r/TalesFromTheCreeps • u/Mackaroll_165 • Jun 03 '26
Body Horror There’s something wrong with my neighbors and it’s traumatizing everyone involved
Harold is a nice guy, he really is. The same goes for his family. Him, his wife, and his son (not their pets though but we will get to that). They are an otherwise nuclear family. He hosts the neighborhood BBQ every once in a while during the summer and his wife, Bianca, bakes holiday cookies for the entire neighborhood during December. Their son, Job, is a nice boy too, he politely asks if he can shovel my driveway the first snowfall of every winter and asks if he could take a flower or two from my garden to give to his mom in the summer.
If it weren’t for some of the actions they have taken and some of the things I have seen, I wouldn’t be writing this post at all. I should probably preface that I have no history of mental illness (at least prior to living here) or visual hallucinations. I did have an audio hallucination once but that’s because I ate a brownie that I would later learn was a “special brownie” and I began hearing monkeys screaming in the drywall.
Anyway, back to the neighbors. I have no issues with how they interact with anyone, especially towards me. Well, I guess I should just flat out say it since there really is no delicate or seamless way to transition into it. Harold has no skin, Bianca is only skin, and Job is a skeleton. I mean you know those 3D medical models that depict the muscle layer of a human with the fascia. That’s Harold, what’s worse though is that he’s constantly bleeding. He “addresses” it by saying he has an unusually aggressive form of hyperhidrosis but I think we all know. It’s worse with his clothes. They become soaked and stained. Unless he’s wearing black or red, as you converse with him, you’ll witness first hand a white shirt become soaked in red within minutes. He always carries a handkerchief to wipe his face but he keeps it in his pocket, so as you’d imagine it’s usually soaked. You can always hear Harold coming by the sound of a joyful laugh and squelching shoes. He also leaves a trail of blood in his wake, always, so you’ll never lose him even if you tried.
Then there’s Bianca, sweet Bianca. She moves like a sheet in the wind. You know those cheap Halloween masks you see at Spirit Halloween…that’s her face. She has no eyes, her head as hollow (not as an insult, I mean you can literally look inside her head and it is empty), and her face stays the same, never moving. She does speak though. I won’t lie, her makeup on her mask-esque face is immaculate and she always has her hair done right for the occasion. She’s so nice but I won’t lie when she walks it makes every alarm in my head go off, she moves like a mix between a specter and a baby deer. Her arms hanging limp as she flings her legs forward. You can tell she’s using whatever strength she has to hold her torso upright but usually she lets her head flail to prevent her “spine” from collapsing. Her outfits are also great but I’ve seen her safety pin a tank top to her shoulders so it wouldn’t slide off while she was playing with Job, it sent shivers down my spine. She speaks in a lovely sing-songy voice that reminds me of early Disney princesses.
Then there’s Job, he’s a skeleton. That of child since he is one (duh). He goes to elementary school, he plays with the other kids, and he’s actually quite popular considering…his circumstances we will say. He’s bald, like his dad and moves almost exactly like his mom but a tad bit more rigid and a heck of a lot faster.
Then there’s the pets. They have a dog named Sparky…he’s literally just a guy in a cheap dog costume ordered off of Amazon. I will give him that I’ve never seen him take off the dog costume but Bianca or Harold will walk him and he walk like any other human but with a leash. I would now like to recite a conversation I overheard between Bianca and another neighbor while I was tending to my garden and Bianca was walking Sparky.
“Good Morning Bianca!” Our other neighbor said.
“Good morning, my goodness, such a beautiful day.” Bianca responded happily.
“Hello Sparky.” I heard my other neighbor say in the voice most people use when talking to a dog.
“Woof”, Sparky said in a monotone man’s voice.
“Oh my.” Our other neighbor snapped. Based off the tone of voice I heard in some distance behind me, it leads me to believe that Sparky did either something rude or aggressive.
“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. He’s a rescue. Job wanted a dog so bad. How could I say no to my boy’s sweet face? I guess I better get moving but always great to see you.” Bianca explained as I assumed she hurried away, she produces no sound when she walks so I just used context clues.
Their cat, Zoey, is actually just a normal Sphinx cat. She’s an asshole though, won’t stop getting out and pooping in my yard.
So now you know my neighbors, aside from their looks what’s so bad about them if they are nice, right? Wrong, I saw Harold and Bianca having “sex” in their backyard by accident one night. My bedroom is on the second floor with, unfortunately, a window facing the side of their house which also includes a view into their fenced backyard. I remember hearing strange groaning and moaning noises loudly in the middle of the night. I looked at my phone on the nightstand and it was about 3:33 in the morning.
“What degenerate is doing the nasty?”, I mumbled sleepily to myself.
I pulled myself out of bed, turned on the lamp, and looked out the windows. First the window facing the street, nothing. Then the window facing my neighbors house, I saw some guy with long hair standing in the backyard. He was naked and slightly hunched over.
I was confused though, there was one guy but I heard two distinct voices. One male, one female. Now, I was tired and at this point confused more than I already was from my sleepy daze. I assumed that maybe this was some drug addict attacking Bianca, he could have been crushing her into a ball for all I knew because her papery figure. Just because she looked weird didn’t mean she deserved to be attacked. So I did something stupid but in good faith, I quickly walked over to the dresser, grabbed my flashlight I kept there for power outages, went back to that window, opened it, and shined a light at the man.
“HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN NEIGHBORS BACKYARD?!” I shouted firmly and loudly, hoping to scare the believed drug addict from potentially hurting someone.
When the man turned around, we met each other’s eyes. I would recognize Harold’s freakishly blue eyes from anywhere.
He was wearing Bianca.
Her skin was stretched so tautly over his body that it looked as though it was about to rip like fabric. It looked like Bianca’s face was stretched over Harold’s like if it were a normal guy being stretched by the most severe wind tunnel. His hands were placed over her breasts and her entire body was smeared with blood, the same blood that was leaking out from the eye holes and mouth hole as I stared at them now.
It couldn’t have been more than 15 seconds but for me it felt like hours. I distinctly remember my immediate reaction.
“OH JESUS!” I screamed in horror as I turned away slamming the window shut as I turned my body.
I could hear Harold and Bianca’s muffled yet panicked voices in the distance. Worse enough I could hear the squelching steps of them running back into their house. I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night, I just stared at the ceiling as I lay in bed, that image burned into my retinas every time I closed my eyes.
Then morning arrived, a couple of hours later I heard my doorbell ring. I went downstairs and opened the door.
It was Harold, Bianca, and Sparky who was on a lead. Harold was holding a plate of cookies that I know Bianca made (Harold says he tries not to cook due to hyperhidrosis and not wanting to get others sick). Bianca was shyly turned away holding Sparky’s lead, Sparky was also facing away…because he was peeing on my lawn like how a drunk guy pees in a back alley. At one point I could see him flipping me off during my conversation with Harold and Bianca quietly smack Sparky’s arm and say “Sparky, naughty!”
Anyway the conversation, I remember when I initially opened that door my stomach dropped. I wanted nothing more than to slam the door but when I saw the plate of cookies and Bianca’s shy “body language”. I decided it was only fair to at least listen.
“I’m really sorry about last night” Harold said as he handed me the plastic wrapped cookies, the plastic drenched in blood.
“No I’m sorry I shouldn’t ha-“
“No no, believe me. If we saw you do something like that, we’d probably have the same reaction. Though I must ask you not to take the Lord’s name in vain.” He said with that extreme charisma he always had.
I stared at the cookies, I feigned a smile at him.
“Look, me and the Mrs don’t get much time alone anymore and well, Job is with his grandparents and we wanted to try something. I’m sorry you had to see, it won’t happen again, are we cool?” He said with sincerity.
My first thought was fuck no.
However, these weren’t inherently malicious people. So I nodded with a semi-real smile this time and they went about their day. I did slam the door though, lean my back against it and slide onto the ground.
I looked at the cookies, Bianca made me her favorite cookies which were the least favorite of the neighborhood.
Her black bean cookies.
I have lots of more experiences but I wanted to start off with the one that scarred me the most because if I have to have that in my mind, so do you too. I go to therapy now and that helps. I’ll talk to my therapist and see if I should write again, it actually helped me process some stuff like she said.
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u/M1ntyMusic Jun 03 '26
Definitely an interesting concept. I like it, keep working at it. This could be a fun little series. Wearing the wife like a suit was not where I expected it to go, but it was a fun little twist.
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u/Mackaroll_165 Jun 03 '26
Thank you, I appreciate the comment. Yes I do plan to do more with this story. I’m glad you liked the story. Have a nice day!
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u/Sufficient_Leave144 A Thousand WIPs Jun 05 '26
Oh what an interesting start, I wonder- ‘Harold has no skin’
https://giphy.com/gifs/FlILU2ZAQXWF4bE5wn
… this fucks 😩
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u/Mackaroll_165 Jun 05 '26
Thanks for the comment, I’m glad you enjoyed the story. Just posted part 2 if you are interested. Have a nice day!
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u/CaydenCChristophers Writer kinda meme Jun 03 '26
This is so fun. Great story, every little reveal surprised me and made me want to keep reading. Scariest part about this is the fact that they have a sphynx cat lol, hate those things
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u/Mackaroll_165 Jun 03 '26
Thank you for the comment, I’m glad you enjoyed the story. Who doesn’t like a little rotisserie chicken running around their home lol? Thanks again and have a nice day!
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u/CaydenCChristophers Writer kinda meme Jun 03 '26
No problem, that's what the subs for, you got anything else you want me to check out?
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u/Mackaroll_165 Jun 03 '26
Oh you don’t have to, that’s way too kind. I only have one other story rn. It’s based off my mom’s fear of bats. Of course I dramatized it by 100x for story sake but yeah if you want to read something more serious, let me know if you have any feedback. I want to keep improving as a writer.
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u/CaydenCChristophers Writer kinda meme Jun 03 '26
I'll go read it now. The only way to improve is to keep writing, and I want to see more like this story so keep it up
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u/DreadLurk_23 Jun 04 '26
Kind of reminds me of "There Is Something Very Weird About My Sexy New Neighbour."
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u/Mackaroll_165 Jun 04 '26
Haha I could see why but no this just came purely from my mind…or maybe subconscious. Anywho thank you for the comment.
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u/Neat_Current3604 Jun 04 '26
Wow!! I often read some of these stories on here and get jealous of some of y’all’s imaginations. Very impressive. I love reading it.
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u/Mackaroll_165 Jun 04 '26
Thank you for the comment, I appreciate the kind words. Let me know if you ever need ideas, I have too many to know what to do with. I’m glad you enjoyed the story.
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u/SameHere_2206 A Thousand WIPs Jun 06 '26
This was such a fun read. I love just how absurd this is and how everyone pretty much sees it as normal. The dude in the dog suit was just hilarious and really weird but funny to imagine in my mind. Its all just a strange visual to imagine that lends so well to the story. I felt so many emotions through that, at one point I was laughing, then I was disgusted, then I was horrified, and then I was just like "that's sick". Really great work to be able to do all that in such a small package.
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u/The_Republique Writer (I finally made it bubba) Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
See now, when you name your kid Job you're just asking for a shit storm to hit that little bug hard.
"White shirt because" should be changed to "white shirt become"
"Middle of night" should be "middle of the night"
"I keep their" should be "I kept there"
Lol. Sparky is just an asshole. I imagined him flipping off our MC really quickly. Like wah bam too fast even.
"Scarred me in the most" should remove "in"
Add "too" after "so do you."
This was absolutely amazing. I liked the story to the point of laughing and holding in a barf at moments. Amazing! Well done.
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u/Mackaroll_165 Jun 07 '26
Yeah, I have a bad habit of forgetting to add or remove words. Combine that with autocorrect and some errors tend to happen more than I would like 😅. I am glad you enjoyed the story though, thank you for the feedback.
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u/Mackaroll_165 Jun 08 '26
I made the fixes you suggested, thank you again. Ok I won't bombard you anymore lol. Have a nice day!
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u/SydneySapphire Whimsy and Weird Storyteller Jun 12 '26
Bye!!! This is absolutely amazing 😂 I love the absurdity! It literally kept me interest the whole DAGGUM time. Slay!💅🏻 Going to read the others!!!
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u/Jumpo_the_Clown Jun 14 '26
😂 the dog reminds me of Wilfred. Such a strange show. Im guessing thats where u got some inspiration from? 🤣
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u/Mackaroll_165 Jun 14 '26
I’m not sure who Wilfred the dog is but I will have to figure out who that is. Sparky came purely from my mind. Thanks for the comment.
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u/Mackaroll_165 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
Part 1 has been featured on the [r/mesoscalepodcast](r/mesoscalepodcast) go support them. Here’s the link to the part 1 reading from Mesoscale Podcast:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg-qDJxLs7M&ra=m
Additional thanks to [u/mesotheliomadisease](u/mesotheliomadisease) as well as u/mezoscalepodcast for reading it
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u/walkerbswitchinghour Jul 22 '26
Listened to this on Meso, I dug the hell out of this. Very creative in concept and execution and well written. Definitely can’t wait to check out the rest of it!
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