally since I was a minor, but the stories written about the incident were not kind when it came to descriptions of me and my actions that day. My mom refused to let me give my side of the story, and in retrospect,

I'm glad. I would have just been called crazy. Anyone who took one look at me in those days would have called for my committal. I was constantly shaking and twitching, looking over my shoulders and scratching an itch on my arm that no longer existed. My hair grew long and I stopped shaving. I stopped eating the food the hospital sent me at one point, thinking that there was something wrong with it for some reason. It just didn't taste right. It tasted like mud. The cave-in had made rescue futile. I'd been lucky to make it out at all, I was told later, as an avalanche of rocks had caused

a collapse inside of the cavern immediately after I'd made it out. My cousin Todd will no longer speak to me, and I can understand why. The rest of my family is pissed off as well, obviously, but they're gradually starting to tolerate my presence again. Although I can tell my mom, we'll probably be probably never truly forgive me for her brother's death. I haven't looked in the mirror for a long time. I'm afraid to look into any reflective surface. I try to cover up the mirrors in the house, but my mom uncovers them. I've been told to stop, but I can't help it. Every time I see a mirror, I think of that water in my dream, my foot breaking the surface, and falling down into the pit,

It spinning head over heels, seeing the rock shelf racing up at me. Mirrors at night are even worse. They just look like that midnight black mud to me now. The therapist told me I should write this all down. So that's why I'm doing this. She keeps asking me the same questions over and over, as if waiting for me to slip up and change my story, to reveal that this is all truly a lie. and maybe start to make some progress in our sessions.

Guilt-free zone my ass. This is the truth. This is what happened. I remember everything.