Scary Horror Stories by Dr. NoSleep - In My New Hometown, All The Children Walk Into The Woods On Halloween Night

Episode Date: October 31, 2022

🎧 Check out The SCP Experience podcast here: https://spoti.fi/3juM1og 🎉 Ad-free bonus stories + exclusive uncensored animations: https://www.patreon.com/drnosleep 🎥 YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/DrNoSleep ✅ Send all advertising inquiries to: [e-mail] Author: John Beardify Check out more of his work Here: https://www.reddit.com/user/beardify/ New Book Release Here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QJXLHF4 Support John and his work Here: https://www.patreon.com/johnbeardify DISCLAIMER: This episode contains explicit content. Parental guidance is advised for children under the age of 18. Listen at your own discretion. #drnosleep #scarystories #horrorstories #doctornosleep #truescarystories #horrorpodcast #horror Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

She knows. How? Did you blouse? No. The Devil Wears Prada 2. He's the movie event 20 years in the making. Honestly, can't with the secrets anymore, so I think we just should tell her. Will you two please spit it out already?

This Friday, be the first to experience it only in theaters. In light of the recent scandal, I'm here to restore your credibility. Oh, because we're a team now? That's a nice story. The Devil Wears Prada 2 in Theaters Friday. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I do not want our daughters participating in some creepy ritual in the woods on Halloween night. My heart thundered in my chest.

My mouth was dry. Only a few months before, I never would have imagined such a ridiculous combination of words coming out of my mouth. Yet here I was, in my wife's hometown, at the mercy of its peculiar traditions. Just four months ago, everything had been different. I'd been working as an insurance agent in a mid-sized Midwestern city. Our two daughters, Nina and Marilyn, had just finished first grade, and the biggest argument between my wife, Danny, and I usually had to do with the noise of my coffee grinder on Sunday morning. Even so, as spring turned to summer, I noticed a quiet distance developing between my wife and I.

Danny spent more and more time staring out the window and sighing, or going for long walks by herself in the park. Nina and Marilyn are growing up, she said to me, over a rare romantic dinner we'd shared while the girls were out of sleepover. I'd hate for them to become teenagers without ever connecting with my side of the family, with their roots. Danny's parents hadn't been exactly thrilled when I'd carded her off to the big city,

but my wife had seemed happy with our life together so far. I couldn't understand why it was suddenly so important that we moved back to her hometown. Worse still, raising two little girls wasn't exactly cheap. And I wasn't sure how to tell Danny that I didn't know if we could afford the move, even if we'd wanted to. I know what you're thinking, Danny suddenly grabbed my hand. And don't worry, I've talked to my uncle, and I've already got a job lined up back home. She's smart.

Not to brag, but I'll be making almost double what you make now. Come on, would it really be so bad to be a house husband for a little while? I couldn't argue with that. My company had been working me to the bone over the recent hurricane, and it wasn't like I had any real ties to the city. We only stayed because of my job, and if this move was really so important to Danny. Three months later, I was white-knuckle driving our moving van to Skeena, Kentucky.

At first, Nina and Marilyn had to... had reacted with shock and horror to the thought of leaving behind their friends and favorite pizza restaurant, but Danny had soothed them with photos of our home and promises of their very own bedrooms. Like Danny's new job, the house had seemed almost too good to be true. We'd gone from a 50-year-old ranch that was practically beside the highway to an antique Cape Cod that rose out of the woods like a fairy tale cabin. Even better, it was only four blocks away from Schenna's small-town Main Street. Instead of fighting with traffic and supermarket self-checkouts, I could do my shopping on foot and buy local produce for my new neighbors. And the people of

Skeena were nothing if not friendly. Whether walking among shelves of head-sized cabbages and ripe red peppers at the green grocers, or buying thick-slice bacon at the butcher shop, everyone I met had a kind word for me. From the blue-haired librarian to the kid who bumped in the house. to me on his skateboard. The whole town seemed to already know who I was and what we were doing there. It was a little unnerving at first, but by October, I was used to my overly friendly neighbors and relaxed new lifestyle. Or so I thought. No sooner had the first leaf fallen, then I realized that Danny's hometown went hard on Halloween. Soon cobwebs and decorations covered the quaint lampposts of Skeena's red brick downtown.

As the forested hills around downtown slowly turned yellow and gold, it seemed like every small farm around town was offering corn mazes, hayrides, pumpkin patches, and haunted houses. In front of the glowing neon witch in the bakery window or in line at the pop-up cider stand in the post office parking lot,

the residents of Skeena compared the qualities and flaws of each one, like wine snobs debating their favorite vintages. Danny was just as enthusiastic as the rest of them, but I didn't mind. At the time, I thought it was cute how her eyes lit up with childlike wonder at the changing of the seasons. And Nina and Marilyn were having a great time. Nina was obsessed with being an astronaut for Halloween, and Marilyn wanted to be a knight. We bought her silvery plastic armor and a wooden sword.

But she was disappointed to learn that a noble steed was outside of our price range. Nevertheless, with the salary Danny received at her uncle's bookshop, we had no problem splurging on other decorations. What I did take issue with, however, was Skeena's annual hike through the forest, the child's walk. If it had been a different time or a different sort of walk, I might not have minded, but walking through 13 miles of Appalachian woods after midnight was no activity for my seven- and eight-year-old girls.

The child's walk is the biggest event of the year in Skeena, Danny had insisted. Hundreds of children go every year, and guess what? They all come out again. This is a special opportunity for our girls to connect to their roots. There was that phrase again, connect to their roots. A queasy knot was forming in my gut. But it wasn't until Danny stormed upstairs in a huff and left me alone in the kitchen that I understood why. I was starting to get the nasty feeling that we'd

move to Skeena just for this. Had I really uprooted my whole life just for some silly small-town tradition? Why was this child's walk so important to Danny? I was even desperate enough to have asked Danny's parents if they were still alive. Unfortunately, my in-laws had passed away a few years before we moved to Skeena, although oddly enough, there had been no funeral. I sighed and trudged upstairs, passing Nina and Marilyn brushing their teeth for bed. They'd gotten new electric toothbrushes and loved using them as microphones to sing their favorite Disney songs. Thirteen miles in the woods on Halloween night, I thought, no way.

I suppose it didn't help that I'd been reading a book about disappearances along the Appalachian Trail, or the fact that, in a misguided attempt to change my mind about the whole, whole thing, Danny had showed me a VHS tape from a night of her own child's walk. Apart from the goofy 90s costumes and the grainy film quality, one thing stood out to me. There were no chaperones. Danny's recording showed children as young as five walking into the twisted trees alone. Even leaving aside every parent's fear of kidnappers, there were bears in those woods, and who knew what else? Not to mention the simple risk of getting lost. The trails through the

rolling hills and low, cliffy mountains surrounding Skeena were one of the best features of the place, but those winding pathways weren't exactly wide, or well marked. In the gloom of our bedroom, my wife looked like a stranger. She kept her face to the wall and didn't speak to me, not even when I undressed and clambered over our squeaky bed springs to hold her. I sighed. How do they find their way? I asked, as much to myself as to Danny.

The kids, how do they find their way through the woods? Don't worry, Danny rolled over and climbed on top of me. They just know. Our daughters will come back from the child's walk better than ever. You'll see. Her eyes sparkled like silver moons in the blue darkness of the bedroom. And there was something almost carnivorous in the glint of her smile. She brought my hand to her breast and pouted.

Come on, I did the child's walk when I was a girl. And there's nothing wrong with me. Is there? My wife licked my neck and began to move her hips, but her tongue suddenly seemed too long, and her teeth felt sharp and cold. Danny was as passionate as I'd ever seen her that night, but I just couldn't focus. My mind kept drifting down lightless dirt trails and wandering among ancient trees that blotted out the stars. Just for a second, when my wife dug her nails into my shoulders and threw her head back,

Her fingers seemed to transform into the tips of gnarled roots. Her hair stood straight up, twisting and coiling, until it appeared as a crown of branches that blocked out the moonlight streaming through our bedroom window. I grunted in horror and tried to push her off, but Danny was too strong. Those root-like fingers punctured the surface of my skin, wriggling inside my flesh, reaching for my heart. My wife's hair hung over me, brushing against my face like a weeping willow. And when she hissed my name, her eyes were as yellow as a cat's. With an almighty heave, I shoved again, hard enough to fling Danny off the bed.

My wife, Danny, the woman I'd married. Her eyes green, not golden. Her hair cut short, just as I remembered. She rubbed it where I'd pushed her with perfectly normal fingers and a hurt expression on her face. What's wrong with you? Danny shook her head and disgust, as she said, She slipped back into bed. In the darkness, I heard her fluffing her pillow and rolling over to face the wall once more.

As for me, I lay awake a long time after, panting, listening to my thundering heartbeat, wondering what on earth had just happened. It was the first completely inexplicable experience I'd ever had. My whole life was thrown off kilter, like an astronaut cut loose from their satellite. I felt like I was drifting away into an awful darkness. Little did I know that what happened between Danny and I that night was only the beginning. My wife started spending more and more time at her uncle's bookshop. October was the busiest time of the year for them, she said.

It wasn't usual for her to leave for work before dawn and come back long after sunset. And I hated those endless, dark hours most of all. I'd been doing the dishes in front of the kitchen window, when I'd suddenly hear a powerful gust from the forest, as though some human-sized bird had just taken flight in the blackness outside. Or, as I tucked Nina and Marilyn into bed, I'd hear a sort of tapping on the roof, a tapping that sounded an awful lot like footsteps.

If I listened closely enough, I'd swear I even heard rapid whispering voices only a few feet above my daughter's bedrooms. I hadn't slept well since the night Danny showed me that creepy VHS tape. When I finally did close my eyes, my dreams were of skeletal tree limbs and rustling leaves, and there was always some new horror to jolt me out of my slumber. An eerie candle-lit procession down the street outside my window. A scratching sound, like claws raking the front door.

Noxious smells wafting up from the kitchen, accompanied by bubbling and rattling pans. I'd lay in bed with the covers pulled up to my chin like a scared child, hoping that Nina and Marilyn would sleep through what had woken me, and through it all, not a sign of Danny. For that entire second half of October, I could never be sure if I was dreaming when my wife came to bed. Her weight seemed to shift wrongly as she stretched out across the mattress. I realized that I was afraid to turn around and look at her.

After all, if the dark shape beside me that smelled of damp dirt and rotting leaves wasn't my wife, If that stretched, gnarled shape beneath the sheets was something else. Did I really want to know about it? There was only one psychiatrist in Skeena, Rebecca Halstatt. She was a 40-something blonde woman, who also taught yoga classes at the library and managed the town's volunteer pet rescue. Dr. Hallstatt was so kind and cheerful that I almost felt guilty for the dark things I had to explain to her, and I wondered if perhaps that was part of her therapy technique.

It's normal to have feelings of dissociation and extreme mood swings after a major lifestyle change. Dr. Halstatt explained. Trouble sleeping can affect how we experience the world and can even cause hallucinations. It's difficult to sleep in a new place, isn't it? How are you adjusting to life in Skeena? An hour later, I felt foolish and humbled. Wasn't it possible that everything I was going through came from inside of me? a result of my discomfort at my new surroundings and resentment at no longer being our family's main breadwinner.

Even so, something was still bothering me. But I didn't find a way to put it into words as Dr. Halstatt and I were saying our goodbyes at the door to her cozy office. By the way, doctor, I ventured. Are you from Skeena originally? No, Rebecca Halstatt smiled. I'm like you. I moved here with my husband. It was a pattern I encountered again and again as I went about my chores on that chilly,

gray October afternoon. It seemed that everyone in Skeena had married outside their hometown. As for what that might mean, I had no idea. My thoughts gusted about as chaotically as the brown sycamore leaves in our yard, but by nightfall, I had a plan. I've been thinking, I told Danny in the kitchen the next morning. Maybe you're right about the child's walk. It'll be a good chance for the girls to get to know other kids.

And maybe they really do need some kind of big, special experience to help them feel connected to this place. Danny raised an eyebrow, confirming what I'd suspected all along. I'd never really had a choice. Whatever I'd thought or said, Nina and Marilyn were going into the woods on Halloween night. I sighed, chuckled a little, and fiddled absent-mindedly with some dish towels. The textbook image of a stubborn husband who'd finally seen the error of his ways. I'd never been much of an actor,

but at that moment, I could have won an Oscar. Biennue at board of Viarai. Embarked and profited. Embarked and relaxed. Cirotay, bookinet. Oh, that also. And profite. Villaray, the voice that we love that we love.

Danny bought it. Every word. Thanks, honey. She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me from behind, while I put away the last of the breakfast plates. I'm so glad you see it that way. This will work wonders for our girls. You'll see.

For a moment, I felt a pang of guilt about my plan. My doubts only intensified when we brought Nina and Marilyn to the trailhead on Halloween night. I'd expected them to be terrified at the prospect of spending all Hallows Eve in the woods. But the girls were thrilled. Nina stomped around like she was walking on the moon in her astronaut costume. And Marilyn had all but forgotten her disappointment at being a knight without a horse. She swung her vinyl cape from side to side, humming a tune from Moulon. It was a carnival atmosphere everywhere I looked.

The kids were dressed as fairies swinging sparklers, boys dressed as ninjas doing fake karate moves in the grass. And parents, packing candy games. corn and thermuses full of hot apple cider into the backpacks of their little ghosts and goblins. Maybe I'd been wrong about the child's walk after all. There were even lights along the trail through the forest. Although as we got closer to the head of the trail, I couldn't say for sure exactly what kind of light they were. They flickered and moved too much to be electric lights, but their ominous glow was the wrong color for torches. They reminded me uncomfortably of willow wisps or ghost-dusts.

lights. The only real candles were held by Danny's Uncle Jack and the mayor, Lucille Brock. They stood beside the entrance to the trail in hooded robes, keeping watch over the whole event. Keeping watch, no doubt, to make sure that no adults entered the trees. Fortunately, I'd planned for that as well. I would be going into the Skeena Woods, but not by following any trail. My younger brother Ethan loved everything about survivalism and the army. When he was killed in the line of duty in Afghanistan in 2008, I inherited a lot of his old gear, gear that had, until a few weeks ago,

been gathering dust in a set of unopened cardboard boxes. Since mid-October, however, I'd been learning to use his night vision goggles while the girls were at school, practicing the use of camouflage paint during Danny's work hours, and studying land navigation in the world. woods near where I assumed the child's walk would take place. As the eerie procession into the forest began, I slapped my forehead. The stove! I whispered to Danny. I left a burner on. Her eyes narrowed.

My acting wasn't winning any awards this time. I'll just wait for you at home, okay? I hurried off through the gathering crowd before she could object. It wasn't like I'd be out all night, I told myself. I'd just follow the girls for a little while to make sure that they were all right. And even if Danny did wind up suspecting something, well, I could deal with that later. Once Nina and Marilyn were back home safe.

I dragged Ethan's duffel bag out of the trunk of the car, which I'd parked about a half mile away along the forest edge. As I slipped into the thick camo apparel, I couldn't help but feel like I was doing something wrong. I was about to follow a bunch of kids through the world, woods while dressed in full camo and wearing night vision goggles. If I got caught, well, it wouldn't look good. Everything felt different now that I was actually going ahead with my plan. My face sweated beneath the clunky goggles, and Evan's thick boots felt unfamiliar on my feet.

Branches seemed to reach out to obstruct my path, and vines and the undergrowth seem to coil around my ankles. Up ahead, my night vision goggles turned those odd lights along. the trail into searing orbs of white light. I had to avert my eyes, and my suddenly limited range of vision made me feel like I was the protagonist in a bad horror movie. If anything crept up on me in the dark, I couldn't see it until it was too late. I kept my eyes focused on the vines beneath my feet and did my best not to trip. If the hundreds of children up ahead could hear my bumbling footsteps, they gave no sign. I developed a routine for my eyes, Check the compass, check the surroundings, check the children.

All three convinced me that I'd gotten in over my head. By the time I was walking parallel to the path, the arrow on my compass was spinning so hard I feared it would break. I stowed it nervously in my pocket, telling myself that I could always just follow the course of the path home. Or could I? I'd been through these woods several times already. Following the path I'd imagined that the child's walk might take.

And yet, I didn't recognize a single landmark. I'd never seen the lichen-covered boulder strewn among the trees like giant's teeth, or the silvery stream that burbled down from the cliffs in the starlight. As if that weren't bad enough, there was no laughing or goofing off from the hundreds of kids on the trail. They walked in a single-file line with blank faces and glassy eyes. They were as silent and obedient as puppets on a string. I wondered what was pulling them along. It wasn't long before I realized the enormity of the problem I faced.

Walking 13 miles on a dirt path was difficult enough, but going the same distance off trail would be near impossible. The root cracked rocks crumbled as I stepped on them, and the slick rotting leaves were piled thick enough to cover my boots. As the trail wound uphill, I slipped one step backwards for every two that I moved forward. Soon I was panting from the effort of keeping up with the freakish parade of costume children up ahead. All attempts had stealth forgotten. I didn't dare to show myself to them, but I couldn't afford to lose sight of them either.

Because I had no idea where I was. And truth be told, I was afraid. Afraid of what might happen to me if I was left alone in these vast, lightless woods without the glow of those strange lights to protect me. It was ironic. I'd entered the forest to protect Nina and Maryland. But now I was terrified that I would be the one lost and left behind. Finally, the narrow path opened into a wide, bowl-shaped glade.

Those globe-like lights flickered through the air around it, illuminating a gigantic ebony throne at its center. Maybe throne isn't the right word. It only seemed most fitting since everything around us clearly worshipped the being that sat upon it. A throne has a back and faces a single direction, whereas the entity I glimpsed through the mossy branches could look in every direction at once. An enormous black goat is the closest description I can come to. But that isn't right either. It had not one horned head, but many, and its crimson-colored eyes were uncountable. To my horror, the parade of costume

children formed a ring around it. A circle of clowns, superheroes, scarecrows, and plastic zombies, all at the mercy of a being that could crush any one of them with a single step of its cloven hooves. I spotted Nina and Marilyn among them. But before I could cry out, a thunderous voice boomed through the glade. What is your desire? After the echoes subsided, there was silence. Then Jimmy Nix, a scrawny blonde boy I recognized from my daughter's class, stepped forward, and removed his Batman mask. I've always wished that I could fly. He began nervously, looking up at the multi-headed black goat towering above him. At first, I couldn't believe that the children were taking this impossible creature in stride.

But then I remembered, most of these kids still believed in monsters. And after all, it was Halloween night. A breeze stirred the treetops, and Jimmy was lifted into the air. At first, Jimmy gasped. But soon he was laughing as he twirled to the starry sky above the glade. He landed gently in front of the great goat's throne. He shouted breathlessly to the others. I really flew!

The black goat rumbled. Surely you must desire more than that. I'd like a pony! A girl's voice shouted. My heart sank. Of course. Marilyn in her noble steed, my youngest daughter's plastic night armor glittered in the starlight,

and I heard a squeal from the far side of the glade. A white foal trotted up to Marilyn, nuzzling her. Although my daughter had never mounted a horse, this one even knelt to help her onto its back. Marilyn squealed with glee. Come forward and pledge yourselves to me, and all you desire will be yours.

I cried out, battering my way through the undergrowth and into the glade. No matter the consequences, even if it meant my death, I couldn't allow this to happen. I tore the night vision goggles from my head, wiped desperately at my greasy hunter's makeup, and waved my arms at my daughters. Some of the children blinked at me as though I'd just woken them from a deep sleep, but most of them turned back to the enormous figure on its twisted throne. One of its crimson eyes looked down at me, and I'd swear to it. I swear that one of its car-sized mouths contorted into a smile.

Dad? Nina squealed. What are you doing? None of the grown-ups are supposed to be here. Nina, my blood ran cold as the black goat spoke my daughter's name. Do you desire for the intruder to leave? I looked pleadingly at Nina, but she was looking at the staring faces of her classmates.

A blush crept into her cheeks. She looked up at the black goat and nodded. Speak it. And it will be seen. So, go home, Dad, Nina whispered and turned away from me along with all the others. My hips twisted, my left leg rose, then my right. They were moving against my will, goose-stepping me out of the glade like a toy soldier. I screamed my daughter's names over my shoulders, my own treacherous feet marched me further and further away from my girls.

I craved at thorny bushes and even threw myself to the ground in an attempt to drag myself back along the dirt, but it was useless. I barely remember anything from that hellish walk to the woods, apart from the words of the black goat that reverberated inside my skull. You could have others, pledge, offspring. Yet now, you are in exile. More to it than that, a lot more. But at that moment, the blaring horn of a semi-truck snapped me back to reality.

My uncontrolled feet had marched me out of the woods and onto a two-lane road. This time, when I tried to jump for the roadside ditch, my legs obeyed. The truck skidded to a halt and a driver emerged, shouting and cursing, until he got a look at me. My head and arms were bruised. My clothing flayed by thorns, and I can't even imagine the look of wild desperation that must have been plastered on my face. I clutched at the trucker's clothes like a beggar and pleaded for a ride into Skeena, but

he'd never heard of the place. In the years since, I've tried many times to find my way back to Skeena and my family, but I can find no proof that the town ever existed at all. The roads we took there all lead to other places now, and even when I summoned all my courage to re-enter the forest I walked out of on that fateful October night, I found myself on a normal trudge through normal trees that ended when I reached a small town that should have been on the other side of Skeena. My marital status is single on every legal document I can find.

And there's no record of my daughters ever being born. Not even in the minds of my friends and family. The only proof I have is my story. But no one will believe me anyway. Lazzang sur-gely, puissance-molyne, for 15 minutes. We're like it's their dojo. Prere to play.

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